Before a fresh bank of gunsmoke blotted out their view again, Lewrie could see shot-splashes all round the boat, close aboard its waterline, and more holes punched into her larboard side and stern-quarters!
“Overhaul tackle… staunch and swab out!” Lt. Spendlove was hoarsely ordering. “Cartridges up!”
“Sir! Sir!” Midshipman Munsell shrilled, still at his post in the main-mast shrouds. “She’s sinking, sir! She’s sinking!”
The French build ’em out o’ papier-mache? Lewrie wondered as he leaned far out over the quarterdeck bulwarks to see for himself.
Damned if the boat wasn’t sinking! Instead of an up-turned soup tureen, the thing now more-resembled a large-holed colander, with shot holes riddling its stern and larboard side. There was no sign of the other French sailors who had dashed to the deck. It was both down by the bows, most-likely dragged by the weight of the rumoured 24-pounder bow gun, and heeled over to starboard, the result of the 32-pound shot from the carronades, the “Smashers,” that had gone completely through her hull to her starboard side below the waterline.
It rolled onto its beam ends, revealing a clean, new bottom but without the normal protection against barnacles, weed, and wood-boring worms; the French had not coppered her bottom! The curve of the lower hull was shallower than the upperworks, and most of its length was flat-bottomed, like a river barge.
“They think to dare the open sea, the Channel, in that?” Lieutenant Westcott hooted in derision as the odd, alien-looking boat went down by the bows, cocking its riddled stern in the air for an instant like a feeding duck, then sank in a welter of foam and released air.
“Pray God they do, Mister Westcott!” Lewrie said, laughing out loud with his arms outstretched in joy. “Fetch ’em up to half a cable in clear weather, and one broadside’ll do for each. When they come we can make a meal of ’em!”
“What was that, sir?” Mr. Caldwell asked.
“A French secret weapon, Mister Caldwell,” Lewrie happily told him, “one that doesn’t seem worth a tupenny shit. They’re supposed to paddle themselves right onto a beach, use that twenty-four-pounder in the bow t’clear the way, and land about one hundred Frog troops each.”
“Then Bonaparte’s dafter than I thought, sir!” Caldwell replied, with a chuckle, though he shook his head in amazement.
“You knew of them, sir?” Westcott asked.
“Unofficially,” Lewrie admitted. “Some months ago before they saddled us with the torpedo experiments.”
“D’ye hear, there! Strange boat off the starboard quarters!” a deck lookout aft by the transom shouted.
“Hoy, Reliant!” a voice shouted from the fog. “Merriman here! Hold your fire! We’re returning with a prize!”
Lewrie returned to the starboard bulwarks, clambering atop one of the carronades’ slides for a better view. Another of the strange boats swam slowly into view, its broad-bladed paddles clawing at the sea, all out of coordination… and the first part of it that seemed completely solid from out of the thick fog was that snout at the bows, that 24-pounder!
“Ahoy, Mister Merriman!” Lewrie called back through his cupped hands. “Is that bow gun loaded?”
“No, sir! There’s no shot or powder aboard!” Lt. Merriman gaily called back. “We’ve two prisoners, one of them wounded, and one of our Marines slightly hurt. Cox’n Desmond is ready to pass a towing line, when you’re ready!”
“She’s an ugly bitch, ain’t she, lads?” Liam Desmond yelled to the ship as he stood just beside that large gun, with a heavy coil of line readied.
“An’t worth half a crown in prize-money!” his mate, Furfy, just had to add, capering a jig on the boat’s sloping foredeck.
The Hell she ain’t! Lewrie thought; There’s people in London, at Admiralty, who’ll turn Saint Catherine wheels t’see one, close up!
The Surgeon, Mister Mainwaring, came up from his surgery in the cockpit on the orlop, accompanied by a party of loblolly boys bearing a pair of mess tables for stretchers as the odd boat, and the borrowed barge, came close alongside to transfer all the Marines, the two French prisoners, and Lt. Merriman back aboard.
“We can take it under tow, but that may slow us to nothing,” Lewrie said, looking up hopefully at the sails and commissioning pendant, which still hung limp, only its free end being lifted. “Welcome back aboard, Mister Merriman, and congratulations on carrying out your action so briskly.”
“Thank you, sir. It was simple, really,” Merriman said. “The thing loomed up, we scrambled up the slope of the hull, gave them one volley and cold steel, and it was done. The hardest part was climbing the slope. Whatever that thing is, it’s only sixteen or eighteen feet abeam, and it looks as if it rises about eight feet to the turtleback… or beetleback, ha ha! A bit slippery,” he said with a glad shrug.
“Metalled hull, was it?” Lewrie asked, hoping that it was not. “That… box down the centreline. Armoured, was it?”
“Lord, no, sir, just wood!” Lt. Merriman laughed. “The box is made of one-inch deal planking over four-by-four posts!”
“D’ye hear, there!” another lookout cried from up forward. “A boat off the larboard beam! ’Tis another o’ the things!”
“Stand by, the larboard battery!” Lt. Spendlove on the gun-deck warned his gunners.
“Ahoy, Reliant! Barge number two, with prize!”
“That you, Mister Houghton?” Lewrie shouted back, with a brass speaking-trumpet this time.
“Aye, sir! Permission to come alongside? We’ve a wounded man, and a prisoner!” Midshipman Houghton called out.
“Very well, Mister Houghton!” Lewrie agreed. “Pass us a line, and we’ll try t’take you under tow. We’ve a second prize t’deal with as well.”
“The fog’s thinning to seaward, sir, and there’s a bit of wind from the West,” Houghton informed him as his capture solidified from the fog; she could be made out nearly two hundred yards off, about the range of Lewrie’s breech-loading Ferguson rifle-musket. With any luck, the sea-breeze would spring to life and would be strong enough for towing both prizes out on larboard tack, one bound to Reliant’s stern and the second bound to the stern of the first barge!
And alter course, at last, a bit more Nor’westerly, and clear the French coast before the fog burns completely off, Lewrie schemed.
“Listen, sir,” Westcott pointed out. “It seems we’ve upset the French.”
The mournful baying of fog horns had turned urgent and rapid, more like a pack of hounds that had run a fox to its earth. Added to that baying were a couple of trumpets.
“I didn’t know the French were much fond of fox-hunting, sir,” Lt. Westcott said with a laugh. “Hear that? ’Ta-tara-tara!! Yoicks, tally-ho! There must be one sporting fellow out there.”
“It does sound like a fox-hunt, doesn’t it?” Lewrie mused. “Are you a hunter, Mister Westcott?”
“We’re small-holders, sir… just fifty-odd acres,” Lt. Westcott said with a dismissive shrug, “so we only get invited the once each year, and I never saw the point. Steeplechasing at the gallop’s more to my liking, and I could do that any time. In fact, I’ve always felt sorry for the fox. Tried to make a pet of one when I was little, and you can imagine how that played out,” he added, chuckling.
“Fox kits and otter cubs… my son Hugh was mad for either, or both,” Lewrie rejoined with a laugh.
“Damn my eyes, is that a breeze, sir?” Westcott said, turning to look seaward, then aloft.
“Not much of one, but it’s from the West,” Lewrie replied as he looked aloft to the sails, which were, rustling uncertainly, trimmed to cup the land-breeze and now presented with one from the opposite tack. “Hands to the braces and sheets, Mister Westcott. Let’s make the most of it and get a goodly way on her. Mister Merriman?”
“Here, sir!”