“By broadside … fire!”
HMS Sapphire thundered and roared, long amber flames spewing from all her larboard battery, smothering herself, and any view of the corvette in a fresh fog of sour, reeking powder smoke.
All that Lewrie could see were the tops of her upper masts, and they trembled, they swirled about as if the Frenchman had struck a shoal.
“Sir! Sir!” Midshipman Britton was shouting, sounding as if he was chortling, in point of fact. “The transport astern of us is wearing in succession!”
At least somebody’s doin’ what I asked! Lewrie thought. With little risk to his ship, or his passengers, that transport’s master was tagging along, still playing “frigate”.
He turned back to see if he could spot what Knolles and Comus was doing, and damned if the transport astern of him was wheeling to follow his ship, too!
“There she is!” Lt. Westcott shouted, pointing out-board at the wraith-like image of the smoke-shrouded French corvette. “She’s lost her mizen top-masts, and her spanker!”
Looks like she’s been gnawed by rats, Lewrie thought; It seems my gunners can hit something, after all.
“Has she struck?” Lewrie could hear the Sailing Master exclaim in rising excitement. “Or is her staff just shot away?”
“She’s striking!” Westcott cried as someone fetched up a white bed sheet and began to wave it vigourously aboard the corvette.
“Cease fire! Cease fire, there!” Lewrie bellowed. “She just struck to us! Mister Westcott? Fetch us to, as close to the prize as you may. Mister Britton? Signal the transports to fetch-to!”
Lewrie went back up to the poop deck with his glass to see what else was transpiring. Knolles in Comus was still pursuing the second French corvette, though that ship was making a rapid exit from the scene, even setting stun’sls for more speed. The two transports following Knolles seemed glued to his stern, though much slower.
As swiftly as the terrified Frenchmen were fleeing, it appeared that it would take ’til sunset before Comus could catch them up and bring them to action, and if those two transports fell further and further behind, they’d be left on their own, defenceless should another raider stumble across them.
Bird in the hand, Lewrie thought with a shrug as he closed the tubes of his glass, and went back down to the quarterdeck. He waited for a lull, when he could speak with Lt. Westcott without interfering with his orders.
“Ah, Geoffrey, would you like to take charge of our prize?” he asked in a low voice. “If Gibraltar has enough spare sailors to make up a crew, there may be a Commander’s epaulet in her. She’s sure to be bought in after the Prize-Court’s done with her valuation.”
“Trying to get shot of me, sir?” Westcott said with a mock grimace. “That cuts sore! No, sir. I’d rather stay aboard and see what you’re up to, next.”
“‘His men would follow him anywhere … if only for the entertainment’, d’ye mean?” Lewrie japed. He leaned closer to whisper his next question. “If not you, who d’ye recommend? Who can we best do without?”
“I’d send Harcourt, and hope it’s permanent, sir,” Westcott was quick to say.
“My thoughts exactly,” Lewrie said with a secretive smile, and turned to the Mids assigned to the quarterdeck. “Mister Fywell, pass word for Mister Harcourt, with my compliments.”
“Aye aye, sir,” the lad said, doffing his hat and scampering.
Lt. Westcott saw to boats to be brought up from being towed astern, and spare hands told off to man them and form part of the prize crew. Lewrie spoke with Marine Lieutenant Keane for at least twenty of Sapphire’s fifty private Marines to go aboard the prize to guard her French crew, sure to be larger than normal in expectations that she would have taken prizes of her own. Sapphire’s tall and skeletal Surgeon, Mr. Snelling, and his Surgeon’s Mates would have to go over to tend to any French dying or wounded, if the prize didn’t carry a doctor of her own, or if the casualty count was too high for that one to see to by himself.
“You sent for me, sir?” Lt. Harcourt reported, doffing his hat.
“Aye, Mister Harcourt,” Lewrie replied, “I wish you to take charge of the prize, and see her safely to Gibraltar. Best done in company with the rest of us, but, she’s sure t’have a large crew who won’t take kindly to bein’ slung into a prison hulk.”
“Very good, sir!” Lt. Harcourt agreed with his first sign of joy since Lewrie had come aboard.
“Take whom ye will,” Lewrie offered.
“I’ll have Midshipman Hillhouse, sir,” Harcourt said.
Thought ye might! Lewrie told himself; Birds of a feather!
“Former Cox’n Crawley, and a few others from his old boat crew, too, sir,” Harcourt added.
“I can’t assure you it’ll be permanent,” Lewrie cautioned, “but she’s French, so her captain’s wine stores should make up for it.”
“I’ll see to my kit, if I may, sir?” Harcourt asked, eager to be off.
“Carry on, then, sir, and the very best of good luck,” Lewrie told him in dismissal.
And oh, wouldn’t it be sweet if it was permanent! he told himself, feeling whimsical; Harcourt gone, Hillhouse, and from what I’ve heard from my lads belowdecks, Crawley and his pack are the hardest of holdouts from Captain Insley’s days, too.
He took another look towards Comus with his telescope, and it looked as if the other French corvette was showing Ralph Knolles a clean pair of heels.
“Mister Britton, make a signal to Comus,” Lewrie ordered with a sigh. “Her number, and Discontinue The Action.”
“Aye, sir,” Midshipman Britton replied, sounding as if all of his hopes were dashed.
Mine, too, lad, Lewrie thought; Still, it’s been a good day.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
HMS Sapphire’s convoy skirted within twelve miles of Cape Trafalgar as they entered the Straits of Gibraltar’s approaches, keeping enemy Spain, and Europe, to their larboard side, close enough for the crews and passenger-soldiers to see and marvel over, near where the famous battle had been fought not quite two years before. The coast of Africa and the Barbary States appeared on their starboard side as they began the transit, and wary eyes were cast in that direction, for though the United States Navy had humbled the infamous corsairs from Tangier and other lairs, the sight of a British convoy ripe for the plucking might be too tempting for those bloodthirsty pirates who had terrorised European coasts, even in the English Channel, for hundreds of years.
The Straits of Gibraltar were thirty-six miles long, narrowing to only eight miles wide at its slimmest point. There was plenty of depth for even Sapphire, and, once begun, the entrance to the Mediterranean was assured, even under “bare poles”, with no sails flying. The steady Eastward-running current would carry a ship through; it would be the getting out against that current that would be an arduous and slow passage.
Lewrie ordered all ships to steer within four miles of Tarifa, and the little fortified Tarifa Island, on the North shore, almost as if taunting any Spanish gun batteries, but a safe mile beyond the range of even the biggest 42-pounder cannon. From there, the Spanish coast trended Nor’easterly, expanding the separation from shore, with all ships firmly in the grasp of the Eastward-running current, and free of the variable swirls and eddies of currents inshore.