"Uhm… what is he like, sir?" Lt. Gamble asked, eyes wide with curiosity, and a certain amount of new admiration for his captain.
"Well, he's a short'un, a minnikin, and a fellow with an eye for gaudy uniforms, as I…," Lewrie began to say, but Midshipman Dry cried out that Erato had just fired off four signal rockets; the signal that denoted French opposition in the village of Le Verdon.
"Alter course, Mister Gamble," Lewrie snapped, putting reveries aside, and stalking to the hammock nettings overlooking the waist and gun-deck. "Bring her round to Sou'Sou'west. Mister Adair! It seems we've more 'trade' for you, sir! Re-fit the strikers, and prepare the starboard battery for action."
"Four more rockets, sir!" Midshipman Dry reported, unable to be as stoic as a Sea Officer should be before the hands. "This time, it's from Penguin, sir!"
"What was it you said about nothing to do, Mister Gamble?"
"Nothing, sir," Gamble replied with an avid smile.
"Be careful what you wish for," Lewrie gently chid him.
Two very large guns erupted in the cove below the tiny seaport, the sound like the slamming of iron oven doors, followed by the barks and raspy Woofs! of the 6-pounders of all three of the cutters, as if they had formed line of battle to engage something substantial, powder smoke beginning to wreathe the cove, the British guns stuttering bow-to-stern as they bore. A minute later, Erato's 9-pounders bellowed, too, as she penetrated the harbour, A quick look showed her beam-on to the village and piers, a look that forced Lewrie to choose which fight he should support. "Depth in the harbour, Mister Winwood?" he demanded.
"Two fathom or less, sir," the Sailing Master said from memory, after all his months of glooming over his charts.
"Erato will have t'deal with things on her own, then," Lewrie muttered, peering intently through his telescope. "Aloft, there! Any French warships in the harbour?"
"Barges, sir!" the main-mast lookout shouted down, cupping hands about his mouth. "No warships! They's a gunboat South of th' port, firin' on th' cutters… three point off th' stah'bd bows! An oared gunboat!"
"Stand on into the cove, Mister Gamble. What's the depth there, sir?" Lewrie asked Winwood.
"Four fathom within five cables of the shore, sir," Mr. Winwood once more recited from memory, even before he could confirm that from a much-marked-upon chart spread by the binnacle cabinet. "But, it turns very shoal very quickly, sir. Even at the top of the tide, there isn't a whole fathom by three cables' distance."
"Warn us when you think we're close as we dare, sir. Leadsmen to the fore-chains, and have 'em sing out regular," Lewrie said, eager to get to grips with something besides dead stone walls.
But, by the time Savage had come to the aid of the cutters, it was apparent that her help was no longer needed. Penguin, Banshee, and Argosy had closed with a very old-fashioned oared galley, blasting off her sweeps with solid shot and grape, ducked out of the way of a pair of wicked 32-pounder bow guns, and had smashed alongside of her, crushing and splintering the last of her long oars to grapple to her. Men from all three cutters were swarming aboard the river galley, and the French Tricolour had already been hauled down and replaced by a British flag. Far off in the shallows, two small boats full of French sailors were rowing for the beach like the Devil was at their heels, and there were even a few more swimming to escape capture.
"My word, sir… an ancient lateener," Mr. Winwood said after a long look with his glass. "Good for going close to the wind in the Gironde, where the winds are mostly Westerlys, but their like has not been seen in real combat since Don John of Austria beat the Turks."
"Worth a penny or two… with a museum, perhaps?" Lewrie japed. "I very much doubt it, sir," Mr. Winwood soberly replied. "Mister Gamble? Swan us about into the river, again, 'til we may come hard on the wind, and stand in to see what Erato's up to," he ordered. "Sorry, Mister Adair. Have your gunners stand easy."
Erato no longer needed help, either, for Lt. Aubrey, his loaned Marines, and armed sailors were already ashore on the piers of the seaside village, and her guns had fallen silent. Close off the breakwater Lewrie could see other sailors aboard several large sailing barges near the jetties, and the only resistance seemed to come from within a maze of small shops and houses, and even then the expected, burning-twigs-crackle of musketry had subsided to an occasional pop.
Across the river, the tall pall of gunpowder smoke had mostly thinned and blown away up the Gironde, its large, wispy haze drifting over the chimneys and church spire of Meschers sur Gironde, where bells still pealed in alarm. Near "Mashers," HMS Mischief was standing out for the narrows, her prize close astern of her, and flying the Royal Navy ensign over a Danish flag. Lewrie pursed his lips, worried that taking a neutral, even one caught red-handed in enemy waters, and full of French export goods, would tie young Commander Hogue up for years in Admiralty Court, and end with the prize restored to her owners, with all expenses of the proceedings, and the years of the owners' loss while the merchantman was tied up in port in custody, on Hogue's shoulders.
I'd've burned her, and called it their fault, Lewrie decided; a drunken mate, an overturned lanthorn… woops! But, I doubt Ayscough will let him keep her past sunset, so all may be well.
If the Commodore didn't say anything, then he would warn Hogue, himself, and strongly suggest he let her go… after her cargo was put over the side of course. No sense in letting blockade runners profit.
"The cutters are coming out, sir," Lt. Gamble pointed out, "with the galley in tow. No value to her, unfortunately. Bless me if Erato isn't tied up along the piers, though!"
"Bring us up within five cables of the harbour mouth, and we'll send a boat in to find out what they're up to," Lewrie said, idling his way to the larboard bulwarks. "Fetch-to when in close, sir. It seems all the excitement is over, and there's no need for our services. Do you inform Mister Adair to secure the guns and stand down from Quarters… I haven't the heart t'be the one t'tell him it's over." "Aye aye, sir," Lt. Gamble said with a twinkle in his eyes. By the time they had fetched-to, though, a rowboat was coming to them, with Erato's Second Lieutenant of Marines aboard. She had barely touched the main-chains when the young fellow scrambled up the side as agile as a teenaged topman. "Lieutenant Thurston, sir, perhaps you do not remember me," he said, doffing his hat in salute. "Lieutenant Aubrey begs me report, Captain Lewrie, that we shall be ashore a while longer. We've discovered nigh a ton of gunpowder aboard one of those barges we captured, and there's heavy drays in the village, and teams of oxen, so… Lieutenant Aubrey wondered if it might he needed at the battery… to help blow it up, sir! Take a few hours to load it all up, and take it to the point, sir, but there's no more opposition."