“Yes, God rot ’em,” Claghorne said. “See the length of the yards, cut shorter’n ours? No guts fer a stiff wind. Black-painted masts, an’ the way they cut their jibs different from ours?”
“Then what shall we do, Mister Claghorne?”
“Might still fox ’em. Show ’em a body, tell ’em we have fever aboard. They don’t want that … Was it young Purnell?”
“He just died, sir,” Lewrie said, getting ready to dive back down into a real session of the Blue Devils.
“Damn hard luck. Watch yer luff, By God…”
The wind had backed a full point to the east-sou’east, and had fallen in its intensity. To stay on the wind for maximum speed they would have to steer more easterly, which was now a perfect course for Antigua, their original destination.
“I do believe that God has a shitten sense of humor,” Claghorne said, trying manfully to keep from raging and tearing his hair at his misfortune.
“Sir, if we have to fight—”
“Mister Lewrie, shut yer trap,” Claghorne said, and stepped away from him to begin pacing the deck again as Parrot seemed to slow and ride a little heavier on the sea.
Lewrie eyed the French brig again, now hull-up and aiming for that point of intersection of their courses. There had to be something they could do besides beat up to the brig and surrender, he thought. If Claghorne could convince them that Parrot had fever aboard, they just might be shocked enough for Parrot to surprise them. Lewrie began to inventory what they had below in the magazines that might serve.
“Goddamn you, you poltroon,” Lord Cantner was shouting from aft at Claghorne. “There must be some idea in your head.”
“The wind is dying, milord,” Claghorne said, close to giving in to despair. “He has a longer hull, an’ with this wind I cannot outrun him. He has more guns an’ most likely nine-pounders that can shoot clean through our hull. If they board us they’ll not leave a man-jack alive, an’ what they’d do ta yer good lady, I shudder ta think about—”
“Well, I shudder to think about what happens to the Indies if I am captured by those frog-eating sonsabitches,” Lord Cantner raved.
“I can give you a weighted bag ta drop yer secret stuff overboard, milord, but I can’t guarantee yer freedom an hour from now.”
“If I could suggest something, Mister Claghorne?” Lewrie said after clearing his throat for attention. Lady Cantner had been attracted to the deck at the sound of the argument and stood by, waiting to hear what would happen to her.
“I command this ship, now, Mister Lewrie,” Claghorne said, “and I’ll thank you ta remember yer place.”
“No, let’s hear him out,” Lord Cantner said, clutching at even the feeblest of straws.
“They want to come close-aboard, and demand surrender. Let them. Put them off their guard with the Quarantine flag and the sight of our sick and dead. Then give them a broadside of double-shot and grape, with star-shot and langridge and fire arrows to take their rigging down and set fires aloft. They’ll be so busy at saving their own ship we may have a chance to escape and make it a stern chase. We shall be going toward our own bases after dark. Would they pursue that far? Could we lose them after sundown?”
“One sign o’ resistance an’ they’ll shoot us ta pieces,” Claghorne said wearily. “Then you’ll be responsible fer milord’s and milady’s deaths.”
“Then what would you do?” Lord Cantner demanded. And both of the Cantners and Alan realized that Claghorne had no plan. He was riding the back of the tiger with no idea how to get off, or how to even change the course of events. Perhaps he could have responded to a lesser set of circumstances like a dismasting, a hull leak, fighting Parrot through a hurricane, even storming another ship’s bulwarks with sword in hand, if ordered by someone else. But this, on top of the fever and all the deaths, and losing Kenyon’s sure hand to guide him was too much for him to handle, and he would be damned if he was going to admit it even if it meant losing Parrot, striking the colors. What little pride he had left would probably force him to consider striking the best possible decision he could have made until the end of his life.
“May I call the hands to Quarters, Mister Claghorne?”
“You wish ta make yer gesture, Mister Lewrie, then go ahead,” Claghorne said, thinking it a small point with no real purpose. “But you’ll not fire a shot unless I directly tell you to, hear me?”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Claghorne turned away, and Lord Cantner restrained Lewrie with a hand on his arm. “Let’s pray it works, Mister Lewrie. I cannot abide the idea of striking to a pack of Frogs without at least trying.”
“It may cost us our lives, milord,” Lewrie told him, “but at least we shall retain some of our honor. If I may suggest gathering your papers in a weighted bag, just in case? And in placing your good lady below decks?”
Once free, Lewrie went to his men amidships. “She’s French, boys. And we’re going to sink her or burn her,” he said, trying to look confident. “We shall fetch up all the spare swivels and charges. I’ll want some men to go below to the magazine and break out the canister and star-shot and gun cartridges. Lay out boarding pikes and cutlasses out of sight by the bulwarks. Mister Kelly?”
“Aye?” the bosun’s mate said, wary of Lewrie’s intentions.
“Hands to Quarters, handsomely, so the Frogs won’t notice. Load with reduced charges for double-shot. Star-shot, canister and langridge as well. We’ll give them a surprise, a big one.”
“Handsomely.” Kelly grimly nodded. “Aye aye.”
The French brig ran up her colors, and there was a groan from several hands at the sight of the pure white banner with the gold fleur de lis of Bourbon France.
“We’ll show ’em who they’re dealin’ with,” Claghorne said. “Run up the colors,” and their own red ensign soared up the leach of their mains’l to the peak of the gaff yard, which brought a thready cheer from a few die-hards on deck.
“Swivels in every socket,” Lewrie ordered. “Number-one gun, load with double star-shot. Quoin out and aim for the rigging and give those French bastards some of their own medicine. Number-two, double-shot and canister. Quoin half-in and aim for their gangway, got it?”
He went from gun to gun, giving them their load and aiming point, sent a hand to fetch up the case of fire arrows from the magazine, and had them loaded in the swivels.
“Swivel men, aim for the sails and rigging, get it? Set fire to the bastards and give them something to gripe on, ’stead of taking us. Once we open fire you’ve got to load and fire fast as you can, without orders. It’s that or die in chains, got it? Damme, Crouch, quit mooning! What did I say?” Crouch was the slowest hulk he had, hairy and beetle-browed and incapable of concentrating on anything for long.
“Ah aims fer ’is sails an’ keeps at it ’til ’e burns ta hell, sir.”
“Good enough. Now, this is most important. We shall be standing by the windward rail, but not crouched down by the guns. Nobody lays a hand on a swivel until I say. Keep your matches out of sight. They think we’re going to be easy. Keep your small arms out of sight, too. Don’t let the gun ports swing open or we’re dead before we get a chance to hurt them. They think they’re going to take us without a fight and throw us into their hulks on Martinique, so you think on it and look gloomy, for Christ’s sake!”
Considering the victim was French, the men fell into their roles well enough. Indeed, Lewrie had to threaten flogging for overacting to keep a couple of them from wailing and wringing their hands a little too histrionically.
The brig was up within seven or eight cables by then, turning to open her broadside to point at Parrot. There was a sharp bang, and the sound of iron moaning through the air. A ball struck short ahead of them, raising a pillar of water.
“Nine-pounders,” Lewrie said out loud. He stepped aft to see Claghorne.
“They’ll stand off an’ shoot right through us with nine-pound shot,” he said. “We haven’t a chance—”
&nb
sp; “How close do you think they’ll come to demand our surrender?” Lewrie asked, gauging the distance between them to be six cables and closing slowly. He saw the brig let fly her tops’ls so they would not pass ahead of Parrot, adjusting their closing rate so that they would end up rounded into the wind parallel to them.
“About a cable, most-like.” Claghorne sighed. “Maybe closer.”
“It would be best if we had them at pistol-shot, sir.” Lewrie said, knowing that Claghorne had ceded him the initiative as sure as that panic-stricken gunner’s mate had done in Ariadne.
“No, no! They’d blow us apart at that range if they fired. I’ll not have it, Mister Lewrie. You’ll obey my orders an’ not do anythin’ rash. You hear me, sir?”
Another bang from the privateer. This time the ball droned over the deck low enough to part people’s hair. All the enemy’s gun ports were open, and a line of ten guns was visible. The brig’s crew crowded the bulwarks and gangway, seemingly hundreds of them that provided the crews to man enough prizes to send them back to their island lair rich men, enough to overpower a frigate, did they get lucky.
Three cables off, now. A third gun fired from the brig, and this ball struck Parrot, thudding into the wale of the hull below the gun ports.
“Damme, the game’s blocked at both ends,” Claghorne said, collapsing against the railing. “I am goin’ ta strike, Mister Lewrie. I order you to stand yer gun crews down.”
“We can’t just surrender, sir…” Alan pleaded.
“Damn you, get forward! Mister Mooney, I want you ta strike the colors.”
“Mister Claghorne!” the husky bosun objected, shocked to his bones.
“I said strike the colors.”
“Aye, sir, but I’ll tell ya this, Mister Claghorne, sir, yer a shiverin’ coward, sir!”
“I’m a realist, damn yer eyes!”
Lewrie went back forward to his gun crews. “Boys, we’re going to strike. That’ll get the Frog in closer so we can hit him. Don’t anybody be alarmed.”
How much worse can it be? he thought wearily, his eyes aching from his earlier jerking tears and the glare of the sea. A band of pain circled his head from staring so intently across the water, and the tension. If we’re prisoners, nobody’s going to hang me for disobeying orders. The French may shoot me, but there’s still the Yellow Jack to consider first. If we fail I can die right here on my own deck, in my own way, and go hard and game … and to Hell with Father, all of ’em!
The Red Ensign sank to the deck and was gathered up in a limp bundle, which brought cheers from the privateer brig. Claghorne ordered the fore course lowered and the jibs backed so that Parrot cocked up into the wind and fetched to. The brig began taking in sail and sidled down alongside, no longer making headway as they let fly, but being brought down to Parrot to her lee by the dying wind.
“Do you strike?” a leather-lunged voice called to them.
“Aye,” Claghorne shouted back. “We have fever aboard.”
The Yellow Quarantine flag was hoisted, and the French laughed. Their gun ports were still open, and Lewrie could see men standing by them with burning slow-match, but the majority of the much less disciplined privateer crew was standing in the rigging or on the bulwarks with muskets or swords, jeering happily at a foe that would strike without even a shot fired for honor’s sake.
Claghorne hoisted a dead man up onto the rail, a man yellow as a custard, the stains of his bloody dark bile still streaking his bare chest. “We have Yeller Jack, comprende? Vómito Negro!”
The brig was close now, a musket-shot away, less than fifty yards. Lewrie could see the men crossing themselves, gesticulating in their lingo, eager to be away from the fever and the pest ship that carried it. Their officers aft were standing in a knot arguing and waving their arms in broad gestures. Hands were going aloft to lower yard and stay-tackles or clew jiggers for boat tackles to hoist out a launch so they could stand off and investigate. The privateers did not want to give up a prize so easily gotten, but neither did they want any fever in their own crew.
“Stand ready, lads,” Lewrie told the uneasy hands. “Easy, now, get ready for it, don’t blow the gaff on me, now.”
The brig was now twenty-five yards off, a very long pistol shot, and men were laying down their weapons to bear a hand on the boat tackles, while others were lifting out long sweeps to fend Parrot off from the hull so they would not become infected.
“Now!” Alan ordered. “Fire as you bear!”
“Damn you, Lewrie,” Claghorne howled as though stabbed in his guts. “Our word of honor! We struck!”
The rest of his ranting was lost in the din as the gun ports were flung open and the guns were run out the last few feet. The swivels were already banging away. Fire arrows sizzled into life and flew in short arcs for the brig’s yards and sails. The first four-pounder fired, flinging a double load of star-shot at the brig’s masts, bringing down braces, sheets and blocks, shattering her for’tops’l yard.
The packed mass of jeering boarders, the teams of men ready to walk away with the stay-tackles, or snub the yard tackles, the men aloft taking in sail, and the men in the rigging for a better view, they were all seemingly scythed away as the four-pounders spewed their wicked loads of langridge and canister, rough bags of scrap iron bits, nails, broken plates and ironmongery, or light tin cases that contained hundreds of small musket-caliber balls.
“Kill them,” Lewrie raved. “Kill them now!”
The swivels were barking again. Even Crouch was loading, ramming and aiming as rapidly and accurately as he could. Fire arrows darted out, flaming dots trailing greasy black smoke. They jammed point-first into masts, bulwarks and the hoisted boat. The spring-loaded bars snapped open as they struck sails, jamming into them so their flames could feed hungrily.
“We gave our word of honor!” Claghorne ranted from aft, but no one paid him much attention in their fighting frenzy. After days of terror of the invisible, their fear came out in an orgy of hatred and destruction against a real foe they could fight, maybe even conquer.
“Larboard men, fores’l halyard!” Mooney cried like a bull. “Off heads’l sheets ’n’ run ’em ta larboard. Smartly, now, laddies.”
Sails made of flax, tanned and dried by tropic sun, shivered and thrashed until powdery with broken fiber particles … Masts and spars, brushed with linseed oil, to keep out rot. Tarred standing rigging holding the masts erect … Running rigging coated with slush; beef and pork fat and rancid butter, the skimming of the galley boiling pots (that the cook didn’t sell to the hands on the sly) so that the lines stayed supple and didn’t swell in the rain and would run true through all the blocks aloft that controlled the jears, halyards, lifts, clew lines, buntlines, braces, jiggers and tackles … And ships are made of wood; painted, tarred, oiled wood—baked as tinder dry as galley pine shavings—given a chance, all of it would burn.
Now the French crew saw the small points of fire aloft that quickly were fanned into large fires. Her sails flashed into sheets of flame that flagged in the wind, lighting the rigging, carrying flame to her spars and her topmasts. The lower masts began to work and groan.
“Sheet home!” Claghorne cried as he saw what was happening. The fire could blow down on Parrot if she did not get away quickly. “Helm up, you farmer. Mains’l haul. Now belay on heads’l sheets. Now belay on the foresheet. Thus!” he ordered, indicating a course.
Parrot began to move, creeping away to the east from the burning French privateer brig, whose masts were now well alight. As Parrot got a way on her the brig suffered a shower of flaming debris raining down on her decks. Her fore-topmast came down like a blazing log.
They continued to fire at the French ship until their guns would no longer bear. They passed her bows, out of danger of burning, or of being fired upon except with bow chasers, gaining speed and headway. The brig had an inner forestays’l still standing that pulled her head downwind to the north, and turning her broadside to the wind so the fire could ra
ge her full-length unchecked. Thick coils of dark smoke plumed from her up forward where her foremast had collapsed on the deck. Her boat-tier was also well ablaze, shooting flames as high as her main course yard, now bare of canvas. There were some dull explosions lost in the rush and roar of flames, as guns cooked off from the heat, or scattered powder bags burst like grenades on her decks.
“Cease fire, cease fire,” Lewrie shouted to his jubilant men, having to knock gun tools from their hands. “Crouch, leave off. Drop it, dead ’un, Crouch,” he shouted, using the terms of the rat pit.
“Aye, sir,” Crouch breathed, his dumb face flowing with pleasure. “But jus’ looka the fuckers burn, sir. God almighty!” He was leaping up and down in thick-witted victory.
“Ya done ’em proper, sir!” someone shouted to him as he made his way aft through them, telling them to secure from Quarters. They were cheering themselves, slapping each other on the back in glory at what they had done.
Claghorne was waiting for him on the quarterdeck, face red and sword drawn. “Damn yer black soul ta the hottest fires a hell, Lewrie! You disobeyed me, you motherless bastard. You fired after we had struck like a lowdown lying Barbary pirate. I’ll see you face a court for it, I swear I’ll see you hang!”
Alan had not considered their chances of success so great as to have reckoned fully on the consequences of victory. The reality of Claghorne’s threat hit him like a bucket of cold water. They had won, hadn’t they? He realized that he had disobeyed a direct order, even if it was wrong; had violated a major article of gentlemanly conduct at sea. But weren’t they free?
What Claghorne was really mad about was that he had been shamed before the men, and that was what could get Lewrie scragged.
“Dammit, Mister Claghorne, we’re alive and free, and they’ll not be telling anybody about it,” Alan said.
“I’ll know, you little bastard. I’ve a mind ta strike you down right now fer what you did—”
“You shall do no such thing,” Lord Cantner said, coming on deck with his wife. “God stap me, just look at that, Delia. You look on it, Mister Claghorne. It’s salvation, and victory. Honor be damned!”
The King's Coat Page 24
