Текст книги "The King's Marauder"
Автор книги: Dewey Lambdin
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 27 страниц)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Hah, I wonder why they call him ‘the Dowager’, Lewrie had to wonder when introduced to Lieutenant-General Sir Hew Dalrymple in his offices the next afternoon. Mountjoy had told him that Sir Hew had been born in 1750, had purchased a commission as a Lieutenant in his teens, at thirteen, and was now only fifty-seven years old, thirteen years Lewrie’s senior. Sir Hew didn’t look like an aged dodderer, or sound like an ancient “skull full of gruel”. He seemed quite lucid, in fact.
“Is not your ship a tad too large for the operations that Mister Mountjoy, here, envisions, Sir Alan?” Dalrymple asked.
“I would have preferred a frigate, Sir Hew,” Lewrie told him, “but I was given command of Sapphire before Mister Mountjoy’s superiors thought to make use of me.”
“Sir Alan has been involved in several cooperative ventures in aid of Secret Branch since the 1780s, off and on, sir,” Mr. Mountjoy stuck in.
“Spying?” Dalrymple said with a sniff of dis-approval.
“Not directly, sir,” Lewrie had to point out. “Providing naval support and military support in aid of overseas … doings.”
“An unsavoury activity, spying,” Sir Hew commented, grimacing. “Knives in the back, all that? Even are the informations discovered by such doings useful. This hint of a French army preparing to conquer Portugal is disturbing, but welcome, for instance, though the means by which it was gained, well. Forewarned is forearmed. In light of this news, hmm … I fear I may not spare a substantial number of troops at this moment, sirs. If France can obtain Spanish permission for their march cross Spain, then they may even goad the Spanish to mount a new assault against my defences.”
“As you may see in my proposal, sir, Captain Lewrie thinks that only two or three companies of light infantry would be required, along with his Marines and armed sailors,” Mountjoy sweetly, and patiently, wheedled. “Perhaps the skirmishers from two or three regiments. If the Spanish and French do assault the Rock, the grenadier companies and the line companies would be more use upon the ramparts, in the forts.”
“What?” Sir Hew quickly objected, not liking that one bit. “You intend to blend companies from three regiments, troops who have never served together before, officers in charge of them who come from three regimental messes, with disparate traditions, who are suddenly supposed to work together? I do not see how that combination could be even the slightest bit successful!
“And, just where in Andalusia do you intend to make your raids, sirs?” Sir Hew continued quibbling. “From Tarifa to Estepona, close to Gibraltar? Cross the bay at Algeciras? If I am in the near future in danger of a siege of Gibraltar, I would much prefer that it comes later rather than sooner, allowing time for re-enforcements to arrive. A sudden rash of pin-pricks against the Spanish in, or near, their Campo de Gibraltar might cause the government in Madrid to send fresh armies to General Castaños, with orders to assail us once again.”
Deacon was right, damn him, Lewrie thought, wishing he could scowl but keeping “bland” on his phyz; Dalrymple won’t upset the apple-cart, or hurt his good relations with the Dons.
“Had you a fleet, Sir Alan,” Dalrymple said, pleasant now that his “pet” was over, “and I could lure ten thousand men from General Henry Fox on Sicily, I would much prefer having a go at the Spanish enclave at Ceuta, cross the Straits. Blockade the place so that Spanish troops in the great fortress there cannot be ferried over to Castaños, or a French expeditionary fleet could combine with the Spanish, and mount an attack on the South end of the Rock, perhaps down near the Chapel of Europa, or the Tuerto Tower defences.”
Sir Hew rose and uncovered a large map which was marked with pinned-on arrows indicating where he would like to land that theoretical army, and some dots to mark the bounds of a naval blockade.
“The Sultan of Morocco might not care to have another European power supplant the Spanish, but he would most certainly relish Spain being ousted, sirs,” Dalrymple said, almost smacking his lips at the prospect, and gazing almost lovingly at his map. It was a very well-done and handsome map, certainly drawn at some expense. “I have corresponded with the Sultan at Tangier, and have hinted most broadly as to that possibility. His replies are mildly encouraging.”
“Uhm, sir,” Mountjoy said with a squirm of discomfort. “There is a French ambassador at Tangier, and the Sultan’s court is a cesspool of intrigue. Even the broadest hints, as you say, might have already been bandied about and relayed to Paris, and to Madrid to warn them that you envision seizing Ceuta.”
“French spies, sir,” Lewrie added, summing the matter up, playing on Sir Hew’s distaste for the trade. “Worst of a filthy lot.”
“Here now!” Mountjoy whispered from the corner of his mouth.
Dalrymple sighed longingly over his map for a bit more, oblivious to their exchange, or Lewrie’s broad grin, then slowly re-covered it and came back to his desk.
“Sadly, London has only given Fox twelve thousand men, and he’s none to spare, even for Gibraltar’s defence,” Sir Hew told them. “If I need more, they must come from England. You say that you are here to lend aid to Mister Mountjoy’s doings, Sir Alan? Does that mean that your ship will spend much time in harbour?”
“No sir, sorry,” Lewrie replied. “If I must act alone and use my Marines and armed landing parties, in my own boats, I’ll be out at sea most of the time. Of course, I will need to see Captain Middleton for larger boats, so I can land all my men in one group, quickly.”
Rock Soup’ll have t’start with boats and scramblin’ nets, he thought with a groan; Then I get out of port soonest, and capture some sort o’ boat for Mountjoy.
“Pity, that,” Sir Hew gloomed. “Gibraltar is in dire need of a permanent naval presence. One would wish that you could have Captain Middleton build boats large enough to serve as gunboats, and man them with your sailors.”
“I have my orders, Sir Hew,” Lewrie said.
Mine arse if you’ll have me! he thought.
“And I cannot countermand them,” Dalrymple said.
Thank bloody Christ! was Lewrie’s thought.
“Unless there is a true emergency,” Dalrymple posed.
“So long as the dockyard is building more boats for me, it can produce boats for you, sir,” Lewrie quickly countered, “and there are sailors and gunners recovering in the naval hospital, surely, enough to form a harbour guard flotilla, even some recovering officers and Midshipmen separated from their ships and unlikely to rejoin them anytime soon, who could lead them. Does Captain Middleton have twelve-pounders or eighteen-pounders in storage; well, there you go, sir!”
“Once Captain Lewrie had found a transport for the light infantrymen, sir,” Mountjoy stuck in, springing quickly to lay the ground for another of their requests which they had hoped to bring up later, “we had hoped to avail ourselves of those men, to man the transport and make up the boat crews.”
“In your plan sent to me, Mister Mountjoy, you stated that Sir Alan has a great deal of experience with, what did you call them … amphibious raids and landings?” Dalrymple said, lifting a page from Mountjoy’s proposal to squint over it. “Boat work, in other words, or word, rather? Am-phib-ious?” He worked his mouth over that.
“Buenos Aires and Cape Town last year, sir,” Lewrie boasted. “The Bahamas and Spanish Florida the year before, experiments in the Channel with various torpedo devices in 1804, and landings on the Spratly Islands and the Spanish Philippines in the ’80s ’tween the wars and…”
“Escaping Yorktown after the surrender, too, sir,” Mountjoy added for him. “Two or three ships’ boats got out to sea for rescue, or so I heard. Captain Lewrie’s work in the Far East against native pirates, sponsored by the French, was his first exposure to Secret Branch.”
“Never had to cut a throat, or stab anyone in the back, sir,” Lewrie could not help japing.
I leave all that to Zachariah Twigg, Jemmy Peel, and Mountjoy, he qualified to himself.
“But, just where did you two envision making your raids?” Sir Hew asked, still un-convinced.
“From beyond Tarifa in the West, to near Cádiz, sir,” Mountjoy assured him, “and to the East, from Málaga right to the French border.”
“Hmm … enterprising, I must say,” Dalrymple commented.
“So long a stretch that the Spanish cannot concentrate to defend against us,” Mountjoy schemed on, “and our choices so varied all along the coasts that our movements would be unpredictable.”
“Like the Vikings, or the Barbary Corsairs, sir,” Lewrie said.
“Minus the rape and pillage, of course,” Mountjoy corrected.
Sir Hew Dalrymple took a long moment to think that over, pulling at his earlobes, tugging his nose, before speaking, and that hesitantly, at last. “Hmm, does the defensive situation admit of the release of two or three companies, on a temporary basis, mind, to add some heft to your raids … now and then … then I may be able to spare you a few troops, if you are able to obtain a suitable transport for them. Just as I cannot countermand your orders, Sir Alan, and dragoon you to become a guardian for the bay approaches, I cannot order any vessel under the Transport Board’s hire to serve under your orders. If such is the case, I cannot imagine how you and Mister Mountjoy can gather all the needed elements, but … I wish you good fortune in the doing, and if you manage to put all the pieces together, then I may be able to aid you. I make no firm promises, but…?”
He spread his hands wide and shrugged, then stood, signalling that their conference was at an end, and Lewrie and Mountjoy had to be satisfied that he hadn’t given them an outright refusal.
* * *
“He didn’t say no,” Mountjoy said with a sigh.
“He didn’t clap us on the back and cry ‘sic ’em’, either. Not a good way to begin,” Lewrie groused as they made their way back down to the town. “At least his sherry was tasty.”
“It was Spanish,” Mountjoy told him. “Andalusia’s famous for it, and rivals Portugal … when they feel like trading with us.”
“Now there’s incentive for successful raids,” Lewrie laughed. “Haul off lashings of the stuff … if I can keep my sailors and Marines from drinkin’ it up, first.”
“You’ll see Captain Middleton, next, I suppose?” Mr. Mountjoy asked, taking off his wide-brimmed straw summer hat to fan himself, for the sun was fierce, and there was scant wind from off the bay.
“Thought I would, aye,” Lewrie told him.
“When Admiral Nelson had the Mediterranean Fleet, he came with a dozen extra shipwrights to improve the dockyard,” Mountjoy told him. “They were to build gunboats for the bay defence then, too, but nothing came of it. Shortage of funds, God knows why. Most of them survived the outbreak of Gibraltar Fever in 1804.”
“I never heard that it was un-healthy here,” Lewrie said.
“Only every now and then,” Mountjoy assured him, “though when it does break out, it’s as bad as the West Indies. Civilians who can do so leave town and camp out in tents on the eastern side of the Rock, high above the pestilential miasmas, where there are cooling winds. I have been told that by the time the fevers ebbed three years ago, the garrison was cut in half. Thank God it appears to affect the Spaniards, too, else they could have put together an army and marched right through the Landport Gate!”
“Well, in any case, once I’ve seen Captain Middleton, I’m off to sea t’get your boat,” Lewrie stated, “and our transport, too, is God just. Two-masted, about fourty or fifty feet overall?”
“That would do quite nicely, though even after all my time with you aboard Jester, I still know little of ships and the sea,” Mountjoy confessed. “A fishing boat, no matter how badly it reeks?”
“Perhaps a coastal trader, with a partial cargo of grain, and an host of rats?” Lewrie teased.
“No matter,” Mountjoy said with a wee smile, “for I’ll not be aboard her. No reason to be.”
“You’ll just sit in your cool offices, or on your shaded gallery, peekin’ through your telescope and playin’ the sly spy-master, instead,” Lewrie teased again. “By God, but His Majesty’s Government must be told how they’re wastin’ their money on idleness.”
“My dear fellow, but are you sounding envious?” Mountjoy japed.
“You’re Goddamned right I am!” Lewrie barked.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“The tea tastes diff’rent,” Lewrie commented after a sip or two. He held his glass up to the light of a swaying overhead lanthorn with a squinty expression. “Fruitier?”
“Ehm, that’d be a dram or two of orange juice that Yeovill put in it this morning, sir,” Pettus told him. “There’s a whole sack laid by in your lazarette, along with lemons and bunches of grapes, and a few pomegranates, though he isn’t sure what to do with those, as yet. There are all sorts of melons, too, The Mohammedans in Morocco don’t make wine with their grapes, but they sure grow a lot of fruits and such. Do you like it, sir?”
“Aye, right tasty,” Lewrie agreed, recalling how he’d relished cool tea with peach or strawberry juice offered him by their British Consul in Charleston, South Carolina, a few years back.
“Mister Snelling had the Purser buy up barrels of lemons, too,” Pettus went on as he bustled about the dining-coach. “Even if Mister Cadrick can’t sell them to the hands and turn a profit. For the good of the crew’s health, Mister Snelling said, for their anti-scorbutic properties.”
“Anti-scarrin’?” Jessop muttered.
“Prevents scurvy, Jessop,” Pettus explained, “like wine, sauerkraut, or apples.”
“Had a lemon, once,” Jessop said. “I’d rather have an apple.”
Jessop had the loose sleeves of his shirt rolled to the elbows, proud to sport his first tattoo on his left forearm. It was a fouled anchor.
Christ, which came first? Lewrie asked himself; The whores, the rum, or that? And which of his guardians lost track of him long enough t’let him have it done? I think I’ll haveta have a word with Desmond and Furfy.
He finished his tea with an appreciative smack of his lips and a dab with his napkin, then announced that he would go on deck for a stroll.
It was a beautiful mid-morning, with thin streaks of clouds overhead, a glittering blue sea dappled here and there with white caps and fleeting cat’s paws. HMS Sapphire trundled along on a fine tops’l breeze, her motion gentle and swaying slowly from beam to beam only a few degrees, and pitching and dipping her bows as she encountered the long-set rollers.
“Good morning, sir,” Lt. Elmes said with a doff of his hat as Lewrie emerged onto the quarterdeck.
“Good morning to you, sir,” Lewrie replied, tapping the front of his own hat in return. “Good t’be back at sea?”
“Aye, sir,” Elmes gladly agreed. “Though I doubt that our men would agree. One whole day of shore liberty has only piqued their interest.”
“Grumpy, are they, Mister Elmes?” Lewrie asked.
“Not really, sir,” Elmes told him with a smile. “All in all I’d say they’re in fine fettle, what with the action with the French, the prospect of prize-money to come from it, and a run ashore. And more of that to come?”
“So long as we’re working out of Gibraltar, aye,” Lewrie said.
That promise pleased Lt. Elmes right down to his toes, for he and the rest of the wardroom had had much more free time ashore than the ship’s people. Over supper the first night out at sea, the conversations round Lewrie’s dining table had been rapturous and excited about exploring the many caves, touring the massive fortifications, the excellence of their meals and the wines, the abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables (some smuggled cross The Lines from Spain) and an expedition by donkey-back to the heights of the Rock, and their encounters with the filthy Barbary apes which ran wild up there. What else his officers and Midshipmen had done with the ladies of Gibraltar was anyone’s guess, and none of Lewrie’s business, but count on Lt. Geoffrey Westcott to smirk, wink, and grin in sign that he had managed to find himself a liaison, if no one else did. Among those hundreds and hundreds of foreigners that Mountjoy had mentioned who resided at Gibraltar, many were women; Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian, principally from Genoa, many of whom practiced their own version of “mercantile trade” with the soldiers and officers of the garrison, those merchants, and the crews of ships putting into harbour.
Lewrie had taken Sapphire cross the Straits to look at Ceuta, the Spanish enclave in North Africa, and take a peek at the nigh-impregnable fortress there. There had been no shipping there, but he’d found it disturbing that there were no British blockading ships present, either. He’d trailed his colours only four miles offshore, one mile beyond the maximum range of the heaviest fortress guns, then had ordered the course altered to the Nor’east to begin prowling the coast of Spain.
“Land ho!” several masthead lookouts shouted, almost as one. “Deck, there! Land ho, two points off the larboard bows!”
The Sailing Master, Mr. George Yelland, popped out of his sea cabin on the starboard side of the quarterdeck, looking disheveled and unkempt, as if he had been napping in his clothes. “Landfall, sir?”
“Mountaintops, most-like,” Lewrie commented. “Let’s look at the charts.”
They crossed to the larboard side of the quarterdeck and went into the dedicated chart space. Yelland dry-scrubbed his face with rough-palmed hands, making a raspy sound against his unshaven cheeks, as if to rouse himself to full wakefulness, before leaning over the chart of the Spanish coast pinned to the angled tabletop. He checked their latest position from yesterday’s Noon Sights, followed the pencilled line of Xs which showed their hourly Dead Reckoning positions, and made some humming noises.
“Mountaintops, certainly, sir,” Yelland opined at last. “The Andalusian coast possesses some truly magnificent ranges. From where we reckoned ourselves to be two hours ago, we are in sight of the Sierra Nevada range. Which particular mountains sighted is still moot, but … the shores I believe to be about eighteen miles off, and we should sight the port of Fuengirola in a while.”
“No shoals reported?” Lewrie asked.
“Not unless we proceed to within a mile or two of the coast, sir,” Yelland informed him, “where the soundings show six fathoms or less.”
“Very good, sir,” Lewrie said. “We’ll stand on as we are, and see what turns up. With the coast so mountainous, and the roads tortuous-bad, as they usually are, we might stumble upon a fair amount of coasting trade. Sorry to have interrupted your nap.”
“Not a nap, sir,” Yelland said, stifling a yawn. “Simply resting my eyes.”
Lewrie went back out onto the quarterdeck, snatched a day telescope from the binnacle cabinet rack, and went up to the poop deck for a slightly higher vantage point. There were clouds to the North and East, but if there really were mountains up there, they were only darker, still indistinct smudges that could be taken for rain clouds beneath or ahead of the rest.
There was a whine, and a pawing at his knee. Bisquit, wakened from a nap atop the aft flag lockers, had brought his newest, favourite toy, a length of old three-inch line whipped with twine to stiffen it, with a monkey’s fist fashioned at either end, and made tasty with some slush from the galley. The dog could gnaw on it like a bone or shake it like a snake in mock “kills”, with delighted yips and growls.
Lewrie took it from his jaws, even if it did stink like so many badgers and was greasy and wet with saliva, got the dog dancing right and left, then threw it back to the flag lockers. Bisquit chased it down, gave it a shake, and brought it back, to do it all again. That went on for a full five minutes before a lookout high atop the mizen mast cried out, “Sail ho!”
“Carry on, Mister Fywell,” Lewrie said, tossing the toy to one of the youngest Midshipmen who had been practising his mathematics on a slate. “Just don’t toss it overboard by accident. Bisquit’d be heartbroken.”
“Where away?” Lt. Elmes shouted aloft with a speaking trumpet.
“Two points off the larboard quarter!” was the bellowed reply. “Two-masted, and hull down!”
Lewrie took his telescope aft to stand atop the flag lockers, clinging to the larboard taffrail lanthorn to steady himself. He had just the slightest hint of two wee parchment-tan ellipses on the horizon, like the upper halves of two close-set commas.
“Eight or nine miles off?” he muttered under his breath, “and how’d she get this close without the lookouts spottin’ her?”
He would have to have a sharp word with his watch officers, so that sort of inattention didn’t happen again! Let Westcott, Harcourt, and Elmes pass the grief along to those deserving.
His perch was rather precarious, so after a minute or so, he clambered down and depended on the shouts between Lt. Elmes and the lookouts aloft.
The strange sail was two-masted, proceeding on a mostly Easterly course, and appeared to be about eight miles astern of Sapphire, though almost keeping up with the much larger ship because she was on a bee-line, whilst the two-decker was angling inshore.
“Whatever she is, she appears to be coasting from either Estepona, Puerto Banús, or Marbella, on a direct course for Fuengirola or Málaga, sir,” the Sailing Master said after Lewrie returned to the quarterdeck. “Blind as bats, or un-caring, for she’s surely spotted us by now, sir.”
“Thankee, Mister Yelland,” Lewrie replied. “How far offshore d’ye reckon her to be?”
“Five or six miles, sir,” Yelland guessed.
“Very well,” Lewrie said, looking up and aft.
When Lewrie had taken command of Sapphire, she had been a part of a squadron commanded by a Rear-Admiral of The Blue, and had flown that ensign, and she had kept that colour when escorting her convoy to Gibraltar. Once there, though, Lewrie and Sapphire operated under Admiralty Orders as an independent ship, and now flew the Red Ensign, which stood out more distinctly at greater distances.
Bisquit’s toy came bumping down the starboard ladder from the poop deck, followed by the dog a moment later. Midshipman Fywell, at the head of the ladder, looked sheepish and embarrassed.
“Mister Fywell, instruct Mister Spears to strike our colours, and hoist those of the Spanish Navy,” Lewrie told him of a sudden.
“Spanish, sir?” Fywell gawped.
“The one with the crowned oval with all the shit in it, mind,” Lewrie said with a grin. He looked aloft to the commissioning pendant to judge the direction of the winds, and made another decision.
“Mister Elmes, I wish t’close that sail, and take her if she’s worth it. Alter course two points to larboard, and make her head Nor’-Nor’east.”
“Nor’-Nor’east, aye, sir,” Elmes replied, turning to shout directions to the brace tenders and sheetmen. That change of course and the sighting of a strange sail several minutes before drew the attention of the on-watch hands, and those off-watch who had come up from below in anticipation of the first daily rum issue at Seven Bells of the Forenoon. Chuckles and murmurs could be heard as Sapphire’s men contemplated even more prize money in their pockets.
“Sir,” Lt. Harcourt reported himself on deck and ready for any duty, though Quarters had not been called for.
“Sir,” Lt. Westcott performed the same duty a moment later. “A possible prize?”
“Perhaps,” Lewrie told him.
Westcott had a quick look about, spotted the Spanish Navy Ensign flying in place of their own, and could not help chuckling.
“Should we have Carpenter Acfield fashion a crucifix and hoist it onto the face of the main tops’l, sir?” he teased.
“A crucifix?” Lt. Harcourt asked.
“Last year off the Plate Estuary, when we fought the San Fermin frigate, she had a big one on the front of her fore tops’l,” Westcott explained. “Didn’t do the Dons much good, though, for some of our bar-shot decapitated Jesus, and she burned to the waterline, poor devils.”
“Now we are ze grandees of Espagna,” Lewrie played along with a bad attempt at a Castilian lisp accent, “we do not do battle weez zose heretical Engleesh, we do weezout ze Holy Presence.”
For the first time, Lt. Harcourt looked as if he was amused, and honestly so, instead of giving an impression of smirking.
“Deck, there!” a lookout alerted them as Sapphire completed her alteration of course and settled down on Nor’-Nor’east, picking up speed on a broad reach and a leading wind. “The Chase is bearing off for shore! Six points off the larboard bows!”
“Or one point ahead of abeam,” Westcott grumbled.
Lewrie went to the laboard bulwarks to take another look with his telescope. Their strange sail was not quite hull-up yet, but he could determine that her two masts sported large lugsails suspended from gaff booms, with what looked to be a single jib sail up forward. The scend from one of the sea’s long rollers lifted Sapphire a few feet, another far off lifted the stranger a few feet, and he got the impression of a sliver of hull. They were closing on her!
“If she’s a Spaniard, and we’re flyin’ Spanish colours, then why the Devil is she tryin’ to run?” he grumbled.
“General distrust, sir?” Lt. Elmes, who was within ear-shot and assumed that he was being addressed, piped up. “After three years of war, and so many ships taken by our Navy, her master must be wary of any other ship that heaves up in sight.”
“No matter,” Lewrie decided. “We’ve a much longer waterline and scads more sail. Unless she tries t’put about, into the wind, or run herself aground, I think we’ve a good chance of taking her.”
“Hull-up, sir!” Midshipman Carey, in charge of the signalmen on the poop deck, cried, forcing Lewrie to lift his glass once more for another look at her.
No more than five miles off, now, he told himself, juggling the odds of interception; And I still can’t make out the coastline, which means she can’t get into shoal water before we fetch her up. And she’s slow. Wallowing!
“Mister Elmes, beat to Quarters,” he snapped at the officer of the watch. “The upper-deck guns, the bow chasers, and the larboard twelve-pounders only.”
“Aye, sir!”
A Marine drummer began the long roll, petty officers began to bellow orders, and Lieutenant Westcott took over for Elmes, freeing him to go below. Harcourt departed to take charge of the upper gun deck 12-pounders, and Marine Lieutenant Keane turned up with Lt. Roe in tow, hastily chivvying their men into full kit of waist-coats and red coats and crossbelts, which were only worn when standing sentry duty or for battle when at sea.
“We’ve a Spanish speaker aboard?” Lewrie asked the people on the quarterdeck.
“I do, sir,” Lt. Roe said.
“Should I have need to hail her, do you stand by here on the quarterdeck ’til she’s struck, Mister Roe,” Lewrie said to him, “then I’d admire did you go over to her with the boarding party.”
“Very good, sir!” Roe replied, looking eager for any fight.
“If she strikes, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie went on, “I wish my boat crew to bring the launch up from towing, and ferry the boarding party over to her.”
Bisquit knew what the long roll meant, by now, and recognised the loud noises associated with battle, and the roar of the guns. He came down from the poop deck in a rush, scampered down to the waist, and disappeared down a hatchway, bound for the safety of the orlop.
Pettus came out of the great-cabins with Chalky in his wicker cage. “Strip your cabins, sir?” he asked.
“Not unless yon ship turns herself into a ship of the line, no, Pettus,” Lewrie told him with a wee chuckle. “I don’t see us takin’ damage from the likes of her.”
After a few minutes, Sapphire had strode up a mile closer to the stranger, which was now four points off the larboard bows, a sure sign that they were overtaking her at a good clip. A few minutes more and their Chase loomed larger, at three points off the bows, altering course more Northerly to string out the pursuit into a stern chase.
“Colours!” was the general cry on the quarterdeck as a faded Spanish merchant flag, a “gridiron” of two horizontal red stripes on a gold field, jerkily went up her stern gaff.
At least she’s declared herself, Lewrie thought; But she ain’t slowin’ down, or lookin’ relieved that we’re both Spanish.
Sapphire, so the Sailing Master estimated, was within four or five miles of the coast, and the narrow band of plains and foothills were in plain sight, sprinkled with woods, pastures, and cropfields, with hamlets and villages set back from the sea easily made out from the deck. He also stated that they were within two miles of their Chase.
“We’ll stand on a bit more,” Lewrie announced as he rocked on the balls of his boot soles.
Three miles from shore, within a mile of the straining Spanish ship, and Lewrie decided that it was time to end the charade.
“Mister Westcott, a shot under her bows, and strike our false colours, and run up the Red Ensign!” he barked.
One of the forecastle 6-pounders barked, hurling a shot that did not quite deliver the traditional warning; it struck the sea short of the Spanish vessel, caromed up from First Graze, and raised a great feather of spray right along her starboard side. Charitably, it did hit her forward of amidships; more near her bows than under.
Have the foc’sle Quarter Gunner tear a strip off that gun-captain’s arse, too, Lewrie added to his to-do list; He’s damaged her, he pays for the bloody repairs!
“Ah, hmm, sir,” Lt. Westcott muttered, shaking his head. “Bad show, that.”
“Let’s hope no one who matters is watching, then,” Lewrie told him, grimacing. “Is she going to strike, or do we have to shoot her to kindling?”
The Spaniard still stood on, even bearing up more towards the coast, as if she would run herself aground rather than be taken, showing a bit more of her stern transom to them.
“The first two twelve-pounders of the larboard battery, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie snapped. “Convince the bastards!”
The order was passed by Midshipman Ward, who darted down from the quarterdeck to the waist, then to the upper gun deck. Nigh one minute passed before the gun-ports were opened and the black muzzles of the 12-pounders appeared. There was another pause as gun-captains waited for the ship to roll upright and poise level, on the up-roll. The first gun erupted, followed a second later by the next, masking Sapphire’s bows in a cloud of rotten-egg, yellow-grey smoke.
