Dewey Lambdin - King, Ship, and Sword

"Deck, there!" a lookout high aloft, above the mists and powder smoke, shouted. "'Er foremast's by th' board! Sprit an' boom timbers be shot away!"

Lewrie had a dimmer view from the quarterdeck; even so, he could make out the French frigate's foremast crashing down in ruin, the light royal and t'gallant top-masts above her cross-trees collapsing zig-zag, and yards and sails swirling like a broken kite. The stouter timber of the mast above the foremast's fighting top was leaning forward like a new-felled tree, to drape over her forecastle, roundhouse, beakheads, and the shattered jib-boom and bow sprit!

"Bow-raked for certain, by God, sir!" Lt. Westcott was enthusing. Reliant's guns, or Modeste's heavier ones, no matter; the curved plankings of any ship's bluff bows were not as stout as a ship's sides, with their heavy, closer-spaced frames and thicker scantling. Bows, like the delicate squared-off stern transoms, could be holed, and when they were, the round-shot, all that broken lumber, and clouds of whirling, jagged wood splinters got funnelled down the length of the gun-deck, shattering deck planking, overhead beams, frame timbers, and dis-mounting massive guns, turning truck-carriages into more splinters, snapping the carline support posts… and slaughtering enemy sailors by the dozens!

"Lamb t'the slaughter, Mister Westcott," Lewrie growled, utterly delighted with the mental image of that murderous chaos, the terror, dismemberments, and wounds they had just inflicted yonder. "I don't see why their flag officer's comin' at us this way, but… more fool, him! Mister Spendlove… serve her another! Skin the bastards!"

If the plan had been to get up to gun-range to the British, then wear in-succession and lay the French squadron broadside-to-broadside, that hope was unravelling, fast. With her foremast gone, and all of her fore-and-aft headsails lost with it, the leading frigate was crippled in a twinkling, unable to turn quickly to parallel Reliant. She wallowed and sloughed, trying to wear about Northerly, but she'd been gut-shot from an agile gazelle to a sluggish snail, pressed on by the light winds and slow to wear across them, with her vulnerable, already ravaged bows still offered up for slaughter.

"Ready, lads… as you bear! Fire!" Lt. Spendlove roared.

The starboard foc's'le 12-pounder bow chaser erupted once more, followed by all the starboard beam 18-pounders, joined this time by the stubby 32-pounder carronades-the "Smashers"-and the quarterdeck 9-pounders. The range was even closer, and they could not miss! Over the deafening bellows of their own artillery, Reliant's people could hear the parroty Rrawks! of solid iron shot slamming into her, a loud Rawk- Crack, then the screech of something substantial giving way.

The smoke slowly cleared from their second deliberately aimed broadside, revealing the French frigate's new hurts. She had managed to come about at 45-degree angles, baring her larboard side as if trying to bring her guns to bear, but… her main-mast had been decapitated a few feet above the fighting top, perhaps by a lucky hit from one of the 32-pounder carronades, and the press of wind had brought all above it down onto her larboard bulwarks, the cross-deck boat-tier beams, and her waist. Her reefed main course sail lay like a funeral shroud over it all. If she tried to fire back, there were good odds she'd set herself on fire from the sparks scattered among all that wreckage! Only her mizen mast still stood, flying t'gallant, tops'1, and her spanker. Now she was completely unable to manoeuvre or maintain steerage way! Her Tricolour flag was missing, yet… after a minute or so, someone over there took a small harbour jack Tricolour up the mizen shrouds to the fighting top, and nailed it to the mast.

"Zut alors, monsewer!" Lewrie cried through a speaking-trumpet to them, thumping a fist on the cap-rails. "Mort de ma vie, what're ye goin' t'do now, hey? Sacre- fuckin' -bleu?" he sneered as Reliant swept on past the frigate, putting her on her starboard quarters to subside slowly into the thinning mists.

Yet in those thinning mists, now they were clear of the frigate, Lewrie had a much clearer view of that hulking French 74-gunner! She had been about a cable astern of her consort when the first broadside had been fired. She had yet to be engaged.

"And what are you goin' t'do, sir?" Lewrie asked aloud, as if he could speak with the French senior officer aboard the 74. Modeste was firing as his own guns were being overhauled, swabbed out, and re-loaded. "Decide quick, monsewer, if ye care for yer paint-work!" he added as Modeste's shot began to pummel their flagship.

The lead frigate was now an immobile hulk, unable to sail and making no discernible way except for a painfully slow wheel to the North, laying herself almost at right angles to her flagship's course as that two-decker came on under a full press of sail on the light winds and her captain suddenly faced a horrid choice: wear cross the wind and turn Northerly to avoid ramming into his crippled frigate, and continue the engagement in more traditional line-against-line, or put up his helm and pivot Sou'west to avoid "going aboard" the frigate, and meet Modeste starboard-to-starboard with her massive guns on opposing tacks.

"She turns to face Modeste, she lays herself open to a raking, sir," Lt. Westcott pointed out, shaking his head in wonder at how anyone could put himself in such a predicament.

"Not completely bows-on, Mister Westcott," Lewrie countered, in calmer takings. "One good, sharp broadside into Modeste, and he's the lighter frigates t'deal with, after."

Oh, shit, she's wheelin' t'starboard! Lewrie told himself as he saw her bows begin to swing Northerly; she'll be blowin' us t'flinders next!

"If she clears the frigate, sir," Westcott said, taking a deep breath as the two-decker barrelled down on the crippled frigate, wheeling with her helm hard down and her tall sides heeling so far over her lower gun-deck ports were only a foot or so above the sea.

"Lay us Due North, sir!" Lewrie snapped to his First Lieutenant. "Mister Spendlove! We will engage the two-decker!"

"Aye, sir!" Lt. Spendlove answered, though Lewrie was sure that he had to gulp in alarm first; in great sea battles, the fighting was left to the line-of-battle ships, and frigates stood by to aid any who needed assistance or to repeat signals down the smoky line. They most-certainly did not trade fire with warships that bore three or four times their weight of metal! "That'll open his gun-arcs to nigh abeam," he told Westcott.

"A collision would be nice about now," Lt. Westcott said with a hopeful note to his voice after passing orders to the helmsmen and the brace-tending hands.

"It could get int'restin' in a minute or two, either way, sir," Lewrie agreed. "But, does he get past the frigate, he'll use her for a shield against Modeste's fire. Beats the bow-rake he'd have taken, had he swung Sutherly."

Modeste's guns were hammering the French flagship, hulling her "'twixt wind and water," and raising great bursts of paint, splinters, and engrained dirt from her sides. Heeled over as she was, some shot shattered gangway bulwarks, sending rolled up and stowed hammocks and bedding flying like disturbed nests of snakes. But some of Modeste's broadside was striking the immoble frigate, not the two-decker as she ducked behind her consort in her frantic turn.

Come on! Ram the bitch! Lewrie prayed in silence, and it did look as if the 74's jib-boom and bow sprit would spear into the starboard mizen shrouds of the frigate, but… she slid on past, scraping her larboard bows down the frigate's starboard side. She lost her cat-head timber and larboard bower anchor, and visibly staggered, rolling almost upright for a moment, but… she sailed clear with little more damage to show for it.