Dewey Lambdin - THE GUN KETCH
"Time enough," Lewrie insisted. "Just barely. I hope."
True sunrise came, and with it, steady offshore winds out of the east-sou'east, laden with the smell of storm and rain later in the day; the dawn a gray and gloomy beast that dingied the whitecaps and stained the seas iron-gray as spilled washwater and suds. Two miles astern of Caroline they approached, relentlessly gaining; then only one mile, the range of random shot for their six-pounders, even as the coast appeared to the west, a thin dark green and blue thread, and the tall spire of St. Michael's church rose skyward above The Beacon and the Charleston Light. Caroline wore off the wind a little to the nor'west and Alacrity surged directly up her wake, following the leads and the sea marks for Five-Fathom Hole inside the Charleston Bar, south of the Ship Channel.
It would be cut exceedingly fine, as Mr. Fellows had predicted; half an hour would spell the difference between Finney's escape or his ruin, of being brought to battle or his gaining American waters.
"Seven cables, sir," Ballard estimated hopefully. "About fourteen hundred yards. We could try shots from the bow chase guns."
"It's no good, Lewrie," Commander Rodgers griped, all but wringing his hands. "To fetch him to close-broadsides, we'll have to sail within range of Fort Johnston an' Fort Moultrie. Damme if we ain't but two miles off the Charleston Light now, sir."
"They do not have a battery to enforce their jurisdiction there, sir," Lewrie countered, drawn from dire musings about something aloft carrying away, of some structural failure which would rob them of the prize at the last second. "We can chase her another two miles farther, out of Five-Fathom Hole, right to the bar, sir. That's what their guns cover, sir."
"He must bear off more northerly out of Five-Fathom Hole,sir," Ballard suggested slyly. "Might we not wear ship now and cut the angle to close even more?"
"Splendid, Mister Ballard!" Lewrie grinned. "And begin firing with the larboard battery. I'd admire did you Beat to Quarters, sir." "Chase gun!" Midshipman Parham shouted, spotting a puff of gun-smoke on Caroline's stern. The light ball moaned past the starboard side to skip twice until it buried itself astern. "She has opened her fire upon us, sir!"
"Mister Harkin, hands wear ship! Mister Neill, larboard your helm. Steer nor-nor'west," Ballard called, as another ball soared by to strike closer to the starboard side. Alacrity went tearing past a local fishing boat busy with her nets, the Americans aboard shaking fists at them, and the black slaves gaping wide-mouthed at the sight of a British warship with all her colours flying. "Beat to Quarters!"
Alacrity's crew boiled into action, casting off the lashings of the great-guns, fetching handspikes and crows, removing tompions from the muzzles of both batteries, and opening the gun ports. Charges came up from the magazine, shot was selected and rammed home, flintlocks were primed and cocked. "Ready for battle, sir," Ballard reported at last. "We'll bear off a little more to starboard to give the gunners a better angle," Lewrie decided. "Oh. With your permission, Commander, of course."
"Ahum," Rodgers pondered heavily.
"Sir, we've come this far!" Lewrie groaned in a soft voice. "A half a mile more? With round-shot?"
"The repercussions, Lewrie!" Rodgers whispered. "We'll never hear the end of it from the damned Foreign Office, the Admiralty…"
"Please, sir. There's time enough!"
"You'll not violate American waters," Rodgers wheedled. "Open fire, Mister Ballard," Lewrie snapped, before Rodgers had a chance to change his mind, interpreting that for a "yes."
"Larboard yer helm! Mister Fowles, as you bear, sir! Fire!" Ballard shouted at once.
The forward two-pounder chase-guns rapped out first, followed by the deeper voices of the six-pounders, angled in the portsills as far forward as they might bear. The range was six cables, twelve-hundred yards, with Caroline stern-on to them, a difficult and narrow target. Shot tore the sea around her, close to her waterline, raising towering pillars of spray twice as high as her rails. Her mizzenmast jerked to a hit, and the aftermost lugsail folded in on itself as it was pierced by a ball, before ripping in twain from leech to luff! A ball struck her right on the stern, low on her transom near the rudder and made it twitch once like a dog's ear pestered by a fly.
"Chain-shot and bar-shot, Mister Fowles!" Lewrie shouted to his grizzled old gunner, who was pacing the gun deck bareheaded. "Play a Frog, and aim high to take his rigging down, sir!"
It was French practice to open fire at long range with expanding bar-shot, two halves of a round-shot connected by sliding lugs on iron bars, to tear rigging and sails and shatter yards and spars. Chain-shot was two lighter balls, connected by a stout length of links, designed to whirl end over end. British practice was to close beam to beam and aim " 'twixt wind and water" to smash hulls, overturn guns, and shoot crews to rags; to slay, not cripple; to sink, not capture.
Caroline lengthened as she turned off north in the narrow and shoal-lined channel. Her gun ports flew open. Inexplicably, instead of running, Finney was going to fight it out!
"Eight side guns to our five, I make it, sir," Ballard pointed out after studying their foe with a spyglass. "Nine-pounders, no less."
"For what we're about to receive," Lewrie nodded, muttering me old saw, "may the good Lord make us grateful."
Caroline opened fire, her starboard side erupting in a gush of brownish-gray powder smoke shot through with stabs of quick, hot flame. Alacrity seemed to shudder in fear to the rising moan of round-shot on the air before she was struck, and rose a little on the scend of the sea, as if holding her breath in dread anticipation. A nine-pounder ball struck forward near the larboard anchor cathead, turning part of the bulwarks to flying splinters. Another fell short but skipped over the water to thud home deep in her lower hull amidships, and the sea around her was flayed with close misses, crashing up spray like the breaching of whales.
"On the up-roll… fire!" Fowles screamed. The broadside roared out, and Caroline's rigging jerked and twitched. Her foremast and jibs collapsed, broken off twenty feet above the deck, and she ploughed up a furrow of foam as she lost speed in the blink of an eye.
"Got him, dammit!" Lewrie hooted. "Solid shot, Mister Fowles!"
They were out of Five-Fathom Hole, running hard due north for the inner side of the Charleston Bar, with Charleston Light and The Beacon abeam and to leeward, Caroline just a little ahead ofAlacrity, and not four cables' range-800 yards away, and in the best killing zone for six-pounders.
Caroline fired again, her second broadside more ragged than the first, unable to match the taut discipline of naval gunnery. Alacrity leapt under their feet as another shot hulled her, as a ball struck her forward on the gunwale. With shrieks, two more sailed overhead, close to the deck, stunning people with their shock waves.
"Hull her, Mister Fowles!" Lewrie shouted, feeling the lust for blood rising in his veins. "Serve her hot and fast, lads!"
God help me, but this is bloody marvelous, he thought; rejoicing in the hot, satanic reek of powder smoke, the ringing thunder of guns! I must be daft, but this is what I do truly love as much as life!
The broadside crashed out, round-shot hammering home into the soft Abaco pine of Caroline's hull. Lighter and less forgiving than good Kentish oak, they punched great, ragged holes into her, her timbers and scantling planking screaming and winging away from each strike, even as she continued to fire, her guns lighting up throughout, her masts and remaining sails wiggling in pain above the smoke clouds.
Iron crashed into Alacrity, men screamed as they were plucked backwards by splinters of wood or broken metal. Seamen writhed about on the deck, suddenly legless, pierced by jagged arrows of oak, blood reeking in the morning like liquid copper. Loblolly boys tried to tend them, even as Fowles, Woods the gunner's mate, and the captains of each artillery piece thumped and lashed the lucky to keep firing, to keep swabbing out, to keep covering the vents while swabbing so the touchhole did not burn out, for the powder monkeys to keep arriving with their fireproof cylinders of powder bags, to keep ramming powder and shot down the hungry barrels, to stand it like men and strain on the tackles to run out, aim, and fire.
Back the guns leapt, carriages hopping like crippled toads in the air to stutter on their trucks, the decks shuddering with every cruel impact, the guns slewing at the extent of the breeching ropes. Belching explosions of powder gushed from the muzzles, and ears ached with so much noise, ears bled with so much torture; ears would sing for days afterwards, and some hands would be deafened for life, yet think themselves lucky if that was all they suffered this day.
"Cover yer vents! Sponge out! Overhaul the run-out tackle!" Caroline stood on north, with Alacrity directly abeam of her now, as her rigging draped in tatters about her, almost lost in powder smoke rolling down onto her like a Channel fog. Shot howled in the air like witches, raised great feathers of spray alongside, thudded into her side. One passed just over the larboard bulwarks and flew out to sea, not touching a thing, a black streak at the corner of the eye, and two waisters on the gangway fell dead, their hearts stopped by the shock of its passage.
"Charge yer guns! Shot yer guns! Grape atop ball! Run out yer guns, and overhaul them tackles! Prime yer locks!"
"Keep pinching us up, Mister Neill," Lewrie told his helmsmen. "Keep closing the range."
"Aye, aye, sir," Neill replied, and shared a look with Mr. Early, the quartermaster's mate who had been promoted to replace Mr. Burke. Early took a look at the compass binnacle for the new course, then at the faint smudges on the deck where Burke had bled to death, which had yet to come up in two weeks' holystoning, and almost swallowed his cud of tobacco.
"Cock yer locks! 'Twixt wind an' water, lads! On the up-roll… fire!" Fowles howled, looking like an angry Moses come down with the tablets, his mouth open in a rictus of a smile.
The broadside exploded outwards, long tongues of quick pink and amber flames and sparks following the smoke and the iron, and Caroline wailed in torment as the weight of round-shot ripped her vitals.
"We're almost on the Charleston Bar, sir!" Fellows shouted in Lewrie's ear. "We'll be aground, the very next minute!"
"So will she, Mister Fellows," Alan shouted back. "But are we yet within range of Fort Johnston, or Moultrie?"
"No way to say, sir, in all this smoke."
"Then maybe there's no way for their gunners to say if we are or not, either. For all this smoke," Lewrie grinned. "Wear ship to larboard. Steer due west to miss the bar. Mister Ballard, starboard battery. We'll bear off west and rake her."
Alacrity delivered one more smashing broadside at less than two cables' range, then spun about on her heels to sail away from danger, pointing her jib boom due west at Fort Johnston. Once in clear air, they could see the flags flying on the fort, and the thin trails of smoke from the furnaces, where shot was being heated for the heavy thirty-two- and forty-two-pounder artillery should they get within range.
