Lewrie continued to smile, though he did raise one rather dubious brow. Fremantle, though, who'd been slouching like a sack of onions in his saddle, sat up a bit straighter, got a light upon his dull visage, as if he'd just been Saved, and was leaving Church with his Life Amended. Uncanny, how this wee fellow Nelson could inspirit people! "Well, sirs, if you must ride as far as Calvi before dark, I won't keep you a second longer. And the best of fortune go with you, sirs. Captain Nelson, Captain Fremantle… I'll save you a sack of my very best… mmm, produce, sirs," he could not help saying with a deprecatory smirk. "My word on't."
"Likewise, good fortune attend your voyage, sir, and I would be much obliged for something more savory than 'Army' rations. For the men, d'ye see." Nelson beamed. "Godspeed, Commander Lewrie!"
He kneed his spindly mare into motion, to clatter off to join a procession of heavily laden mules, heavily laden sailors, and top-heavy two-wheeled carts crammed with ammunition.
Damme, I just promised to deliver them onions! Lewrie shuddered. Now I'll have to ride up there, once I'm back. Within speakin' distance of Nelson, and let's hope the Frog gunners're sleepin'!
Wherever that firebrand went there was blood and mayhem. And the Devil's own amount of shot and shell involved in a Nelson "outing." Forever thrusting himself forward, all that Death or Glory twaddle… and Alan suspected the little minnikin actually believed what he was forever saying.
Still… he could almost essay a feeling of… dare he call it jealousy?… to be left out. Grubbing about in trenches, plagued with insects, flinging oneself flat whenever a shell howled over. Well, an officer could wish to fling himself flat, but had to stand and take it, like a dumb ox. To inspire courage, so please you! Sleeping rough as a gypsy… well, perhaps not. Alan wished to make his name, and his ship's name, at sea, where sailors belonged. Not playing greengrocer, certainly, but…
He felt a hellish snit coming on. Sent off to be a carter for the fleet, 'stead of a fighting cruise. Deprived of Phoebe's charms-that he'd by God paid damn' dear for!-not even one evening with her in their new "house." The prospects of a damn' dull supper, with a "sawbones" for company; they were usually horrid drinkers, and just how much of his wine cabinet would be left to him by the time Jester returned to San Fiorenzo Bay? he wondered.
It all put Lewrie in a Dev'lish black fettle.
Mayhem? Well, God help Mountjoy, when he got back aboard. A chance to shout, to rant and scream at someone, to vent all his frustrations… it sounded damned pleasant, of a sudden!
Ego, dum cremandis trabibus accresdt rogus,
sacro regentum maria votivo colam.
Now while the pyre feeds on the burning beams,
with promised gifts will I worship Him who rules
the sea.
Hercules Furens 514-15
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Now this is more like it, Lewrie told himself, fidgetting, but with pride, as he stood foursquare on his quarterdeck, with his hands clasped together in the small of his back. Rocking and swaying on the balls of his feet, easy, as Jester tore through the waters, gun ports open, and artillery run out.
It was a rare day, no error, a brilliant, glittering morning of bright-water winds, whitecaps and horses, the sea heaving and chopping in short, close-spaced waves, and the sirocco up from the south was a force one could almost lean into, a stout, clear-weather quarter-gale, deafening in his ears. A hat-snatcher of a wind into which HMS Jester pounded close-hauled, in pursuit of prey.
A clumsy old Provence bilander already lay far astern, a prize easily snatched up from the clutch of odd vessels assembled in convoy. No matter that she'd sported a massive lateen mains! on her after, or mainmast, the compromise of her foremast crossed with course, tops'l, and t'gallant yards, had made her slow to windward. Taken with but one warning shot fired cross her bows, and a long ten minutes of nail-biting frustration as a boat was gotten down, and a prize crew under Wheelock, the master's mate, rowed over to secure her. Then Jester was off once more, lumping and drumming into wind, spray flying high to either beam, with a bone in her teeth.
They'd spotted the convoy at dawn, on east-to-west patrol sixty miles north of Corsica; a gaggle of tartanes, bilanders and poleacres to their south. Lying-to, hardly moving, as if awaiting the coming of dusk before closing the coast in the wee hours, when they might stand a chance of sneaking past other patrol ships. Immediately, Jester had hardened up, beat to quarters, and taken off in pursuit. Now the motley collection of ships had become what were termed "Chases."
The nearest Chase, Mister Buchanon informed them, was a tartane, a single-masted coastal trading vessel with a fore-and-aft lateen mains'l and a bowsprit that allowed her to set jibs and staysls to go closer to the True Wind than Jester could ever hope to. She might have made an escape, outpointing them, if she'd been longer, or been less heavily laden. She merely ploughed along, burying her bows whenever she met the rolling chops, and flinging clouds of spray and foam over herself, as if trying to hide in it.
"Starboard foc'sle carronade!" Lewrie shouted to the gun deck. "One shot across her bows!" They'd overhauled her rapidly, striding up to within half a cable-120 yards-of her larboard side, as she labored to flee.
A sharp bark, a quickly dissipated bloom of smoke, sulfurously bitter and smelling of rotten eggs as it whipped past the quarterdeck, and then a great splash and pillar of spray as the ball struck short and a little to the right of "across her bows." Under them, was more like it. The eighteen-pounder round-shot, five inches and four parts across, caromed up from first graze like a goosed dolphin, smashed into the underside of the hapless tartane's bows, shattering the jib boom and bowsprit, amputating it just beyond the cutwater!
"Sofort! Jal" Quarter-gunner Rahl could be heard to exult as he saw the results of his handiwork. "Genau!" Exactly!
Without jibs to balance her helm, she sagged alee, veering away to starboard under the press of that great lateen sail and yard, showing her weeded quick-work as she heeled precipitously.
"Helm a'weather, Quartermaster! Ease us a point free!" Lewrie snapped, so Jester would surge up even with her, still on her larboard quarter, showing her there would be no escape. "Number one gun, ready!"
He waited until she rolled more upright, so he wouldn't lose her by putting a ball through her hull, too far below the waterline to be repaired. "No more warning shots, Mister Crewe. Show her we mean it."
A quick fiddle with the quoin for elevation, a tug on the side tackles, then the crew scrambling back from the line of recoil. Bang! the nine-pounder erupted. At 100 yards, the ball's strike was immediate, a crash of timbers, the squawk! of rivened wood as a star-shaped hole three feet across was blasted into her side, just before her mast, and the tartane shook and rolled alee once more to the impact. Then, down came her long lateen yard, crashing to the deck as halliards were cut, instead of handed. Eight or nine men-perhaps her entire crew-appeared at the rails, hands flailing, arms raised in prayerlike pleading, and jabbering away fit to bust in French!
"Mister Hyde, she's your prize, sir," Lewrie crowed. "Mister Tucker the quartermaster's mate, and six hands to go with you. Hoist what sail you may, once you've secured her crew, and follow along aft of us as best you're able. Take the jolly boat. Move yourself, sir! Mister Knolles, fetch us to, to lower away the boat."
Two prizes, already, and it had barely gone eight, he exulted. Why, we might take all of 'em, by the end of the forenoon! And not a single other sail in sight to share with! Any other British warship, with even her royals 'bove the horizon, "in sight" at the time that a prize surrendered, shared in the prize money adjudged by an Admiralty Court. This morning, Lewrie was feeling particularly greedy. Hungry for more than his break-fast!
'Sides, there's my bloody expenses to make good, he sighed, as the jolly boat was swung high off the cross-deck beams that spanned Jester's waist from gangway to gangway, even before she came to a full halt in a welter of foam and a calamitously windy din from aloft.
"Come on, come on, damn yer eyes!" he muttered under his breath at how long it was taking. Take in fore and main courses, so they'd not be torn; topmen aloft to trice up yard tackles with clew jiggers, hook on burton purchases from the tops to the yardarms, jump a triatic stay between the stay-tackle pendants, and send the falls to the deck; lift the jolly boat off the cross-deck beams that spanned the waist, with stay tackles; swing her outboard with the yard tackles, and six guy lines for preventers; then lower away together. Then, even before the boat crew was down overside, take in all the hoisting gear, which was in the way aloft, ungasket the course-sails and clew them full of air once more…!
His own gig was away to the bilander, with Andrews in charge of it. Now the jolly boat. There was only the one twenty-six-foot cutter left, which took eight hands to row, and one to steer. Only one more prize taken, before he ran out of conveyances for prize crews? he groaned. Surely, not!
"Cony!" He decided. "Half a cable's worth of messenger line to the jolly boat, as a painter. Once she's alongside the prize and empty, walk the painter aft and use it as a towline. We'll keep her with us!"
* * *
What seemed an hour later, they were off again, this time chasing what looked like an Egyptian dhow; high-pooped, two masts with lateen sails, a sweet curve to her sheerline, almost saucy-almost too cute to frighten. But a prize was a prize. Like the tartane, she was too short on the waterline to make any speed. But beyond…!
Spreading out now, hauling their wind to escape individually, all order gone, were three rather substantial, and rewarding-looking ships. One, the nearest, heading sou'west, and another pair farther off bearing sou'east, still almost in company, dodging away with the boisterous wind abeam. Three-masted poleacres, with lateen rigs upon their fore and mizzenmasts to take the place of spankers or jibs, but oddly, and downright gruesomely, square-rigged on their much taller mainmasts, with courses, tops'ls and t'gallants towering over their decks, as bastardly appearing as "hermaphrodite" brigs!
They fetched the dhow-looking coaster up to their starboard side in a brief quarter-hour. Up close, she was scarred, weathered, faded, and neglected, as stained and dull as an old dishcloth. She labored within close musket shot, about fifty yards off, her few crewmen stock-still and hangdog at the rails. No warning shot was even required!
Down came her lateen yards, collapsing those triangular ellipses to her decks, and Jester fetched-to once more. The jolly boat was led around to the entry port by its towline, and Midshipman Spendlove, with Quartermaster Spenser and six seamen, rowed over to take charge of her; the jolly boat hauled back to Jester afterward for further use.
