Dewey Lambdin - THE GUN KETCH
"There's Guineaman," Lewrie spat. "Anyone know the other ship?"
"By those white upper bulwarks, I'd say she must be the Dublin Lass, sir," Sailing Master Fellows opined. "Seen her in Nassau. One of Finney's ships, for certain, sir. I know that house flag."
"Better and better, Mister Fellows!" Lewrie exulted, rubbing his hands together. "No schooners present which might escape us into shoal-water this time, we did for her yesterday. And most of their boats on the beach, not gathered 'round the anchored ships."
"Bulk of their crews ashore, most like, still roistering, sir," Ballard commented. "Or sleeping it off."
"Well, here's a rough awakening, then," Lewrie grinned. "Mister Fowles, we'll close yon farthest ship, the Guineaman. Ready the starboard battery!"
"Hullo, they're up and awake, some of them, sir," Ballard warned. "On Dublin Lass. There's a gun port opening!"
"Mister Fowles, stand ready! We'll rake this one in passing!"
"Ready, sir!" Fowles shouted back, after fussing over his gun-captain's aim, with a tug or two at the quoin blocks to suit himself about the proper elevation.
"As you bear, fire!"
The range was half a cable-100 yards-as they grazed past the anchored, and sleeping, ship. The threatening gun port was open, but all they could see poised over the grim black muzzle of a cannon behind the port was the white face of some poor wretch who had opened it so he could spew his load of rum and supper over the side, who took one look in his misery, made his mouth a perfect O, and went parchment pale as the artillery blasted him away.
Dublin Lass shuddered as six-pounder balls ripped into her, punching clear through her thin planking, shattering timbers and deck beams, making her leap and froth a hull-shaped, spreading ripple around her as she rose and dropped back into the still waters of the harbour.
"Serve her another, Mister Fowles! In the guts, this time!" Alan demanded. "Sink her!"
As Alacrity cruised by Dublin Lass, her guns rapped out again, quoin blocks inserted and barrels aimed low, to riven her water-line, and the trim little three-masted ship heeled over with each crashing round-shot, rocking as ragged gashes were shot through her scantlings, then rolling back to starboard so those holes could suck and froth with sea-water. The few crewmen left aboard as an anchor party came running up from below, where they'd been napping, to find their ship sinking beneath their feet!
"I can see the Marines ashore, sir!" Midshipman Mayhew shouted. "There're red coats among the sheds on the far side of the camp!"
"Angle's gone, sir! Guns won't bear in the ports!" Fowles reported at last.
"Cease fire, Mister Fowles. Wait for the Guineaman," Lewrie ordered. "Mark that, gentlemen. Dublin Lass opened her gun portsto fire into a King's Ship, to take arms against the Royal Navy. Think you that's another compelling proof of piracy?" He smiled.
"Well, more like to puke on us, sir," Ballard whispered at his side. "Compelling, none the less, I suppose. If contempt counts."
"It'll sound good in testimony," Lewrie scowled. "And damme if I'll give Finney and his captains one chance to wriggle out this time!"
Once clear of the Dublin Lass, Alacrity faced the open waters between the two anchored ships for a minute or two, so they could see what was happening on the beach. Pirates and merchant crews were all running in terror from the dripping bayonets of the Marines, some few trying to make a fight of it with muskets and pistols.
The morning erupted in heavy gunfire once more as Whippet came even with the tortured Dublin Lass astern of them, and gave her broadsides with her nine-pounders. Rigging and spars, upper masts and yards, came tumbling down in ruin to churn thd water alongside, and Dublin Lass canted over even farther until her starboard railings were in the sea. She bubbled and groaned as she filled and began to go down.
"Chase gun forrud, Mister Fowles!" Lewrie shouted. "Wake those buggers up yonder!"
The starboard chase gun on the forecastle, one of the portable two-pounders, barked as sharp as a terrier. Its light ball hit Guineaman astern, shattering the ladder from quarter-deck to poop, barely making her judder. Men could be seen, though, running up from below, waking from their swaying hammocks on the upper decks where it was cooler, to the waist of the ship.
"By God, I mink they're going to man their guns!" Fellows gaped. "That Captain Malone must be desperate as hell, sir!"
"He mounts twelve-pounders, sir," Ballard intoned. "If you recall."
"Warm work in the next few minutes, then," Lewrie sighed as he steeled himself for a slaughter on his own decks. "Mister Fellows, is there depth enough on Guineaman's larboard side for us?"
"God only knows, sir," Fellows muttered, eyeing the ship which was anchored bows-on to them. "I doubt he'd be anchored that close up to shoals, though. Anyone see a kedge anchor from her stern? If she were swinging on just her best bower to wind and tide…"
"Ready on the gun deck, sir," Fowles reported from the waist.
"Mister Fowles, we'll bear off and give her starboard, then be ready with your larboard battery, quick as you can, at close range."
"Aye, aye, sir," Fowles replied quizzically, taking off his hat to scratch his grizzled head so hard his "tarry" queue of hair which hung as low as his waist twitched at his mercurial captain's orders.
"Helm alee, Mister Neill," Lewrie said. "Steer three points to larboard. Mister Ballard, prepare the hands to wear ship so we cross Guineaman's bows once we've fired, and fall onto her disengaged side."
"Aye, aye, sir!" Ballard replied, crisp and efficient.
"Guns bear, sir!" Fowles warned.
"Fire, Mister Fowles!"
As the first limb of the rising sun peeked over the horizon at last, the artillery came to life, tolling rage down the starboard side from bow to stern. Guineaman screamed as she was hulled; like a steer might bellow and jerk, shivering with terror and anger, as it was bound for the approach of the butcher with the poleaxe.
"Helm up, hard up, Mister Neill! Wear ship!" Lewrie cried as the last gun went off. Alacrity came wheeling about in her own dense pall of gunsmoke as it was blown down onto Guineaman. Sailors dashed to sheets and braces in the confusion, as gunners below them abandoned starboard guns to run out the larboard cannon and open the ports. Ballard kept yelling orders into the Bedlam, and, drilled and trained to boresome perfection as the crew was, order was never lost, not one second was lost.
Artillery could be heard ahead and to port as Alacrity sailed off nor'east for the beach; Guineaman firing at last, at where they thought her to be. Alacrity trembled with a sharp slam, a shuffling judder of her stern, as she was struck aft. Mr. Burke on the tiller with his mate Neill gave a soft curse as he fell to his knees in a welter of blood, a long, jagged splinter of bulwark driven through his midsection. Midshipman Mayhew was lifted off his feet and flung halfway across the quarter-deck to the starboard side by a chunk of red-hot round-shot as the twelve-pounder ball shattered. He skidded on his back to fetch up against the after mooring bitts, his left arm and shoulder almost gone, awash in his own gore, and gasping hard.
Alacrity almost felt as if she'd tripped over something, her forward progress arrested, the deck canting over to starboard.
"Her anchor cable!" Ballard intuited.
"Helm up, Mister Neill! Steer due north!" Lewrie called.
"Aye, aye, sir," Neill replied, stepping over the body of his dying friend, his tears almost blinding him, to put the tiller over."Surgeon's mate!" Ballard snapped. "Mister Maclntyre! Loblolly boys aft!"
The smoke wafted nor'east on the dying winds, clearing the view at last, as Alacrity rumbled and slithered down the anchor cable that scrubbed her larboard underbody. And there was Guineaman, not twenty yards off, her larboard gun ports closed.
"Ready grapnels, Mister Ballard. Mister Harkin, Mister Warwick, we'll be boarding her after the broadside," Lewrie instructed. "Starboard your helm, Mister Neill, and lay us hull to hull."
"Aye, aye, sir."
"Ready!" Lewrie shouted to his gunners as Guineaman came abeam. "On the up-roll….fire!"
Guineaman heeled over to starboard under the weight of the iron hailstorm, her bulwarks turning into kindling and whirling in the air thick as an uprooted pine forest in a hurricane. Gun ports and thin planking caved in, and a portion of the larboard sail-tending gangway went flying in one long, ladderlike piece.
"Grapple to her, Mister Ballard," Lewrie said in a normal tone, once the echoes had ceased. "And away boarders."
"Aye, aye, sir!" Ballard snapped, sounding almost enthusiastic. Lewrie jumped to the top of the bulwarks, drew pistol and sword, and leapt for Guineaman's fore-chain platform to scramble alongside his men to the forward gangway.
"Christ!" he shuddered, seeing the devastation that his cannon had wrought. The waist was filled with dying men, half lost in scraps of wood, in a maze of broken timbers. Several of the larboard cannon had come loose from the shattered bulwarks and had rolled down on the men serving the starboard battery, crushing them like millwheels.
Those who could were already raising their hands in surrender, the urge to fight shot out of them. Lewrie went over to the. starboard side to make his way aft to the quarter-deck, where some of Guineaman' mates stood or sat around the butt of the mizzenmast.
"You!" Captain Malone growled, half in shock at the ruin of his ship. He brought up the tip of his sword while the others got out of their way, ostentatiously empty-handed as Alacrity's boarding party came to back Lewrie up. "What are you doin' here? We thought…"
"Maybe 'Calico Jack' couldn't afford to bribe Commodore Garvey any longer, Malone," Lewrie offered, thinking fast, and hoping for a confirmation. "Now we've a new Royal Governor, the price went up too high. You and Finney are on your own."
Lewrie reached out with the tip of his hanger to ring steel on steel; one beat, two beats, tip to tip on Malone's sword. Malone went backwards, crouched over more like a knife-fighter, body square-on.
"Either drop that sword, or do something real with it, Malone," Lewrie snarled. "Fight me, you coward! Got the nutmegs for it, hey?"
Malone allowed the next beat to slap his blade low and away as he let go the hilt and dropped it on the deck. "Oh, no, ya don't! Ya've put yer foot in it this time for fair, Lewrie. Aye, I'll strike to ya, but soon as we're in Nassau Harbour, it'll be you up on charges again, an' this time yer really finished. Firn' on peaceful merchantmen…"
"John Laidlaw of the Fortune schooner says different," Lewrie told him with a laugh, a laugh which was reinforced by the shock that Malone displayed, as if he'd just seen his own corpse swaying from the gibbet. Lewrie stepped forward and put the tip of his sword to Malone's throat.
