Not a light showed above the gangways, and the slow-match in the tubs by each gun was shielded from sight and the gunports still were tightly closed so they would not give themselves away.
"Ships in the bay, sir!" The message was passed down from the topmast, from the lone lookout to the maintop to the quarterdeck staff. "Ridin' lights aburnin'!"
"Three men to each gun, excess crews stand easy amidships," Mister Gwynn the gunner ordered softly. "Be ready to leap to it on either beam."
"Lewrie?" A disembodied voice called from the quarterdeck. Lewrie recognized it as Railsford's.
"Aye, sir."
"Do you go forward and remind the boy at the belfry to ring no bells but only turn the half-hour glass at the change of watch." Railsford thought a moment as it neared midnight. "Then take charge of the fo'c's'le."
"Aye, aye, sir."
He went forward, stumbling over men and gun tackle in the stygian darkness until he reached the belfry at the break of the fo'c's'le, where one of the ship's boys stood by the bell.
"You ring that damned thing and the first lieutenant'll have your head off," Lewrie said. "Turn the watch glass, hour glass and all when the small glass runs out, but no bells."
The other two were peering almost eyeball-close to see when the last of the sand ran out of the half-hour glass and did not answer, but only snuffled in anticipation. Alan went on up to the fo'c's'le and the carronade gun crews, making sure the slow-match for the pair of short-ranged "smashers" was safely out of sight on the gun deck first.
"Sitwell," he whispered into the gloom.
"'Ere, Mister Lewrie."
"Stand easy."
"Aye, sir."
Once on the foredeck, Alan could see much better in the night, and the assembly of anchored ships ahead of them were quickly evident by their riding lights in the taffrail lanterns. There seemed enough ships there for a couple of brigades of troops, perhaps enough supplies for a full season of campaigning. The French were in the Chesapeake to stay, certainly. And where they were, there would be Rebel units as well.
"Sitwell, send a man aft to the quarterdeck and request a glass," Alan said. "Neither of the lookouts has one up here."
"Aye, aye, sir."
The hand returned via the gangways with a day telescope instead of one of the precious night glasses. It was better than nothing, but did not gather the light as well. At least I don't have to look at everything upside down and backwards, Lewrie thought, extending the tube and raising it to his eye. Expecting some kind of guard ship at the mouth of the main channel that led to the precious merchantmen, he looked instead off to either side of the bows for a darker, harder shadow in the blackness. Even a rowed cutter could give the game away, and if there were indeed French warships in the bay, it would summon one of them up in a moment.
"Summat ta starboard, sir," one of the bow lookouts exclaimed in a harsh whisper. "Looks like a ship, sir, four points off the bow."
Alan swivelled about and laid the telescope on the man's shoulder to let his arm guide his eye. "Yes, it's a ship, alright, under tops'ls and jibs only. Going away?"
"Cain't tell, sir."
"Sitwell, send a man aft. Enemy ship to starboard, four points off the bow."
"Aye, Mister Lewrie."
Within minutes the messenger was back, a little out of breath from making two trips to the quarterdeck in as many minutes. Even before he could lean back on something to rest, Alan was snapping fingers for him again.
"Run and tell the captain the ship to starboard is slipping aft and appears to be going away. She's six points off the bow now."
"Aye, aye, sor!" the man gasped.
The minutes passed agonizingly slowly as the French guard ship went her unwary way further off toward the Middle Ground and the north end of the ship channel until she was lost in the blackness, her slight wake not even discernible any longer against the pattern of the few cat's paws.
"Guard boat, sir," the lookout called, "dead ahead. A cutter o' some kind, Mister Lewrie."
"Sitwell, pass it on."
"Maple," Sitwell hissed. "Go aft an' repeat the message."
"Agin, Mister Sitwell?" the now weary man complained. There was a meaty sound much resembling a bare foot connecting with someone's nether anatomy and the messenger staggered off along the gangways once more.
Alan could make out the enemy, a large cutter with a single mast and a gaff sail and jib winged out for a reach across the wind. She was crossing left to right ahead of them, perhaps two cables off, but Desperate was slowly falling down on her and it would take a crew of blind men to miss seeing her!
"Anything to larboard?" he asked.
"Nothin' yet, Mister Lewrie," the other lookout replied.
"Sitwell, another man aft. The cutter is heading north towards our starboard, about two cables off at right angles."
"Aye, sir."
They could feel Desperate alter course slightly a few minutes later, angling to larboard closer to the coast, where she would be merely another dark shadow against the hulking darkness of Cape Henry and the shore of the bay, while the cutter went blithely on without spotting them.
"By God, we're in the anchorage," Alan muttered. "Too close in for anything but rowing boats. Everyone watch the surface close in."
Desperate wore to starboard, altering course again as she got too close into the shore, probably at Mister Monk's insistence. They were now closing in on those tempting transports that slumbered with only an anchor watch, thinking themselves protected in a secure harbor. Hands came forward to brail the forecourse to reduce their ship's top-hamper, lessening the chance that anyone would spot her. With the taffrail lanterns throwing long glimmering troughs of reflections on the sea, they could now spot any oared guard boat rowing about the transports much more easily, could catch those flashes from oar looms and the splashes they made. It did indeed look as though they might have some of the enemy as prizes before morning!
Anchored tantalizingly close, the French transport fleet looked like a small seaport town with all its street lighting burning in a peaceful evening. Further beyond the transports, the shore was also lit up with the campfires of a newly landed army, adding to the impression of a town.
Desperate took in all her sails, laboriously reloaded her guns with grapeshot and langridge instead of solid shot to repel any boat expeditions that might want to return the favor on her, and hoisted out the boarding nettings. The nets were hoisted loose and sloppy from the ends of the course yards and cro'jack yard on the mizzen to prevent easy entry over her bulwarks by enemy sailors intent on her capture, and draped in unseamanly bights so that no one scaling the nettings could count on any sort of firm foot or handhold before he was picked off or skewered by the men on Desperate's decks. Finally, the boats were led around from astern and the first lieutenant given parties of men for each boat to form a cutting-out expedition against the nearest French transport.
Lieutenant Peck, the marine officer, joined Railsford in the place of honor, along with half his platoon of marines, four to each of the boats. Cottle took charge of the captain's gig, with six hands and a steady quartermaster's mate in command. Railsford took the barge, Avery the cutter and Alan the jolly boat; only Carey remained aboard ship along with the older and less spry hands who could not be expected to scramble up a ship's side in the perfect darkness and continue on into unfamiliar rigging to put sail on a prize.
Railsford's barge led the short parade of four; the night was so black without even a sliver of moon that it was hard to see the boat next in line unless they were almost touching. The hands stroked as softly as they could, the rowports muffled with old tarpaulin or wornout sail scraps. The natty white-painted oar looms had been hastily daubed with tar to lessen their gleam. The stroke was slow to cut down on any splashes that might be seen as reflections from the enemy's riding lights, and to save the men's strength for battle. The making tide did as much to propel them forward as their efforts at the oars.
A
lan sat on the sternmost thwart of the jolly boat, tiller bar under his arm, and peered intently into the blackness. The rumble and thump of the oars was maddeningly loud, and he licked his lips continually in concern and a little bit of fear as well. It was not merely the unseasonal chill of the night that made him shiver this time. It was the first time he ad ever been on a cutting-out, and he was on the water in the dark, remembering once more that he could not swim. Under the circumstances, he could not even cry out for aid if he fell into the water, but would most likely be expected to drown in perfect silence. Sitting in the open boat was bad enough, but worry about how he would gain the deck of a French ship in the night was uppermost. Once he reached the dubious safety of an enemy deck with steel in hand to fight whatever presented itself was almost a happy afterthought.
What if there are still troops aboard, like the Ephegenie? he wondered, gnawing his cheek unconsciously. We could end up tumbled back over the side at bayonet point. Given a choice of being skewered or shot, I'd take either one over drowning.
More to the point, had Desperate been spotted despite all their caution, and were they now rowing into a well-laid trap which would result in many deaths, most significantly his own?
He noticed that he had clamped his jaws so tightly shut to avoid chattering teeth that his mouth was beginning to ache, and though he was not exerting himself at an oar, he was breathing about as hard as the two men nearest him.
What the devil is the matter with me? he chid himself. It's not like me to be so skittish. Of course, it's my first time for this sort of expedition, but that don't signify. Mayhap it's because I've seen enough in the last two years to know there is something to fear. What if I get killed?
He felt the muscles of his back twitch at the thought and had to shake himself to settle down. I'll try to go game, of course, like a gentleman should. But not to tussle with a wench again, or lift a bottle or two—God, how hellish. Wonder what the world would be like without me?
Probably much better off, he decided after a moment of rueful cogitation, and smiled in spite of his feelings and the circumstances. Lucy Beauman would weep over him until some other swaggering buck came along, which might not be too long a period of mourning, if he knew anything about impressionable young tits like her. No one in London, certainly; he was already dead and gone to anyone he had known there, anyway. David Avery and little Carey might miss him, a few former shipmates from his first ship Ariadne, such as Keith Ashburn and… no, the rest of them had hated his overachieving guts, and it had been pretty much mutual. Treghues? The captain might do a short hornpipe of delight before he remembered what a fine Christian he was and put his solemn Sunday face back on.
A faint sound intruded on Lewrie's musings; the sound of one of his oarsmen moaning softly, a moan of the truly lost with each oar stroke.
"Just who is that ass who's fucking the manger goat?" he snapped, unsticking his tightly lashed jaw muscles.
There was a soft titter of relief from all his hands as their own fears were momentarily forgotten in disgust for some faceless and nameless shipmate more fearful even than they, someone they could despise most heartily because he could not control his fear like a stalwart English seaman, and they could.
"Ecstasy with the French camp followers will have to wait," Alan said, shifting his numb posterior to a more comfortable position on the hard thwart.
"They'd bring women, sor?" someone asked from up forward with an interested gasp of surprise.
"Who knows," Alan answered wryly. "They're Frogs, ain't they? Do be quiet now, and mind your stroke."
A few moments later, they almost went up the stern of the next boat in line, Avery's cutter. The thought of women carried aboard a French ship had indeed lengthened and strengthened their work at the oars.
"Damn you, Lewrie," Avery hissed. "Ease off, there!"
But they were almost at their destination. Out of the black night they could hear wavelets lapping, could hear the faint groan of ship timbers as a vessel rode to her anchors not far from them. This vessel's taffrail lanterns were not burning; only a faint glow from her binnacle by the unmanned wheel as lit and barely threw the loomhint above her bulwarks, as coastal navigation light or the glow of a coastal town will appear just below the horizon. All four boats drifted into an ungainly pod with upraised oars pointed skyward, trying to fend off with their hands quietly.
"Forrester, take the stern," Railsford said in a whisper as they drifted closer together. "Cut her stern cable and guard her watch."
"Aye, sir," Forrester piped.
"Silence, damn you! Avery, do you take the starboard main chains and go for the wheel. I shall go to larboard and send my people aloft to set sail. Lewrie, do you take the fo'c's'le and cut her bow cables. Do not any of you load a musket or pistol until you are on deck. Use cold steel if you have to put anyone down, and try to do it quietly."
"Give way, gently," Lewrie ordered after the other boats began to drift away far enough to re-employ the oars. He put the tiller bar over to steer alongside the French ship in Railsford's tiny wake. They both ducked under the jutting jib-boom and bowsprit, ghosted to a crawl in a tight turn just under the rails of the beakhead, eyeing the loose bights of line from the brailed up spritsail as a possible way up.
"Hook on," Alan mouthed almost silently. "Boat your oars."
Railsford's boat faded out of view into the night and Alan waited, not sure exactly for what. The sound of Railsford scrambling up the side? Or would that be too late? A response from the sleeping French?
"Let's go," he whispered finally, after the tension began to grow on him to almost unbearable proportion. His men sprang into action, going up hand over hand by the bight of line to the beakhead rails, using the bulge of the gunwale termination as a footstep. Alan had no choice but to try and follow clumsily. He was weighed down with a pair of those awfully inaccurate Sea Pattern pistols in his jacket pockets, a cutlass on a baldric over his shoulder, and his dirk hung by a belt frog from his waistband. If I fall in, I'll sink like a stone, he told himself fearfully.
He stepped on the bow of the jolly boat, hauled himself upward with both hands on the bight of spritsail brace until he could hook one claw over the lowest beakhead rail, which was slimy with night damp and the excreta left behind by French sailors. He almost lost his grip as he used the rails for a backward-leaning ladder, but there was a horny hand on his wrist and a great tug that pulled him up and over the rails with ease to the grated platform atop the cutwater.
"Las' shit that turd'll drop, sir," a harsh voice whispered to him with great glee, indicating the Frenchman who was sprawled ungainly like a sack of scrap canvas at his feet. The man had his slop trousers down by his ankles and had obviously had his throat most efficiently and silently cut as he sat musing at his ease.
"Jesus!" Alan gaped in awe, feeling like a very green and unblooded cod's-head at the sight, which he had not expected. "Any alarm yet?"
"No, sir. Caulkin' like lumber, sir."
"Load your musket," Alan ordered. "Watch my back while I load my pistols."
He had already tamped down powder, ball, and wad into the barrels but had left the pans empty and the hammers full down. Fumbling for powder flask around his neck, he snapped open the frizzens of first one gun and then the next to prime his pistols, dribbling powder into the pans. He could not see what he was doing, but hoped that he was being accidentally liberal. He shut the frizzens, drew the hammers back to half-cock, and stuffed them into his jacket pockets once more. He drew his cutlass, looped the short lanyard around his wrist and touched the man with him on the shoulder to let him know that he was ready.
They advanced to the outer doors to the bulkhead roundhouses where petty officers took their ease when called by nature. There was no one there. Passing through the bulkhead, they emerged on the fo'c's'le. In the faint light of the fo'c's'le belfry lantern, they could see that their men had preceded them and had slit the throats of several Frenchmen sleeping on deck in preference
to the close air below decks. Their blood gleamed wet and black in the gloom.
"We've got her," the man said in triumph, baring his teeth in a wide grin and turning to beam at Lewrie, who wasn't sure of anything at that moment.
Then they heard a shout from aft, where Forrester's people should be ascending to the poop deck to take charge of the stream anchor cable and the officers' sleeping quarters, where the small arms would be kept.
"Qui va la?" the shout came.
"Pont de la gard!" a voice called back full of confidence.
"Oh, you unspeakable, ignorant ass!" Alan hissed.
"Merde, alors, c'est I'Anglais!" someone in command screamed. "Aux armes!"
A pistol discharged and somewhere in the dark a man who had been the target—French or English, it was impossible to tell—yelped in agony as he was hit, followed by a large splash.
"At 'em, Desperates!" Railsford bellowed over the sudden alarm and bustle.
"Get that anchor cable cut and set one of their jibs," Alan told the man with him. "Bow party to me. Head aft by the starboard gangway." He knew that Railsford would be on the larboard side, Avery aft by the main-chains to starboard and trying to take the wheel from the awakened French watch party, and most in need of assistance. There were Frenchmen everywhere, as though they had stirred up a hornet's nest, as men who had been asleep on deck in hammocks or bedding on deck rose up and took in hand what weapons they could.
There was a hammock slung before Lewrie, and a man trying to exit the cocoonlike sack. Before he could get one foot on deck, Alan swung his cutlass with all his force and took the man across the neck and chest, bringing forth a howl of Pain as the man tumbled out of his hammock to the deck to twitch and thrash in his death throes.
Several sparks gleamed in the night, then came the ragged crash of muskets or pistols and more cries of anguish. A marine loomed up in front of Lewrie, bayonet lowered and blood in his eyes, howling some wordless shout as he drove for his ribs.
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