Dewey Lambdin - Sea of Grey

"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!"

The gun crews, the bulk of them frustrated 'til now, leapt for the tackles and tompions as the port lids hinged upward, baring inner paint in a row of stark red squares above her gunwale. Marine sharp-shooters and sailors with good eyes continued a spatter of musketry at the enemy's decks, making her helmsmen steer by squatting down below the bulwarks and craning up to steer by pendant and sail-set, instead of by compass, making the rest of her crew drop from sight.

A white cook's apron appeared over her starboard side, waved frantically. Men stood and waved arms and hats, shouting as loud as they could for mercy as those brutal 12-pounders' iron muzzles were trundled up to the ports to dip, rise, and slew left or right in aiming before a full broadside.

"We strike, damn you! We strike, don't fire, please!" someone in a cocked hat was howling. "Hold fire and we'll lower our colours, for God's sake, hold!"

Two or three cowering members of the after-guard rose up above the quarterdeck bulwarks and cut the halliard for the flag, that came fluttering down to trail in the water, even as others dared, after a moment or two without musket fire, to free braces and sheets, spilling the last wind from the brig's sails.

"Fetch-to, Mister Langlie, and get the last boat led round from astern. You will take the boarding party," Lewrie said. "Take Mister Pendarves the Bosun with you, and the rest of Mister Devereux's men."

"Aye, sir."

"Cargo manifests, ship's papers, and correspondence before all else, sir!" Lewrie urged. "Inspect the holds later. Quickly, man… before they ditch 'em or set 'em afire."

"A fair morning's work, Captain," Mr. Winwood was saying, now that the folderol and danger was past. "Two prizes before breakfast. And a passage through shoal waters that'll make them sit up and cheer back in London."

"We'll see, sir. We'll see," Lewrie cautioned. Though he did feel rather joysome, himself.

A present for you, Captain Lewrie," Lt. Devereux said after he had returned aboard and had taken the salute from the side-party. He held out a knitted wool sack that covered something long and narrow and over four feet long. He was beaming with secret delight.

"What the Devil?" Lewrie muttered aloud as he took hold of it, and felt the hidden object's hardness and leanness. Imagining that he knew what it might be, he stripped off the woolen cover as quick as a child might rip open a birthday present. "Oh, dear Lord, how lovely!"