Dewey Lambdin - The King`s Commission

"Mister Cox, let's concentrate our fire on one embrasure, if you will!" Alan shouted down to the waist. "That one, there!"

"Aye, sir!"

"Six-pounders, there," Alan said. "About four or five of them."

"Seems about right, sir," Caldwell replied, his voice still a little shaky.

"And at least four twenty-four-pounders," Alan added, feeling a little grim himself. "This is going to be warm work for three little thin-sided brigs. And works with field-pieces up towards Britain Bay to counter Captain Dixon's shore party. More Frogs on this island than a dog's got fleas, more than reported, at any rate."

They had to duck as one of those twenty-four-pounders placed a round-shot close aboard, close enough to raise a great waterspout that fell over the quarterdeck and wetted them down in a twinkling as it skipped overhead to fall into the sea on the disengaged side. Shrike was, at least, out of the main line of fire, a little more sheltered than the Drake or Admiral Barrington. As the day wore on towards noon, Drake took a ball aloft which brought down the gaff of her spanker, and the Admiral Barrington was hulled with solid thonks of iron smashing wood.

The artillery killed the wind; that was something Alan had heard mentioned before but had never witnessed for himself. Where before there had been fresh winds offshore that stirred up the waters of the deep passages and set the brigs to rocking like cradles, now the sea was flat as a mill-pond, and the wind had died to almost nothing. The ships were wreathed in their own palls of smoke, and the fort ashore could only be espied by looking for the base of the towering pillar of spent powder. It didn't do much for their aim, but at least it made the job of the French troops serving their larger pieces just as hard.

"Signal from Drake , sir," Edgar said at his side, coughing on the sour smell of burned niters. "Cease fire."

"Very well, Mister Edgar. Mister Cox, cease fire!" Alan said. "Mister Edgar, my compliments to the purser, and tell him it's past time for dinner. Have him issue some cold rations and small-beer for the hands."

"Aye aye, sir."

A rowing boat sped down from the frigates anchored in Britain Bay, and went aboard Drake while the men were eating and curing their battle-induced thirsts. After half an hour, the boat came back along the anchored brigs.

"Sir, Captain Nelson directs me bid you to weigh," the midshipman in the stern yelled, his voice cracking a little; he was awfully young. "You are to return to Britain Bay and re-embark your party."

"Very well," Alan replied. "Well, that's another fine mess we've made," he added, turning to his quarterdeck people. "It'll take the frigates down here tomorrow to shoot that battery silent."

"And make another landing, maybe on the other side of the island, now we know where the Frogs is concentrated, sir," Cox said, free of his gun deck. He and his gunners looked black as Moors from all the grime of powder smoke on their skins. Alan could see the closest gun being sponged out with a water-soaked wool rammer, and other hands hoisting up buckets of seawater to sluice off the muzzles and touch-holes. The guns were hissing as the water cooled them like sated dragons.

"Bowse 'em down to the port-sills and secure, Mister Cox," he said. "Mister Fukes, get your people ready to veer out on the bower and take up the kedge soon as the gun crews are available. Wind's coming about a little more westerly. Quick as you can, both of you, or we'll end up rowing her out with the sweeps if the wind goes foul and leaves us on a lee shore."

The wind had swung, not so noticeable during the cannonading that had deadened it; now more southerly, with a touch of westing. Sure sign of a change in the weather, and that was usually a sign of worsening weather, especially in the Caribbean.

They got the kedge up, heaved into short stays on the bower, but could not get it to release from the bottom. Damme, and this was going so well! Alan thought sadly.

"Flukes hung up on a coral head, feels like, sir," Fukes told him. "I can almos' see 'er down there."

"Belay what you have, Mister Fukes. Hands aloft! Let go the driver and jibs! With a little forward way, we might sail her off."

"Aye, sir." Fukes sounded dubious. And with good cause. The anchor obstinately refused to let go her grip on the coral bottom, and no amount of straining at the capstans was going to shift her. The ship sailed up until she was almost standing directly over the anchor, with the cable bar-taut, and if anything, inclined slightly from the vertical, bent back under Shrike's forefoot and cutwater.

"Least this'un ain't the best bower, sir," Fukes offered after coming aft from the beakhead. "An' them other brigs ain't havin' much more luck'un us'un. Drake 's arready cut, sir."

"The captain will have my hide if I lose an anchor, even the small bower, Mister Fukes," Alan groaned, thinking what a tongue-lashing he would receive when Lilycrop came back aboard.

With nowhere else to go forward, Shrike was now beginning to circle about her anchor, and the timbers around the hawse-holes were groaning alarmingly. The bow was slightly down and thumping.

"Well, shit," Alan sighed, giving in to the inevitable. "Cut the cable, Mister Fukes. Aloft there, loose tops'Is! Helm hard alee and hold her wind abeam if you can. Braces, shift the braces to the larboard tack!"

It was a sad trek back to Britain Bay, making slow progress until they could come to anchor again and clew up the sails to allow the boats to come alongside. Doctor Dorne and his loblolly boys from the surgery appeared, ready to receive any wounded men from the shore party, and Alan thought to have a bosun's sling rigged from aloft to help hoist injured men aboard.

Then their first boat was coming up to the starboard entry port, and Alan could look down into her. Rossyngton had the tiller, and Alan was ready to rate him for preceding the captain's boat to the chains, but a quick look at the second boat showed no sign of their captain, either. Yet Lilycrop's old cox'n was in the first boat. Was he dead?

"Sir!" Rossyngton shouted up as the boat thumped into Shrike 's chainwales. He was filthy and sweaty, his hat gone somewhere. "It's the captain, sir!"

And there was Lieutenant Lilycrop, splayed out amidships between the oarsmen where he could not have been seen, his cox'n supporting his head and shoulders, and another man helping hold his legs up out of the bilges. He was gritting his teeth in agony and rolling his head back and forth to keep silent before his men.

The bosun's chair was lowered immediately, and Lilycrop helped into it and secured with a line about his waist. Gentle hands were there to ease his passage up the side, to keep him from bumping against the timbers. The stay-tackle hauled him up and over the gangway bulwarks and swung him over the waist. Lieutenant Lilycrop's right foot had been wrapped up in someone's shirt for a bandage, tied with small-stuff to keep it from falling off, with another length of twine about his leg above the knee to control the bleeding. Even so, his sodden wrap left a trail of blood droplets as he was lowered to the deck.

"Make haste here, damn your eyes, Mister Lewyss!" Alan called as he gained the waist and knelt over his stricken commander.

"Calm as does it, Mister Lewrie," Dr. Lewyss urged in a soft voice, patting Alan on the shoulder with a blood-grimed hand. "The captain already knows he's hurt, and we don't want him to take fright from all this yelling. Got to gentle the wounded, so ye do, like one would with a colt. Make 'em feel they have a chance, else they take fright and go all cold and grey. Seen it happen, and then you lose them, sure as Fate."