King, Ship, and Sword

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

They're coming back to line-ahead, sir!" Midshipman Rossyngton shouted down from the main-mast royal yard, a perch even more precarious than the cross-trees.

"Thankee, Mister Rossyngton!" Lewrie shouted back. "Now come to the deck and take your station at Quarters! Hellish-odd," he said in a much softer voice to Westcott as he lifted his glass to peer out for a sign of the foe. "They see our mast-trucks and commissioning pendants, we see theirs, and all else is damn-all squiffy."

"Aha, sir!" Lt. Westcott said, pointing with his telescope. "I can just make out the lead frigate… there, sir! She'll be directly bows-on to us, square on our starboard beam, does she not alter course!"

Lewrie swivelled, found a ghostly bow sprit and jib-boom, about a mile to windward; found jibs and a foretopmast stays'l, then the tan-in-white square shapes of the leading frigate's forecourse and fore topsail. "To windward of us… now they're silhouetted 'gainst the dawn, the damned fools. French!" he sniffed. "They just can't keep it simple. All that elegant jeune йcole bumf they came up with two wars ago, back in the Seventeen Sixties. What odds'd ye give me, Mister Westcott, do they load with star-shot and chain-shot, and try t'dismast us, as their doctrine demands?"

"I doubt they'll have time to turn a whole battery upon us for that practise, sir," Lt. Westcott replied. He was smiling, not one of his brief, tooth-baring flash-grins, but a gladsome, widespread mouth. "There's her main-mast, a hint of her mizen, and… "

Lewrie looked up at the commissioning pendant; their line was on starboard tack, with the light winds from the Nor'east by East, and the French, after their last manoeuvre into line-ahead formation, were now sailing with those winds fine on their larboard quarters.

"And there's their seventy-four, just emerging astern of her," Westcott added as the ponderous behemoth loomed up more solid from the mists, about a cable astern of the frigate.

"Stand by, Mister Spendlove!" Lewrie alerted the Second Officer, in charge of the main guns in the waist. "You will make sure that all pieces fire as they bear, and bow-rake her!"

"Not quite yet… not quite…," Lt. Westcott was muttering to himself, flexing his knees to ride the easy scend and roll of the ship as he peered intently at the lead ship, judging the range.

"Here it comes," Lewrie said with a grunt as the Frenchman's two chase guns exploded from her forecastle at last. Those projectiles did not sound like round-shot; there was a whole, thin chorus of light shot that went soaring high above the decks; expanding bar-shot, chain-shot, and star-shot. "Should've laid a wager, Mister Westcott," he said with another pleased grunt as sails aloft were pierced, a few lines parted, and some splinters were torn from the top-masts.

"I make the range a bit over a quarter-mile, sir," Lt. Westcott informed him.

"Good enough for me, sir," Lewrie told him, then lifted a brass speaking-trumpet. "Mister Spendlove! As you bear, you may open upon her!"

"Aye aye, sir! As you bear! Fire!" Spendlove shouted.

As if paced by a metronome atop a parlour piano forte, the guns began to bellow, from the 12-pounder chase gun forrud, then down the long battery of fourteen 18-pounders, gushing great clouds of powder smoke and amber sparks that merged into a single thunderhead along the starboard side, then lingered and was blown back into the gunners' faces by the light winds, and only slowly thinned and trailed away to the un-engaged larboard side, blotting away their view of the foe for a long minute or so. Aft, HMS Modeste began her first broadside, as well, a greater, louder roaring from her heavier 18-pounders and 24-pounders, spewing out an even denser cloud of spent powder smoke.

"Deck, there!" a lookout high aloft, above the mists and powder smoke, shouted. "'Er foremast's by th' board! Sprit an' boom timbers be shot away!"

Lewrie had a dimmer view from the quarterdeck; even so, he could make out the French frigate's foremast crashing down in ruin, the light royal and t'gallant top-masts above her cross-trees collapsing zig-zag, and yards and sails swirling like a broken kite. The stouter timber of the mast above the foremast's fighting top was leaning forward like a new-felled tree, to drape over her forecastle, roundhouse, beakheads, and the shattered jib-boom and bow sprit!

"Bow-raked for certain, by God, sir!" Lt. Westcott was enthusing. Reliant's guns, or Modeste's heavier ones, no matter; the curved plankings of any ship's bluff bows were not as stout as a ship's sides, with their heavy, closer-spaced frames and thicker scantling. Bows, like the delicate squared-off stern transoms, could be holed, and when they were, the round-shot, all that broken lumber, and clouds of whirling, jagged wood splinters got funnelled down the length of the gun-deck, shattering deck planking, overhead beams, frame timbers, and dis-mounting massive guns, turning truck-carriages into more splinters, snapping the carline support posts… and slaughtering enemy sailors by the dozens!

"Lamb t'the slaughter, Mister Westcott," Lewrie growled, utterly delighted with the mental image of that murderous chaos, the terror, dismemberments, and wounds they had just inflicted yonder. "I don't see why their flag officer's comin' at us this way, but… more fool, him! Mister Spendlove… serve her another! Skin the bastards!"

If the plan had been to get up to gun-range to the British, then wear in-succession and lay the French squadron broadside-to-broadside, that hope was unravelling, fast. With her foremast gone, and all of her fore-and-aft headsails lost with it, the leading frigate was crippled in a twinkling, unable to turn quickly to parallel Reliant. She wallowed and sloughed, trying to wear about Northerly, but she'd been gut-shot from an agile gazelle to a sluggish snail, pressed on by the light winds and slow to wear across them, with her vulnerable, already ravaged bows still offered up for slaughter.

"Ready, lads… as you bear! Fire!" Lt. Spendlove roared.

The starboard foc's'le 12-pounder bow chaser erupted once more, followed by all the starboard beam 18-pounders, joined this time by the stubby 32-pounder carronades-the "Smashers"-and the quarterdeck 9-pounders. The range was even closer, and they could not miss! Over the deafening bellows of their own artillery, Reliant's people could hear the parroty Rrawks! of solid iron shot slamming into her, a loud Rawk- Crack, then the screech of something substantial giving way.

The smoke slowly cleared from their second deliberately aimed broadside, revealing the French frigate's new hurts. She had managed to come about at 45-degree angles, baring her larboard side as if trying to bring her guns to bear, but… her main-mast had been decapitated a few feet above the fighting top, perhaps by a lucky hit from one of the 32-pounder carronades, and the press of wind had brought all above it down onto her larboard bulwarks, the cross-deck boat-tier beams, and her waist. Her reefed main course sail lay like a funeral shroud over it all. If she tried to fire back, there were good odds she'd set herself on fire from the sparks scattered among all that wreckage! Only her mizen mast still stood, flying t'gallant, tops'1, and her spanker. Now she was completely unable to manoeuvre or maintain steerage way! Her Tricolour flag was missing, yet… after a minute or so, someone over there took a small harbour jack Tricolour up the mizen shrouds to the fighting top, and nailed it to the mast.

"Zut alors, monsewer!" Lewrie cried through a speaking-trumpet to them, thumping a fist on the cap-rails. "Mort de ma vie, what're ye goin' t'do now, hey? Sacre-fuckin'-bleu?" he sneered as Reliant swept on past the frigate, putting her on her starboard quarters to subside slowly into the thinning mists.

Yet in those thinning mists, now they were clear of the frigate, Lewrie had a much clearer view of that hulking French 74-gunner! She had been about a cable astern of her consort when the first broadside had been fired. She had yet to be engaged.

"And what are you goin' t'do, sir?" Lewrie asked aloud, as if he could speak with the French senior officer aboard the 74. Modeste was firing as his own guns were being overhauled, swabbed out, and re-loaded. "Decide quick, monsewer, if ye care for yer paint-work!" he added as Modeste's shot began to pummel their flagship.

The lead frigate was now an immobile hulk, unable to sail and making no discernible way except for a painfully slow wheel to the North, laying herself almost at right angles to her flagship's course as that two-decker came on under a full press of sail on the light winds and her captain suddenly faced a horrid choice: wear cross the wind and turn Northerly to avoid ramming into his crippled frigate, and continue the engagement in more traditional line-against-line, or put up his helm and pivot Sou'west to avoid "going aboard" the frigate, and meet Modeste starboard-to-starboard with her massive guns on opposing tacks.

"She turns to face Modeste, she lays herself open to a raking, sir," Lt. Westcott pointed out, shaking his head in wonder at how anyone could put himself in such a predicament.

"Not completely bows-on, Mister Westcott," Lewrie countered, in calmer takings. "One good, sharp broadside into Modeste, and he's the lighter frigates t'deal with, after."

Oh, shit, she's wheelin' t'starboard! Lewrie told himself as he saw her bows begin to swing Northerly; she'll be blowin' us t'flinders next!

"If she clears the frigate, sir," Westcott said, taking a deep breath as the two-decker barrelled down on the crippled frigate, wheeling with her helm hard down and her tall sides heeling so far over her lower gun-deck ports were only a foot or so above the sea.

"Lay us Due North, sir!" Lewrie snapped to his First Lieutenant. "Mister Spendlove! We will engage the two-decker!"

"Aye, sir!" Lt. Spendlove answered, though Lewrie was sure that he had to gulp in alarm first; in great sea battles, the fighting was left to the line-of-battle ships, and frigates stood by to aid any who needed assistance or to repeat signals down the smoky line. They most-certainly did not trade fire with warships that bore three or four times their weight of metal! "That'll open his gun-arcs to nigh abeam," he told Westcott.

"A collision would be nice about now," Lt. Westcott said with a hopeful note to his voice after passing orders to the helmsmen and the brace-tending hands.

"It could get int'restin' in a minute or two, either way, sir," Lewrie agreed. "But, does he get past the frigate, he'll use her for a shield against Modeste's fire. Beats the bow-rake he'd have taken, had he swung Sutherly."

Modeste's guns were hammering the French flagship, hulling her "'twixt wind and water," and raising great bursts of paint, splinters, and engrained dirt from her sides. Heeled over as she was, some shot shattered gangway bulwarks, sending rolled up and stowed hammocks and bedding flying like disturbed nests of snakes. But some of Modeste's broadside was striking the immoble frigate, not the two-decker as she ducked behind her consort in her frantic turn.

Come on! Ram the bitch! Lewrie prayed in silence, and it did look as if the 74's jib-boom and bow sprit would spear into the starboard mizen shrouds of the frigate, but… she slid on past, scraping her larboard bows down the frigate's starboard side. She lost her cat-head timber and larboard bower anchor, and visibly staggered, rolling almost upright for a moment, but… she sailed clear with little more damage to show for it.

"By broadside, Mister Spendlove! Open upon her!" Lewrie cried. "Now, while she's unable to respond!"

Reliant had come up to nearly a close reach to the North, with the wrecked frigate almost dead astern and the French two-decker only two points astern of lying abeam, and she was still turning, as if to fall in trail of Reliant or cut through between Modeste and Lewrie's vessel and re-join her fleeing transport. There was a scramble on the gun-deck to shift the aim of the artillery as far aft as possible, but if they did fire at such acute angles, when the guns recoiled there would be no controlling their backward lurches. Lt. Spendlove looked up at the quarterdeck with a shrug and a lifting of both arms.

Modeste, clear of the wrecked French frigate, was firing again at the two-decker. The two-decker's larboard side erupted in a reply. The range was only about a cable, and everyone on Reliant'? quarterdeck who could look aft let out a groan to see the avalanche of shot that struck Modeste's sides, punched through her sails, and raised feathery plumes of shot-splashes all round her engaged side.

"Cockerel and Pylades are engaging the trailing Frenchman, sir!" Midshipman Grainger called forward. With no signals to send at that moment, he could use his telescope for his own amusements.

"Sorry, sir," Lt. Spendlove said from the foot of the starboard companionway ladder. "The guns won't bear unless we alter course."

"Both batteries, Mister Spendlove," Lewrie answered, leaning to smile at him. "If she's almost dead astern of us, we'll weave about from tack to tack, and rake her bows 'til she takes notice."

"Aye, sir!"

That'll take some of her attention from Modeste, at any rate, Lewrie told himself as he went back to the helm to re-join Westcott and explain what he wished.

"May I suggest we haul our wind to larboard for the first shots, sir," Lt. Westcott posed with a brief grin. "Give her the larboard guns, then come back Due North. Else, our East'rd turn would put us dead into the eye of the wind, and in irons if we're not quick about it."

"Very good, Mister Westcott, let's do it. Mister Spendlove… larboard battery first! We're going to haul our wind!"

"Aye, sir!"

"Two points down-helm first, Mister Westcott," Lewrie decided after a quick look-about. "Get some way on her, and some lead to windward, so we can lay Spendlove's guns dead abeam."

"Aye, sir! Stations for wear!" Westcott called out to the crew.

Reliant surged up to windward, on a close reach for a moment, with braces hauled in, the deck heeling, and the sea swashing more urgently down her flanks. The French two-decker, still duelling with Modeste, shifted from a point off the starboard quarter to a point off her larboard quarter.

"Now, Mister Westcott! Wear her! Stand ready on the guns, Mister Spendlove!" Lewrie snapped.

Reliant lost a lot of her gathered speed as she came about, the decks canting, the masts wheeling cross the skies, pivotting on a wide patch of disturbed, foamed water as she swung to Due West, steadying and laying herself cross the two-decker's course, two cables off…

"As… you… bear, Mister Spendlove!" Lewrie yelled.

"As you bear… fire!"

Hard iron round-shot caromed off the sea round the two-decker's bows, dapping from First Graze to smash into her bows. More iron hit her directly, punching holes into her lower gun-deck, ripping away her figurehead, her curving beakhead rails, and bowling down both her upper and lower gun-decks. Her jib-boom disappeared in a cloud of splinters, collapsing her inner jib and outer flying jib, and her fore top-mast stays. As Reliant'?, shot hit her, Captain Blanding's Modeste delivered another broadside, lower deck first, then upper deck and all her carronades, and the French flagship was visibly staggered.

"Stay on this course 'til she's on our larboard quarters, Mister Westcott, then we'll go back on the wind," Lewrie ordered. "Just a bit longer, so our next broadside's at closer range." "Aye, sir."

"Starboard side next, Mister Spendlove!" Lewrie called down to the waist.

"Signal, sir… our number!" Midshipman Grainger said from aft. "'Engage The Enemy More Closely,' sir!"

"Very well, Mister Grainger… Let's do that. Ready about!" Lewrie replied, grinning. "About… now, Mister Westcott!"

Reliant wheeled about to Due North once more, slowing again but placing the French warship square-on to the gun-ports of the starboard battery, with her at a 45-degree angle, a bit West of her course.

"I leave it to you, Mister Spendlove! Serve her a good'un!" he shouted down to the waist.

God, but I love this! Lewrie thought, imagining that he had wakened from a long, dull sleep; most-like it's all I'm good for, but I need this! Big guns, shot, and powder stench! And killin' Frogs!

"As you bear… fire!" Spendlove rasped hoarsely.

It would not be a proper bow-rake, but the bulk of their fire would slam into the two-decker's forrud larboard quarters this time, the range no more than a single cable, and closing quickly as Reliant crossed the Frenchman's course, almost on the ragged edge of the wind, and the Sailing Master, Lt. Westcott, the quartermasters on the wheel watching her luff damned close, waiting for the very last gun to fire to order the helm be put up, and haul off from North by West.

"Now, sir!" Lewrie shouted as the last gun aft in his cabins erupted. "Full and by, Due North, and let's get some space ahead of her 'fore we try that again."

"Oh, lovely!" Marine Lieutenant Simcock exulted. Until action was at "close pistol-shot" or until a boarding action was called for, he had no proper duties on the quarterdeck, and had been strolling about, a curious onlooker. "That'll ruin their digestion!"

HMS Modeste was meeting Captain Blanding's requirements for three broadsides every two minutes, still deliberate and controlled, not a ragged catch-as-catch-can cannonade resembling the firing line of a hunting party potting pheasant, when ships were so close together that gun-captains were allowed to fire at will. She was taking punishment, but she was dealing it out in spades, compared to the speed and skill of the French. Modeste's last broadside had struck almost in conjunction with Reliant's raking fire, and they had just mauled her together.

Upper bulwarks were disappearing in great clouds of shattered wood; the two-decker's mizen mast was hit below the fighting top and leaped skyward for an instant before crashing down over her quarterdeck and poop, falling to larboard, alee, like a titanic sweep-oar to drag into the sea. With her helm crushed under all that wreckage she began to slew downwind! The light upper masts and top-masts slashed down separately, raking away stays and main-mast yards and sails before slamming down into her waist, as well. She sagged further downwind…

"Wear, Mister Westcott!" Lewrie snapped, seizing the opportunity. "Larboard-battery, Mister Spendlove, and it'll be a proper bow-rake this time!"

The French flagship was losing way, painfully turning alee and sagging towards Modeste's, waiting guns as Reliant came off the wind to a reciprocal course, Due South. The enemy's bows were square-on to her and the range…! Slow as all the manoeuvring had made her, Reliant would be very close this time, no more than 150 yards under her bows for the broadside.

Ruin yer digestion, aye! Lewrie thought in murderous joy, hammering his fists on the cross-deck hammock nettings to urge his gunners to take advantage of this sudden change in fortune; rip yer bloody guts out, morelike! Blow yer bloody heart out! Come on, come on!

The last of the round-shot was being rammed home; the wads were being shoved down the muzzles; quills were inserted; flintlock strikers were cocked, and trigger lines hauled taut!

"As you bear… fire!" both Spendlove and Merriman shouted.

"I think she's struck, by God!" Lt. Westcott exclaimed, opinion lost in the deafening bellows of the guns. "Sir? Captain, sir?"

Ignore him! Lewrie told himself, eyes intent on the damage they were causing as each piece erupted in smoke, flames, and sparks, then leaped rearwards; I want gore!

Reliant sailed on past the devastation, the broadside done.

"Mister Westcott, up-helm and steer Sou'west before we tangle with Modeste."

Their own flagship was only a cable off their larboard beam as they swung away alee of her, scampering to avoid being trampled.

"You say something, Mister Westcott?" Lewrie asked, massaging his ringing ears as if he hadn't quite heard what he'd said.

"I think she's struck, sir. Yes! There's all her colours on the way down, sir! We've beat them, sir! They've struck to us!" Lt. Westcott came close to say, to point his arm at the foe. "Glorious!"

"Ah, well. Hmm, in that case… Mister Spendlove, Mister Merriman… stand easy!" Lewrie ordered, taking out his pocket-watch to ascertain the time, as if it was no great matter at all, although he felt sudden rage to be denied complete vengeance. He had to play-act a proper, phlegmatic sea captain!

"Deck, there!" a main-mast lookout shouted down. "T'other frigate's struck t' Cockerel an' Pylades!"

Fourty-five minutes! Lewrie marvelled; not a whole hour, and it's done? Goddamn the cowardly…!

"Secure from Quarters, sir," Lewrie told Westcott, who was congratulating the men of the Afterguard, the quarterdeck gun crews, and the helmsmen. "And ready the ship's boats to take charge of the foe. Mister Simcock? Work for your Marines, t'guard the prisoners." "Most welcome, sir!" Simcock crowed back.

Lewrie went to one of the larboard quarterdeck carronades and clambered atop it to the bulwarks, then into the mizen stays and rat-lines so he could ascend a few feet above the deck to look things over with a glass. Cockerel and Pylades lay to either beam of the trailing French frigate, all three warships fetched-to, and boats already working between them; she looked mostly undamaged, with all her masts still standing and her sails whole. The first frigate was still wallowing and rocking, and Lewrie could see gushes of water jetting overside from her bilge pumps.

"Two frigates and a Seventy-Four, why, that has t'be worth at least fifty, sixty thousand pounds for the lot!" the Sailing Master was speculating aloud. "Two years' pay for every Man Jack, I wager!"

"Goddamned sham sailors, you bloody, cowardly… bastards!" Lewrie muttered under his breath. "Mine arse on a band-box, is that all the fight ye had in ye?" he said, louder. "Over four thousand or more miles we came… for this, damn yer thin French blood?"

"Sir?" Lt. Westcott asked from below him. "You said something?"

"I said the Frogs are a lot o' poltroons who don't have grit enough for a real fight, Mister Westcott," Lewrie gravelled, descending from his perch. "I s'pose we should come about and work our way under Modeste's lee."

"Marvellous, sir!" Lt. Merriman was saying as he mounted to the quarterdeck. "D'ye know… we've but two hands wounded, none dead? One fellow was splintered in the foremast top, and one of my gunners had his ankle broken in the recoil tackle. Bloody miraculous, what?"

"Signal from the flag, sir… our number!" Midshipman Grainger intruded with a sharp cry. "'General Chase' and 'Transport,' sir!"

"The Indiaman, too, hmm," Mr. Caldwell, the Sailing Master, speculated further. "That might mean another ten thousand pounds, all told. Head-and-gun money on all their soldiers, too, what?"

"She can't be more than… an hour ahead of us, sir," Westcott said, consulting his own timepiece. "Crack on for Pass a La Loutre, sir?"

"Aye, Mister Westcott," Lewrie agreed, pretending to perk up in false glee… when what he wanted to do, most dearly wanted to do, was send his hands back to the guns, barge up to the nearest French ship, and finish the job, the prize-money bedamned! "Mister Caldwell… the best, direct course for Pass a La Loutre, if you please. We've a ship to catch up 'fore dark."

"Aye aye, sir!" the Sailing Master responded, still rubbing his hands together as he turned to the traverse board to consult a chart.

"Three cheers, lads!" Midshipman the Honourable Entwhistle was urging down in the waist as the last cannon was secured and cleaned. "Three cheers for our good Reliant!"

"Three cheers for Captain Lewrie, huzzah!" Midshipman Houghton added. "It's victory!"

Bloody toady! Lewrie sourly thought, squirming inside to hear that burst of cheering, hooting, and clapping in his honour. Oh, he had to recognise it, standing at the forward edge of the quarterdeck, and look down into the ship's waist, where his crew capered and danced in joy of their first battle together, and their victory. He had to doff his hat to them, nod his head, yet keep a stern demeanour. That wasn't all that hard, for anger still rumbled in him for being cheated of the ocean of French gore he so heartily desired.

"Three cheers for yourselves, men!" he shouted as the din died down a bit. "For three rounds every two minutes, and good gunnery!"

That went down like a Christmas pudding, and pleased them right down to their toes. He envied them their jubilation.

"Now, lads… we've a last ship t'take, over yonder," Lewrie told them, pointing Westward with his hat. "and that'll make it a clean sweep. Are ye ready for one more?"

"Aye, sir! Aye! Let's be at em!" they shouted back.

"Then, let's be about it!" Lewrie shouted. "Soon as we're steady on course, we'll splice the main-brace!"

"Best course will be Sou'west by West, sir," the Sailing Master supplied as he turned away from their last cheers.

"Make it so, Mister Westcott." Lewrie ordered. "Sou'west by West, and crack on."