The King`s Commission - Dewey Lambdin

"Aye aye, sir! Hands to the braces, ready to haul taut!"

Grunting and straining near to rupturing themselves, the hands flung themselves on the braces to angle the yards of the square-sails, the set of the fore-and-aft stays'ls, jibs and spanker to work the ship as close to the wind as she would bear, to race as close inshore of the enemy vessel as they could, denying her the chance to round up or tack once north of Cabo Cruz to shelter.

"Helm down a point, quartermaster," Lilycrop demanded. "Mister Caldwell, what say your charts?"

"Deep water all the way, sir," Caldwell finally announced, just before Lilycrop turned on him. "With this wind outa the east'nor'east, neither us or her'll make it into shoal water."

"Unless she tacks, sir," Alan cautioned.

"And if the bitch tacks, we'll be gunnel to gunnel with her before she can say 'Madre de Dios'!" the captain laughed.

Shrike was indeed the butcher bird, rapaciously hungry, and her prey displayed on thorns was Spanish coastal shipping. There were so many ships, so little time, and Lilycrop seemed determined to make the most of any opportunity, very unlike the first image Alan had formed of him and his ambitions. Now the ship's log read like an adventure novel of ships pursued, ships taken as prize, or ships burned to the waterline to deny the enemy their use. Admittedly, the number burned greatly exceeded the number sent off in the general direction of Jamaica, but that was not their fault. The roads inland on Cuba, on the west coast of Spanish Florida, were abysmal, and everything went by sea, mostly in small locally built luggers, cutters, ketches and schooners, with only a rare brig, snow or hermaphrodite brig making an appearance.

Alan had expected a cruise with little excitement. But one lovely sunset evening, they had come across a merchant schooner off Cayo Blancos on the north coast, a small ship headed for Havana, and Lilycrop had run her down before full dark. She hadn't been much, but the captain had acted as if she were an annual treasure galleon, and the ease of the capture had fired his thirst for more. If his orders were to harry coastal shipping, then harry them Lilycrop would, but suddenly following orders could be profitable.

There were no despatches to run, no schedule to keep, and Lilycrop slowly had discovered the joys of an independent, roving commission for the first time in his long career of being held in check as a junior officer. In their first cruise of four months, extending their time at sea by living off their prizes' supplies, they had taken four decent ships, and burned nearly a score more. Small traders, fishing boats, anything afloat no matter how lowly had fallen victim to their guns, and the crews allowed to row ashore as their livelihoods burned like signal fusees.

Like Alan's first piratical cruise aboard Desperate, the only limiting factor was warm bodies to work the ship. Once enough men were told off as prize crews and sent away, Shrike had to return to port. It had happened once before, and now, only two months into their second cruise, it was about to happen again, if the ketch proved worthwhile.

Alan already had a revised watch and quarter bill in his coat pocket for just this eventuality, and his only concern at the moment was just how many extra hands the ketch would take from him.

"He's crackin' on more sail, damn his blood," Lilycrop noted.

"Don't think it'll do him much good, sir," Alan commented, eyeing the enemy through his new telescope. "He's hoisting his stays'ls. That'll push him down off the wind more than if he'd stayed with the fore'n'aft sails. And push his bows down maybe a foot. That'll slow him down."

Minutes passed as the Spanish ketch, now trying to emulate some sort of square-rigger, held her slight advantage, though Shrike was making better way to windward.

"We're makin' too much heel, sir," Lilycrop spat, impatient to be upon their prize. "Not good with a flat run keel."

"Run out the starboard battery, sir," Alan suggested immediately, "and I'd take a reef in our main tops'l. We're canceling out the lift on the bows from the fore course and tops'l."

"Make it so, Mister Lewrie." Lilycrop nodded in agreement.

"Bosun, and mast captain! Lay up and trice out! First reef in the main tops'l! Mister Cox, run out the starboard battery!" Alan roared through his brass speaking trumpet, and he could not help feeling pleased with himself. When they anchored at Kingston the first time in early May, he was still uncomfortable and daunted by his lack of experience, but now by mid-December 1782, such decisions had begun to come naturally to him, based on a growing wealth of knowledge about seamanship, and how Shrike reacted in particular. Lilycrop occasionally pinned his ears back for over-reaching to keep him humble, to remind him he did not yet know it all, but those admonitions were rarer.

Once adjusted properly, Shrike settled down on her keel a few more degrees and made the most of her longer hull form. The Spanish ketch grew in size, bringing all her hull up over the horizon as the Gulf of Guacanayabo opened out before them. Try as she might, she did not have the sail power or the length of hull to make enough speed to escape.

"Ahoy the deck, thar!" came a call from the lookout aloft. "Sail, three points off the starboard bow!"

"Rossyngton, get aloft and spy him out," Alan barked, and the well turned out midshipman paused for a moment as he considered how dirty his white waist-coat, slop trousers and shirt were going to get from the tar and slush of the standing rigging.

"Today, Goddamn you!" Lilycrop howled.

Rossyngton was off like a shot, pausing only long enough to take a telescope with him as he scampered up the shrouds to the top and almost shinnied up to the cross-trees.

"Guarda Costa sloop, sir!" Rossyngton finally shouted down. "One-master!"

"Must have been on patrol out of Manzanillo, sir," Alan said, hanging from the shrouds himself for a better view. With his heavy glass, he could see a small ship, as Rossyngton described a single-masted sloop or cutter, with a large fore-and-aft gaff-rigged sail and one square-rigged tops'l above that, and a long jib-boom and bow-sprit that anchored three huge jibs. Even in the protected bay, she was hard at work off the wind, pitching noticeably.

"Fifty, sixty foot or so," Lilycrop speculated, leaning on the starboard quarterdeck bulwarks by Lewrie's feet with his own telescope. "Maybe two heavy guns forrud, nine or twelve-pounders, and little four-pounder trash abeam. That's why she's pitchin' like that."

"She'll interpose our course, sir, to save that ketch."

"Damned if she will!" Lilycrop chuckled. "Mister Lewrie, beat to Quarters. We'll take her on first, then have our prize."

Shrike did not run to a richer captain's private band replete with fifes and drums. Her single young black drummer rattled his sticks, first in a long roll, then broke into a jerky, cadenced beating of his own invention that sounded like a West Indies religious rite or revel.

"She'll try to fight us like a galley, Mister Lewrie," Lilycrop informed him once the ship was rigged for battle with all unnecessary items stowed below (and his precious cats ensconced with Gooch in the bread rooms). "Keep her bows aimed at us to let her heavier bow guns bear."

"We could fall off the wind, sir," Alan suggested, scanning the tactical set-up and trying to solve the puzzle of three ships, each on its own separate course and proceeding at different speeds. "We've room enough to windward of the chase now."

"No, she'd still get within range, or chase after us, and damme if I want my stern shot out," Lilycrop replied. "Stand on as we are, and give her broadsides close aboard. Mister Cox, I'll want three shots every two minutes at your hottest practice, double-shotted, mind!"

"Aye aye, sir!"

"On this course, the chase'll get inshore near Santa Cruz del Sur, Captain," Caldwell told them, waving a folded up chart at them. "There's a battery there, I'm told. About forty miles before we'd be in their range, though, sir."

"The bitch'll never make it," Lilycrop said confidently. And before a half-hour glass could be turned, the Spanish Guarda Costa sloop was within range of random shot, and her heavy bow chasers barked together. One shot moaned overhead and forward of the bows to raise a large feather of spray to leeward. The other ball smacked into the sea abeam of Shrike, but about a quarter-cable short, and skipped once but did not reach her.

"He'll go about now, or we'll leave him behind," Lilycrop said.

Shrike was racing nor'nor'west, with the sloop to her right side, about a mile east of her, and about half a mile ahead, bound on a course roughly west'sou'west. She did not have the speed to pass in front to rake Shrike, so she would have to turn soon on a parallel course and bring her guns to action down her larboard side.

"She's leaving it a bit late if she is," Alan observed as more minutes passed. The sloop's heavy fo'c'sle guns spoke again, this time raising splashes much closer, though once more without harm. Her bows were pitching too much for proper aim even as the range shortened.

It was a beautiful day for it, Alan noted with pleasure, unable to believe that the small sloop could be much of a menace. The sea was sparkling blue and green, azure near the eastern shore, and the hills around the small port of Niquero, and the mountains of the Sierra Maestras were a vivid, luscious green after the last heavy rains of the hurricane season, sweeping fluffy trails of cloud above them in a perfect blue sky.

"There!" Lilycrop pointed as the sloop finally foreshortened in a turn as she came almost abeam of Shrike's, jib boom, not half a mile away now. "Mister Cox, skin the bitch!"

"Aye aye, sir!" Cox agreed joyfully. "As you bear… fire!"

The small four-pounder chase gun yapped like a terrier, then the more substantial explosions of the six-pounders of the starboard battery pounded out. Caught in the act of wearing ship, controlling that huge fore-and-aft mains'l and those over-sized jibs, the broadside shook her like a shark's first bite as ball after ball hammered into her. The sloop seemed to tremble, then swung about quickly, almost pivoting on her bows as her mast, the tops'l yard, and the mains'l gaff came down in a cloud of wreckage, and the uncontrolled jibs billowed out to drag her bows back down-wind. For a second, she had heeled like a capsize.

"That's one way to gybe a ship!" Caldwell exulted.

"Bit rough on the inventory, though," Lilycrop chuckled in appreciation. "Well done, Mister Cox! Hit her again!"

They passed her at long musket-shot, about one hundred yards, as the sloop was tugged down to them bows on, and iron round-shot tore her to lace, flinging light scantlings into the air in a cloud, ripping her bow and fo'c'sle open.

"Luff up and hit her one last time, sir?" Alan asked, excited at how much damage they were doing.

"She's a dead 'un," Lilycrop scowled. "Let's get on to our prize. If we've a mind, we might come back for her later. She's not goin' anywhere but down-wind and out to sea, away from rescue."

"Mister Cox, stand easy!"

"'Bout another hour to catch yon ketch, Mister Caldwell?" Lilycrop surmised with a practiced eye.

"Hour and a bit, sir," Caldwell agreed.

"Secure from Quarters. Issue the rum and a cold dinner."