The King's Marauder (18 page)

*   *   *

HMS
Sapphire
rang to the clatters and clangs of an hundred poor Welsh tinkers all tapping away as her hands went through the steps of cutlass drill, paired off in mock melee to hone their sword-play. On the open poop deck, Lewrie was squared off against their senior Marine Lieutenant, the stern John Keane, Lewrie’s short hanger versus Keane’s straighter and longer smallsword, and frankly, Lt. Keane was the better swordsman, very fast and darting, with a very strong wrist. Lewrie was in his shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, working up a sweat and beginning to pant at the exertion, which seemed as wearying as any real combat he had ever experienced.

Keane lunged, and Lewrie countered with a twist to bind, then stepped forward inside Keane’s reach, his left arm fending off Keane’s sword hand, bull-rushing him backwards and giving him a thump in the chest with the silver, lion-head hilt, then a mock slash with the flat of his blade that, had it been for real, the wickedly honed edge would have dis-emboweled the man.

“I trample on your entrails, sir!” Lewrie hooted in triumph.

“I expire, sir, thinking last thoughts of Mother,” Keane said in matching jest, though he didn’t look as if he approved of Lewrie’s ploy, or the hardness of that thump.

“As hellish-good as you are, sir, that was the only way that I could prevail,” Lewrie cheerfully admitted. “But, a boarding action, a melee, with enemy sailors tryin’ t’kill ye any-old-how is not as fine as the elegance of a swordmaster’s
salle.
That’s why I prefer the hanger … I can always get inside or under my opponent’s guard.”

“A break for water, sir?” Lt. Keane suggested.

“Gad, yes,” Lewrie heartily agreed. “I’m dry as dust.”

The First Officer, Lt. Geoffrey Westcott, also in his rolled-up shirtsleeves, had been matching blades with Midshipman Leverett, and that pairing took a water break at the same time. Westcott’s harshly-featured face was split in a grin as he delivered a final suggestion to Leverett, who had been schooled, like all young gentlemen of means, in the sword, but was learning that elegance and grace wouldn’t stand a Chinaman’s Chance if shoved nose-to-nose, elbow-to-elbow into a melee with barely enough room to employ a sword. Westcott looked as if he had handily bested the young man, with tactics as “low” as Lewrie’s.

“A good morning’s workout,” Lewrie said after wetting his dry mouth with a first dipper from the scuttle-butt. “Pretty-much the only decent excercise an officer can get, aboard ship. Several brisk turns round the deck don’t hold a candle.”

“Indeed, sir,” Lt. Keane agreed. “Though I have contemplated ascending the stays and ratlines to the tops, a time or two.”

“Your dignity, though, sir,” Midshipman Leverett jibed, as he waited his turn at the water butt. “That’s an acquired skill.”

“How’s the leg?” Westcott asked in a barely audible whisper.

“No problem at all,” Lewrie whispered back. “Not a twinge.”

Lewrie had known too many older officers who had been so long at sea who were halfway lamed by the rheumatism engendered by the cold and damp, their continuing careers a perpetual misery of aches and pains, much less anyone who had been as “well-shot” as he had been. He felt damned grateful to have avoided the rheumatism, so far, and to have healed so completely.
Well, gout’s another matter,
he told himself with a wee laugh.

“Sail ho!” a lookout bawled out from high aloft.

“Where away?” Lt. Harcourt, who had the watch, shouted back.

“
Three
points orf th’
larb’d
quarter!” the lookout cried.

Lewrie and Westcott, and the curious Marine Lt. Keane, drifted to the aft corner of the poop deck’s larboard side, but even from that height the horizon up to the Nor’east was unbroken, a severely straight line of blue against a fair-weather azure sky.

“In the Nor’east by East, or thereabouts,” Lewrie speculated. He turned and looked aloft at the long, streaming commissioning pendant which stood out fairly stiffly with its outer length fluttering to the East by South. The Bay of Biscay’s prevailing Westerlys had backed a point after dawn, giving his convoy a point free of sailing on a beam reach, perhaps endowing them with another half-knot above their usual plodding pace.

Whatever she is, she’s fast,
Lewrie thought.

To a further question from Lt. Harcourt, shouted aloft with the aid of a brass speaking trumpet, the lookout gave more details about their stranger.

“I kin make our ’er
t’gallants!
” he yelled. “Nigh bows-on!”

That made Lewrie frown. Yesterday’s Noon Sights had placed them just below the 40th Latitude, hundreds of miles Due West of Cape Finisterre in Spain. Any friendly ship would have made its offing long before, and would not be sailing close-hauled
out
of the Bay of Biscay, or standing out round Finisterre.

She
could
be one of ours, leavin’ the blockadin’ squadrons for Gibraltar or Lisbon,
Lewrie told himself as he clapped his hands in the small of his back and rocked on the soles of his boots;
Maybe.

“Close-hauled on, say, Sou’-Sou’west?” he commented.

“Thereabout, sir,” Lt. Westcott grimly agreed.

Lewrie went to the forward edge of the poop deck to shout down to Lt. Harcourt. “Last cast of the log, Mister Harcourt?”

“Ehm … eight and a quarter knots, sir, half an hour ago,” Lt. Harcourt informed him.

“Hmm, not all that bad,” Lewrie decided, a bit surprised that
Sapphire,
and the lumbering transports, could make such a good pace.

The typical Westerlys had already backed one point to the West by North, and Lewrie thought it good odds that it might continue to back a point more by afternoon. He
could
order the convoy to alter course to the Sou’-Sou’east; sooner or later they would have to steer for the Straits of Gibraltar, anyway, and that would put that backing wind large on their starboard quarters, which was most ships’ best point of sail. They might even attain nine knots if he did so, but … why not?

“Mister Harcourt, make General Signal to all ships,” he decided. “Alter Course in Succession, South-Southeast.”

“Aye aye, sir!” Harcourt crisply replied.

He turned and looked up to the Nor’east, again, but there was still no indication of that strange sail to be seen from the deck.

Hard on the wind, is she, bows-on to us?
he schemed;
Our turn will lay us smack cross her present course, and she’ll
have
t’haul her wind, sooner or later.

He also wondered why the strange sail
was
sailing so hard on the wind; this far West of Cape Finisterre, she had bags of sea-room by now, and if she
was
friendly, and bound for Lisbon or Gibraltar, she could have hauled her wind to a beam reach long before.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” Lewrie said, keeping his suspicions in check, and off his face, “thankee for the exercise, Mister Keane, and I will see you all again at Noon Sights.”

He went down the ladderway to the quarterdeck, then aft into his cabins to partake in a tall glass of his cool tea to slake his thirst, and have a sponge-off, and perhaps a change of shirt. Silk, for combat, he wondered?

*   *   *

All officers, the Sailing Master, and all the Midshipmen under instruction turned up with their sextants to take the height of the sun to determine their position. Lewrie and Mr. Yelland both brought their Harrison chronometers, which were in satisfactory agreement as to the exact moment of Noon. As ship’s boys struck Eight Bells and turned the sand glasses, they all drew the sun to the horizon and locked the angle on their instruments. Lewrie and the ship’s officers made one syndicate, over by the door to the chart room, whilst the Mids huddled together over their slates to form another.

“Are we in agreement, then, gentlemen?” the Sailing Master asked. “Thirty-seven degrees, twenty minutes North, and Fourteen degrees, fourty-five minutes West? Then I will mark it so.”

“And let me see what a day on this course will fetch us, assumin’ the winds hold,” Lewrie suggested, starting to follow Yelland into the chart room.

“Deck, there!” a lookout’s shout stopped him. “It’s
two
strange sail!
Three
points off th’
larb’d
quarter.
Two
sets of t’gallants an’ royals!”

“Bows-on?” Lewrie bellowed back, hands cupped round his mouth.

“Aye, sir! Bows-on, an’ comin’ close-hauled!”

Lewrie frowned and pursed his lips, feeling all the eyes on the quarterdeck on him. It was time to portray the proper sort of Royal Navy Captain, for their sakes.

“An hour, perhaps, before their tops’ls and courses fetch above the horizon,” he mused aloud, “and some goodly time before they’re hull-up. Three hours, altogether, before they’re anywhere in shooting range?
If
they’re enemy ships. We’ll let them come to us, and, when close enough, hoist our false colours. If that don’t daunt ’em, then we blow the Hell out of them.

“Carry on, sirs,” Lewrie told them all, “if strenuous exertion is in the offing, I think I’ll take a preparatory nap.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Lewrie didn’t take a nap, of course. He spent his time aft in his cabins, going over his written orders to Captain Knolles in HMS
Comus
and the transport masters, and to Colonel Fry of the Kent Fusiliers. He dined lightly, drank only cold tea instead of wine with his meal, and asked for some hot coffee round the time that he was informed that the two strange ships’ courses were above the horizon.

When a Midshipman came to report that the strangers were hull-up over the horizon, he buckled on his sword belt, took a brace of pistols already cleaned, oiled, and loaded from Pettus, and prepared to go on deck.

“Clear away all, Pettus. Off ye go to the magazine, Jessop, and the best t’both o’ ye,” he said. “Take care o’ Chalky and see to Bisquit.”

“As always, sir,” Pettus gravely replied.

Last of all, Lewrie unlocked his desk and fetched out the keys to the arms lockers.

*   *   *

“Captain’s on deck!” Midshipman Britton called out.

“Mister Elmes, I give you the keys to the arms lockers,” Lewrie told the officer of the watch. “Beat To Quarters, if ye will.”

“Aye aye, sir! Bosun Terrell! Pipe To Quarters!” Elmes cried.

Lewrie went to the larboard bulwarks of the quarterdeck to lift a telescope and inspect their strangers. They were still hard on the wind, coming strong, and sailing abreast of each other, with about a half-mile between them. They were three-masted, flush-decked, and gave him the impression that they were not the big 38- or 40-gunned frigates he had worried about. Warships, for certain, but perhaps smaller and weaker, somewhere round the same size and weight of metal as Knolles’s 24-gunned
Comus.
That would mean that they would be armed with nine-pounders, or the French equivalent of twelve-pounders.

“Good afternoon, sir,” Lt. Westcott said to announce his arrival on the quarterdeck. “Did you have a good nap?”

Lewrie tossed him a quick, sly grin, for Westcott knew that it had all been a sham.

“Leftenant Keane!” Lewrie called out, instead. “Do you keep your men down out of sight ’til called for, as we discussed!”

“Very well, sir!” Keane replied.

“I’ll have the gun-ports closed ’til we’re ready to run out, as well, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie ordered.

“Done, sir,” Westcott told him.

Lewrie looked forward past the courses and jibs to determine that the two transports off
Sapphire
’s bows showed no colours, as he had set out in his written orders, and that
Comus
was flying the Blue Ensign. He went up atop the poop deck to check on the two transports following his ship’s wake, and was pleased to note that they flew no colours, and were managing to maintain column and a rough one cable of separation. From that vantage, he gave the approaching ships a long inspection with his telescope, then trotted back down to the quarterdeck.

“If they’re indeed French, then they’re hopeful bastards. Or half-blind,” Lewrie commented. “They know
Comus
is a frigate by now, but can’t they see we’re
not
a big transport?”

“Even if they do recognise us for a warship, perhaps they’re counting on our lack of speed or manoeuvrability to cut one or two of the transports from our clumsy grasp, sir,” Westcott posed, tongue-in-cheek.

“Strange sail are French!” a lookout called down. “Deck, there! I kin see the cut o’ their jibs!”

“Jibs, sir?” Midshipman Fywell muttered.

“Jibs, younker,” Lt. Westcott turned to instruct him. “The way sailmakers in other nations cut their cloth and saw the panels together varies, depending on what they think the best and strongest way to take strong winds. A sharp-eyed, experienced man can sometime spot the difference.”

“I see, sir,” Fywell said with what passed for a sage nod.

Other Mids were coming to the quarterdeck to report that the lower gun deck was at Quarters, that the upper gun deck was ready, that sail tenders, brace and sheet and halliard tenders were in their assigned places and ready for action. Once reporting, they dashed back to their stations for Quarters.

“At Quarters, and ready for action, sir,” Lt. Westcott said at last, very formally doffing his hat in salute.

“Very good, sir,” Lewrie replied, all his attention on the two approaching ships. They were within two miles, by then, still on the wind. The one furthest off seemed to steer for the head of Lewrie’s column, as if to take on Knolles in
Comus.
The left-handed ship nearest to
Sapphire
seemed intent on sailing right up to the middle of the column. They still showed no colours.

“They couldn’t be ours, could they, sir?” Lt. Westcott wondered. “Two of our sloops of war or light frigates pulling a ‘Grierson’?”

A year or so before, a Commodore Grierson had come to Nassau to re-enforce Lewrie’s weak squadron of sloops, brigs of war and vessels “below the Rates”, keeping his identity secret ’til the very last moment, a very clumsy jest that had frightened the life out of the good residents of New Providence, and had re-dounded to no good credit.