Dewey Lambdin - THE GUN KETCH

"Do but let me try it, sir," Lewrie begged. "Two hours. There's moon enough to see her, and a sextant'11 tell us if she's gaining, by the height of her mast-trucks 'bove the horizon. We're even in speed for now, perhaps a quarter-knot or half-knot faster, and that's not enough to intercept her before she's in American waters."

"Two hours, then," Rodgers allowed at last. "But should we fall too far behind, it'll be your fault, Lewrie. Your fault, hear me?" "Aye, aye, sir."

Eased just the slightest bit, though, sailing more upright on her natter bottom, Alacrity closed the range. Six miles off, five and then four, with more of Finney's Caroline visible above the horizon at each chiming of the watch bells. Satisfied that his solution had worked, Lewrie slumped down for a nap far aft on the signal-flag lockers, muffled against the sea-wind's chill in a gro-gram boat-cloak. With his head lolled against the taffrail, he nodded off at last, his last waking sight the dark, creaming wake alongside.

Cony came to wake him just before eight bells of the middle, a few minutes before four a.m., with a mug of black coffee. Alan took one sip to sluice foul sleep from his mouth, spat it over the side, then drank deep before handing the mug back to his servant. He walked forward for his telescope, and a view ahead, to assure himself that their chase was still there.

Caroline loomed even taller above the horizon of false-dawn, a slanted black semi-colon on the glittering silvery trough of the last of the moon astern. Using a sextant and a slate, Lewrie determined, assuming Caroline's masts stood seventy feet above her decks, that she was still being slowly overtaken, and was now a little less than three miles off, no matter how much sail she flew, which course she steered. And she was still heeled over too far!

"He said he'd made third mate," Lewrie muttered to himself as he stowed the sextant away in the binnacle cabinet. "Surely, he must know to ease her aloft."

"Sir?" Sailing Master Fellows queried his grunts. "Two hours, I make it, to good practice for our guns, sir," he substituted.

"But by dead reckoning, Captain, sir," Fellows countered wearily, "three hours to the Charleston Bar. And within range of the forts. We will be cutting it exceeding fine, sir. I doubt our rebellious cousins would appreciate us taking her right on their front stoop."

"I doubt the United States of America would shelter pirates. All the more reason to catch her up before we reach their waters."

"Aye, sir," Fellows nodded in agreement "Excuse me, sir, but I do believe the sea-wind is returning. A puff or two from the south'rd, so far, but it is veering, sir. We'll have stern winds in an hour, I believe, on our larboard quarter, from the sou'east."

"My respects to the first lieutenant, Mister Fellows, and…"

"I'm here, sir," Ballard announced from Lewrie's off-side, just at his elbow, which made Alan almost leap in surprise.

"Ah, good morning, Mister Ballard. Hands to the sheets and the braces, sir. And shake out that reef in the fore-tops'l."

"Aye, aye, sir."

"Land ho!" a bow lookout shouted aft. "Charleston Light, fine on the bows!"

"Less than three hours to Yankee jurisdiction, then," Fellows sighed. "Sorry, sir, it seems my dead reckoning's off a mite."

"Time enough," Lewrie insisted. "Just barely. I hope."

True sunrise came, and with it, steady offshore winds out of the east-sou'east, laden with the smell of storm and rain later in the day; the dawn a gray and gloomy beast that dingied the whitecaps and stained the seas iron-gray as spilled washwater and suds. Two miles astern of Caroline they approached, relentlessly gaining; then only one mile, the range of random shot for their six-pounders, even as the coast appeared to the west, a thin dark green and blue thread, and the tall spire of St. Michael's church rose skyward above The Beacon and the Charleston Light. Caroline wore off the wind a little to the nor'west and Alacrity surged directly up her wake, following the leads and the sea marks for Five-Fathom Hole inside the Charleston Bar, south of the Ship Channel.

It would be cut exceedingly fine, as Mr. Fellows had predicted; half an hour would spell the difference between Finney's escape or his ruin, of being brought to battle or his gaining American waters.

"Seven cables, sir," Ballard estimated hopefully. "About fourteen hundred yards. We could try shots from the bow chase guns."

"It's no good, Lewrie," Commander Rodgers griped, all but wringing his hands. "To fetch him to close-broadsides, we'll have to sail within range of Fort Johnston an' Fort Moultrie. Damme if we ain't but two miles off the Charleston Light now, sir."

"They do not have a battery to enforce their jurisdiction there, sir," Lewrie countered, drawn from dire musings about something aloft carrying away, of some structural failure which would rob them of the prize at the last second. "We can chase her another two miles farther, out of Five-Fathom Hole, right to the bar, sir. That's what their guns cover, sir."

"He must bear off more northerly out of Five-Fathom Hole,sir," Ballard suggested slyly. "Might we not wear ship now and cut the angle to close even more?"

"Splendid, Mister Ballard!" Lewrie grinned. "And begin firing with the larboard battery. I'd admire did you Beat to Quarters, sir." "Chase gun!" Midshipman Parham shouted, spotting a puff of gun-smoke on Caroline's stern. The light ball moaned past the starboard side to skip twice until it buried itself astern. "She has opened her fire upon us, sir!"

"Mister Harkin, hands wear ship! Mister Neill, larboard your helm. Steer nor-nor'west," Ballard called, as another ball soared by to strike closer to the starboard side. Alacrity went tearing past a local fishing boat busy with her nets, the Americans aboard shaking fists at them, and the black slaves gaping wide-mouthed at the sight of a British warship with all her colours flying. "Beat to Quarters!"

Alacrity's crew boiled into action, casting off the lashings of the great-guns, fetching handspikes and crows, removing tompions from the muzzles of both batteries, and opening the gun ports. Charges came up from the magazine, shot was selected and rammed home, flintlocks were primed and cocked. "Ready for battle, sir," Ballard reported at last. "We'll bear off a little more to starboard to give the gunners a better angle," Lewrie decided. "Oh. With your permission, Commander, of course."

"Ahum," Rodgers pondered heavily.

"Sir, we've come this far!" Lewrie groaned in a soft voice. "A half a mile more? With round-shot?"

"The repercussions, Lewrie!" Rodgers whispered. "We'll never hear the end of it from the damned Foreign Office, the Admiralty…"

"Please, sir. There's time enough!"

"You'll not violate American waters," Rodgers wheedled. "Open fire, Mister Ballard," Lewrie snapped, before Rodgers had a chance to change his mind, interpreting that for a "yes."

"Larboard yer helm! Mister Fowles, as you bear, sir! Fire!" Ballard shouted at once.

The forward two-pounder chase-guns rapped out first, followed by the deeper voices of the six-pounders, angled in the portsills as far forward as they might bear. The range was six cables, twelve-hundred yards, with Caroline stern-on to them, a difficult and narrow target. Shot tore the sea around her, close to her waterline, raising towering pillars of spray twice as high as her rails. Her mizzenmast jerked to a hit, and the aftermost lugsail folded in on itself as it was pierced by a ball, before ripping in twain from leech to luff! A ball struck her right on the stern, low on her transom near the rudder and made it twitch once like a dog's ear pestered by a fly.

"Chain-shot and bar-shot, Mister Fowles!" Lewrie shouted to his grizzled old gunner, who was pacing the gun deck bareheaded. "Play a Frog, and aim high to take his rigging down, sir!"