Dewey Lambdin - Sea of Grey

"Somewhat close, sir," Winwood mournfully lowed; their Sailing Master was an impossible sobersides, and would not recognise a jape if it kicked him in the crutch. "And there is the matter of Danish sovereignty, Captain. Within the three-mile limit, inside which we at this very moment stand, we have no jurisdiction."

"Does Denmark have a frigate in these waters, sir?" Lewrie shot back. "Any forts outside Charlotte Amalie, with more than a corporal's guard to man a few rusty guns?"

"I have not heard of such reinforcements, sir."

"Then bugger 'em," Lewrie decided. "Ah! We're nigh to the west end of Norman Island. We'll be able to see deep into Coral Bay within a minute or two."

"Sail ho! Deck, there!" a foremast lookout cried, dancing with delight on the narrow cross-trees. " 'Cross the point! Two sail standin' outta the bay! Two points off the starboard bows!"

Lewrie sprang forward along the starboard gangway to the break of the forecastle in his eagerness, his expression joyous and wolfish, creating excitement in the hands he passed, in those clustered below on the gun-deck. Perhaps it was "uncaptainly" to show feelings, exciting people for nothing, especially if he could not deliver, but he could not help himself.

He raised his glass. It was that magical, dim time of the dawn before the sun was truly up and everything was soft twilight, the sea and clouds and sky pearly blue-grey, the isles and cays muted and dark. Against that background, two dark hulls stood out starkly, their sails ghostly white, before sunrise revealed them to be a weary and stained tan. There was a large schooner, and a chunkier, dowdier brig or snow, both bound Sou'west, just clear of Leduck Island and headed out as if to pass Ram Head, and not three miles off! And their flags…!

One was French, the schooner; the brig was a Yankee.

First out of his mouth was a loud whoop, followed by orders he shouted back to the quarterdeck through cupped hands. "Mister Langlie, hands aloft to set t'gallants and shake out the reefs in the courses! Mister Winwood, steer direct for Ram Head and cut them off!"

He whirled back to face the two suspicious vessels again, experience juggling courses and possible speeds. The schooner and brig had the initial advantage, almost completely exposed to the Nor'east Trade wind, but were deep up the bay. Was Proteus partially masked from the full force of the morning winds, she could deploy thousands more square feet of sail more quickly, and her waterline was longer; slower to accelerate, but once she had a bone in her teeth she'd be the fastest off the wind.

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.