Ponderously, Choundas turned to look out to sea once more; out beyond the canted masts of Hainaut's onrushing schooner. He could see a pall of sour grey-brown smoke a few miles away, could see the tops'ls and courses of a three-masted ship headed South, see a smaller ship to the left of the smoke pall that was turning to run, one that would be a prize capture before the half-hour glass would turn.
Sudden boiling rage surged up his throat, made him wish to howl and jibber at the slackness, the inattention of the signal stations up the coast, the idle, work-a-day shamblers pretending to maintain watch!
And where was that commandeered schooner he had posted to the leeward coast of Basse-Terre to guard against such a raid? If, despite his sternest warnings and implied threats, those hapless island-born Creole time-servers had decided to tuck into the lee of Pointe Allegre and fish, or go ashore for a leisurely three-hour meal, they would learn that his threats were not empty, that even close ties to Governor Hugues would not save them.
But, no-he could not, must not bellow and stamp as he wished. Le Bouclier, caught in the middle of the evolution of anchoring and taking in all sail, was already a madhouse. Her captain, mates, and senior officers already made enough noise to interrupt their matelots' work, then rush to undo all their labours of the past quarter-hour and get way on her again.
Besides, he was Guillaume Choundas, Le Hideux, the ugly monster whom all feared. One thoughtless rant, and that useful aura of terror would evaporate, leaving him recalled as just another panicky officer who'd windmilled his arms and floundered; then, people would laugh at his haplessness and his disfigurements, making him a pitiable object :: of fun with no real authority or respect. No, he could only stand by the flag lockers and taff-rail lanthorns, leaning his bad leg against them, and drum impatient fingers on the silver handle of his cane in an outward sham of calm, as if he were quickly scheming. But aflame with murderous rage. The slack captain of that guardship would pay… and this 'Bloody' anglais, too! Once this marvellous frigate got sorted out and under sail, there was still a chance to salvage things… such as his successful reputation, and his continued career!
"Helm down, Mister Langlie," Lewrie ordered, as the struggling merchantman pressed on Westerly. "Course, due South for a bit. Lieutenant Catterall? Rake her as you bear."
"Aye aye, sir," Catterall shouted back, as mystified as anyone else aboard, aghast at the idea of passing up such a rich prize, of not even firing a warning shot to force her to strike.
Proteus hauled up more to windward, sailors on the sail-tending gangways freeing braces to let the yards swing to ease the press of the wind, and the increasing heel that might angle the artillery too low.
"Open ports!" Catterall cried. "Run out, and gun-captains, aim low!
As you bear… fire!" He slashed down his sword, though no gun had yet crossed the Dutch ship's stern, just a few breaths more and… Standing between the guns, Catterall's view was limited to the bulwarks and the open gun-ports, the cross-deck beams over his head with rowing boats stowed in chocks. To starboard, there was the gangway now full of Marines with their levelled muskets, the end of Proteus'?, main-mast course sail, the ordered tangle of the Dutch ship's mizen-mast rigging, spanker, tops'l and t'gallant, and that Batavian Republic flag that was just starting to be lowered…
Catterall glanced aft at Captain Lewrie, standing four-square by the rolled-hammock re-enforced quarterdeck rails and netting that overlooked the gun-deck. Surely, he'd call for fire to be checked, before it was too late, before… now they'd struck!
The 6-pounder bow-chaser and 24-pounder carronade mounted on the forecastle went off almost as one, a sharpish barking, instantly echoed by a titanic booming, followed by the foremost 12-pounder long-barrel gun in the starboard battery as it slammed backwards in recoil, double-shotted.
Catterall turned back to the target, even more mystified, mouth open to reduce the pummeling on his eardrums as guns closer to him lit off and hurled themselves inboard, looked up as the Marines with their "confiscated" Yankee-made rifles chose targets and volleyed. Up above them and the gangway bulwark, rather significant chunks of timbers and gilded pieces of the Dutch merchantman's stern were soaring skyward in a cloud of gun-smoke and punched-free dirt and paint chips! Catterall heard the Dutch ship scream as her entire stern was hammered in, could hear the slamming and rending of the merchantman's guts as round-shot, langridge, and grape-shot eviscerated her innards as far forward as her foremast, snapping stout carline posts, knees, and hull timbers like so many frail toothpicks! The broadside swept past him, sternward, gusting hot, foul winds, gushing grey thunderheads of spent powder, and the quarterdeck carronades bellowing last, put paid to the foe. Catterall could hear human screams this time. Their flag was down, blown down, but the Captain was not calling the Cease Fire. Proteus wore about to the West as Catterall's gunners reloaded and ran out once more, to fire into the stricken ship along her larboard side this time, leaving him gaping open-mouthed, unable to feature such deliberate destruction!
"On the down-roll, Mister Catterall! Sink the bitch!" he heard.
"Not bad, not bad at all," Lewrie allowed as Proteus wore about Sutherly after her second crushing broadside. They had blown her stern in shot away both rudder and transom post, then punched great holes on the waterline, where the ever-hungry sea now sucked and surged into her, remorselessly. The merchantman's mizen-mast had been sheered off belowdecks, had swivelled and fallen forward into her main-mast's rigging to drag that shot-torn assembly into ruin as well, to drape her larboard side like a funeral shroud.
"She's afire, too, sir," Lt. Langlie pointed out, his arm extended toward her bows, where her galley fire, still smouldering under the steep-tubs and grills so soon after feeding her complement, had spilled from the brick-lined pits, catching fresh fuel alight. Hot air rippled up from below, distorted and wavering like the air over a forge. Thin skeins of smoke jetted from the gaps in her deck planks or side scantlings as if bellows-driven, with now and then a wink of tiny yellow flamelets peek-a-booing over the bulwarks.
"Saves us the trouble of stopping to light her ourselves" was the grimly satisfied reply he got from Captain Lewrie.
"She began to strike her colours, Captain Lewrie," Peel accused. "I don't see why you had to-"
"Damn you, sir!" Lewrie barked, turning on him. "My word is law aboard this ship, and I'll thankee to remember it! Her flag still flew, her captain had not yielded her up, and I've no time to line my purse, with an enemy man o' war in the offing. D'ye hear me plain… sir?"
"I will be forced to report that," Peel retorted, stung to the quick by such harsh, ungentlemanly language, such a sudden challenge.
"Damn what you report, Mister Peel!" Lewrie sneered, his hands clasped behind his back, leaning forward from the waist, his face close to Peel's, forcing him to take half a step backwards. "We came here to inspire terror, Mister Peel… fear of us greater than any that bogeyman Choundas carries with him. In their navy, their privateers, their merchantmen, alike… sir!"
"But…" Peel was weakly forced to object, taken aback by this new, bloodthirsty aspect to a man he'd always considered competent but too… flibbertigibbet. "The consequences, our repute…"
"Now you just contemplate the implications of that, why don't you, Mister Peel," Lewrie continued, in a softer voice, with slyness creeping onto his face, "while we try our metal with yon Frog frigate. Mister Langlie," Lewrie barked, spinning away, "shape course to stand seaward of the port with the wind a touch forrud of abeam for greater speed. I want us at close quarters with that frigate before she gets a goodly way on. She's still bows-on to the town, maybe had anchors down before being alerted." He lifted his glass to peer hungrily at her measuring speed and distance, warily over-estimating how quickly she could cut cables and make sail, giving the French the benefit of the doubt as to how well-prepared they would be by the time Proteus was level with her. Choundas was rumoured to have come in a frigate. Was this his, under his direct command or not, h
er captain and officers had to be a cut above the usual jumped-up radicals, with skills gone rusty for spending too long in harbour. Lewrie hoped the enemy frigate was the one based on Guadeloupe before Choundas arrived-but he wasn't ready to wager the lives of his crew on this being the case. "Mister Catterall, load and then secure the starboard battery," Lewrie called to his Second Officer, "then double-shot the larboard to the muzzles with grape, langridge, star-shot, bar-shot, and chain-shot. Hop to it, lads! We're going to skin the Monsoors alive!"
" Vite, vite, vite!" Choundas muttered under his breath, as if he could will Desplan and his crew to quicker preparation. The cables had been cut, anchors bedamned, and the bitter ends not even buoyed for later recovery. They could always take new ones from a fearful merchantman. Courses had been freed by energetic young topmen, who had slashed the gaskets away. Clew lines had been freed by men on deck, and the sails let fall on their own, not eased down. Fore course and tops'l were now laid flat aback their masts, and the jibs were fully hoisted, then drawn by human force to starboard to get their frigate's head down alee. The spanker over the after quarterdeck shivered as men of the after-guard tailed on the sheets to drag it over to starboard, as well, to force Le Bouclier's stern to walk windward and twist her more wind-abeam to work her off the town. Blocks' sheaves cried and squeaked as her main and mizen tops'l yards crept up off the rests one snail-like foot at a time, to Choundas's impatient eyes. The enemy ship was hull-up, now, dashing down upon them with a bone in her teeth, all but her main course drawing well, and that sail showing but a single reef, so far. Was Fate merciful, Choundas thought, they might brail it up to reduce the threat of fire from the sparks of her own gunnery, reducing her speed, giving his own frigate a chance!
He looked over the stern, down the long transom post, past the massive pintles and gudgeons and the wide, tapered slab of the rudder. Choundas felt a cold, bleak despair settle in his stomach, as if he'd gulped down a sorbet too quickly. Even with the rudder hard-over, the sea round its blade only barely swirled, little stronger than a spoon in a cup of coffee. A flowing tide would spin eddies greater than that!
He stood erect, shambled about to his right to lay hold of the larboard taff-rail lanthorn-post-and found a cause for sudden hope. The steeple of a church ashore was no longer pinned over the larboard cat-heads but was now roughly amidships, right over the larboard entry-port. She was moving, falling off and making way!
"Vite, vite, sacrebleu, vite!" he urgently whispered.
"What should we do, m'sieur?" the petty officer normally in command of L 'Impudente asked of his temporary, amateur captain.
"Get ready to fight, of course," Lt. Jules Hainaut responded.
"Mon Dieu, merde alors" the petty officer almost whimpered, "but with what, m'sieur?" He waved a hand at L'Impudente's open deck and low bulwarks, where nested a pitiful set of six 4-pounder pop-guns, the shot racks beside them holding a skimpy allotment of balls. There were iron stanchions set into the railings for swivel-guns, mere 1-pounders or 2-pounders, so light that a single man could heave them up from below-empty, at the moment, as bare as a whore's arse.
"With what we have, marinier," Hainaut chuckled back. "Honour demands it. Are the swivels below? Not rusted in a heap?"
"Oui … some," the petty officer shrugged in reply.
"Shot and cartridge bags?"
"Uhm… oui, aussi. But…"
"Then fetch them up, at least four of them, if we indeed have four," Hainaut patiently ordered, "and place them two to each beam for now. I might wish all four on one side, later, depending. Load them, then man the deck-guns."
The petty officer's jaw dropped; he almost dared to roll eyes in derision-did roll them, as he swung an arm at the fifteen men in the crew.
"Officeur, uhm…" Hainaut more sternly said.
"Gaston, m'sieur," the burly man supplied.
"You have met my master, Capitaine Choundas. What do you think he would do with the Frenchmen who shied away from battle? How angry do you think that he already is? After this, he'll be looking for any one or any thing on which to work off his wrath."
"Eu, merde!" the petty officer gasped, paling quickly. "Oui, I see your point, m'sieur Lieutenant. To arms mes amis, to arms! Fetch up the swivel-guns, vite, vite!"
Hainaut held his amusement in check as he watched his "crewmen" scurrying to cast off the bowsings and lashings on the deck-guns, scuttling below to fetch up swivels and powder charges, gun-tools, and more shot.
L'Impudente still stood outward on starboard tack, with the wind a bit before her beam, and with the British frigate bearing down on her like Nemesis, Hainaut thought of a sudden, recalling a scrap of classic lore that Capt. Choundas had crammed into his head whether he liked it or not. His schooner would pass out to sea a good mile before the enemy's course and his could intersect, and L'Impudente could be well out of her starboard battery's certain range. The frigate might try her eye on him, but it would be random and poorly directed, with low odds of a hit. He would be as safe as a babe in its mother's arms.
No, it was the appearance of bellicosity that was needed here, he smugly told himself. Once the frigate was off his own stern, as he held this course, he would tack L'Impudente and come about to tail her.
A few pin-prick irritations up her stern, enough to be seen and remembered by others-such hopeless bravery against such horrid odds!-and his master Capitaine Choundas could no longer deny such a plucky fellow a ship of his own, could he? Even better, Lt. Hainaut fantasised, it didn't look as if today would be a good day for the doughty Capitaine Desplan; his dashing frigate was going to be pummeled unless she got under way a lot faster, and she would barely have time to settle on a course and get her people to their battle stations before the foe was on her.
Poor, poor Navy, Hainaut more-soberly contemplated; always the butt of the joke. Not like the tales I heard, coming up, in the Royal French fleet. Not like how equal the challenge we could make, during the last war. Now… the Republic needs dashing, plucky captains to take on the Bloodies. Captains like… moi!
And if his master was slain in the battle to come (or crippled even more, to the point that he could no longer function), well, what a pity, quel dommage. If Le Bouclier lost a lieutenant or two, resulting in a shuffle from the corvettes to staff her, leaving vacancies on the other warships, his chances for advancement would be just as good.
"What is that British toast I heard?" he muttered to himself as he manned the tiller-bar alone. "Ah! 'Here's to a bloody war, or a sickly season!
CHAPTER TWELVE
Pot this'un, too, sir?" Lt. Langlie asked as a saucy schooner hared off to leeward below their bows, about half a mile off.
Lewrie balefully looked at the potential prey, then forrud one more time, juggling speed and time. Three minutes more, he reckoned, and Proteus would just about be in close range of the French frigate. His gun crews had both batteries loaded and already run out ready for firing, ready… prepared in their minds, as well. To dash over to the starboard side, lever, shift, and take aim at the schooner that was opening the range rapidly, then take time to swab out, charge, reload, and run out, then dash back to larboard and just get their breath back before engaging a real foe… no, it'd only unsettle them. At that moment, they were oak-steady, whilst his view through his glass showed a French crew still at sixes and sevens; all atwitter and thinking dire, fretful thoughts, he hoped.
"Don't think so, Mister Langlie," Lewrie decided. "A waste of shot and powder. Mister Larkin?" he called to his seediest midshipman.
"Aye, sor?" the little Bog-Irish crisply replied in his "Paddy" accent, lifting his right hand to knuckle his hat.
"Keep a weather-eye on yon schooner, and sing out if she comes back on the wind," Lewrie ordered.
"Aye, Oi… I will, sor, Sir," Larkin amended, blushing.
"Very good, Mister Larkin. Now, gentlemen, let's be about it."
Lewrie said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. "I think we will take a page from t
heir book of tactics this morning, gentlemen. Mister Catterall? Your first broadside from the larboard battery will be on the up-xo\ … quoins out. Take her masts and rigging down, at about two cables' range. Second broadside, you will fire on the pent of the scend, double-shotted, 'twixt wind and water, and hull her from then on."
"Aye aye, sir!"
No matter how sternly a British warship was disciplined, and no matter how cool-headed her people were to act when at Quarters, during a battle between ships, the men could not help but snicker, grin, and nudge each other, were they about to serve their foes something novel, something clever and unexpected, and this time was no exception. Alan Lewrie could almost grin in expectation, too, thinking about bar-shot, chain-shot, and bags of grape-shot waiting in the hard iron barrels of his guns. A few hands took time to look back at him as he stood over them at the break of the quarterdeck, beaming with pleasure at his sly-boots knackiness. Ship's boy-servants crouched [round the companionway hatches and on the ladders that led below with leather cartridge cases ready for the second broadside; gun-captains had already selected their roundest, truest 12-pounder shot- two per barrel for a second double-shotted broadside-the best from the garlands, without filed-away rust patches, the tiny dimples and slices that would have been ignored, or hidden in the rush of battle by an extra glob of blacking, but that would send them caroming off-aim when loosed.
"Brail up the main course, Mister Langlie," Lewrie said, with an upward glance. "Wind's freshening. We still 'cut a fine feather' without it." The last cast of the log had shown nigh ten knots, and steering Sou'east with the Trades fine on the larboard quarter, their frigate would still keep a goodly speed, perhaps a whole eight knots. Proteus was aroar with the slick bustle of her passage, her bow waves twin, creaming "mustachioes" that hissed-sang down her flanks. "Four cables, now, do you judge it, Mister Winwood?"
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