"Their Contre-Amiral Harvey to their Vice-Amiral Sir Hyde Parker at Kingston, perhaps?" Choundas said with a wicked smile. "If she stands on, she falls into our laps. What the accursed Huguenots, the so-called Acadians call a lagniappe, Griot. 'A little something extra' to make our success complete. Stand on, as innocent as you please. I think a false-flag ruse may serve. American would be best. We could appear as a late-season convoy on our way to America. The few trifling excuses for warships the Americans have in these seas are much the size and strength of ours."
Choundas took hold of a mizen shroud and swivelled about slowly to clap eyes on his convoy. Le Gascon and La Resolue lay to windward of the merchant ship and trading brig by at least two miles, out near where the greatest threat could make the most likely approach. One of them, La Resolue, lay aft and to windward, about four miles astern of La Gascon, on the convoy's rear flank. Hainaut's much faster and much handier armed schooner scouted ahead by at least another four or five miles, quartering back and forth like a bloodhound casting for spoor.
Choundas shut his eye, again, recalling how La Resolue looked; could she pass for a merchantman? Perhaps, he decided. Jules out so far in advance of them, though… that would never do. If any ship could resemble a typical American trader, his La Mohican was it.
"Signal to Hainaut," Choundas briskly ordered, his eye and his mouth snapping open, "to take close station at the head of the convoy. Spell that out, if you must. Then make signals to Capitaine MacPherson in La Resolue. He is to close up as the last ship in column, astern of the three-master. No national flags aloft, 'til ordered, and then the first to be displayed will be the American. We will remain in position, to appear as the only escort to a convoy of four, and will hoist the American flag when queried."
"She might not wish to come that close, Capitaine" Griot said.
"Let her fear be only slightly allayed, Griot, let her maintain her present, quick, and direct course for Jamaica, and our bows will at some point come within a few scant miles of intersecting. I think she will bear off a little, to pass ahead of us without forcing us to back and fill, or alter course. And that will be close enough for a quick dash out to snap her up."
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
One brig, sor!" Midshipman Larkin, precariously perched aloft on the main royal yard where it crossed the slim upper mast, reported. "There's one schooner… and three… full-rigged ships, sor!"
"Very well, Mister Larkin!" Lewrie cried back, hands cupped at his mouth. "Now, lay below and make me a fuller report!"
Midshipman Larkin, as agile and sure-handed as the best of the frigate's elite topmen, slung his borrowed telescope like a musketoon and descended to the cross-trees, down the narrow upper shrouds, and then found a back-stay round which he wrapped his limbs and slid like a street-pedlar's monkey to the starboard gangway, where he landed with a solid thump, to a round of cheers and a clap or two from his mess-mates in the cockpit, and the hands. Larkin took a brief second to doff his hat, perform a bow from the waist, then trotted aft to the quarterdeck.
"Show me," Lewrie bade, handing the incorrigible young fellow a wood-framed slate and stub of chalk, and Larkin quickly bent to sketch out several sharp-pointed long ovals, with dashes for masts. Halfway through, Larkin had to snort and snuffle, then wipe his runny nose on his coat sleeve; still panting like a pony from his exertions.
"That's why they put buttons on the cuffs in the first place," Lt. Langlie commented, "so well-dressed nobles wouldn't use fine clothing as snot-rags and chin-wipes, Mister Larkin."
"Sorry, sor… touch o' sniffles. Here, Cap'm, sor. Schooner's ahead, three-masted. Full-rigged ship aftermost, another ship, then a brig, and closer to us, another full-rigged ship, sor. Sir, I mean."
"Standing out like an escort?" Lewrie puzzled, aloud.
"Aye, sir, seemed t'be," Larkin answered, his shaggy head cocked to one side over his sketchy results. "Th' schooner 'twas showin' 'er tops'ls, but begun t'take 'em in whilst I was watchin'."
"Sight of a frigate in the offing, sir, I'd reduce sail and get snug to my fellows, too," Lt. Catterall deduced in his gruff and blunt way. " 'Misery loves company,' so they say, hey?"
"Any flags showing, Mister Larkin?" Lewrie asked.
"None, sor… sir. Though… this ship here," Larkin said, as he tapped his stub of chalk on the slate by the ship closest to them, "she was runnin' up sets o' signal flags, an' then t'others… this'n far aft, and th' schooner, seemed t'answer her, sir."
"Like other escorting vessels, Mister Larkin?" Lewrie pressed.
"Uhm, well… sorta like, sir, aye," Larkin ventured, nodding.
Lewrie clapped his hands in the small of his back and rocked on the balls of his feet, beginning to beam a sly grin. "What, gentlemen, did the learned Doctor Samuel Johnson call it, what was the word in his Dictionary for when you go in search of one thing, but find a better, all unexpected? Mister Adair, you're our resident scholar…"
"It is 'serendipity,' Captain," Lt. Adair supplied, grinning in mounting expectation. "We've discovered the French convoy, sir?"
"I do b'lieve we have, sir," Lewrie replied. "Mister Langlie, a point more Westerly, do you please. Put us bows-on to them, so they see a ship, for now. And I'll have the stuns'ls, sprits'l, and royals taken in, to boot. We may need to manoeuvre hard on the wind. Chain-slings to be rigged on the other yards, and boarding nets fetched out ready for hoisting. Mister Grace?"
"Aye, sir?"
"Bend on and be ready to hoist our number and the challenge in this month's private signals book… the one we share with the American Navy," Lewrie slyly said, "and dig into your flag lockers and get that Yankee courtesy flag ready to hoist as well. With our own near to hand, of course. Hop to it, gentlemen, make it happen, instanter!"
Was the convoy British, he'd eat his hat. It could only be the Americans, or the French-Choundas's convoy! The Jonathons would form much larger convoys, with dozens, or scores, of home-bound ships; and he either knew the names of every United States Navy warship sent to the Leewards to escort them, or he already knew them by sight!
Now, just let 'em hoist Yankee colours, and I'll know for sure, Lewrie gloated; let 'em try to answer with the right signals. Even if they got their hands on 'em, somehow, they can't bluff their way out with false identities/
"Aloft, there!" Lewrie cried to the lookouts. "How stand those American ships, astern of us?"
"Lead ship's nigh hull-up, sir!" one of them responded. "Rest are close astern o' her, showin' tops'ls and courses!"
"Uhm… I'll have to hoist the American flag from the foremast, sir," Midshipman Grace piped up near his elbow. "With the wind on the starboard quarter, and our bows direct at them, they'd not be able to see it plain, else. But Mister Elwes has the private signals ready on the larboard mizen halliards, sir."
"Very well, Mister Grace, scamper forrud and bend it on, then hoist it soon as you may," Lewrie bade him impatiently, and Mr. Grace scuttled off with the "gridiron" flag lightly bound in twine under his arm. Moments later, it was soaring aloft, still a colourful ball 'til it reached the halliard peak block, where a twitch and the power from the wind let it burst open like a bright flower to stream alee. One long minute passed before they got a reply.
"Deck, there! Near ship's hoisted colours… American!"
"Excellent!" Lewrie chortled. "Now, Mister Elwes, hoist away! And make what ye will o' that, Monsoor Frog."
The signals soared aloft and broke out in a string of nine code flags. The "convoy" was drawing closer, the nearest almost hull-up to Proteus, so there was no way they could not reply to them. But Lewrie had to pace about and stew for what felt like five minutes before that lone "escort" whipped off an answer.
"Well?" Lewrie demanded of Mr. Elwes, who was frantically flipping through his signals book.
"Can't make it out, sir," Elwes fretted. " 'Tis nothing current, not in the past six months' codes, at least. She shows a private number
for the USS Pickering, but Pickering is
a Revenue Service cutter, and she hoisted her private number and the reply to our challenge out of proper sequence, sir."
"Then she's lyin' through her teeth," Lewrie gladly concluded, clapping his hands in glee. "Make to her the usual jibber-jaw, 'where bound' and such. Hah! Ask her if she's seen USS Sumter! That'll be int'resting. And on the starb'rd halliards, Mister Elwes, where she can't read 'em… hoist Hancock's number, followed by 'With All Despatch' and 'Enemy In Sight.' "
"American," Choundas muttered, sullenly fuming at this sudden and disturbing revelation. "American, of all things. Signal the rest of the ships to hoist American flags, Griot. We will bluff her."
"Oui, m'sieur, but… she hoists another set of signals. How do we answer them?" Griot asked him, striving to maintain the required sangfroid, but revealing his worry anyway. "She names herself in new codes that we do not possess. We were fortunate I had an out-of-date copy in my desk, but… is she a merchantman, or a man-of-war, we do not know until she closes us."
"Two corvettes and a well-armed schooner against a single brig of war, Griot?" Choundas scathingly sneered. "Merchant or warship, in another hour it will not matter, for she'll be our prize. We do know the code flag for 'Repeat.' Angled as she is on the Trades, her flags are difficult to read. She must come closer, fall a bit astern of us, or press a bit ahead, to make them readable. Close enough for you to sortie out and take her under fire, quickly re-enforced by La Resolue and Hainaut's schooner. Tell them we lost the latest signals book in a hard blow, and must fall back on the old one. Surely, they have it, still, and will accommodate a… fellow countryman." He chuckled.
"Ohe/" the main-mast lookout shouted. "Ships ahoy! Two… no, three ships to the starboard beam, astern of the nearest one! Three sets of topsails, top-gallants, and royals… headed North-West!"
"Merde, that close?" Griot griped, dashing back to the bulwarks with his telescope extended once more. "This near one must have masked them, if we see topsails, already. They could be up to us in another hour or so. Mort de ma vie, m'sieur. What if they are warships?"
"And what if they are a whole convoy?" Choundas barked back, in sudden loathing for the usually stoic Griot's uncharacteristic "windiness." And he'd thought him a Breton paragon, all this time, a worthy scion of the ancient Veneti, courageous as himself!
"They're almost hull-up to us, from the deck, sir," Lt. Langlie announced. "Six miles, perhaps? And our Yankee 'cousins' are closing us rapidly," he said, swivelling about for a peek aft.
"We'll be close-aboard the French in half an hour on this wind," the Sailing Master, Mr. Winwood, soberly opined. "And the Americans, so I do adjudge, will be up to broadsides a half hour after that,
s? sir.
"Mmhmm," Lewrie absently acknowledged them, all ascheme, and a bit too impatient to create a little inventive mischief and mayhem to wait that long. The strung-out convoy arrayed in-line-ahead was split in equal halves by Proteus's bisecting bowsprit. They could haul up harder on the wind and cut them off, they could wear once more and duck astern of them, go dashing for the lee-side and the vulnerably slow escorted ships… which?
Didn't plan on it, but I've led the Yankees to a fight, Lewrie pondered; / commit to battle, and Goodell'd never forgive me for wadin' in before he could get up, and there goes his grudgin' gratitude, and any chance o' future cooperation. Two corvettes, mayhap the schooner is an armed auxiliary, too, hmm… discretion the better part o ' valour, for once? Use my bloody head, for a rare once?
"Mister Langlie," Lewrie finally said, turning to face his execcutive officer. "We will bear up hard on the wind. New course… Nor-Nor-west. Mister Grace, you still with us? Once we're settled on our new heading, you will lower the Yankee flag and break out our true colours. Smartly. And make a hoist to the convoy to heave to and prepare to be boarded, that same instant." To Langlie, he gleefully explained, "we'll sit out here off their starboard bows and let 'em sulk on things for a bit. Pull their hair and kick furniture, if they've a mind. They wish to come out and fight, we'll be more than happy to oblige 'em. Give the Americans the chance to participate, if they dally long enough, too."
"Ohe!" the lookout screamed, a minute after the "brig of war," or the "merchant brig," had worn about, revealing herself as a three-masted ship. "She is anglais!" Choundas ground his teeth, despising the shouts, and the man who made them. "Mille diables, she is a frigate!" he wailed, spreading consternation by reporting so emotionally. "Damn it!" Choundas rasped, stamping his cane on the deck.
"Ohe! She is that devil ship Proteus!" the lookout howled.
"Shoot that dog!" Choundas barked. "Do you not train your men to report correctly, Griot?"
"M'sieur, I…" Griot stammered, as flustered as his sailors at the sight of their nemesis. "How? How did he find us? Who could have betrayed our sailing, after all you did to stamp out traitors?"
"You are French, Griot! You are Breton!" Choundas bellowed in rage, his face gone the colour of red plums. "Behave accordingly, as a warship captain, or…!"
"Ohe, the deck!" the lookout shrilled once more, "the ships to the East are warships! Flags at every mast-head! A corvette, a brig of war, and… perhaps a small frigate, astern!"
"Damn that man!" Choundas spat, glaring upward as if his look could kill. "Lewrie is not a devil, Griot, he's but a man. A stupid, idle, arrogant British… amateur! He sits out there from fear, waiting for the Americans to come up before he acts. Americans! Revenue cutters armed with pop-guns, thin-sided merchant ships turned into poor substitutes for men of war! We sortie now against him, and we'll have nearly an hour to swarm over him. Three ships to one, and with him taken or crippled… Lewrie dead, at last, yes!… they'll stand off in fear of us! Oh, Lewrie dead at long last…"
"Proteus is a Fifth Rate frigate of thirty-two guns, Capitaine" Griot recited, suddenly so calm that Choundas got a crick in his neck from turning his head to glare at him. "Her main artillery consists of twelve-pounders. Her weight of metal is greater than ours, together."
"Get those damnable rags down, Griot," Choundas coldly ordered. "Hoist our glorious Tricolore, and signal La Resolue and La Mohican to form line-of-battle on us. We will fight, and… we… will… conquer, do you hear me, hein? Do it! Vite, vite!"
"And our charges, m'sieur?" Capt. Griot asked. "What should we do with them?"
"Order the convoy to wear about and make the best of their way back to Guadeloupe, Griot," Choundas quickly decided. "If they cannot drive that close to the Trades, they must run East-Sou'east, at least, until we come to fetch them, say. For now, they are no longer our main concern," he disparagingly said, hope, and rage, and a long unused acuity for tactics awakened in his breast, "We have a battle to fight!"
"Three-to-one, sir," Lt. Langlie said, slyly grinning. "Almost even odds, that. After all, they are French!" he japed.
"Takin' 'em long enough," Lewrie grunted back, brooding on the larboard bulwarks facing their foes. "They beat up to us, they'll hope to bracket us. I would, in their position. The lead corvette to lie off our bows, the second abeam, and the schooner t'play the 'bull-dog' and stern-rake us often as she can. Our Yankees?"
"Oglethorpe has worn about, and is after those merchant ships," Langlie said, craning about for a good look. "They're mostly out of it, bound due South, or thereabout, sir. Sumter and Hancock are still bound directly for us, 'bout five miles up to windward."
Lewrie took himself a long look-see, too, feeling oddly calm, and satisfied. Proteus still lay Nor'east of the French, only slowly angling closer to them as the escorting warships swanned about to get ready to fight. They were separated by little more than two miles of water, now, tantalisingly beyond even extreme gun-range. The leading French corvette was bound Nor'west, as close-hauled to the Trades as she could bear. The second corvette was still about a mile astern of the first one, perhaps a quarter-mile alee of her consort, and unable to pinch or claw up closer. The armed schooner showed much more dash, though; her fore-and-aft sails allowed her another point higher on the
eyes of the wind, steering North-by-East, almost bows-on to Proteus's larboard quarter. Lewrie turned to slouch with his right arm on the bulwarks, most un-captainly-like, and squinted at her. He imagined a "dashing" schooner captain might haul up close, then tack and try to rake him, getting in his licks before the others, perhaps to fire up into his frigate's rigging and carry away something vital that would allow the corvettes to get into knife-fighting distance. Well… two could play that game, Lewrie thought. His ship had not yet reefed or clewed up her main course, which would be drawn up out of the way for fear of fire once the guns began to sing; she still had all the power of the wind to utilise. Proteus's yards, though she steered a point "free" of close-hauled, he'd had drawn in loose-braced, not quite gathering as much wind as they could if braced in sharp. Not that obvious to the approaching French yet, letting them gain, but…
Yes, there she went, starting to tack… the ambitious young shit! Get a bit to windward, then tack and fall down on his vulnerable stern… or so he thought!
"Mister Langlie, brace in hard and get a proper way back on her. Then we will wear," Lewrie decided of a sudden.
"And close them, sir?"
"For a while, Mister Langlie," Lewrie cheerfully replied. "In the process, we'll force them to tack, if they want at us that badly, upset whatever they're planning, and… bear down on yon schooner so frightful we'll make her commander squirt his breeches," Lewrie quickly sketched out. "Once about, we will go close-hauled on larboard tack and chase the little bastard, splitting their forces and isolating him. And give the 'cousins' the time to get up and have a proper whack at 'em.
"I'm feelin' devilish generous today, Mister Langlie," Lewrie said with a chuckle. "New course, East-Sou'east."
"Aye aye, sir," Langlie said with a sly grin.
"She wears!" Griot exclaimed.
Havoc`s Sword Page 39