A King's Commander (9 page)

The frigate was presenting her stern to them, swinging up onto the eye of the wind, yards all a'cock-bill and canvas slatting.

“
Took
'em long enough,” Lewrie sneered.
Jester
's gunfire was splattering all about her as she slowed and turned. Sails caved in on themselves as they were punctured, to refill lank and disheveled, and Alan frowned as he thought he saw a round-shot strike her foremast's tops'l yard, spilling a wiggling speck or two loose. Two topmen who'd just fallen to their deaths on the hard oak below, or into the waters alongside, where they'd plunge deep before surfacing, to watch their ship sail on, uncaring, just before they drowned.

“Mister Knolles, harden up! Full-and-by!” Lewrie ordered, to put
Jester
back onto the wind, and wring out every foot of advantage above the frigate, which was visibly struggling to get around to her tack. The last French seventy-four-gunned 3rd Rate at the tail of the enemy battle line was off
Jester
's
starboard bows by then. Still with her offside gun ports closed, thank God! A minute or two more, and she would be too acutely angled to take
Jester
under fire—out of her gun arcs in the narrow ports. And that seventy-four was punch-drunk and reeling, her lower masts sprung and shivering to every new blow, ready to go by the board, any moment.

“Mister Spendlove, perhaps you might oblige me?” Alan inquired casually, in a moderate voice, as the gunners swabbed and loaded anew.

“Aye, sir?”

“Go aft and bend on this month's private signal to identify us,” he
suggested with a wink. “Once we get around to the
British
side of this battle, I'd not like to be shot to ribbons in error by some overeager repeating frigate.”

“Aye, sir!” Spendlove chuckled.

The wind was dying away to nothing. Massive broadsides usually blasted air to stillness. And they were witness to one of the greatest 
sustained exchanges of massive firepower, even greater than any battle known so far in history.
Jester
was flagging once more, coasting along on her built-up momentum more than she was driving ahead close-hauled, hazed and half-concealed in the sulphurous reeking mists that blew alee from that cannonading. The French frigate had come about to the starboard tack at last, but she was half-a-mile astern by then, though well up
Jester
's
starboard quarter.

“Mmm . . .Mister Ss . . . Spendlove's respects, sir,” Boy First-Class Josephs almost hiccupped below Lewrie's waist. And shivering frightful, as if he'd quiver every bone from his body. Five days at sea—less than a month in the Navy, and he was already under fire, wondering what had ever possessed him to go a gentleman volunteer, or wish a naval career! And still half terrified of his own captain!

“Aye, Mister Josephs?”

“Pp . . . private signal aloft, sir, he bb . . . bade me tell you.” “Thankee, Mister Josephs,” Lewrie replied, looking down at him intently, his father's heart softening. Sewallis was just as twitchy, just as miserable-looking, half the time. “Something to write home about, lad. To see a grand battle such as this'un. Perhaps the only one you'll ever see, your entire career! Now, d'ye understand why we start off harsh? So you end up the sort o' man'll
stand
such.”

“I think so, sir,” Josephs said with a gulp.

“Good lad,” Lewrie said, rewarding him with a smile.

It was going to be Buchanon's “close shave,” around the stern of that Frog 74, after all. Perhaps by no more than a quarter-mile. He could ease her off the wind a bit and parallel her, but the frigate on his starboard quarter was still pursuing, bulldog game.

“Broadside guns'll no longer bear, sir!” Bittfield shouted up from the waist. The nine-pounders were sharply angled astern in the ports. Any more, and they'd snap their breeching ropes, sure.

“Cease fire, Mister Bittfield! Mister Rahl? Supervise carronades on the quarterdeck. They have a greater arc of fire.”

“Ja, zir!” Their emigrant Prussian barked, almost clicking his heels in glee to have some noisy toys to play with a bit longer.

And that frigate, Lewrie exulted to himself! She'll have to fall in almost astern of me, if she wishes to continue. She stays that high up on our quarter, we'll brush her off against the side of that last liner!

The frigate reopened fire, with her lighter forecastle chase guns. Five- or six-pound ball went sizzling across the quarterdeck.

“A little better shooting, at last,” Knolles commented. “They're not the skillful shots their fathers were,” Lewrie agreed, with some relief.

“Bless me, sir,” Knolles scoffed. “They're not the men they were two
years
ago!”

The starboard quarterdeck carronades belched fire, swathing them all in powder smoke for a period, before it was wafted away to the nor'east by the light winds, before
Jester
sailed past her own pall on the bruised air.

“
Hit,
I t'ink,
herr kapitan! Ja!
”
Rahl delighted, watching heavy ball strike and raise a gout of splinters, dust, and oakum.

On they stood, continuing their duel. The last French warship in the battle line was left astern, off
Jester
's
starboard quarter. A run of five minutes more would give her sea room enough to come about and resume her original course of west-sou'west, with the entire Royal Navy a protective fence between her and danger.

Gunners aft, and the after-guard, began to jeer, as the French frigate was forced to haul her wind to avoid a collision with that last, limping 3rd Rate.

“Frigate, sir!” Hyde pointed out. “One of
our
repeating frigates, four points off the starboard bows!”

“Acknowledging our private signal, sir!” Spendlove chimed in.

“Mister Knolles, you may secure from quarters, now,” Alan said with a great sigh of success. “Safe in Mother's arms, from here on.”

“French frigate is wearing about, sir.”

Lewrie looked aft. Aye, she didn't have room in which to tack so she was swinging broadside on to
Jester
's
stern, presenting them her starboard side, to make the greater twenty-four-point circle off the wind to end up heading west, plodding along in company with the other vessels of her fleet. Deprived of her prey. Beaten.

“Better luck next time, you snail-eatin' bastard!” Alan bellowed in triumph, cupping his
hands so his words might carry. Though he doubted a shout across half-a-mile would register on French ears, it was, after all, the smug, insulting victor's jeer—and thought—that counted!

Uh . . . sorry I did
that,
he told himself at once!

The frigate, outsailed then outshot, spent a last fit of Gallic pique upon
Jester,
rippling out one final, irregular broadside. A crash aft and below, as a ball scored at last, caving in the transom timbers abaft the stores rooms and officers' quarters, a great
thonk
as the ball continued to carom down the length of the empty berth deck. Glass shattered as another exploded the larboard quarter-galleries— both Lewrie's and the gunroom's—toilets. Splashes and feathers to either beam around the stern, and a further hollow
thonk
and high whine as a ball ploughed a furrow down
Jester
's side.

And Josephs, up on the bulwarks, was beheaded.

One instant cheering and waving a fist in the air, the next he was flying, his small body flung almost amidships of the quarterdeck, minus his head, throat, and shoulders, which had been pulped into red mist by six pounds of wailing iron!

“My . . .
word!
”
Lieutenant Knolles gasped, as his compatriot on the bulwarks, his mate Rydell, hopped down and began shrieking utter horror, and terror. He'd escaped unscathed, though they'd been close enough to rub shoulders. Close enough, though, to be spattered with droplets of gore, brains, and bone chips!

“Surgeon's mate!” Lewrie shouted uselessly. “Loblolly boys!”

Whey-faced himself, but determined not to show it, nor allow this horror to demoralize his crew, he was forced by duty to cross to Rydell.

“Shut your mouth, Mister Rydell! Stop that noise!” he rasped. “Go below, if you wish to unman yourself. Loblolly boys? Get that . . .
that,
off the quarterdeck, at once!”

And turn his back, to deal with Duty.

“Oh, dear Jesus,” LeGoff whispered as he came up from the cockpit on the orlop, the place of surgery during quarters. “Poor little chub!”

“Deal with it, Mister LeGoff,” Knolles ordered coolly, after he was over his own funk. “Anyone else injured below, or aft?”

“No one, Mister Knolles, praise God,” Lewrie heard LeGoff say to the first officer. “Here, you men. Scrap o' canvas. The carrying board. Take him below to the cockpit, and ready him for burial.”

“Mister Buchanon,” Lewrie inquired, his face a stony mask. “I believe we have enough sea room to return to larboard tack?”

“Aye, sir,” the sailing master muttered, as shaken as anyone.

“Very well, then. Mister Knolles? Stations for Stays. Come about. New course, west-by-south, till we're well up to windward of our line-of-battle ships. Then we'll ease her due west, to parallel.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Knolles replied, happy to have something constructive to do. “Mister Porter? Stations for Stays!”

“Onliest one, sir,” Buchanon continued, with a whimsical air.

“Hmm?” Lewrie grunted, still in pain, but curious about that tone in Buchanon's voice.

“Josephs, Cap'um. Onliest one e'en scratched!” Buchanon said more soberly, almost in a rueful awe. “We got our comeuppance from th' ol' mad buggers. An' 'ey took 'eir due from us. Th' gods o' th' sea, Cap'um. Th' ol' pagan gods o' winds an' seas, 'ey took 'im.”

“Surely, Mister Buchanon, in this modern age . . .” Lewrie began to scoff, a little angered by such a heretical suggestion. Or, maybe a little angered at what he did not yet know. At himself, perhaps, for having the boy “started.” For making his last days fearful.

“Me da', he was Welsh, Cap'um,” Buchanon related. “'Twas oft he tol' me 'bout 'em. Him an' th' granthers, all, sir, on th' stormy nights, with th' rain an' winds a'howlin' 'gainst th' shutters, 'r th' public house. Onliest folk still take note o' 'em'z sailormen, sir. Priests an' Church, 'ey drove 'em out, into th' wide, trackless seas. But 'at don't mean 'ey passed away, Cap'um. Oh no, not at all!”

“Ready about, Captain,” Knolles intruded.

“Very well, Mister Knolles. Put the ship about,” Lewrie said in response, mesmerized, and only half paying attention to his first.

“Helm's
alee!
Rise, foretack and sheets!”

“One 'ey named th' most, sir, 'at'd be Lir,” Buchanon went on, paying only half attention himself, as
Jester
began to come about to the eye of the wind. “Don't know much 'bout th' ones crost th' seas, in th' heathen latitudes. Ones I read about in school, sir, 'em ol' Roman an' Greek sea gods, 'ey sounded like gennlemen ya could deal with, so long'z ya didn' cross 'em 'r 'eir boss Zeus. Sportin' sort o' gennlemen, who didn' mean much by it. But Lir, now, Cap'um. Ol' Irish an' Welsh sea god, one th' Scots dread, too, sir? Oh, he's a right bastard, sometimes. Jealous an' vengeful. Hard-hearted sort. A blood-drinker, some say. Nacky'un, too, Cap'um . . . smart'z paint. Th' sort who'll bide his time, 'til a body'd gone an' forgot what he done 'gainst 'im. But, he always takes his pound o' flesh, in th' end. He always gets his due, when ya least expect, an' hurts most.”

And a hellish gobble more'n a
pound
of flesh, he took, Lewrie thought, trying to stifle an involuntary shiver of awe, himself, as he recalled the sight of that pitiful remaining husk. He turned his attention to his ship, away from this spectral higgledy-piggledy that Buchanon spoke of, this ancient superstitious folderol that he sounded as if he really
believed!
Buchanon, a man who'd dragged himself out of the fisheries, gone to sea in the fleet, come up on
science,
for God's sake! Astronomy, mathematics, the art of navigation, study of weather, charts . . . the sailing of a
ship,
which was man's greatest, most complex engine!

“Now mains'l haul!” Knolles was crying, as
Jester
finished most of her tack passing the eye of the wind, as braces dragged the sails aloft to the starboard side where they began to fill and draw.