tongue with a hot iron, was he able to get away with it; a man who wore an odd double ring on his left hand encircling little finger and ring finger so he still had use of that hand. He'd broken it and turned those fingers numb by smashing the skull of a rioter in a street melee in Edinborough in 1792-the churl had insulted the King, raising Duncan 's Old Testament wrath!
'Sirs, Admiral Duncan would fight you for a rowboat!' Lewrie proudly boasted, happy to have been even for a short time a part of the man's fleet. Though how long that would last was open to question, he took time to fret. After his row with his wife in Hyde Park with both Lord Spencer and Mr. Nepean watching…
'The proper place for frigates is not in the line, sirs,' Lewrie continued, striking a lighthearted air, 'but out in clear air, where one repeats signals for other ships to see, or stands by to assist any disabled ships of the line. Had I not made an error, we'd have been merely awed witnesses, but… we'd gotten too far ahead and Circe was crowding us, sailing on starboard tack cross our stern, and all of the cutters and such crowded us, as well. Did the Admiral wish us to break the Dutch line and fight on their landward side, we should have broken through with him. But for the wind, that had blown all the powder smoke alee of us, towards the shore. I should have borne away… and stayed up to windward but that became impossible. I could not cut through the liners without disrupting what order they had, either, so there was nothing for it but to come about on a beam wind, and sail on a reach. By then, however, 'round half past noon, Admiral Onslow was engaged over here, cuttin' through the Dutch line, and slicing off the last three ships. So I rather, um… stumbled my way to glory. If glory it was, gentlemen,' he allowed with a wry expression.
Aye, come over all modest-like! he thought; more becoming to a tale, than boasting. But, he chid himself once more,
'His usual custom, since boyhood,' Sir Hugo supplied, though he wore a proud grin.
Lewrie reshuffled the order of the walnuts and such, recalling the smoke and haze, the low, scudding clouds of a raw, grey day, turned in an instant to a pea-soup fog, a reeking, hammered, echoing mist, as Proteus had reached West towards Onslow, just out of effective range of the Dutch liners in the middle, before putting about to sail back East towards Duncan, who by then (at a quarter 'til one) was also firing as fast as his gunners could load and run out.
'Now, the Dutch were sailing in two columns,' Lewrie explained, indicating the hickories and filberts nearer the row of biscuits. 'In their lee were some eighteen-gunned brigs or sloops, at least three twenty-four-gun ships or brigs, and four frigates, of varying metal. Not all were true warships, thank God… again, converted and armed merchantmen penned up in port, thanks to our blockade, and our cruising frigates hunting prizes. But, once we broke their line, those escort ships opened fire, though they were there to serve the same duties as ours… signals and salvage, and… well, sirs, once one fires on a larger ship, one turns into fair game!'
Duncan 's Venerable had smashed her way through astern of their 74-gun 3rd Rate Staten-Generaal, opening the way for Triumph and Ardent and threatening the Dutch Admiral de Wynter's flagship, Vrijheid. It was a wide, most tempting gap, and beyond it Lewrie could see the lee line of sloops, brigs, and frigates, now and then, turning up windward.
Gun-smoke, towering and blooming like cloud-heads from a summer thunderstorm, vision reduced to mast-tips, the quick-blossoming buds of cannon-shots… the staccato stutter of guns, by decks, by broadsides, making even more smoke and confusion, 'til the whole sky was blotted to grey gloom, the sea turned dull leaden for lack of reflecting sunlight; the Dutch ships, their own ships, so wreathed with sour, sulfurous mist that they became spectres.
He caught himself frowning, in a silent, fell musing, absently massaging the dull ache of his wounded arm. Not for show, this time, nor for approbation from his 'audience' as he play-acted the pensive hero for their admiration or applause.
From dour remembrance, as he recalled that hideously glorious scene afresh, the scents and sounds, the rocking of his quarterdeck as Proteus swashed her way down the line, toward that gap…
'They paid for their mistake, sirs… indeed,' he told them.
CHAPTER TWO
'Perhaps more desperate than daft, Mister Langlie,' Lewrie said as he stepped back towards the wheel and compass binnacle. 'If they've waited so long for the winds to shift, so they can come out, maybe cooperate in some French intrigue based in the Channel ports… well, this fat Dutch mynheer de Wynter can't run back into harbour without being seen doing something!'
They watched as HMS Triumph yawed to show more of her starboard beam, opening the limited arcs of her guns, as she intersected the enemy's line. With a titanic roar, she opened with a full broadside, the first and the most carefully aimed and laid in any battle, at the next Dutch ship astern of the one already pummeled by Venerable. That was a deathblow of 32-pounder and upper gundeck 18-pounder iron shot that tore giant gouges and eruptions of side-timbers, that harvested upper yards and masts in an eyeblink! They could hear horrid thuds or howls of rivened wood, as scantlings and beams shattered.
'Do we sail on like this, we'll mask her guns,' Lewrie decided aloud, to his quarterdeck officers. 'Let's bear up to windward, three points or so, Mister Langlie, and pass upwind of her.'
'Aye, sir.'
'Deck, there!' a lookout, high aloft on the mainmast, shouted down to them. 'Two Dutch brigs alee… four points off t'starboard bows!'
That gap was filling with a rolling wall of spent powder smoke, but even from the deck they could espy the spectral shapes of two light Dutch warships, hesitantly hovering under reduced sail, and firing at Venerable. Venerable, already busy with her larboard guns, replied to that harassing long-range fire with a starboard broadside. The Dutch brig was swatted away, much like a pesky midge; great chunks of timber were blown from her sides and bulwarks, while a sudden hurricane erupted 'round her hull and waterline, like massive breakers crashing on a rocky shoreline.
'And just how does one say 'oops' in Dutch?' Lewrie chortled in glee, as his crew cheered the sight of an enemy half-smashed to matchwood in a twinkling!
Venerable then swung back to larboard, abandoning the equally hurt Staten-Generaal to turn her left-hand artillery against the starboard side of the prominently flag-bedecked Dutch admiral's ship.
'Deck, there!' a lookout stationed atop the mizzenmast called. ' 'Ware astern an' larboard! Our liners!'
Lewrie turned and frowned, for there were Bedford and Director, not a quarter-mile off, with about a cable's worth between them as they surged forward to the battle line. In the middle distance beyond was their consort Lancaster. They weren't steering directly for that gap, but seemed to want to sidle Eastward along the Dutch line, to the windward side of Ardent, Venerable, and Triumph.
'Avast, Mister Langlie,' Lewrie said with a scowl. 'Hold this course, instead. We're blocked.' He peered aloft; yes, they still had Engage To Leeward and Close Action signals flying. So why the Devil ain't they doin' it? he groused to himself.
Did Proteus stand on much longer, though, she'd run afoul of Venerable's group. As well, she couldn't stand sharp to windward, for fear of masking the Bedford group's guns, if not come nigh to a collision with one of them!
The wind? He shifted his gaze to the commissioning pendant at the mainmast truck. As in all sea-fights where heavy guns barked and boomed, the wind was getting flattened. The long pendant was curling and flagging limply. Not enough wind to work ahead of Bedford 's trio, nor was there enough wind to tack and pass astern of them, either. It would force them to fetch Proteus to, cocked up motionless to the wind, with her fragile stern bared to the foe, who had already proven to be eager to violate the old customs against firing at escorting frigates.
'Nothing for it but to haul our wind, Mister Langlie,' Lewrie announced, with a sour note to his voice. 'Let us wear ship over to starboard tack, swing 'round in a circle, then harden up and beat past our ships, to windward of 'em… where we should have been.'
