C H A P T E R 1 0

Signal is down, sir!” Spendlove shouted.

“Maintain course, Quartermaster,” Lewrie ordered. “And God help the French. It’s going to be a lovely day. What little joy of it they’ll have. Buggered ’em, by God!”

“If only we were in on the buggering, sir.” Knolles laughed.

It was, indeed, a lovely morning, for late August in the Ligurian Sea. There was a noticeable swell, now and then the hint of some foamy chop to the folding wave tops, and a decently brisk breeze for a change. All under a brilliant blue sky, wisped with benign clouds.

Fremantle’s Inconstant led, breaking away westward, accompanied by the Tartar brig to cover the westernmost small town of Languelia, in the Bay of Alassio. Meleager and Speedy went more easterly, to tackle one of the warships at anchor, what looked to be a French corvette. While Nelson in Agamemnon, being handled like a frigate instead of a tired sixty-four-gunner, Southampton and Ariadne charged directly for the clutch of merchant ships.

Jester stood on, tail end of the informal battle line that had approached the coast, to remain offshore as the seaward guard for the rest, as they achieved their victory. She stayed on course, alone.

“’Least we’ll be in-sight, sir,” Buchanon grumbled. “Share in the take.”

“There is that, Mister Buchanon,” Lewrie smirked. “Though, we could wait till hell freezes over before the Prize Courts approve those shares. Easy money, today. Ah, well.”

No sign of Guillaume Choundas, either, Lewrie was more than happy to note, which partly explained his sense of content. Rumor had it that “Le Hideux” had a corvette as his flagship, and there were two of them anchored in Alassio Bay this moment, caught napping and facing the heavier twelve-pounder guns of Southampton, Inconstant, and Meleager, those crushing heavy guns aboard Agamemnon ’s lower deck. If he was there in Alassio Bay, and someone else stopped his business, then . . . Facing the wily Frenchman, who’d had the Devil’s own luck, was someone else’s joy, and Lewrie wished them well of it. Ever since Twigg had come aboard with his disturbing news, Lewrie had felt a distinct twanging of nerves.

Only sheer, dumb luck had saved Lewrie’s bacon in the Far East, when he’d gone up against Choundas before; only desperate derringdo, and neck-or-nothing chance had kept him alive. Why, the bastard would have slain me, if I hadn’t kicked him in the “wedding tackle,” Lewrie thought with a queasy feeling. Could one divide a single second . . . that was how close he had been to being spitted on the man’s sword! A normal foe, now . . . but Choundas? Again? he shivered. Sorry, but the Navy don’t pay anyone near enough to tackle that clever fiend!

He raised his telescope to watch, glad to be an observer, as the squadron stood into the bay, creating as much confusion and fear aboard the French convoy as a fox might among the chickens. His lips curled in silent delight. They’d made it to Alassio, the destination Twigg and Drake had discovered; dropped their “hooks” and prepared to carry their cargoes ashore, certain that the British squadron was far away to the west. On that shore, he could see tiny antlike figures in the dark blue-and-white uniforms of the French Army, the colors adopted from their old second-line National Guard. Thousands of Frogs, foot, horse, and perhaps some light artillery. Rather a lot of cavalry, he surmised; or draught animals assembled to tow the heavy wagons that the convoy’s goods would have filled?

Cannon fire, now; blooms of smoke staining the oaken sides of Agamemnon and the rest. Even upwind, the slamming and drumming boom of artillery was lung-rattling. Some scattered return fire from shore, or from the armed ships that had escorted them in. For show, Lewrie thought smugly; a broadside or two so their captains could claim that resistance had been offered, but then . . .

Neither of the French corvettes appeared to be trying to hoist sail, or save their anchors. The dull glint of iron upon their forecastles. Cutting cable? Yet, so slowly, so raggedly.

“He’s not here,” Lewrie muttered, lowering his glass, and gnawing on the lining of his mouth in disappointment that Choundas had not been caught with his trousers down. And worry. That he was still out there, somewhere. And that Twigg would arrange for him to fight him.

“Damme, I could have thought . . .”

“Let this be a lesson to you, Hainaut,” Le Hideux grumbled, as he awkwardly paced his quarterdeck in bleak fury, “Never believe what is offered to you too easily.”

“Citizen Pouzin thought it was authentic, so . . .” the lanky midshipman shrugged. He looked a little better. The British had been so good as to present him with a pair of slop trousers, which fit better than his old castoff breeches. A gift, that civilian clerk had told him.

“Ah, Citizen Pouzin, oui. ” Choundas scowled, lifting the good corner of his mouth in a brief grin. “So easily gulled, that one. I will make sure Paris knows of his gullibility. Should he have gotten the timing wrong, we sail for nothing. But, if this is a ploy to expose the convoy, then he will pay for it.”

So many places to cover: Nice, San Remo, Cagnes, Antibes, and Cannes. Martin had yet to send him his needed ships, so he could not hope to cover them all. Nor hope to stand out to sea, but not so far out that he could not espy signal fires to alert him where the British might strike. Nor hope to confront them in equal combat, ship against ship, either.

He glanced at Hainaut, wondering . . .

Never believe what is offered me too easily, either, Guillaume Choundas frowned. So quickly exchanged, bearing his cunningly gathered information about the British squadron. And the greatest news of all! That Jester, and that bastard Lewrie who’d maimed him, were one and the same!

When the British did not appear on the horizon, where he’d been assured they would, he’d begun to fret. First in anger, that a chance for revenge was delayed, that he’d have to wait to capture Jester, and carve her smirking bastard Englishman into stew meat, as he had lusted to do these past nine years! So close at hand, yet . . . !

Anger had cooled, replaced by trepidation; that he’d been told a lie, a cunning English lie, that someone was in league with them and had passed the lie on. Who would wish him humiliated? Pouzin? Yes, that could be it. He’d seemed so anxious to know the date of sailing, so he could make his arrangement, he’d said, but that could have been his way of getting what he needed to know, which he’d told the enemy! There might never have been a smuggled letter from Genoa, at all! It could have been Pouzin’s fabrication.

Alan Lewrie, though, Choundas fumed in silence, clump-shuffling about the deck, oblivious for once to his crippled state. Lieutenant Alan Lewrie . . . Commander Alan Lewrie . . . Lewrie, Lewrie, Lewrie. Hate him! In the days since Hainaut had returned with that startling revelation of who his foe was, how close he was to vengeance, that name and what he wished to do to the person bearing that name had become almost a litany, like what he had once mumbled in rote duty over rosary beads.

But now, at sea, where a cooler head could prevail, he had begun to wonder about the timing of that revelation. Why now? Just before a convoy, a vitally important convoy . . .

It was late August, almost September. Soon, the weather would turn, the gales arise, cutting seaborne supplies by half, even without a British squadron on the Riviera. The first snows would fall in those mountain passes, and soldiers of both sides would go into winter quarters, unable to wage war until spring, bogged or snowbound.

To use me, he sneered, at last, when a blinding epiphany struck! To delude me, disarm me . . . to blind me with the brightness of revenge! Someone on the opposing side, someone incalculably clever, had revealed this to me, through Hainaut and perhaps even through Pouzin. Waiting, watching . . . being fed information by traitors and greedy shop clerks . . . biding his time until this could be used against me.

La Vengeance now stood on East, racing with every scrap of canvas spread aloft, bounding and soaring, cleaving foam with a sibilant, spiteful hiss, like an adder aroused and dangerous, warning everything in sight to get out of striking distance. She stood on alone, though. The rest of his patchwork squadron was too weak, too slow, too thin-scantlinged for what she might discover. The winds had not been that good, the last few days; the convoy and escort force could still be caught up, if they’d found scant winds or foul. There was a chance that Capitaine de Fregate Bayard, the too-handsome beast, would use his innate cleverness, and put in each night in a snug harbor, not daring an evening passage on the open sea. Would he be that clever? Choundas devoutly wished. One of the rare ones, clever and pretty, was Bayard.

Yet, how many tiny seaports had they passed, getting closer to Alassio, and no sign of them. It didn’t mean that they were really a target, Choundas could tell himself. Perhaps the British didn’t know of their presence. That everything would turn out fine.

Diano, to larboard and now astern. Only a few miles more, once around the headland that formed the spine of the western heights of the Bay of Alassio. No sign of any enemy warships further out to sea. A thought did cross his mind, that it was a trap; that whoever that very clever fellow was in the British camp, they’d passed the tale, knowing he would do this—rush to the scene, to assure himself. It made the right sort of sense, to Choundas. Who was more important to the war effort than he? With all modesty, he could not think of anyone else whose loss would do more harm to the cause of the Revolution. It was not hubris, that awareness; it was merely his studied opinion, after coolly weighing the facts, and the rest of the participants. Lewrie. Would Lewrie be there? Would anyone? As bait, or . . .

“Artillery!” sang out a watch officer. “I hear gunfire!”

“Hé, merde!” Choundas groaned, biting his lip in anguish. “Sail ho!” Sang out the foremast lookout. “Dead on the bow!”

He could hear it himself, now. Stuttering. Dull brumbles. A single flat bark. An irregular cannonading, around the headlands. His convoy! The “L’Anglais”—the “Bloodies”—were in Alassio Bay!

“Sail is ship-rigged!” the lookout cried again. “Standing out to sea . . . larboard tack!”

“Her flag!” Choundas howled aloft, cupping his hands.

“Corvette!” the lookout shouted. “Warship!”

“Her flag! Her damned flag!” Choundas screeched again.

“C’est l’Anglais!”

“Timonier, helm down a point, alee,” Choundas snapped, turning clumsily. “Close-haul to windward. Brail up courses, and chain-sling the yards. We will fight her. Drum us to Action!”

“Sail ho!”

“Where, away?”

“ One point off th’ star -b’d bows!”

Lewrie scaled the mizzen shrouds on the starboard side, telescope in hand, so he could see for himself. A ship, a proper ship, he thought; not one of those lateen-rigged locals. She was bows-on to Jester, aiming directly at her under a press of sail, flinging a great mustache of sea foam about her forefoot and cutwater, her arrogantly thrust bowsprit and jib boom cocking up and down as she rocked. No more than a league to leeward, standing on nor’east close-hauled, and about four miles offshore. The strange ship’s courses, tops’ls, t’gallants, and royals were cusped to the wind, their leaches almost edge-on to him.

Something diff’rent, though . . . ? Even as he watched, the greater drum-taut billow astern of her fore-course went slack, winging out alee.

“Brailing up her main course!” Lewrie shouted down to his deck officers. “To fight! She’s a French warship! Mister Bittfield, run out the starboard battery, now! Hoist signal, ‘Enemy in Sight’!”

He clambered down, to hop the last three feet to the quarterdeck and stride to the nettings overlooking the waist. He lifted his glass again. Should Jester stand on, she’d keep the wind gauge above the foe, but allow her to slip astern. That French ship . . . a frigate, perhaps? . . . was as close to the wind as she could lie, already, and would slide aft as she stood on. Unless she tacked and bore away south to offer battle.

Has to be a frigate, Alan frowned; a lesser ship’d haul her wind and not be confident of the outcome. But she’s so close inshore . . . I think I like her there. I allow her to tack out to deeper water, she’s all the maneuvering room in the world, then. Aye, stand on as we are, for a bit more, but then haul our wind and wear down to her. Then, if her captain feels he’s trapped himself, he’ll have to come about, tack ’cross the wind. But I’ll still have the wind gauge of her. And rake her, bows-on to me and helpless. She’d have to haul away west . . . ?

“Brail up the main course, Mister Porter. Rig out the boarding nets. Loose, sloppy bights, mind.” Lewrie smiled. “Quartermaster . . . half a point to weather.”

Without the force of the main course, Jester slowed, sailing off the wind toward the sou’west, the beginnings of a Levanter, an easterly, on her larboard quarters. Altering course, making it more of a run downwind, which took away the apparent wind, making her seem slower still as she moved no faster than the breeze itself.

“Full-rigged ship, right enough, Captain,” Mister Knolles stated. “Small frigate, or large corvette . . . about our equal?”

“Unless she’s a thirty-two-gun frigate, with twelve-pounders, Mister Knolles,” Alan speculated with a cautious growl. “Two points off our bow, and a mile nearer. She’ll shave the western headland by at least two miles, should she stand on as she is.”

He cast a glance to Jester ’s rear, back toward the bay that lay off her starboard quarter. Surely, there was enough noise coming from there, enough high-piled rags of gun smoke, to tell this Frenchman that there were other British ships about. He rather doubted that she’d be foolish enough to go much further east than the headland’s tip, or risk being trapped between Jester and the rest of the squadron’s guns.

“Let her slide aft to about . . . four points, almost but not quite abeam before we wear, Mister Knolles,” Lewrie decided aloud. “Perhaps half a point less than four. Then she’ll be between . . .” He felt the urge to snicker, “ between Jester and the Deep-Blue Sea! Let’s prepare. Hands to Stations for Wearing Ship.”

“Aye aye, sir. Mister Porter?” Lieutenant Knolles bellowed, causing a stir, a chorus of piping, a stampede of bare horny feet.

“ Three point off th’ star- b’d bows!” a lookout cried over that preparatory din, as hands hauled taut on braces and sheets.

“Tacking!” another lookout shouted, followed by the others in a reedy chorus of alarm.

“Avast, Mister Knolles!” Lewrie snapped, countering the order. “Quartermaster, up your helm. Course, due west. Ease her onto a run, wind fine on the larboard quarter!”

It was just possible that the Frenchman had the slant, around the headland’s tip, to see all he wished to see, and had spotted the powder palls, perhaps one or two more British warships. The French ship came about across the eye of the wind, slowing and luffing, beginning to present her larboard side to Jester.

“Well-handled, sir,” Buchanon noted with professional interest. “None o’ ’at lubberly cock-billin’ an’ floggin’ you’d expect.”

“Aye, she is, Mister Buchanon.” Lewrie frowned, feeling a sudden foreboding. A taut ship’s company, a rarity among the Frogs, from what they’d seen so far, A captain who acted with alacrity, and pugnacious aggressiveness; an eagerness, it seemed, for a stand-up fight. Another rarity, that. The Frenchman had come about due south, close-hauled hard on the wind once more, as if to claw himself up and take the wind gauge from Jester. Less than two miles away now, but they were approaching each other quickly.

“Mister Knolles, we’ll harden up a mite. Quartermaster, put yer helm alee. Lay her head west-sou’west. Leadin’ wind, sir.”

“Seed ’er afore, sir!” Seaman Rushing, high aloft on the foremast cried. “Corvette! Toulon, there!”

Aye, it was the pretty corvette that had fired the insolent challenge off Cape Sepet. Lewrie eyed her in his glass. What had they determined . . . twenty, or twenty-two guns? French eight-pounders, more’n like. Which were the equal of his, rated as nine-pounders. Her pale golden-yellow upperworks had gone to seed since, she’d faded and dulled, turned darker as more linseed, tar, or paint had been slapped on to control the ravages of exposure. Her white gunwale was still bright, though, and the black chain wale . . .

“Damme!” Lewrie shivered, lowering his telescope. Feeling real fear at the prospect of a fight for the first time, instead of the taut nervousness he usually experienced; the nervousness that had almost come to be a high-strung, but manageable, alertness. “Poisson D’or!”

“Sir?” Knolles queried. “You know her, Captain?”

“Just like his old ship . . .” Alan muttered, feeling as shuddery and weak as he usually did after a fight was ended. He slammed the telescoping tubes of his glass together, striving to disguise the trembles in his fingers. Painted, tarted-up just like his old . . . It was him!

“No, Mister Knolles,” Lewrie told him, trying for a grim amusement. “But I think I know her captain. We’re in for a real scrap.”

He looked astern again, back into the Bay of Alassio. Had any ship read his hoist yet, come about to sail out to aid him? It didn’t look like it. Jester was on her own against the Devil, Choundas!

Think, he warned himself; what’ll he do! Once we close to gun range, I can go close-hauled, upwind of him, headed south. Else he’s a chance to bow-rake us. He’s French, he’ll fire high. Chain-shot . . . multiple bar-shot to take our rigging down and cripple us. He wears, he exposes his stern to my guns. He tacks again, though, after first broadsides . . . it’d be our stern wide open to raking! What to expect? He was always so clever, so beastly good at it, unpredictable . . .

“It’s her, Capitaine! ” Hainaut exclaimed. “Jester!”

“Then God is good to us.” Guillaume Choundas nodded, his caricature of a human face made even fiercer by a smile of feral pleasure. “Sextant, Hainaut,” Capitaine Choundas demanded. Lewrie’s Jester had once been French; he could measure the height of her mastheads above the sea and determine when his guns might reach.

“Not quite yet.” He sighed with impatience, willing himself to wait. But soon, my brutal English beast. Soon!

So swaggering, that Lewrie, so conceited and cocksure of just how gently life should treat the handsome and well-formed, the landed aristocracy—the son of a British knight. Money, servants, the best schools . . . best of everything. Dissolute, a randy rabbit, and a wag, he’d learned of him; thought himself infinitely clever, those informers’ reports told him once he’d regained access to Ministry of Marine files after ’89, so he could begin seeking his tormentor. But never quite as clever as he believed. Again, just like the English, who depended upon Luck, Fate, and breeding to “muddle through,” instead of applying themselves diligently. They threw money at problems, as if that would keep them safe, hired others to do their dirty work, like dismissing pregnant household servant girls. Never really tried in the fire, never . . .

A bit more, and his guns would reach at extreme elevation, with mast-damaging shot, he concluded. A precious minute more in which to enjoy the taste of success at meeting him face to face.

Stand on, my dim-witted beast, stand on, pretty one! Be so very English, and expect me to be conveniently clumsy, like the other shop clerks. Do you know who you face, yet? This time, I will beat you!

“Ready, about!” Lewrie cried, of a sudden, after long thought.

“ Give her the wind gauge, sir?” Knolles wondered.

“Damn the wind gauge, sir!” Lewrie roared. “Stations to Wear! Mister Bittfield, double-shot the larboard battery now, for later.”

He was too fearful, covering it with bluster, too impatient and edgy with frightful expectations of the unexpected. He had to do something, even if it was wrong. Besides, wearing Jester north would sail her back to the headland, able to flee into the bay should Guillaume Choundas cripple her aloft. And it would force Choundas to maneuver, might upset the careful aim of his gunners with their first broadside of disabling shot.

“Hands at stations, sir . . . hauled taut,” Knolles reported. “Mile and a bit, I make it,” Lewrie muttered, twining fingers nervously, rocking on his feet, unable to stand stolid. “A long shot, but . . . his and ours. Mister Bittfield, we’ll engage with the starboard battery, at extreme elevation!”

“Ready, sir!” the master gunner replied, sounding as dubious as his first officer.

“Mile, just about . . .” Lewrie sighed, rising on his toes with anticipation. “Wait . . . wait . . . Mister Bittfield . . . Fire! ”

“On the uproll . . . Fire! ”

A broadside from the long Nines, the great-guns, crashed out in angry roars and a sudden fog-bank of smoke and sparks erupted from her starboard side. With the wind gauge, Jester was heeled too far over for her solid round-shot to score crippling damage aloft, the disadvantage of firing from upwind. Fall short, perhaps, skip into the enemy . . .

“Secure the starboard battery at run-in. Ready about? Helm a’weather! New course, nor’west, Quartermaster. Wear ship!”

He could feel his vessel wheel, her decks coming level, the wind coming stronger on the nape of his neck, as she pivoted within the pall of her broadside, which was hazing and misting as it expanded, thinning to show him the French corvette, which was . . .

Firing!

Moans, warbles . . . eldritch screeches, wailing higher and higher in tone, even as Choundas’s ship was suddenly surrounded by feathers of spray as his own shot arrived. Fired high, elevating quoins fully out and breeches resting on the carriages . . . and her decks angled upward to the force of the wind on her full-and-by course to windward.

Crashes aloft, crashes and bangs. The royal mast and yard upon the main was shattered at the doublings, bringing down the commissioning pendant, sails and ropes, in a blizzard. The fore t’gallant twitched as it was punctured by bar-shot and star-shot, punctures ripping open from luff to leach in an eye-blink. Fore-stays snapped, and the outer flying jib lashed out to leeward, shivering like a spook!

“Nor’west, sir!” Spenser called, easing his helm, watching the main tops’l for a clue to his luff and winds, with the pendant gone.

“Ready, larboard batt’ry, sir!” Bittfield reported.

Mile, or less, Lewrie judged, glad to have drawn first blood; or first honors, at the least. Better shootin’ range.

“Fire, Mister Bittfield!” he urged, gripping the railing with one hand, chopping at the air with the other as if it held his sword.

Cripple him, Bittfield, he thought grimly; save my poor arse! “Sure o’ yer aim, now, wait for itt! ” Bittfield cautioned his gun captains, still not trusting Rahl to scamper about and train those barrels inward, so their shot would converge amidships of their target. Following along behind quickly, sensing how Jester rode the sea, when she’d rise up, decks almost level, pent on the up-roll. Waiting for a good one, perhaps, a convergence of wave and counterwave.

Come on, you perverse bloody perfectionist, Alan wished to yell!

“Ready . . . on the uproll . . . Fire! ”

A stunning blast of sound, explosions, and the scream of truck carriages running inward, axles and wheels howling, breeching ropes and restraining bolts juddering bar-taut making thick cable squeal, forged iron moan.

“Eat it, you bastarrddd! ” Lewrie howled, too jittery to remain stoic and captainly. He never had been—never would be— any good at stoic. At least, fear had turned to something useful, now that he was getting into a battle fever, the insatiable kind that would leave him wringing wet, spent, and gasping.

The French corvette returned the favor, again slightly later, just as Jester ’s double-shotted barrage reached her. There were more crashes aloft. The foremast fighting-top seemed to explode into dust, as a solid shot smashed into the upper mast, bringing down the tops’l, and t’gallant together, cleaving away stays for both the inner jib and fore-topmast stays’l. Topmen aloft, swivel gunners and Marines in the top, came spilling out and down, riding the wreckage or flung bodily by the force of the strike! Two massive flashes of sparks and oaken splinters erupted alongside, amidships, as the main chains and stays writhed like disturbed asps, and the entire upper mainmast groaned and creaked, and supporting lower shrouds let go under the suddenly unequaled tension, popping as loud as musket fire!

“Hullin’ her, sir!” Knolles cried. “Hullin’ her, ’twixt wind and water!” he hooted as he pointed to larboard at their foe. Plumes of spray skipped in lines toward the French ship, some almost on her waterline, bursts of dust and wood splinters as she was hit above the water, around her midships gun ports.

“Half a mile, sir,” Buchanon adjudged, more calmly.

“Run-out!” Bittfield was screaming, his voice breaking on all the reeking smoke, and his emotions. “Point yer guns! Carronades as well . . . stand clear? Ready . . . Fire! Whoohoo!” He was gun-drunk.

“That’s the way, that’s the way!” Lewrie snarled, pounding his fist on the railing, just as caught up in the stink and roar of those monsters, his beautiful, reeking, but beloved guns, as the “Smashers” on the quarterdeck came reeling backward on their slide-carriages in a bitter cloud of spent powder. “Quartermaster, steer half a point to loo’rd. Close her.”

He can’t come up higher to the wind on me, all he can do is haul off, he thought with scintillating but frenetic crystal clarity. We’ll rake his stern, unless he wears away. Or tacks! Twigg made sure he’d know I was here, available—he can’t scamper off ’thout trying to do me in!

Moanings and warbles, dire humming, and this time round-shot hit lower. Jester reeled like a punch-drunk boxer as she was hulled, shuddering with each savage blow taken. A portion of the larboard gangway bulwark caved in, scattering waisters and brace-tenders. Splinters and shards from shattered iron shot keened amid the sudden screams of pain and fright. Men were down, lucky Jester ’s lucky people were bleeding, dying!

“He’s tacking! Sir, he’s tacking!” Spendlove wailed from the larboard side. “Swinging sou’east, into wind!”

“Broadside, Mister Bittfield, now! Aim high!” Lewrie ordered. “Take her rigging down while she’s busy comin’ about! Knolles, ready to wear about to east-nor’east!”

“ Er ist vounded, zir!” Rahl cried up from the waist, “I send to Herr Crewe . . . ?” Even as Crewe boiled up from the midships hatchway ladders, still in his white apron and list slippers from the magazine.

“The stays, sir,” Knolles panted beside him, smudged with soot and smoke, his hat askew. “Might bring all the main topmasts down if we come about.”

“The windward stays are sound, sir. Might ease the lee’uns, if we wear. Hands to the braces, ready to wear, sir,” Lewrie retorted.

“Run out yer guns . . .” Mister Crewe intoned more calmly. “ Prime yer guns . . . cock yer locks! ”

“Porter, hands to the braces, ready to wear nor’east!” Knolles bellowed into his brass speaking trumpet.

“ Point yer guns . . . ! Quoins half out . . . ready . . . Fire! ”

No, dammit . . . Lewrie groaned to himself; you rushed ’em, they’ll shoot too low, and . . . !

In, they lurched, all but number five larboard nine-pounder, which had been struck dead on the muzzle, and blown backward off its truck carriage, trunnions ripped from the cap-squares, and its crew savaged.

Brutal noise and a hellish reek of the roasting damned, Jester shaking and rattling under Lewrie’s feet and hands, the enemy blotted out by the massive gush of burned niters.

“Ready, sir,” Knolles gasped.

“Wear ship! Helm alee!” he snapped, soon as he heard, scampering to the larboard side so he could see, pressing up against the bulwarks to peer out through all that smoke to see if he’d hurt Choundas.

Being flung backward, thrown off his feet as a ball blasted in just above the gunwale, splinters and shards flying upward, an erose chunk carving the face of the bulwark down to the thickness of a single plank! Feeling his ship being pummeled and punctured beneath him, her stout scantlings wailing in agony!

“Sah, you kilt?” Andrews demanded, looming over him, filling his entire vision. Lewrie blinked, and kept on blinking, to clear the red haze that kept blinding him.

Blind, he gibbered wildly; blind as Nelson! Oh, the bastard . . . he’s done for me! He flailed his arms and legs, found that they still were attached and obeying. Rolled to his side and retched the coppery taste from his mouth, knowing what blind fear tasted like at last . . .

A crumpled calico handkerchief smeared his face, mildewy and redolent of tobacco. Blinking mindlessly, panting and gasping air in terror of what bad news might be coming. But his sight cleared, with Andrews’s ministrations. A firm hand clasped the handkerchief to his scalp.

“Carry on, Mister Crewe!” he heard Knolles rasp. People were walking around him, as uncaring as if he were a misplaced hammock roll.

He felt the guns go off, the deck on which he lay shiver as the ship was punched sidewise by her own recoil. There was a regular beat of juddering coming from her hull, even more insistent than his racing heart. God, there’d be another broadside in reply, soon!

“You tell me, Andrews . . . am I killed?”

“Got yah scalp shaved, sah. Blood in ya eyes, but . . .”

“Help me up.”

“Best hold dat right dar, sah . . . firmlike. Staunch de blood.” He held the cloth with his left hand, clung to the railing over the waist with his right, and almost swooned and saw double. The pain was coming, and he sucked air between his teeth as the first wave hit, going cross-eyed with it. He swabbed his face, his eye sockets, with his right sleeve, forever staining that fancy gold-lace slash-cuff . . . but he could see, with both eyes.

“Ooh, Law’.” Andrews flinched for both of them, as a broadside came inboard.

More smashing timbers, more screaming side planking, as French carronade shot joined their long guns. That juddering got noticeable, became a deep, plucking hum instead of an unnatural motion. Through it all, the gun crews slaved away, swabbing and overhauling tackle, rushing up cartridge and shot, ramming it home and pricking the vents.

“Run out yer guns . . . !” Crewe roared, not so calm anymore, and caught up in the madness.

Alan took another suck of breath! There lay Choundas’s vessel, not one cable to leeward of Jester ’s left side, just a little ahead, and sailing parallel to them, her own side looking gnawed at, stove-in here and there, her pristine white gunwale turning gray with spent powder stains.

“On the uproll . . . Fire! ” Mister Crewe bugled. A ragged broadside crashed out, stuttering up and down. Jester ’s ports. The enemy corvette lurched and seemed to wince as she was struck again by a hailstorm of shot, delaying the run-out of her own guns a precious moment.

“Payin’ off, sir!” Spenser called from the wheel. “No jibs . . .” Jester could not lay close to the wind without them, and slowly swung leeward, in spite of a large portion of lee-helm. She and that corvette would angle together slowly, closing the range, if Choundas held his course. Lewrie groaned as he saw that the wind would let her pinch up to weather, at least one point or more. Choundas could throw his ship up so close to luffing that he could bow-rake Jester, at nigh musket shot, in another minute,

“Mister Knolles, ready to haul our wind, course nor-nor’east,” Lewrie snapped, the effort of shouting making his head seem to explode with fresh pain. “Mister Crewe, one more broadside, then switch over to the starboard battery! We’ll rake his stern!”

“Oh, Lord,” someone whispered in awe as Choundas’s corvette lit up in flames, flinging long thrusts of smoke at them. She fired another broadside!

Jester was pummeled, sent reeling, as iron smashed home, aimed at her midships. There was a tremendous pillar of spray alongside, then a second, the shuddery twist of the hull as it was struck, down low by a graze, then a direct hit, and a mighty thonk of rupture. A groan aloft, that juddery humming ended suddenly. Replaced by a wail of pine and fir as her mainmast began to topple—everything beyond the fighting-top swayed over the larboard side, coming down like some sawn tree! The main chains had taken another hit, and everything was shot away that held it upright! All they could do was duck and pray as it collapsed, crashing down into the ocean in a rat’s nest of torn sails, tangled rigging, and broken yards, to dangle on the gangway or bulwarks, further tangled with the collapsed boarding nettings, blinding the guns. A discharge from one of the nine-pounders might set alight the ruins. Jester was disarmed and powerless!

“Mister Crewe, starboard battery! Waisters and idlers,” Alan cried in despair. “Chop all that away, now, Mister Porter! Spenser, steer due north, best you’re able with all that dragging. Hurry!”

There was nothing left aloft for drive but the mizzen sails— spanker, top’sl, and t’gallant, and they’d be lucky indeed to be able to steer effectively, if at all, with all that force so far astern.

“Spare stays’l, jury-rigged from foc’s’le to the foretop!” Knolles was shouting forward to the hands digging free of the ruins.

Jester had slowed, drastically, dragging herself almost to a stop, bereft of wind power. Beyond crippled. Almost conquered.

He’s going to win, damn him, Alan felt like weeping! His ship turned to scrap lumber, defenseless against whatever might come. He suspected Choundas would close and board, to take her as prize. Take his ship, in a sea of bloodshed. Take him prisoner, and what he felt like inflicting on him, once they were anchored in a French port, he . . . no, By God! You want me, you’ll have to kill me! You want Jester . . . then you’ll have her over my dead body!

Lewrie drew his sword and let it glisten in the sun.

“Starboard batt’ry ready, sir!” Crewe rasped. He looked down on his gun deck. On his people. The ports were open, the artillery runout. Grimy, bleeding from cuts and splinters, mouths agape with terror, and some of them shivering, amid the carnage, the dead.

“They’ll not have us!” Lewrie roared. “They’ll not have her! If they try, we’ll kill every last mother-son of ’em! Close shooting, and make ’em pay, Mister Crewe!”

And he was amazed, that they could raise a cheer! A weak one, aye. But an angry, defiant cheer for their ship.

Choundas had slipped ahead, of course, his rigging mostly free of damage and his sails still drawing power. Headed east-nor’east on the wind, but even then easing her braces and sheets to fall off, and employ her larboard guns. And her stern, her vulnerably thin stern . . . !

“Fire as you bear, Mister Crewe! Hold her, Spenser! Nothing to loo’rd, for just a minute!” he pleaded.

“Aye aye, sir!” Spenser grunted, as he and Brauer and two more hands threw all their weight on the spokes to hold full lee-helm, the rudder jammed hard-over.

“Point . . . !” Crewe ordered. “As you bear . . . Fire! ”

From the foc’s’le carronade, then aft to the quarterdeck, some swivels firing, too; a controlled, steady tolling, the guns so hot by now they leapt off the deck with recoil, titanic crashes and bellows of rage, deafening thunders and harsh ejaculations of gunpowder, all dun gray and brown, shot through with embers and flaming bits of wad. The range was little over a cable, and the results were immediate.

The corvette’s stern was caved in! Glass sash-windows blown in, both quarter-galleries shattered, her taffrail and flag lockers blown skyward. The name board and dead lights to the officers’ ward-room all were smashed beyond recognition. Her transom post was whittled by shot, and her rudder twitched like a hound’s ear. And there would be carnage further forward, as hard nine-pound shot caromed down the length of her open gun deck, breaking into hundreds of jagged shards on gun barrels and carriages, creating a maelstrom of wood splinters to quill her crew, to rip and rend! They could hear her, and them, wail, they imagined!

“Can’t ’old ’er, sir,” Spenser gasped. “Sorry, but they’s too much drag t’larboard. Payin’ off, again. Make due north, just.”

“Reload, Mister Crewe!” Alan demanded. “One more time!” “Tackin’!” Knolles countered. “She’s going over to larboard, sir!” “Now she’ll rake our stern,” Lewrie groaned. Once she gets settled down on larboard tack, she’ll make sou’west, easy, he thought. “Get that raffle chopped away, Porter! Hurry with that stays’1. And rig the main topmast stays’l from the maintop to a foc’s’le ladder, if that’s all you have. I need jibs. Any sort o’ jibs! Now!”

Close as Choundas was, he’d get a quartering slant across HMS Jester ’s stern. At about the same range as the shot she’d delivered! Lewrie paced to the larboard side, to see the last of the mess going over the side, the last raveled stays and braces cut. With a great splash, the last of the upper masts hit the water to float away aft.

“Better, sir!” Spenser encouraged, spinning the spokes.

“Due east?” Lewrie asked him.

“ Mebbe, sir!” Spenser allowed, chomping on his tobacco quid in a frenzy. “Nor’east, at best, I think, Cap’um. We’re so slow.”

“Good enough, then. Ready, Mister Crewe? We’re coming about to weather some more for you!”

“We’ll be ready, sir!” Crewe stolidly assured him.

“Give him a broadside, while he’s tacking, then. Then load and run out, quick as you can. Soon as he’s in arcs.”

Choundas was standing away southerly, already on the eyes of the wind, sails rustling and luffing, and jibs just beginning to fill, and draw. His ship would heel over as she felt the force of the wind upon her braced-around square sails, delaying that raking broadside a little. Until she was more in control, her decks more level. And then . . .

“ Meleager, sir!” Hyde crowed. “Signal, sir! ‘Do You Require Assistance!’ ”

“Hoist ‘Affirmative,’ Mister Hyde!” Lewrie yelped in relief. “You’re goddamned right we do!”

And there she was, about a mile off and coming hard, beating to windward with a bone in her teeth, guns run out and ready! She’d clear that western headland by miles, pass ahead of Jester ’s bows even if she managed to attain nor’east. And chase this foe away!

Lewrie went to the starboard side of his quarterdeck, wincing in agony with each step, left hand still clamped atop his skull. Choundas was there, he was certain. Even at two hundred yards, he thought there was a man on that opposing quarterdeck, a slight man with pale skin and dull reddish hair. A man who wore a large black patch. A man who was shaking his fists at him, his mouth open to howl curses at him.

“Got jibs, sir, at last!” Buchanon told him. “Come a’weather?” “Close as she’ll lay, aye, Mister Buchanon,” Alan replied, with the shuddery sort of giggle a condemned felon might essay right after a hanging rope snapped and dumped him alive in the mud under the gallows.

Jester came up toward the wind, struggling to lay nor’east. As Choundas heeled over and stood out to sea, bearing sou’west. Men were aloft, letting the corvette’s royals fall. Stern-to-stern, they were separating, no guns able to bear. Choundas had been driven away, not able to deal with a frigate’s fire. Jester had been saved, would go on living. It was over.

For the moment, Lewrie thought wearily. There’d be a next time. Twigg would see to that, damn his blood! Pray God Cockburn catches him up and shoots him to toothpicks! Spares me the . . . spares me!

“We continue on this course, sir, we’ll block Meleager ’s course,” Buchanon cautioned, close by his side. Buchanon put a steadying arm to Lewrie, as he swayed and sagged, utterly spent.

“Aye, come about, again, Mister Buchanon. Due north, steer for the western headland, so Cockburn gets a clear passage to seaward close-hauled. Unless he wishes to come inshore of us, cut the corner . . . ?”

Too tired to think, as if he’d gone fifteen rounds with a bully-buck at a village fair; it always was this way after a hard fight with him. He leaned on the bulwarks, tried to sheath his sword.

“Mister Hyde, hoist ‘Submit,’ followed by ‘Pursue the Enemy More Closely.’ ‘Vast coming about,’ Mister Buchanon. We’ll stand on. Cockburn can gain on the bastard, if he cuts inshore of us. Stand on,” Lewrie decided. He’d wait until Meleager was abeam, then come about, into the shelter of Alassio Bay. Jester would need quick repairs, perhaps even a tow, to get back to safety at Vado. She’d never crawl there on her own.

“Porter?” he shouted, wincing again. “Pipe ‘Secure from Quarters,’ then let’s see what needs doing we can do for ourselves.”

“Er . . . aye aye, sir!” Will Cony shouted back. He shrugged and pointed to a broken figure being borne below by the surgeon’s loblolly boys on a carrying board. Bosun Porter was groaning and writhing over several large, jagged splinters, his right arm ravaged and soaked with gore. “I’ll tend t’ h’it, sir,” Cony assured him, beginning to rouse stunned hands back to their posts.

“Fancy a sip o’ somet’in’, Cap’um?” Andrews tempted, offering a small pewter flask, on the sly. “Neat rum, sah. Put de fire back in yah belly.”

“Thankee, Andrews.” Lewrie sighed, taking a small sip.

And wondering what thanks he’d have to give Cockburn, for saving his bacon. He grimaced at the sharp bite of the rum; and how even more insufferable Captain Cockburn might be, in future. Or how low he’d be groveling in gratitude, pretending to like the taste of boot polish.

Grateful, aye . . . Alan realized with a small, mournful groan of relief. He takes him or kills him, ’stead of me, I’ll buss his blind cheeks! I don’t ever wish to cross that bastard’s hawse again. Ever!