Under the captain’s sharp eye, Lewrie tried to appear busy. He went up into the larboard shrouds of the mizzen to use his telescope on the convoy, now that the gloom was being chased to the west by the watery rising sun behind them. He also noticed, with some amusement, that Lieutenant Kenyon was trying to appear intent on his duties as well.
He turned his glass on Dauntless. There were flags soaring up a halyard on her mizzen, and he dug into his pocket to consult a sheet of paper that contained the meager signals for day or night. “Strange sail … south!
“At last!” he crowed, leaping down and dashing to report to Lieutenant Kenyon. This close to New York, strange sail could be those Frenchies from their base in Newport, or rebel privateers. We’re going to see some action, he exulted.
“Strange sail, is it?” Captain Bales said, hearing the report. “Aloft with you to the maintop, Mister Lewrie, and spy them out!”
“Aye aye, sir!”
“Mister Kenyon, my respects to the master gunner and I’ll have a signal gun fired to starboard. Day signal for the convoy to close up, followed by ‘strange sail to the south.’”
“Shall we beat to Quarters, sir?” Kenyon asked.
“No, let the hands be fed first. Time enough for that.”
Lewrie made it to the mainmast crosstrees to join the lookout already there, his heart beating from the exertion, and the excitement.
“Seen anything to the south?”
“No, sir,” the lookout replied. “Not yet, sir.”
Lewrie scrambled up onto the topmast cap and hugged the quivering t’gallant mast, unslinging his glass which had hung over his shoulder, as heavy as a sporting gun. He steadied his hands and peered to the south.
“Aloft there!” came a leather-lunged shout from the deck. “What do you see?”
“Not a bloody thing, damn yer eyes,” Lewrie muttered. “Tell him nothing yet.”
Lewrie went up higher, onto the t’gallant yard to sit astride the narrow spar. “Now, that’s more like it.”
In his glass, he could see a tiny sliver of a tops’l, with just the hint of a triangular sail right behind it. That might be a schooner or a brigantine. He scanned farther west behind that ship and found a pair of tops’ls, and then, bringing up the rear, three tops’ls close together; possibly a brig, and a full-rigged ship, their sails painted rose red as spring flowers by the dawn.
“Deck there!” he bawled. “Three strange sail to the south!”
“What?” Lieutenant Swift shouted back through a speaking trumpet.
Lewrie left the glass with the lookout and descended rapidly to the quarterdeck by way of a backstay.
“Three ships to the south and southwest, sir,” Lewrie said. “Due south a topsail and what looks to be a gaffsail together.”
“A brigantine or schooner.” Swift nodded impatiently. “Aye.”
“Aft of her two topsails … a brig most-like, sir. And three topsails to the southwest, perhaps a full-rigged ship.”
“Mister Swift, signal again to those damned merchantmen to close up,” Captain Bales said. “Then have Dauntless move to the southern corner.”
“Aye aye, sir. Mister Rolston, bring your signals, sir.”
Six bells of the watch chimed from the forecastle belfry—seven in the morning. The sound of the signal gun had brought everyone up from below out of curiosity. The other officers now congregated on the quarterdeck.
“Mister Lewrie,” said Kenyon, “where is your glass, sir?”
“I left it with the lookout at the crosstrees, sir, for him to see the better.”
“Good. You’d better take your portion of the watch below now. I doubt if you’d have much chance for breakfast if you waited ’til the end of the watch.”
“Aye, sir. Thank you.” But Alan only got as far as the wide companionway to the lower gun deck before the first lieutenant called for all hands to hoist more sail and shake out their night reefs to make more speed. With a sigh, he dashed back to the ratlines.
Ariadne turned due south away from the easternmost end of the convoy, which by now had seen the possibly hostile sails for themselves and were fleeing northwest away from them. Alan presumed that they would pose a threat, well up to windward and ready to dash down on the raiders as they tried to close. He was much too busy for many minutes to pay attention, as Ariadne also set her t’gallants for more speed.
But by the end of the watch, they were faced with a new alignment. The schooner furthest east was now behind the convoy, and had crossed Ariadne’s stern; while a fast privateer brig was dashing dead north for the convoy with the wind on her quarter; while the frigate-sized ship was challenging Dauntless for passage to the west of the convoy. Alan turned from the bulwarks and the hammock nettings, now full of tightly rolled and numbered hammocks which would act as a barrier for the Marines when action was joined within musket-shot. He saw some ship’s boys gathering with their drums and fifes and trumpets. The Ariadne was beating to Quarters, really stripping herself for a battle! He could see the captain on the quarterdeck, pacing back and forth by the foremost netting rail overlooking the waist of the ship, looking like a fat duck on his thin legs.
Alan took himself down to the waist, then down to the lower gun deck, which was his station at Quarters. The deck was rapidly being transformed, as mess tables were slung from the overheads, the hammocks already removed, as were the screens and partitions from the Marine and midshipmen’s berths. Chests and furniture were being carried below to the holds for safekeeping, and to lessen the danger of being shattered and turned into deadly clouds of wooden splinters.
The Ariadne was a 3rd Rate ship of the line, mounting a total of sixty-four guns, twenty-eight of them on her lower gun deck, massive thirty-two-pounder pieces that weighed over 5,300 pounds, fourteen to each beam. The ideal crew would be thirteen men to each gun, but since there was little likelihood of fighting on both sides at once, there were only three men on the disengaged side to starboard, while the bulk of the men slaved to prepare the larboard guns for action.
The deck was gloomy, for the gun ports were not yet opened, though the guns had been rolled back to the extent of their breeching ropes for tompions to be removed and to be loaded with cartridges and balls. Gun captains stood ready with powder horns, portfires with a burning length of a slow-match on one end and a pricker on the other to clear the vent of their gun and pierce the cartridge bag. Bundles of firing quills were ready to hand, goose quills filled with a fast-burning and fine-grained powder that had been soaked in wine (and supposedly a bit of gunner’s urine) that would be stuck down into the cartridge bags and lit off to transfer the spark that would fire the gun. Loaders rolled cannonballs from the thick rope shot-garlands or the shot racks around the hatches to find the roundest, most perfect iron balls, which would fly straight for long-range work. Rammer men plied their tools to tamp the cartridges down snug against the vents, then a hairy disc-shaped wad, a ball, and another wad. Other men stood by with crows and handspikes to shift the guns from left to right with brute force once they were drawn up to the sills and run out. Most of the gunnery crew stood by at the side-tackles and overhauled the train-tackles to haul those guns up to firing position. Lieutenants Roth and Harm had charge of the lower gun deck, though should they close to pistol or boarding range, Harm, as the fifth lieutenant, or lieutenant-at-arms, would go on deck to oversee the boarding parties which he had trained at musketry and the use of the pike and cutlass.