Havoc`s Sword

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.

"Then get us about, too, at once!" Choundas snapped. "Signal to La Resolue to conform to our manoeuvres."

"At once, m'sieur" Capt. Griot said, turning to pass the order to his First Officer, then turning back to Choundas. "Such a tack will bring us much closer to the American warships. Once we engage Proteus they will have time to sail up and take us on our dis-engaged side."

"If I cannot have that salaud Lewrie this time, I will at least damage him in passing, Griot," Choundas growled. "A quick action at three-to-one odds to cripple and kill, then we will break away and go to the rescue of our merchant ships… hacking that puny American brig of war apart in the process. Perhaps even taking her and teaching a lesson to those rustic ingrates. Oh, to be just a mile closer… what Hell we could play upon Lewrie as he wears!"

For HMS Proteus was coming about, first swinging to present her stern to the Trades, then only slowly, handsomely, swinging her yards, jibs, and stays'ls as she wore across the eyes of the wind, offering up her profile to the French corvettes, which were swinging their bows at her as they tacked. The slowness of the British frigate's manoeuvres,

and their tacks, brought all three square-riggers closer to each other- yet still frustratingly out of even a most hopeful gunner's attempt to hit her, one mile beyond Range-To-Random-Shot.

Guillaume Choundas hobbled to the head of the larboard gun-deck ladder, wrapping his left arm about the stanchion for a swivel-gun, his walking-stick tucked under his arm, and thumping his fist on the rails as if to flog Le Gascon into a break-neck gallop. Griot, canny sailor that he was, had the larboard guns run out and the starboard artillery run in near to amidships, to loading positions, to get her flatter on her bottom. Le Gascons, and La Resolue's, bottoms were mostly clean their entries were finer than most, and their length of keel was just a bit shorter than the frigate's. Given enough time, and both corvettes should stride up to Proteus and bracket her between their guns. Lewrie could squirm about₅ but that would only quicken his death.

He looked Sutherly, noting that La Resolue was positioned for an engagement on Lewrie's starboard side, while Le Gascon was high enough to take him under fire on his larboard side, even allowing for leeward slippage, which was unavoidable going hard to windward.

"Your protege, Hainaut, has courage, m'sieur," Griot commented. "His schooner might get to her before we do."

"Yes, he does," Choundas replied, irked that his vital calculations of wind, leeway, and speed were interrupted, yet with a sound of grudging pride in his voice, even so. "Cleverness, too."

"Let us hope more cleverness than brute bravery, m'sieur" Capt. Griot gloomily intoned. "Once we savage Proteus, and get past her, we must bear away Southeast, else we approach the Americans, line-abreast… unable to aid each other, m'sieur" he pointed out.

"I do not fear their rough-cast, home-made, and light pop-guns, Griot!" Choundas declared with a sneer. "American foundries and powder mills are… merde. And their gun crews a pack of clumsy children in comparison to how well you and MacPherson have trained ours."

"Very well, m'sieur," Griot said, keeping his voice neutral, in dread of what Choundas might order in the heat of rising expectations for battle. He feared pointing out how quickly the Americans stalked down on them, were starting to haul their wind a point or so, as if to aim between Proteus's stern quarters and his own ship's bows, and cut them off from pursuit. Capt. Griot was fearful, too, to express what qualms he felt after taking a long look at the trailing "small frigate" that his lookouts had reported, as she loomed taller and taller in his ocular, beginning to appear as massive as a cut-down Third Rate still bearing two decks of guns… Madness, the doughty Griot thought, his heart heavy; we are sacrificed to this ogre's revenge. Madness!

"The Frog schooner's now about one mile off our starboard quarters, sir," Lt. Langlie adjudged, his telescope to his eye, "and those corvettes are a mile and a half astern, but coming fast. One about dead astern, t'other on our larboard quarter."

"And our Yankees only four miles up to windward," Lewrie added, with a satisfied sniff. "Time for some fun, Mister Langlie. Haul our wind and steer due South. Mister Catterall?" he shouted forward, over the hammock nettings. "Stand by, the starboard battery, and take that schooner under fire once we've fallen off! Your best gun-captains, to fire as they bear, mind! Let 'em take their time at it!"

"Aye aye, sir!" Catterall bellowed back, pleased as punch to be loosed on their foes, at last. "Right, you bawdy whore-sons…!"

Proteus heeled, groaning, almost putting her starboard outboard shroud chain platforms into the sea as her helm was put up, as braces and sheets were eased. Once settled on her new course due South, the port lids swung up to make a regular blood-red chequer against the pale paint of her gunwales, and the heavy truck-carriages rumbled and squealed as her 12-pounder guns were run out in-battery. A long minute passed as gun-captains fussed and fiddled with the elevating quoin blocks, directing their crews to shift aim left or right with the long crow-levers to "sweat" tons of oak and iron a few inches. Rope tackles and blocks were overhauled for clear recoil paths, before the experienced gun-captains took up the lanyards to their flintlock strikers, then shot their free fists skyward to show readiness, reducing the slack in the lanyards to the last, remaining inch…

"As you bear… fire!" Lt. Catterall roared.

Bow to stern, her thirteen starboard 12-pounders stuttered out a bellicose thunder, some gunners waiting for the scend of the sea to raise the decks nearer to dead-level before jerking their lanyards; in ones, twos, and threes the guns erupted and lurched inboard, with both guns right-aft in Lewrie's great-cabins adding the final kettledrum coda of a quick Boo-Boom! To Lewrie's ears it was almost excruciatingly… musical!

The French schooner had been almost bows-on to Proteus, following her turn off the wind, and her stunned master had kept her bows-on… most-likely to present the slimmest target he could to that sudden broadside. Great, lovely columns and feathers of spray leaped skyward about her… to either beam, or short before her bows, but terrifyingly close, and bounding upward as darting black specks from First Graze barely slowed to howl, keen, or shriek over her decks or down both of her sides, as if she had been assailed by a flying coven of witches!

Thinking quickly, the schooner's captain ordered her helm hard over to leeward to tack her Northward towards the nearest corvette to escape a second pummeling, hoping to flit beyond Proteus's limited gun-arcs. As she bared her starboard side to them, rolling, heeling, and every sail panic-flogging, Proteus's gunners raised a jeering howl at the sight of holes that their shot had punched in her canvas!

"Now, back on the wind, Mister Langlie!" Lewrie ordered. "All for now, Mister Catterall, sorry! Close your ports, but reload, then stand by to serve 'em another!"

"We've lost a quarter-mile to the corvettes, sir," Lt. Langlie pointed out.

"Aye. Temptin'," Lewrie snickered, beaming fit to bust, with a playful double-lift of his brows, "ain't we. Those poor bastards back yonder, Mister Langlie… they should be running, but they're not. I doubt they could scuttle back to Choundas, 'thout dirtyin' their guns a time or two. He'd scrag 'em for cowardice, else. Counting on it!"

The schooner ploughed on Northerly for a minute longer, before tacking again to lay herself half a mile in advance of the nearer corvette, now up on their larboard quarter. Some quick flag hoists were made, then both vessels hauled their wind a point free, to fall off on a bow-and-quarter line, "lasking," 'til they lay off Proteus's starboard quarters once more, then came back to in-line-ahead, hard on the wind. The far corvette had fallen off, too, to match the distance to leeward that Proteus had lost with her Sutherly swing, all of them yet intent on bracketing, then pummeling, her.

But, by then, they had left it too late, and the Americans were upon them. Sumter swept in, abeam of Proteus and thrashing between on a furiously boiling bow and quarter wave, her gun-ports already opened and her curious bright red figurehead of a fighting cock with its neck outstretched and its wings spread in anger catching the reflections of sea-glint and appearing as if alive.

The French schooner hauled her wind, again, ducking to leeward to upset the aim of Sumter's larboard gunners, showing the Yankee her stern. As she turned, she fired a ragged salvo from her larboard pop-guns, moments before Sumter returned the favour, and the sea about her frothed, leaped, and feathered anew with near-misses. And the schooner visibly trembled as heavy round-shot hammered into her. The French corvette astern of her hauled her wind, too, beginning to swing Sutherly. To stand on close-hauled to windward would open her vulnerable bows to a punishing rake, and to haul her wind too late would make the bow-rake even closer and more damaging! She would match her larboard guns to Sumter's starboard cannon while running for home, and hope for the best!

While Hancock, massive as a rocky island fortress, bore down on the farther corvette, remaining upwind of her to oppose larboard guns to larboard guns… and just slavering for the Frenchman to haul off and expose her fragile stern timbers.

"Mister Catterall, stand by to engage the schooner, again! Do you haul off South, Mister Langlie," Lewrie bade.

Sumter arrowed in at an angle before swinging abeam of her foe, and both broadsides went off almost as one, instantly wreathing both ships in an angry grey thunderhead of spent powder smoke; upon which the schooner stood out in stark profile after Proteus had altered her course. The range was only half a mile, this time, but…

"Hold fire, Mister Catterall, 'til she sails below Sumter! We don't want t'hit our friends with 'overs'!" Lewrie cautioned. But all four vessels were running off the wind to the Suth'rd, denying Proteus a clean shot for long minutes whilst topmen aboard the schooner raked her tops'l gaskets free and let her extra canvas fall. With more sail aloft, she slowly began to inch ahead-then had the sauce to let loose her starboard guns at Sumter's dis-engaged side, and, once settled down on course, raised her larboard ports and let fly at Proteus, to boot! The sharp, yipping bangs didn't amount to guns much larger than 4-pounders, and her small-diametre shot grazed twice or thrice, before sinking close-aboard with no effect, but Lewrie found it galling. And, as she finally sailed alee of Sumter and the battling corvette, out in clear air where they could fire on her, Proteus had to swing two points to windward so her guns could bear, even as the range began to open…

"Fire!" Lt. Catterall at last could howl, slashing his sword at the

deck after long stomp-about-cursing moments of utter frustration. Low-aimed roundshot pillared and columned the waters round the French schooner, bounding from First Graze to dash low over her decks, gnaw a vicious bite from her bulwarks here and there, but… she sailed on, still firing-as if it were an equal contest!

"Point more to windward, Mister Langlie! Hit her, again, lads! Gut that poxy, slug-eatin' whore!" Lewrie raged, knowing that the schooner was out-footing his frigate, that if they didn't cripple her soon, he'd be forced to fall in astern of her and spin out a day-long stern-chase in hopes of a few lucky hits from his forward chase-guns to whittle off her speed advantage. Had he been able to fire on her when she'd been closer, and dead abeam…!

Far down to leeward, USS Oglethorpe had merged with those fleeing merchantmen, a quick peek with a glass showed him. It looked like they had already struck their colours and fetched-to.

There goes all hope o'profit, Lewrie miserably surmised; damme. .. / said / was feelin ' generous, but not that generous, by God!

"Hancock is engaging, Captain!" Lt. Langlie screeched, the only way he could be heard over the general din.

"This ought t'be int'resting," Lewrie muttered, turning aft.

The American frigate had clewed up her main course, and had let her way fall off a bit. Better than a mile and a half astern, she now appeared close enough to the French corvette to crash her yardarm tips against the French ship's yard ends, though there probably remained at least two cables' separation between them.

There was a concerted crash as Hancock's weather-deck guns, the 12-pounders mounted on her stout and wide gangway, went off together, stabbing hot amber and red daggers at the corvette, creating a pall of gun-smoke that drifted down on the French warship. And the corvette's sails and yards were savaged, spindly top-masts and shattered yardarms sent flying in ragged chunks, her dun-coloured sails clawed and bitten into great rents, whipping and collapsing in on themselves.

Hancock altered course in the last seconds as the two warships images overlapped, laying her beam parallel to the French ship's side, and then…

"God help the Frogs," Lewrie muttered; rather insincerely, that.

Hancock's heavy lower-deck 24-pounders raged, and even at that distance it looked as if the corvette rocked and tipped, bobbing like a folded-paper boat on a pond, assailed by a heaping handful of pebbles flung by a spiteful child. Then, almost mercifully, all sight of her was blotted out by a titanic pall of powder smoke that blew down upon her, hiding her hurts from view. Even hidden, Hancock's massive guns, firing as they bore and not in broadside, still thundered.

"Gawd!" was all that Lt. Langlie could say after seeing that.

"Exeunt, one French corvette, stage left," Lewrie said, awed by such a powerful display. "Damme if she ain't completely dis-masted… right down to the level of her bulwarks," he pointed out, as the smoke drifted alee and clear of the corvette, which now wallowed with all her motive power, and most of her way, stolen.

For their own part, Lt. Catterall was getting off another broadside at the French schooner, gnawing her just a bit more, peppering the sea about her, but inflicting no lasting harm. Proteus had to turn up to windward two more points to keep her guns aimed at her, but at the same time the schooner was hardening up to the Trades, too, and was in the lead, curving out a course ahead of their frigate's starboard bow.

Lewrie grimaced in frustration. The schooner would prove to be handier and more weatherly. Proteus could press up another point, and then she'd be close-hauled, sailing on the ragged edge of the wind and could go no higher. The schooner with its fore-and-aft sails could go at least a point higher, and end up directly ahead of them, where only the pair of chase-guns could worry at her, and not very effectively at that, as the bows plunged and soared, bludgeoning their way windward.

Within an hour, Lewrie knew, the schooner would be far enough up to windward on the larboard bows that only one chase-gun could fire; a swing to leeward to use all his larboard battery would put Proteus even farther behind and alee. One hour more, and the schooner would be out of gun-range.

He looked about for aid, but there was none. Oglethorpe was now back under sail after securing her two prizes, but was too far down in the South, alee of Proteus, to be of any avail. Oh, he could continue to chase the schooner, but he doubted he could catch her this side of Guadeloupe, unless something in her rigging carried away.

Lewrie drew a deep breath, held it, then let it out in a bitter sigh. He had the Americans to flatter and congratulate, in hopes that their sudden and complete victory might make them so giddy they might leap at continued cooperation, even alliance; and that was worth much more in the long run than a puny armed schooner taken as prize.

A lack of gunfire turned his attention Westerly. Far off, now almost hull-down, Sumter and the other French corvette had ceased firing, and were now cocked up to windward, fetched-to. No flag flew on the Frenchman's masts.

"Well, damme," Lewrie groaned aloud. "Might as well secure the guns, Mister Langlie. We'll not overhaul our Chase before beaching us on Guadeloupe. Do you concur, sir? Or do you prefer a shore supper? "

"Sadly, I do, sir," Langlie said, pouting with distaste and disappointment. "Game's not worth the candle. That is one fortunate Frog captain, out yonder. Skillful, too, sir."

"Aye, damn him… whoever he is," Lewrie spat. "I fear we will hear more from him, in future. Very well, sir. Secure the guns, then get us about and lay us alongside Hancock. Where I must come over all 'Merry Andrew' and back-slap 'em. Makes me wish Mister Pelham had got aboard before we sailed… he'd know how to 'piss down their backs' in the proper manner. He's the smarmy skill to appear sincere."

" 'Til they serve him boiled okra, sir," his First Lieutenant chirped, tongue-in-cheek. "Green, boiled, disgusting… did he not say, Captain? With a dash of ground coal stirred in, too, sir."

"Hey?"

"Okra, and ashes from a coke furnace, Captain… okra-coke, do ye see?" Langlie further japed.

"Now you're really reaching, Mister Langlie. Lame, lame, lame!"

"Very good, sir."