Dewey Lambdin - Havoc`s Sword

"Yes, he does," Choundas replied, irked that his vital calculations of wind, leeway, and speed were interrupted, yet with a sound of grudging pride in his voice, even so. "Cleverness, too."

"Let us hope more cleverness than brute bravery, m'sieur" Capt. Griot gloomily intoned. "Once we savage Proteus, and get past her, we must bear away Southeast, else we approach the Americans, line-abreast… unable to aid each other, m'sieur" he pointed out.

"I do not fear their rough-cast, home-made, and light pop-guns, Griot!" Choundas declared with a sneer. "American foundries and powder mills are… merde. And their gun crews a pack of clumsy children in comparison to how well you and MacPherson have trained ours."

"Very well, m'sieur," Griot said, keeping his voice neutral, in dread of what Choundas might order in the heat of rising expectations for battle. He feared pointing out how quickly the Americans stalked down on them, were starting to haul their wind a point or so, as if to aim between Proteus's stern quarters and his own ship's bows, and cut them off from pursuit. Capt. Griot was fearful, too, to express what qualms he felt after taking a long look at the trailing "small frigate" that his lookouts had reported, as she loomed taller and taller in his ocular, beginning to appear as massive as a cut-down Third Rate still bearing two decks of guns… Madness, the doughty Griot thought, his heart heavy; we are sacrificed to this ogre's revenge. Madness!

"The Frog schooner's now about one mile off our starboard quarters, sir," Lt. Langlie adjudged, his telescope to his eye, "and those corvettes are a mile and a half astern, but coming fast. One about dead astern, t'other on our larboard quarter."

"And our Yankees only four miles up to windward," Lewrie added, with a satisfied sniff. "Time for some fun, Mister Langlie. Haul our wind and steer due South. Mister Catterall?" he shouted forward, over the hammock nettings. "Stand by, the starboard battery, and take that schooner under fire once we've fallen off! Your best gun-captains, to fire as they bear, mind! Let 'em take their time at it!"

"Aye aye, sir!" Catterall bellowed back, pleased as punch to be loosed on their foes, at last. "Right, you bawdy whore-sons…!"

Proteus heeled, groaning, almost putting her starboard outboard shroud chain platforms into the sea as her helm was put up, as braces and sheets were eased. Once settled on her new course due South, the port lids swung up to make a regular blood-red chequer against the pale paint of her gunwales, and the heavy truck-carriages rumbled and squealed as her 12-pounder guns were run out in-battery. A long minute passed as gun-captains fussed and fiddled with the elevating quoin blocks, directing their crews to shift aim left or right with the long crow-levers to "sweat" tons of oak and iron a few inches. Rope tackles and blocks were overhauled for clear recoil paths, before the experienced gun-captains took up the lanyards to their flintlock strikers, then shot their free fists skyward to show readiness, reducing the slack in the lanyards to the last, remaining inch…

"As you bear… fire!" Lt. Catterall roared.

Bow to stern, her thirteen starboard 12-pounders stuttered out a bellicose thunder, some gunners waiting for the scend of the sea to raise the decks nearer to dead-level before jerking their lanyards; in ones, twos, and threes the guns erupted and lurched inboard, with both guns right-aft in Lewrie's great-cabins adding the final kettledrum coda of a quick Boo-Boom! To Lewrie's ears it was almost excruciatingly… musical!

The French schooner had been almost bows-on to Proteus, following her turn off the wind, and her stunned master had kept her bows-on… most-likely to present the slimmest target he could to that sudden broadside. Great, lovely columns and feathers of spray leaped skyward about her… to either beam, or short before her bows, but terrifyingly close, and bounding upward as darting black specks from First Graze barely slowed to howl, keen, or shriek over her decks or down both of her sides, as if she had been assailed by a flying coven of witches!

Thinking quickly, the schooner's captain ordered her helm hard over to leeward to tack her Northward towards the nearest corvette to escape a second pummeling, hoping to flit beyond Proteus's limited gun-arcs. As she bared her starboard side to them, rolling, heeling, and every sail panic-flogging, Proteus's gunners raised a jeering howl at the sight of holes that their shot had punched in her canvas!

"Now, back on the wind, Mister Langlie!" Lewrie ordered. "All for now, Mister Catterall, sorry! Close your ports, but reload, then stand by to serve 'em another!"

"We've lost a quarter-mile to the corvettes, sir," Lt. Langlie pointed out.

"Aye. Temptin'," Lewrie snickered, beaming fit to bust, with a playful double-lift of his brows, "ain't we. Those poor bastards back yonder, Mister Langlie… they should be running, but they're not. I doubt they could scuttle back to Choundas, 'thout dirtyin' their guns a time or two. He'd scrag 'em for cowardice, else. Counting on it!"

The schooner ploughed on Northerly for a minute longer, before tacking again to lay herself half a mile in advance of the nearer corvette, now up on their larboard quarter. Some quick flag hoists were made, then both vessels hauled their wind a point free, to fall off on a bow-and-quarter line, "lasking," 'til they lay off Proteus's starboard quarters once more, then came back to in-line-ahead, hard on the wind. The far corvette had fallen off, too, to match the distance to leeward that Proteus had lost with her Sutherly swing, all of them yet intent on bracketing, then pummeling, her.

But, by then, they had left it too late, and the Americans were upon them. Sumter swept in, abeam of Proteus and thrashing between on a furiously boiling bow and quarter wave, her gun-ports already opened and her curious bright red figurehead of a fighting cock with its neck outstretched and its wings spread in anger catching the reflections of sea-glint and appearing as if alive.

The French schooner hauled her wind, again, ducking to leeward to upset the aim of Sumter's larboard gunners, showing the Yankee her stern. As she turned, she fired a ragged salvo from her larboard pop-guns, moments before Sumter returned the favour, and the sea about her frothed, leaped, and feathered anew with near-misses. And the schooner visibly trembled as heavy round-shot hammered into her. The French corvette astern of her hauled her wind, too, beginning to swing Sutherly. To stand on close-hauled to windward would open her vulnerable bows to a punishing rake, and to haul her wind too late would make the bow-rake even closer and more damaging! She would match her larboard guns to Sumter's starboard cannon while running for home, and hope for the best!

While Hancock, massive as a rocky island fortress, bore down on the farther corvette, remaining upwind of her to oppose larboard guns to larboard guns… and just slavering for the Frenchman to haul off and expose her fragile stern timbers.

"Mister Catterall, stand by to engage the schooner, again! Do you haul off South, Mister Langlie," Lewrie bade.

Sumter arrowed in at an angle before swinging abeam of her foe, and both broadsides went off almost as one, instantly wreathing both ships in an angry grey thunderhead of spent powder smoke; upon which the schooner stood out in stark profile after Proteus had altered her course. The range was only half a mile, this time, but…