Dead astern lay HMS Defiance, Rear-Admiral Graves's flagship, belching broadsides at the furious rate of three rounds per gun every two minutes, the desired standard of the Royal Navy, with Graves's Red Ensign flying, along with Signal Number 16-"Engage the Enemy More Closely."
There came yet another broadside from the Danish two-decker as Lewrie turned to pace back forward. This one was even more irregular than the last, not quite as ordered and regimented, and… was it his imagination, or was it not quite as powerful as the ones that had come before? "Fool!" Lewrie spat, grinning as he realised that the Danish captain had split his fire, his upper-deck guns directed at his ship, his lower-deck 24-pounders angled in the ports to engage Amazon and Blanche, which were pummelling her hard.
"Over-haul tackle!" Lt. Farley cried, almost wheezing on smoke. "Swa-ab out!" From Lt. Fox came "We're latherin' 'em, lads!"
Lewrie paused to dig into his waist-coat pocket for his watch, and flipped open the lid. Amazingly, the action had been going on for an hour and a half; they'd weighed a little after 10 A.M., and here it was nigh 11:45!
Crash! came a ball right through the larboard bulwarks of the quarterdeck, just forrud of the first carronade, and a chorus of yells of alarm. Splinters the size of pigeons, the size of bed-slats, flew in a whirling, vicious cloud! The ball continued cross the deck, then exited by clanging off an idle starboard-side carronade barrel, darting skyward as a jagged blur of dark metal!
"Good Christ!" the civilian Capt. Hardcastle cried aloud, struck dumb by the sudden carnage that had, like the plague of Egypt that had taken the first-born and spared the Israelites, sprung up all about him. "Oh, my Good God!" he yelped, just before staggering away to heave his stomach's contents.
The captain of the Afterguard and two men of the mizen mast crew were down, gobbling fear and pain over their hurts, or lying dazed in sudden shock. Midshipman Privette was sprawled on the deck, his head and face completely covered in blood.
And the First Officer, Lt. Ballard, was down, his head and his chest propped up on the Sailing Master's lap.
"What are his-?" Lewrie began to ask, then clamped his mouth shut as he saw that Arthur Ballard no longer had a left leg; the heavy 24-pounder ball had taken it off at mid-thigh!
"Loblolly boys to the quarterdeck, now, damn yer eyes!" Lewrie bellowed. "Mister Tillyard… do you go below and warn the Surgeon the First Officer is comin' down to him."
"Aye, sir," Tillyard said with a gulp, his face as pale as new laundry. He staggered to his feet, recovered his hat, and headed for the larboard gangway ladder; rapidly, at first, then more slowly as he recalled that his actions could cause panic and despair.
Christ, why him? Lewrie asked the aether.
"Pass word for Lieutenant Farley," Lewrie snapped, forced by grim duty to continue as before. "My compliments to him, and he is to assume the duties of First Officer. Pass word to Midshipman Sealey, and inform him he is to replace Lieutenant Fox up forrud, and consider himself an Acting-Lieutenant, for the time being."
"Aye, sir!" Marine Corporal Frye replied, heading off quickly.
"Help's coming, Arthur," Lewrie said more gently as he took time to kneel beside Ballard, who was rolling his head back and forth, his agony already clawing at him, his weathered face gone whitish-grey as he bit his lips to keep from howling and jibbering. Lewrie took his hand as Mr. Lyle whipped out a length of small-stuff rope to bind about Ballard's leg near his groin to staunch the heavy bleeding. "Help's on the way. Stay with us, Arthur." Lewrie repeated, feeling helpless and holding out but the slimmest hope that his old friend would survive his horrid wound.
"Damn you!" Lt. Ballard hissed, "You lucky bastard, you always were… ah-ah!" he had to pause as a wave of pain hit him. "Dumb blind luck, always get what you want, not…! Aahh! Walk through shit with nought stickin' to… Christ!" Ballard loudly howled as the loblolly boys arrived with a mess-table stretcher to fetch him to the surgery on the orlop.
And what's all that about? Lewrie helplessly wondered as he let go Ballard's hand, the hand snatched from his grasp, more-like by Ballard himself, not from a need to writhe in pain, or…
Lewrie got back to his feet, dusting the knees of his breeches, and his fingers came away bloody with Ballard's gore, which had spread in a wide pool.
"Very well, then, gentlemen… carry on," he ordered, reaching out to help the Sailing Master to his feet.
"Here, sir," Lt. Farley reported himself, dashing two finger to the brim of his hat in a casual salute. "Mister Fox has taken over my place, and Midshipman Sealey now commands the foredeck."
"The Dane, yonder, is mistakenly dividing his fire 'tween us and Amazon and Blanche, Mister Farley," Lewrie icily told him, his eyes gone Arctic grey. " 'Twixt the three of us, we should give her a hellish- good pounding. Keep up the rate of fire, sir."
"I shall, sir," Farley firmly declared, though his eyes rolled in horror of the bodies being borne off, and all the blood soaking in the snow-white plankings and the tarred oakum between.
Lewrie forced himself to pace to the larboard bulwarks by the head of the larboard gangway ladder, quite near the place the Danish 24-pounder shot had entered, and took out his pocket-watch, again. It was almost Noon of Maundy Thursday, and the day showed no sign of ending.
"Run-out your guns!" Lt. Fox was bellowing in Farley's stead. "Prime! Take aim! By broadside… Fire!"
And the chief of the loblolly gang paused, snapped his fingers as if remembering something, then bent over to lift Lt. Ballard's leg, shoe, and what was left of his silk stocking and breeches, and tossed them over the starboard side.
CHAPTER FORTY
Pace… fret… set a brave example, Lewrie chid himself as the hours crawled by, for there was little for a captain to do once his ship was engaged at such long range; it was all up to the skill and the speed of his gunners, the steadiness of his crew. Look at your watch, he reminded himself, finding that it was now half past one in the afternoon, which made him shake his head in wonder. Not too strongly, for the continual roar of the guns had given him a headache and rendered him half-deaf despite the candle wax in his ears.
"We seem to be gaining the upper hand, sir," Lt. Farley said as Lewrie paced near his post at the forrud edge of the quarterdeck. "The Danish fire is slackening… has been for some time now. Even that Three Crowns fort is firing slow."
"Umphf" was Lewrie's comment on that, not quite sure if he had heard the Acting First Officer correctly. He returned to the bulwarks with his telescope, laid it through the stays and rat-lines of the larboard shrouds to steady it, and looked about.
The old two-decker on which they'd directed their fire was now mostly silent, only a gun here and there still firing, with most of her gun-ports devoid of black-iron barrels. The frigate anchored North of her-! "She's struck her colours!" Lewrie shouted. "Look, there!" he insisted, jabbing his arm at her. "They're abandonin' her, see?"
The frigate was surrendered, the Danish flag meekly draped over her transom, and a white bed-sheet hoisted aloft in her damaged rigging. Rowboats were departing her unengaged side, heading for the shore.
Lewrie spun about to look South, eyes wide in wonder to note how much the dense pall of gunpowder smoke had thinned, to see several of the Danish warships nigh-dismasted, and slowly drifting into the mudflats without controlling hands on their helms. They, too, were being abandoned. The rowboats that had fetched out a continous supply of powder and shot and fresh volunteers were now busy bearing away survivors, coming out to the silent warships empty but for their oarsmen. Almost all of those pesky little gunboats to leeward of the Danish main line had drifted away, too. Smoke billowed from a couple of larger Danish "liners" and older 60s and 64s, and while they had not yet struck their national colours or hoisted white flags of surrender, their guns were silent. For the most part, it was the forts, the Lynetten and Three Crowns, that continued the fight.