CHAPTER 9

“Dawn by my reckonin’ll be half an hour yet, Cap’um,” Mister Buchanon promised. “False dawn within five minute.”

“And our position, Mister Buchanon?” Lewrie asked in a hushed tone, stalking his quarterdeck, swaddled in his boat-cloak against the brisk chill that swept down from the East-Nor’east. They’d had Bora winds during the night, though clocking Easterly as the Middle Watch had wound down. It might veer enough to form a Levanter by midday. “Can you assure me of our position as positively, sir?”

“’At light astern, sir, ’at’s th’ beacon on th’ breakwater, by th’ entrance in th’ harbour mole. Light t’th’ Nor’west by North, ’at’s Vido Island. Smallest, yonder . . . ’at’s Lazaretto. We’re makin’ barely a knot o’ drift inshore, fetched-to as we are. E’en so, sir, call it a touch less’n four miles off. A bit o’ sunrise’ll tell me true,” the Sailing Master assured him. In the light of the candles in the binnacle cabinet he tapped a finger on an accurate Venetian chart, right beside an irregular penciled-in trapezoid—a “cocked hat” of reckoning from what few shore marks they’d been able to spot with the long night telescopes, which showed everything upside down, unfortunately.

Lewrie left the binnacle and wheel to pace aft to the taffrail, between the two brightly lit lanthorns at Jester’s very stern. Golden ripples balleted off the ebony sea, far aft and to either beam, as she lay cocked up to weather, waiting for the sun. The wind kissed a part of her sails to sail her forward, caressed the backed jibs to lock her in place as if anchored. A touchy balancing act, against a Bora wind that gusted and muttered, then sighed more softly. With Knolles now gone . . .

Lewrie looked down over the taffrail, to watch the water break round her rudder and transom post, below the overhang of the gun-room and his great-cabins. His cabin lights were lit, too, and there was Toulon, for a moment, with his nose snuffling the panes of a window, below him. No drift, he thought; well, not much. Gurgling, plashing, sucking sounds arose from the idled hull. A kelpy aroma of weed and slime, a clammy, mussely tinge of a barnacled bottom met his nostrils, along with the faint seashore smell of the not-so-distant land. And the piney, loamy tang of forest on the wind from across the narrows, off the bows, stroking his cheeks as he turned his head from side to side and faced forrud. To weigh them and guess whether Jester needed a pull or a bracing-in to maintain her immobile station ’til dawn.

Fetched-to or not, she moved under his feet with a steady rise and fall, her timbers complaining, and blocks aloft clacking and groaning, her masts working gently as she swayed, pitched easy or fell a bit bows-down as the wind-driven waves in the channel flowed round her like she still had a way on.

He went back forrud to peer into the well-lit compass bowl, to determine had her head fallen off; to blink glim-spotted eyes aloft and strain to make out details of masts, sails and ropes against the skies.

There! No longer ghost-grey, but darkening, beginning to silhouette against a barely lighter greyness, stood the sails. He could see the cat-heads by the forecastle, make out the brutish humps of the carronades and almost espy the rising, quivering thrust of the jib-boom and bowsprit. A few men could be espied, spectrelike, up forrud.

“False dawn, sir,” Buchanon exulted, “six minute. Not ’at far off my guess o’ five.”

“Close, indeed, Mister Buchanon,” Lewrie congratulated. “Hmmm. Under the circumstances, let’s say . . . accurate, rather. Don’t want us to be close. That close.”

“Aye, sir.” Buchanon softly laughed, bending down over the compass bowl like a feeding ox, to peer across it at the shore-lights. He snapped his fingers and he and Mr. Wheelock his Master’s Mate went to the rail with a night glass, a day telescope and his personal boat-compass in a golden oak box, to take more bearings as the lee shore emerged from the stygian blackness to become a storm or charcoal grey murkiness.

“Best I can reckon’z four miles, sir,” he reported at last.

“Very well, Mister Buchanon, thankee,” Lewrie said with a nod. “Give it ten minutes, say, and we’ll be about it. Mister Crewe? Ten minutes.”

“Aye, sir!” the Master Gunner said from the forrud edge of the quarterdeck. “Ready whenever ya order, Cap’um.”

Lewrie looked over the larboard side, to the second glowing set of lights; binnacle cabinet, forecastle belfry and taffrail lanthorns, plus candle or whale-oil lights ranged along the gangways. More lamps staggered lower down the side, from opened gun-ports. The great-guns were run in to load position and out of the way. Loaded, though, and fully depressed; and ready to fire—when there was a touch more sunrise, closer to true dawn. But before a fully risen sun took anything away. A spectre, seen only by those lights, the rest unfathomable not ten minutes earlier, now he could make out details of sails and masts, the rough textures and dingy paintwork of her hull, and the blooming of discernible colours, where before all had been granite-block black.

Lewrie took out his watch and eyed the pointer of the optional, and more expensive, second hand clack the tense minutes away. The watch face was now almost tattletale grey— not quite true white—as the false dawn spread a gloomy cloud cover of slightly brighter dimness. It was time.

“Mister Crewe?” he bellowed, breaking the yawning, sleepy hush of the four-’til-eight watch. “Let there be light!”

“Aye, sir!” Crewe roared back, waving a smouldering slow-match fuse in a linstock for a signal. And along Jester’s bulwarks, a dozen answering fireflies were fanned into heat. “Swivels . . . fire!”

And a dozen slow-matches were lowered to the touch-holes of the skyward-pointing swivel guns. There were sudden gouts of smoke and sparks. Then, with breathless whooshes, a dozen rockets went soaring aloft, scattering comet-trails of red and amber fire-dust. Darde à feu —fire-arrows—minus their iron spring-arms, designed to snag in sail canvas and burn a ship to the waterline; un-Christian weapons, some said. Pirate weapons, said others; a sneaking, vile, ungentlemanly invention. Now they were signal fusees that hissed skyward, no more dangerous than holiday fireworks; pretty amber comets bearing copper-blue starbursts.

A creaking and an oaken groaning, a faint muttering from larboard and the jangle and snapping of blocks and halliards, as the second ship let go her backed jibs, braced round her backed mizzen tops’l. Canvas thundered, flagged and crackled for a moment, all a’luff, then drawing, curving neatly to the press of wind as she fell away to starboard and began a slow wear-about, beginning to cream salt water down her sides.

“And again, Mister Crewe!” Lewrie snapped. And once more, the swivel guns coughed out their pyrotechnic charges, flinging a brilliant galaxy of stars to five times the height of the main mast truck. Well out abeam, so they’d not drift back and ignite anything.

“Light, sir!” Buchanon shouted, pointing astern. Ruined or no, the Citadel had watchers on her walls, and had hoisted a lanthorn atop the seaward parapets. A third volley of fusees two minutes later, and tiny lights began to wink into life ashore as people were roused.

“Cease fire, Mister Crewe, and secure the swivels,” Alan said, feeling satisfied. “Tend to your larboard battery. Mister Buchanon, get the ship under way, larboard tack, then wear her.”

“Aye aye, sir. Bosun, hands to the jib sheets . . . !”

Then it was Jester’s turn to fall away, to cease fighting cross-hauled, and surrender to the insistent winds, to heel and creak as she went about, presenting her left side, then her stern to the wind, with the Citadel and the town, the surrounding hills sweeping across the bow and settling on the larboard bows, just over the cat-head. The courses were brailed up, t’gallants at second reef, tops’ls at first reef, and the royals gasketed to horizontal pencils atop her spiralling masts to make a slow passage.

“Mister Hyde, hoist the colours,” Lewrie cried.

Atop the fore mast, main mast and mizzen, three ensigns shinnied up the flag or signal halliards, the Red aft, Blue forrud-most, and the White Ensign on the highest; reverse order for an entire fleet of rear, van and main body squadrons. So no one could possibly mistake Jester for anything else but Royal Navy this morning.

Lewrie took up his telescope and stood by the windward bulwark, studying the second ship, and satisfying himself that the French flags were prominently displayed aboard her. Both vessels scudded dead off the backing Bora from the East Nor’east, bowsprits jabbing at the breakwater, sliding inshore of Vido Island to run West along the mole.

There! Lewrie told himself with grim satisfaction, as he saw the first ruddy flickerings above her bulwarks, more a warm roasting-pan or a fireplace’s brass back-plate reflector’s glow. Sooty waverings of heat shimmered upward, not quite yet become smoke, like air quivering over a smith’s forge. He swung the telescope tube lower and a bit to the right, concentrating on her stern. It was almost light enough now that the cheery glow of lanthorns in the master’s great-cabin, in the glossy panes of the sash-windows, didn’t dazzle him. So he could espy the cutter waddling and pitching as she was fended off to be left to starboard and astern. It was now light enough to count heads, for Lewrie to discern the white collar-tabs on Spendlove’s shorter jacket, and the white turn-back lapels and cuffs of Knolles’s coat. Even more whiteness appeared, as they began to hoist the cutter’s lug-sail, and gather a slight way, broad-reaching at first, to the Nor’west and off from the ship.

“Gettin’ close, sir,” Buchanon warned.

“Very well, Mister Buchanon. You’ll alert me when to brace up and turn?” Lewrie asked. “Mister Crewe! Begin, larboard battery!”

“Stand clear!” Crewe roared, looking up and down the deck, for the raised fists and taut flintlock striker lanyards of his individual gun-captains. “Fire!”

“Helm alee, half a point,” Buchanon could be heard to mutter . . . after that titanic slam of nine guns going off in broadside. Jester lightly reeled in recoil as the carriages hog-squealed inboard. She’d fired blank charges with no ball, so she didn’t feel gut-punched, like a proper battle’s broadside. Full cartridges, though, not reduced saluting charges, so she spoke the dawn with a convincing hostile bellow, and a warlike belch of powder-smoke.

“Stop yer vents!” Crewe sing-songed like it was drill. “Swab yer guns! Overhaul yer run-out tackle, overhaul yer recoil tackle, same as always, mind. Charge yer guns!”

Three broadsides in two minutes was quick shooting, and Jester had been in commission, with almost daily practice, over two years—had fired for true against foes too often to be slack now. Regular as clockwork, every forty seconds by Lewrie’s timepiece, there was another stupendous crash and bang, as if she’d loaded round-shot atop cartridge. So it would appear completely real to any watchers ashore. Though they’d look in vain, once they had their wits about them, for a fall of shot.

“Three an’ a quarter mile, sir!” Buchanon sang out.

“Helm alee, Mister Buchanon, harden up on the wind a mite. Lay her nead Nor’west by North, for now. Serve ’em another, Mister Crewe!”

Hands were at the braces and sheets to pull taut as the helm was put down and she shied away from the shore and the harbour break-waters and fort, just shy of a diplomatic violation, yards creaking to cup a wind that crossed her decks from the starboard side, just abaft of abeam.

And in that rudely awakened town, there were now hundreds more lamps aglowing, from almost every window that faced the sea and bay on the northern side. It was too far to make out figures on the docks or breakwater, but the scurrying of half-dressed, panic-stricken citizens and mariners could most happily be conjured up in the mind. Just as the sun burst over Albania, just about breakfast time, the artillery barked out a mastiff’s basso warning, louder than any lands-man’s cock.

“North by West’d be best, now, sir,” Mr. Buchanon counseled in a wary voice. “Haul up to a beam-reach.”

“Well to windward of Vido, sir?” Lewrie asked.

“Aye, sir. ’Bout two mile t’windward, in deep water.”

“Very well, Mister Buchanon, alter course. Mister Crewe? One more broadside, then cease fire and secure!”

“Ready, sir! Stand clear? Fire!”

One last wrathful eruption, then HMS Jester was wheeling about, her decks coming more level, not so hard-pressed by the winds, even under reduced sail, and making it easier to secure the 9-pounder guns; to swab them out, remove the flintlock strikers and cover the touch-holes with leather aprons, insert the tompions in the now-blackened muzzles and run them up to the port-sills where they were bowsed snug.

Lewrie lifted his telescope again, from the lee bulwarks, to see what was doing aboard the second ship, and found a cause for great joy. Flames were soaring up her lower masts and spewing long fire-tongues from her opened hatches, forge-bellowing horizontally from her opened gun-ports. Her tarred running rigging and mast-bearing shrouds glowed liquid with darting, climbing, blazing mouse-sized flames. The fires had not reached her tiller-ropes or her upper yards yet, so she ran off the wind still, trending a bit Sutherly, under a single fore-topsail, a solitary main t’gallant and a triple-reefed mizzen tops’l, with only her outer flying jib flogging away, far forrud at the tip of her jib boom. On a mostly steady course, he noted gladly. And still flying three large French Tricolours, still safe from burning, so everyone on the breakwater— mariners and landsmen alike—would know her nationality as well as Jester’s. Above that burgeoning Vesuvius of smoke, ash and soaring embers that ragged downwind ahead of her, shrouding her like a cloak, they still flew high above, fluttering blue-white-red.

Scrape the damn breakwater, Lewrie speculated; ground on a shoal just at its foot, and burn out, right on their bloody door-stoop! My message’ll be noticed, all right. Might even ram into the breakwater and burn for hours! And when those double-shotted guns took light . . . !

As luridly, ghoulishly fascinating as it was to watch that ship being immolated, he tore his attention away from her, unlike the hands on watch, or the many gunners who’d come up to the gangways once their guns had been secured, and went to the windward side to lift his glass.

There was their cutter, steering Nor’-Nor’east, slamming swoopy and wet, close-hauled to stand out to sea, out the way they’d come. He saw no other nearby boats, either; no armed response from the port or the authorities, and all the early-rising fishermen had ducked inshore to the beaches for safety. The sun was almost completely risen then, with no hint of redness, no high-piled grey forebodings from the east. A bit lower than the Albanian shore with his glass, and he could barely make out two low-lying pitch-black slivers almost on the horizon. Two ship’s boats full of seamen, stroking shoreward with oars. It could be a full two hours later before they stepped ashore, with their tale of woe. By which time, Jester would be long gone, a terrifying will-o’-the-wisp. And French sailors at Corfu, too, would be filled with fear.

“Mister Buchanon, let’s harden up to windward,” Lewrie said as he lowered his glass and turned inboard. “Lay her full-and-by, course North by East.”

“Aye aye, sir.” Buchanon beamed, pleased with their early work.

“Mister Cony?” Lewrie called down to the gun-deck. “We’ll take the cutter in tow, once Mister Knolles and his party are aboard. I’ve an idea she’s spent too long on the beams, and her planking needs some soaking. Inform the cooks they may stoke up, once we’re close-hauled, and begin fixing a late breakfast.”

“Aye, Cap’um, sir!”

Ten days more. Lewrie shrugged. Longer than I’d hoped, but we did it. Wind looks fair t’back a touch more Easterly, too. Make the return voyage a beam-reach all the way, ’less we get a bit of Southing. Make us faster, on that point o’ sail, so, say, two days to Trieste or Venice? Then inform Captain Charlton. Of everything!

“A right fair mornin’, sir,” Mr. Buchanon commented, once they had the ship thrashing away windward and the cutter was falling off a point or two to meet them. “A fair mornin’s bus’ness.”

“Amen, Mister Buchanon.” Lewrie laughed, rocking on the balls of his feet, aching for a first cup of coffee, but plumb delighted, in the main. “Amen to that.”