A King`s Commander - Dewey Lambdin

Uncanny, Lewrie thought warily. Retribution's coming, sure as Fate. They're toyin' with us. Soon, it'll be roarin'. When we least expect it. Damme, I hate surprises!

Dawn of the fourth day was coolish and bracing, with a bit more life to the sea, the rollers now shorter-spaced and surging higher, in four- to five-foot swells. The wind backing even more, now all but out of the south! Toying with them, backing, then gusting up a touch, as it veered ahead a point or two. Yet still easily manageable winds.

Jester would luff up through the gentle gusts, driving close-hauled, and was able to maintain a base course of west-sou'west, and a half-hourly cast of the log showed a steady 7Ѕ knots.

By noon sights, Alan was just about ready to start chewing his nails in fretful apprehension. And Mister Knolles and Mister Buchanon, two more who knew what whistling on deck could bring, stalked soft-footed about the quarterdeck as if the slightest misstep might bring the sky down on them like a tumbling house of cards!

"Sail Ho!" came a most unwelcome cry, from far aloft.

"Oh, Jesus!" Lewrie gawped in the middle of his fifth breakfast at sea, a forkful of treacly broken biscuit halfway to his mouth.

He was off and running, shrugging into his undress coat, cramming an old, unadorned hat on his head before the Marine sentry's musket butt hammered the deck without his cabins, and his leather-lunged announcement of "Mister Midshipman Spendlove, SAH!"

"Captain, sir," Spendlove began formally. "The first lieutenant's respects to you, and he bade me inform…"

"Yes, yes!" Lewrie snapped impatiently, preceding Spendlove to the quarterdeck. "Where away?" he demanded.

"Two sail!" came another shout from the topmast lookout.

"Sir," Knolles reported crisply, handing his captain his spyglass. "One sail on the larboard quarter, up to the nor'east, royals or t'gallants. Can't see her from the deck, yet. But, there's a second ship, sir… off the larboard beam, a touch southerly of us. Say, east-by-south to be her bearing? Just appeared moments ago, as these morning mists cleared. Royals and t'gallants, 'bove the horizon, sir."

"Thankee, Mister Knolles." Lewrie frowned. He took in the set of Jester's sails, the strength of the wind that flailed the commissioning pendant. Even close-hauled, Jester was loafing along in light morning air. The sunrise cast of the knot log had shown only a touch over seven knots, and the wind felt no fresher than when he'd quit the quarterdeck to go below a half-hour earlier. "Be back, shortly," he said, slinging the telescope over his shoulder.

He climbed atop the larboard bulwarks, swung out around the mizzen stays, and began to ascend the mast, recalling how terrified he had been, the first time he'd been forced aloft, so long ago. All these years, and it still hadn't gotten any easier! He thought, surely, he would be senior enough, and like many post-captains too stout, to have to do this; could stay on deck and let the younger and spryer be his eyes. Except he knew himself for an impatient "hound," and wondered, just before essaying the futtock shrouds, if he could ever be content with second-hand information.

Most careful for a good handgrip and sure feet, puffing some, he got to the deadeyes of the fighting-top after a breathless dangle on the futtock shrouds, scaling the underface of the outward-leaning ropes and ratlines. Then on to the mizzenmast crosstrees, far up by the doublings of the topmast, to take a perch on the bracing slats.

The vessel off to the east wavered in his ocular as he embraced the topmast with one arm. Ship-rigged, he saw; three sets of yellow-tan ellipses-tops'ls, t'gallants, or royals visible, with her hull and course sails still below the horizon. Swiveling to the nor'east, he spotted the second. She was more broadside on, with three umber rectangles of sail peeking over the indistinct rim of the sea.

He returned his interest to the nearest ship. Had she changed her aspect to them? When he first espied her, he'd thought she'd been beam-reaching west-nor'west across the wind, her upper yards and sails fatter and wider. Now, they looked narrower, more edge-on, her masts beginning to overlap in his narrow view-piece.

"Altering course," he muttered sourly. "Comin' over to 'smoak us'. Discover what we are. Well, sufferin' Jesus!"

An infinitesimal gay splotch of color burst forth upon her upper yards, vivid bits of flapping cloth. She was making a signal, as she came about hard on the wind. But, to whom? he wondered. It was hard to make out- plain red square flag atop, what seemed like the Blue Peter next-below, a yellow-white beneath that, and a fourth he couldn't make out. That, of a certainty, wasn't a recognition signal in the Howe System he knew; nor was it one of the private signals to identify one Royal Navy ship to another!

He turned back to the ship up in the nor'east. Sure enough, she was replying. Making a single hoist of what he took to be a red square with a white speck in the center. A one-flag signal-that could only be a reply to an order. More like, an affirmative. And it was not a British "Yes"! And was she turning, too, foreshortening the broadside view of her upper sails? Also coming onto the wind? Merchantmen had no desire to speak each other with flags. Nor be curious about strange vessels. A merchantman sailing independently would shy from the sight of any other ship, even were HMS Victory to heave up alongside with an invitation to dinner!

They had to be French!

A brace of frigates, he decided, out scouting in the van of the main body of that fleet Howe had been seeking. And had just discovered a weak and tasty treat!

"Deck, there!" he shouted. "Pipe 'All Hands'! Mister Knolles? Make sail! Royals, t'gallants, and stays'ls!"

A little faster now, though heeled perhaps a bit too far hard-over, Jester began to trundle along, adding another knot to her speed. To keep their minds off it, and prepare them for the worst, Alan told his officers to practice gun drill.

Five weeks in port, and not a shot fired! he lamented.

Port admirals didn't like the sound of guns going off in their harbors. Bad for their digestions, he supposed; interrupts any naps they take. And was a "waste" of good gunpowder that they'd have to replace, at Admiralty expense, before a ship sailed.

Jester had a good warrant gunner and mate in Bittfield and Mister Crewe; her quarter-gunner was a Prussian named Rahl, who claimed that he'd been one of Friedrich the Great's artillery masters. Cockerels and Victorys, Agamemnons and a few others, were experienced. But except for dry-firing, mostly running-in, loading, and running-out work with the new-comes, his guns wouldn't be well-served. Not after the landsmen and Marines, who would be forced to assist on the tackles, were deafened and quivered to a state of nerves by the first blasts. And half of that had been instruction, employing only a single piece at a time, mostly letting them watch, before trying them out at the least-skillful jobs.

There'd only been a week of dry-firing, using an entire broadside at once, and that wasn't nearly enough.

"Would you say this seems a bit familiar, sir?" Knolles said, after going below to change into clean clothing, and silk stockings and shirt, which were easier for the surgeon to draw out from wounds.

"It appears pretty much the way we got Jester, sir." Lewrie nodded, playing along in spirit with Knolles's humor. The officer was possessed of a very dry wit to begin with, and was purposefully japing, for the crew's benefit, to make them think that things were not quite as bad as they appeared.

"Damme, Mister Knolles," Alan said more loudly. Again, for the crew's ears. "Chased by two corvettes. Shot one to flinders, and took this'un! Do you think, sir, that the French'll oblige me a second time, and make me a post-captain, when we serve these, alike?"

He got the appreciative laugh he'd expected, though most of his inexperienced new men merely tittered nervously; and that only because the older hands had done so.

French frigates, he pondered, pacing aft to the taffrail for a peek. Longer on the waterlines, perhaps 120 feet, to his 100. They'd be at least a full knot faster. The one down to the nor'east was too far off, and with only a knot advantage, would take until sundown to catch him up. No, the main threat was the one to the east, now almost abeam. She'd cut the corner on Jester, sail a shorter course, with a half-a-knot to a. full knot greater speed than her consort, because she wasn't beating to weather, but was sailing a point "free" on a damned close reach, to intercept off Jesters larboard bows.

When she came up to shooting range, Lewrie decided, he'd have no choice but to wear off the wind himself, reach across the wind due west, to escape,/ar out into the Atlantic. Scouting frigates, that'd be most likely, he thought; out ahead of the French fleet's van division, looking for Howe's fleet, so they could steer their admiral into a massive battle. If Jester showed no sign of leading them to Howe's main body, they might break off their chase, he most fervently hoped; perhaps by sundown, at the latest?

"We're nigh on 350 miles out to sea," he mused; "350 miles west of Ushant or Land's End, for God's sake! What do they think I'm leadin' 'em to-the Happy Isles of the West?" he whispered.

And the weather…! Alan felt like ordering "All Hands" up on the gangways to begin whistling, if it would stir up one more -pint of wind. That remained steady from the SW or SSW, and none too strong. The morning was less humid than the day before, less dew and mist upon the decks at dawning. The clouds were higher and thinner, a first thin coat of whitewash brushed over cerulean blue, with many traceried gaps of open sky. Not superb sailing weather, but no sign of bad weather, of a certainty, which might bring a rising of the winds. For the Atlantic in early summer, it was almost warm and pleasant, too.

Just warm enough a day, as it progressed, to bring a stronger wind as the seas warmed. Or enough heat to stifle any winds, leaving all three warships boxing the compass on lying little zephyrs. And a longer and heavier French frigate might still coast through the dead spots, maintain her steerageway even in very light air, whereas the lighter, shorter ship would struggle and flag…

"Mister Knolles," Lewrie called out, coming back to the center of the quarterdeck. "We'll run in the starboard battery to loading position, and bowse the carriages to the deck ringbolts. Then, open the larboard gun ports and run out the larboard battery to firing position. That should shift enough weight to set her flatter on her keel."

"Aye aye, sir," Knolles responded. "Mister Bittfield?"

If that didn't work, next he'd try shifting all the round-shot into garlands on the larboard side, by hand, then crack the water casks and use the wash-deck pumps to "start" all that weight over the side, to lighten her. He'd heard of people jettisoning cumbersome cargo, even artillery, during a stern chase. Of course… most of the time, that'd been the heroic captains doing the chasing, not the chased. And the prize money afterward paid for all.