He lowered his day-glass and turned to Pomfret. “Much like the garrison at Gibraltar. Would you march ’em out against the French or the Dons right off, without a lick of re-trainin’? Then, there’s gunnery. Anchored in harbour, ye can’t stage live-fire. How many houses and docks do the Dons have t’spare if shot goes wild? We’ve had live-fire once or twice a week since I took command, hang the cost in shot and powder, and my crew can get off three rounds every two minutes. I doubt the Spanish can match that, after their initial broadsides, and that I think will be the edge. Well, hallo, Bisquit! Got a new bone, have ye? Tasty? Good and crunchy? Good fellow!”
Lewrie knelt down to ruffle the dog’s head and neck ruff.
“Your dog is he, Captain Lewrie?” Pomfret enquired as he made “come hither” noises, offering his fingers to be smelled. Bisquit went to him, tail fluttering madly, and whining, with a grin on his face.
“Ship’s dog,” Lewrie said, explaining how the Reliant frigate had acquired him. “He’s made a new friend.”
“Eight and a half knots!” Midshipman Fywell reported.
Lewrie stood and looked aloft; the wind was picking up force, and looked to be coming more from the South by East than from Due South.
“Damn,” Lewrie groused. “Mister Westcott, ease her to East by South, and I’ll have the main t’gallant, middle, and topmast stays’ls hoisted. Drive her, hard.”
Five Bells of the Forenoon were struck at the foc’s’le belfry marking half-past ten of the morning. Lewrie went down to the quarterdeck, leaving Captain Pomfret on the poop deck to play with the dog.
“They’re almost hull-up, now, Geoffrey,” he muttered closely to the First Officer. “We may be engaged by Seven Bells. Let’s advance the rum issue to eleven A.M.”
“Six Bells it’ll be, sir,” Westcott agreed, nodding. “Do you intend to ‘Splice The Mainbrace’? That’d encourage them.”
“No, I don’t want ’em too groggy when handlin’ powder,” Lewrie said. “We’ll save that for after we’ve beaten those sons of bitches. I’ll be aft for a bit. Carry on, sir.”
“Aye, sir,” Lt. Westcott said.
After a time, Captain Pomfret came down from the poop deck to the quarterdeck and looked round for Lewrie, still full of questions. He settled for Westcott. “Captain Lewrie seems confident, sir. Pardons if I intrude on your duties.”
“No intrusion, Captain Pomfret,” Westcott said with a laugh and a quick, savage grin. “Watch standing mostly involves standing about, looking attentive. It will be some time before we tack and beat to Quarters. The captain? Captain Lewrie takes nothing for granted, I assure you, but in this case he has grounds for confidence. In the Navy he’s known as the ‘Ram-Cat’, ye know. Not for that cat he keeps in his cabins, but for his way of going after the foe … he earned that early on. I’ve served as his First for four years in two ships, and if anyone can surpass him, I’ll eat my hat. He’s probably been in more actions than most of us have had hot suppers, the Glorious First of June, Saint Vincent, Camperdown … Copenhagen? And many single ship fights in between. He fights clever, though he’ll never believe it of himself. We’re in very good hands, the best of hands.”
“Something for me to write home about, then,” Pomfret decided. “Am I properly equipped for it?”
“Hmm … sword, two pistols, silk shirt and stockings, just in case,” Westcott said, looking him over from head to toe. “Wax in your ears? Good. I think that’ll do quite nicely.”
Lewrie came out of his cabins, after having a quick sponge-off, and loading and priming his weapons. He had changed to a silk shirt and stockings inside his boots, too, though the boots would unravel them something horrid. He wore his Gills’ hanger on his left hip and had clipped his two new over-under double-barrelled pistols to his waistband, and had shoved his side-by-side double-barrelled Mantons in the deep side pockets of his uniform coat.
“You look perfectly piratical, sir,” Lt. Westcott quipped.
“Aarr, and belike,” Lewrie replied in a raspy growl, astonishing Pomfret, who was more used to the grave and sombre command style of senior Army officers. “All I’m lacking are half a dozen more pistols hung round my neck like Blackbeard, and slow-match fuses burnin’ in my hair, hah! Let’s see what the Dons’ve been up to in my absence.”
He snatched his telescope from the binnacle cabinet and went to the poop deck on the leeward side to raise it and peer at them.
“Deck, there!” a lookout bawled. “They’re showin’ Spanish colours!” Lewrie also could make out the bright red-gold-red banners with the crowned coats of arms in the centre.
The leading frigate had hauled her wind slightly, falling off ’til she was in line-ahead of her consort, blending their sails into a single mass in Lewrie’s ocular. Both were well above the horizon, tops’ls and courses towering above the dark hulls, their inner, outer, jibs and foremast stays’ls stretched wind-full and their bowsprits and jib booms thrust up aggressively, bobbing like lance tips of cantering armoured knights. He reckoned that they were no more than five miles off, making at least ten or eleven knots, he judged by the frothing mustachios under their forefeet, and closing the range rapidly.
He lowered his telescope and collapsed the tubes, tapping it on his left palm in thought. The Spanish warships looked to be about more than three points off Sapphire’s larboard bows, perhaps closer to three and a half points; they had lost some ground due to the shift of the winds, and now steered Sou’west by South. He sketched with a fingertip on the cap-rail, their course, his course, and where and when their opposing tracks would intersect.
I’ve got bags of room to tack! he thought with a feral smile.
Six Bells were struck, and a fiddler, a fifer, and a Marine drummer struck up “Molly Dawson”, surprising the crew, who had only partially begun to gather. Bosun Terrell piped Clear Decks And Up Spirits, and the rum keg was fetched up to the belfry. Doling out the rum to all hands and ship’s boys usually took about twenty minutes or so, with men milling round to find those who owed them “sippers” or “gulpers” for past favours, stretching the process out a few minutes more.
He would wait ’til the keg was borne below, and all the brass cups were gathered up before tacking, before sending them all to their guns, again. He returned to the quarterdeck.
“Mister Westcott, pass word to the galley for the fires to be staunched. Dinner’ll have to wait today,” he said. “We’ll come about at Seven Bells, then go to Quarters. As soon as we’re on course to the Sou’west by South, let’s fetch out the anti-boarding nets and rig chain slings aloft on all the yards.”
“Aye, sir,” Westcott replied.
“I wonder…” Lewrie mused aloud. “Our gunnery this morning, it didn’t achieve much, but it was closely grouped round the target, didn’t you think?”
“It was, sir,” Westcott agreed, “with very little left or right of the battery, and we hit the slope just underneath so many times we almost dug down to the foundations.”
“The Spanish’ll fire high, and open at long range, hopin’ that they’ll carry top-masts and spars away t’cripple us. Well, perhaps we can play that game, too, at say, two-thirds of a mile?”
“They won’t be expecting that from a British warship, sir,” Lt. Westcott said, and his grin was positively evil.
“We’ll get to close quarters and hull ’em ’twixt wind and water later on, but in the beginning? Hmm!” Lewrie said, with a smile of his own.
“Wear, sir, not tack,” Westcott suggested. “There’s less of a chance for something aloft to carry away and put us ‘in irons’ at the worst moment. If we miss stays…”
“You’re right, as usual, Geoffrey,” Lewrie agreed. “Aye, we’ll wear instead. That’ll shorten the range a little bit, too.”
He waited, pacing round the quarterdeck from his traditional post at the windward bulwarks to the lee side, forcing himself to be patient, to appear outwardly calm. He petted Bisquit when the dog quit the poop deck and his bone, head
ing for the lower decks and handouts of food in anticipation of dinner being served. He watched as the rum keg was closed and escorted below by armed Marines, as the Jack In The Breadroom gathered up the cups.
“Pipe All Hands,” Lewrie commanded at last, standing squared on his feet amidships of the quarterdeck by the hammock stanchions, hands in the small of his back and looking down into the crowded waist.
“Ship’s company, face aft and hark to the Captain!” Westcott shouted.
“Lads, recall when I read myself in at the Nore,” Lewrie began in his best quarterdeck voice, “I told you that I would do my best to find a way to turn Sapphire from a boresome escort to a fighting ship. We’ve made a decent start on that, you and I, but today.… Here is your time, here is your morning to win fame for yourselves and this ship, and show those motherless Dons over yonder who really rules the oceans! Are you ready?”
A great, enthusiastic cheer greeted his words. When he raised a hand, and it subsided, he continued.
“In a few minutes, we’ll wear about, and then we’ll beat to Quarters,” he said, “and we will engage the Spanish. You showed me earlier today that you’ve become some of the finest naval gunners in the world, even at a full mile’s range. Do ye think you can do that again? Can ye aim small and hit hard?”
His crew’s response was a hearty growl.
“We’ll take ’em on one at a time, first at long range, then at close quarters, and hammer the bastards ’til they curse the day they thought they could try us on, and curse the moment they clapped eyes on Sapphire! God bless every one of you Sapphires, and our good ship. Now, let’s be about it!”
“Ship’s company, dismiss,” Lt. Westcott ordered, his cry lost in the great, savage din of shouts and huzzahs.
Lewrie looked at the Spanish frigates from the lee bulwarks; they were now a little more than two miles off. It was time.
“Bosun Terrell, pipe Stations To Wear!” he shouted.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
As the helm was put over, HMS Sapphire slowly hauled her wind, falling off from “full and by” with taut canvas eased and loosed, the yards slowly being angled to the opposite tack to the squealing of the wooden balls in the parrels that bound the yards to the masts, amid a rustling thunder of sailcloth, and groans of the masts and the hull timbers, her stern crossing the eye of the wind at last, and her yards re-braced in the proper spiral set from courses to t’gallants. She came back to the edge of the winds, all her sails bellied out, again filled with drive and power.
“Now, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie ordered, “beat to Quarters.”
The young Marine drummer began the Long Roll, the fiddler and fifer struck up one of Lewrie’s favourite tunes, “The Bowld Soldier Boy”, and Sapphire thundered again as deal-and-canvas partitions were struck, furniture was folded or struck below, and the gun decks were turned into long, open alleyways full of men, guns, truck carriages, and gun tools. Ship’s boys serving as powder monkeys dashed to the magazine for their first pre-made charges of propellant, fetching them back in flash-proof leather tubes to kneel behind their assigned guns.
“The ship is at Quarters, sir, and steady on Sou’west by South,” Lieutenant Westcott reported, formally doffing his hat in salute, and of a much graver manner than earlier.
“Very well, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said with a nod, graver himself, now that they were on the cusp of battle. He went to the starboard side, the lee side now, to peer at the Spanish frigates. The turn-about had slowed Sapphire considerably, and she was now only slowly gaining back what speed she’d had. The Spanish ships were now on their starboard quarters, about a mile and a half off, having lost none of their speed and gaining on Sapphire.
“A matched pair, sir,” the Sailing Master, Mr. Yelland, said. “Both sport bright red gunwale stripes, alike as peas in a pod.”
“Sister ships?” Westcott wondered aloud. “The best that they could order out, once Madrid heard of our raids?”
“Damme, I’ll bet they think they’re special,” Lewrie drawled.
Damn, what if they are? he had to ask himself, though.
He felt a tiny flicker of doubt, worried that the Spanish had picked among the officers of their navy blockaded in Cartagena, among their best gunners and most experienced seamen, had supplanted the two frigates’ complements for one special mission … to rid their coast of one particular British pest, el diablo negro.
Oh, goat shit, he thought with a scowl; There’s not a navy in the world that’d do that! Certainly not the Spanish! Too many prides t’be hurt. It makes more sense that they were sneaked out to deliver supplies to Ceuta, or sneak their way into Cádiz, t’concentrate what’s left of their fleet.
He reckoned that they might be special, chosen to make that sort of effort, their captains the boldest available, but Sapphire’s very presence had scotched those plans, and they’d stumbled upon them by mistake, by a fluke of bad luck.
He pursed his lips and heaved a silent snort, deriding himself, then looked out to starboard to see what the Spanish were doing, and how they were placed. They had worked their way up to within three points abaft of abeam, and would be up even with Sapphire in another quarter-hour. And, they were just a little over a mile off.
“Mister Westcott? Take two reefs in the main course,” Lewrie snapped, back to business. “We’ll not brail up all the way ’til we’re closely engaged. And, alter course … give us a point free.”
“Aye aye, sir!”
As topmen scrambled out the main course yard, bare feet juddering on the foot-ropes for balance with arms over the yard for their lives to haul the heavy, taut sail to the first reef line, the helm was put up one point, and other hands on deck and sail-tending gangways tailed onto braces and sheets to ease the set of the sails. The angle of the deck eased a few degrees more upright as Sapphire sagged off from full-and-by to more of a close reach as she began her slow descent upon the Spanish. With the huge main course reefed, she lost speed, too; the quick cast of the log-line showed only seven and one half knots.
“Hmm, they’re not brailing up their main courses, sir,” Mister Yelland commented. “Do you think they wish to get beyond us, first?”
“No tactical advantage in that, Mister Yelland,” Lewrie said, “unless … they have somewhere else they need to be. They’re under a mile off, d’ye make ’em? Mister Westcott, I’ll have another point free. Once we’re steady, we’ll open upon them. Whether they wish a fight or not, we’re going t’give ’em one!”
Sapphire fell off the wind even further, to West by South, and angling more acutely towards the Spanish frigates which were still on a course of Sou’west by West. If all ships continued on, Sapphire would eventually cross the lead frigate’s bows.
“Steady on West by South, sir,” Westcott reported.
“Pass word to Mister Harcourt and Mister Elmes,” Lewrie said, “my compliments to both, and they are to open gun-ports and concentrate their broadsides upon the lead ship.”
“Am I in the way?” Captain Pomfret whispered to the Sailing Master.
“You could stand by the door to Captain Lewrie’s cabins, sir,” Yelland told him, “aft of the helm, and under the poop overhang, but you couldn’t see much. For a good view, you could go up and aft by taffrail lanthorns. The signalmen have nothing to do, and you could sit on the flag lockers. Though, it may get a bit ‘windy’ up there, mind,” he suggested with a wink.
“Windy?” Pomfret asked, wondering what he meant.
“With the odd enemy roundshot, sir,” Yelland said, chuckling.
HMS Sapphire rumbled and thudded as the ports were swung up and the great guns wheeled up to the port sills. Gun-captains crouched behind the breeches, hand-signalling for crewmen with crow-levers to lift the truck carriages to shift aim left of right, and drawing the wood-block quoins from beneath the breeches to lift the muzzles to their maximum elevation.
“Ready, sir!” Midshipman Ward breathlessly shrilled as he dashed up from the waist to the quart
erdeck and knuckling the brim of his hat.
“Open fire, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie ordered.
“By broadside … fire!” Westcott shouted.
Gun-captains waited for the scend of the sea, to the point of the up-roll when the ship was at her steadiest, before jerking their taut trigger lines. The starboard side of the ship erupted in smoke, jutting flame, and swirls of sparks amid the sudden, thick bank of powder smoke. Frustrated, Lewrie trotted up the starboard ladderway to the poop deck for a slightly clearer view.
That’s just bloody magnificent! he thought in joy.
It was one of the prettiest sights he ever hoped to see. The sea was a most marvellous and striking blue, the sky mostly clear with only a few wispy white clouds. The leading Spanish frigate’s ebony hull with that broad red gunwale paint, and her relatively new white sails was a lovely bit of perfection of the shipbuilders’ art, and she stood out starkly against the high mountains of the Andalusian coast.
And she was surrounded by a sleet-storm of iron roundshot that raised great, and rather pretty, feathers and pillars of spray where shot hit the sea short and caromed up from First Graze, skipping into her hull the last few hundred yards to thud into her planking. Some shot bracketed her bow and stern, wide of the mark but not all that much mis-directed. He even thought that he could see her courses and tops’ls twitch, collapse, then re-fill with wind.
“That’s damned good shooting!” he yelled to encourage his crew. “Now, serve her another!”
“By broadside, on the up-roll … fire!” Lt. Westcott roared.
An instant later, and Sapphire’s starboard guns bellowed once more, hurling solid iron shot at 1,200 feet per second, wreathing herself in yellow-tinged, dingy smoke reeking of sulfur.
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