"On the down-roll, Mister Catterall! Sink the bitch!" he heard.
"Not bad, not bad at all," Lewrie allowed as Proteus wore about Sutherly after her second crushing broadside. They had blown her stern in shot away both rudder and transom post, then punched great holes on the waterline, where the ever-hungry sea now sucked and surged into her, remorselessly. The merchantman's mizen-mast had been sheered off belowdecks, had swivelled and fallen forward into her main-mast's rigging to drag that shot-torn assembly into ruin as well, to drape her larboard side like a funeral shroud.
"She's afire, too, sir," Lt. Langlie pointed out, his arm extended toward her bows, where her galley fire, still smouldering under the steep-tubs and grills so soon after feeding her complement, had spilled from the brick-lined pits, catching fresh fuel alight. Hot air rippled up from below, distorted and wavering like the air over a forge. Thin skeins of smoke jetted from the gaps in her deck planks or side scantlings as if bellows-driven, with now and then a wink of tiny yellow flamelets peek-a-booing over the bulwarks.
"Saves us the trouble of stopping to light her ourselves" was the grimly satisfied reply he got from Captain Lewrie.
"She began to strike her colours, Captain Lewrie," Peel accused. "I don't see why you had to-"
"Damn you, sir!" Lewrie barked, turning on him. "My word is law aboard this ship, and I'll thankee to remember it! Her flag still flew, her captain had not yielded her up, and I've no time to line my purse, with an enemy man o' war in the offing. D'ye hear me plain… sir?"
"I will be forced to report that," Peel retorted, stung to the quick by such harsh, ungentlemanly language, such a sudden challenge.
"Damn what you report, Mister Peel!" Lewrie sneered, his hands clasped behind his back, leaning forward from the waist, his face close to Peel's, forcing him to take half a step backwards. "We came here to inspire terror, Mister Peel… fear of us greater than any that bogeyman Choundas carries with him. In their navy, their privateers, their merchantmen, alike… sir!"
"But…" Peel was weakly forced to object, taken aback by this new, bloodthirsty aspect to a man he'd always considered competent but too… flibbertigibbet. "The consequences, our repute…"
"Now you just contemplate the implications of that, why don't you, Mister Peel," Lewrie continued, in a softer voice, with slyness creeping onto his face, "while we try our metal with yon Frog frigate. Mister Langlie," Lewrie barked, spinning away, "shape course to stand seaward of the port with the wind a touch forrud of abeam for greater speed. I want us at close quarters with that frigate before she gets a goodly way on. She's still bows-on to the town, maybe had anchors down before being alerted." He lifted his glass to peer hungrily at her measuring speed and distance, warily over-estimating how quickly she could cut cables and make sail, giving the French the benefit of the doubt as to how well-prepared they would be by the time Proteus was level with her. Choundas was rumoured to have come in a frigate. Was this his, under his direct command or not, her captain and officers had to be a cut above the usual jumped-up radicals, with skills gone rusty for spending too long in harbour. Lewrie hoped the enemy frigate was the one based on Guadeloupe before Choundas arrived-but he wasn't ready to wager the lives of his crew on this being the case. "Mister Catterall, load and then secure the starboard battery," Lewrie called to his Second Officer, "then double-shot the larboard to the muzzles with grape, langridge, star-shot, bar-shot, and chain-shot. Hop to it, lads! We're going to skin the Monsoors alive!"
" Vite, vite, vite!" Choundas muttered under his breath, as if he could will Desplan and his crew to quicker preparation. The cables had been cut, anchors bedamned, and the bitter ends not even buoyed for later recovery. They could always take new ones from a fearful merchantman. Courses had been freed by energetic young topmen, who had slashed the gaskets away. Clew lines had been freed by men on deck, and the sails let fall on their own, not eased down. Fore course and tops'l were now laid flat aback their masts, and the jibs were fully hoisted, then drawn by human force to starboard to get their frigate's head down alee. The spanker over the after quarterdeck shivered as men of the after-guard tailed on the sheets to drag it over to starboard, as well, to force Le Bouclier's stern to walk windward and twist her more wind-abeam to work her off the town. Blocks' sheaves cried and squeaked as her main and mizen tops'l yards crept up off the rests one snail-like foot at a time, to Choundas's impatient eyes. The enemy ship was hull-up, now, dashing down upon them with a bone in her teeth, all but her main course drawing well, and that sail showing but a single reef, so far. Was Fate merciful, Choundas thought, they might brail it up to reduce the threat of fire from the sparks of her own gunnery, reducing her speed, giving his own frigate a chance!
He looked over the stern, down the long transom post, past the massive pintles and gudgeons and the wide, tapered slab of the rudder. Choundas felt a cold, bleak despair settle in his stomach, as if he'd gulped down a sorbet too quickly. Even with the rudder hard-over, the sea round its blade only barely swirled, little stronger than a spoon in a cup of coffee. A flowing tide would spin eddies greater than that!
He stood erect, shambled about to his right to lay hold of the larboard taff-rail lanthorn-post-and found a cause for sudden hope. The steeple of a church ashore was no longer pinned over the larboard cat-heads but was now roughly amidships, right over the larboard entry-port. She was moving, falling off and making way!
"Vite, vite, sacrebleu, vite!" he urgently whispered.
"What should we do, m'sieur?" the petty officer normally in command of L 'Impudente asked of his temporary, amateur captain.
"Get ready to fight, of course," Lt. Jules Hainaut responded.
"Mon Dieu, merde alors" the petty officer almost whimpered, "but with what, m'sieur?" He waved a hand at L'Impudente's open deck and low bulwarks, where nested a pitiful set of six 4-pounder pop-guns, the shot racks beside them holding a skimpy allotment of balls. There were iron stanchions set into the railings for swivel-guns, mere 1-pounders or 2-pounders, so light that a single man could heave them up from below-empty, at the moment, as bare as a whore's arse.
"With what we have, marinier," Hainaut chuckled back. "Honour demands it. Are the swivels below? Not rusted in a heap?"
"Oui… some," the petty officer shrugged in reply.