“One sign o’ resistance an’ they’ll shoot us ta pieces,” Claghorne said wearily. “Then you’ll be responsible fer milord’s and milady’s deaths.”
“Then what would you do?” Lord Cantner demanded. And both of the Cantners and Alan realized that Claghorne had no plan. He was riding the back of the tiger with no idea how to get off, or how to even change the course of events. Perhaps he could have responded to a lesser set of circumstances like a dismasting, a hull leak, fighting Parrot through a hurricane, even storming another ship’s bulwarks with sword in hand, if ordered by someone else. But this, on top of the fever and all the deaths, and losing Kenyon’s sure hand to guide him was too much for him to handle, and he would be damned if he was going to admit it even if it meant losing Parrot, striking the colors. What little pride he had left would probably force him to consider striking the best possible decision he could have made until the end of his life.
“May I call the hands to Quarters, Mister Claghorne?”
“You wish ta make yer gesture, Mister Lewrie, then go ahead,” Claghorne said, thinking it a small point with no real purpose. “But you’ll not fire a shot unless I directly tell you to, hear me?”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Claghorne turned away, and Lord Cantner restrained Lewrie with a hand on his arm. “Let’s pray it works, Mister Lewrie. I cannot abide the idea of striking to a pack of Frogs without at least trying.”
“It may cost us our lives, milord,” Lewrie told him, “but at least we shall retain some of our honor. If I may suggest gathering your papers in a weighted bag, just in case? And in placing your good lady below decks?”
Once free, Lewrie went to his men amidships. “She’s French, boys. And we’re going to sink her or burn her,” he said, trying to look confident. “We shall fetch up all the spare swivels and charges. I’ll want some men to go below to the magazine and break out the canister and star-shot and gun cartridges. Lay out boarding pikes and cutlasses out of sight by the bulwarks. Mister Kelly?”
“Aye?” the bosun’s mate said, wary of Lewrie’s intentions.
“Hands to Quarters, handsomely, so the Frogs won’t notice. Load with reduced charges for double-shot. Star-shot, canister and langridge as well. We’ll give them a surprise, a big one.”
“Handsomely.” Kelly grimly nodded. “Aye aye.”
The French brig ran up her colors, and there was a groan from several hands at the sight of the pure white banner with the gold fleur de lis of Bourbon France.
“We’ll show ’em who they’re dealin’ with,” Claghorne said. “Run up the colors,” and their own red ensign soared up the leach of their mains’l to the peak of the gaff yard, which brought a thready cheer from a few die-hards on deck.
“Swivels in every socket,” Lewrie ordered. “Number-one gun, load with double star-shot. Quoin out and aim for the rigging and give those French bastards some of their own medicine. Number-two, double-shot and canister. Quoin half-in and aim for their gangway, got it?”
He went from gun to gun, giving them their load and aiming point, sent a hand to fetch up the case of fire arrows from the magazine, and had them loaded in the swivels.
“Swivel men, aim for the sails and rigging, get it? Set fire to the bastards and give them something to gripe on, ’stead of taking us. Once we open fire you’ve got to load and fire fast as you can, without orders. It’s that or die in chains, got it? Damme, Crouch, quit mooning! What did I say?” Crouch was the slowest hulk he had, hairy and beetle-browed and incapable of concentrating on anything for long.
“Ah aims fer ’is sails an’ keeps at it ’til ’e burns ta hell, sir.”
“Good enough. Now, this is most important. We shall be standing by the windward rail, but not crouched down by the guns. Nobody lays a hand on a swivel until I say. Keep your matches out of sight. They think we’re going to be easy. Keep your small arms out of sight, too. Don’t let the gun ports swing open or we’re dead before we get a chance to hurt them. They think they’re going to take us without a fight and throw us into their hulks on Martinique, so you think on it and look gloomy, for Christ’s sake!”
Considering the victim was French, the men fell into their roles well enough. Indeed, Lewrie had to threaten flogging for overacting to keep a couple of them from wailing and wringing their hands a little too histrionically.
The brig was up within seven or eight cables by then, turning to open her broadside to point at Parrot. There was a sharp bang, and the sound of iron moaning through the air. A ball struck short ahead of them, raising a pillar of water.
“Nine-pounders,” Lewrie said out loud. He stepped aft to see Claghorne.
“They’ll stand off an’ shoot right through us with nine-pound shot,” he said. “We haven’t a chance—”
“How close do you think they’ll come to demand our surrender?” Lewrie asked, gauging the distance between them to be six cables and closing slowly. He saw the brig let fly her tops’ls so they would not pass ahead of Parrot, adjusting their closing rate so that they would end up rounded into the wind parallel to them.
“About a cable, most-like.” Claghorne sighed. “Maybe closer.”
“It would be best if we had them at pistol-shot, sir.” Lewrie said, knowing that Claghorne had ceded him the initiative as sure as that panic-stricken gunner’s mate had done in Ariadne.
“No, no! They’d blow us apart at that range if they fired. I’ll not have it, Mister Lewrie. You’ll obey my orders an’ not do anythin’ rash. You hear me, sir?”
Another bang from the privateer. This time the ball droned over the deck low enough to part people’s hair. All the enemy’s gun ports were open, and a line of ten guns was visible. The brig’s crew crowded the bulwarks and gangway, seemingly hundreds of them that provided the crews to man enough prizes to send them back to their island lair rich men, enough to overpower a frigate, did they get lucky.
Three cables off, now. A third gun fired from the brig, and this ball struck Parrot, thudding into the wale of the hull below the gun ports.
“Damme, the game’s blocked at both ends,” Claghorne said, collapsing against the railing. “I am goin’ ta strike, Mister Lewrie. I order you to stand yer gun crews down.”
“We can’t just surrender, sir…” Alan pleaded.
“Damn you, get forward! Mister Mooney, I want you ta strike the colors.”
“Mister Claghorne!” the husky bosun objected, shocked to his bones.
“I said strike the colors.”
“Aye, sir, but I’ll tell ya this, Mister Claghorne, sir, yer a shiverin’ coward, sir!”
“I’m a realist, damn yer eyes!”
Lewrie went back forward to his gun crews. “Boys, we’re going to strike. That’ll get the Frog in closer so we can hit him. Don’t anybody be alarmed.”
How much worse can it be? he thought wearily, his eyes aching from his earlier jerking tears and the glare of the sea. A band of pain circled his head from staring so intently across the water, and the tension. If we’re prisoners, nobody’s going to hang me for disobeying orders. The French may shoot me, but there’s still the Yellow Jack to consider first. If we fail I can die right here on my own deck, in my own way, and go hard and game … and to Hell with Father, all of ’em!
The Red Ensign sank to the deck and was gathered up in a limp bundle, which brought cheers from the privateer brig. Claghorne ordered the fore course lowered and the jibs backed so that Parrot cocked up into the wind and fetched to. The brig began taking in sail and sidled down alongside, no longer making headway as they let fly, but being brought down to Parrot to her lee by the dying wind.