A King's Commander (17 page)

“Show me the Frog with any sense at all, who'd venture into San Fiorenzo Bay or its approaches by herself.” Lewrie frowned. “Surely, this new-come's bound to be one of ours.”

“Oh, bad luck, sir,” Knolles groaned. “Another man o' war to go shares with, should we take these last two.”

“Well, they haven't a hope of our bilander, the
tartane, or our dhow, at any rate, Mister Knolles. They weren't in sight when we took
those!
”
Lewrie said, striving for a
less
than greedy pose, himself.

“There is that, sir.” Knolles shrugged.

“Signal, sir!” Rushing shouted down to them from far forward. “
White
Ensign to the
main
mast truck!
Number
pennants! Four . . . Six . . .Repeater! . . . Nine . . . Fifteen, sir!”

With both midshipmen, who normally were in charge of the signal flag lockers, away on prizes, it fell to Lewrie himself to delve into the binnacle cabinet drawers for the latest code combinations.

“Ah, hum . . . right, then,” he concluded, after a long moment's fumbling over a loose sheaf of wrinkled papers that threatened to go overside with the wind. “This month's recognition code, to the tee, gentlemen. She's one of ours. Mister Knolles? Do you have the White Ensign hoisted to the mainmast truck, and reply . . . uhm . . . Fifteen . . . Twenty-Two . . . Three . . . Repeater . . . Four. Got that?”

“Aye aye, sir,” Knolles called back, snapping his fingers at a man of the after-guard, one of those literate “strikers” who assisted on the taffrails as a signalman.

Barely had that been bent on and hoisted high on the weather side of the mizzenmast, where it could be more easily read, than the newly arrived ship up to the sou'east hauled down her original hoist, and up went another one identifying her. Then a third; this one, orders.

“Pursue . . . Chase . . . More closely . . .” Lewrie translated, as the numerals were read off to him. Feeling like a half-wit midshipman all over again, at how long it was taking him, compared to the fluency of his inferiors. And with every eye on the quarterdeck upon him, too! “To Loo'rd!” he completed, puffing out his cheeks in frustration.

Well, o'
course,
he thought with a silent grunt; that recognition code had told him that the other ship was a 6th-Rate frigate, HMS
Ariadne,
twenty guns. A proper, post-captain's command, a man senior to him. Two guns, all the diff'rence in the world! Alan griped. She wished
Jester
to haul her wind, sail a touch north of due east, cutting off any hopes the poleacres might have of simply turning and running to the north . . . or of gaining their saving current before
Ariadne
had come to grips with them.

“Haul our wind, Mister Knolles,” Lewrie snapped. “Give us two points free, to east by north. And, topmen aloft, to set royals.”

“Aye, sir.”

Ariadne,
Alan sighed; a brand-spanking new ship of war! My old 'un must've sunk at her moorings in English Harbor, at last. His very first ship had been HMS
Ariadne,
then a tired and worn old sixty-four-gunner of the 3rd Rate. Condemned after his very first action in the West Indies, too, for “hogging” at bow and stern, her back most likely broken, she'd become a guard ship, receiving ship, later just a useless hulk without a single gun, stripped down aloft to her fighting tops and gant lines.

Captain cashiered for her loss, first lieutenant court-martialed with him; fourth and fifth killed, third lieutenant convicted of cowardice . . . oh, she'd been a miserable old hag, even before then, and a terrible place for a seventeen-year-old to begin a naval career. Autumn of 1780, it was . . .

Damme, I'm gettin' bloody
ancient!
he thought.

He took a deep breath, clapped his hands together, and paced to the lee bulwarks with a telescope, to shrug off just how far back, in the antediluvian age, he'd really gotten his “ha'porth of tar”!

There was their bilander, pacing along about east-southeast, four or five miles alee and off the larboard quarter. Nearer in to them was their
tartane, only a mile astern, but three miles alee. And Spendlove and his dhow—or whatever else one might call it!—was, of course, the poor third, behind them all, even though she'd been the last, nearest, taken. A clumsy, udder-swinging old cow to begin with, and now directed by English tars, who'd never even clapped
eyes
on her like, before, much less tried to handle her lateen rig to best efficiency.

And the poleacre that had tried to decoy them away from her two consorts was . . .

“Christ, shat on a biscuit!”

She'd hauled her wind, worn about to run with the wind large on her starboard quarter, and was not three miles astern of
Jester
at that very moment, crossing from starboard to larboard quarter. Steering on what he took to be a course of nor'east by east. The bugger was after the prize vessels, bold as a dog in a doublet!

“Mister Knolles, new course . . . nor'east!” Lewrie shouted. “And bend on a signal to our prizes . . . Make All Sail. And add 'Imperative' to that! Uhm . . . they are to . . .”

What
the Devil was the clearest signal, he fumed, running through a combination of orders. Damme, yes! “Order them to Take Station to Weather' of us!”

Half-past ten o'clock of the Forenoon Watch, by then, the winds beginning to abate, beaten into sullen submission by the oppressive and sultry heat of a Mediterranean July. Last summer around Toulon had been a coolish fluke of nature, all that rain and nippish cold. Here in the Ligurian Sea, summer winds were fickle, at best, a morning's gale blown out and hammered to compass-boxing zephyrs by midday. Just what they needed least, Lewrie thought. And hellish bad timin', too!

“Deck, there!” Rushing called from the foremast. “
Ariadne
is sending . . . ‘Interrogative'!”

“Almost polite of him, consid'rin',” Lewrie said with a grimace. What that full-of-ginger post-captain yonder had really asked was, “Just what the Devil you think you're
playing
at, you damn' fool!”

He raised his telescope once more to study his laboring prize ships. Yes, they'd begun to make more sail, to alter course harder on the wind to get closer to
Jester
's
protective artillery. Even Mister Spendlove's weary old dhow-thing-gummy had sprouted a mustache of foam under her bows. Not much of one, admittedly, but it was there. Lash the fore-ends of the lateen yards low to the center of the decks, and haul them fore-and-aft by brute force, though . . . she simply
must
sail better to windward, like a gaff-rigged cutter or sloop.

“Sir?” Knolles prompted at his elbow, his voice soft and confidential. “What reply do we send
Ariadne?
”

“The only one she'll understand, I s'pose, Mister Knolles,” Alan snickered, with a lift of his eyebrows. “Bend on good old Number One.”

Admiral Howe's revisions to the code flags always put the most important message, the one that alerted warship captains to the prime reason for existence, at the very top of the list, and, in an easily understandable single-pennant hoist.

Number One of the Howe System was,
“Enemy in Sight!”

M
ister
Knolles, is there a code flag for ‘Suggestion'?” Alan inquired, once
Jester
had worn off the wind, and had begun to run alee toward her struggling prize vessels.

“Uhm . . . there's ‘Submit,' sir,” Knolles answered.

“And I s'pose that's a picture of a man tugging his forelock?” Lewrie posed, tongue-in-cheek.

“Groveling most humbly, as well, I should imagine, Captain,” his first lieutenant replied with a bright grin.

“Make to
Ariadne,
then . . . most
humbly,
mind . . .” Lewrie ordered, “Submit—her number—Pursue Chases—uhm, Closer Action? He might make
some
sense of that. Followed by . . . Our number— Closer Action—Chase to Leeward. No sense losing those two pole-acres, to deal with a single armed ship.
Jester
can handle this'un, by herself.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Knolles agreed, full of pride in their ship.

“Besides,” Lewrie continued. “Damme if I'll make that fellow a richer man, at the expense of our people's freedom. I'll not lose 'em, when we've come this far together.”

Farther off the wind, then, running almost “both-sheets-aft,” on a landsman's breeze, due north;
Jester
passed the first of their prizes and put herself between the overly aggressive French poleacre and their
tartane. The strange-acting Frenchman hardened up on the wind, as well, coming more nor'easterly, to meet them, ignoring the bilander and dhow.

“Mister Bittfield, we'll engage with the larboard battery,” Alan told his master gunner. “Porter! Be ready to brail up the main course. Chain-slings on the yards, now, and lay out the boarding nettings!”

At least eighteen prime hands gone, Lewrie fretted; gunners, and tacklemen, rammers and loaders, off on the prizes. This short of a voyage from Toulon to Corsica, the Frog'll most like have no need to worry 'bout victualing a large crew. He's liable to have a hundred men or more, aboard that damn' thing. Like a Breton
chasse-marée
privateersman.
Two
hundred, more like!, he thought, with a wary sniff. We have to stand off, so he doesn't board
us.
But blow the living hell out of him! Lewrie thought a full cable's range would be cautious.

Both so eager for combat, the two ships closed each other rapidly. The range fell off to barely five cables—half a nautical mile—and Alan sorely regretted not having six-pounder chase guns up forrud on the forecastle, with which he could open the affair. He raised his telescope to scan the poleacre.

Indeed, she swarmed with seamen, as thickly clustered as a pack of cockroaches around a butter tub. At least his estimated two hundred men, aboard a ship little larger than a merchant brig. 'Bout eighty-five feet, on her waterline? he pondered. Flush-decked, almost—gun deck and weather deck the same, with only a slightly raised quarterdeck astern. How many guns could she carry—and how heavy a battery could such a small ship bear? he wondered.

There! Gun ports coming open.

“Ready, Mister Bittfield?” he called in warning. “Make your first broadside count, sir! Full battery firing . . . on the uproll!”

“Ready, sir!” Bittfield shouted back. “On the uproll . . . wait for it! . . .
Fire!
”

Almost as one, they opened upon each other; the poleacre disappearing behind a cloud of spent powder smoke, gushing from bow-to-stern as if she'd just blown up! And
Jester,
poised atop the scend, a stable gun platform for a breathless second or two without rolling, hammering and shuddering at the violence of her own broadside's eruption.

Then shaking and quaking, as round-shot hit her, almost flinching as thick iron ball droned or screeched past in near-misses! Spray flung high from strikes that landed short, wetting down her gunners and brace-tenders!

Seven guns, at least, Lewrie thought, coughing on niters as the 
smoke-pall from
Jester
's broadside ragged away to leeward, creating a sour fog-bank just yards alee, through which he could barely make out their foe. And a
heavy
seven guns, he frowned in perplexity, seeing the quick damage done to
Jester
's larboard side. The twenty-six-foot cutter on the cross-waist beams had been shattered. There were hammocks and thin rolled-up mattresses scattered like so many fishing worms about the gangway bulwarks. Bulwarks that had been caved in, in places, by the impact of heavy shot! There were men down, lying still; men, too, who shrieked in sudden terror, writhing frantically over their wounds!

“Again, Mister Bittfield! Quickly!” Lewrie shouted. Quicker to load and fire, the quarterdeck carronades behind him were coughing thunderously. Followed by the pleasing sound of French timbers being penetrated with booming
thonks
and
rawrkks!
No hastily converted merchantman, no matter how billeted in-board with reinforcing baulks, had a chance against the weight of eighteen-pounder iron!

A second broadside, still controlled, but a little more ragged this time, spat from
Jester
's
larboard guns. Aiming was perhaps more a hoped-for thing, though; blazing away through a bitter haze, firing into a thicker bank of smoke, now only four cables off.

“Tricolor, sir!” Buchanon pointed out. “French national ship, no error! Damme! She's comin' hard on th' wind! Clewin'
up,
sir!”

Out of that fog-bank came the thrusting jib boom and bowsprit of the poleacre, her anchor catheads jutting through the haze. That taller mainmast bore topmen aloft, taking in her tops'l and t'gallant sails, clewing them up to the yards by sloppy “Spanish Reefs”! Using her weatherly fore-and-aft lateen sails to keep drive on her!

“Christ!” Lewrie gasped, appalled by his stupidity. She would claw up abeam the wind, cross his stern, and rake
Jester
at close range!

“Quartermaster, helm hard alee!” he cried, trying not to sound panicky, as
Jester
trundled on north, with the poleacre slipping astern on her, moving from afore the main chains to afore the mizzen chains in the blink of an eye. Shorthanded, he could not 
man his starboard guns in time. He
must
keep the larboard battery engaged! And round
Jester
up abeam the wind on the opposite tack, to keep her thicker side wood facing those unexpectedly heavy guns, instead of her frail transom!

“Mister Knolles, scandalize her, every square sail!” Alan said in a rush. “Waisters, bend on main and mizzen stays'ls! Bow-rake her now, Bittfield, while we have the chance!”

A bloom of smoke from the French poleacre's bow, from her forecastle. A
damn'
heavy chase gun, its report deeper-bellied than a six-pounder, as ominously loud, even upwind of her for the moment, as any twenty-four-pounder gun aboard a 3rd Rate! A tremendous pillar of spray, which leapt into being close-aboard.
Jester
feeling almost wrenched off her course by the slamming impact! A
damn'
heavy gun, of some kind!

“
Carronade,
Mister Lewrie!” Cony screeched from the gangways, reverting to his old form of address to him. “Th' buggers got a carronade'r two, yonder, sir!”

The French warship was blotted out of sight by the blossoms of gun smoke as Bittfield got off his broadside. A ragged effort, starting amidships of the waist, and stuttering left or right from there, or from the far ends to the center, the gunners half blinded and pulling their lanyards as quick as their sweating crews could stand clear.

Jib boom tip, poking through the sudden pall, abaft the mizzen stays!
Jester
heeling hard to starboard, as her wheel was forced hard-over. Square-rig canvas aloft shivering and flapping.

“Carronades!” Lewrie screeched. “Load with canister . . . grape-shot! Mister Rahl, hear me? Clear her decks with canister! And her quarterdeck, when we're close-aboard! Ease your helm, Quartermaster. Steer due west, as best you're able.”

“Aye aye, zir!” Brauer, the Hamburg seaman replied crisply.
Jester
had just worn from one tack to the other, off the wind, everything crying and screaming aloft, as out of order, and confusing as a rioting mob, yards cocked any-old-how, some tops'ls and t'gallants aback against the masts, others flapping useless.

Aye, canister, Lewrie thought grimly!
Murder
that bastard over there who outsmarted me! Powder monkeys staggered under the weight of the canister tins come up from the lower deck shot-lockers as the guns on the quarterdeck were loaded.

“Ready, larboard, Mister Bittfield! At ‘close pistol shot'! Fire as you bear!” he cautioned. “She's coming up, fast!”

And did his foe have men enough to man
both
his own batteries, Lewrie gulped with a sudden cringing, in a throat gone bone-dry from shock, and excitement? And, did that Frenchman have his own artillery loaded with canister and grape, to return the favor? If he was smart he did. And this'un was bloody clever!

“Christ.” Alan sighed as the poleacre loomed up, as if sailing through a parting in a stage curtain. Not sixty yards off, larboard to face the poleacre's larboard. Gunners and sailors lined her bulwarks, French Marine Infantry with muskets leveled. Her antiboarding nets were down, and her guns were run out in-battery; at least one carronade on her foredeck to fear, Lewrie saw. Another aft on what passed for a quarterdeck. And five long guns amidships, upon that flush spar-gun deck; Frog eight-pounders, thank God, no heavier than his.

“Feuer!”
Quarter-gunner Rahl shouted up forrud, and the lar-board eighteen-pounder carronade lit off with a deafening roar.

“Fire as you bear!” Mister Bittfield screamed, as soon as the first larboard gun could bear in its port, and the long guns began to bark like ferocious guard dogs.

Out of my hands, now, Lewrie groaned to himself, heaving a philosophical shrug; our weight of iron prevails . . . or theirs does. Sweet Jesus, just a little help, here, he prayed. Let 'em
not
have thought to load with grape or canister!

Jester
bucked and trembled like a first-saddled colt as her guns, the enemy's guns, filled the short space between the racing hulls with hot gushes of gray-tan smoke, as both ships screamed in agony as heavy iron took them in their vitals!

Lewrie could barely see enemy sailors at her rails, being tossed aside; bulwark timbers flying, bodies flying, hear the stupendous 
boomings of guns fired straight into his face. Oak screamed, masts cried, short stabbing blooms of pink fire lilies and swarms of amber-reddish sparks swirled spent as dazed lightning bugs in the smoke wall! Quick splinters of wood flew from
Jester
's
wounds, flicking past, whickering and fluting, a giant's toothpicks, their sharp edges hungry for flesh!

The high, terrier-yip blasts of swivel guns at the rails, which spewed loose bags of pistol shot and langridge—scrap-iron bits—at the French. And then the blessed
barrooming!
of the quarterdeck carronades, as the enemy command staff came abeam!

Lewrie shut his eyes, staring directly down the barrel of
their
quarterdeck carronade the instant before the sight of his own death was blotted out, and he was staggered almost off his feet by the noise and the shock waves. Another shock wave, which made his heart flutter and pause, the breath stop in his chest! Turned half sidewise, and hammered to his knees for real, this time, as a round-shot passed within a few feet of him, howling over the quarterdeck, ululating off into the distance like an irate eagle robbed of its prey at the last moment!

“Jesus, sir, ya hurt, sir?” his cabin steward whimpered, coming to his side with a box of pistols. Aspinall was shaking like a sodden hound might just after leaving a stream, terror-tears streaking, lower lip blubbering.

“Don't think so, Aspinall.” Alan grimaced, as if in real pain, feeling himself over quickly. “But thankee for askin'. Bloody hell, what're
you
doing on deck?” Aspinall's post during quarters was down on the orlop, to assist “Chips,” Ship's Carpenter Mister Rees, as a dumb carrier and fetcher should any repairs be necessary.

“B . . . bosun's mate, sir,” Aspinall wailed, his teeth chattering so badly he could barely avoid biting his tongue. “Mister Cony, he tol' me t'fetch ya yer pistols, sir. Said 'e thought ya'd be needin' 'em, so I did, an'. . . kin I go
below,
agin, Captain, sir? Now ya have 'em, like?”

“Aye, with my gratitude, Aspinall, me lad. Just help me to my feet, first. Mister Knolles?”

“Aye, sir?” the first lieutenant rasped back, his throat raw with gun smoke, and his hat gone somewhere on its own.