Sea of Grey - Dewey Lambdin 24 стр.


The American brig bore the same limitations of all square-rigged ships; she would find it hard to go to windward, to point as "high" as a fore-and-aft rigged vessel like the schooner, so the only way she had to escape would be to run like a scalded cat for Charlotte Amalie and throw herself on the mercy of the Danish authorities. She could round Ram Head and surge up Pillsbury Sound, with the winds abeam or just a bit abaft, and go for the Middle Passage or the Leeward Passage.

Lewrie looked aloft at the commissioning pendant streaming from the main-mast truck. The Trades were weak, as they always were in good weather round dawn, weak but steady from the Nor'east, so he thought a try up the Middle Passage from Pillsbury Sound, abeam the winds, out of the question. It would be too slow. No, he thought, if she tried that she would head for the incredibly narrow and treacherous Leeward Passage. He stowed that thought away as improbable.

The schooner, though, was much more manoeuvrable and it was not out of the question for her to spin about almost in her own length and try to run Sou'east, abeam the Trades, and pass astern of Proteus at a rate of knots, hoping that the brig would be considered the most valuable prize. With her greater speed, she might dare the risk of broadsides hurriedly ranged and fired. The schooner might dodge right past before a gun could hurt her, and show them a clean pair of heels.

"Don't think of that, don't think of that," Lewrie muttered on his way back aft, pacing sideways to keep his eyes on the brig and the schooner. "Just panic and run, you bastards."

"Courses, tops'ls, and t'gallants all set, sir," Lt. Langlie reported as Lewrie gained the quarterdeck. "Outer flying jib, the inner, and the fore top-mast stays'l set, as well."

Lewrie looked aloft for confirmation, also noting that the main and mizen t'gallant stays'ls filled the spaces between the masts, as they had since they'd come about off Salt Island Passage, to make best use of the weak predawn Trades without showing too much aloft for an enemy to espy and be warned off.

"Were they smart, they'd turn and run back up the bay and get ashore," Catterall commented, still coatless and fiddling with his neck-stock. "We'd get the ships if they don't fire them, but the crews would escape us."

Lewrie spun on his heel to glare at him, freezing Catterall in mid-toilette. "Then let us pray our Chases are bereft of your great experience, sir. Let's pray they're bumbling idiots… sir!"

Catterall gulped and shrugged into himself as his hammock-man held out his coat to don, and he slipped into it as if it were armour.

"Everyone down from aloft, Mister Langlie? Good," Lewrie said. "Now, beat to Quarters. Mister Catterall?"

"Sir?" the hapless Second Officer replied, now dressed but still trying to shrink away.

"Tell off an armed boat crew, with six or eight Marines, and be ready to board one of the prizes, should we be fortunate."

"Aye aye, sir! Mister Towpenny! A boat brought up from towing astern to short stays!"

Lewrie turned back to their Chases, relieved to see that they were still mindlessly intent on fleeing, holding their course, aiming to get round Ram Head into deeper water and run almost due West, with the schooner ahead, of course, and steering a bit further out from the land, almost as if she would challenge Proteus and protect her consort. The French tricouleur stood out boldly from her gaff, swung by the wind to lay against her mainsail. But Proteus was hitting her stride, now, and beginning to surge forward with a purposeful bustle, the apparent wind keener and brisker, and her stout hull "talking" to him in groans and swashings as she parted the rather calm seas like a broad farmer's plough through rich loam.

Gun-ports were hinging up and out of the way on the schooner's larboard side, at least five that Lewrie could see, and she was coming a point "lower" to intersect their course, her gaff-hung sails arcing away from them into mere slivers to cup more stern wind.

"I make the range as under a mile, sir," Langlie said.

The schooner was most likely a French privateer, Lewrie thought, judging her lines more critically. As fine and lean as she appeared, she couldn't bear the weight of more than eight or ten guns, and those could not be much more than 6-pounders. "Man's a bloody Lunatick!" he grunted. "Mister Langlie, I'll thank you to shoot his grandiose dreams to flinders."

"Very good, sir! Mister Catterall, Mister Adair… on the uproll, and open upon her!" Langlie shouted down to the gun-deck.

The schooner opened first, wreathing herself in a sudden bank of sulfurous fumes, the sound of her artillery a muffled stutter; five guns as Lewrie had surmised, and terrier-sharp by the sound of them-6-pounders, or more likely 4-pounders.

Shot shrieked overhead, a splash was raised far out to starboard and the ball skipped high enough to chew a small segment of a bulwark railing and strew stowed hammocks in the racks like wakened worms.

"On the up-roll…" Catterall could be heard yelling, "fire!"

The air was moist and cool with sea mist. Proteus's guns roared and reeled back in-board almost as one, making not only a deep bank of gun smoke, but an instant fog of tortured air, each gun's eruption standing for a moment as a horizontal sea-spout from the muzzles, and making thirteen distinct smoke-and-fog rings that quickly merged into a cloud that only slowly drifted away to larboard and alee as Proteus sailed beyond it, leaving a semi-opaque, surface-level cumulus astern.

"Hit… hit!" Langlie was noting, striving for professional detachment, though almost dancing on tip-toes. "Three… four… six!"

"There is a nasty shoal, sir," Mr. Winwood muttered, coming to Lewrie's left rear. "Eagle Shoal, 'tis called, almost dead ahead, by our charts. They're coming to us, so…"

"A turn away will not increase the gun-range, aye," Lewrie said quickly, with only a slight turn of his head to acknowledge him. "Two points alee, and keep us clear."

He only had eyes for their targets, now. The schooner had taken the worst of their exchange, with holes punched in both her sails, and sections of her bulwark torn open, a low deckhouse afore her wheel shot up, and her inner jib flying loose of both controlling sheet and halliard. His hands took time to cheer as they swabbed out, thumb-stalled vents, and began to wave the powder monkeys forward with fresh charges borne in flash-resistant leather cylinders.

The brig, still flying an American flag, was hugging closer to the shore of Saint John, as if to shave Ram Head by a boat-hook's reach. Urgent signals were now flying from her lee main-mast.

"She'll pass inside the shoal, Mister Winwood?" Lewrie queried.

"The brig, aye, sir. The schooner, though…" Winwood replied with a wince, as if watching an imminent coach accident.

"Schooner's bearing away," Langlie noted. "Ready, down there?"

Gun-captains waved their hands clear of the guns; Catterall had his sword poised on high, nodding eagerly. "On the up-roll… fire!"

"She's standing directly onto the shoal, sir!" Winwood said.

"The brig displays this month's coded signals, sir!" Midshipman Elwes suddenly cautioned, with some alarm.

"He's a lying dog, then," Lewrie snapped, between explosions from their guns.

"But, sir! Really, they're this month's signals!" Elwes protested, eyes wide in fear of error.

"We ain't firin' on her, Mister Elwes," Lewrie took the patience to say to him, direct. "Do you recall our first encounter with Yankee merchantmen? If she's innocent, what's she doin' in company with that Frog privateer? Once our smoke clears, hoist a signal for her to heave to and prepare to be boarded. If she obeys, fine. If she doesn't… then we will fire into her."

"Aye, aye, sir," Elwes said, doffing his hat before dashing off aft to his flag lockers and halliards.

Once again, both the schooner and HMS Proteus had mounded the sea with ragged thunderheads of smoke and fog-roil from their guns. A moment later, the schooner sailed clear of hers, presenting her lines side-on, her hull pocked with 12-pounder impacts, and the upper gaff of her foresail hanging limp and the sail bagged out alee.

Then she struck the shoal, jerking to a complete stop, her mastheads swaying forward, gaffs and booms swinging forward abruptly. Running rigging snapped, heavy lower booms ploughed through shrouds and ripped them loose from the dead-eyes, ripped dead-eyes from the chain platforms! Her bow rose up as if cresting a boisterous wave… but remained at that angle, her bow sprit and jib-boom almost vertical.

Proteus's crew groaned aloud, making "Ooohh!" sounds as if in fellow sailors' sympathy, before recalling that the ship over there was French, after all, and began to jeer and cat-call.

"Someone send for Mister Durant!" Lewrie chortled loudly. "And ask him how one says 'Oops, oh shit' in French)."

"Do you still wish her boarded, sir?" Langlie asked, after the hilarity had faded and the quarterdeck people had returned to duties.

"Aye, I do, Mister Langlie," Lewrie decided after a long moment to think it over, weighing risk to his sailors against the need for a confirming document as a privateer. "Send two boats with Mister Catterall, and a larger boarding party. He's to capture her captain or a mate, if possible, with her Letter of Marque and Reprisal. Does the rest of the crew get ashore, so be it, and let 'em be the Danes' problem. Do they not fire her as they abandon, have our people do it. Instruct him to menace them, but not get into a melee. Do you think he may manage that, Mister Langlie?"

"He's an energetic, simple-minded brute, sir, so I expect that he may," Langlie chirped back with a wry grin on his features.

"Very well," Lewrie announced. "Let's fetch-to and despatch our boarding party, quick as we can. Mister Elwes, what answer did we get from the brig?"

"Can't really make it out, sir, it's all higgledy-piggledy," the boy replied, dashing from aft to a skidding stop at his summons.

"He's a liar and a conspirator, as I suspected, then. Thankee, Mister Elwes. Keep 'Fetch-To' aloft, and think of a way to make that 'Insistent.' Carry on, sir."

Proteus didn't wish to drown any of her boarders by proceeding at full tilt when they scrambled down into the boats, surfing along at the end of short painters, barely held in check by straining coxswains and bow-men with boat-hooks. She would have to slow down and take in sail, steering more for Ram Head with the wind abeam to "make a lee" so the sailors and Marines could disembark down her larboard side.

"Let's make it fast, Mister Langlie," Lewrie said. "Scandalise her and clew up sail in 'Spanish reefs.' Brace in yards, abeam."

"Aye aye, sir!"

Lewrie swung his telescope up and extended the tubes. The brig was almost to the tip of Ram Head, standing off not a cable's distance from the shoals.

"How much water would she have, that close inshore?" Lewrie asked his Sailing Master.

"I make it about fifteen fathom, sir, near the point," Winwood answered as Proteus swung her bows Nor'Nor'west, and the yard parrels cried as they were swung about to point the weather arms directly into the wind, the sails now flogging helplessly as they were clewed up at the centres, leaving untidy, thrashing bags suspended like ancient teats at the outer ends, with only jibs, stays'ls and the spanker still keeping way on her.

"Damn!" Lewrie griped. "She'll get a lead on us." "Ah… sunrise, sir," Win wood pointed out, pulling his watch from a waistcoat pocket, as if to confirm dawn's predicted timeliness and heaving a smug, satisfied sigh of approval.

"Very good, sir," Lewrie said with a grateful smile, thinking, though; Such an easy man to please. Just give him exactitude!

Scant minutes later, Proteus was once more under full sail and under way, thrashing back toward her previous speed in pursuit of the American brig, which was now flying stuns'ls in addition to her royals and t'gallants. Lewrie and Winwood stood close together by the double wheel and binnacle cabinet, ticking off landmarks on a chart as the seamarks almost raced past to starboard as the Chase spun out westward for the shelter of Charlotte Amafie.

Cabrithorn Point, Lameshur Bay, and White Point, then the wide, shallow expanse of Reef Bay. Dittlif Point rose up along the southern shore of St. John, then Rendezvous Bay beyond that long, arrowing peninsula, and Bovocoap Point looming up, with the brig dashing along as close as she could inshore, with Proteus standing further out to seaward, just a tantalising bit out of gun-range from her 6-pounder bow-chasers; almost, but not quite yet…

"She is steering dead-on for passage below the Dog Rocks, and Little Saint James Island, it seems, sir," Winwood cautiously opined, toying with his waistcoat buttons. "There is a long shoal, parallel to the shore, below Dog Rocks, with a narrow pass of thirteen fathom between, however. Her captain knows these waters well, we must infer."

"Wants t'brush us off," Lewrie sourly grunted.

"Aye, sir. Once beyond Dog Rocks, though, does she intend the direct route inside of Buck Island before taking a slant into harbour, there are even more shoals."

"Which would force us out alee of yonder Buck Island, and out of any hope of overtaking, if we continue on this course?"

"Aye, sir," Winwood gloomily reiterated, "though I cannot find any indications that the shoals are particularly shallow. The charts show some soundings of six or seven fathom. Deep-laden ships would go well clear of the shoals, but that may be sign of too much caution on their captains' parts. With our maximum laden draught of three fathom aft by the keel and rudder skeg… it makes no sense for him to think that we'd be completely daunted. Perhaps he knows more than our chart may tell us, the location of an old wreck…"

"Perhaps he learned his lore of the local waters in very large, deep-draught ships, Mister Winwood," Lewrie said, trying to put a good face on it despite his qualms of running aground, "under one of those cautious captains of yours. She's down to her draught waterline, same as us, and she can't draw more than twelve or fourteen feet. Show me your rocks and shoals, let's-"

"Deck, there!" a lookout screeched. "Chase is changin' course! Tur-nin' away Nor'west!"

"She's only a bit beyond Bovocoap Point," Mr. Winwood protested in a splutter. "That'd take her…"

"Into Pillsbury Sound, Mister Winwood," Lewrie snapped. "Maybe this 'Jonathon' captain doesn't think he'd keep enough lead on us to enter Charlotte Amalie before we caught him. If he really knows these waters, he must think he holds a high card over us."

"But there's no way out of the Sound, sir. The wind's wrong to weather the Middle Passage, leaving that Leeward Passage past Thatch Cay!" Winwood gawped. "Narrow as a town creek, it is, the soundings uncertain…"

"We'll follow her, Mister Winwood," Lewrie told him. "We will not let her get away that easily. Once past the point yonder, shape course Nor'Nor'west, and follow her… wherever she goes."

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Sir, I'm bound to point out that this is risky," Winwood said in a mortified whisper as they bent over the chart pinned to the traverse board, once Proteus had come about and was now dead-astern from the American brig, perhaps a mile-and-a-half behind. "My duty as-"

"I know, Mister Winwood," Lewrie said, cutting him off quickly, eyes intent on the chart, and the pair of brass dividers in his hand. "Pillsbury Sound's deep, sir! Twelve to eighteen fathoms all the way to the islets and cays. And nice and wide for the most part 'til you are forced to choose a passage out of it. The Windward Passage is out, and does she try the Middle Passage, she'll be full-and-by, sailing at the ragged edge of this morning's wind… without her stuns'ls spread, thankee Jesus, which means we'll drive right up her transom long before she can get to it. Your Leeward Passage is narrow, but not more than a quarter of a sea-mile…'bout two cables wide, 'twixt Thatch Cay and the north shore of Saint Thomas. Bags of room!"

Mr. Winwood uttered a soft complaint that sounded mightily like a cross between a moan and a well-muffled belch.

"Does she wish t'keep her stuns'ls rigged out for speed, she'll have t'use the Leeward Passage, Mister Winwood." Lewrie chuckled.

"The narrows, though, sir, here…"

About three-quarters of a mile due North of Cabes Point, halfway between Coki Point and the southeastern tip of Thatch Cay, there lay an indistinct indication of a shoal, stippled to show sand, which meant extremely shallow. On the scale chart they were perusing, a man could have mistaken it for a thumb smudge of ink, a tea stain from previous use. The vague extent of the shoal didn't leave much north of it, and there was another fan-like shoal round Thatch Cay's extremest tip, and that did have a sounding-one-half fathom-a scant three feet!

"He'll go south of the shoal, Mister Winwood, where there are soundings of seven to ten fathoms between the shoal and Coki Point," Lewrie insisted, "keeping well off the wind, under stuns'ls, hugging Thatch Cay a tad, once round your shoal, and giving little to loo'rd."

"Does he get past the shoal, sir, but-"

"Then it's his bottom that's ripped open, not ours. And we'll do all we can to save her people… obeying the law of the sea."

"Does he know of a wreck in there, though, sir…"

"The sun's barely up behind us, sir," Lewrie countered quickly. "The very best time of the day to see underwater obstacles ahead, long before we run afoul of 'em. And with the extreme clarity of the seas hereabouts… really, Mister Winwood! One could read a newspaper at six fathoms down. Does our Yankee captain yonder know of a wreck in the channel, then let him use his forefoot to dredge for it. Save us a deal o' gunpowder, it would! Wrecks shift, over time."

"Very well, sir," Mr. Winwood finally agreed, though not without a premonitory shiver. "Though I have expressed my reservations…"

"The fault will be mine, sir," Lewrie told him with a grim nod of his head before laying down the dividers and standing back up. "I will so note it in the log. Speaking of… Mister Elwes? Cast the log, if you please. Mister Pendarves? Hands to the fore-chains with the short leads, and two hands on the bowsprit to keep watch for any shoals or obstructions!"

Lewrie walked back to the stern and raised his glass. The privateer, and their boats, were now out of sight, and there was no smoke visible, had either the French or their own people set her afire. He pursed his mouth and chewed at its lining in worry of all that could have gone wrong. Even alee of the stranded schooner, they were too far away to hear the pops of muskets and pistols; only cannon on the schooner's decks might rumble over the sound of the wind, which would be a bad sign.

No news is good news, Lewrie told himself, turning forward.

Spotting the three other midshipmen standing idle without duty, he put Grace, Larkin, and Burns to work, taking bearings on sea-marks to either hand, and employing their scant knowledge of trigonometry for a range to them.

"Eight and three-quarter knots, sir," Midshipman Elwes reported.

"Thankee, Mister Elwes. I see you've hoisted 'Immediate' above 'Fetch-To'-very good. I doubt she'll respond any time soon, so keep at it with the knot-log, about every ten minutes or so," Lewrie bade him. "I do believe we've gained a touch on that brig, already."

"Aye aye, sir!" Elwes yelped with joy, dashing aft again, full of importance over his assigned task.

From the windward rails, it looked as if they had drawn closer to the Chase; more details could be made out that were indistinct before… or maybe it was simply full daylight that made him wish it so. Proteus was surging along, her wake bone-white atop the light green sea of Pillsbury Sound, heeling a bit to larboard and leeward, masts raked forward a touch, and groaning over it. Sailing almost downwind, the pace wasn't as apparent as it would be working closer to weather. The ship was sailing just as fast as the wind could blow, so there was no exhilarating rush and bustle that plucked at hats, clothing, and flesh, no bursting showers of salt-spray booming over the fore rails, but Proteus was moving quite well, gracefully and almost effortlessly. A touch on her lee "shoulder," Lewrie deemed her, but…

"Mister Langlie, run out the starboard battery, and run in the larboard to the recoil ring-bolts. Let's get her flatter on her keel," he decided of a sudden. "There's just enough wind for that to make a difference. A quarter-knot more, perhaps?"

"At once, sir," Langlie agreed, pacing forward to the quarter-deck railings with his brass speaking-trumpet in his hands.

On very light winds sometimes doing the opposite helped,. Lewrie had learned from better men than he; force the lee hull downward, off of upright, and a ship would angle her masts and sails more horizontal and "ghost" on a scant breeze that would leave her luffing and boxing the compass, else. Especially along a near shore.

"Eight-and-a-half knots, sir!" Elwes shouted from the taff-rail.

"Very good, Mister Elwes!" Lewrie shouted back, allowing himself a small grin. Damme, he thought; but they beat it into you, you hang about ships long enough, you're bound t'learn a little something! Even are you a lazy toad, and half a fraud!

"I do believe we're within Range To Random Shot, sir," Langlie said as they drew level with Cabrita Point on St. Thomas. "Shall we pester her with the bow-chasers?" he asked, eager for action.

"No, not yet, Mister Langlie," Lewrie finally decided. "Do we open on her at extreme range, we'll appear desperate. Make them think they're ahead of the game, d'ye see, and we're firing before we haul our wind and let 'em escape? Now, do we hold fire 'til we're right up her stern… when she's nervous about getting round the shoal in the middle of the channel, that's something else. Keeps 'em lookin' aft and chewin' their nails. We look… implacable. That'll give 'em a pause or two. Then they're half-beaten."

"Oh, I see, sir!" Langlie puzzled, frowning over it. "We are Nemesis, the inescapable old Greek god. And them, mere prey!"

"More like a dangerous duellist, whose fearsome reputation precedes him, Mister Langlie," Lewrie snickered back, always one to prefer a cruder simile. "One smirky grin at his opponent cross the grass, and the other poor bastard collapses with the farting faints!"

Onward they stood, pressing closer and closer to the brig; now at three-quarters of a mile range, well past Cabrita Point and nearing Coki Point, the brig now committed to the Leeward Passage, too far down to the West to tack and stand for the Middle Passage. For a time, the frigate had the best of the winds from the Nor'east, beginning to post nine knots at the last casts. Two-thirds of a sea-mile…

"Deck, there! Chase bears off to loo'rd! Spreadin' stuns'ls, again!" a foremast lookout cried.

"She's nearing the narrows," Mr. Winwood said. "Bearing off to the south channel before the shoals."

"Open upon her now, sir?" Langlie pressed.

"Aye, Mister Langlie. Keep 'em busy," Lewrie assented..

The 6-pounders up forward barked and recoiled, the spent powder smoke winging off westward as a solid blot, again. Far off, one ball raised a great splash near the brig's larboard quarters, the other one whipping cross her decks and deflating her spanker for a moment as it tore a neat hole right through it.

"Mark you well, where she turned, Mister Winwood," Lewrie bade. "Where our first shot struck short? Surely there's deep water there."

"Aye, sir," Winwood mournfully fretted.

Lewrie raised his glass again as the 6-pounders heaved back in from their second tries. The brig's spanker now seemed to be in twain, as if a major seam had split wide open, leaving the upper half hanging properly from the gaff-boom, but with the loose-footed bottom forced open and flagging, as if ripped from one bolt-rope edge to the other, and that wouldn't help her steering!

Another 6-pounder roundshot struck quite near her larboard quarter again, caroming far enough this time to raise a tiny smudge of engrained dirt and splinters from her, just a'fore her quarter galleries. The second was too high, but it clipped her right in the starboard main-stays and futtock shrouds below the main-top platform, sending a visible shiver up her upper masts like a tuning fork. Those shrouds would be weak, that mast in danger of falling sooner or later.

"Half-mile, I make her, now, sir!" Langue crowed, enthused.

"Ready to put the ship two points alee, Mister Langlie, once we are above Coki Point," Lewrie cautioned.

A third salvo from the bow-chasers was spot-on, the lee cannon scoring her third direct hit that chewed away some of the brig's larboard bulwark near the break between her quarterdeck and her gangway. The starboard cannon was still firing high, which error one of their quarter-gunners was correcting, loudly and foully, but that roundshot ploughed through the brig's main tops'l and shot a stuns'l boom and sail clean away. And that would slow the brig down right smartly!

"Eight fathom… eight fathom t'this line!" the starboard hand in the fore-chains called out.

"Coki Point's abeam, now, sir," Winwood warned them.

"Helm a'weather, Mister Langlie, and bear off!" Lewrie barked. "Two points, no more. Trim for a Fair Wind, course West-Nor'west!"

There was some disturbance at the channel narrows, a perturbation of silted water over the shoal, the "knuckle" that the brig left as she wore off, perhaps from the splashes of their gunfire. Proteus was turning well before it, though, easing the set of her sails and yards to run with the wind a bit more astern, still fairly flat on her keel, with her batteries still run out or run in.

"Bless me, we're right astern, within a half-mile of her!" Mr. Winwood rejoiced. "And well shy of the shoal, it appears."

Lewrie tried hard not to mock him, making his face stern, busy with his telescope. "Now, pepper her steady, Mister Langlie. Keep us pinched a tad closer to Thatch Cay, too. Nothing to loo'rd."

"Aye, sir. Quartermaster, half a point to weather, and nothing to loo'rd," Langlie parroted as the 6-pounders erupted again.

The brig was trying to pinch up, too, but not succeeding, since she sat heavy-laden and heeled a bit more to leeward than the frigate.

"Twelve fathom! Twelve fathom t'this line!" a leadsman cried.

Lewrie heaved a large but well-concealed whoosh! of relief at that news; though Thatch Cay and St. Thomas felt close enough to hit with a well-flung rock, before the channel began to widen. They were past the highest ground of Thatch Cay, the tall hill at its easternmost tip where the large fringe of sand shoals lay, so the winds could gust across more directly, without flukey diversions, and Proteus began to sing, striding up the brig's stern relentlessly.

"Quarter-mile range, sir. We could try the carronades, next!" Langlie hooted.

"Do so, sir. Grape-shot her masts and sails!" Lewrie agreed.

With his glass he could espy her after-guard, officers and mates gathered on her small quarterdeck, looking aft, gawping and pointing at him. Two gun-ports were open in her taff-rail bulwark, and men sweated and heaved to ready a pair of stern-chasers, whilst others gesticulated and most-like swore-a great many mouths were open and a fair number of fists were being shaken at them, at any rate.

The brig's guns fired at last, before his own bow-chasers and starboard carronade-the one not blocked by jibs-could. Roundshot came keening down the deck to starboard, sending everyone on the gangways flat on their faces; the second ball thrummed past the hull to larboard, almost close enough to peel paint, but struck far astern in a series of skip-splashes.

"As you bear… fire!"

The 6-pounders, with quoins jammed well in, yelped, and the carronade, aimed higher, let out a stentorian belch of smoke and flames. Two roundshot ravaged the brig's stern, shattering transom boards and windows, while the grape-shot in the carronade struck higher, shredding the spanker gaff-boom and the bare cro'jack yard above it, tearing chunks from the main-top, making those already-weakened starboard ratlines and shrouds ripple as sinuously as a crawling snake, her upper topmast canting to leeward of a sudden.

"Under a cable, now, sir!" Midshipman Grace crowed, hopping on his toes in glee.

"Mister Devereux," Lewrie said. "One file of Marines and sharpshooters to the forecastle, and clear her quarterdeck by fire when you think you have the range." By God if they weren't sailing right up her stern, almost ready to jab their jib-boom over her helmsmens' heads!

The westernmost spit of Thatch Cay passed abeam to starboard; from a quick peek at the chart still pinned to the traverse board, Lewrie could see that the safe channel bent due West for a time, then sharply North. Mandai Point on Saint Thomas loomed upwards, 277 feet in the air, with shoals at its feet churning soapy-white foam where tide, current, and scend collided, long before the prettier breakers along the narrow beach. The brig must bear up for Hans Lollick Island, and deep water… though now without her spanker to balance her helm she could not. Did she try to close-reach, she'd wallow and dither, near the wind then off, like a wounded lizard's death-crawls.

Instead, Proteus steered up windward, while the brig sagged to leeward, the range closing even more, to within musket-shot, Proteus's larboard broadside up-wind of her on her starboard quarter.

"Mister Langlie!" Lewrie shouted. "Open the larboard ports and stand by to load!"

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