Dewey Lambdin - THE GUN KETCH

Caroline lengthened as she turned off north in the narrow and shoal-lined channel. Her gun ports flew open. Inexplicably, instead of running, Finney was going to fight it out!

"Eight side guns to our five, I make it, sir," Ballard pointed out after studying their foe with a spyglass. "Nine-pounders, no less."

"For what we're about to receive," Lewrie nodded, muttering me old saw, "may the good Lord make us grateful."

Caroline opened fire, her starboard side erupting in a gush of brownish-gray powder smoke shot through with stabs of quick, hot flame. Alacrity seemed to shudder in fear to the rising moan of round-shot on the air before she was struck, and rose a little on the scend of the sea, as if holding her breath in dread anticipation. A nine-pounder ball struck forward near the larboard anchor cathead, turning part of the bulwarks to flying splinters. Another fell short but skipped over the water to thud home deep in her lower hull amidships, and the sea around her was flayed with close misses, crashing up spray like the breaching of whales.

"On the up-roll… fire!" Fowles screamed. The broadside roared out, and Caroline's rigging jerked and twitched. Her foremast and jibs collapsed, broken off twenty feet above the deck, and she ploughed up a furrow of foam as she lost speed in the blink of an eye.

"Got him, dammit!" Lewrie hooted. "Solid shot, Mister Fowles!"

They were out of Five-Fathom Hole, running hard due north for the inner side of the Charleston Bar, with Charleston Light and The Beacon abeam and to leeward, Caroline just a little ahead of Alacrity, and not four cables' range-800 yards away, and in the best killing zone for six-pounders.

Caroline fired again, her second broadside more ragged than the first, unable to match the taut discipline of naval gunnery. Alacrity leapt under their feet as another shot hulled her, as a ball struck her forward on the gunwale. With shrieks, two more sailed overhead, close to the deck, stunning people with their shock waves.

"Hull her, Mister Fowles!" Lewrie shouted, feeling the lust for blood rising in his veins. "Serve her hot and fast, lads!"

God help me, but this is bloody marvelous, he thought; rejoicing in the hot, satanic reek of powder smoke, the ringing thunder of guns! I must be daft, but this is what I do truly love as much as life!

The broadside crashed out, round-shot hammering home into the soft Abaco pine of Caroline's hull. Lighter and less forgiving than good Kentish oak, they punched great, ragged holes into her, her timbers and scantling planking screaming and winging away from each strike, even as she continued to fire, her guns lighting up throughout, her masts and remaining sails wiggling in pain above the smoke clouds.

Iron crashed into Alacrity, men screamed as they were plucked backwards by splinters of wood or broken metal. Seamen writhed about on the deck, suddenly legless, pierced by jagged arrows of oak, blood reeking in the morning like liquid copper. Loblolly boys tried to tend them, even as Fowles, Woods the gunner's mate, and the captains of each artillery piece thumped and lashed the lucky to keep firing, to keep swabbing out, to keep covering the vents while swabbing so the touchhole did not burn out, for the powder monkeys to keep arriving with their fireproof cylinders of powder bags, to keep ramming powder and shot down the hungry barrels, to stand it like men and strain on the tackles to run out, aim, and fire.

Back the guns leapt, carriages hopping like crippled toads in the air to stutter on their trucks, the decks shuddering with every cruel impact, the guns slewing at the extent of the breeching ropes. Belching explosions of powder gushed from the muzzles, and ears ached with so much noise, ears bled with so much torture; ears would sing for days afterwards, and some hands would be deafened for life, yet think themselves lucky if that was all they suffered this day.

"Cover yer vents! Sponge out! Overhaul the run-out tackle!" Caroline stood on north, with Alacrity directly abeam of her now, as her rigging draped in tatters about her, almost lost in powder smoke rolling down onto her like a Channel fog. Shot howled in the air like witches, raised great feathers of spray alongside, thudded into her side. One passed just over the larboard bulwarks and flew out to sea, not touching a thing, a black streak at the corner of the eye, and two waisters on the gangway fell dead, their hearts stopped by the shock of its passage.

"Charge yer guns! Shot yer guns! Grape atop ball! Run out yer guns, and overhaul them tackles! Prime yer locks!"

"Keep pinching us up, Mister Neill," Lewrie told his helmsmen. "Keep closing the range."

"Aye, aye, sir," Neill replied, and shared a look with Mr. Early, the quartermaster's mate who had been promoted to replace Mr. Burke. Early took a look at the compass binnacle for the new course, then at the faint smudges on the deck where Burke had bled to death, which had yet to come up in two weeks' holystoning, and almost swallowed his cud of tobacco.

"Cock yer locks! 'Twixt wind an' water, lads! On the up-roll… fire!" Fowles howled, looking like an angry Moses come down with the tablets, his mouth open in a rictus of a smile.

The broadside exploded outwards, long tongues of quick pink and amber flames and sparks following the smoke and the iron, and Caroline wailed in torment as the weight of round-shot ripped her vitals.

"We're almost on the Charleston Bar, sir!" Fellows shouted in Lewrie's ear. "We'll be aground, the very next minute!"

"So will she, Mister Fellows," Alan shouted back. "But are we yet within range of Fort Johnston, or Moultrie?"

"No way to say, sir, in all this smoke."

"Then maybe there's no way for their gunners to say if we are or not, either. For all this smoke," Lewrie grinned. "Wear ship to larboard. Steer due west to miss the bar. Mister Ballard, starboard battery. We'll bear off west and rake her."

Alacrity delivered one more smashing broadside at less than two cables' range, then spun about on her heels to sail away from danger, pointing her jib boom due west at Fort Johnston. Once in clear air, they could see the flags flying on the fort, and the thin trails of smoke from the furnaces, where shot was being heated for the heavy thirty-two- and forty-two-pounder artillery should they get within range.

"Well, damme, look at that!" Rodgers exclaimed, pointing at Caroline. "Just do look at that, the clever, lying hound!"

Upon Caroline's mizzen, nailed to the mast above the gaff, asthe halyards had been shot away, was the striped red and white banner with the starred blue canton of an American flag!

"As you bear… fire!" Fowles called to his starboard gunners, delirious and uncaring, drunk on the power of his artillery. Alacrity heeled over to the broadside. The range was a little over a cable, and Caroline came apart under the shock of their fire. Her elegantly oval transom caved in, the transom plate below her taffrails which bore her name was shattered to matchwood and gilt The mizzenmast bearing the false flag was shot clean off just above the quarter-deck by shot, one which slew everyone on the tiller in passing. It stumped forward as it fell, off the quarter-deck and onto the lower deck, then cried over the larboard side. And a moment later, Caroline ran aground on Charleston Bar, her bows leaping upwards like a dolphin, heeling over so far on her starboard side she put her gun ports in the water, and her last middle-mast fracturing and falling forward and to starboard!

"Cease fire, Mister Fowles! Drop it, she's a dead 'un!" Lewrie called out. "Mister Ballard, put us about, quick as you can, back out to sea. Fetch-to soon as Mister Fellows determines we're legally outside the Yankee gun-range. Mister Harkin? Ship's boats over the side. We will board the wreck. Mister Odrado and Warwick to lead the boarding party."

"Uhm, they both be dead, sir," Harkin had to report. "Christ," Lewrie spat. "Damme, we'll miss 'em. Select whom you will, then, Mister Harkin."

"Aye, aye, sir."

Well, we'll miss Odrado, him and his guitar, Alan thought; ship's corporals were never loved-feared, damn' right, but never loved, and Warwick was half a brute. Kept good order, though.

"Sir!" Parham called, pointing over the side. "Sir, there's a cutter putting out for us from shore. From Fort Moultrie, sir. Flag of truce in the stern-sheets."

"Uhm, Commander Rodgers, as senior officer present, perhaps ' you might be best in dealing with the Yankee officials, sir?" Alan hinted. "I'll go aboard the wreck and arrest the survivors."

"Thankee, Lieutenant Lewrie," Rodgers sneered heavily, fiddling at his uniform and sword. "Now we've created an international incident, why thankee most kindly! Let me know what evidence ya find. We'll be needin' a power of it, an' that soon. Fetch me Finney, if he lives. Least we can have somethin' t'show for it."

"Aye, aye, sir."

"Ah go wit' ya, Cap'um, sah," John Canoe insisted, shoving his way into the boat at the last minute by Cony in the stern of the gig.

"Boat's full, Canoe," Lewrie snapped.

"Dot boat full o' Chawlst'n men, sah," Canoe pleaded. "Ah don' wanna see 'um, sah.!"

"Whyevernot?"

"Dis w'ar ah 'scape f um, Cap'um, sah. Mebbe one 'o dem 'spys me, dey take me bock, sah."

"You paddled from South Carolina?" Lewrie goggled.

"Down t'Flo'da, sah," Canoe grinned. "An' dem come lak a free mon wit' dot Colonel Deveaux. Oh, no, sah, even ah don't paddle canoe all de way t'de Bahamas, no sah!"

"You're a free black Ordinary Seaman in His Majesty's Royal Navy, Canoe," Lewrie promised. "No one's taking you anywhere. Oh, sit down. Cony, shove off!"

"Thankee, sah," Canoe grunted, taking a place on a midship seat between oarsmen. "Thankee."

Caroline was a total ruin. Rigging, sails, halyards and sheets lay in messy profusion on her decks, decks quilled with splinters and bulging upwards in star-shaped cavities where masts had spiraled out of the keel-wedges, where entering shot had ruptured her. Thin smoke rose from smouldering canvas where powder charges had burst or burned, where hot metal barrels had seared sails. Her artillery had been shot free to roll down to the starboard side, crushing gunners into pasty, broken mannequins splashed with gore so freely it looked as if some lunatic had run amok with bar-ricoes of red lead paint. Bodies lay sprawled on every hand; broken, quilled, dismembered, disemboweled.

Wounded cried piteously, dragging themselves over the decks and leaving slug-tracks of blood. Those hale were busy binding up those they could; or drinking with single-minded purpose from scuttled kegs of rum. Dozens of wine bottles rolled in the scuppers, already empty, and a buccaneer sat on the midships cargo hatchway gratings, shouting and weaving with a bottle in each hand, drunk as a lord, with the stump of his shattered leg sticking straight out in front of him.

"Where's Finney?" Lewrie asked.

"Woy, 'iz lordship's aft, Admiral," the wounded buccaneer cackled and hawked up phlegm to spit. "An' bad cess t'the brainless bugger, sez oy! Haw! Aft in 'iz great-cabins!"

"Tend to that man," Lewrie ordered. "Let's go, Cony… Canoe."He stepped down into the well which held the short ladder into the great-cabin hatchway. The door had been shot away by ball. Lewrie drew his sword, and Canoe and Cony backed him up with cutlasses and a pistol each.

Aft past the first mate's cabin, the chart-space, and into the master's cabins, pushing the door open with the tip of his blade, to peer inside, and gasp in awe.