"D'ye hear, there!" yelped the lone lookout who had been sent to the mizen cross-trees to watch their stern, who, 'til that moment, had little to do except cling like a leech to the swaying mast and hang on for dear life. "Hoy, th' deck! Second enemy frigate, two points offa th' starb'd quarter!"
Oh… My… Christ! Lewrie thought in sudden shivers of dread.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
It took a further lightning strike on the sea, one more of those lingering, flickering monsters, to espy the second Frenchman from their decks. Smaller than the first, perhaps, or just farther off? She was running "both sheets aft" with the wind right up her stern, to the Nor'west, or a touch West-Nor'west, bounding, pitching, and slithering over the blue-black, white-flecked sea… for the convoy!
"Nothing we can do about it," Lewrie spat through gritted teeth, his jaw ruefully clenched. "They do work in pairs, and in all this excitement, I forgot that, damn my eyes! Nothin' t'be done but shoot the shit out o' this'un, and Devil take the hindmost."
Which would be Festival, the slowest, Lewrie thought; the poor, old cow! For the only taffrail lights still anywhere near enough to be made out clearly were certainly the circus ship's. Eudoxia! He cringed, fearful for her in French hands… even if she had come within a hair of clawing his eyes out.
"First honours to Mister Adair, and his chase-guns!" Lewrie felt need to shout, to keep his crew's spirit up, and put his own impending fight ahead of anything else. "Let's have tunes more to his liking!" he ordered, turning to face the enemy frigate, which was now surging up closer to abeam of Proteus, and slowly falling down onto her. Desmond and the other musicians launched into livelier, more Scottish airs-" Campbell 's Farewell to Red Castle," "Hey, Johnny Cope," "The Flowers of Edinburgh," and one of Lewrie's old favourites, "The High Road to Linton."
He stood at the larboard bulwarks, the windward side that was a captain's proper post, clinging against Proteus's motion with his left hand on the mizen stays, his right hand beating the tempo of the music… waiting, and shamming utter serenity for his officers and sailors, which was about the hardest thing to do before the iron began to fly.
"Run out the larboard batt'ry, Mister Catterall!" he shouted as the range diminished, and gun-port lids swung up and out of the way to bare their blood-red painted inner faces, stark against the lighter colour of the gunwale hull paint. Black iron muzzles slowly juddered forward as the blocks of the run-out tackles skreakily sang, and everyone could hear Lt. Catterall bellowing at his gun crews in a harsh and loud voice full of blasphemies and good-natured curses for one and all, and their foe, rising to new heights of his burly, rumble-tumble style that had even old salts grinning over his inventiveness.
The Frenchman's gun-ports also opened, her own muzzles seeming to waver as their crews fiddled with their aiming… most likely trying to slide the thick wooden quoins out from under the breeches, with their usual intent to fire high and cripple Proteus with chain-shot or star-shot, to take down her masts and sails, and allow their frigate to dash past, and get at the convoy.
He really have his heart in this? Lewrie had to ask himself, as he steeled himself for the first crashing broadsides. A long slugging match was not what most raider captains had in mind, he knew; the point was to take merchantmen, to pummel a convoy with a rapid strike, cutting out a few before the escorts could intervene and deal out real, cruise-ending damage. Rake in prize-money, and loot, punish the hated Anglais, "The Bloodies," frighten their ships' husbands and sponsors, their insurance cartels, captains, and crews, alarm Admiralty in London, and stop overseas trade, which the British had, but the French did not.
Just a bit closer, Lewrie silently urged the French frigate; just a tad. A cable's distance, or less… double-shotted guns can't miss, that close. Can't waste the first, and best, broadside!
"Quartermasters, put your helm down half a point… easy!" he snapped over his shoulder. Take the wind a bit more abeam, put Proteus on a broad reach and ease the angle of heel, provide a flatter, firmer deck for the guns…! "Thus!" he cried, now satisfied with the course. "Mister Catterall, at half a cable, you may open upon her!"
"Take aim, you rowdy bastards!" Lt. Catterall barked. "On the up-roll… by broadside… wait for it! By broadside… FIRE!"
Twelve 12-pounders, three 6-pounders, and four monstrous 24-pounder carronades roared, almost as one, the great gouts of spent gunpowder smoke caught by the wind, turned into a solid bank of choking fog for a second or two, before the wind rapidly whisked it over the decks and alee. And, that quick-keening wind brought to them the glad sound of solid shot, aimed " 'twixt wind and water," crashing and crunching into the French ship's side, the parroty Rwawrk! screech of shattered planking, the thuds of heavier timbers as her frames were battered… and, the thin, terrified cries of frightened, wounded, or quick-slain men. Just seconds before a matching great bank of gunpowder sprang to life as her own guns stabbed long reddish tongues of flames, and the thunder of artillery bellowed, almost lost in the cracks and roars of Nature's fury!
"Christ A'mighty, aw Christ A'mighty," Daniel Wigmore whinnied, wringing his hands in despair as rain poured down his face like tears from a whole clan upon the death of its laird, plastering long strands of hair to his cheeks. "Me silver, me gold, Cap'm Weed! Me h'animals! 'Em fookin' Frogs'll most-like h'eat 'em, or toss 'em h'over th' side, an' we'll all be ruint! Busted! Tents, scen'ry, costumes, performers all gone… th' girls raped'r worse! H'an't 'ere summat ye can do, I akses ye, man? Christ, we'll lose th' ship, t'boot, iff'n…!"
"Nothing to be done, 'gainst a frigate, Mister Wigmore," Captain Weed told him, looking equally despairing of the loss of his livelihood. "We got all the sail she'll carry aloft, already, and she still wallows like a hog in mud. Might be we could bear away more Westerly, turn it into a long stern-chase, but that'd only gain us two more hours, maybe less. 'Less we could put up some sort o' resistance… which we can't, not with these puny old guns of ours, and no trained gunners, who you wouldn't let me hire on, if ye'll remem…"
" 'Wishes were fishes, h'ever'body'd h'eat'!" Wigmore snapped. " 'For want of a nail…' " Capt. Weed cited right back. He had himself a gloomy squint aloft for inspiration, for an Act of God, or a Sign, but all he saw was dark sails and black rigging, masts, and spars, now and then going ghostly in the lightning flashes. The blue fusee at the truck-cap of the main mast had finally burned out, inspiring him to order the twin taffrail lanthorns to be extinguished, too, hoping that it might make Festival harder for the French to chase in the darkness.
As if to scoff at that forlorn hope, another long, flea-flicking fork of lightning lit up the sea like a full moon, revealing the French frigate pursuing them as clear as broad daylight, revealing Festival to them just as clearly.
"Damn 'em!" Capt. Weed gravelled as he peered about for the rest of the convoy. No matter how deeply loaded with the untold riches from the Far East, the East India Company ships were sleeker, faster, their bottoms cleaner, and carried much larger crews that could make the most of their acres of sail. They'd scarpered for the far horizons, and damn their black souls to Hell for running off and leaving them. Though, in all honesty, were their places switched, Weed would have been halfway to St. Helena by then, and "hard cheese" for the laggards!
Capt. Weed also spotted one lone blue fusee still burning over a pair of stern lights, off to the Nor'east. Another bolt of lightning revealed HMS Jamaica, all too far away to be of any immediate aid, but she had managed to come about in the storm, and was butting, pitching, and crashing as close to the wind's eye as she might lay, almost bows-on to Festival on what Weed thought was a course of South by West, six points off the storm's keening winds.
"Could we but hold them off a few minutes, Mister Wigmore!" the desperate Capt. Weed shouted almost into Wigmore's ear. "Offer up some resistance, there's Jamaica, coming to our…!"
"Wot/" Wigmore barked back, leaning away in shock. "Are ye daft, Weed? R'sistance! Why, 'ey'd shoot us t'kindlin', 'en come swarmin'
h'aboard an' slaughter us all, men, wimmen, an' babes; ye great ninny! Said yerself, we can't fight a bloody frigate!"
"The Frogs don't want to sink us, or slaughter us, sir," Capt. Weed urgently insisted. "They want a prize, a whole prize…"
"O' course 'ey do, puddin' brains!" Wigmore screeched in alarm. "Sure t'God, 'ey h'an't come fer a matinee!"
"To board us!" Weed snapped, going so far as to seize Wigmore by his sopping-wet lapels, wishing he could go for his throat instead, and who needed this job and why had he ever signed on this bloody Ark? "Up close, alongside, d'ye see! Hard enough to do in a storm, already. We have nets to catch your acrobats, do they slip and fall. We could rig them along the starboard side for boarding nets, to slow them down! I know your people have guns, swords, knives, and such, besides our pikes, cutlasses, and muskets. I dasn't trust our rusty old artillery with a full powder charge and solid shot, but I can load 'em light, with scrap iron and langridge. Man-ki\m stuff, lit off right into their Froggy teeth, man! The bears? The lion? Bloody bows and arrows? Your knife-thrower, your fire-eater and his oils? Free the God-damn' baboons if…!"
"You wish Fransooski man killed, Kapitan Veed?" a harsh voice at their elbows rasped, and there was Arslan Durschenko, so loaded down in weaponry that he had trouble standing, his precious rifled jaegers, and at least a full dozen of his long-barreled rifled pistols jammed in any pocket, sash, or belt handy, strapped over with powder horns, cartouche pouches, and accoutrements from his days as an expert marksman, before a flash in a pan had seared out his right eye. "Fransooski not lay one hand on my Eudoxia, yob tvoyemat. I fight the sikkim siyns. Other men, girls, they shoot, too, if you do not. I die Cossack!" he boasted with a free hand pounding his chest. "Not prisoner, and not poor! Rodney!" he called over his shoulder, and up limped little Rodney, swathed in his bandages, which turned eerie blue whenever a bolt of lightning struck. "Malyenki Chorn malcheek… little Black boy, is bolshoi shot and he kill many Fransooski, too! Almos' good as me, yob tvoyemat."
"Ain' no boy, Mistah," Rodney soberly corrected, though without much anger. "I'z a Ord'nary Sea-man in th' Royal Navy, an' a free man. An' I is a damn' good shot, e'en wif muskets. Somebody he'p me upta th' mizen top, an' gimme somebody t'load fo' me, an' I keeps 'em on de hop. Gimme a half-dozen muskets an' I kill as many French as ya wants, sah."
Rodney took a look around as another series of lightning bolts played about them, and raised his unwounded arm to point at the struggling 64-gun Jamaica. "We keeps on a bit mo', dat sixty-fo' be up wit' us, lookin' fo' a fight, an' dat French'un might take a big skeer, Cap'm. Might sheer offa us," he opined with a shrug, and a wince from the pain that cost him. "Be wot my Cap'm Lewrie'd do, count on it."
"The lad's right, Mister Wigmore," Capt. Weed cried, more than ready to grasp even the slimmest straw of hope. "Get guns, everyone!"
"Not go up mast," Arslan Durschenko told Rodney. "Little man he shoot from… poop, da} High enough, and he cannot climb, kanyeshna. I shoot here, close, where I still can see. Eudoxia… nyet!" Arslan exclaimed, to see his daughter on the deck with sheaf's of arrows, and her recurved horn bow. "I forbid! Dohadeetyeh, go away, you!"
"God helpink them who help selves, Poppa," Eudoxia serenely said, wearing a stiff but brave smile, giving her father a fatalistic shrug. "Fransooski peesas no have me, over dead body, da? Neeksgda! Never! You die Cossack, Poppa, I die Cossack! Urrah!" she whooped.
"Bootyeh zdarovi, kraseeva doch, " Durschenko said with a hitch in his voice, and stroked her rain-wet cheek. "I bless you, beautiful daughter. Ya lyubeet tiy. I love you. And, I am proud."
"Ya lyubeet tiy, Poppa," Eudoxia more-sombrely replied, tears welling in her eyes. "Dosvidanya."
"Arr, fook h'it," Wigmore weakly griped. "Mad as 'atters, th' 'ole lot o' ye. H'ever'body, h'arm yerselves, th' law's comin'! I'll go b'low an' git me pistols. Mind now… ye git me robbed an' ruined, an' I'll haint h'ever' last one o' ye t'yer dyin' days!"
"Keep on with double-shot, Mister Catterall!" Lewrie howled to the waist, and the guns. "Keep on hullin' her!" To the four helmsmen manning the double wheel spokes, he added, "Pinch up a'weather, lads. Another half-point to weather. Crowd up to her to shorten the range!"
He paced, feeling every rumbling, squealing movement of the gun-carriages as they were run out, the shock and buffeting muzzle blasts from each fired gun, and the rapid horse-clopping of gun-truck wheels over the main deck planks, sanded that morning to a pristine paleness, but now rapidly turning smutty grey. Each piece that slammed against the extreme lengths of the breeching ropes, he felt that, too, and he could hear the groan of iron ring-bolts in the bulwarks and decks crying out as tons of artillery slammed back, some of them now so hot that they leaped a foot off the deck before stuttering back down in recoil.
Twenty years in "King's Coat," most of that at sea, and Lewrie could sense the rush of the hull, its staggers, reels, and heel through his toes-could wince, too, at each crashing arrival of round shot from the French guns, and was staggered whenever a high-elevated shot chewed large pieces from the larboard bulwarks and gangway. Staggered, too, by shot that missed completely, and went screaming low over the deck, the French guns unable to be cocked up high enough to dismast his frigate. It was only on a lucky up-roll, when the French warship wallowed to nearly level decks, that bar-shot, chain-shot, or expanding star-shot could punch ragged holes in Proteus's sails, or carry away a stay or brace. Frustrated, the French were changing over to solid shot, accepting the unfairness of fighting hull-to-hull as the British Navy did, and attempting to out-shoot and smash up Proteus in like manner.
It was a bit too dangerous to remain by the gnawed-up bulwarks, so Lewrie sidled over to amidships, and paced between the binnacle and helm to the hammock nettings overlooking the ship's frenetically busy waist. Six-pounder quarterdeck guns barked, spewing both round-shot and bags of grapeshot or musket balls as the range decreased, despite the Frenchman altering course to weather a bit to keep away. Twenty-four-pounder carronades belched with titanic roars from fully-charged muzzles, hurling double-shotted loads from their stubby muzzles, then came slamming back on their greased wooden pressure slides.
Lightning flickered, so fast that sweaty gunners were frozen in a jittery series of tableaus as they thumb-stalled the vents, swabbed hot barrels, inserted the flannel powder charges, and rammed them home, once removed from the wood or leather cannisters that the youngest and quickest lads, the powder monkeys, brought in scampers from the magazine. Balls were snatched up from the shot-garlands, gun-captains no longer concerned with perfect roundness or freedom from rust or scales, just load! A solid thump from a flexible rope ramrod to seat them, a quick shove to tamp down wet wadding, perhaps a final chore by a ram-merman to seat a sack of grapeshot, musket balls, or langridge, atop ball, and it was time to pulley-haul, again.
Up to the port sills, an overhaul of the run-out tackle and the breeching ropes, then a leap for the train-tackle, maybe the employment of crow-levers and handspikes to shift the whole gun and carriage just a bit to left or right. Some fiddling with the elevating quoin block under the heavy breech to make sure that the piece pointed true at the blackness of the enemy's hull, as low as possible, and a leap away from the gun, feet well clear of tackle and ring-bolts on the deck, lest the men lose their feet as if scythed away, the gun-captain off to one side with his left arm high to show ready, right hand grasping the trigger line to the cocked flint striker, the priming powder in the touch-hole, and… BLAM! to begin it all over, again, quick as panting, and bare-chested, men could serve their brutal pieces.
Fuck proper aim, at this range, fuck drill and showiness; just fire, load, and keep firing, no matter what was happening around them.
A hard strike, low on the waterline it felt like, with Proteus shuddering as if gut-punched, and almost a human groan forced from her timbers. Another slamming hit, and more larboard bulwark went flying in tatters, a yard's length of oak turned into arm-long, prickly splinters like gigantic, well-che
wed toothpicks that whirred and fluttered with the sound of frantic birds' wings, some lashing and spearing men's bodies as they went, and raising a chorus of disbelieving screams.
A sudden lull, a horrified, hushed second, before Lt. Catterall could be heard screeching raspy for them to "by broadside.. .fire, and murder the bastards!" and Proteus shuffled to starboard to that shove of directed explosions a few feet alee.
And all Lewrie could do, by that point, was pace, observe, and behave stoically, for now that both warships were close-aboard of each other on the same course, their jib-booms and bowsprits almost level with the other, and the range down to less than sixty yards, it was up to his trusted warrants and petty officers, the steadiness of his gun-captains, the stolid courage of officers and midshipmen, the speed and stamina of his crew, despite the horrors they could see on every hand. Did he die, the next minute, it would make no matter. This was what a captain had to do, and no amount of hopping about, waving sword, and crying, "Damn my eyes!" could change a thing 'til it was concluded. And there were horrors.
A decapitated Marine hanging half off the chewed-up gangway, to spurt, then ooze, his blood onto the gunners below, making the deck so slippery that a second bucket of sand had to be cast. The young Marine drummer boy's corpse, and his shattered drum, was slung against the main mast trunk, soon to be disposed of overside through a lee gun-port, to make fighting room. Half the crew of a quarterdeck 6-pounder was gone, strewn like bloody piles of laundry amidships. Another sailor from one of the engaged-side carronades was being carted below on a mess table by the Surgeon's loblolly boys, gasping like a landed fish with a two-foot length of bulwark splinter in his chest.
Somewhere, in all the bedlam, Lewrie could hear the sawing of a fiddle, a mad rush of improbable sound that soared now and again above the deafening, ear-hammering din; but then, all ships' fiddlers were as mad as hatters, as daft as March Hares. Lewrie looked forward, down the main deck between the guns, and saw their fiddler capering a horn-pipe or jig to his own urgent music… over and over, he played, what sounded like "Pigeon on the Gate," and beaming and cackling fit to bust!
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