'Hmmm…' his darkly handsome First Lieutenant mused, unconsciously scratching at the side of his curly locks. 'To leeward of our ships and their line for a bit, sir? Int'restin', if I may say so.'
Naturally Lt. Langlie could not say 'Are you barking mad?' or show any hint of disagreement with a captain; that was insubordination. It could also be taken for an inkling of fear and cowardice!
'We run into anything we can't handle, we duck right back out,' Lewrie assured him. 'P'raps even snuggle up to one of our liners and ask her t'shoo the big, bad bullies away. Aye, haul our wind, Mister Langlie. Five points alee, and prepare to wear ship.'
'Aye aye, sir!' Langlie echoed, lifting his brass speaking trumpet to shout orders to the brace-tenders and landsmen.
A frenetic minute or two later, Proteus was off the wind, taking it large on her starboard quarters, her yards still groaning, her sails still clattering and slatting as they refilled.
'Mister Wyman?' Lewrie called from the quarterdeck nettings as he looked down into the ship's waist, searching for his Second Officer in charge of the main battery of guns. 'Do you ready both batteries, just in case.' Lt. Wyman was an angelic but eager young fellow, prone to a flushed, gingery complexion when excited, as he most certainly was at that moment. Lewrie could almost imagine he heard Wyman's wide-eyed gulp, and his customary 'My goodness gracious!'
'I wish us to be the biter, today, sir… not the bit!' 'Aye aye, sir!' Wyman piped back, springing to redirect his gun-captains and quarter-gunners, his powder monkeys and excess crewmen on the run-out, train and breeching tackles over to larboard, then to run in the 12-pounders, remove their tompions and load with powder and shot, then open the gun-ports and run them out in-battery… just in case.
Proteus sloughed her way further alee toward the gap, the only clear and unimpeded water open to her, into that sour, towering pall of gunsmoke, coastal haze, and low cloud scud, with her bowsprit and jib-boom, forecastle and chase guns, then her foremast, becoming indistinct.
By sound, Lewrie tried to plot the dangers; astern, now, where Venerable, Ardent, and Triumph were hammering away, being answered with Dutch broadsides; to the West, where Vice-Admiral Onslow was breaking through the rear of the Dutch line, and a general cannonading roared. Nothin' much in between, though, Lewrie thought; yet! 'Deck, there!' a lookout howled. 'Ship o' the line, starboard and abeam! Dutch flag on 'er fore jack!'
'Bear away, Mister Langlie… make her head Sou'east, and run 'both sheets aft' off the wind!' Lewrie quickly snapped.
Boom! Boom! Two quick cannon barks from that ship's focs'le chase-guns, and six or nine pound round-shot went sizzling and moaning overhead and astern! As their blooms of powder smoke blossomed, the Dutch warship seemed to melt away, to grow fuzzier and less distinct in the fog. A moment later, it was as if she had never been!
'Gap's not as wide as I hoped,' Lewrie confessed in a soft voice, as if loath to speak too loudly and be rediscovered… with a broad-side, next time! 'Mister Langlie, a cast of the lead.'
They were now running full off the wind, with the shifting and curling mists traveling with them, for Proteus could sail no faster than the wind could blow; Sou'east, toward a coast that ran Nor'east, shallow and filled with shoals and bars!
'Eight fathom! Eight fathom with this line!'
That's only thirty feet of water under our keel, Lewrie thought, in a quandary; we draw about eighteen feet aft. Put about… soon!
'Two points a'weather, Mister Langlie,' Lewrie ordered. 'We'll start circlin' back, anew. Hopefully, well clear of that…'
'Deck, there! Two brigs… two points off t'larboard bows!' 'Ready the larboard battery!' Lewrie shouted, 'Hop to it, sirs! Mister Wyman? Ready quarterdeck carronades, as well.'
Spectral, grey-on-grey forms emerged, turning hard-edged, gaining colour. A two-masted brig o' war was cocked up to weather, motionless, with her stern towards Proteus, a perfectly helpless target for her guns! With none but stern-chasers able to fire back, her fragile stern timbers, transom, and galleries so easily shattered, turning her inner decks and gun-deck into bowling alleys for hurtling shot, it'd be a brutal buggering, a rape, and quick, wholesale murder!
'Stand by… on the up-roll!' Lt. Wyman yelled, brandishing his sword, eager to slice it down to release Hell.
'Avast, Mister Wyman!' Lewrie countermanded. 'Hold your fire!'
Dutch officers were at the brig's taffrail, shouting and waving frantically; a white waistcoat was wig-wagged, in sign of surrender or an urgent truce.
For there was a second brig o' war a bit beyond the first, down by the head and canted far to larboard, sinking from the swatting that Venerable had given her earlier. Her yards and masts hung in shambles of torn rigging and sails, canted forward and nearly horizontal as she heeled over. Dozens of men thrashed and yelled in the water between the two brigs, some swimming to the over-crowded boats the first brig had lowered. Dozens more sailors clustered at her larboard bulwarks, now almost awash, tossing over hatch-gratings, anything that would buoy them up, whilst some tried to manhandle their own damaged boats off the cross-deck boat tier beams and into the water before she went under.
The near Dutch brig o' war fired one forward gun, to leeward, in a plea for gentlemanly conduct and mercy!
'Mister Wyman, one starboard gun to fire, to leeward.'
'Aye, sir!'
God, but it would've been beautiful! Lewrie sadly thought, as Proteus ghosted past the brig's stern at close range; one broadside up her stern, and she 'd have sunk before her sister!
But, as a 6-pounder from the forecastle fired, Lewrie only lifted his cocked hat to doff it in salute, and the Dutch captain and his officers solemnly doffed their fore-and-aft bicorne hats high over their heads in reply.
'A point more to starboard, Mister Langlie. Keep us circlin'.'
'Aye aye, sir. Poor devils.'
'Commissioner Proby at Chatham told me that the Dutch require all their sailors to learn to swim,' Lewrie off- handedly informed him. 'And if they drown, they roll them over a keg laid on its side, until the victim coughs and spews up what he's swallowed or inhaled, so they stand a decent chance… if they got off that other brig, unwounded.'
'I see, sir,' Langlie replied. 'Damn' odd, though, sir. Never seen the like… not in a full-blown battle, that is, Captain.'
'What, the bloody bicorne hats?' Lewrie shrugged it off. 'You're right… I've never seen the like, either! They may be all the 'go,' but you'll never see a British officer in one! Too damn' Frenchified.'
Proteus sailed on, bearing away, and the two Dutch brigs o' war were enveloped in the gloom and smoke once more. A quick peek into the compass bowl showed Lewrie that their frigate was now headed just a bit West of South, away from that treacherous coast, almost abeam what wind there was, and still turning up to weather, the hull beginning to heel, the sluice of water 'round her gurgling and sighing more urgently. It was a hopeful sound.
'Nine fathom! Nine fathom t'this line!'
That news was hopeful, too; as was the dimly perceptible thinning of the haze, smoke and mist, the sky ahead and North'rd brighter, as if within moments they could sail out into sunshine, and safety.
'Deck, there! Three-master, one point off t'starboard bows! I think she's a frigate! Dutch flags! Bearin' Easterly!'
'Dammit!' Lewrie spat, peering intently into the smoke to spot what the lookout could see from aloft. 'This is worse than tryin' to cross the Strand in a thick Thames fog! Coaches to right and left…' 'There, sir!' Mr. Langlie all but yelped, pointing. As if a stage curtain had been raised, a Dutch frigate appeared just off their starboard bows, crossing their course almost at right angles, her quarterdeck staff almost leaping with surprise as they also pointed and jabbered, now silhouetted against the mists.
'Ready, starboard battery, Mister Wyman! Helm hard alee, helmsmen! Lay her full and by! Brace in, Mister Langlie! We'll shoot her up the arse, 'stead of that poor brig! Stand by to fire as you bear! Mister Devereux?'
His elegant and aristocratic Officer of Marines stepped forward.
