Dewey Lambdin - Sea of Grey
Mr. Winwood uttered a soft complaint that sounded mightily like a cross between a moan and a well-muffled belch.
"Does she wish t'keep her stuns'ls rigged out for speed, she'll have t'use the Leeward Passage, Mister Winwood." Lewrie chuckled.
"The narrows, though, sir, here…"
About three-quarters of a mile due North of Cabes Point, halfway between Coki Point and the southeastern tip of Thatch Cay, there lay an indistinct indication of a shoal, stippled to show sand, which meant extremely shallow. On the scale chart they were perusing, a man could have mistaken it for a thumb smudge of ink, a tea stain from previous use. The vague extent of the shoal didn't leave much north of it, and there was another fan-like shoal round Thatch Cay's extremest tip, and that did have a sounding-one-half fathom-a scant three feet!
"He'll go south of the shoal, Mister Winwood, where there are soundings of seven to ten fathoms between the shoal and Coki Point," Lewrie insisted, "keeping well off the wind, under stuns'ls, hugging Thatch Cay a tad, once round your shoal, and giving little to loo'rd."
"Does he get past the shoal, sir, but-"
"Then it's his bottom that's ripped open, not ours. And we'll do all we can to save her people… obeying the law of the sea."
"Does he know of a wreck in there, though, sir…"
"The sun's barely up behind us, sir," Lewrie countered quickly. "The very best time of the day to see underwater obstacles ahead, long before we run afoul of 'em. And with the extreme clarity of the seas hereabouts… really, Mister Winwood! One could read a newspaper at six fathoms down. Does our Yankee captain yonder know of a wreck in the channel, then let him use his forefoot to dredge for it. Save us a deal o' gunpowder, it would! Wrecks shift, over time."
"Very well, sir," Mr. Winwood finally agreed, though not without a premonitory shiver. "Though I have expressed my reservations…"
"The fault will be mine, sir," Lewrie told him with a grim nod of his head before laying down the dividers and standing back up. "I will so note it in the log. Speaking of… Mister Elwes? Cast the log, if you please. Mister Pendarves? Hands to the fore-chains with the short leads, and two hands on the bowsprit to keep watch for any shoals or obstructions!"
Lewrie walked back to the stern and raised his glass. The privateer, and their boats, were now out of sight, and there was no smoke visible, had either the French or their own people set her afire. He pursed his mouth and chewed at its lining in worry of all that could have gone wrong. Even alee of the stranded schooner, they were too far away to hear the pops of muskets and pistols; only cannon on the schooner's decks might rumble over the sound of the wind, which would be a bad sign.
No news is good news, Lewrie told himself, turning forward.
Spotting the three other midshipmen standing idle without duty, he put Grace, Larkin, and Burns to work, taking bearings on sea-marks to either hand, and employing their scant knowledge of trigonometry for a range to them.
"Eight and three-quarter knots, sir," Midshipman Elwes reported.
"Thankee, Mister Elwes. I see you've hoisted 'Immediate' above 'Fetch-To'-very good. I doubt she'll respond any time soon, so keep at it with the knot-log, about every ten minutes or so," Lewrie bade him. "I do believe we've gained a touch on that brig, already."
"Aye aye, sir!" Elwes yelped with joy, dashing aft again, full of importance over his assigned task.
From the windward rails, it looked as if they had drawn closer to the Chase; more details could be made out that were indistinct before… or maybe it was simply full daylight that made him wish it so. Proteus was surging along, her wake bone-white atop the light green sea of Pillsbury Sound, heeling a bit to larboard and leeward, masts raked forward a touch, and groaning over it. Sailing almost downwind, the pace wasn't as apparent as it would be working closer to weather. The ship was sailing just as fast as the wind could blow, so there was no exhilarating rush and bustle that plucked at hats, clothing, and flesh, no bursting showers of salt-spray booming over the fore rails, but Proteus was moving quite well, gracefully and almost effortlessly. A touch on her lee "shoulder," Lewrie deemed her, but…
"Mister Langlie, run out the starboard battery, and run in the larboard to the recoil ring-bolts. Let's get her flatter on her keel," he decided of a sudden. "There's just enough wind for that to make a difference. A quarter-knot more, perhaps?"
"At once, sir," Langlie agreed, pacing forward to the quarter-deck railings with his brass speaking-trumpet in his hands.
On very light winds sometimes doing the opposite helped,. Lewrie had learned from better men than he; force the lee hull downward, off of upright, and a ship would angle her masts and sails more horizontal and "ghost" on a scant breeze that would leave her luffing and boxing the compass, else. Especially along a near shore.
"Eight-and-a-half knots, sir!" Elwes shouted from the taff-rail.
"Very good, Mister Elwes!" Lewrie shouted back, allowing himself a small grin. Damme, he thought; but they beat it into you, you hang about ships long enough, you're bound t'learn a little something! Even are you a lazy toad, and half a fraud!
"I do believe we're within Range To Random Shot, sir," Langlie said as they drew level with Cabrita Point on St. Thomas. "Shall we pester her with the bow-chasers?" he asked, eager for action.
"No, not yet, Mister Langlie," Lewrie finally decided. "Do we open on her at extreme range, we'll appear desperate. Make them think they're ahead of the game, d'ye see, and we're firing before we haul our wind and let 'em escape? Now, do we hold fire 'til we're right up her stern… when she's nervous about getting round the shoal in the middle of the channel, that's something else. Keeps 'em lookin' aft and chewin' their nails. We look… implacable. That'll give 'em a pause or two. Then they're half-beaten."
"Oh, I see, sir!" Langlie puzzled, frowning over it. "We are Nemesis, the inescapable old Greek god. And them, mere prey!"
"More like a dangerous duellist, whose fearsome reputation precedes him, Mister Langlie," Lewrie snickered back, always one to prefer a cruder simile. "One smirky grin at his opponent cross the grass, and the other poor bastard collapses with the farting faints!"
Onward they stood, pressing closer and closer to the brig; now at three-quarters of a mile range, well past Cabrita Point and nearing Coki Point, the brig now committed to the Leeward Passage, too far down to the West to tack and stand for the Middle Passage. For a time, the frigate had the best of the winds from the Nor'east, beginning to post nine knots at the last casts. Two-thirds of a sea-mile…
"Deck, there! Chase bears off to loo'rd! Spreadin' stuns'ls, again!" a foremast lookout cried.
"She's nearing the narrows," Mr. Winwood said. "Bearing off to the south channel before the shoals."
"Open upon her now, sir?" Langlie pressed.
"Aye, Mister Langlie. Keep 'em busy," Lewrie assented..
The 6-pounders up forward barked and recoiled, the spent powder smoke winging off westward as a solid blot, again. Far off, one ball raised a great splash near the brig's larboard quarters, the other one whipping cross her decks and deflating her spanker for a moment as it tore a neat hole right through it.
"Mark you well, where she turned, Mister Winwood," Lewrie bade. "Where our first shot struck short? Surely there's deep water there."
"Aye, sir," Winwood mournfully fretted.
Lewrie raised his glass again as the 6-pounders heaved back in from their second tries. The brig's spanker now seemed to be in twain, as if a major seam had split wide open, leaving the upper half hanging properly from the gaff-boom, but with the loose-footed bottom forced open and flagging, as if ripped from one bolt-rope edge to the other, and that wouldn't help her steering!
Another 6-pounder roundshot struck quite near her larboard quarter again, caroming far enough this time to raise a tiny smudge of engrained dirt and splinters from her, just a'fore her quarter galleries. The second was too high, but it clipped her right in the starboard main-stays and futtock shrouds below the main-top platform, sending a visible shiver up her upper masts like a tuning fork. Those shrouds would be weak, that mast in danger of falling sooner or later.
"Half-mile, I make her, now, sir!" Langue crowed, enthused.
"Ready to put the ship two points alee, Mister Langlie, once we are above Coki Point," Lewrie cautioned.
A third salvo from the bow-chasers was spot-on, the lee cannon scoring her third direct hit that chewed away some of the brig's larboard bulwark near the break between her quarterdeck and her gangway. The starboard cannon was still firing high, which error one of their quarter-gunners was correcting, loudly and foully, but that roundshot ploughed through the brig's main tops'l and shot a stuns'l boom and sail clean away. And that would slow the brig down right smartly!
"Eight fathom… eight fathom t'this line!" the starboard hand in the fore-chains called out.
"Coki Point's abeam, now, sir," Winwood warned them.
"Helm a'weather, Mister Langlie, and bear off!" Lewrie barked. "Two points, no more. Trim for a Fair Wind, course West-Nor'west!"
There was some disturbance at the channel narrows, a perturbation of silted water over the shoal, the "knuckle" that the brig left as she wore off, perhaps from the splashes of their gunfire. Proteus was turning well before it, though, easing the set of her sails and yards to run with the wind a bit more astern, still fairly flat on her keel, with her batteries still run out or run in.
"Bless me, we're right astern, within a half-mile of her!" Mr. Winwood rejoiced. "And well shy of the shoal, it appears."
Lewrie tried hard not to mock him, making his face stern, busy with his telescope. "Now, pepper her steady, Mister Langlie. Keep us pinched a tad closer to Thatch Cay, too. Nothing to loo'rd."
"Aye, sir. Quartermaster, half a point to weather, and nothing to loo'rd," Langlie parroted as the 6-pounders erupted again.
The brig was trying to pinch up, too, but not succeeding, since she sat heavy-laden and heeled a bit more to leeward than the frigate.
"Twelve fathom! Twelve fathom t'this line!" a leadsman cried.
Lewrie heaved a large but well-concealed whoosh! of relief at that news; though Thatch Cay and St. Thomas felt close enough to hit with a well-flung rock, before the channel began to widen. They were past the highest ground of Thatch Cay, the tall hill at its easternmost tip where the large fringe of sand shoals lay, so the winds could gust across more directly, without flukey diversions, and Proteus began to sing, striding up the brig's stern relentlessly.
"Quarter-mile range, sir. We could try the carronades, next!" Langlie hooted.
"Do so, sir. Grape-shot her masts and sails!" Lewrie agreed.
With his glass he could espy her after-guard, officers and mates gathered on her small quarterdeck, looking aft, gawping and pointing at him. Two gun-ports were open in her taff-rail bulwark, and men sweated and heaved to ready a pair of stern-chasers, whilst others gesticulated and most-like swore-a great many mouths were open and a fair number of fists were being shaken at them, at any rate.
The brig's guns fired at last, before his own bow-chasers and starboard carronade-the one not blocked by jibs-could. Roundshot came keening down the deck to starboard, sending everyone on the gangways flat on their faces; the second ball thrummed past the hull to larboard, almost close enough to peel paint, but struck far astern in a series of skip-splashes.
"As you bear… fire!"
The 6-pounders, with quoins jammed well in, yelped, and the carronade, aimed higher, let out a stentorian belch of smoke and flames. Two roundshot ravaged the brig's stern, shattering transom boards and windows, while the grape-shot in the carronade struck higher, shredding the spanker gaff-boom and the bare cro'jack yard above it, tearing chunks from the main-top, making those already-weakened starboard ratlines and shrouds ripple as sinuously as a crawling snake, her upper topmast canting to leeward of a sudden.
"Under a cable, now, sir!" Midshipman Grace crowed, hopping on his toes in glee.
"Mister Devereux," Lewrie said. "One file of Marines and sharpshooters to the forecastle, and clear her quarterdeck by fire when you think you have the range." By God if they weren't sailing right up her stern, almost ready to jab their jib-boom over her helmsmens' heads!
The westernmost spit of Thatch Cay passed abeam to starboard; from a quick peek at the chart still pinned to the traverse board, Lewrie could see that the safe channel bent due West for a time, then sharply North. Mandai Point on Saint Thomas loomed upwards, 277 feet in the air, with shoals at its feet churning soapy-white foam where tide, current, and scend collided, long before the prettier breakers along the narrow beach. The brig must bear up for Hans Lollick Island, and deep water… though now without her spanker to balance her helm she could not. Did she try to close-reach, she'd wallow and dither, near the wind then off, like a wounded lizard's death-crawls.
Instead, Proteus steered up windward, while the brig sagged to leeward, the range closing even more, to within musket-shot, Proteus's larboard broadside up-wind of her on her starboard quarter.
"Mister Langlie!" Lewrie shouted. "Open the larboard ports and stand by to load!"
The gun crews, the bulk of them frustrated 'til now, leapt for the tackles and tompions as the port lids hinged upward, baring inner paint in a row of stark red squares above her gunwale. Marine sharp-shooters and sailors with good eyes continued a spatter of musketry at the enemy's decks, making her helmsmen steer by squatting down below the bulwarks and craning up to steer by pendant and sail-set, instead of by compass, making the rest of her crew drop from sight.
A white cook's apron appeared over her starboard side, waved frantically. Men stood and waved arms and hats, shouting as loud as they could for mercy as those brutal 12-pounders' iron muzzles were trundled up to the ports to dip, rise, and slew left or right in aiming before a full broadside.
"We strike, damn you! We strike, don't fire, please!" someone in a cocked hat was howling. "Hold fire and we'll lower our colours, for God's sake, hold!"
Two or three cowering members of the after-guard rose up above the quarterdeck bulwarks and cut the halliard for the flag, that came fluttering down to trail in the water, even as others dared, after a moment or two without musket fire, to free braces and sheets, spilling the last wind from the brig's sails.
"Fetch-to, Mister Langlie, and get the last boat led round from astern. You will take the boarding party," Lewrie said. "Take Mister Pendarves the Bosun with you, and the rest of Mister Devereux's men."
