The lightning bolt struck up to windward in the East-Sou'east, a sizzling, actinic blue and writhing fork of fire that silhouetted a lean three-masted ship so thoroughly that her sails momentarily turned ghostly white.
Not a mile off, more like three, Lewrie thought with a shuddery feeling of relief, and fear, under his heart; Big enough a bugger, but we just may have enough time, thank God!
"Topmen aloft, Mister Langlie," Lewrie said over his shoulder, sure that the reliable First Officer would be nearby. "Trice up, and lay out t'loose tops'ls, with 'quick-savers,' then shake out the main course to the third reefs. Let's get some speed in hand!"
A second, closer, lightning flash lit up the enemy warship, letting them all see that she was flying full tops'ls, a full fore course and main course, and what looked to be three-reefed t'gallants, along with almost her full set of heads'ls.
"How the Devil did she find us in all this, sir?" Langlie asked in puzzlement, once the requisite orders had been passed, and the crew had thrown themselves into well-drilled action.
"Inshore of us, round dusk," Lewrie rasped, shrugging his own puzzlement. "Stalked us as the weather made up in late afternoon, on the front edge of the storm, perhaps? Came closer as the visibility reduced, figuring the convoy would hold the same course all day and all night. Second lookout aloft, Mister Langlie, on the mizen. The last time we met these shits, they were working in pairs. He's t'keep his eyes peeled astern, so we don't get buggered a second time."
"Aye, sir!"
Even as the peal of thunder from the last lightning strike was dying like a titanic game of bowls, a third bolt far to the South lit up the sea. A quick measurement against Proteus's stays and stanchions told Lewrie that the enemy ship had only out-footed them a trifle, and he frowned and pursed his lips in furious scheming.
The convoy had been making about four or five knots in typical Indiaman night fashion, but were now spreading more sail, and might be up to six knots, by now. The enemy frigate might have two knots more in-hand, and could catch them up on her present course, eventually… but-another lightning flash!- she seemed to be steering with the gusting, rising winds directly astern, not hauling off a point to fall down on them, not yet. As if the French captain over there wished to dash in and wade into the merchantmen, but might plan to race up abeam of the starboard column before hauling his wind. To alter course two points to the West would put the wind fine on her larboard quarter, so… why hadn't her captain already done so? That could boost her rate of advance two more knots, easily, and still place her alongside that starboard column of India-men without losing the weather gage.
Lewrie swivelled about to peer forward, over Proteus's bows, to see what he could espy of the convoy whose safety he was supposed to be guarding. He could still make out the dark bulk of Festival and a pair of taffrail lanthorns, now with a fusee alit atop her main mast. Other tiny glims of amber oil or blue pyrotechnic lights looked all a'gaggle, in no particular order as individual merchant masters swooped about to either flank to put the storm's wind fine on their quarters so freshly-spread sail could snap and strain completely full to give them just a knot or two more speed, free of the wind-shadows cast by the India-men behind them, up to weather. It was like peering through a filthy pane of pebbly glass, in a driving night rain, to try and count the number of cigar smokers on a hill a mile off.
Small red-amber-yellow signal rockets went soaring up, from the lead ships or HMS Jamaica Lewrie surmised, too many to count, or make a conjecture as to what signal Capt. Leatherwood's 64-gunner had meant to convey. Lewrie thought that Leatherwood was a sensible sort; once he'd seen Proteus's alert rockets, relayed to him by even more rockets, that doughty fellow should be trying to order all ships to bear off to the West, wind fine on their quarters to try and outrun the French 'til the storm passed, or the dawn came. With any luck, the worst of the storm was still to come, and the convoy could break away as visibility shrank to nothing, never to be found again. HMS Jamaica should also be coming about to deal with the threat out of the East-Sou'east and Sou'east, to bolster Proteus and daunt the French, but Lewrie saw no sign of that, either. And, on these winds, and butting against the making seas, HMS Jamaica, already admitted to be a slow sailer, would make but a snail's progress, steering Full And By. No help there, Lewrie sourly thought; And, in this gloom, one of the Indiamen pretendin' t'be a seventy-four won't work worth a tinker's dam, either. .. if it ever did. If Froggie didn't see through it all along! Just thankee Jesus I
"A point to starboard, Mister Langlie," Lewrie ordered after he swung back about to catch another eye-blink lightning flash of the foe. "Crowd her a little, and let's see what 'Jean Crapaud' will do."
"Aye aye, sir." Langlie replied, sounding all business-like, now that the initial shock had worn off.
"And somebody strangle that damn' bushbaby," Lewrie griped as the beast began a new "aria." He peered upwards in satisfaction to note that his frigate now sported more sail, that the fusee was lit and burning, and that the topmen were already shuffling inwards along the foot-ropes to the cross-trees and tops.
"Guns manned and ready, sir!" Lt. Catterall reported from below in the waist, in his usual eager bawl. "The ship is at Quarters!"
"Very well, Mister Catterall!" Lewrie called back, stepping up to the hammock nettings, which were once more stuffed with the sailors' rolled up bedding and hammocks, not only on the quarterdeck, but along the bulwarks, as well. Perhaps not as tightly-rolled as they might be to pass through the ring-measure each morning in the crew's haste, but there was now some level of protection for waisters and brace-tenders on the gangways, the Marines prepared to volley behind the thick oaken bulwarks, and for the vital command group on the quarterdeck. Lewrie had been so absorbed with his own concerns that he hadn't paid attention to the slams, bangs, and thuds of a warship being stripped for action. The red glows of battle-lanthorns between the guns, and the weak sparks of lengths of slow-match, coiled about the tubs of swab-water that would be used to douse any lingering embers in gun barrels before re-loading, gave him a momentary reassurance that, this time, they'd be ready for whatever came at them, from whichever quarter. And if the rain slicked the flints so they did not spark-off the igniting quills stuck down through the touch-holes to the powder bags, the slow-match could be jammed onto them, and his artillery most likely would still fire.
A stillness fell over the frigate, now that the din of preparation was over, and the only sounds to be heard were the keening of the wind in the miles of rigging, and the snuffly thunder of the hull that butted its bows through the long-rolling, white-flecked, waves; that, and the crack and rumble from the storm, of course.
"The French, out yonder!" Lewrie bellowed down to his crew, his hands gripping the cap-rails of the hammock nettings. "Mean to screw up their courage, and try a second time to finish what failed, before! They might've given us a little dusting, then… but, now it's their turn t'taste iron! If they dare! Are ye ready t'kill some Frenchmen, lads? Ye ready t'get some of your own back?"
The snarling, vengeful cheer that arose told him all he wished to know of the mettle of his crew. Lewrie looked over towards the foe to judge her distance, and how long they had before they came to grips.
"Fiddler, fifer! Desmond! Give us a tune, a lively one!" he roared, and the ship's finest musicians got with the Marine drummer, and launched into "The Stool of Repentance," then "Lord Dunmore"!
"Yah sword an' pistols, Cap'm," Cox'n Andrews said at his side, and helped him jam his pair of double-barreled Mantons into pockets in his uniform coat, beneath the tarpaulin foul-weather coat, where their primings might stay dry. "Cats is below on th' orlop with Aspinall, sah, an' he said t'send ya dis," Andrews added, once he'd also helped Lewrie strap on his hanger. Andrews held out a large tin mug of soup and stew combined, with some stale, toasted rolls crumbled up and sopping juices in it. A cheap, older horn spoon jutted upwards from one side, both mug and spoon no loss if Lewrie had to throw them overside or let them fa
ll to the deck to get trampled.
"Thankee, Andrews," Lewrie said, looking him square in the eyes. "And, give me thanks to Aspinall, should you see him first when this is done. And, I expect t'see your ugly phyz amongst the living, then, hear me? Have a care with yourself."
"An' don' ya go bein' too bold yahself, sah," Andrews replied with a shrug and a sketchy smile. "Beggin' ya pahd'n fo' sayin' such, Cap'm Lewrie, sah." Andrews knuckled his forehead in salute, then he was off along the weather gangway with both Lewrie's breech-loading Ferguson rifle and the Girandoni air rifle he'd gotten in New Orleans for a little "man-hunting" should the French come within near shot.
"Cast of the log, Mister Langlie," Lewrie snapped, coming back to proper concern. Lightning flash, and a crash of thunder! Lewrie snapped his attention to the French frigate, the sea astern, the sea abeam, for all that he could glean from that finger-snap of revelation.
Might be as fast as she is, or soon will be, he told himself; I could stay ahead of her a bit, block her direct approach. Looked t'be no more than a mile off our starboard quarter, that time. Do I slow, let her rush up abeam?
Were Proteus a bit slower over the ground, it might be possible to get to grips quicker, then wheel a point or two more to starboard, and force the enemy frigate to accept battle, broadside to broadside.
Or, the bugger ducks under our stern and goes for the merchantmen, Lewrie thought with a scowl; shoots right up our transom, again, then dashes past with the wind right up his own arse, and I'd have to wear t'catch him up. Have the weather gage, but… No. By the time we got worn about, we 'd be lucky to spot her again in all this. Chase the gun flashes half the night, same as we did before.
Proteus was out on the starboard quarter of the convoy, after her turn up more Northerly. And the convoy was doing something right, wearing off slowly and cautiously more Westerly, out into the open Atlantic. With their much smaller civilian crews, and so much sail, the Indiamen were taking a hell of a risk of dismasting to alter course, even so slightly, to take the hard wind on their larboard quarters; a single mistake, and one of them could end up lying crippled, and lost to the French. To broach, get shoved on their beam-ends… would be even worse, for then they'd be lost to the sea, and the storm!
We wear on this wind, we could suffer the same fate, he thought with a sudden chill, yet; So could the French! Could I make her do it?
The musicians were now staggering up and down between the tiers of guns in the waist, well into a medley of "Banish Misfortune," "Go to the De'il and Shake Yourself," and "The Rakes of Mallow," and the crew stamped their feet, and their gun-tools, on the deck in time, with the Marine drummer jauntily plying his sticks as if on Sunday parade on the ramparts of Southsea Castle in Portsmouth. A loud crack, and a lightning flash!
"Mister Langlie, does she look t'be hauling her wind a half a point?" Lewrie demanded. "Putting the wind squarer on her stern?"
"About that, sir," the First Lieutenant replied, trying to keep a fretful tone from his voice. "Might she be readying to wear?"
"Possibly," Lewrie said, rubbing his chin and looking aloft at his sails and yards. "Helm up a point, Mister Langlie, bring us back to our original course of Nor'west."
A look alee showed their merchantmen now off Proteus's bows to larboard, after her jog outwards, and their own slight turn away from the threat of the enemy warship. Very disappointingly far off, there was a taffrail light and a masthead fusee to the right of the fleeing Indiamen; HMS Jamaica evidently had worn about to the Nor'east and was most likely trying to come up to the wind for a tack, which in such a stiff wind and a rough sea would be nigh-miraculous, should Leatherwood pull it off without getting the "sticks" ripped right out of her.
The French frigate was closing with them, now within less than a mile, but foreshortening, her profile aspect turning more bows-on, just a tantalising bit. To follow the convoy, even if her first attempt had been mis-judged, and her captain now would settle for a stern-chase, if he could just get past this pestiferous "Bloodies'" frigate? Would she wear about, shift the winds onto her larboard quarters, duck under HMS Proteus, and force Lewrie to chase her?
"Prepare to come about to larboard, Mister Langlie. I think we will attempt to wear," Lewrie decided of a sudden. "And, when we do I will have the tops'ls clewed up for the heavy haul, bat-wing them, in 'Spanish reefs' for a bit, 'til we're round. That'll ease the strain on the masts and spars, and the brace-tenders. That Frog yonder wears, so do we. Hands to stations, and stand ready."
"Aye, sir," Langlie replied, though there was a leery squint to his eyes; it could have been the driving rain that caused it. "Bosun! Pipe 'Hands To Stations To Wear'!"
Yet, they stood on for about a minute more, straining for sight of each other, waiting for the lightning to illuminate what their respective foes were doing. Nature obliged with another crackling bolt of lightning, one that seemed to leap from the sea, not from the low and racing clouds, a triple forked bolt that jerked across the sky like the flailing arms of a marionette.
"Heads'ls are shivering!" Lt. Langlie yelled, pointing his useless night telescope at the French frigate. "She's going about, sir!"
Sure enough, the enemy was swinging nearly bows-on to Proteus's starboard quarter, jib-boom and bowsprit pitching upwards as she rose, fore-and-aft heads'ls getting smothered for air as her fore course came directly downwind and stole the force of the wind. Just as an impenetrable squall of rain swept over her from astern and blotted her out!
"Helm up, Mister Langlie!" Lewrie shouted. "Get us about, quick as dammit! Clew up tops'ls, there!"
And the wear was quick, for with so little pressure aloft, the brace-tenders could swing the yardarms just that more easily, despite the gale of wind. And, that new, broader rudder helped her get round, too. "Quartermasters… make your new course Due West!" Lewrie cried.
It was still a staggering, thrashing muddle for hands tending to the freed running rigging, for the gun crews, whose brutally heavy pieces along the larboard side strained breeching ropes and handling tackle 'til they groaned, with the frigate laid over nearly fourty degrees on her starboard side for a long minute. Proteus's hull groaned and creaked, the masts gave out ominous moans, but, there were none of the crackling, popping, or snapping sounds of imminent disaster. The music stopped, of course, with everyone slid over to leeward, and the distraught bushbaby and the rest of the livestock found something new to wail about.
And, as she slowly rolled back upright, as the tumbled waisters, brace-tenders, and gunners got back on their feet and regained control, the curtain like rain of the squall passed, and the stiff wind lowered its pitch and volume for a moment.
"Let fall the tops'ls!" Lt. Langlie shouted through his speaking trumpet. "Sheet home, sheet home!"
Then, there was the French frigate, now also steering Due West on larboard tack, about a half a mile up to weather and three points off Proteus's larboard quarter, sailing parallel with them.
"What d'ye plan t'do, now, ye snail-eatin' sonofabitch?" Lewrie roared, cupping his hands to his mouth as if his voice could carry all that way in the storm. "We've dry priming up forrud, Mister Langlie?"
"One would hope, sir!" the First Officer replied, laughing like a hyena to see the French countered.
"Fire a challenge shot from one of the six-pounder chase-guns," Lewrie demanded, chortling himself. "The only way he gets to the merchant ships is through us, by God! Let's see if 'Monsieur Crapaud' has the 'nutmegs' for a stand-up fight!"
"Mis-ter A-Dair!" Langlie shouted over the din of the weather, and the rush of the sea against the hull as Proteus began to step out right-lively under her re-spread sails. "Fire… chase-gun… to… windward!"
The bows dipped in a steady hobby-horse fashion, spray flying up over the beakhead rails, over the top of the roundhouse and forecastle platform, but a 6-pounder's flintlock striker was cocked, then the trigger string tugged, and the chase-gun erupted with a sharpish noise, almost lost against the drum of rain, with a bright
red flash, a spurt of grey-white gunpowder, and a shower of bright cloth embers from the cartridge flannel, and the crew cheered some more to know a formal challenge had been made, and the French could not pretend that they hadn't seen it, or the puny feather of ricochet that leaped from the sea before the enemy frigate's bows. Had they any honour, combat, warship to warship, broadside to broadside, must be accepted, now.
"She's reducing her main course, sir," Lt. Langlie pointed out, "and shaking out a reef in her tops'ls."
"Wants a bit more speed in-hand, aye," Lewrie agreed, "though she'll not pass ahead of us, and on this wind, there'll be no clever manoeuvring. Being on her lee will work in our favour. Hard as both of us are pressed, she'll not be able to fire on our masts and sails, as they usually do. Can't lower the breeches low enough for that."
"Whilst we, heeled at this angle, have our choice of shooting at hers," Langlie realised with a smile, "or jamming the quoins fully under our guns' breeches, and hull her 'twixt wind and water, aha! It is quite advantageous for us, sir. My congratulations. The old adage of always seizing the weather gage doesn't always avail, it'd seem."
"Well…" Lewrie replied, shrugging in perplexity for how best to answer, for the tactic truly hadn't occurred to him; he merely wished to get to grips, and put himself 'twixt the enemy and the convoy. And, Langlie "pissing down his back" with praise… that wasn't his typical demeanour. False modesty wouldn't suit; neither would polishing nails on the lapel of his coat to preen, were he baldly honest about it.
Do I owe him money? Lewrie wondered, in a hard-snatched moment of idleness.
There came another flash of lightning, another peal of thunder, and with it, the burst of a cloud of white smoke on the enemy warship's starboard bow; the challenge had been noted, and accepted.
A King`s Trade l-13 Page 36
