The King`s Coat

what shrift would a lieutenant's advice receive from a post-captain intent on the whiff of prize money? Some of the older hands had tied their neckerchiefs about their ears, making them look decidedly piratical… When he asked a quartergunner, old Snow in fact, he was told that it would keep him from going deaf from the sound of the guns.

By four in the afternoon, the order came down to open the gun ports, and blessed sunlight flooded in, along with sweet fresh air.

The hands were called back to attention by their guns but they still ducked to peer out the ports at their possible prize. 'Full-rigged, boys!' a cammer man whispered to a sidetackle mate. 'Maybe a French blockade runner full 0' gold. ’

‘Have ta be a rum 'un ta get took by us!' a handspike man said. 'Silence, the ~ot of you,' Lieutenant Harm shouted. 'Watch your fronts!' And it was another half hour by Lewrie's watch before the strange ship was near enough to hail, about two cables off their starboard bows. A chase gun barked from the upper deck and a feather of spray leaped up right under the other ship's bowsprit. A flag broke from the chase's gaff-it was Dutch.

Everyone sighed with a hiss of disappointment. They weren't at war with Holland yet. They had wasted their whole afternoon. ’Damme,' a hand cursed, rubbing his hands together with a dry rustle. 'Thort she were a beamy one, woulda been a good prize.’

There goes the start of my fortune, Alan thought, easing his aching back from long standing by the guns. He could have almost felt and heard those 'yellowboys' clinking together… good golden guineas.

Beckett appeared on the companionway. 'Mister Harm, the captain wishes you to run out, sir.’

’Right,' Harm crackled. 'Run out yer guns.' And fourteen black muzzles trundled up to the port sills with a sound resembling a stampede of hogs. 'Point yer guns, handspikes there, number six!' Harm had drawn his smallsword and stood with it cocked over his shoulder, and Alan wondered just exactly what good the officer thought a blade was going to do to a ship more than four hundred yards away. ’But she's neutral, is she not?' Alan asked. ’Might be smuggling,' Harm said. 'I'd have thought ya'd have brains enough to realize we'll board her and check her papers anyway. Might pick up a few hands to flesh us out. Damn Dutchies always have a few English sailors aboard hiding out from the press-gang under a foreign flag.’

The Dutch ship took a look at that menacing broadside pointing at her and took the path of sanity. Her flag slowly fluttered down the gaff.

Alan hoped that she was indeed a smuggler, loaded with contraband goods destined for some American port, or had papers that would make her liable to seizure. If so they could take her into Antigua and sell her, cargo, hull and fittings. 'Um, how much do you think she might be worth, if she is a smuggler, Mister Harm?’

‘ Hull and rigging'll fetch near ten thousand pounds,' Harm told him, a gleam coming to his own eye. 'Now, if she's carrying contraband, it'll be military stores and such-like, and that may double her value.’

Davit blocks squealed as the large cutter was lowered over the side directly in front of their midships guns, the main course yard being employed as a boat boom. Their prize had let fly all instead of bringing to into the wind, and her canvas fluttered like a line of shirts on wash day. ’Dutchies can carry right rich cargoes,' Harm went on half to himself, almost pleasant for once in his greed. 'Maybe fifty thous-' The late afternoon was tom apart with red-hot stabs of flame and the lung-flattening booming of heavy guns. The side of the Dutch ship lit up and was wreathed in a sudden cloud of smoke as she fired a broadside right into Ariadne, two full gun decks of twenty-fourand eighteen-pounders. The air seemed to tremble and moan with the weight of iron headed their way, and another flag was shooting up the naked gaff. But this time it was the white and gold of Bourbon Spain! 'Bastard Dons,' Harm shouted. 'Prime yer-' Once more Lieutenant Harm was intelTUpted as the lower gundeck exploded. Heavy balls slammed into the ship's side at nearly 1,200 feet per second, and Lewrie could hear the shrieking of her massive oaken scantlings as they bulged and splintered.

The cutter that was dangling before their gun ports was demolished, and a cloud of splinters raved through the open ports, striking down men. One ball struck a gun and upended it, hurling it free of sidetackles, breeching ropes and train tackles and sending it slewing to the larboard side. Another loaded gun was hit right on the muzzle, which set off its charge, and it burst asunder with a great roar! A little powder monkey standing terrified by the hatch to the orlop had his cartridge case explode in his arms, and was flung away like a broken doll, his clothes burned off and his arms missing! There were screams of pain and surprise as though a pack of women were being ravaged. There were howls of agony as oak and iron splinters ripped into flesh, and guns turned on their servers and crushed them like sausages.

Lewrie had been blown off his feet by the explosion of the powder cartridge, and lay on the deck. still buffeted by the noise and the harsh thump of each cannonball striking deep into Ariadne's hull. He saw and heard throaty gobbling and sobbing all about him as men clawed at their hurts and burns. In a split second, the ordered world of the lower gun deck had become a colored illustration from a very original sort of hell. He got to his feet, unsure what to do or where to go, but certain he wanted to go anywhere else, fast. A hand touched him on the shoulder and he jumped with a yelp of fear. He turned to see who it was.

Lieutenant Harm had been struck in the face by a large splinter. Half his face, the side nearest Lewrie, had been shaved off to the bone. One eye was gone, and in its place was a splinter nearly a foot long and nearly as big around as Lewrie's wrist. Harm's mouth opened and closed a couple of times like a dying fish before he toppled forward like a marionette with the strings cut. He fell on top of Snow, the quartergunner, whose entrails were spread out in a stinking mess on the deck. Just beyond him, Lewrie could see a side-tackle man lying beneath the overturned gun, and still screaming at the ruin of his legs. ’Oh,' Lewrie managed to say, gulping in fright. The fear that seized him made him dizzy, turned his limbs to jelly and took him far from the unbelievable sights and smells of the deck. He tried to take a step but felt like he was walking on pillows, and fell to his knees.

That's an eye, he decided, regarding the strange object below his face. He threw up his dinner on it. Overhead, but no business of his, he could hear the upper deck twelve- pounders banging away raggedly, and the roar of the trucks as they recoiled. It sounded as if Ariadne was being turned into a pile of wood chips.

A second broadside from the Spanish ship slammed into them. More screams, more singing of flying debris, and a muffled explosion somewhere! He got back to his feet, clinging to a carline post.

Lieutenant Roth came skidding down the hatchway with his hat missing, and the white facings of his uniform and breeches stained grey with powder smoke. 'Harm! Lewrie, where's-' And then someone jerked Lieutenant Roth's string, or so it seemed, for he left his feet and flew across the width of the gun deck to slam into the larboard side where he left a bloody splash, cut in half by shot.

Got to get out of here, he told himself, considering how dark and safe it would be in the holds below the waterline snuggled up by the rum kegs. He seemed to float to the hatch, but Cole, the gunner's mate, stopped him by hugging his leg in terror. ’Zur,' Cole pleaded on his knees, clutching tight. 'Zur. ’

‘Not now.' Alan was intent on salvation, but there was a Marine sentry at the hatch using his bayonet to disincline others who had already had the same thoughts, and he looked over at Lewrie as one more customer for his trade.

Couldn't make it with this bastard anyway, Alan decided, unable to move without dragging the mate along with him. 'Goddamn you, you're a mate… tell me what to do!’

‘Zur!' the mate babbled, shuffling on his knees with Alan. 'I want out of here, hear me? OUT,' Alan yelled. ’Run out, zur?' the gunner's mate asked, eager for any sane suggestion. 'Run 'em out? Right, zur!’

‘Let go of me, damn you, and do your job! Get up and do your job! Stand to your guns!' And he hauled Cole to his feet and shoved him away. 'Corporal, run those shirkers to their guns!' Right, he told himself; I wouldn't believe me, either, seeing the Marine's dubious look. ’Ready, zur!' Cole was wringing his hands in panic. 'Fire as you bear!' Lewrie ordered, hoping to be heard in all the din. The thirty-two-pounders began to slam, rolling back from the sills and filling the deck with a sour cloud of burnt powder. This isn't happening to me, he thought wildly. I refuse to be killed. I will not allow myself to believe this is real…

Lewrie staggered to a port which no longer contained a gun and peered out to see through the smoke cloud. He was amazed to see some ragged holes punched into the enemy's hull. The range was less than a cable as the two ships drifted down on each other. ’Beautiful! Hit him again!' he shouted, happy that he might take a few of the