"Run out the larboard batt'ry, Mister Catterall!" he shouted as the range diminished, and gun-port lids swung up and out of the way to bare their blood-red painted inner faces, stark against the lighter colour of the gunwale hull paint. Black iron muzzles slowly juddered forward as the blocks of the run-out tackles skreakily sang, and everyone could hear Lt. Catterall bellowing at his gun crews in a harsh and loud voice full of blasphemies and good-natured curses for one and all, and their foe, rising to new heights of his burly, rumble-tumble style that had even old salts grinning over his inventiveness.
The Frenchman's gun-ports also opened, her own muzzles seeming to waver as their crews fiddled with their aiming… most likely trying to slide the thick wooden quoins out from under the breeches, with their usual intent to fire high and cripple Proteus with chain-shot or star-shot, to take down her masts and sails, and allow their frigate to dash past, and get at the convoy.
He really have his heart in this? Lewrie had to ask himself, as he steeled himself for the first crashing broadsides. A long slugging match was not what most raider captains had in mind, he knew; the point was to take merchantmen, to pummel a convoy with a rapid strike, cutting out a few before the escorts could intervene and deal out real, cruise-ending damage. Rake in prize-money, and loot, punish the hated Anglais, "The Bloodies," frighten their ships' husbands and sponsors, their insurance cartels, captains, and crews, alarm Admiralty in London, and stop overseas trade, which the British had, but the French did not.
Just a bit closer, Lewrie silently urged the French frigate; just a tad. A cable's distance, or less… double-shotted guns can't miss, that close. Can't waste the first, and best, broadside!
"Quartermasters, put your helm down half a point… easy!" he snapped over his shoulder. Take the wind a bit more abeam, put Proteus on a broad reach and ease the angle of heel, provide a flatter, firmer deck for the guns…! "Thus!" he cried, now satisfied with the course. "Mister Catterall, at half a cable, you may open upon her!"
"Take aim, you rowdy bastards!" Lt. Catterall barked. "On the up-roll… by broadside… wait for it! By broadside… FIRE!"
Twelve 12-pounders, three 6-pounders, and four monstrous 24-pounder carronades roared, almost as one, the great gouts of spent gunpowder smoke caught by the wind, turned into a solid bank of choking fog for a second or two, before the wind rapidly whisked it over the decks and alee. And, that quick-keening wind brought to them the glad sound of solid shot, aimed " 'twixt wind and water," crashing and crunching into the French ship's side, the parroty Rwawrk! screech of shattered planking, the thuds of heavier timbers as her frames were battered… and, the thin, terrified cries of frightened, wounded, or quick-slain men. Just seconds before a matching great bank of gunpowder sprang to life as her own guns stabbed long reddish tongues of flames, and the thunder of artillery bellowed, almost lost in the cracks and roars of Nature's fury!
"Christ A'mighty, aw Christ A'mighty," Daniel Wigmore whinnied, wringing his hands in despair as rain poured down his face like tears from a whole clan upon the death of its laird, plastering long strands of hair to his cheeks. "Me silver, me gold, Cap'm Weed! Me h'animals! 'Em fookin' Frogs'll most-like h'eat 'em, or toss 'em h'over th' side, an' we'll all be ruint! Busted! Tents, scen'ry, costumes, performers all gone… th' girls raped'r worse! H'an't 'ere summat ye can do, I akses ye, man? Christ, we'll lose th' ship, t'boot, iff'n…!"
"Nothing to be done, 'gainst a frigate, Mister Wigmore," Captain Weed told him, looking equally despairing of the loss of his livelihood. "We got all the sail she'll carry aloft, already, and she still wallows like a hog in mud. Might be we could bear away more Westerly, turn it into a long stern-chase, but that'd only gain us two more hours, maybe less. 'Less we could put up some sort o' resistance… which we can't, not with these puny old guns of ours, and no trained gunners, who you wouldn't let me hire on, if ye'll remem…"
" 'Wishes were fishes, h'ever'body'd h'eat'!" Wigmore snapped. " 'For want of a nail…' " Capt. Weed cited right back. He had himself a gloomy squint aloft for inspiration, for an Act of God, or a Sign, but all he saw was dark sails and black rigging, masts, and spars, now and then going ghostly in the lightning flashes. The blue fusee at the truck-cap of the main mast had finally burned out, inspiring him to order the twin taffrail lanthorns to be extinguished, too, hoping that it might make Festival harder for the French to chase in the darkness.
As if to scoff at that forlorn hope, another long, flea-flicking fork of lightning lit up the sea like a full moon, revealing the French frigate pursuing them as clear as broad daylight, revealing Festival to them just as clearly.
"Damn 'em!" Capt. Weed gravelled as he peered about for the rest of the convoy. No matter how deeply loaded with the untold riches from the Far East, the East India Company ships were sleeker, faster, their bottoms cleaner, and carried much larger crews that could make the most of their acres of sail. They'd scarpered for the far horizons, and damn their black souls to Hell for running off and leaving them. Though, in all honesty, were their places switched, Weed would have been halfway to St. Helena by then, and "hard cheese" for the laggards!
Capt. Weed also spotted one lone blue fusee still burning over a pair of stern lights, off to the Nor'east. Another bolt of lightning revealed HMS Jamaica, all too far away to be of any immediate aid, but she had managed to come about in the storm, and was butting, pitching, and crashing as close to the wind's eye as she might lay, almost bows-on to Festival on what Weed thought was a course of South by West, six points off the storm's keening winds.
"Could we but hold them off a few minutes, Mister Wigmore!" the desperate Capt. Weed shouted almost into Wigmore's ear. "Offer up some resistance, there's Jamaica, coming to our…!"
"Wot/" Wigmore barked back, leaning away in shock. "Are ye daft, Weed? R'sistance! Why, 'ey'd shoot us t'kindlin', 'en come swarmin' h'aboard an' slaughter us all, men, wimmen, an' babes; ye great ninny! Said yerself, we can't fight a bloody frigate!"
"The Frogs don't want to sink us, or slaughter us, sir," Capt. Weed urgently insisted. "They want a prize, a whole prize…"
"O' course 'ey do, puddin' brains!" Wigmore screeched in alarm. "Sure t'God, 'ey h'an't come fer a matinee!"
"To board us!" Weed snapped, going so far as to seize Wigmore by his sopping-wet lapels, wishing he could go for his throat instead, and who needed this job and why had he ever signed on this bloody Ark? "Up close, alongside, d'ye see! Hard enough to do in a storm, already. We have nets to catch your acrobats, do they slip and fall. We could rig them along the starboard side for boarding nets, to slow them down! I know your people have guns, swords, knives, and such, besides our pikes, cutlasses, and muskets. I dasn't trust our rusty old artillery with a full powder charge and solid shot, but I can load 'em light, with scrap iron and langridge. Man-ki\\m stuff, lit off right into their Froggy teeth, man! The bears? The lion? Bloody bows and arrows? Your knife-thrower, your fire-eater and his oils? Free the God-damn' baboons if…!"