“Smothered, sir!” Midshipman Kibworth shrilled in a joyous whoop. “The target’s smothered in shot splashes!”
As the smoke drifted clear and thinned, Lewrie raised his telescope to behold a long, disturbed patch of white water round the white-painted target cask, a patch which stretched at least one hundred yards from right to left, and perhaps only fifty or sixty yards in depth. Had they been firing at an enemy ship, there would have been misses to the right or left of the foe, ahead of her bows or astern of her transom, but the bulk of the heavy shot would have taken her “’twixt wind and water”, smashing into her sides.
“I think we’re finally gettin’ somewhere, Mister Westcott,” he said, with a sly grin beginning to form upon his face. “You lads,” he addressed their youngest Mids, Ward and Fywell. “Scamper down and tell the officers on the gun decks to mind their traverses.”
“Aye, sir!” and they were off, as quickly as monkeys.
Two more broadsides were fired, with even more excited shouts from Midshipman Kibworth. Word had been passed to the gun crews of the “smother”, and despite their weariness, the pace of serving their guns had picked up a bit. Finally …
“Target’s destroyed, sir!” Kibworth screeched. “It’s gone!”
Lewrie abandoned the middle of the quarterdeck and dashed to the lee side, whipping up his telescope. “Yes, by God! Yes!”
That patch of disturbed sea, churned foamy white by the impacts of all those roundshot, was about the same size in depth, but shorter from right to left, very much shorter, which would have smashed into an enemy warship from bow to stern, with very few misses ahead or astern. A fine mist from feathers and pillars of spray was falling.
“Secure!” Lewrie bellowed. “Cease fire!”
That welcome order was passed down from the quarterdeck to the upper gun deck, then the lower gun deck, and the ship fell silent, at long last; an eerie, ear-ringing silence in which the normal sounds of a ship on-passage, the faint groans of the hull, the piping of the wind, and the clatter of blocks, sheets, and halliards suddenly sounded alien.
“Pass the word, you lads,” Lewrie said to the Mids, Fywell and Ward. “My compliments to all, and that that was damned fine shooting!”
“Quite suitable aiming,” Lt. Westcott commented as he and Lewrie pulled their wax ear-plugs out. “At much longer ranges, though, we wouldn’t be all that accurate.”
“At much longer range, Geoffrey, neither would the French, or the Dons,” Lewrie replied, with a twinkle in his eyes. “How much gunnery practice d’ye imagine they get? Much like their seamanship, it is all ‘river discipline’ in harbour, and hope they can pick it all up on their way to somewhere. I think we’d stand a good chance, better than them, at any rate, do we run a’foul of them.”
“One hopes, though, that our enemies show enough courage to try us at ‘close pistol-shot’,” Westcott jibed.
“Hmm … only a Frog seventy-four would dare,” Lewrie mused. “And, what are the chances of one o’ them turnin’ up?”
Sapphire slowly returned to normal routine. The gun-ports were shut, flintlock strikers removed and returned to storage, crow levers, swabs, and rammers stowed, the guns swabbed down to remove powder smut, the tompions re-inserted, and the guns run up to the port sills to be bowsed and lashed secure. Sailors gathered round the water butts on both gun decks to slake their great thirsts, then lowered their mess tables from the overheads, fetched their stools from the orlop, and took their rests.
Pettus came up from deep below, as well, with Chalky in his usual wicker cage, and Bisquit on a leash. Once in the waist, he let the dog go, and Bisquit, who was always frightened by the great dins of the guns, whined, whimpered, and dashed about to try and take assurance from one and all. When the ladderway was clear, he trotted to the quarterdeck, tail held low and tucked, to yelp, whine, and make a Yeow sound at Lewrie and Westcott, pressing hard up against their legs to get pets, flopping to the deck planks to get his belly rubbed, and for Lewrie’s hand to find that sweet spot that made one of his hind legs twitch. After a few minutes, Lewrie stood back up and Bisquit got to his feet, too, to place his paws on Lewrie’s waist-coat for a thorough head and neck rub, his tail whisking quickly, again, and erect once more.
“Mister Elmes, you have the watch?” Lewrie asked.
“Aye, sir,” Elmes replied,
“I’ll go aft, then,” Lewrie said. “And once again, my compliments on damned good practice with the great guns.”
“Aye, sir, and thank you, sir,” Elmes said, greatly pleased.
* * *
“Tea, sir?” Pettus asked as Lewrie cast off his hat, coat, and sword belt. Lewrie cocked an ear to hear Six Bells of the Forenoon Watch being struck up forward at the forecastle belfry; eleven of the morning, and half an hour before the first rum issue of the day for the ship’s crew.
“I b’lieve I’ll have a goodly glass o’ that white wine, instead,” Lewrie decided, “the one that’s been coolin’ in the water tub.”
I think I’ve earned it, this morning, he told himself as he sat down at his desk in the day-cabin and got out a sheet of paper to begin a letter to his eldest son, Sewallis, who was still aboard HMS Aeneas under his old friend, Benjamin Rodgers, on the Biscay blockade.
“Interesting thing, sir,” Pettus prattled on as he pulled the cork from a bottle of a tasty, if smuggled, sauvignon blanc. “As we were coming up from the orlop.”
“What’s that, Pettus?” Lewrie asked, opening an ink bottle and dipping the tip of his steel-nibbed pen.
“The ship’s people, sir,” Pettus said. “They were in glad takings … happy, and pleased with themselves … of a job well done?”
“Aye?” Lewrie prompted, waiting for more.
“Joshing and grinning, laughing out loud?” Pettus said further as he held up a wineglass to the light from a swaying lanthorn to check for smuts. “One could almost say that they’re in much the same spirits as the people in your previous ships, sir.”
“Well, that’d be gratifyin’,” Lewrie said. “We’ve had too much division over Insley, or Gable’s, followers.”
“Fact, sir,” Pettus said, pouring a glass and stowing the wine bottle back in the cooling tub. “’Twixt your putting that Clegg to the gantlet, and their gunnery this morning, I do get the feeling that our Sapphires are won over, sir. More … shipmate-y?”
“Good God, is that a word?” Lewrie joshed as Pettus fetched him his wine.
“If it isn’t, it should be, sir,” Pettus slyly replied.
Lewrie took a first sip, finding the wine savoury. He would have begun his letter, but Chalky was over his fright, and found that he could keep his master from drinking and writing both, as he leapt into Lewrie’s lap to sniff at the glass and demand pets … now!
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Out past the Lizard, then Land’s End, and past Soundings, the Atlantic had become a much emptier sea, and, as Sapphire’s convoy had altered course South for the transit of the Bay of Biscay, the sight of other ships had become even rarer. That was not to say that they sailed in complete isolation.
Now and again, the lookouts would disturb the day’s routine at the slightest hint of what might be another ship’s tops’ls, t’gallants, or royals peeking over the horizon, paler wee shapes more substantial than a phantom imagined from a combination of light and shade in the colours of cloudbanks rising on the Westerly winds. From the cross-trees of the mainmast, a sharp-eyed lookout could see out to twelve miles in all directions on a good day, and a ship of decent size for an Atlantic crossing, hull down but with all the sails of her upper masts standing, could be espied another two or three miles beyond that.