For HMS Proteus was coming about, first swinging to present her stern to the Trades, then only slowly, handsomely, swinging her yards, jibs, and stays'ls as she wore across the eyes of the wind, offering up her profile to the French corvettes, which were swinging their bows at her as they tacked. The slowness of the British frigate's manoeuvres,
and their tacks, brought all three square-riggers closer to each other- yet still frustratingly out of even a most hopeful gunner's attempt to hit her, one mile beyond Range-To-Random-Shot.
Guillaume Choundas hobbled to the head of the larboard gun-deck ladder, wrapping his left arm about the stanchion for a swivel-gun, his walking-stick tucked under his arm, and thumping his fist on the rails as if to flog Le Gascon into a break-neck gallop. Griot, canny sailor that he was, had the larboard guns run out and the starboard artillery run in near to amidships, to loading positions, to get her flatter on her bottom. Le Gascons, and La Resolue's, bottoms were mostly clean their entries were finer than most, and their length of keel was just a bit shorter than the frigate's. Given enough time, and both corvettes should stride up to Proteus and bracket her between their guns. Lewrie could squirm about5 but that would only quicken his death.
He looked Sutherly, noting that La Resolue was positioned for an engagement on Lewrie's starboard side, while Le Gascon was high enough to take him under fire on his larboard side, even allowing for leeward slippage, which was unavoidable going hard to windward.
"Your protege, Hainaut, has courage, m'sieur," Griot commented. "His schooner might get to her before we do."
"Yes, he does," Choundas replied, irked that his vital calculations of wind, leeway, and speed were interrupted, yet with a sound of grudging pride in his voice, even so. "Cleverness, too."
"Let us hope more cleverness than brute bravery, m'sieur" Capt. Griot gloomily intoned. "Once we savage Proteus, and get past her, we must bear away Southeast, else we approach the Americans, line-abreast… unable to aid each other, m'sieur" he pointed out.
"I do not fear their rough-cast, home-made, and light pop-guns, Griot!" Choundas declared with a sneer. "American foundries and powder mills are… merde. And their gun crews a pack of clumsy children in comparison to how well you and MacPherson have trained ours."
"Very well, m'sieur," Griot said, keeping his voice neutral, in dread of what Choundas might order in the heat of rising expectations for battle. He feared pointing out how quickly the Americans stalked down on them, were starting to haul their wind a point or so, as if to aim between Proteus's stern quarters and his own ship's bows, and cut them off from pursuit. Capt. Griot was fearful, too, to express what qualms he felt after taking a long look at the trailing "small frigate" that his lookouts had reported, as she loomed taller and taller in his ocular, beginning to appear as massive as a cut-down Third Rate still bearing two decks of guns… Madness, the doughty Griot thought, his heart heavy; we are sacrificed to this ogre's revenge. Madness!
"The Frog schooner's now about one mile off our starboard quarters, sir," Lt. Langlie adjudged, his telescope to his eye, "and those corvettes are a mile and a half astern, but coming fast. One about dead astern, t'other on our larboard quarter."
"And our Yankees only four miles up to windward," Lewrie added, with a satisfied sniff. "Time for some fun, Mister Langlie. Haul our wind and steer due South. Mister Catterall?" he shouted forward, over the hammock nettings. "Stand by, the starboard battery, and take that schooner under fire once we've fallen off! Your best gun-captains, to fire as they bear, mind! Let 'em take their time at it!"
"Aye aye, sir!" Catterall bellowed back, pleased as punch to be loosed on their foes, at last. "Right, you bawdy whore-sons…!"
Proteus heeled, groaning, almost putting her starboard outboard shroud chain platforms into the sea as her helm was put up, as braces and sheets were eased. Once settled on her new course due South, the port lids swung up to make a regular blood-red chequer against the pale paint of her gunwales, and the heavy truck-carriages rumbled and squealed as her 12-pounder guns were run out in-battery. A long minute passed as gun-captains fussed and fiddled with the elevating quoin blocks, directing their crews to shift aim left or right with the long crow-levers to "sweat" tons of oak and iron a few inches. Rope tackles and blocks were overhauled for clear recoil paths, before the experienced gun-captains took up the lanyards to their flintlock strikers, then shot their free fists skyward to show readiness, reducing the slack in the lanyards to the last, remaining inch…
"As you bear… fire!" Lt. Catterall roared.
Bow to stern, her thirteen starboard 12-pounders stuttered out a bellicose thunder, some gunners waiting for the scend of the sea to raise the decks nearer to dead-level before jerking their lanyards; in ones, twos, and threes the guns erupted and lurched inboard, with both guns right-aft in Lewrie's great-cabins adding the final kettledrum coda of a quick Boo-Boom! To Lewrie's ears it was almost excruciatingly… musical!
The French schooner had been almost bows-on to Proteus, following her turn off the wind, and her stunned master had kept her bows-on… most-likely to present the slimmest target he could to that sudden broadside. Great, lovely columns and feathers of spray leaped skyward about her… to either beam, or short before her bows, but terrifyingly close, and bounding upward as darting black specks from First Graze barely slowed to howl, keen, or shriek over her decks or down both of her sides, as if she had been assailed by a flying coven of witches!
Thinking quickly, the schooner's captain ordered her helm hard over to leeward to tack her Northward towards the nearest corvette to escape a second pummeling, hoping to flit beyond Proteus's limited gun-arcs. As she bared her starboard side to them, rolling, heeling, and every sail panic-flogging, Proteus's gunners raised a jeering howl at the sight of holes that their shot had punched in her canvas!
"Now, back on the wind, Mister Langlie!" Lewrie ordered. "All for now, Mister Catterall, sorry! Close your ports, but reload, then stand by to serve 'em another!"
"We've lost a quarter-mile to the corvettes, sir," Lt. Langlie pointed out.
"Aye. Temptin'," Lewrie snickered, beaming fit to bust, with a playful double-lift of his brows, "ain't we. Those poor bastards back yonder, Mister Langlie… they should be running, but they're not. I doubt they could scuttle back to Choundas, 'thout dirtyin' their guns a time or two. He'd scrag 'em for cowardice, else. Counting on it!"
The schooner ploughed on Northerly for a minute longer, before tacking again to lay herself half a mile in advance of the nearer corvette, now up on their larboard quarter. Some quick flag hoists were made, then both vessels hauled their wind a point free, to fall off on a bow-and-quarter line, "lasking," 'til they lay off Proteus's starboard quarters once more, then came back to in-line-ahead, hard on the wind. The far corvette had fallen off, too, to match the distance to leeward that Proteus had lost with her Sutherly swing, all of them yet intent on bracketing, then pummeling, her.