THE GUN KETCH

Chapter 8

"Hands is eat, sir. Galley fire's doused overside. An' it lacks a quarter-hour to proper sunrise at six bells, sir," the bosun Harkin reported.

"Very well, and thank you, Mister Harkin," Lewrie replied as he hitched his sword's slim baldric into a more comfortable position under his coat "Mister Ballard, hands to stations to hoist anchor and get under way."

"Aye, aye, sir."

Alacrity had been anchored with her bows pointed north towards Walker's Cay, three miles south of the island, a mile short of where the southern channel narrowed. They hauled her up to her bower with muscle power on the capstan and the help of the current, letting out the stream hawser as they went Sails were hoisted and sheeted home, and as she strained to begin sailing, they buoyed the bitter-end of the stream cable, let it slip, and were under way in a twinkling.

The winds were more nor'westerly that morning, which would be a "dead muzzier" for any ship attempting to flee out the channel that led west from the anchorage and into Walker's Cay Channel. To short-tack in such a narrow gut would be an invitation to disaster, so one escape route was effectively blocked already, and Whippet would have the winds large on her larboard quarter when she drove down the passage with her nine-pounder carriage guns run out and loaded.

"Mister Ballard, beat to Quarters," Lewrie snapped. His men were ready, knowing what the morning would hold. They were blooded by one success, and trained by constant practice to a high level of proficiency. They were almost cheerful as they cast off the lashings of the artillery, rolled them back to loading positions inboard, and prepared their pieces for firing.

"Wind's backed a piece," Fellows commented, eyeing the commissioning pendant aloft as it swung to stream more abeam. "And holding. Might have westerlies once the sun's up and hot."

"Better that than heading us and short-tacking up this damned channel," Lewrie agreed, smiling in anticipation. He felt there was something most agreeable about having Rodgers in command, with none of the awesome burden of decision upon his shoulders this once, and a clear and subordinate role to play. After his independent cruise in the Caicos, this was as easy as sailing with a full squadron.

"Whippet!" the lookout shouted from aloft. "Four points off the larboard bows, 'bout three mile off, sir! Enterin' the pass!"

"Got 'em, by Jesus!" Fellows cheered.

"That puts us about… four miles south of their anchorage?" Lewrie guessed. "Speed, Mister Mayhew?"

"Uhm…!" the midshipman stalled as he cast the chip log in haste. "Six knots, sir!"

"Half an hour to close-broadsides, then," Lewrie calculated in his head. "A quarter-hour if they get under way and try to fight their way out. Aloft, there! What's happening in the anchorage?"

"They be makin' sail, sir! Both ships!"

"Pity there ain't no prize money for captured pirate ships," Fellows sighed. "A full-rigged ship of theirs'd bring a pretty penny."

"Shoals to starboard! Five cables!"

"One point to windward, Quartermaster," Lewrie said with a nod. "Keep her in deep water, well as you may."

"Aye, aye, sir!"

"Shoals to larboard, five cables! Clear water ahead!"

"Center of the channel, then, Quartermaster," Lewrie beamed.

Whippet came gliding east down her channel, flags flying and under all plain sail, a marvelous sight against the dawn. The suspect vessels were now underway, having cut their cables andhoisted courses and jibs, not trying to free any tops'ls. Perhaps short-handed, Alan wondered, with half their crews ashore for some reason? The larger ship could find no escape over the southern route into the Little Bahama Banks. According to the charts, south of Walker's Cay there were Triangle Rocks, Double-Breaster Bars, and the Barracouta Banks, where the depths shoaled to ten feet or less.

"Damned fool!" Lewrie spat as he used bis spyglass from his perch on the after shroud lines, halfway up to the fighting top. The full-rigged ship was turning west to challenge Whippetl And a moment later, he could espy ruddy blooms of gunfire from her! "Idiot!" She fired-a hanging offense!

Whippet veered northerly, wearing ship to bare her starboard battery. Before the dull bangs of the strange ship's artillery had even reached them, Whippet's side lit up orange and red in a gush of powder smoke, the broadside tolling steady as a gun salute from bows to stern. The unidentified ship quivered and pulsed in the round ocular of his telescope as she was hulled. Her main yard leapt free of all restraints and came crashing down in silence, her lower mizzenmast jerked and splintered, sheering off the upper masts to fall like a sawn tree and drape over her stern and leeward side. She bore off to the south to seek refuge.

"She'll be on our shoal if she shaves the southern bank of the channel that close!" Fellows was hooting in derision.

"She'll hope to get past before Whippet can come about," Alan heard Ballard state calmly.

But Whippet wore once more, this time pointing her bows toward Alacrity, heeling over with the press of wind as she gave her foe one more timed broadside. The range could not have been half a rnile, and Alan could see pieces of timber, bulwarks and decking flying in puffs of dust and smoke. The ship bore away even steeper, looking as if her master was trying to tack across the wind, even as Whippet bore down on her for another broadside.

"Schooner dead ahead, fine on the bows, sir!" a lookout called.

Lewrie swiveled about and saw their particular foe about a mile away and closing. Down-sun as Alacrity was, and with their attention drawn to the battle, they might not yet have spotted Alacrity as she came up from the lee of sunrise, dark against the last of the night's horizon.

"Mister Ballard, broadsides to either beam!" Lewrie shouted as he jumped down to his quarter-deck. "We'll wear across the channel to block it. Mister Fowles, your gunners'll have to hop lively for me!"

"They will, sir!"

"Helm up to windward to bare the larboard battery."

Alacrity turned nor'east, almost running with the wind. Her gun ports flew open with a crash, and the hands tailed on the run-out tackles 'til the carriages butted home against the bulwarks.

"As you bear… fire!"

Seven-cables' range; three-quarters of a nautical mile, and cold iron barrels tore the morning apart as the six-pounders barked and came thundering inboard to snub on the thick breeching-ropes! Shot struck fantastkrplumes of spray short of the schooner in a ragged line before her bows.

"Shoals ahead, three cables, deep water to larboard!"

"Helm alee, Mister Neill. Bear up, close-hauled, Mister Ballard!" Lewrie ordered. "Stand by the starboard battery!"

Gun captains transferred to the starboard side while loaders and rammermen, tacklemen and powder monkeys remained to larboard to complete swabbing out and reloading the expended guns. To carry the full complement of five men per gun deemed necessary to serve their six-pounders would have taken fifty men out of the sixty-five adults aboard, so it was standard drill to work both sides short-handed in preparation for moments such as this, and required only thirty.

"Open yer gun ports!" Fowles was droning on. "Done, larboard? Come run out starboard. Gun captains, point! Cock yer locks!"

"Fire as you bear, sir!" Lewrie shouted.

The schooner had turned away to the west, almost in-irons into the teeth of the wind, and, if she held that course, would end up on that uncharted shoal of theirs.

"Fire!" Fowles called as the deck rose up level and hung still for a moment. "Ah, yes by Christ! Oh, well shot, my bully lads!"

They'd fired individually, but on the uproll, which forced them to hurry in tugging the lanyards on the flintlock strikers, so it was more a planned broadside. This time they hit her and she shook like a piece of meat taken by a shark, and paid off the wind in disarray to point her bows at Alacrity again!

"Hands wear ship, ready the larboard battery!"

Lewrie was zigzagging up the channel, blocking any hope of escape, and going wide to present all his guns.

"Fight me, you poltroon!" Lewrie screamed across the waters. "Got no stomach for a real foe, you murderin' bastards?"

The schooner fell away to run sou'east, dangerously close to the sand bars south of Walker's Cay, trying to shave a passage down the channel. Alacrity served her another broadside, then wore onceagain to run due east to block that side of the narrow passage even as the gunners got off another broadside from the larboard guns.

"Shoals ahead, two cables!" some lookout screeched on the bow.

He could not hold this course a minute longer, Alan realized. The schooner's master was praying that he'd have to bear away soon, whilst he could continue to run south and perhaps get astern of the gun ketch that was tearing his little command to bits.

" 'Vast, there!" Lewrie shouted. He was out of syncopation in his turnings with the schooner. "Mister Ballard, lay us full-and-by to weather on the larboard tack. Then once you have way 'nough, tack us and wear about sou'east, to keep us ahead of them!"

"Aye, aye, sir!" Ballard grinned, nodding with understanding. "Hands to the sheets and braces, hands wear ship aweather! Mister Harkin, prepare for stays!"

Alacrity swung away from the schooner, almost showing her her stem, but kept on turning, crossing the eye of the wind and heeling over with the wind on the starboard side, pointing sou'west.

The schooner's captain took the opportunity to run south, and steer wide of the threatening bars and shoals.

Then Alacrity wore, falling off the wind in a small circle to race back across that narrow channel on her best point of sail with a bone of foam in her teeth, and her larboard battery ready once more.

There would be no escape.

"As you bear… fire!" Fowles cried.

The schooner was smothered in spray as even the two-pounder boat-guns got into the act from fo'c's'le and quarter-deck at a bare two-cables' range. She staggered under the impact of solid round-shot, and swung up toward the wind as if to cut across Alacrity's stern.

"Shoals ahead, one cable!"

"Helm down, Mister Ballard. Beat sou'west and keep ahead of her. And be ready to haul your wind should she duck back towards the shoals on the east side of the channel."

"She's in-irons!" a lookout called as most of the crew and the officers were busy with the maneuver and the reloading. "They're all aback! Takin' t'the boats, sir!"

The schooner was being abandoned. One small launch was being led around from astern, another was already filled with men and was being rowed east towards the shoals, the oars worked like hummingbirds' wings.

"Wear about to the sou'east!" Lewrie demanded. "Get the guns on them before they escape!"

But before they could fire more than two broadsides, they had to turn once more to keep off the shoals themselves, and their route was almost blocked by the abandoned schooner, listing and drifting towards the shoals. The boats with their two-foot draft got over the shoals and bars, and into deeper water off Grand Cay.

"Cease fire!" Lewrie shouted, fuming. Once more, pirates had outsmarted him and escaped him. "Mister Ballard, secure the people from Quarters. Send Mister Odrado, with my cox'n Cony, over to take charge of the schooner before she takes the ground. Mister Harkin, we'll fetch-to! I'll see to this, Arthur. You carry on."

"Very well, sir."

"Helm alee, lay us close-hauled on the larboard tack, Mister Neill. Stations for stays, Mister Harkin! Fo'c's'le captain, we'll leave the jibs on larboard tack! Brace-tenders, prepare to back the main tops'l! Ready about? Helm alee!"

Alacrity rounded up as if she would cross the wind's eye, but stalled in-irons, her gaff sails trying to drive her forward on the starboard tack, but her backed jibs counteracting their force like brakes, so she cocked up into the wind and came to a halt, slowly drifting north on the current and making a tiny leeway.

"A neat morning's work, sir," Fellows congratulated, swiping his thinning ginger hair and looking more like a harried clerk. "The schooner took. Whippet with her foe aground in the north channel, and another pirate band with their business stopped."

"Ummph!" Lewrie commented.

"Damme, the way we handled her, sir, sweet an' fleet as some pleasure yacht! My word, sir… 'twas hellish fun, that."

"They got away, though," Lewrie glowered.

"Can't have it all, sir," Fellows chuckled.

"Why the devil not, Mister Fellows? Just why the devil not?"