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Authors: Dewey Lambdin

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“Bosun, ready to wear ship!” Railsford bellowed. “Quartermaster, we shall put the helm up and bring her to on the starboard tack.”
 
By the time they had finished their evolution, and
Desperate
rode cocked up into the wind once more, the French fleet was sliding up on them with the wind on their quarter.
Pluton
was no longer the van ship, having been pounded half to matchwood in the first attempt, and a new vessel presented herself as a target.
Barfleur,
the ninety-gunned 2nd Rate, opened fire first at the apex of the line, swinging about on her spring-lines to get off several hot broadsides at the same target, and the other ships
en potence
joined in as the French came within range. Clouds of smoke soared into the tropic skies, and artillery belched and thundered, spitting long red tongues of flame and sparks from burning wads into the smoke clouds. The view was blotted out once more; it might have been a gunnery exercise, as far as the men in
Desperate
could see. Even the masts of the French vessels disappeared, and the sun was eclipsed into dusk.
“There, sir!” Railsford gasped, pointing out the shape emerging to the west of the worst powder smoke. A French 3rd Rate broke free from the pall, and everyone breathed out in relief to note she was not pointing her jib-boom at them any longer, but was hauling her wind to leeward to break away west, her best attempt rejected.
“Hmmph,” Treghues snorted contemptuously. “Is that the best de Grasse can do, then? Not much heart put into this sally, was there?”
“Signal, sir!” One of the new thirteen-year-old midshipmen piped from aft in a reedy voice. “Our number! From the flag! ‘Well done,' sir!”
“Ah,” Treghues preened. “Is it?” With little risk to themselves, they had finally done something to expunge part of that silent, faceless and therefore uncounterable cloud of disapproval. If Hood could take a moment to be magnanimous, perhaps even their squadron commander, Comdr. Sir George Sinclair could forgive them for losing him his nephew, one of their midshipmen who had not escaped with her that stormy night in the Chesapeake. It was all Treghues could do to not begin leaping about the deck and breaking into a horn-pipe of glee at that most welcome signal.
“If that's all the excitement for the day, gentlemen, we may haul our wind and come about on the larboard tack once more. Course due west. Make easy sail.”
“Aye aye, sir,” Lieutenant Railsford agreed.
“We made 'em look pretty stupid, hey?” Mr. Monk chortled. “This de Grasse ain't nothin' like the ogre we made him out ta be.”
“I want you all to witness that we have done something glorious in the last two days,” Treghues said, handing his sword to his servant Judkin before going below for a late dinner. “We bedazzled them out of their anchorage, and just shot the heart right
out of them. Give us another week of steady breezes out of the sou'east and their troops ashore will be running low on rations. There's no foraging here on an island as small as St. Kitts. There may be six thousand men in their army. A loss so large would be as disastrous to them as Saratoga or Yorktown was to us. Pray God, all of you, that this may come to pass, and our Merciful Savior shall vouchsafe English arms with a victory so grand we shall speak of it as Henry V did of St. Crispin's Day!”
The hands cheered to his ringing speech, but since Treghues' patriotic fervor did not extend to “splicing the mainbrace” and trotting out a celebratory tot of rum, and he did not mention Agincourt by name, most of the unlettered could only scratch their heads and wonder what the fuss was about, except that Sam Hood had laid into the Frogs and given them a walloping.
But barely had the ship been put about, the hands stood down from Quarters and the galley fires been lit than the lookouts summoned Treghues back to the deck.
“Where away?” he asked.
“There, sir.” Railsford pointed with his telescope held like a small-sword in his hand. “A despatch boat of some kind, fore'n'aft rigged, coming on close to the wind. And there's a frigate out to leeward to support her. Mayhap a message from de Grasse to his troops ashore, sir?”
“Aye, today would take some explaining,” Treghues sniffed. “Get sail on her, Mister Railsford. We shall drive her back out to sea, or take her and read her despatches ourselves.”
“Dinner, sir?” Railsford prompted.
“My dear Railsford, your concern with victuals is commendable.” Treghues laughed. “Biscuit and cheese, and serve out small-beer. We may be beating to Quarters within the hour. Tell the cooks to put out their fires.”
A
mong the many things Alan Lewrie hated about the Navy was the need for cold dinners. The biscuit was thick and unleavened, hard as a deck plank, and could only be eaten after being soaked in beverage; that is, as soon as one had rapped it on the mess table enough to startle the weevils out of it. The cheese purchased by the Navy was Suffolk, hard and crumbly and the very devil to choke down. There had been no time to get Freeling to dig into their personal stores for a more chewable Cheddar picked up at Wilmington, and the sudden call to Quarters had brought them boiling back onto the upper decks, while the ship echoed with the sounds of expected combat. Doors and partitions slammed as they were struck down and carried to the hold so they would not form splinters that made most of the injuries in battle. Chests and personal gear went below as well. A towed boat was brought up alongside and the captain's furniture and the livestock were tossed into it, the sheep bleating and the hens in their crates squawking; a thin-shanked bullock was simply tossed over the side to sink or swim as God and the tropical sharks willed. Hundreds of horny bare feet slapped as men ran to their guns, the gangways, to the clew lines ready to reduce the main course and brail it up to the yard to reduce the risk of fire. Chain slings were rigged aloft to prevent spars from breaking loose and falling onto the packed mass of men who would be serving the guns. Boarding netting was slung over the decks and draped in unseamanly bights to protect against a surge of men over the rails should they lay close-aboard an enemy, and to form a screen against blocks and tackles (and bodies) falling from aloft.
“Two-masted schooner,” Railsford said, studying the despatch
boat with a telescope. “I believe we have the reach on her, sir. She'll not get past us, even as weatherly as she is.”
“That frigate is closing as well, though.” Treghues nodded, lost in thought. “I make her a twenty-eight. Do you concur?”
“Aye, sir,” Railsford agreed, swinging his glass to eye the other vessel, which was coming on in the schooner's wake in her support, a little wider off the wind since she was a square-rigged ship and could not beat as close-hauled as a fore-and-aft rigged ship. They were on a general course far north of the British fleet anchorage, almost on a bearing for the northern limb of Frigate Bay, where the French Army had landed two weeks before.
“One point harder up,” Treghues said. “Lay her full and by as close to the wind as we may. I shall want the wind gauge even should she turn away and run down back to her protector.”
“Aye, sir.”
Alan turned to the starboard rails and looked back towards the fleet anchorage. There was another British frigate back there to the south trying to close up with them, but she was nearly two miles off, and could not be up with them for some time.
Laid close to the wind,
Desperate
put up a brave picture, her battle flags streaming from every mast, her bow slamming into the bright tropical waters and flinging spray as high as the bow sprit, wetting the foresails with an atomized cloud of salt water, and the quarter wave hissed down her side and spread out like a bride's train of white foam.
Alan leaned over the bulwarks to see how the suction of the wave on her quarter exposed the weeded quick-work of her bottom that rarely saw daylight, heeled over as she was against the wind. Spray flew about in buckets, splashing as high as the quarterdeck and showering him with cooling droplets now and again.
Damme, this can be exciting on a pretty day like this. Alan beamed. This is a glory. Makes up for all the humbug.
“Ahem!” Monk coughed, drawing Alan's attention back inboard, and he walked back down to the wheel and binnacle with some difficulty on the slant of the deck, his shoes slipping on fresh-sanded planking, getting traction from the hot tar that had been pounded between the planks.
“I hopes the hull meets yer satisfaction, Mister Lewrie,” Monk said. “The captain ain't payin' much attention now, but juniors don't go ta windward if the captain's on deck—that's his by right.”
“A cod's-head's mistake, Mister Monk, I admit,” Alan realized.
“But you'll be happy to know the coppering is fairly clean.”
“Aye, I'm
sure
the bosun un the carpenter'll be pleased,” Monk drawled pointedly. “Now stay down ta loo'ard, iffen ya don't object.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Alan joined Sedge, the other master's mate. He was older, in his very early twenties, a Loyalist who had joined the Royal Navy years earlier, and who was thirsting for revenge against the Rebels who had ruined his family. He was a thatch-haired and ungainly fellow with a hard hatchet face, and so far had been no more friendly than he had to be to get along in the mess, or on duty.
“Think we'll get a chance to fight 'em?” Alan asked.
“Na, this schooner'll run to momma, an' momma'll drive us off,” Sedge opined gloomily. “She's a twenty-eight. You kin mark her, if you've a mind now. Long nines for chase guns on her fo'c'sle, ten carriage guns abeam—twelve-pounders most like—and six-pounders on her quarterdeck.”
“Only one more gun than us per broadside.”
“Aye, but twelves, not our nine-pounders,” Sedge said as though Alan had uttered some lunacy worthy of Bedlam. “An' two of our nines aft're short brass pieces just as like ta blow up in our faces sure as damnit.”
“Wish we still had the ‘Smashers,'” Alan shrugged, giving up on making pleasant conversation with a man who looked more at home tumbling out of a hay-wagon than on a quarterdeck. “Then we'd give 'em the fear of God and British artillery.”
“Aye, but ya left 'em at Yorktown, didn' ya?” Sedge sneered. “I told ya. There she goes, haulin' her wind, runnin' for safety.”
Alan thought the comment was grossly unfair. The “Smashers,” the short-ranged carronade guns that threw such heavy shot had been commandeered by the Army.
They
had lost them, not anyone in
Desperate,
and now two older long-barreled six-pounders graced the frigate's fo'c'sle as chase guns. But then, he realized, Sedge was ever the graceless lout.
The despatch schooner had indeed fallen off the wind to wear to the west-nor'west to take the Trades on her larboard quarter, running off to leeward and the protection of the French frigate.
“Ease your helm, hands wear ship! Due north, quartermaster!”
The waisters and idlers sprang to the braces to ease them out to larboard, angling the yards to allow
Desperate
to take the
wind on her starboard quarter, so they could interpose between the schooner, frigate, and the shore, maintaining the wind gauge advantage. The French ship eased her helm as well by at least a point, screening her weaker consort. The two warships were now on two sides of a triangle; one headed north and the other nor'east. If allowed to continue, they would meet about two miles west of the port of Basse Terre.
The schooner passed close ahead of her escort, then gybed to the opposite tack and began to reach sou'west away from the anchorage with the wind abeam. Moments later, the French man o'war came about as well, but instead of wearing down-wind, she threw herself up into the wind's eye for a tack. Since it slowed her down so much to do so,
Desperate
began to close her more rapidly.
“Helm up a point, quartermaster. Hands to the braces!” Treghues bawled.
Desperate
turned a bit more westerly of due north, taking the Trades more directly up the stern, a “landsman's breeze.”
“She'll pass astern o' us; mebbe a mile, mile un a half off,” Monk speculated, calculating speed and approach angles in his head after the Frenchman steadied on a course sou'sou'west to provide a mobile bulwark for the schooner.
“About two miles off now,” Treghues commented, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Once astern, they could come about and try again, with us north of them and to leeward. They'd get into Basse Terre before we could beat south to interpose again.”
He paced about at the windward rail, from the nettings overlooking the waist to the wheel and back, his fingers drumming on his ornately engraved and inlaid sword hilt.
“Hands wear ship, Mister Railsford! Gybe her and lay her on the same tack as yonder Frog. If we shall not have her information, I do not mean to allow her to pass that same information ashore for lack of effort on our part.”
“Aye, sir!” Railsford shouted. “Stations for wearing ship! Main clewgarnets and buntlines, there, bosun!”
“Spanker brails, weather main cro'jack and lee cro'jack braces!” Alan cried at the afterguard men. “Haul taut!”
“Up mains'l and spanker!” Railsford went on with a brass speaking trumpet to his lips. “Clear away after bowlines, brace in the afteryards! Up helm!”
Desperate
fell off the wind more, her stern crossing the eye of the wind slowly, for she was no longer generating her own apparent wind but sailing no faster than the Trades could blow.
“Clear away head bowlines! Lay the headyards square!” Railsford directed as the wind came directly astern, gauging the proper moment at which the foresails would no longer be blanketed by the courses and tops'ls. “Headsheets to starboard!”
“Main tack and sheet. Clear away, there. Spanker outhaul and clear away the brails,” Alan added as the wind drew forward on the larboard quarter.
Within a breathless few minutes,
Desperate
was squared away on a new point of sail, paralleling the Frenchman to the sou'sou'west, and just slightly ahead of her by a quarter-mile.
“Smartly done, Mister Railsford.” Treghues nodded in satisfaction at how professionally
Desperate
's crew did their sail drill.
“Thankee, sir.” Railsford beamed. “Steady out bowlines! Haul taut weather trusses, braces and lifts! Clear away on deck!”
“He's shivering his mizzen tops'l, sir!” Alan pointed out as the French frigate tried to slow down, possibly so she could pass astern of Desperate and still get up to windward for Basse Terre.
“He's a game little cock, isn't he, Mister Railsford?” Treghues chuckled. “Once he gets an idea into his pate he won't give it up. Back the mizzen tops'l and haul in on the weather braces. Get the way off her.”
Realizing that he could not dodge about
Desperate,
the Frenchman came up close to the wind and began to put on speed once more close-hauled, closing the range slightly. Oddly, Treghues let her approach to within three-quarters of a mile; just about the range of random shot, before ordering
Desperate
to haul in once more and maintain the distance.
“Pretty thing,” Alan commented to Monk after a quick sharing of a telescope with the sailing master. The frigate had a dark brown oak hull, with a jaunty royal blue gunwale stripe picked out in yellow top and bottom, with much gilt trim about her bulwarks scroll-work and taffrail carvings of cherubs and dolphins and saints. Her figurehead could almost be discerned, a sword and shield-wielding maiden surmounted by a gilt
fleur de lis
crown.
“She's hard on the wind to close us, sir,” Alan noted.
“Aye, but we'll draw ahead if she stays so,” Monk growled.
There was a sudden puff of smoke from the Frenchman that blossomed on her far bow, then was blown away to a mist by the Trades. Seconds later, the sound of a shot could be heard, a thin thumping noise. She had fired one gun to leeward, the traditional challenge to combat. Evidently the French captain was so angered at being stymied by
Desperate
's maneuverings that he wanted to vent some round-shot spleen upon her.
Alan looked back at Treghues and saw the glint in his eyes. It would be galling to refuse combat, especially for a ship and captain under a cloud for previous actions, no matter how unfair the accusation was, and Alan could see Treghues' jaws working below the tan flesh of that narrow, patrician face.
No, he can't be thinking of it! Alan quailed. We can't fight a twenty-eight. We've done enough to clear our hawse already!
“Mister Gwynn, fire the leeward chase gun,” Treghues said. “Brail up the main course, Mister Railsford. I think this stubborn Frog needs a lesson in manners. Mr. Peck, would you be so good as to assemble the band and have them give us something stirring?”
The starboard six-pounder banged, and the ship's boys with the drums and fifes met in the waist just below the quarterdeck rails and began a tinny rendition of “Heart of Oak,” as the waisters and topmen took in the large main course and brailed it aloft on the main yard. The Marine complement paraded back and forth on the lee gangway by the bulwark and the hammock stowage, which would be their breast-works in the battle to come. A few of them who were better shots than others went aloft into the tops with their muskets and their swivel guns.
The Frenchman was closing fast, close enough to make out her open gunports. Alan groaned to himself when he saw that there were eleven of them. Two bow chase guns, six-pounders like Sedge thought, but only four quarterdeck guns, and
eleven
bloody twelve-pounders in each broadside battery, not ten! he noted with a sick feeling.
BOOK: The King's Commission
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