"Very well, Mister Langlie. New course, Nor-Nor'west, full and by. Mister Larkin, run tell Lieutenant Catterall we'll be hard on the wind, and he's to put the quoins full-in before he fires."
"Aye, sor… sir!" the little imp happily cried before dashing forward, glad to have escaped his captain's wrath and to be "back in his good books."
"Oh, dear," the Sailing Master muttered as they watched the wee foeman begin to swing, as Proteus, too, began to heel over and change course, "but the poor fellow just chose the wrong tack to take, sir."
"Let's hope we make his life a little more exciting, the next few moments, sir," Lewrie snickered.
"Stand by!" they could hear Lt. Catterall shouting faintly, half his volume stolen by the rush of the wind. "On the down-roll…"
"Eu, merde!" petty officer Gaston muttered once again, wincing into his thin coat as the British frigate's gun-ports opened.
"Fire!" Lt. Hainaut shouted urgently. "Fire now, then get on the sheets and we'll wear about… quickly!"
His larboard 4-pounders fired, smouldering linstocks put to the touch-holes of the old-fashioned guns without even an attempt to lay or aim them. Crisp, terrier-like bangs rapped out, then a sharp double bang as the swivel-guns made their contribution. Even pointing upwards at forty-five degrees, their loads of scrap-iron and pistol balls would more likely come back down like a sudden rain squall not a third of the way to the anglais warship-which fired back!
Moans, keens, and shrieks of deadly, hurtling metal ran up the musical scale as they neared, some passing close enough to bludgeon men half off their feet with the wind of their passing, one smashing close-aboard, not twenty new-fangled meters from the larboard side a monster column of water leaping skyward as high as the foremast truck, to come pelting down like the rains of a tropic hurricane, wetting everything and everyone in an instant, smothering the wind from the fore-and-aft gaff sails and jibs, knocking Hainaut's elegant cocked hat off into the filthy scuppers, and drenching his best uniform and his carefully combed coif, 'til he looked, and felt, like a half-drowned wharf rat.
"We will tack!" he cried. "Hands to the sheets. Ready to come about?" Yes, they were more than ready, by the look of it. "Helm is… alee!" he shouted, putting his whole weight on the tiller bar.
Away L'Impudente danced, force back in her sails and agile again, showing her stern to the "Bloodies' " next broadside, then swinging past the eye of the wind to run just a dab South of Due East, making herself a very small, thin target… incidentally.
"Now, we will haul our wind and show her our starboard sides," Hainaut screeched at his shaken crew. "We will fire one last set of shots from the starboard guns, then go back on the wind. I promise." He had to add that; the first part of his orders had them looking outright mutinous! "Just one more, for the honour of our glorious flag, mes amis! To show les anglais we will never be daunted!" Hainaut didn't care if shot was rammed home or not; the bangs and the powder smoke would suffice for a show of defiance. For a show.
"Free sheets and take a strain… helm's up! Ease the sheets. Wait 'til the deck's level, for God's sake, wait… Now, fire! And sheet home. Helm is alee! And we are bound for home and mother!"
"What in Hell was that in aid of, I wonder?" Lt. Devereux, the Marine officer, asked with a wry, gawping, one-eye-cocked expression.
"Some young and cocky Monsoor, with dung for brains," Catterall chuckled. His guns were shot out, swabbed clean, flintlocks removed, and the tompions inserted into the cooling muzzles. The gun-ports had been let drop and lashed shut, and his magnificent 12-pounder Blomefeld Pattern great-guns were now firmly bowsed to the bulwarks, their trucks chocked, and train and run-out tackle neatly overhauled. A last sponge-down to remove the powder stains, and Catterall could go aft for a well-deserved glass of claret from the gun-room stores. Looking up at their Marine officer on the gangway above him, Catterall imagined that Devereux was looking a tad "dry," himself, and might even, after such a successful morning's work, dip into his personal stores and offer to share a bottle with them. Devereux had private funds in addition to his pay, and a much more refined palate; his wine stock was head-and-shoulders above anything to which Mrs. Catterall's second son could ever aspire… not if they kept blasting perfectly good prize vessels off the face of the ocean instead of taking them, that is.
"Good rub-down, Sarn't Skipwith," Devereux instructed, handing over his Pennsylvania rifle-musket. "And do tell Private Doakes he is not to dab gun-oil on the stock, this time, hmm?"
"Sah!"
"And did you do good practice, sir?" Catterall asked.
"Rather doubt it, Mister Catterall," Devereux dismissively said. "Our closest approach was just under three hundred yards, and even the rifle-musket can't guarantee accuracy that far. Did keep 'em worried, though, I expect, to hear balls hum round their ears that far away."
"Lord, I'm dry as dust!" Catterall ventured, hands in the small of his back and creaking himself in a backwards arc to resettle bones.
"We'll splice the main-brace, if I've learned anything about the Captain," Devereux promised. "Soon as everything's 'Bristol Fashion.'"
Catterall turned away for a last look-over of his charges, making a face at the very thought of rum, and thinking that Lt. Devereux was a stingy bastard at times. "Oh, jolly," he falsely cheered.
'Now, Mister Winwood," Lewrie said, beckoning the Sailing Master up to the starboard mizen shrouds, "at Nor-Nor'west, should we attempt to work our way to windward below Monserrat, or should we stand on 'til we fetch Nevis, or Saint Kitts, before tacking for Antigua?"
"I suggest we stand on, sir," Mr. Winwood said. "The Trades're back to normal… so far, that is. Not above Saint Kitts, though."
"Very well. Consult your charts and make a best guess for me, as to when and where we may safely shave Nevis. Aye, no need to put us on a lee shore on Saint Kitts, should the Trades back Easterly."
"Aye, sir. I shall see to it."
"Mister Peel?" Lewrie beckoned again, as Winwood went down to the binnacle cabinet. "A moment of your time, if you please."
"Captain Lewrie," Peel said, tight-lipped and still truculent.
"My apologies for any Billingsgate language in the heat of the moment, Mister Peel," Lewrie casually explained, "but if we are bound to work hand-in-glove 'til God knows when, I s'pose I do owe you further explanation of my… madness," he continued, with a disarming grin.
"I quite understand you wish to take Choundas down a peg in the eyes of his compatriots, Captain Lewrie," Peel coolly allowed, stiffly formal. "I would also imagine that tweaking his nose this morning was something personal to you."
"Quite right, Mister Peel," Lewrie cheerfully confessed. "Was he watching this morning, or will he just hear of it, he'll know the name of our ship. And you have already told me that he knows I'm in command of her. Your Mister Pelham suggested that that knowledge might lure him into folly… since chasing me down to kill me is personal to him, too. This little piece of work should fix his attention hellish-wondrous. Right? "
"Granted, Captain Lewrie," Peel said, gravely nodding, and seeming to relent his insulted stiffness a tad.
"But what'11 it do among his smuggling captains and crews, his small and weak auxiliaries… his privateers?" Lewrie posed, beaming with evil glee. "I deliberately destroyed that Dutch ship to make the point that, do they cross my hawse, there'll be no mercy, 'long as they work for Choundas. That rumour will get round among 'em, count on it, soon as Proteus, and Lewrie, and Choundas are linked. Other warships might play by the accepted rules, but they'd best write their wills and sleep with one eye open as long as I'm at sea.