Текст книги "The King's Marauder"
Автор книги: Dewey Lambdin
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Текущая страница: 23 (всего у книги 27 страниц)
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“Māe de Deus,” Maddalena cooed with her head resting against his shoulder, still a little breathless from their last bout of lovemaking, with one slim leg cross his. “Maravilhoso.”
“My stars,” Lewrie said with a chuckle of delight, sprawled on his back with his arms loosely embracing her. “Damned right, it was! Ye deserve a reward for that, me girl.” Which statement made her laugh deep in her throat, snuggle closer, and make purring sounds. She had slipped atop him and had ridden “St. George”, this time, abandoning her earlier reticence and modesty, spitted upon his lance, pierced to the heart and dying the “little death” as the mythic dragon had, hair swishing, strong fingers clutching his shoulders, rocking, thrusting mindlessly, and crying out ’til the moment she’d broken. He had not reached his release, and after a long moment, had thrust upwards and had driven her to a second effort, even more frantic than the first. Lewrie had taken hold of her wrists and had leaned her back, feeling how she’d grown snugger and snugger, savouring her wee yelps and gasps ’til the moment he’d exploded as hot and as fiercely as a great gun, and she had quivered and cried out as she’d found a second, searing wave of utter bliss, almost at the same instant as his, which had left them gasping and completely spent.
“That was my reward, Alan,” Maddalena whispered close to his ear, a pleased-beyond-measure smile curling her lips. “I please you?”
“God, yes! You please me right down to me toes, Maddalena,” he assured her, turning to share a long soul kiss, eliciting a long, happy groan from her before they snuggled up, again, eyes closed in exhaustion, and sighing. “Every time, in fact,” he murmured.
“Sim, me too,” she vowed, reaching up one hand to stroke at his cheek. “Such a wonder I never know…’til you,” she said with a wee giggle. “Uhm … pardon, but I have to…”
She rose, slipping away from him, trailing her hand down his out-stretched arm as she left the bed to go behind a Chinese-looking folding screen to use the chamber pot. “Play with Precious,” she said.
Lewrie rolled over to her side of the bed and lifted the waiting kitten up to the sheets. “Spyin’ on us, are ye, kitty?” he said.
Precious was Maddalena’s latest acquisition, found in one of the local markets, though paying even six pence for him, when Gibraltar Town teemed with strays, Lewrie thought silly. He was a ram-cat, only three months or so old, wide-eyed and white-furred, with random splotches of ginger. As soon as he had all four paws down, he gave out a wee Mew and pounced on Lewrie’s wiggled fingers, and his tiny fangs and claws were sharp! Before Lewrie could pull the sheets up to cover his groin, Precious discovered the ribbons which bound his cundum on, and the kitten made a pounce in that direction!
“Oh no, ye don’t!” Lewrie cried, scooping him up.
Maddalena returned from behind the screen, her dressing gown on but unbound, and the sight of her marvellously pleasing and delightful body made Lewrie beam at her. “Here, you manage this wee beast whilst I take my turn before he claws me ‘wedding tackle’.”
“Oh, never do that, Precious,” Maddalena cooed at her kitten, picking him up and cuddling it to her breast. “Some things are precious to me besides you,” she added, looking teasingly at Lewrie.
Here, that sounds damned promising, Lewrie thought as he took off his cundum and stowed it in a linen draw-string bag, then let go a stream of pee into the chamber pot, quickly putting the lid back on, regretting that fetchingly good-looking young women’s shite smelled as disagreeable as normal people’s. “Whew!” he whispered, wrinkling his nose, before returning to the bed-chamber.
Maddalena had tied the sash of her dressing gown, so he felt that he should don his long-tailed shirt, at least, which might protect his groin should the kitten go exploring, again. He stretched out beside her on the bed, propped up on one elbow, gave her a short kiss, and accepted a glass of wine that she’d poured for him in his absence. A neutral American merchant ship, still allowed to trade with France, had come in with lashings of luxury goods including champagne, and he had purchased a case of twelve, and had brought two of them along for their evening together. Even warm, it still tasted very good.
“You must leave before midnight?” Maddalena asked with a little pout.
“Not tonight, no,” Lewrie told her, with a gladsome sigh and a laugh. “Thought I’d take an ‘All Night In’, and go back aboard round sun-up.” He grinned again, recalling what had passed last year when he’d had the Reliant frigate, when his ever-randy First Lieutenant, Geoffrey Westcott, had wished for an “All Night In” ashore in Buenos Aires, and their Sailing Master at the time had quipped, “All Night In in what?” Should’ve asked “In Whom!” he thought.
“Bom, good!” Maddalena said, leaning close to brush her cheek upon his. “I do not like when you leave me in the middle of the night. I like sleeping with you, the waking up, and seeing you off with coffee and some bread and jam.”
“That pleases me, too,” Lewrie muttered fondly. “It’s hellish-hard t’leave your bed for me … your warmth, your sweet aroma?”
“You like my perfume?” she teased in a soft, promising voice.
“All of you and your perfume,” he cooed back.
Maddalena scooted up the bed, plumped up the thick feather pillows, and lolled against the headboard, giving out a glad sigh.
“Ah,” she said, cocking her head to one side to listen. Far off, there was a rumble of thunder. A breeze stirred the chintz drapes by the open doors to the balcony, and a patter of rain could be heard as a late autumn storm blew up. “Good!” she declared. “You cannot go to sea tomorrow. I pray it rains all week!”
“Won’t last that long, more’s the pity,” Lewrie said, getting up to pad to the balcony for a look, then returning. “We’ll be back at sea in a day or two. Gone for a fortnight, perhaps. About that,” he added, getting back in bed, up by the headboard near her. “When I do sail, on the rare off-chance, I’ve made arrangements for you if … something happens to me. Don’t look so distressed, Maddalena! It is only prudent. The branch offices of Coutts’ Bank is holding a sum for you, and a letter of instructions. If I don’t return, your rent will be paid for a full year beyond the six months. I already paid, and you’re t’have ten pounds a month to live on. If ye wish to take passage somewhere else, you can exchange the year’s rent for…”
She set aside her glass of wine and threw herself upon him to clutch him close and squeeze. “Do not say that, Alan! Do not tempt Fate! Por Deus, you give me more happiness than I know in years, so kind and generous, so gentle with me, so funny you are, so merry with me…!” She broke off in a choked sob, and he felt tears wetting her close-pressed cheek.
“Dear girl, dear girl!” he muttered, stroking her to try and ease her sudden fears. “I’ll not leave you in the lurch like that un-thinking, un-caring fool Hughes did. I’d do the same for you even if I suddenly got orders sendin’ me halfway round the world. I’d not sail off and just abandon you, in any case. You’re dear to me.”
He heard a quick, in-drawn breath, and knew that he’d erred badly. Fool! Should’ve said “becoming”, not already dear! Lewrie chid himself: God knows what she’ll make of it, and …
“You are dear to me, too, Alan,” Maddalena whispered against his neck, then leaned back to look him in the eyes, sobrely for a moment, then began to beam as she took another shuddery breath. “So very dear!”
Too late! he thought; I’m in the quag up t’my neck!
Maddalena put her arms round his neck and kissed him, a writhing and long soul kiss with her breath growing musky again, and almost giggling deep in her throat in sheer delight of his declaration.
Oh, Hell, Lewrie thought; In for the penny, in for the pound … and if I get her drunk enough, maybe she won’t remember in the mornin’.
She pulled him down over her, impatiently tugged the sash of her gown and parted it, then reached under the tails of his shirt to draw it upward, light fingers brushing against his re-awakening erection.
For a very brief moment, Lewrie considered qualifying his slip of the tongue, but decided to go with it, wondering if Maddalena’s passion could be any greater than that she’d evinced before.
“Just … let me get a, ah, umm … cundum,” he rasped.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
“Lastly,” Lewrie said to the assembled officers and Mids gathered aboard the transport for a final planning session, “we’ve gotten a report that there are two Spanish frigates with their yards crossed and taking provisions aboard in Cartagena. How they expect to elude our blockade’s beyond me, but one never knows, so we should be prepared for ’em, should they manage t’come out. Captain Hedgepeth?”
“Aye?” the ugly old bugger responded as if wakened from utter boredom. The most he’d done in the meeting was scratch his whiskers.
“Do we spot any strange sail whilst the troops are ashore, I’ll fire two guns for a General Signal, and hoist Discontinue The Action,” Lewrie told him. “Captain Pomfret, do I make the signal, drop whatever you’re doing and get your troops back to the beach, instanter, for recovery. As soon as the troops are back aboard, Captain Hedgepeth, get under way and run Westerly as fast as you can. I will cover your withdrawal as best I can, even if you get back to Gibralter all alone.”
“Ehm, what if the Dons are upon us before my Marines, and your boat crews, are back aboard Sapphire, sir?” Lieutenant Keane asked in a worried tone. “Mean t’say, sir, our ship would be short-handed, and Roe and I would miss out on a good fight.”
“Hmm, little chance o’ that, I think,” Lewrie replied after a moment of thought. “With decent weather … else we’d not land … we should be able t’see their tops’ls over twelve miles away, and would have enough time to get everyone off the beach, at least an hour and a half before they were up within gun range. As I said, it’s only a remote possibility, but, it’s best if we didn’t leave anything to mere chance. Questions? Answers? Anybody want a sweet?” he japed.
There were a few niggling details, mostly answered by Captain Pomfret since they dealt with operations ashore, and a meek gripe from Midshipmen Hillhouse and Britton that, if there was a possibility of a sea-fight in the offing, was there any way for them to get back aboard Sapphire before it happened, the answer to which was “no”; they had a responsibility to speed the men of the 77th back aboard Harmony, then aid Captain Hedgepeth in driving his ship out of harm’s way as rapidly as she could, and if she was overtaken, organise the boat crews into as stout a resistance as possible.
The meeting broke up soon after that, and Lewrie and his two Marine officers took a boat back to Sapphire.
“Beg pardon, sor, but, we’ll be goin’ out on another’un soon?” his Cox’n Liam Desmond asked as he handled the boat’s tiller.
“Good possibility, Desmond,” Lewrie cryptically muttered back.
“Wish we was goin’ ashore with th’ solgers, sor,” Furfy said. “I got me a taste for them cured Spanish hams, and sure, th’ Spanish must have better wine than wot we can buy here.”
“You go foraging, Furfy, and ye just might get taken by the Dons, like Major Hughes,” Lewrie said with a grin. “No ham or wine, in a Spanish prison hulk, not for the likes of us.”
“You’d be surprised by how raw and bad is the wine that we’ve run across,” Marine Lieutenant Roe told Furfy. “Just peasant swill.”
“Ah, well … someday,” Furfy said, with a disappointed sigh.
“Mister Keane, might you join me in my cabins once we’re back aboard?” Lewrie invited.
“Of course, sir,” Keane replied.
* * *
“What do you make of Captain Pomfret?” Lewrie asked once they were seated, and had glasses of cool tea in hand.
“Oh, he’s miles better than Major Hughes, sir!” Keane replied, with a smile on his face. “I gather he’s had far more experience in combat, too. And, having led a light company of skirmishers, he’s much more … flexible,” Keane related, searching for the right word for a second or so. “More … enthusiastic, too. In our latest exercises on the parade ground, he’s not only worked us in separate companies, one covering the advance or retirement of the next, but broke the companies down into platoons of eight or ten men so that part of each company can advance whilst the rest are firing. In our case, he’s drilled us as five files of ten men each, three delivering fire and two in motion, then two firing while three move. He said that he wished that he had a chance to get the troops used to skirmishing in pairs, too, sir … the rear-rank man covering his mate, and taking turns shooting, but, he thought it might be too much, too soon.”
“Sounds … ambitious,” Lewrie said, nodding. “Not that I know all that much about land-fighting, but it may be so novel an approach that the enemy would be confused, and overwhelmed by the speed with which it’s done. So, you’re satisfied, Mister Keane, in the tactics, and with Captain Pomfret?”
“Completely, so, sir,” Keane enthusiastically told him, and that was saying something from a man as stern and sobre as Keane.
“Very good, then,” Lewrie said, glad that the land side of any future landing seemed to be in good hands. “Weather allowing, we will embark the troops tomorrow afternoon, and sail at first light the day after. Thank you, Mister Keane, for your opinions.”
“Aye, sir,” Keane said, finishing his glass of tea and rising.
“More tea, sir?” Pettus asked once Keane had departed.
“No, not for now, Pettus,” Lewrie told him, moving over to the settee where he could sprawl and prop his feet on the tray table. He still had his doubts about striking at the incomplete battery at Cabo de Gata, worried that Mountjoy might be too eager to show his superiors in London that they were getting a good return on the money they’d advanced him, and that he’d chosen Cabo de Gata for lack of actionable information on a better one. Lewrie hoped that Mountjoy hadn’t opted for it out of quiet desperation! If he’d been in charge of selecting targets, he would have waited ’til that battery was complete, but … he wasn’t in charge; he was still a gun-dog to Secret Branch, even after all these years.
“Sit up, beg, sic ’em,” he sourly muttered. “Good boy!”
That drew Chalky from his contemplations of devouring the gulls that alit on the stern gallery’s rails. He came trotting with his tail up, mewing for attention and leapt into Lewrie’s lap for a minute or two of pets, before settling down for a slit-eyed nap, sprawled across Lewrie’s legs.
Lewrie considered going to his desk to pore over the operational details one more time, closely scan the best coastal chart that could be found with a magnifying glass looking for the unforseen reef, shoal, or obstruction, but he’d already done that a dozen times. He yawned, and considered a nap might be of better use. The next day, the weather allowing, he’d be busy with the last-minute preparations and the loading of troops, and at getting his ship to sea the next. Tonight was his last opportunity for a run ashore, and a man would need to be well-rested for a night with Maddalena.
Damme, I keep with her much longer, and I’ll have t’send to London for another two dozen o’ the Green Lantern’s very best cundums, he mused, not trusting the cheaper ones smuggled cross The Lines from Catholic Spain, where the prevention of babies was harshly dis-approved, if not the risk of catching the Pox from a diseased doxy. Lewrie thought that the Spanish might even accept that risk as a scare tactic to keep their benighted people chaste!
Since that blabbed “dear to me”, and Maddalena’s declaration in kind, she had not said anything more upon that head, but she had become fonder, more affectionate, and even more passionate for a certainty, walking closer to him when they went about the town, reaching across restaurant tables to touch hands when they dined, and rewarded him with bright, adoring smiles. In her lodgings, she even hummed to herself, and her bird and her kitten, as if pleased with the entire world, and when in bed … frantically and often!
A nap, definitely, Lewrie told himself; Else a hot kiss and a cold breakfast’d like t’kill me!
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
“It seems we’ve created quite a scramble already, sir,” Captain Pomfret said as he peered ashore with his pocket telescope. “Might I borrow your glass, Captain Lewrie?”
“Certainly,” Lewrie said, handing over the much longer and much stronger day-glass as Sapphire and the transport closed the coast off Cabo de Gata under reduced sail.
“Oh, yes!” Pomfret said, with a laugh. “The semaphore tower is whirling away like a Turk Dervish, and the tent camp looks like an ant hill that some boys have kicked … all the workers are hitching or saddling up, and running inland.”
“El diablo negro,” Lt. Westcott said with a laugh, baring his teeth in a brief, harsh grin. “That’s what the Dons called us when we were taking and burning anything that would float, before all of the pieces of our force were assembled.”
“Their troops … they’re standing fast,” Pomfret pointed out, lowering the heavier telescope for a moment. “They’re forming before the battery walls, those dozen cavalry on their left. Lancers, by God! How useless!” he scoffed.
“They won’t be there long, after we open upon ’em,” Westcott said.
“Those lancers might be better placed above the beach,” Pomfret said, handing the day-glass back. “To disrupt our landing, though once we’re ashore in strength they’d have no choice but to retreat up the draw, and it’s too rough ground for them to re-form and charge us … their infantry would be more a threat to us.”
“You only see the one company reported to us?” Lewrie asked.
“So far, yes, sir,” Captain Pomfret replied, “and what passes as roads leading to the Cape are empty. We could see any re-enforcement coming for a long way off, the land’s so open.”
“Tell us when, Mister Yelland,” Lewrie called out to the Sailing Master, who, with a syndicate of older and more mathematically-inclined Midshipmen, had been taking the known heights of the headland to determine when Sapphire was roughly a mile off.
“Almost, sir,” Yelland called back.
“Seven fathom!” a leadsman in the fore chains shouted. “Seven fathom t’this line!”
“Almost, indeed,” Lt. Westcott muttered under his breath.
The Harmony transport stood at least half a mile off Sapphire’s starboard quarters, already beginning to fetch-to into the wind, with her six landing boats already being drawn up from towing to the chain platforms on either beam.
“Six fathom! Six fathom t’this line!”
“Now, sir!” Yelland called out.
“Alter course to Due East, Mister Westcott, and run out the larboard guns,” Lewrie ordered. “I’ll have the upper-deck twelves as the first broadside, and the lower-deck twenty-fours the second.”
“Aye, sir!”
Sapphire’s bows had been pointed at the headland, their view from the quarterdeck partially obscured by the jibs. As the helm was put over, the up-thrust jib boom and bowsprit swung clear, the jibs sweeping right like the parting of a stage curtain to reveal the headland and the battery to one and all. The ship rumbled and thundered as gun-ports were swung up and away, and the great guns were hauled to the port sills, already loaded with solid iron shot. Sailing Due East, their target lay four points off the larboard bows, slowly inching to abeam. A couple of minutes more, and fire could be opened.
“Have ’em prime, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie snapped, eager to be about it, even if he thought it could be a waste of gunpowder at that range. Below, gun-captains would be directing the crews to open the pans of their flintlock strikers to fill them with powder, then cock their locks, making sure that their trigger lines were slack. In the swab-water tubs between each gun, coils of slow-match sizzled, waiting to be wrapped round linstocks that would be applied to the touch-holes of the guns should the flintlock strikers fail, or a flint break at the wrong moment.
“Cast of the log!” Lewrie shouted, and a long minute later, Midshipman Fywell snatched the log line as it paid out and read the knots which had slipped through his fingers.
“Five and one-half knots, sir!” he piped back.
Lewrie looked aloft at the set of the sails, the direction at which the commissioning pendant lazily fluttered, and decided that it could be possible to get off three or four broadsides before the battery was too far aft of abeam for the guns to point in their narrow ports.
“As I told Mister Mountjoy, Captain Pomfret,” Lewrie said, “it would be better to anchor a bomb vessel and pound the place with sea-mortars, with thirteen-inch explosive shells. We can only elevate our guns so high, and shootin’ at an incomplete battery wall is too iffy. Go high and over by yards, strike short and tear up the ground under the battery, and the chance of solid hits is damned poor. We might as well shoot at a thin ribbon at a mile’s range.”
“You believe the best we’ll accomplish will be to drive the enemy away, sir?” Pomfret said with a frown. “Hmm, I wonder what Mister Congreve’s rockets could do to the place.”
“Rockets, my God!” Lewrie hooted in sour mirth. “We tried ’em at Boulogne three years ago, and they weaved all over the place, and a couple of ’em came damned close t’hittin’ my ship!”
“They will need a lot more experimenting with before they are useful,” Lt. Westcott said with a shake of his head. “Our experience with them did put the wind up. Seared me out of a year’s growth!”
“Time, I think, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie decided at last, feeling a rising excitement even so. “You may open fire.”
“Aye, sir. By broadsides, fire!” Westcott shouted.
All eleven of the upper gun deck’s 12-pounders lashed out as one in a titanic crash and roar, and the larboard side was swathed in a sudden cloud of sour-reeking smoke.
“My word!” Pomfret gasped. “Impressive, even so!”
“Hope ye remembered t’stuff some candle wax in yer ears,” Lewrie snickered. A moment later and the heavier 24-pounders bellowed even louder, and the concussion was strong enough to make his lungs flutter. Despite his own precautions, Lewrie’s ears rang.
The ship rumbled and trembled as the guns of the larboard battery ran in to the stops of their breeching ropes, were re-loaded, and run out again, trundling tons of metal and gun carriages over the oak decks, with the squeal of wooden truck wheels added.
“Sounds like gastric distress,” Captain Pomfret japed with his smaller pocket telescope to his eye, again. “Egad, Captain Lewrie, I don’t think those soldiers are there any longer!”
Just before the guns delivered their second broadsides, Lewrie snatched a quick view of the headland and the battery, and saw that Pomfret was right; he could not see any Spanish casualties, but could espy a whole host of them running away, up towards the semaphore tower, in hopes that it might be out of range, or haring off along the rutted and dusty tracks to the East or West of the headland. Those lancers on their fine horses were galloping straight North into the foothills of the Sierra Alhamilla and the main road that led to Almeria, bent over their mounts’ necks and looking back in terror.
The upper-deck 12-pounders roared again, followed long seconds later by the massive 24-pounders, and the view was blotted out, again. By the time Sapphire had sailed past the battery and the guns could no longer bear, they fell silent, and the ship was put about for another run, after a full three broadsides.
“Mister Westcott, bowse the larboard guns to the sills, and be ready with the starboard battery,” Lewrie ordered in a too-loud shout in the sudden relative silence. “Stations for stays, and prepare to tack.”
Steering Due West and following the six-fathom line, Sapphire pounded the Spanish battery with another three broadsides, turned out to sea to tack, then went Due East, again, hammering the place with yet another three salvoes. They repeated the manouevre for the better part of an hour. On the next Due East run, before the battery came abeam, Lewrie went up to the poop deck for a better view, joined by Captain Pomfret.
“Those soldiers are back,” Pomfret, said. “Look to the right and above the semaphore tower. They’re on a high knoll, just standing and watching. They seem to be in the same numbers as before.”
“Now they’ve changed their breeches, aye,” Lewrie said with a chuckle. “Too far off to interfere when you land your troops?”
“I imagine that once they see the boats going in, they’ll find their courage and try to defend the place,” Pomfret shrugged off, “but they’ll also realise that they’re out-numbered, and won’t do much more than pestering us. I don’t think they’ll get too close, either, else we might direct all our cannonfire on them, hah hah!”
“Well, it looks as if we’ve done all we can to damage the battery,” Lewrie said, leaning his elbows on the cap-rails of the bulwarks to steady his heavy day-glass. “And, as I feared, that ain’t much.”
The slope up to the parapets was so gouged with heavy iron shot that it appeared as if many tribes of badgers had dug their lairs, replete with several openings to each. The wooden barracks behind the battery had been turned to kindling, and the rooves had fallen in on the shattered walls. Several wild shots had even reached the semaphore tower, severed one long timber leg, and lopped off the platform at the top. The stone battery itself, though … the thick base wall had been undermined, and several of the massive stone blocks had been shifted. One upper section between openings for gun-ports was chipped and downed. All that expenditure of powder and shot, with little to show for it.
“We’ve accomplished nothing that the Spanish couldn’t repair in a month,” Lewrie sourly gravelled, lowering his telescope. “With no store of powder in their magazine, your men might have to take all our mauls and crow-levers and try t’tear the bloody thing down!”
“Iron mauls?” Captain Pomfret asked in sarcasm.
“Wood,” Lewrie told him.
“Hah!” Pomfret barked in mirthless humour.
“Do you think it’s worthwhile t’land the troops?” Lewrie asked.
“Well … we might set fire to what’s left of the tower and the barracks,” Pomfret allowed with a grimace, lifting his telescope for a another look. “There are some heavy waggons to haul the stone blocks left behind, and there are the hoisting frames. They’d burn well, too.”
“Mister Westcott?” Lewrie called down to the quarterdeck. “Do you secure the guns. We’ve no more need of ’em. Hands to the braces and sheets, and prepare to fetch-to.”
“Aye aye, sir!” Westcott replied.
“Fetching-to,” Pomfret asked. “Is that like anchoring?”
“No, we cock up into the wind with the fore-and-aft sails trying t’keep us moving, and the forecourse laid a’back so she can’t,” Lewrie explained. “We’ll slowly drift alee, but won’t go anywhere all that fast. Of course, I’ll want more sea-room ’fore we do, ’fore we drift into the shallows.”
“Deck, there!” one of the lookouts in the mainmast cross-trees shouted. “Two … strange … sail! Two points off th’ larb’d bows!”
“Mine arse on a band-box!” Lewrie barked in astonishment. “They managed t’get out?”
“The Spanish frigates your mentioned before we left Gibraltar?” Captain Pomfret asked.
“They very might be,” Lewrie said, lifting his head and cupping hand round his mouth to shout aloft. “How far away?”
“Hull-down, sir! T’gallants an’ royals is all I kin make out!” was the reply.
“Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said from the top of the poop deck’s larboard ladderway, “we will not fetch-to. Nor will we land the soldiers. Alter course to Sou’east and make more sail.”
“Aye, sir!” Westcott replied, looking wolfish at the prospect of a sea-fight.
“Mister Fywell?” Lewrie instructed the Midshipman aft by the flag lockers and log line. “Fetch out and hoist ‘Discontinue The Action’. Mister Westcott? Load and fire two of the six-pounders of the starboard battery for the General Signal.”
He looked aloft at the commissioning pendant, noting that the winds had altered during the course of the morning, and it was now more from the South; Sapphire could not steer Sou’east, and even driving at the closest “beat” to weather, could only make East-Sou’east. She’d clear Cabo de Gata easily, and might gain enough sea-room to get to windward of the two approaching strangers and hold the weather gage against them should they turn out to be Spanish.
“East-Sou’east is the closest she’ll bear, sir,” Lt. Westcott told him.
“Good enough, then. Lay her close-hauled on that course, and let’s get the old scow plodding into action,” Lewrie said, japing at his ship’s slowness.
“To glory we steer, sir!” Westcott replied, quoting a snippet from Arne’s famous song.
