Dewey Lambdin - A King`s Commander

"Aye, sir." Knolles nodded grimly, plucking at his clean silk.

"Thunder, by Jesus!" Alan snorted. "Mine arse on a bandbox, Mister Buchanon. Mine arse on a bandbox!"

And laughed out loud as he strolled aft to study the frigate in his glass, leaving them all perplexed by such good cheer.

Hands at quarters, standing by their charged, shotted and now-primed artillery pieces, swaying as Jester rocked and rolled over the sea. Gun captains would fire them with modern flint-lock strikers in lieu of ancient slow-match linstocks; but slow-match sizzled slowly, wound 'round the mid-deck water tubs, just in case.

The French fleet, unfortunately for Lewrie, were the fighting ships that lay to leeward, those closest to him. There had to be at least thirty of them, it appeared, a ragged procession of proud line-of-battle ships- 74's, 80's, and larger, right up to massive three-decker flagships of 120 guns-in a tormented, shot-racked in-line-ahead formation that headed due west, stretching east-to-west across Jester s track for nearly three miles, like an oak and iron reef. It was no longer the tidy arrangement it had seemed as they'd approached; there were gaps between ships greater than the rigorously ordained half-a-cable separation. There were gaps aloft, too, where ships had lost topmasts and yards. Still, they doggedly plodded west, barring Jester a path as she beat close-hauled to weather, west-by-south.

Safety, unfortunately, lay on the other side of that bellowing reef of warships. Howe's thirty or so liners had gained the wind gauge and followed a parallel course to the French, lost in the foggy towers of gun smoke that rose from every ship.

Worse yet, there were even more French frigates to leeward of their battle line, to serve as aides to the combatants-as rescuers for those forced to break away, as occupiers aboard any British ship that was forced to strike and be towed away as prize; and as signal repeaters, down in clear air, to relay their admiral's wishes.

And some of those repeating frigates toward the rear of that battle line had begun to show interest in the strange ship approaching them with no flag flying. The one that appeared to be pursued by one of their sisters!

And the pursuing frigate…

Lewrie turned to have another look, no longer needing the telescope. She was up to them, within a mile or less, well within range-to-random shot. It had taken her awhile to recognize that Jester had hardened up to windward. She'd soldiered on, still sailing a point-free for about a quarter-hour, before going close-hauled to keep the wind gauge, herself. She'd lost some windward advantage, but…

There she lay, off the larboard side, nicely framed behind the mizzen stays, almost on a parallel course of west-by-south as a mate to Jesters. Another ten minutes and Lewrie would face a hard choice of standing-on within range of the repeating frigates, perhaps the disengaged broadside guns of the French battle line, or fighting a larger, heavier-armed frigate that blocked her only chance to come about to starboard tack and jink around the stern of the French liners!

"A tack'd lay our head sou'east-by-east, Mister Buchanon?" Lewrie speculated aloud.

"Aye, sir. 'Bout that." Buchanon grunted. "Excuse me, Cap'um, but I'd not stand on five minutes more, on this tack, else we fetch too near th' Frog liners, an' have no wind alee of 'em, e'en for a reach to th' east t'sail around the last in line. A close shave e'en now, sir."

"Quite so, Mister Buchanon." Lewrie nodded, unconsciously rubbing his own raspy and unshaven chin at the mention. There'd been more to worry about this morning than his toilet. "Mister Hyde? Dig into the flag lockers, aft. I b'lieve Our Lords Commissioners issued some false flags? Find the Frog Tricolor."

"Aye, aye, sir!" The lad yelped, dashing off to search.

"A legitimate ruse de guerre." Lewrie shrugged to his officers. "Give a few minutes' confusion, perhaps."

"Aye, sir! Found it!" Hyde shrilled forward.

"Bend it on, Mister Hyde, and hoist it aloft," he ordered.

He was hoping that the French line-of-battle ships had just a tad too much on their plate, at the moment, to care one way or another, and the repeating frigates that could come about and intercept him would lose interest; just another corvette arriving with orders from Brest-some silly civilian nonsense from the landlubbers of the revolutionary Directory, or however they now styled themselves.

He raised his glass, as the French Tricolor was two-blocked high on the mizzenmast. What would that pursuing frigate do, now? he wondered. Wasted a whole morning, chasing some idiot who ignored his signals to fetch-to…

Come to think on't, Lewrie grinned, he never sent me a signal! Saw me as a chase, right from the start. And if we're both galloping for his fleet flagship like John Gilpin on a good horse… I have to be French, same as him. A body'd be daft as bats to get this close, else!

Three-quarters of a mile separation now, between Jester and her pursuer. Good gun range. Damned good gun range!

"Ah, sir…?" Buchanon prompted uneasily.

"Aye, Mister Buchanon. Mister Knolles, stations for stays, sir! We will put the ship about on the starboard tack. And anyone who puts her in irons… I'll have his nutmegs off with a damn' dull knife!"

"Bosun Porter, hands to the braces! Hands to the sheets!" Lieutenant Knolles bellowed. "Ready to come about?"

A breathless minute of preparation, hands tailing on braces and sheets, laying paws on tacks, easing all but the last over-under turn around belaying pins and bitts.

"No more than half-a-point free to ease her around, Quartermaster!" Lewrie snapped. " 'Tis all the leeway we may spare." Ships were usually eased a full point off the wind, to gather an extra surge in speed to assure a clean tack.

"Helm alee!" Knolles screeched, at last.

Around she came, driving back up on the wind with a quarter-knot more speed, jib boom and bowsprit sweeping like a pointer across the embattled warships before her bows. Jibs and stays'ls fluttering and canvas popping like gunshots as Jester neared the eye of the wind, as sails lost their luffs-yards creaking and wood-ball parrels crying as they were swung around. For a heart-stopping moment, she slowed to a crawl, everything aloft aback and banging, before the fore-and-aft stays'ls and jibs whooshed across the deck to larboard as she took the wind fine on her starboard bows. The spanker over the quarterdeck and the royals and t'gallants rustled, flagged, then filled, with the hard crack of laundry airing on a line.

"Sou'east-by-east, Quartermaster!" Lewrie cried. "Meet her!"

The wheel spun, spokes blurring as they tried to catch up with her momentum, as she paid off half-a-point to the new lee in spite of their best efforts, as the hands braced hard on the gangways to make a proper spiral set aloft, royals more sharply angled to the wind than t'gallants, t'gallants more than tops'ls.

From his position at the new windward, starboard, rails, Lewrie espied their pursuing frigate, which now lay just a touch to the right of Jester s bows. It would be a damned close-run thing, but sou'east-by-east would take her clear of the last struggling behemoth line-of-battle ship in the French line. And cross the frigate's stern, if she didn't alter course.

"Shit," he muttered, though, as the frigate opened fire!

It would be a bow-rake on Jester as the frigate crossed her T, employing every available gun in her starboard battery, while Jester's two shorter-ranged carronades on the forecastle would be the only guns that could respond! Round-shot tearing through the curving bow timbers, frailer than her sides, rebounding and tearing down the complete length of her gun deck, and down her gangways!