The King l-4

by Dewey Lambdin

  "Don't wan' these buggers a'throwin' 'em back, sir!" his man replied, tossing one to soar end-over-end, quickly followed by a second. Two explosions and the whining of broken glass, bent nails and musket balls, quickly followed by wails of alarm. Then Cony was up and throwing the flammable variety, which he had purposely lit and set aside so they would be going nicely when he needed them. These burst with softer whoomps as they shattered and the whale oil splashed on the boat and its fell crew and took light, turning the wails into impassioned screams.

  The swivel-gun lit off, scattering death almost within touching distance, and pirates melted away from their own forecastle to shrink back amidships. Muskets banged, and the swivel-gun man by Lewrie's side screamed as he was flung backward as if hammered with a heavy sledge.

  Lewrie bent to pick up the dropped canister bag. He tilted the long barrel straight up, dropped it down without taking time to ram it firmly home and stuck the sharp end of a linstock into the vent to puncture the powder charge in its flannel sleeve. He had to bend to the deck once more to retrieve the fallen sailor's goose-quills and slow-match. More shots sounded, and musket balls flailed the air over his head, thudding into the fore part of Culverin' bows like hammer blows.

  Cony was still heaving away with grenadoes, ducking and weaving through a sleet-storm of lead. More sailors were coming forward to return fire with their Brown Bess muskets.

  Lewrie blew on the slow-match, stood up behind the swivel-gun and aimed at the thickest part of the throng. He touched off the quill and the world was blotted out for a second or two by the dense blast of powder smoke. When it cleared, there were no more pirates on their feet anywhere aboard the prao except a few stunned survivors in the sternposts, who were cut down with musket fire even as they stood there stupefied.

  "Cony, do you take charge of the fo'c'sle and keep 'em off us!" Lewrie shouted in his ear before gathering up his rifle, dropped pistols, and moving back amidships to reload where it wasn't so dangerous.

  Carronades to either beam were firing every few seconds. The swivels along either bulwark were blasting away, as were the ones aft. Lady Charlotte, he could see, had cleared the waters around her with her high-velocity guns, and Lewrie could spot the half-sunken wrecks of at least three praos. No prao would venture within range of his own carronades, for once hit, they were shattered like tea cups by the heavy shot. Cul-verin's guns had done for three more of them already.

  Lewrie regained the quarterdeck, puffing and blowing to get his wind back, and to get a sense of the battle from the higher vantage point.

  The battery on the point was blasting away steadily, one gun at a time of the three, firing on pirate boats that were making their way for the harbor entrance. The ambush had been badly sprung before every victim was in the killing zone. At least ten boats were off on their way to escape.

  Those three that had landed on the peninsula were still there, their crews just falling back in disorder from a charge against the troops on the crest. He could see red-coated soldiery rising from the rocks and beginning to advance in two lines with their bayonets winking in the sun. And all the while, their light guns were spraying canister and grape-shot into the pirate band.

  Ashore by the main encampment, it was impossible to tell what was going on for all the smoke, but he thought he could espy at least four praos grounded on the beach, one of them well alight and pouring out greasy black smoke. There were three more boats that had sailed for the far eastern headland, and were mucking about in a quandary of doubt: flee for the harbor entrance against those guns on the point, rejoin the fight ashore or tackle the ships again?

  A glowing ember dashed from the rising pillar of smoke ashore, soared in a sinking arc and struck one of the praos, making her shake like a kicked kitten. Within half a minute, the boat was aflame and her crew abandoning her! If it accomplished nothing else this day, his father's heated-shot battery had proved its worth!

  "There, sir!" Hogue shouted as some praos came reeling out of the smoke from the shore, bent on escape.

  "Larboard battery, load and stand by!" Lewrie shouted through his brass speaking-trumpet. "We clear aft, Spears?"

  "Aye, sir, fer now!" the man shouted back as he reloaded the now-hot swivel-gun for another shot.

  "Clear forward, Cony?" he asked.

  "Fairly well, sir!" Cony said with a fierce smile.

  "Bloody hell, what does that mean?" Lewrie fumed.

  Whatever it had meant, it would have to do, for there were now six praos headed their way, rowing madly to get out of the gun-arcs of Lady Charlotte's twelve-pounders. Between Culverin's anchorage and shore there was a half-mile of water. With careful aim and gun-laying, Lewrie could expect his carronades to scour only half that distance, for a carronade was a very low-velocity gun for all its hitting power. The "Smashers" were close-in weapons.

  "Here they come!" Hogue yelled. "Stand ready, gun-captains! Aim for the two lead boats! One and two, take the one on the right! Three, four and five, take the one on the left!"

  Good for Hogue, Lewrie thought! A sensible young man who could see that the lead boat to their right was poorly manned and not much of a threat, while the one to the left had so far missed out on what horrors they were dealing out this day. Lewrie traded his Ferguson rifle for his telescope and saw that the boat on the left had what looked to be eight- or nine-pounders on its foredeck, and the pirates were swarming over those guns, readying them for firing.

  "Fer what we're about t' receive, may the good Lord make us joyful," Murray sighed as the prao got her guns into action. A ball hit Culverin low on her larboard side, making her shudder heavily, while the second struck the bulwarks between number 4 and number 5 larboard guns and turned the wood into a burst of flickering teak splinters, cutting down the gun crews and raising a great howling among his crew.

  "Fire!" Hogue shouted once the praos were within their limited range. Culverin lurched sideways as the guns lit off. The first boat on the right almost leaped out of the water as she was struck, mast and large, leaf-bladed paddles flying in all directions, along with some of her hull. Arabian building techniques with rope and butt-joined board could not take such punishment, and she dropped back into the sea with a great splash as she came apart like an artichoke, spilling her crew into the water.

  The second boat to the left had her foredeck cleared by a hit, guns and men flying as the heavy twenty-four-pounder ball shattered amongst the barrels. Her mast came down and some powder cartridge bags went off with a great burst of dirty yellow smoke and flame. She came to a dead stop and began to sag down off the wind toward the western shore, right into Lady Charlotte's guns.

  "Well, damn them," Lewrie spat. The other four praos were now bearing off under human power, their paddles or oars slashing the sea as they fled east, out of range of the car-ronades that had smashed up their leaders' boats like a giant's fist.

  Lewrie turned to look seaward once more. The battery on the point had sunk one prao, but it looked like at least four would get out through the channel. And the two surviving pirate boats to the east were working their way along the line of the breakers in shallow water beyond the reach of even the high battery's guns. Which was where the four that had challenged him were going.

  "Mister Murray?"

  "Sir?"

  "They're going to get away from us if we sit here," Lewrie said, feeling grim about it and more than willing, if given any kind of excuse, to let them do so. But it was his duty. "Fix buoys to the anchor cables and prepare to let slip. We'll pursue them."

  "Aye, sir," Murray said with a sharp intake of breath.

  "Mister Hogue! Secure your guns for a while. We shall hoist sail, let slip the cables and get underway."

  "Thank God for a simple rig," Lewrie said scant minutes later. It would have taken a square-rigger half an hour to hoist sail, but little Culverin could simply hoist her jibs and gaff-sails, haul in on the sheets to angle those sails to the wind at the proper angle and she was moving ahead and under
control. It made him wonder if a way could be found to rig a larger warship so simply, even if it took four masts instead of three. A fore-and-aft rigged ship with a deep, full-run keel for a good grip on the water so she could go to windward like a witch, with no courses… well, maybe a forecourse to lift the bows, and nothing higher-mounted than large tops'Is. Armed with carronades for the most part, with a few long-ranged muzzle-loaders amidships for…

  "Course, sir?"

  "The mind can do the oddest things at the worst moments," Lewrie murmured, laughing at himself. He might not be alive half an hour from now if he took Culverin into that desperate pack of bloody-handed murderers now intent on escape, and even more dangerous than before. And here he was speculating on naval architecture!

  "Close-hauled on the larboard tack for the harbor," Lewrie said. "We'll have to tack east or end up running aground, but that'll give us a chance to fire into those boats running along the reef line."

  Culverin could point high, but the wind was solidly out of the sou'east, and the best she could do was a little west of due south to approach the harbor entrance on a long board. Leadsmen swung chains to sound the depth ahead of her as she clawed her way seaward.

  "And a half, two!"

  "Helm alee! Off fores'l sheets!"

  Culverin tacked across the eye of the wind, onto a short board back to a heading of about 1 point, about 11 degrees, north of east. But she had gotten close enough to threaten those fleeing praos along the reef line inside the breakers.

  "Ready, sir!" Hogue called to him. "I make it about two cables."

  "Try your eye, Mister Hogue!" Lewrie nodded. "Blaze away!"

  The guns on the starboard side came reeling inboard one at a time. The heavy balls, fired at maximum elevation and laid so close to the edge of the port-sills they almost singed the wood, failed to hit. They landed short, raising great feathery plumes of water into the air. But the praos checked their frantic pace and paid off the breaker line, stymied by fear.

  "Hands to the sheets! Ready to come about? Helm alee!" Alan commanded. He did not want to get too far to the east inside their harbor, for that would put him too close to the reefs to be able to tack to windward to reverse course. To wear ship downwind would lose him every inch of ground he had gained south for the entrance channel.

  "Now we shall try our luck against yonder bastards."

  "Jesus!" Murray yelped, ducking into a half-crouch as a solid shot moaned overhead. "Where'd they get such heavy iron, sir?"

  "That was our battery on the hillside above the fort, Murray," Lewrie commented, standing erect from his own crouch. "I pray those gunners know what they're about with that heated shot."

  "Didn't miss our masts by a boat-length, sir," Murray carped as Culverin sailed right through the ring-shaped splash of the spent shot half a minute later. "An' they haven't got the range for very much longer. Cain't we signal 'em t' stop, sir?" "Ah… uhm, I'm afraid that's one signal we didn't discuss, Murray," Lewrie confessed, suffering another qualm at all he had not considered once again, and feeling the lack of prior planning acutely. "We shall have to trust to their good judgment."

  "Good judgment from soldiers!" Murray gaped with a sour look.

  "Ready the larboard battery, Mister Hogue! Fire as you bear!"

  "And a half three!" the leadsman chanted.

  "As you bear… fire!" Hogue screamed, his voice cracking.

  Now the larboard guns lurched back on their recoil slides and a harsh, stinging cloud of powder blossomed forth, checked at the bulwarks by the winds and wafted back over them, blanking out the world for a minute. When the smoke cleared, the hands cheered at the sight of a pirate boat that was rocking keel-up about two hundred yards away, with survivors struggling and wailing about her.

  "And a half, two!"

  "Ready to come about!" Lewrie called. "Helm's alee!"

  One more close-hauled short board on the starboard tack to the east, perhaps the last they could make as they neared the harbor entrance and the line of breakers. The next larboard tack would take them through the main channel and out to sea. Hogue let loose with a broadside from the starboard guns, once more hitting nothing, but the pirates trapped in the lagoon were too rattled to notice, and shied off again.

  Back on the larboard tack. Breakers growling and fuming. The battery on the point firing at a boat ahead of them and straddling it with two shot-splashes, hitting it amidships with the third ball and shattering it so quickly that it jack-knifed like a paper boat, broke in two and went under.

  "Two more hands to the tiller, Murray!" Lewrie snapped. "Stand by to pinch her up as we cross the bar."

  There was more depth in the channel this time of day as tidal flooding rushed into the harbor, softening the shock. But Culverin could still broach on that deceptively calm-looking swell if she hit it wrong.

  Culverin rose, soaring up on the swell, with a line of spume racing down past her sides, her bow cocking up for the skies.

  "Helm down!" Lewrie shouted. "Luff up square to the wave!"

  Four men threw their sinewy strength to the tiller to keep it from lashing to either side or throwing them overboard. Culverin lay on the tip of the swell, sails luffing and thundering, then began to fall as the wave left her behind, bow dipping until it looked as if she'd bury her bowsprit into the trough and keep on sliding down into the depths. She then began to gather speed after being checked in her slide.

  "Helm up and give us way, close-hauled!"

  It was like rowing a boat across the surf line without going arse-over-tit or being rolled like a stranded whale. Culverin paid off and her sails filled with wind as a second swell gathered her up out of the trough where they could find air, thundering and flapping, then taking shape once more with a series of loud boomings.

  "Hold her no more than a point west of south, quartermaster!" Lewrie turned to say. Culverin soared upward once more, almost forcing him to his knees in her hurry to ascend to heaven, but she was halfway out of the wicked harbor entrance now. Even with her hellish tendency to go to leeward like a wood-chip, they would clear the western shoals under the point if they could only make this course good. To have to tack while fighting those entrance bar swells would be disastrous!

  "Two fathom!" the starboard leadsman howled.

  "Hold her!" Lewrie growled. "Pinch her up as you're able, but for God's sake, hold her head!"

  "And a half, two!"

  The point was astern, the shoals left behind in her wake. He breathed out as the leadsman found "three fathom" then "four fathom." The broken reef wall would be no threat, not on a flooding tide that would put six fathoms over those tumbled ruins. They were beyond the threatening swells, too, out on the open sea.

  "Damn fine, damn my eyes if it wasn't!" Lewrie said to his shaky helmsmen as they eased their death-grips on the tiller bar.

  "Thankee, sir, thankee right kindly," they mumbled, working on their cuds again in mouths gone dry as desert sand.

  "Now let's get after our pirate friends!" Lewrie exclaimed, beaming. "Mister Murray, they seem to be trending east, running for home and mother."

  "Aye, sir. Want t' tack an' pursue 'em now, sir?"

  "Wait until we're safely over this broken reef first, then lay her on the starboard tack," Lewrie replied. "Break out the water-butts for anyone as thirsty as I feel for now. Gun crews stand easy."

  "Aye, sir."

  "Sail ho!" the lookout called.

  "Where away!"

  "Due south, sir!" the man replied. "Four points off the larboard beam! Full-rigged ship, sir!"

  "Damme, d'you think Mister Choate finally got here, sir?" Murray asked. "Now between us, we'll put paid t' these motherless buggers!"

  Lewrie took up his telescope and went up the mizzen shrouds to almost the top platform. He raised it to his eyes once he had an arm and leg threaded through the ratlines and stays to keep himself from falling, and took a look for himself.

  Three masts, pale tan sails, coming on for the island from the sou'
west with the wind large on her starboard quarter. Already almost hull up. Good lines. Frigate-built, he thought. Ayscough chose well.

  A large swell over the broken reef wall lifted Culverin higher for about half a minute. Far off, another swell raised the stranger as well. Lewrie could espy a pale ochre hull with what looked to be a wide white gunwale stripe.

  "Poisson D'Or!" he cursed. "Choundas!"

  Why did he have to arrive now, of all times? Huge clouds of gunpowder hung over Spratly Island. Artillery still fired on those praos yet trapped in harbor or trying to run the gauntlet to sea.

  To see a strange ship giving chase to a pack of pirates fleeing to the east would be the final straw. They could not lure Poisson D'Or into harbor. Choundas would be wise to the game, and sail off for parts unknown, as sure as Fate!

  "Goddamn your bloody luck, you rotten shit!" Lewrie almost wept with frustration. Here he'd just won two battles in a fortnight, done away with pirates by the battalions, had sunk Frogs left, right and center, and all for nothing!

  What to do now, he pondered. One course of action was to go back to seal the entrance to the harbor, so most of the pirates could end up slaughtered. Or, he could pursue the eight who were getting away. If he did continue the chase, he might be able to lure Choundas into action, but the man had long-ranged guns to his short-ranged carronades. Stout as Culverin was, she'd be pounded to bits while he would be lucky to inflict even minor damage to Choundas.

  He raised his telescope again to peer at his foe. Poisson D'Or altered shape. She was turning north, putting all her masts in line, heading somewhere to the east of Spratly Island. To interpose between Culverin and Choundas' fleeing allies.

  "Bastard!" Lewrie growled. For little danger, Choundas would appear to have saved that terrified remnant, driven off an English ship and restored his luster among the Mindanao pirates. And, he would end up escaping, after all, to some port where they had no hope of finding him. "Bastard!"

  Chapter 9

  And you could not pursue him?" Mr. Twigg demanded, sounding as if he did not believe one word of Lewrie's report.