A King`s Commander - Dewey Lambdin

"Artillery!" sang out a watch officer. "I hear gunfire!"

"Hй, merdel" Choundas groaned, biting his lip in anguish.

"Sail Ho!" Sang out the foremast lookout. "Dead on the bow!"

He could hear it himself, now. Stuttering. Dull brumbies. A single flat bark. An irregular cannonading, around the headlands. His convoy! The "L'Anglais"-the "Bloodies"-were in Alassio Bay!

"Sail is ship-rigged!" the lookout cried again. "Standing out to sea… larboard tack!"

"Her flag!" Choundas howled aloft, cupping his hands.

"Corvette!" the lookout shouted. "Warship!"

"Her flag! Her damned flag!" Choundas screeched again.

"C'est l'Anglais!"

"Timonier, helm down a point, alee," Choundas snapped, turning clumsily. "Close-haul to windward. Brail up courses, and chain-sling the yards. We will fight her. Drum us to Action!"

"Sail Ho!"

"Where, away?"

"One point off th' star-b'd bows!"

Lewrie scaled the mizzen shrouds on the starboard side, telescope in hand, so he could see for himself. A ship, a proper ship, he thought; not one of those lateen-rigged locals. She was bows-on to Jester, aiming directly at her under a press of sail, flinging a great mustache of sea foam about her forefoot and cutwater, her arrogantly thrust bowsprit and jib boom cocking up and down as she rocked. No more than a league to leeward, standing on nor'east close-hauled, and about four miles offshore. The strange ship's courses, tops'ls, t'gallants, and royals were cusped to the wind, their leaches almost edge-on to him.

Something diff rent, though…? Even as he watched, the greater drum-taut billow astern of her fore-course went slack, winging out alee.

"Brailing up her main course!" Lewrie shouted down to his deck officers. "To fight! She's a French warship! Mister Bittfield, run out the starboard battery, now! Hoist signal, 'Enemy in Sight'!"

He clambered down, to hop the last three feet to the quarterdeck and stride to the nettings overlooking the waist. He lifted his glass again. Should Jester stand on, she'd keep the wind gauge above the foe, but allow her to slip astern. That French ship… a. frigate, perhaps?… was as close to the wind as she could lie, already, and would slide aft as she stood on. Unless she tacked and bore away south to offer battle.

Has to be a frigate, Alan frowned; a lesser ship'd haul her wind and not be confident of the outcome. But she's so close inshore… I think I like her there. I allow her to tack out to deeper water, she's all the maneuvering room in the world, then. Aye, stand on as we are, for a bit more, but then haul our wind and wear down to her. Then, if her captain feels he's trapped himself, hell have to come about, tack 'cross the wind. But I'll still have the wind gauge of her. And rake her, bows-on to me and helpless. She'd have to haul away west…?

"Brail up the main course, Mister Porter. Rig out the boarding nets. Loose, sloppy bights, mind." Lewrie smiled. "Quartermaster… half a point to weather."

Without the force of the main course, Jester slowed, sailing off the wind toward the sou'west, the beginnings of a Levanter, an easterly, on her larboard quarters. Altering course, making it more of a run downwind, which took away the apparent wind, making her seem slower still as she moved no faster than the breeze itself.

"Full-rigged ship, right enough, Captain," Mister Knolles stated. "Small frigate, or large corvette… about our equal?"

"Unless she's a thirty-two-gun frigate, with twelve-pounders, Mister Knolles," Alan speculated with a cautious growl. "Two points off our bow, and a mile nearer. Shell shave the western headland by at least two miles, should she stand on as she is."

He cast a glance to Jester's rear, back toward the bay that lay off her starboard quarter. Surely, there was enough noise coming from there, enough high-piled rags of gun smoke, to tell this Frenchman that there were other British ships about. He rather doubted that she'd be foolish enough to go much further east than the headland's tip, or risk being trapped between Jester and the rest of the squadron's guns.

"Let her slide aft to about… four points, almost but not quite abeam before we wear, Mister Knolles," Lewrie decided aloud. "Perhaps half a point less than four. Then she'll be between…"He felt the urge to snicker, "between Jester and the Deep-Blue Sea! Let's prepare. Hands to Stations for Wearing Ship."

"Aye aye, sir. Mister Porter?" Lieutenant Knolles bellowed, causing a stir, a chorus of piping, a stampede of bare horny feet.

"Three point off th' star-b'd bows!" a lookout cried over that preparatory din, as hands hauled taut on braces and sheets.

"Tacking!" another lookout shouted, followed by the others in a reedy chorus of alarm.

"Avast, Mister Knolles!" Lewrie snapped, countering the order. "Quartermaster, up your helm. Course, due west. Ease her onto a run, wind fine on the larboard quarter!"

It was just possible that the Frenchman had the slant, around the headland's tip, to see all he wished to see, and had spotted the powder palls, perhaps one or two more British warships. The French ship came about across the eye of the wind, slowing and luffing, beginning to present her larboard side to Jester.

"Well-handled, sir," Buchanon noted with professional interest. "None o' 'at lubberly cock-billin' an' noggin' you'd expect."

"Aye, she is, Mister Buchanon." Lewrie frowned, feeling a sudden foreboding. A taut ship's company, a rarity among the Frogs, from what they'd seen so far. A captain who acted with alacrity, and pugnacious aggressiveness; an eagerness, it seemed, for a stand-up fight. Another rarity, that. The Frenchman had come about due south, close-hauled hard on the wind once more, as if to claw himself up and take the wind gauge from Jester. Less than two miles away now, but they were approaching each other quickly.

"Mister Knolles, we'll harden up a mite. Quartermaster, put yer helm alee. Lay her head west-sou'west. Leadin' wind, sir."

"Seed 'er afore, sir!" Seaman Rushing, high aloft on the foremast cried. "Corvette! Toulon, there!"

Aye, it was the pretty corvette that had fired the insolent challenge off Cape Sepet. Lewrie eyed her in his glass. What had they determined… twenty, or twenty-two guns? French eight-pounders, more'n like. Which were the equal of his, rated as nine-pounders. Her pale golden-yellow upperworks had gone to seed since, she'd faded and dulled, turned darker as more linseed, tar, or paint had been slapped on to control the ravages of exposure. Her white gunwale was still bright, though, and the black chain wale…

"Damme!" Lewrie shivered, lowering his telescope. Feeling real fear at the prospect of a fight for the first time, instead of the taut nervousness he usually experienced; the nervousness that had almost come to be a high-strung, but manageable, alertness. "Poisson D'or!"

"Sir?" Knolles queried. "You know her, Captain?"

"Just like his old ship…" Alan muttered, feeling as shuddery and weak as he usually did after a fight was ended. He slammed the telescoping tubes of his glass together, striving to disguise the trembles in his fingers. Painted, tarted-up just like his old… It was him]

"No, Mister Knolles," Lewrie told him, trying for a grim amusement. "But I think I know her captain. We're in for a real scrap."

He looked astern again, back into the Bay of Alassio. Had any ship read his hoist yet, come about to sail out to aid him? It didn't look like it. Jester was on her own against the Devil, Choundas!

Think, he warned himself; what'll he do! Once we close to gun range, I can go close-hauled, upwind of him, headed south. Else he's a chance to bow-rake us. He's French, he'll fire high. Chain-shot… multiple bar-shot to take our rigging down and cripple us. He wears, he exposes his stern to my guns. He tacks again, though, after first broadsides… it'd be our stern wide open to raking! What to expect? He was always so clever, so beastly good at it, unpredictable…

"It's her, Capitaine!" Hainaut exclaimed. "Jester!"

"Then God is good to us." Guillaume Choundas nodded, his caricature of a human face made even fiercer by a smile of feral pleasure. "Sextant, Hainaut," Capitaine Choundas demanded. Lewrie's Jester had once been French; he could measure the height of her mastheads above the sea and determine when his guns might reach.

"Not quite yet." He sighed with impatience, willing himself to wait. But soon, my brutal English beast. Soon!

So swaggering, that Lewrie, so conceited and cocksure of just how gently life should treat the handsome and well-formed, the landed aristocracy-the son of a British knight. Money, servants, the best schools… best of everything. Dissolute, a randy rabbit, and a wag, he'd learned of him; thought himself infinitely clever, those informers' reports told him once he'd regained access to Ministry of Marine files after '89, so he could begin seeking his tormentor. But never quite as clever as he believed. Again, just like the English, who depended upon Luck, Fate, and breeding to "muddle through," instead of applying themselves diligently. They threw money at problems, as if that would keep them safe, hired others to do their dirty work, like dismissing pregnant household servant girls. Never really tried in the fire, never…

A bit more, and his guns would reach at extreme elevation, with mast-damaging shot, he concluded. A precious minute more in which to enjoy the taste of success at meeting him face to face.

Stand on, my dim-witted beast, stand on, pretty one! Be so very English, and expect me to be conveniently clumsy, like the other shop clerks. Do you know who you face, yet? This time, I will beat you!

"Ready, about!" Lewrie cried, of a sudden, after long thought.

"Give her the wind gauge, sir?" Knolles wondered.

"Damn the wind gauge, sir!" Lewrie roared. "Stations to Wear! Mister Bittfield, double-shot the larboard battery now, for later."

He was too fearful, covering it with bluster, too impatient and edgy with frightful expectations of the unexpected. He had to do something, even if it was wrong. Besides, wearing Jester north would sail her back to the headland, able to flee into the bay should Guillaume Choundas cripple her aloft. And it would force Choundas to maneuver, might upset the careful aim of his gunners with their first broadside of disabling shot.

"Hands at stations, sir… hauled taut," Knolles reported.

"Mile and a bit, I make it," Lewrie muttered, twining fingers nervously, rocking on his feet, unable to stand stolid. "A long shot, but… his and ours. Mister Bittfield, we'll engage with the starboard battery, at extreme elevation!"

"Ready, sir!" the master gunner replied, sounding as dubious as his first officer.

"Mile, just about…" Lewrie sighed, rising on his toes with anticipation. "Wait… wait… Mister Bittfield… fire!"

"On the up roll… Firel"