The King`s Coat

bastards with him. 'Swab out, there, charge your guns.. ‘. ’Git yoor ztupid foot atta the bight a that tackle er yew'll be Mister Hop-kins,' the gunner's mate told someone. Just to be sure it wasn't himself, Lewrie stepped back to the centerline of the deck. Knew we should have struck all this below, he thought, studying the wreck of chests and stools and spare clothing.

As they were ramming down round-shot, a rammer man beside him took a large splinter of oak in his back and gave a shrill scream as he toppled over, scattering the terrified gun crew. ’Clear away, there! Wounded to the larboard side! Run out your guns!' Lewrie was glad to have something to do besides shiver with fright. He had not thought it would be that cold below decks. Teeth-chattering cold! 'Prime! Point!' He saw fists rise in the air as each gun was gotten ready and he felt the hull drumming to hits, but he also felt the scend of the sea under Ariadne. 'On the uproll… fire!' This was much more organized, a twelve-gun broadside fired all at the same time. An avalanche of iron seemed to strike the enemy. She visibly staggered, and three waist gun ports were battered into one, whole chunks of scantling blown apart by the impact. Surely there was a cloud of splinters on her gun deck this time. ’Kick 'em up the arse!' Lewrie sang out, which raised a ragged cheer from the men. 'Sponge out your guns!’

‘B… better, zur!' the mate said as Ariadne was struck deep in the hull but not on the gun deck. He looked at Lewrie like a puppy who had lost his man in a crowd. 'They're not sullen about gun drill now, are they?' Lewrie said with a manic smile. 'We'll take a few of the shits with us, hey?’

‘Aye, zur!' Cole said, finding his courage and gazing at him with frank admiration, which Lewrie found disconcerting in the extreme. 'Have we fired twice or three times?' he asked. 'Should we worm the guns? Don't want a charge going off early.’

’I'd worm, zur!' Cole said. 'Worm out yer guns there!' He must think I've gone mad, Lewrie thought, getting away from Cole as far as possible. In doing so he stepped over the body of a boy, a tiny, young midshipman who had lost a leg and bled to death, his dirk still clenched in a pale fist. Odd that after eight months in the same ship together Alan couId not place him at all. Fuck me, I'm dead or deranged already, he told himself. If I have to go game, I wish I couId stop shaking so badly. I'm ready to squirt my breeches! He clung to a support beam amidships and tried to get a grip.

Within a minute, fresh charges had been rammed down, wads, ball and sealing wads, and the guns trundled up to the ports. God, they're close now. At this range, we ought to shoot right through them… ’Prime your guns, point… on the uproll… fire!' Another solid broadside, a blow beneath the heart. ’Sponge out!' Lewrie shrilled. 'Gunner's mate, reduce charges and load with double shot… double shot and grape…' Powder monkeys scampered like panting rats as they came up from below with lighter powder bags, eyes widening in their blackened faces at the sight of the gore. ’No wonder they paint everything red down here,' Lewrie told a handspike man as he levered his charge about. 'Like the cloaks that the Spartans wore, I suppose, what?' The handspike man was too busy to talk to him, or even to listen, and Lewrie chastised himself for beginning to sound like one of those Hanoverians at Coon with their eh, what, what's. ’Gunner's mate, on the downroll this time, rip the bottom out from under them!'. ’Aye aye, zuc!' The gunner's mate stood in awe as he watched Lewrie take out his pocket watch, consult it, then pace about.

He knows I'm off my head… 'On the downroll, fire!' Below the level of the enemy's lower gun ports, star- shaped holes appeared. The range was a long musket-shot now with hardly a chance for a miss. 'Lewrie, where's Lieutenant Harm?' Beckett yelled up at him. 'Dead as cold boiled mutton,' Lewrie told him conversationally. 'So is Roth. He's over to larboard someplace. Need something?’

‘The Spanish are closing us, we must cripple them now-’

‘Oh. Right. We'll give it a shot, pardon the play on words.

Double shot the guns again. Or do you think, if we reduce to saluting charges, we could triple-shot the damned things?' Beckett and he had strolled aft through all the carnage, until Beckett spotted the dead midshipman, gave a shrill scream of disbelief and began to spew. 'Striplin! Oh dear God, it's Striplin!'. ’Wondered who that was,' Lewrie said. 'Ready? Run out your guns.' The enemy ship was evidently in trouble with her larboard battery, and was painfully tacking about to point her bows toward Ariadne to bring her undamaged side to bear. Her turn could also cut across their stem, and round-shot fired down the length of the gun deck would be like a game of bowls through the thin transom wood. But for that instant, the Dons were vulnerable to the same thing. ’As you bear… fire!' It was too much to ask for a synchronized broadside, but he could count on a few steady gunners to let fly as they readied their pieces. One at a time the thirty-two-pounders barked, no longer rolling back from the ports but leaping back and slamming to the deck with a crash as loud as their discharge as the breeching ropes stopped them.

The forward bulkhead aft of the jib-boom burst open. The boom and the bow sprit were shattered, releasing the tension of the forestays that held the rigging tautly erect. Forward gun ports were hammered to ruin as they swung into view. Splinters and long-engrained dust and paint chips fluttered out in a cloud from each strike. With a groan they could hear below decks the Spaniard's foremast came apart like a snapped bow, royal and t' gallant and topmasts sagging down into separate parts and trailing wreckage over the side, or leaning back into the mainmast, ripping sails apart and creating more havoc. ’Yahh… fry those shits,' Lewrie heard himself scream. Ariadne struggled to swing to starboard to keep the enemy on her beam, for there was still half that waiting broadside in reserve that could still do terrible damage. Lewrie pounded on people, rushing the swabbing and the loading and the running out. But they could not bear, and the enemy was drifting astern more and more. ’Point aft! HutTy it up!' Lewrie demanded, seizing a crow and throwing his own weight to shift a gun. 'Quoins in! Prime your guns as we shift!’

‘Done it!' the gunner's mate sounded off. ’Stand clear… fire!' Someone yelled as a gun recoiled over his foot, and a cloud of smoke rushed back in the ports. Lewrie went halfway out the nearest port for a look. 'Sonofabitch! Marvelous!' There would not be a return broadside. There was not one port showing a muzzle that did not tilt skyward, and close as they were, he could not see anyone working in the gloom. Damme, it's nearly dark… is it over, please, God? Ariadne could not stay to windward, for she had taken much damage aloft from chain and bar-shot that had tom her rigging to rags. She sagged down off the wind, while the Spaniard drifted away, going off the wind as well, but far down to the south, able to beam-reach out of danger, and Ariadne could not follow. ’Think it's over fer now, zur,' the gunner's mate told him. 'Water,' Lewrie said. 'Organise a butt of water.’

’Right away, zur.’

Lewrie sat down on what was left of a midshipman's chest and caught his breath. Now that the gunsmoke had been funneled out by fresh air, he could see a stack of bodies to the larboard side, and a steady stream of screaming wounded being carried below to the cockpit and the dubious mercies of the surgoon and his mates. The sound from below on the orlop was hideous as they sawed and cut and probed; mostly sawed, for badly damaged limbs had to come off at once. ’There was a gun dismounted,' Lewrie said suddenly, aching at the effort of communication. 'Has it been bowsed down?’

‘Aye, sor,' a quartergunner told him. 'Got her back on her truck an' lashed snug ta larboard.’

’Good. Good.' He nodded. 'Organise a crew from larboard to rig a wash-deck pump and begin cleaning up. We may not be through yet.' He could see that once the guns ceased to speak, the men were sagging into shock, and that sneaky bastard might come back. They would be useless the next time, and he did not know what to do. ’Water, zur,' the gunner's mate said. 'Have a cup. ’

‘They're falling apart. What do I do?' Lewrie pleaded. 'I'll see to keepin' 'em on the hop, zur. Yew take a breather.

Yew done enough fer now,' Cole said, making it sound like a reproof.

I must have screwed this up royally, Lewrie sighed. Well, who cares? I never wanted this anyway! I wonder if all this was famous or glorious? What would Osmonde say? Is he alive to say anything? Bosun's pipes shrilled and the bosun yelled down, 'D'ye hear, there? Secure from Quarters!’

‘Iffen yew want, zur, I'll finish up here,' the gunner's m~ said. 'When ya zees the first lieutenant, the count is eleven dead an' nineteen wounded an' on the orlop. ’

‘Jesus,' Lewrie breathed. 'Sweet Jesus.’

’Aye, zur. Damned bad, it was. ' Anything to get away from the screams from the surgery, he decided, getting to his feet with a groan and slowly ascending to the upper deck and the quarterdeck. ’Good God, are you wounded, Mister Lewrie?' Swift asked him as he reveled at the coolness and sweetness of the evening winds. ’I don't think so, Mister Swift,' wondering if he had been struck and did not yet realize it. Perhaps that explained his weakness