A King's Commander (40 page)

“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. She'll 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' floggin' 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 uproll . . .
Fire!
”

A broadside from the long Nines, the great-guns, crashed out in angry roars and a sudden fog-bank of smoke and sparks erupted from her starboard side. With the wind gauge,
Jester
was heeled too far over for her solid round-shot to score crippling damage aloft, the disadvantage of firing from upwind. Fall short, perhaps, skip into the enemy . . .

“Secure the starboard battery at run-in. Ready about? Helm a'weather! New course, nor'west, Quartermaster. Wear ship!”

He could feel his vessel wheel, her decks coming level, the wind coming stronger on the nape of his neck, as she pivoted within the pall of her broadside, which was hazing and misting as it expanded, thinning to show him the French corvette, which was . . .

Firing!

Moans, warbles . . . eldritch screeches, wailing higher and higher in tone, even as Choundas's ship was suddenly surrounded by feathers of spray as his own shot arrived. Fired high, elevating quoins fully out and breeches resting on the carriages . . . and her decks angled upward to the force of the wind on her full-and-by course to windward.

Crashes aloft, crashes and bangs. The royal mast and yard upon the main was shattered at the doublings, bringing down the commissioning pendant, sails and ropes, in a blizzard. The fore t'gallant twitched as it was punctured by bar-shot and star-shot, punctures ripping open from luff to leach in an eye-blink. Fore-stays snapped, and the outer flying jib lashed out to leeward, shivering like a spook!

“Nor'west, sir!” Spenser called, easing his helm, watching the main tops'l for a clue to his luff and winds, with the pendant gone.

“Ready, larboard batt'ry, sir!” Bittfield reported.

Mile, or
less,
Lewrie judged, glad to have drawn first blood; or first honors, at the least. Better shootin' range.

“Fire, Mister Bittfield!” he urged, gripping the railing with one hand, chopping at the air with the other as if it held his sword.

Cripple him, Bittfield, he thought grimly; save my poor arse! “Sure o' yer aim, now, wait for
itt!
”
Bittfield cautioned his gun captains, still not trusting Rahl to scamper about and train those barrels inward, so their shot would converge amidships of their target. Following along behind quickly, sensing how
Jester
rode the sea, when she'd rise up, decks almost level, pent on the up-roll. Waiting for a good one, perhaps, a convergence of wave and counterwave.

Come on, you perverse bloody perfectionist, Alan wished to yell!

“Ready . . . on the uproll . . .
Fire!
”

A stunning blast of sound, explosions, and the scream of truck carriages running inward, axles and wheels howling, breeching ropes and restraining bolts juddering bar-taut making thick cable squeal, forged iron moan.

“Eat it, you
bastarrddd!
”
Lewrie howled, too jittery to remain stoic and captainly. He never had been—never would be—
any
good at stoic. At least, fear had turned to something useful, now that he was getting into a battle fever, the insatiable kind that would leave him wringing wet, spent, and gasping.

The French corvette returned the favor, again slightly later, just as
Jester
's
double-shotted barrage reached her. There were more crashes aloft. The foremast fighting-top seemed to explode into dust, as a solid shot smashed into the upper mast, bringing down the tops'l, and t'gallant together, cleaving away stays for both the inner jib and fore-topmast stays'l. Topmen aloft, swivel gunners and Marines in the top, came spilling out and down, riding the wreckage or flung bodily by the force of the strike! Two massive flashes of sparks and oaken splinters erupted alongside, amidships, as the main chains and stays writhed like disturbed asps, and the entire upper mainmast groaned and creaked, and supporting lower shrouds let go under the suddenly unequaled tension, popping as loud as musket fire!

“Hullin' her, sir!” Knolles cried. “Hullin' her, 'twixt wind and water!” he hooted as he pointed to larboard at their foe. Plumes of spray skipped in lines toward the French ship, some almost on her waterline, bursts of dust and wood splinters as she was hit above the water, around her midships gun ports.

“Half a mile, sir,” Buchanon adjudged, more calmly.