Dewey Lambdin - A King`s Commander

It was a rare day, no error, a brilliant, glittering morning of bright-water winds, whitecaps and horses, the sea heaving and chopping in short, close-spaced waves, and the sirocco up from the south was a force one could almost lean into, a stout, clear-weather quarter-gale, deafening in his ears. A hat-snatcher of a wind into which HMS Jester pounded close-hauled, in pursuit of prey.

A clumsy old Provence bilander already lay far astern, a prize easily snatched up from the clutch of odd vessels assembled in convoy. No matter that she'd sported a massive lateen mains! on her after, or mainmast, the compromise of her foremast crossed with course, tops'l, and t'gallant yards, had made her slow to windward. Taken with but one warning shot fired cross her bows, and a long ten minutes of nail-biting frustration as a boat was gotten down, and a prize crew under Wheelock, the master's mate, rowed over to secure her. Then Jester was off once more, lumping and drumming into wind, spray flying high to either beam, with a bone in her teeth.

They'd spotted the convoy at dawn, on east-to-west patrol sixty miles north of Corsica; a gaggle of tartanes, bilanders and poleacres to their south. Lying-to, hardly moving, as if awaiting the coming of dusk before closing the coast in the wee hours, when they might stand a chance of sneaking past other patrol ships. Immediately, Jester had hardened up, beat to quarters, and taken off in pursuit. Now the motley collection of ships had become what were termed "Chases."

The nearest Chase, Mister Buchanon informed them, was a tartane, a single-masted coastal trading vessel with a fore-and-aft lateen mains'l and a bowsprit that allowed her to set jibs and staysls to go closer to the True Wind than Jester could ever hope to. She might have made an escape, outpointing them, if she'd been longer, or been less heavily laden. She merely ploughed along, burying her bows whenever she met the rolling chops, and flinging clouds of spray and foam over herself, as if trying to hide in it.

"Starboard foc'sle carronade!" Lewrie shouted to the gun deck. "One shot across her bows!" They'd overhauled her rapidly, striding up to within half a cable-120 yards-of her larboard side, as she labored to flee.

A sharp bark, a quickly dissipated bloom of smoke, sulfurously bitter and smelling of rotten eggs as it whipped past the quarterdeck, and then a great splash and pillar of spray as the ball struck short and a little to the right of "across her bows." Under them, was more like it. The eighteen-pounder round-shot, five inches and four parts across, caromed up from first graze like a goosed dolphin, smashed into the underside of the hapless tartane's bows, shattering the jib boom and bowsprit, amputating it just beyond the cutwater!

"Sofort! Jal" Quarter-gunner Rahl could be heard to exult as he saw the results of his handiwork. "Genau!" Exactly!

Without jibs to balance her helm, she sagged alee, veering away to starboard under the press of that great lateen sail and yard, showing her weeded quick-work as she heeled precipitously.

"Helm a'weather, Quartermaster! Ease us a point free!" Lewrie snapped, so Jester would surge up even with her, still on her larboard quarter, showing her there would be no escape. "Number one gun, ready!"

He waited until she rolled more upright, so he wouldn't lose her by putting a ball through her hull, too far below the waterline to be repaired. "No more warning shots, Mister Crewe. Show her we mean it."

A quick fiddle with the quoin for elevation, a tug on the side tackles, then the crew scrambling back from the line of recoil. Bang! the nine-pounder erupted. At 100 yards, the ball's strike was immediate, a crash of timbers, the squawk! of rivened wood as a star-shaped hole three feet across was blasted into her side, just before her mast, and the tartane shook and rolled alee once more to the impact. Then, down came her long lateen yard, crashing to the deck as halliards were cut, instead of handed. Eight or nine men-perhaps her entire crew-appeared at the rails, hands flailing, arms raised in prayerlike pleading, and jabbering away fit to bust in French!

"Mister Hyde, she's your prize, sir," Lewrie crowed. "Mister Tucker the quartermaster's mate, and six hands to go with you. Hoist what sail you may, once you've secured her crew, and follow along aft of us as best you're able. Take the jolly boat. Move yourself, sir! Mister Knolles, fetch us to, to lower away the boat."

Two prizes, already, and it had barely gone eight, he exulted. Why, we might take all of 'em, by the end of the forenoon! And not a single other sail in sight to share with! Any other British warship, with even her royals 'bove the horizon, "in sight" at the time that a prize surrendered, shared in the prize money adjudged by an Admiralty Court. This morning, Lewrie was feeling particularly greedy. Hungry for more than his break-fast!

'Sides, there's my bloody expenses to make good, he sighed, as the jolly boat was swung high off the cross-deck beams that spanned Jester's waist from gangway to gangway, even before she came to a full halt in a welter of foam and a calamitously windy din from aloft.

"Come on, come on, damn yer eyes!" he muttered under his breath at how long it was taking. Take in fore and main courses, so they'd not be torn; topmen aloft to trice up yard tackles with clew jiggers, hook on burton purchases from the tops to the yardarms, jump a triatic stay between the stay-tackle pendants, and send the falls to the deck; lift the jolly boat off the cross-deck beams that spanned the waist, with stay tackles; swing her outboard with the yard tackles, and six guy lines for preventers; then lower away together. Then, even before the boat crew was down overside, take in all the hoisting gear, which was in the way aloft, ungasket the course-sails and clew them full of air once more…!

His own gig was away to the bilander, with Andrews in charge of it. Now the jolly boat. There was only the one twenty-six-foot cutter left, which took eight hands to row, and one to steer. Only one more prize taken, before he ran out of conveyances for prize crews? he groaned. Surely, not!

"Cony!" He decided. "Half a cable's worth of messenger line to the jolly boat, as a painter. Once she's alongside the prize and empty, walk the painter aft and use it as a towline. We'll keep her with us!"

What seemed an hour later, they were off again, this time chasing what looked like an Egyptian dhow; high-pooped, two masts with lateen sails, a sweet curve to her sheerline, almost saucy-almost too cute to frighten. But a prize was a prize. Like the tartane, she was too short on the waterline to make any speed. But beyond…!

Spreading out now, hauling their wind to escape individually, all order gone, were three rather substantial, and rewarding-looking ships. One, the nearest, heading sou'west, and another pair farther off bearing sou'east, still almost in company, dodging away with the boisterous wind abeam. Three-masted poleacres, with lateen rigs upon their fore and mizzenmasts to take the place of spankers or jibs, but oddly, and downright gruesomely, square-rigged on their much taller mainmasts, with courses, tops'ls and t'gallants towering over their decks, as bastardly appearing as "hermaphrodite" brigs!

They fetched the dhow-looking coaster up to their starboard side in a brief quarter-hour. Up close, she was scarred, weathered, faded, and neglected, as stained and dull as an old dishcloth. She labored within close musket shot, about fifty yards off, her few crewmen stock-still and hangdog at the rails. No warning shot was even required!

Down came her lateen yards, collapsing those triangular ellipses to her decks, and Jester fetched-to once more. The jolly boat was led around to the entry port by its towline, and Midshipman Spendlove, with Quartermaster Spenser and six seamen, rowed over to take charge of her; the jolly boat hauled back to Jester afterward for further use.

"Hardly seems worth the effort, Captain," Lieutenant Knolles remarked, laughing in scornful appraisal. "A dowdy old tub, she is."

"Well, let's hope she's a decent cargo aboard, to pay for our efforts, Mister Knolles." Lewrie shrugged. "Mains! haul, and let's be going."

Now their problem was that of a single staghound that had come across an entire herd of deer-which to pursue next. The nearest to them was running due west by then, about two miles off. The other two poleacres had fallen off the wind to east-sou'east, were closer together, but had at least another mile lead on Jester before she got back to full speed of nearly eleven knots.

"Mister Buchanon?" Lewrie called to his sailing master.

"Aye, sir?"

"Those two masters yonder know something we don't, sir? Current around the east'rd of Corsica?" Lewrie inquired. "Seems silly, to run east-sou'east, closer to the Bastia peninsula."

"North-set current, Cap'um, aye," Buchanon agreed, pointing to a chart. "Runs up past Cape Corse, 'tween 'ere an' th' Isle of Capraia… an' in shallower water, too. Nought t'dread, 'tis deep enough even for a 1st Rate, but… do they get into its… fan, I s'pose, an' with this southerly wind, 'ey'll fly like a pair o' pigeons. One an' a half, mayhap two knots, more, 'ey'd gain."

"If they may weather Cape Corse!" Lewrie intuited, at once. The poleacres had run far enough south, within forty or so miles of Corsica, that flight in that direction could come to an end, hemmed in by bluffs and shoals. If they stayed somewhat on the wind, as they still were.

"Sir, starboard Chase is altering course!" Knolles cried out to warn them.

Inexplicably, the nearest poleacre had come about to the starboard tack, as if suicidally intent upon making Calvi, after all, and arriving in late afternoon-broad daylight! Even as close-hauled as she lay to the eyes of the wind, she'd cross ahead of Jester' s present course. Or, their courses would meet, like the two upright legs of a triangle, and Jester, of course, would shoot her to rags, and then take her.

"Mister Knolles, ready about! Stations for Stays!" Lewrie said with a wry smile. "We'll come to starboard tack. Make our new course east by south."

"Aye aye, sir," Knolles replied automatically, though sounding quizzical. "Mister Porter, pipe hands to Stations for Stays. Ready to come about!"

"Only a purblind fool'd come about like 'at, Cap'um," Buchanon opined. "Meanin' her, yonder, sir, d'ye understand, no disrespect…"

"My thoughts, exactly, Mister Buchanon," Lewrie agreed with a soft laugh. "Remind you of a mother goose, leading the stoat away from her hatchlings?"

"Flaggin' th' broken wing, aye, Cap'um."

"That pair to the east'rd, they're hoping to get away. This'un might be their leader. A merchant poleacre, yes. But perhaps carrying a French naval officer aboard. As short of ships as they are, it might even be a well- armed poleacre, servin' as escort. It'd be a criminal waste to send these poor vessels out to resupply Calvi without at least one warship. I'll wager that pair has the valuable cargo."

"Ready about, sir," Knolles reported.

"Very well, Mister Knolles. Tack the ship about."

Half an hour on starboard tack, floating almost without visible effort, now, across the seas, on a close reach with the winds nearly on her beam-Striding closer and closer to those two poleacres, who were forced by her presence, and the threat of the so-far unseen Cape Corse to haul their wind even farther, steer due east to try and heat Jester to that underwater river of current that would speed them back up north to the French Riviera coast, where they'd come from.