The westernmost spit of Thatch Cay passed abeam to starboard; from a quick peek at the chart still pinned to the traverse board, Lewrie could see that the safe channel bent due West for a time, then sharply North. Mandai Point on Saint Thomas loomed upwards, 277 feet in the air, with shoals at its feet churning soapy-white foam where tide, current, and scend collided, long before the prettier breakers along the narrow beach. The brig must bear up for Hans Lollick Island, and deep water… though now without her spanker to balance her helm she could not. Did she try to close-reach, she'd wallow and dither, near the wind then off, like a wounded lizard's death-crawls.
Instead, Proteus steered up windward, while the brig sagged to leeward, the range closing even more, to within musket-shot, Proteus's larboard broadside up-wind of her on her starboard quarter.
"Mister Langlie!" Lewrie shouted. "Open the larboard ports and stand by to load!"
The gun crews, the bulk of them frustrated 'til now, leapt for the tackles and tompions as the port lids hinged upward, baring inner paint in a row of stark red squares above her gunwale. Marine sharp-shooters and sailors with good eyes continued a spatter of musketry at the enemy's decks, making her helmsmen steer by squatting down below the bulwarks and craning up to steer by pendant and sail-set, instead of by compass, making the rest of her crew drop from sight.
A white cook's apron appeared over her starboard side, waved frantically. Men stood and waved arms and hats, shouting as loud as they could for mercy as those brutal 12-pounders' iron muzzles were trundled up to the ports to dip, rise, and slew left or right in aiming before a full broadside.
"We strike, damn you! We strike, don't fire, please!" someone in a cocked hat was howling. "Hold fire and we'll lower our colours, for God's sake, hold!"
Two or three cowering members of the after-guard rose up above the quarterdeck bulwarks and cut the halliard for the flag, that came fluttering down to trail in the water, even as others dared, after a moment or two without musket fire, to free braces and sheets, spilling the last wind from the brig's sails.
"Fetch-to, Mister Langlie, and get the last boat led round from astern. You will take the boarding party," Lewrie said. "Take Mister Pendarves the Bosun with you, and the rest of Mister Devereux's men."
"Aye, sir."
"Cargo manifests, ship's papers, and correspondence before all else, sir!" Lewrie urged. "Inspect the holds later. Quickly, man… before they ditch 'em or set 'em afire."
"A fair morning's work, Captain," Mr. Winwood was saying, now that the folderol and danger was past. "Two prizes before breakfast. And a passage through shoal waters that'll make them sit up and cheer back in London."
"We'll see, sir. We'll see," Lewrie cautioned. Though he did feel rather joysome, himself.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
A present for you, Captain Lewrie," Lt. Devereux said after he had returned aboard and had taken the salute from the side-party. He held out a knitted wool sack that covered something long and narrow and over four feet long. He was beaming with secret delight.
"What the Devil?" Lewrie muttered aloud as he took hold of it, and felt the hidden object's hardness and leanness. Imagining that he knew what it might be, he stripped off the woolen cover as quick as a child might rip open a birthday present. "Oh, dear Lord, how lovely!"
It was a Pennsylvania rifle, octagonal-barreled, fitted at butt, barrel-bands, and firelock plates with shining brass, the hinged cover to the patch-box in the buttstock also bright brass, and the stock all of a highly polished, ripply-striped bird's eye maple! It was indeed lovely, one of the finest examples of the gun-maker's art that he had ever seen outside of a set of custom duelling pistols; even the plates were engraved so finely that he suspected only a magnifying glass could reveal the detailing.
"Fresh from Philadelphia, sir," Devereux said proudly, "and the work of a master craftsman."
"You've one for yourself, Mister Devereux?" Lewrie asked, lifting the piece to aim at the sky and sight down the long barrel, noting the silver bead on the muzzle's top, and the cut-steel notch sights at the rear, near the fire-lock. "Was this the only one, I'd understand… envious as all Hell, but…"
"One for myself, too, sir, near its twin," Devereux confessed with a little laugh, "and one of lesser quality for every officer and midshipman… as private hunting weapons, ha ha! Two dozen, in all."
"Personal possessions of yon brig's mates?" Lewrie frowned.
"No looting of a prize, sir… part of her cargo. Withheld as uhm… evidence for the Prize Court?" Devereux snickered.
"By God, we have corrupted you!" Lewrie laughed. "But this is magnificent, I must own. Find yourself some coehorn mortars, too?"
"No, sir, but those'll come. Ah, here's Mister Langlie, coming aboard with even better news. I'll let him tell the rest."
Lewrie almost pounced on Langlie, primed to eagerness.
"She's the Sycamore, sir, out of Philadelphia," Lt. Langlie reported, after he'd taken the salute, doffed his hat, and had been given his own covered rifle up from the boat below the entry-port. "A native tree, I s'pose, or the name of an Indian tribe. Her master was wounded, and is still aboard. Rather panicked by the thought of expiring, sir, so he was open to questions… between prayers and pleas for his last will and testament to be taken down, that is."
"Will he live?" Lewrie asked.
"His wounds are more fearful than mortal, sir. Mister Durant is of the opinion that he's more likely to pass over from fret than shot," Langlie chuckled. "He openly confessed that he's been smuggling to the French for some time. With most of their overseas trade curtailed, 'tis a lucrative endeavour, I gather. He also admitted he's run arms to L'Ouverture on Saint Domingue. Now his country is all but at war, any large cargoes or arms and powder would have been suspicious, and expensive, with the United States Navy the best customer, so he made arrangements through French agents in Philadelphia to meet the privateer and transfer her arms aboard his 'innocent' ship."
"What's his cargo, then?" Lewrie asked, absently stroking his new rifle.
"Two thousand stand of arms, Charleville muskets with leather accoutrements, two thousand pairs of boots and shoes," Langlie intoned as he read from a list he pulled from a coat pocket. "One hundred and twenty thousand pre-made cartridges and twist paper, shot and powder for half a million more… four six-pounder Gribeauval Pattern pieces of artillery with caissons, limbers, harness, and the essentials for a battery forge-waggon. Blankets, slop-trousers, cross-belts, shakoes, and other uniform items, bayonets, infantry hangers, and officers' quality swords… most of it recently snuck into Guadeloupe aboard a Frog frigate, sailing en flute, sir. A real treasure trove."
Turning up in Kingston, with that brig astern and the British flag flying over the American, would represent a treasure, a "golden shower" of prize money, Lewrie was mortal-certain.
"There's also an innocent cargo of molasses and sugar, Captain," Langlie went on. "Saint Domingue coffee, tea, and cocoa would have put Sycamore far ahead of the game, once they'd unloaded the arms."
"Just their bad luck, but to our good. This is documented? We have them by the 'nutmegs' about this, for certain?" Lewrie demanded.
"Every bit of it on paper, sir, even the captain's private log. It was well hidden, but not destroyed. Mister Neale, our Master-At-Arms, was part of my boarding party and he and his Ship's Corporals, Burton and Ragster, are old hands at knowing where sailors hide things."