He lifted his glass to eye a schooner of decent size that stood abeam the wind, close inshore but heading outward. Inshore of her was a small ship, full-rigged and three-masted, that was also standing out to sea as if she hadn't a care, or an enemy, in the world.
"Time to hoist the false Tricolours, Mister Langlie," he said.
"Aye aye, sir."
"And, do I have t'fire a salute to their Governor-General, I'd not bemoan the waste o' powder, either," Lewrie chuckled. "All in the best of causes… ain't it, Mister Peel. All's fair in love and war."
"That remains to be seen, Captain Lewrie," Peel frostily said by his side. His nose was still out of joint that no argument he offered could dissuade the mercurial Capt. Lewrie from his enterprise… though Peel had to admit that Lewrie's preparations had been little short of masterful.
Proteus's masts and spars, right to the yardarm ends, had been painted in the French fashion; two large Tricolour flags flew from the main-mast truck and spanker, and even her sails had been altered with wet wood-ash from the galley fires, brushed on to mimic the different seaming system of French sailmakers. Her own Sailmaker, Mr. Rayne, and his crew had basted the jibs to appear narrower-cut, and had raised up the roach at the jibs' feet, before "painting" false seams. The bastings could quickly be freed by firm yanks on the spun-yarn small-stuff twine, returning Proteus to full-bellied sailpower in a twinkling.
Lastly, despite his protestations that the private signals not be used except in the most important circumstances, Mr. Peel had been forced to turn them over. With Lewrie committed to his madness, and his officers and crew so exuberantly enamoured of the plan, he could do no less, no matter that their use this day would clue the French to changing them the day after.
"She's making a hoist, sir," Lt. Adair cried, standing aft with the signals midshipman and after-guard. "An Interrogative, followed by a string of numeral flags."
"Mister Peel?" Lewrie said, turning to their resident spy.
"Ah, uhm," Peel muttered, lifting a heavy borrowed telescope to his eye, trying to keep the schooner in the ocular, and focussed, with the frigate bounding and rolling beneath him. "It is the challenge… to which we should reply…" He referred to a sheaf of papers.
"I have it, sir," Lt. Adair insisted, quickly calling numbered flags to the sailors standing by the windward halliards. French flags were numbered differently, but the stolen private signals book had the coloured illustrations in order, to sort them out. On this day in the middle ten-day of the new-fangled French month, the proper reply was a five-flag hoist… Nine, Two, Eleven, Thirty, Repeater; which signal quickly soared aloft as high as the mizen-mast top, each bundled flag suddenly blossoming as the light binding twine was shaken out.
"That won't put them off, will it?" Lt. Langlie fretted. "That we're miles more efficient than any Frog ship I've seen when it comes to breaking signals, sir? 'Stead of hanking them on and sending them up straight from the lockers, free to fly, and…"
"Hmmm," Lewrie frowned, having not taken that into consideration 'til now. Inefficiency wasn't limited to French ships, though. He'd seen signalmen start a hoist with the first flag, let it flap near to the bulwarks as the next was attached, so the message crawled up, one item at a time. "Mister Peel, what's a merchantman doing with naval private signals?" he asked, instead. "Could she be a privateer?"
"Very possibly a privateer, or a captured merchant ship turned to naval use, Captain Lewrie," Peel answered with an equal frown.
"Was she sloppy at her hoist, Mister Adair?" Lewrie demanded.
"A tad, sir, aye," Lt. Adair agreed.
"Let's call her a privateer, then," Lewrie decided, lifting his own telescope, " 'til we know better. And assume she'll take us for a real Frog warship, with a martinet bastard for a captain, compared to their idle ways. Just so long as it gets us within close cannon shot before her captain figures it out. 'Bout two miles, now?"
"Just about, sir," Mr. Winwood estimated aloud.
"More sails inshore, sir," Midshipman Elwes pointed out. "Wee single-masted fishermen, most-like."
"Damme, she's making another hoist!" Lt. Adair groused, waving j his signalmen to haul their own quickly down. "Mister Peel, may I ask your assistance? I speak French, but translating, and sorting out the flags, both…"
"Of course, Mister Adair," Peel acquiesced, despite his opposition to the whole endeavour; as long as they were there, why not make every effort to pull it off?
"Bienvenu … 'from where bound,' she asks," Adair called out. "Damme… where are we from, sir?"
"Rochefort," Lewrie quickly extemporised, "we've cruised along the Carolinas with no luck, and are short of provisions. Got chased off by American frigates, tell him. Break it up into three hoists if you can… keep 'em gogglin' us. Mister Peel, what's a good name for a Frog frigate that's been unfortunate at taking prizes?"
"Uhm… L'Heureux … 'Fortunate,' sir," Peel said, snapping his fingers as if inspired, and breaking his first impish grin of the last two days.
"Aha! Yes, make it so, Mister Adair. Quickly," Lewrie bade.
"Aye, sir. Uhm, however d'ye spell that, Mister Peel?"
"And now, gentlemen," Lewrie continued, turning to his assembled officers, "let us beat to Quarters. Take your stations, and God help the French."
Lt. Adair had to stay on the quarterdeck instead of going "forward to supervise the forrud-most guns and foremast, in close cooperation with Mr. Peel and Midshipman Elwes to sort out the proper flags to convey their fictitious identity and recent past to the inquisitive schooner.
She a guarda-costa? Lewrie wondered, lifting his glass one more time. We're close enough, now… I can see semaphore towers, ashore, but they ain't wagging, yet. Waitin' for the schooner t'tell 'em who and what we are, are they? Well, just you keep on waitin ', damn you all. You'll know us soon enough!
"Ahem," Mr. Winwood said at his side.
"Time to turn South along the coast, I take it, sir?" Lewrie asked with a faint grin, taking time to turn and look at him.
"Aye, Captain," Winwood solemnly agreed with a slow nod.
"Very well, sir. Haul our wind and shape the new course."
"Aye aye, sir."
"She's hauling her wind, too, sir," Lt. Adair announced. "New hoist… damn, what does that mean?"
"Not for us, Mister Adair," Lewrie snapped. "Let it pass, this time. There's a semaphore station, halfway up yonder mountain that's working its arms. Can they not read our hoists, most-like they're asking the schooner to tell 'em what she's learned."
As Proteus fell off the Trades to take the wind on her larboard quarter, the schooner angled out from the coast to close her, the gaffhung fore and main sails winged and bellied out as she wore across the wind and approached at a 45° angle, aiming as if to meet Proteus, bowsprit to bowsprit. The range dropped rapidly, as the frigate's crew settled down beside their great-guns, or knelt below the bulwarks with muskets. A keen-eyed observer might have noticed that Proteus had her gun-ports free to swing outboard a few inches with each roll, ready to be hauled up and out of the way the second that the order to fire was given. The larboard 12-pounders were ready-loaded and hauled up close to the bulwarks; a few last tugs on the tackles would jut their ' snouts into firing position. The flintlock strikers were, so far, uncocked but primed, with the firing lanyards already in the gun-captains' hands but held loosely.
The focs'le carronades, the quarterdeck carronades, were manned behind closed ports, only a few designated men allowed to appear above the bulwarks to slouch idle, prepared to wave until the trap was to be sprung. It was a rare French man o' war that fitted carronades so far in this war; the sight of them would have been a dead giveaway.
"Half mile?" Lewrie muttered from the side of his mouth.
"About that, aye, sir," Lt. Langlie agreed, striving to appear casual and inoffensive as he paced about the quarterdeck.
Lewrie strode to the helm and took up a brass speaking-trumpet, then shambled back to the bulwarks, as if
he had all the time in the world, wouldn't harm a flea, and had the most pacific intentions; just about ready to smile, wave widely, and "speak" the Frog schooner. He held the speaking-trumpet high, in plain sight, and, as the range got shorter and shorter, he could see the schooner's captain standing with his own amplifying device by her starboard, lee, rails, waiting for the chance to "speak" him, too.
Evidently, the semaphore station had been satisfied, for after a brief flurry of spinning telegraph arms, it had gone inert again. One quick scan of the windward horizon showed Lewrie that the fishing boats Were still casting their nets, the three-masted ship still stood out to sea a little beyond their bows, would pass to leeward about a mile off. Off the harbour town of Basse-Terre, the frigate's putative destination, Lewrie thought he could see another three-master with weary tan-stained sails, a ship he took for another merchantman standing out to sea. He got a glimpse of a larger three-master entering harbour, brailing up as she ghosted shoreward. Close to Basse-Terre was another schooner…
"Rounding off, sir!" Lt. Langlie cautioned. Sure enough, at a distance of no more than a British cable, the schooner had swung about to run alongside them.
" 'Allo, m'sieur!" the schooner's captain called with his brass trumpet to his lips. "Ici L'Abeille, le navire de guerre auxiliare .. ."
"The Bee" Mr. Peel snickered as he came up to the windward to Lewrie's side, no matter naval custom against him being there unasked.
"… who just got stung!" Lewrie chortled. "Run out and fire!"
Ports skreaked open to thud against the upper bulwarks; tackle sheaves squealed, and heavy carriage trucks rumbled like a stampede of cattle as the guns were run out the last few feet.
"False flags down)" Lewrie shouted; he'd made that mistake long ago when first as commander of the Jester sloop, and had caught a grim "packet" for it, no matter how successful his ruse de guerre had been. He had strictly cautioned the Mids and signalmen to haul the Tricolours down and get their own ensigns up as soon as the ports opened, but…
Halfway aloft, Lewrie thought; close enough for king's work!
He looked forward to Lt. Catterall, who stood in the middle of the gun-deck with his sword drawn and held high over his shoulder; who was looking most anxiously back at him.
"Fire!" Lewrie shouted as his true colours reached the tops.
"On the down-roll… fire!" Lt. Catterall bawled.
Three 24-pounder carronades, double-shotted with solid balls and what amounted to a small keg of plum-sized grape-shot, and thirteen 12-pounders, each loaded with two balls, went off almost as one, creating a sudden, murderous avalanche of metal, and a choking cloud of sulfurous, reeking smoke propelled windward, punctured by the flight of the shot, that only slowly drifted back over their own decks then alee, as the hands sprang to sponge and swab out, to charge and then reload the barrels, to prime the locks and begin to grunt and slave to run out for another broadside…
But another broadside would not be necessary. The schooner was a converted trading vessel with thin civilian scantlings, framed with the parsimony of a skinflint Yankee Doodle, with light timbers put farther apart than naval practice. She was a shambles!
Both masts were sheared off just above her ravaged bulwarks, and she looked like a pheasant that had been gut-shot by a lucky, close-in blast from a fowler's shotgun. Her starboard side bore so many ragged shot-holes, some right on her waterline, already gurgling and frothing with dirty spume and foetid venting air from belowdecks, that there was no hope of saving her. They'd punched her almost to a full stop, and she was already listing to starboard as if to hide her hurts!
"Hold fire, Mister Catterall!" Lewrie shouted forrud. "No need for another. Drop it, lads… dead'un! Wait 'til we corner the next rat! Mister Langlie, helm up, and hands to the braces. Lay us close-aboard yon three-master just off our starboard bow."
"Aye, sir!" the First Officer barked, looking greedy as he began to issue quick instructions.
"Mister Catterall, secure the larboard battery. Next victim, we will engage to starboard!"
The runt-sized full-rigged ship quavered as if shocked, before her topmen began to scramble aloft to free more sail, as hands sprang to the braces to wear her a little off the wind to run due West, winds on her starboard quarter, which obviously was her best point of sail.
"Puts me in mind of a Dutchman, sir," Mr. Winwood commented to his captain, his face screwed up in concentration after a long study with his telescope. "A tad shorter than your av'rage three-master, a lot beamier, and her bows bluffer…"
"Shallower draughted, too, I'd expect," Lewrie added. "Bound to be slow as treacle, even did she have a full gale up her skirts."
"Won't get far, I doubt, sir," Winwood said with a even rarer sniff of satisfaction, nigh-even pleasure; even broke a faint smile on his phyz! The usually stolid Sailing Master rubbed his hands together with a sandy rasping of a practiced tarpaulin man, inured to ropes and exposure half his entire life.
Small she might be, shabby she might be, but the merchant ship was deeply laden with something sure to be valuable. If she was Dutch, she was very far from home, and a very rare sight in the Caribbean with most of the so-called Batavian Republic's colonies occupied by British forces. Holland was occupied by the French, but it was a cooperative occupation, so Lewrie had heard; the "ideals" of the French Revolution had found fertile soil in a fair number of Dutch hearts, who had aided the earlier American Revolution so eagerly.
Allied with the Frogs, sailing from a French port, the merchant ship Was surely up to something nefarious in aid of some joint scheme. She might be gunn'l deep with arms and munitions for Saint Domingue… she was sailing deeper into the Caribbean, not for home. She'd be what was termed "Good Prize."
No wonder Mr. Winwood was rubbing his hands together so gladly-he was already assessing his share of her capture and sale; it was too bad, Lewrie thought, that he was counting chickens that'd never hatch.
"Steer direct up her stern, Mister Langlie," Lewrie ordered. "I wish to get up to pistol-shot before we bear up and rake her."
"You'll not try to, uhm…?" Mr. Winwood gasped, scandalised by the loss of guineas.
"Might be a frigate I saw off Basse-Terre, Mister Winwood," he told the Sailing Master. "No time to fetch-to, and sway out boats for a boarding-party. Well, one boat, perhaps… so we may set her afire and be certain she's a total loss. Sorry. My savings could use infusions of prize-money, too, but…"
He swung back to look at the three-master, now pinned like some struggling butterfly on Proteus'?, jib-boom and bowsprit as the frigate bore a touch alee of her, as if to intersect her course and swing about due West to present the previously used larboard battery. A flag from the Batavian Republic now flew above her tall, galleried stern windows.
It was too far for Lewrie to shout advice to the Dutch captain, though he did glare at the stout figure by her taff-rail and pushed his thoughts at him. Strike, fool… 'fore I'm forced t'kill you!
CHAPTER ELEVEN
N ow where is he going?" Capitaine de Vaisseau Guillaume Choundas dyspeptically said, peering out over the taff-rail of Le Bouclier as she drummed and thundered to the last of the "orderly" chaos of a ship come to anchor into the wind. Topmen were aloft, fisting the last sails by the brails to the yards after the tops'ls had bellied flat aback when she had steered Nor'east to brake to a stop. Men of the after-guard on the quarterdeck swarmed around him to strain against the mizen tops'l and t'gallant halliards and jears to lower the yards to the cross-tree and fighting-top. More men stood by the after capstan, with the kedge anchor's messenger line already fleeted about the capstan drum, waiting for the stern kedge to be rowed out with Le Boucliers stoutest cutter and dropped. The frigate was faintly shuddering as she made a slight sternway, falling back from her best bower, paying out scope on cable run out through the larboard hawse-hole, beginning to snub to the resistance of a well-grounded anchor.
"He is having the time of his life, m'sieur," Capitaine Desplan answered
with an indulgent chuckle. "Your pardons, but he has so many stern responsibilities, for such a spirited young man. And he serves a most demanding master, n'est-ce pas?"
Choundas painfully turned to glare at Desplan, wondering if his comments were any sort of criticism; but no, Desplan still smiled, as if he had no reason to cringe from Choundas's wrath.
"She is shabby and badly maintained, m'sieur, but that schooner handles as lively as a Thoroughbred stallion," Desplan went on. "Once we would have relished such sport… until stern duty, and command of ships and squadrons, forced us to growl at the world. To be that free and young, again, ah, what a brief joy. To dance with your very first little ship, m'sieur? Remember?"
"Umph," Choundas finally allowed. "I do, indeed. La Colombe, she was named, a despatch-boat… she, too, was an American schooner. Aptly named, she was. She flew like a 'dove.' Umph. Well…"
For a brief moment, Choundas had almost seemed human, in sweet reverie of his early days as a newly appointed Lieutenant, not even a Lieutenant de Vaisseau yet. But that moment swiftly passed, and he turned and clump-swish-ticked back to the taff-rail, glowering as little L'Impudente came about and began to gather speed to run into the port, at long last. Perhaps, Choundas thought, Jules Hainaut had suddenly remembered that the noonday meal that Captain Desplan would soon serve would be infinitely better than the cheese, sausages, and vin ordinaire carried aboard the schooner in a palmetto hamper. He was waving, even if the schooner was nearly a mile or more off, all of them…?
"Mon Dieu!" Captain Desplan suddenly exclaimed, grunting as if suddenly punched in the abdomen. "M'sieur Choundas, the semaphore, it sends the alarm signal. What…"
Choundas slowly turned to watch the long arms of the semaphore tower swish, pause, then swish to a new bit of its message; an urgent signal that repeated-Enemy In Sight!
"Capitaine Desplan," Choundas growled of a sudden, stamping the ferrule of his cane on the deck, "get this ship underway, at once. If you have to cut your anchor cables, do it! Vite, vite! Before you lose her. The 'Bloodies' are paying us a visit!"
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