There came a fourth shot from the bow chaser, and another strike 'twixt wind and water, smashing in part of her low larboard bulwarks, and caroming through a rowboat stowed amidships in a cloud of splinters. Lewrie eyed her through the telescope once more.
"Mine arse on a band-box… they're havin' a melee, yonder!" he gasped. "Take a look… they're fighting 'mongst themselves."
"Those that'd strike, and those that'd fight, sir?" Lt. Langlie wondered aloud. "Ah! There go her main and fore sheets… and their flag halliard! She's struck!"
"Cease fire, there! Cease fire!" Lewrie bellowed. "Sir, do you close on the far one, and take her under fire when in range. Chasers only. Rest of the gun crews are to ready a boat for lowering."
"Aye, sir," Langlie responded. "Mister Sevier, keep your eyes on this'un. Sing out, does she renege and try to escape."
The near schooner quickly flashed down the starboard side, and the far one, still not repaired, quickly neared. The bow chaser fired once more, finding the range almost at once, and dropping a ball close-aboard her waterline. And down came her American flag, too! Briefly replaced with the French Tricolour that had barely been two-blocked at the peak of the halliard before being quickly lowered, and allowed to trail over the schooner's taffrails in sign of surrender!
"We'll definitely lower boats for this'un, Mister Langlie. And a Marine boarding party," Lewrie instructed, feeling his chest swell in triumph. Still puzzled, it must be said, but triumphant.
"The schooner astern is underway again, Mister Langlie, sir!" Midshipman Sevier cried, attracting their attention. "She's following us, with her flag re-hoisted."
"Curiouser and curiouser," Lewrie muttered, rubbing his chin. "Fetch us to, Mister Langlie…'fore we end up in Port-de-Paix. Do you keep this'un under our quarterdeck six-pounders and carronades… just t'keep 'em honest."
"Aye, sir."
For long minutes, the frigate and schooner wallowed together, a cable's distance between them, as the labourious process of hoisting up, swinging out, and lowering ship's boats off the cross-deck timbers was carried out. Men from the larboard guns and gangways were ticked off for a boarding party, along with half the Marines, all under arms.
"Hoy!" Lewrie called across with speaking-trumpet. "What ship are you?"
"Comment?" was the reply; and a rather snippy one, too.
"Oh… Frog," Lewrie groused. "Quel navire!"
"Ici c'est L'Oiseau! Un marchand!"
"The Songbird" Lewrie translated aloud. "But a merchant ship, mine arse! There must be an hundred crew aboard her. Her sides are pierced for at least eight guns! Vous кtes le menteur sanglant! Vous кtes un privateer!" he bellowed across. "Vous кtes le prix, а moi!"
He could feel the Surgeon's Mate, the French exile Mr. Durant, wince near his side.
"Your French is… remarkable, Capitaine, " Durant all but tittered.
"Good enough t'call him a bloody liar," Lewrie said with a grin and a shrug of haplessness outside his native English. "What's 'privateer' in French?"
"Privateer, sir," Durant informed him, unable to hide his mirth. "I believe zat is where it came from, ze French."
"Capital! He caught my drift, then." Lewrie chuckled before he turned back to watch more warily as his boats thumped into the Songbird and his boarding party began to clamber over her rails.
"Yankee schooner's passing to windward of us, sir!" Midshipman Sevier pointed out, drawing Lewrie to larboard with his trumpet..
"Hoy, the frigate! Thankee, sir!" a man in a master's coat said as the schooner let fly her sheets to slow and luff up. "This is the Bantam… ten days outta Savannah. Yon French bastard took us off the Berry Islands two days ago. Who do I owe thanks to?"
"End vis ze preposition, tsk tsk," Durant muttered.
"HMS Proteus… Captain Lewrie, commanding!" Lewrie shouted over, then turned to Durant. "My French, his English, it seems. But, what can you expect from our recently departed Colonials?"
"Stood up to us, bold as a dog in a doublet, he did!" Bantam's master was shouting. "Flyin' our flag, with an American doin' all the talking for 'em! I'm Machias Wilder, by the by! Soon as you can hog-tie or chain up yon French bastards, I'd be that proud to stand ye to a stiff drink, Captain Lewrie!"
"And I would be more than happy to accept, Captain Wilder!"
"Probably has no palate, eizzer," Durant lamented. "No cognac. Only raw corn whiskey, I mus' warn you, Capitaine."
"Oh, don't poor-mouth corn whiskey, Mister Durant," Lewrie said, throwing his head back to laugh. "It has its own charm, once you get accustomed."
"I wish to thank you, as well, Capitaine. For ze extract of ze chichona," Durant went on. "Vis God's help, ze four bottle will suffice. I wish to ask, Zo… will we be back in Port-Au-Prince, so I may purchase more from your mysterious source?"
"Can't guarantee anything, Mister Durant, but, does fever break out among us, we'll make every effort."
"Zat is all I may ask, sir. Forgive my intrusion," Durant said, doffing his hat and leaving the quarterdeck.
Odd damn' feller, Lewrie thought as he watched him go; gloomy as anything. Competent, though. We can only hope.
The captured American trading schooner snugged her sheets once more and began to ghost away upwind, out of Proteus's business, for the nonce.
The Royal Navy didn't put much stock in capturing a privateer, Lewrie told himself as he paced along the lee rails facing his prize. Taking a National ship, a warship, counted for more, and the pay-out from a Prize Court was much higher, because a warship was usually purchased into the Navy for re-use. Privateers, though, well… worth a pittance for each gun aboard, along with the "head money" for every crewman noted in her muster-book before capture. There might be more if the privateer had transferred cargo from earlier prizes into her own holds, and that got sold at auction, but most of the time taking one was hardly worth the trouble.
Which way why, he decided, privateering thrived so openly. Most Navy officers didn't want to risk their precious bottoms inshore to chase them back to their lairs, and would let three privateers sail past if there was a chance of taking a rich-laden merchantman, or of winning an honourable fight with an enemy man o' war.
That was one explanation for why French privateers operated so boldly in the Caribbean, and why it seemed that the dozens and dozens of British warships had such abysmal luck in catching them.
But! This L'Oiseau, or Songbird, would fetch them something to show for their efforts, he could greedily speculate; the return of an American merchantman to their control might just result in a reward of some kind, too! Something beyond this Captain Wilder's generosity for restoring his livelihood to him, something official from the United States government, once they found a Consul at Kingston, or…?
"Deck, there!" the lookout called down from his rolling, swirling perch high atop the mainmast as Proteus lay fetched-to. "Sail ho! Full-rigged ship, four points off th' larboard quarter! A frigate!"
"Oh, no!" Lewrie muttered, climbing up the mizen shrouds once more, his telescope slung rifle-fashion over one shoulder. "You're not 'in sight,' ya can't have a penny of 'em. Whoever you are. Not enough t'share, as it is."
Once settled securely, he unslung his glass and extended it 'til he had a shaky view of the new arrival. Sure enough, it was a three-masted, full-rigged ship, heading almost bows-on towards them. From the proud cant of her jib-boom and bow-sprit that hobby-horsed closer and closer, from the thickness of her crossed yards and lower masts, she did look like a frigate! But whose?
He slung his glass again and scampered back to the deck with a bit less decorum than a proper captain ought to display, trying to hide his anxiety as he peered over at the French schooner.
"Mister Langlie, is that prize of ours well in hand yet?" he snapped. "Her crew's been disarmed and fettered, sir, and is now under guard by a file of Marines," the efficient Lt. Langlie replied. "I've placed Mister Catterall aboard her as prize-master, with Towpenny, the Bosun's Mate, as his second, an
d Midshipman Adair and twelve hands to get her under way, sir. If those choices meet your approval, that is, Captain."
"Perfectly. Then let's get under way ourselves, and ready the ship to meet yon frigate. They may have sent a man o' war north, with a clutch of privateers, t'keep an eye on them and their prizes. Once under way, sir, we'll return to Quarters. And someone tell that Captain Wilder over there t'stand well aloof of us, if things go wrong."
"Aye, sir," Langlie replied, without a qualm at the thought of impending combat.
"Deck, there!" the lookout shouted anew. " 'At strange sail is a frigate! She's hoistin' colours… American!"
"Well, whyever not?" Lewrie said, making it a humourous gripe to disguise his own qualms, and ease his crew's, as well. "Everyone else has, hey? But it may be a common ruse in these waters. We will still get under way… just t'be sure."
"All hands…!" Langlie began to cry.
Another hour, with the sun beginning to lower in the west, and HMS Proteus was nearing the stranger, boldly standing towards her with gun-ports open and all national flags hoisted; ready for battle if the strange frigate was lying, but with a query in that month's private signals also flying aloft.
The frigate stood on towards them, as well, with her ports shut, and angling a bit below her bows, to the Westward, as if to cede them the wind gauge and the traditional advantage.
"Pacific of 'em, sir," Lt. Langlie commented. "To sail alee."
"Mmm-hmm," was Lewrie's chary opinion of that.
"Rather a big'un, ain't she," Lieutenant Wyman noted. "My goodness gracious, she must be a forty-four gunner."
"Over-sparred, though, Mister Wyman," Sailing Master Winwood pointed out, "with much too much aloft. You midshipmen take note. Under all plain sail, her masts are as tall as ours when flying royals. Mark the length of her yards, as well. Under a sudden hard press of wind, she'd not get those reefed in safely. She may very well be an American frigate. 'Tis a common mistake I've seen from Yankee yards."
"My word, perhaps she's a fifty-gun Fourth Rate," Wyman opined, finally spotting the second, upper row of closed gun-ports, painted black to match her bulwarks, instead of the white of her lower gunwale.
"The Yankee Doodles built some two-deckers during the Revolution but I never heard of them serving," Lewrie felt prodded to contribute, dredging up so-called intelligence from his advisories. "Most-like, I believe they rotted on the stocks before launch. Their new construction plans may call for two-deckers, but did they need hulls on short notice, they might have razeed one before completion, and outfitted her as a large frigate."
By God, but she is big, though! he thought, daunted by the idea of having to fight her. With a two-decker's much stouter lower timbers and deck beams, she might be able to carry 24-pounders below, and even 12-pounders on the upper gun-deck.
"Razeed ships are rarely successful; though," Mr. Winwood droned on, "for they tend to 'hog' at both ends from the weight of their guns. And without the thick upperworks of a proper ship of the line, there's not enough linear support to prevent it. A long cruise or two is about all one may expect before they're due a serious, and prolonged, refit. In our own Navy, we've experienced such failures as-"
"Signal hoist, sir!" Midshipman Nicholas interrupted. "I make out this month's private signal!"
"So she is a Yankee," Lieutenant Langlie said, managing not to sound much relieved at that news. "Shall we stand down from Quarters, sir?"
"Close the ports, but I'll reserve judgement 'til I hear them speak us, Mister Langlie," Lewrie demurred. "Not 'til I hear a nasal Yankee twang. We will let her close us, though."
"Aye, sir."
And there goes any government reward for re-takin' Bantam, he sourly imagined; not with a Yankee frigate to escort her away. My God… damn!
The big American frigate sailed past, alee of them, taking advantage of the "wind-shadow" from Proteus's sails to reef in and reduce canvas; then rounded up and tacked, once in clearer air. She was well drilled and handled, belying any slurs on Yankee seamanship, and seemed "handy" despite her great length, and the greater freeboard exposed to the wind from her higher sides. Under mostly tops'ls and jibs, as if accomodating the smaller British ship, she angled up to within a cable alee and abeam, at last.
"This is his Brittanic Majesty's frigate Proteus!" Lewrie called first, through a speaking-trumpet. "Captain Lewrie! And whom do I have the honour to address, sir?"
"The United States ship Hancock… Captain Joshua Kershaw! How-de-do, Captain Lewrie. I see you been busy!"
Hancock! Lewrie thought, smirking despite the occasion; sounds like masturbation! Aye, he's a Yankee, right enough. Not Downeast… more like the Carolinas, or Virginia.
Which connexion reminded him too much of his wife, making him hunch his shoulders and wince to dismiss such idle interruptions.
"Buy me a drink, Captain Kershaw, and I'll boast most immoderate on it!" Lewrie shouted over.
"Done, sir! Well met, and let's fetch to!"
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Captain Joshua Kershaw, U.S. Navy, was a hearty older fellow, a tall, bluff, and stout man in his fifties, and in his youth might have been a most handsome and impressive physical specimen. His waistcoat strained over a rounded abdomen, and his thighs were as thick as standing rib roasts. His jowls were round, and he wore a white side-curled wig that was much too small for a head that large, yet he appeared elegant, and well turned out. Though Lewrie did find the American Navy uniform a bit too like the French to suit him.
The turn-backs, lapels, collar, and cuffs of Kershaw's dark blue coat were French-style red, as was his waistcoat, nicely trimmed with gold lace and gilt buttons. His breeches were dark blue, though, not French red, or the usual white.
"Such -a fine ship, sir!" Captain Machias Wilder off the Bantam, Kershaw's other supper guest, exclaimed for at least the tenth time in as many minutes on their abbreviated tour of the Hancock, as he looked over the sumptuous decor of the great-cabins. "Aye, ye're fortunate, sir, t'be appointed into her."
"You are, indeed, Captain Kershaw," Lewrie agreed, keeping professional appreciation-nigh awe!-to a minimum.
"Just goes t'show what American know-how can do, Cap'um Lewrie," Wilder boasted as a cabin servant took their hats and swords. "I pity the French frigate that tries t'cross hawse with her."
Wilder, by contrast, was a wizened little fellow dressed in somber black "ditto," a civilian suiting, and eschewed a cocked hat for a narrow-brimmed "thimble" of a thing, much like what Lewrie's Marines of late were issued. Wilder was a Downeaster, a very brisk, older, classic Yankee from Connecticut, with the stereotypical nasal twang and fast speech that the London stages so delighted in twitting.
Unlike most folk, he wore grizzled grey whiskers and-from the way he had pranced about, all but stamping his feet and clapping hands in paroxyms of wonder on their abbreviated tour of the ship-had made Lewrie think of him as a short-haired terrier puppy, like to soil the deck if he got any more excited.
"For a poor old man from South Carolina, I s'pose I am lucky at that, Captain Wilder," Kershaw said with a proud and pleased simper. "Sit, gentlemen, sit. We'll have us a pre-prandial, before our supper is ready."
He steered them to some wingback chairs done up in red leather and nailheads, and puttered about at his cherry-wood and brass-trimmed wine cabinet.
Lewrie shot his cuffs, settled the tail of his handsome new cotton dress coat, and crossed his legs at the knee, surreptitiously eying the great-cabins, measuring worth; again, he was impressed. There were good figured carpets on the deck, atop a painted canvas covering of a solid colour. Despite the artillery bowsed to the ports, it was an elegant place, agleam with wax on the overhead deck beams and wainscotting. The furniture was mostly cherry or oddly pale washed oak, and was awash in brass, coin-silver, or gilded fittings. On one bulkhead in the dining-coach was a portrait of the ship's namesake, the Hancock of Revolutionary patriot fame. Lewrie dimly recalled that he had done, or said, something in the
large way, but the circumstance escaped him.
This Kershaw was obviously not so poor as he bemoaned, he decided. This was the baronial suite of a rich shipowner or merchant trader.
"In honour of our guest, Captain Wilder, we'll partake of a good Englishman's favourite claret," Kershaw announced, turning back to them with a decanter in one hand and three stemmed glasses nested together in the other. He did the honours of pouring them all a brimming glass.
Wilder went along, though a little irked that stronger spirits such as corn-whiskey or neat rum were not served.
"To your rescuer, Captain Lewrie," Kershaw proposed. "Cap'um Lewrie!" Wilder enthused, before tossing his wine back in one neat slug. Lewrie hoped, for his sake, that it would be a short night! "Captain Wilder is right, ya know, Captain Lewrie," Kershaw said as he topped them up once more. "I was fortunate in getting orders to Hancock. All our major seaports raised subscription money to build or buy suitable ships for this French fracas. Had I depended on waiting for the Charleston, Georgetown, or Beaufort ships t'be built, I'd still be running up and down the banks of the Ashley or the Cooper. Like the joke that's told back home… 'bout the old boy who's flat-broke. If Indiamen went for a shilling, he'd still be running up and down the bank cryin', 'why ain't that cheap'!"
"Man of your reputation, though, Cap'um Kershaw," Wilder scoffed, "t'be left on the beach when the United States needs ev'ry experienced man o' war man, why…"
"It helps that most of the really experienced men were of age in the Revolution," Kershaw chuckled, "Too old now to strap back on the harness. I was only a midshipman in 78. Only served in our old Continental Navy 'til '80, and then resigned my commission to be first mate aboard a privateer."
"That would have paid better, for certain," Lewrie said after a sip of his wine. Kershaw's claret was of a piece with Jean-Pierre's wines at Port-Au-Prince… hellish-good! "And more exciting, too."
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