The King's Marauder (19 page)

“If it is, I’ll have both captains at the gratings, and flog ’em half t’death,” Lewrie vowed. “I didn’t find it all that amusin’ then, and damned if anyone pulls that jape on me a second time.”

He had ordered his frigate,
Reliant,
and three weak and small ships, all he had in harbour, out to confront Grierson’s large squadron,
knowing
it was suicide, but prepared to go game and fulfill his duty to the last.

“About a mile and a half, now, sir,” Sailing Master Yelland estimated. “Ah,
there’s
their damned Tricolour flags, at last. Frogs for certain.”

“And we’re s’posed t’be terrified,” Lewrie growled.

Damme, don’t they find it odd that we
ain’t
turnin’ about Sou’west and runnin’ for our lives?
he had to ask himself;
These must be the stupidest, or the greediest, Frenchmen in all Creation!

“Sir, I do believe that they’re not frigates, but
corvettes,
” Lt. Westcott exclaimed after a long look with his glass. “Like our old twenty-gunned sloops of war.”

“And about a mile off,” Mr. Yelland pointed out.

“I’d like ’em t’come nigh half a mile, first,” Lewrie said in rising excitement. It appeared that the French would not be daunted by the stolidly-plodding line of ships that showed no sign of fleeing.

Come on, come on,
Lewrie thought, beginning a slow grin;
Come see what we have for ye!

“Ehm … I estimate that it is half a mile, sir,” Mr. Yelland announced.

“Mister Britton?” Lewrie barked. “Hoist the Blue Ensign, and make a signal to the convoy. Number Ten!”

“Open the ports and run out, sir?” Westcott eagerly asked.

“Damned right, Mister Westcott!” Lewrie snapped. He ran up the larboard ladderway to the poop deck to see how all the other ships were obeying his orders, schemed with Ralph Knolles and pre-planned long before while still in port at the Nore.

Step One; Hoist Blue Ensign.

Step Two; Brail up main course, Navy fashion.

Step Three; Fifty Fusiliers to form by engaged side.

Step Four; Copy manoeuvres of escort ahead of you.

All four troop transports were showing the Blue Ensign, and their main courses were being brailed up, as a warship would to avoid the risk of sparks from her own gunfire setting it on fire. Soldiers in full kit were forming along the larboard bulwarks of the transports with their firearms. The Fusiliers wore shakos, not the tall, narrow-brimmed black hats of real Marines, but they gave a good impression of a frigate’s Marine complement, at a half-mile’s range. Good enough to fool the French.

Lewrie looked forward to see that
Sapphire
’s huge main course was brailed up out of the way, and that Lt. Keane and Lt. Roe were sending some of their men to the fighting tops, at last, and arraying the rest behind the stout bulwarks and stowed hammock racks.

And the French!

“
Got
you, you ignorant shits!” Lewrie bellowed in his best quarterdeck voice at the foe, hoping they could hear him. “Mister Westcott? Serve the nearest one a broadside!”

The right-hand
corvette,
a little further off and aiming for the head of the long column, was already hauling her wind, putting her helm hard over and beginning to wear off the wind. Her main course was still spread, so she was fast off the mark. She had not even opened her gun-ports.

The one closest to
Sapphire
had begun to take in her course, and had opened her ports, but was also beginning to turn, presenting her starboard side to Lewrie’s ship.

“By broadside … fire!”

HMS
Sapphire
erupted, guns bellowing, great clouds of gunpowder smoke gushing out, and clouds of sparks swirling. Lewrie found that he had crossed the fingers of his right hand for luck. He knew that his gunners could shoot off a concentrated broadside at one cable’s range, but how would they do at close to half a mile?

“Beautiful!” he shouted, clapping his hands in glee.

There were tall pillars and feathers of spray arising round the French
corvette,
great slaps from 24-pounder shot, smaller ones from the 12-pounders, huge ones from the carronades that didn’t have the range and struck short, lumbering up from First Graze to still do damage when they hit the
corvette
’s outer plankings. Before his view was blocked out by the thick cloud of smoke, he even saw some roundshot slamming into her, punching star-shaped holes!

“Mister Westcott, come about to East-Sou’east!” he ordered. “Let’s go after her and serve her another!”

“Aye aye, sir! Helmsmen, make her head East-Sou’east,” Lieutenant Westcott repeated. “Bosun, hands to the sheets and braces, and take the wind fine on the quarter, nigh a ‘soldier’s wind’!”

“Mister Britton?” Lewrie shouted aft to the signals Midshipman. “Make to
Comus
 … her number, and Pursue The Enemy More Closely.”

“Aye, sir!” Britton replied, sounding right chipper.

Sapphire
was wheeling about, altering course to pursue her own target, slowly sailing back into the thinning, drifting pall of spent gunpowder smoke from her first broadside. That was a disadvantage for her, for this close to running “both sheets aft”, almost dead downwind, she could sail no faster than the wind itself, and would wreath herself with every broadside. He could feel the motion of his ship change under his feet.

Lewrie could barely make out the right-hand French
corvette,
which had managed to complete her wear-about, crossing the eye of the winds and taking it on her larboard quarter to run as fast as her wee legs could carry her. His own, the left-hand one, was emerging from the smoke, becoming more substantial by the second. And she
had
been struck, for he could make out bashed-in scantlings, pale raw patches where heavy roundshot had shattered her oak side and bulwarks, leaving base wood clean of paint, tar, and grime. And she was close, no more than two cables off, now! She was turning away to run, but he had her.

“By broadside … fire!”

HMS
Sapphire
thundered and roared, long amber flames spewing from all her larboard battery, smothering herself, and any view of the
corvette
in a fresh fog of sour, reeking powder smoke.

All that Lewrie could see were the tops of her upper masts, and they
trembled,
they swirled about as if the Frenchman had struck a shoal.

“Sir! Sir!” Midshipman Britton was shouting, sounding as if he was chortling, in point of fact. “The transport astern of us is wearing in succession!”

At least
somebody’s
doin’ what I asked!
Lewrie thought. With little risk to his ship, or his passengers, that transport’s master was tagging along, still playing “frigate”.

He turned back to see if he could spot what Knolles and
Comus
was doing, and damned if the transport astern of him was wheeling to follow his ship, too!

“There she is!” Lt. Westcott shouted, pointing out-board at the wraith-like image of the smoke-shrouded French
corvette.
“She’s lost her mizen top-masts, and her spanker!”

Looks like she’s been gnawed by rats,
Lewrie thought;
It seems my gunners
can
hit something, after all.

“Has she struck?” Lewrie could hear the Sailing Master exclaim in rising excitement. “Or is her staff just shot away?”

“She’s striking!” Westcott cried as someone fetched up a white bed sheet and began to wave it vigourously aboard the
corvette.

“Cease fire! Cease fire, there!” Lewrie bellowed. “She just struck to us! Mister Westcott? Fetch us to, as close to the prize as you may. Mister Britton? Signal the transports to fetch-to!”

Lewrie went back up to the poop deck with his glass to see what else was transpiring. Knolles in
Comus
was still pursuing the second French
corvette,
though that ship was making a rapid exit from the scene, even setting stun’sls for more speed. The two transports following Knolles seemed glued to his stern, though much slower.

As swiftly as the terrified Frenchmen were fleeing, it appeared that it would take ’til sunset before
Comus
could catch them up and bring them to action, and if those two transports fell further and further behind, they’d be left on their own, defenceless should another raider stumble across them.

Bird in the hand,
Lewrie thought with a shrug as he closed the tubes of his glass, and went back down to the quarterdeck. He waited for a lull, when he could speak with Lt. Westcott without interfering with his orders.

“Ah, Geoffrey, would you like to take charge of our prize?” he asked in a low voice. “If Gibraltar has enough spare sailors to make up a crew, there may be a Commander’s epaulet in her. She’s sure to be bought in after the Prize-Court’s done with her valuation.”

“Trying to get shot of me, sir?” Westcott said with a mock grimace. “That cuts sore! No, sir. I’d rather stay aboard and see what you’re up to, next.”

“‘His men would follow him anywhere … if only for the entertainment’, d’ye mean?” Lewrie japed. He leaned closer to whisper his next question. “If not you, who d’ye recommend? Who can we best do without?”

“I’d send Harcourt, and hope it’s permanent, sir,” Westcott was quick to say.

“My thoughts exactly,” Lewrie said with a secretive smile, and turned to the Mids assigned to the quarterdeck. “Mister Fywell, pass word for Mister Harcourt, with my compliments.”

“Aye aye, sir,” the lad said, doffing his hat and scampering.

Lt. Westcott saw to boats to be brought up from being towed astern, and spare hands told off to man them and form part of the prize crew. Lewrie spoke with Marine Lieutenant Keane for at least twenty of
Sapphire
’s fifty private Marines to go aboard the prize to guard her French crew, sure to be larger than normal in expectations that she would have taken prizes of her own.
Sapphire
’s tall and skeletal Surgeon, Mr. Snelling, and his Surgeon’s Mates would have to go over to tend to any French dying or wounded, if the prize didn’t carry a doctor of her own, or if the casualty count was too high for that one to see to by himself.

“You sent for me, sir?” Lt. Harcourt reported, doffing his hat.

“Aye, Mister Harcourt,” Lewrie replied, “I wish you to take charge of the prize, and see her safely to Gibraltar. Best done in company with the rest of us, but, she’s sure t’have a large crew who won’t take kindly to bein’ slung into a prison hulk.”

“Very good, sir!” Lt. Harcourt agreed with his first sign of joy since Lewrie had come aboard.

“Take whom ye will,” Lewrie offered.

“I’ll have Midshipman Hillhouse, sir,” Harcourt said.

Thought ye might!
Lewrie told himself;
Birds of a feather!

“Former Cox’n Crawley, and a few others from his old boat crew, too, sir,” Harcourt added.

“I can’t assure you it’ll be permanent,” Lewrie cautioned, “but she’s French, so her captain’s wine stores should make up for it.”

“I’ll see to my kit, if I may, sir?” Harcourt asked, eager to be off.

“Carry on, then, sir, and the very best of good luck,” Lewrie told him in dismissal.

And oh, wouldn’t it be sweet if it was permanent!
he told himself, feeling whimsical;
Harcourt gone, Hillhouse, and from what I’ve heard from my lads belowdecks, Crawley and his pack are the hardest of holdouts from Captain Insley’s days, too.

He took another look towards
Comus
with his telescope, and it looked as if the other French
corvette
was showing Ralph Knolles a clean pair of heels.

“Mister Britton, make a signal to
Comus,
” Lewrie ordered with a sigh. “Her number, and Discontinue The Action.”

“Aye, sir,” Midshipman Britton replied, sounding as if all of his hopes were dashed.

Mine, too, lad,
Lewrie thought;
Still, it’s been a good day.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

HMS
Sapphire
’s convoy skirted within twelve miles of Cape Trafalgar as they entered the Straits of Gibraltar’s approaches, keeping enemy Spain, and Europe, to their larboard side, close enough for the crews and passenger-soldiers to see and marvel over, near where the famous battle had been fought not quite two years before. The coast of Africa and the Barbary States appeared on their starboard side as they began the transit, and wary eyes were cast in that direction, for though the United States Navy had humbled the infamous corsairs from Tangier and other lairs, the sight of a British convoy ripe for the plucking might be too tempting for those bloodthirsty pirates who had terrorised European coasts, even in the English Channel, for hundreds of years.

The Straits of Gibraltar were thirty-six miles long, narrowing to only eight miles wide at its slimmest point. There was plenty of depth for even
Sapphire,
and, once begun, the entrance to the Mediterranean was assured, even under “bare poles”, with no sails flying. The steady Eastward-running current would carry a ship through; it would be the getting out against that current that would be an arduous and slow passage.

Lewrie ordered all ships to steer within four miles of Tarifa, and the little fortified Tarifa Island, on the North shore, almost as if taunting any Spanish gun batteries, but a safe mile beyond the range of even the biggest 42-pounder cannon. From there, the Spanish coast trended Nor’easterly, expanding the separation from shore, with all ships firmly in the grasp of the Eastward-running current, and free of the variable swirls and eddies of currents inshore.

The bucklers had been removed from the hawse holes, the thigh-thick cables fetched up from the tiers, and bent onto the best bower and second bower anchors, and to the stern kedge anchors, in preparation for coming to anchor in Gibraltar Bay, and for the unfortunate accident of Gibraltar’s dangerous wind shifts which might leave them at the current’s mercy and sweep them past Europa Point and past the anchorages, forcing them to struggle, perhaps even towing themselves with ships’ boats, onto the Rock’s Eastern shore ’til a favourable slant of wind arose that could carry them back round Europa Point and into the bay proper, off the Ole Mole or the New Mole and the ancient Tuerto Tower, or, hopefully, right off the small town itself, which would be right handy for Lewrie’s shore visits.