A King's Commander (41 page)

“Run-out!” Bittfield was screaming, his voice breaking on all the reeking smoke, and his emotions. “Point yer guns! Carronades as well . . . stand clear? Ready . . .
Fire!
Whoohoo!” He was gun-drunk.

“That's the way, that's the way!” Lewrie snarled, pounding his fist on the railing, just as caught up in the stink and roar of those monsters, his beautiful, reeking, but beloved guns, as the “Smashers” on the quarterdeck came reeling backward on their slide-carriages in a bitter cloud of spent powder. “Quartermaster, steer half a point to loo'rd. Close her.”

He can't come up higher to the wind on me, all he can do is haul off, he thought with scintillating but frenetic crystal clarity. We'll rake his stern, unless he wears away. Or tacks! Twigg made sure he'd know I was here, available—he can't scamper off 'thout
trying
to do me in!

Moanings and warbles, dire humming, and this time round-shot hit lower.
Jester
reeled like a punch-drunk boxer as she was hulled, shuddering with each savage blow taken. A portion of the larboard gangway bulwark caved in, scattering waisters and brace-tenders. Splinters and shards from shattered iron shot keened amid the sudden screams of pain and fright. Men were down, lucky
Jester
's
lucky people were bleeding, dying!

“He's tacking! Sir, he's tacking!” Spendlove wailed from the larboard side. “Swinging sou'east, into wind!”

“Broadside, Mister Bittfield, now! Aim high!” Lewrie ordered. “Take her rigging down while she's busy comin' about! Knolles, ready to wear about to east-nor'east!”

“
Er ist
vounded, zir!” Rahl cried up from the waist, “I send to Herr Crewe . . . ?” Even as Crewe boiled up from the midships hatchway ladders, still in his white apron and list slippers from the magazine.

“The stays, sir,” Knolles panted beside him, smudged with soot and smoke, his hat askew. “Might bring
all
the main topmasts down if we come about.”

“The windward stays are sound, sir. Might ease the lee'uns, if we wear. Hands to the braces, ready to wear, sir,” Lewrie retorted.

“Run
out
yer guns . . .” Mister Crewe intoned more calmly. “
Prime
yer guns . . . cock yer
locks!
”

“Porter, hands to the braces, ready to wear nor'east!” Knolles bellowed into his brass speaking trumpet.

“
Point
yer guns . . . ! Quoins half out . . . ready . . .
Fire!
”

No, dammit . . . Lewrie groaned to himself; you rushed 'em, they'll shoot too low, and . . . !

In, they lurched, all but number five larboard nine-pounder, which had been struck dead on the muzzle, and blown backward off its truck carriage, trunnions ripped from the cap-squares, and its crew savaged.

Brutal noise and a hellish reek of the roasting damned,
Jester
shaking and rattling under Lewrie's feet and hands, the enemy blotted out by the massive gush of burned niters.

“Ready, sir,” Knolles gasped.

“Wear ship! Helm alee!” he snapped, soon as he heard, scampering to the larboard side so he could
see,
pressing up against the bulwarks to peer out through all that smoke to see if he'd hurt Choundas.

Being flung backward, thrown off his feet as a ball blasted in just above the gunwale, splinters and shards flying upward, an erose chunk carving the face of the bulwark down to the thickness of a single plank! Feeling his ship being pummeled and punctured beneath him, her stout scantlings wailing in agony!

“Sah, you kilt?” Andrews demanded, looming over him, filling his entire vision. Lewrie blinked, and kept on blinking, to clear the red haze that kept blinding him.

Blind, he gibbered wildly; blind as Nelson! Oh, the bastard . . . he's done for me! He flailed his arms and legs, found that they still were attached and obeying. Rolled to his side and retched the coppery taste from his mouth, knowing what blind fear tasted like at last . . .

A crumpled calico handkerchief smeared his face, mildewy and redolent of tobacco. Blinking mindlessly, panting and gasping air in terror of what bad news might be coming. But his sight cleared, with Andrews's ministrations. A firm hand clasped the handkerchief to his scalp.

“Carry on, Mister Crewe!” he heard Knolles rasp. People were walking around him, as uncaring as if he were a misplaced hammock roll.

He felt the guns go off, the deck on which he lay shiver as the ship was punched sidewise by her own recoil. There was a regular beat of juddering coming from her hull, even more insistent than his racing heart. God, there'd be another broadside in reply, soon!

“You tell me, Andrews . . .
am
I
killed?”

“Got yah scalp shaved, sah. Blood in ya eyes, but . . .”

“Help me up.”

“Best hold dat right dar, sah . . . firmlike. Staunch de blood.” He held the cloth with his left hand, clung to the railing over the waist with his right, and almost swooned and saw double. The pain was coming, and he sucked air between his teeth as the first wave hit, going cross-eyed with it. He swabbed his face, his eye sockets, with his right sleeve, forever staining that fancy gold-lace slash-cuff . . . but he could see, with both eyes.

“Ooh, Law'.” Andrews flinched for both of them, as a broadside came inboard.

More smashing timbers, more screaming side planking, as French carronade shot joined their long guns. That juddering got noticeable, became a deep, plucking hum instead of an unnatural motion. Through it all, the gun crews slaved away, swabbing and overhauling tackle, rushing up cartridge and shot, ramming it home and pricking the vents.

“Run
out
yer guns . . . !” Crewe roared, not so calm anymore, and caught up in the madness.

Alan took another suck of breath! There lay Choundas's vessel, not one cable to leeward of
Jester
's
left side, just a little ahead, and sailing parallel to them, her own side looking gnawed at, stove-in here and there, her pristine white gunwale turning gray with spent powder stains.

“On the uproll . . .
Fire!
” Mister Crewe bugled. A ragged broadside crashed out, stuttering up and down.
Jester
's
ports. The enemy corvette lurched and seemed to wince as she was struck again by a hailstorm of shot, delaying the run-out of her own guns a precious moment.

“Payin' off, sir!” Spenser called from the wheel. “No jibs . . .”
Jester
could not lay close to the wind without them, and slowly swung leeward, in spite of a large portion of lee-helm. She and that corvette would angle together slowly, closing the range, if Choundas held his course. Lewrie groaned as he saw that the wind would let her pinch up to weather, at least one point or more. Choundas could throw his ship up so close to luffing that he could bow-rake
Jester,
at nigh musket shot, in another minute,

“Mister Knolles, ready to haul our wind, course nor-nor'east,” Lewrie snapped, the effort of shouting making his head seem to explode with fresh pain. “Mister Crewe, one more broadside, then switch over to the starboard battery! We'll rake his stern!”

“Oh, Lord,” someone whispered in awe as Choundas's corvette lit up in flames, flinging long thrusts of smoke at them. She fired another broadside!

Jester
was pummeled, sent reeling, as iron smashed home, aimed at her midships. There was a tremendous pillar of spray alongside, then a second, the shuddery twist of the hull as it was struck, down low by a graze, then a direct hit, and a mighty
thonk
of rupture. A groan aloft, that juddery humming ended suddenly. Replaced by a wail of pine and fir as her mainmast began to topple—everything beyond the fighting-top swayed over the larboard side, coming down like some sawn tree! The main chains had taken another hit, and everything was shot away that held it upright! All they could do was duck and pray as it collapsed, crashing down into the ocean in a rat's nest of torn sails, tangled rigging, and broken yards, to dangle on the gangway or bulwarks, further tangled with the collapsed boarding nettings, blinding the guns. A discharge from one of the nine-pounders might set alight the ruins.
Jester
was disarmed and powerless!

“Mister Crewe, starboard battery! Waisters and idlers,” Alan cried in despair. “Chop all that away, now, Mister Porter! Spenser, steer due north, best you're able with all that dragging. Hurry!”

There was nothing left aloft for drive but the mizzen sails— spanker, top'sl, and t'gallant, and they'd be lucky indeed to be able to steer effectively, if at all, with all that force so far astern.

“Spare stays'l, jury-rigged from foc's'le to the foretop!” Knolles was shouting forward to the hands digging free of the ruins.

Jester
had slowed, drastically, dragging herself almost to a stop, bereft of wind power. Beyond crippled. Almost conquered.

He's going to win, damn him, Alan felt like weeping! His ship turned to scrap lumber, defenseless against whatever might come. He suspected Choundas would close and board, to take her as prize. Take
his ship,
in a sea of bloodshed. Take him prisoner, and what he felt like inflicting on him, once they were anchored in a French port, he . . . no, By God! You want me, you'll have to kill me! You want
Jester . . .
then you'll have her over my dead body!

Lewrie drew his sword and let it glisten in the sun.

“Starboard batt'ry ready, sir!” Crewe rasped. He looked down on his gun deck. On his people. The ports were open, the artillery runout. Grimy, bleeding from cuts and splinters, mouths agape with terror, and some of them shivering, amid the carnage, the dead.

“They'll not have us!” Lewrie roared. “They'll not have
her!
If they try, we'll kill every last mother-son of 'em! Close shooting, and make 'em
pay,
Mister Crewe!”

And he was amazed, that they could raise a cheer! A weak one, aye. But an angry, defiant cheer for their ship.

Choundas had slipped ahead, of course, his rigging mostly free of damage and his sails still drawing power. Headed east-nor'east on the wind, but even then easing her braces and sheets to fall off, and employ her larboard guns. And her stern, her vulnerably thin stern . . . !

“Fire as you bear, Mister Crewe! Hold her, Spenser! Nothing to loo'rd, for just a minute!” he pleaded.

“Aye aye, sir!” Spenser grunted, as he and Brauer and two more hands threw all their weight on the spokes to hold full lee-helm, the rudder jammed hard-over.

“Point . . . !” Crewe ordered. “As you bear . . .
Fire!
”

From the foc's'le carronade, then aft to the quarterdeck, some swivels firing, too; a controlled, steady tolling, the guns so hot by now they leapt off the deck with recoil, titanic crashes and bellows of rage, deafening thunders and harsh ejaculations of gunpowder, all dun gray and brown, shot through with embers and flaming bits of wad. The range was little over a cable, and the results were immediate.

The corvette's stern was caved in! Glass sash-windows blown in, both quarter-galleries shattered, her taffrail and flag lockers blown skyward. The name board and dead lights to the officers' ward-room all were smashed beyond recognition. Her transom post was whittled by shot, and her rudder twitched like a hound's ear. And there would be carnage further forward, as hard nine-pound shot caromed down the length of her open gun deck, breaking into hundreds of jagged shards on gun barrels and carriages, creating a maelstrom of wood splinters to quill her crew, to rip and rend! They could hear her, and them, wail, they imagined!

“Can't 'old 'er, sir,” Spenser gasped. “Sorry, but they's too much drag t'larboard. Payin' off, again. Make due north, just.”

“Reload, Mister Crewe!” Alan demanded. “One more time!” “Tackin'!” Knolles countered. “She's going over to larboard, sir!” “Now she'll rake
our
stern,” Lewrie groaned. Once she gets settled down on larboard tack, she'll make sou'west, easy, he thought. “Get that raffle chopped away, Porter! Hurry with that stays'1. And rig the main topmast stays'l from the maintop to a foc's'le ladder, if that's all you have. I need jibs.
Any
sort o' jibs! Now!”

Close as Choundas was, he'd get a quartering slant across HMS
Jester
's stern. At about the same range as the shot she'd delivered! Lewrie paced to the larboard side, to see the last of the mess going over the side, the last raveled stays and braces cut. With a great splash, the last of the upper masts hit the water to float away aft.

“Better, sir!” Spenser encouraged, spinning the spokes.