The King`s Coat

Desperate replied with a full broadside fired on the uproll, all nine starboard side guns and the starboard carronade together. The brig staggered as she was struck between wind and water, and the carronade shot blew her forecastle to pieces of lumber. Yet there were still men over there to serve her guns, and she struck back, ripping chunks out of Desperate's bulwarks and hammock nettings! Lewrie waS almost downed by a Marine that was flung off the starboard gangway to drop like a beef carcass between the guns. Three gunners screamed and clawed at their flesh as long thick wood splinters were driven into them. ’Loblolly boys!' Lewrie called out. 'Here, you, take this man's place as rammer man.’

’Oh God, sor, don' lemme be took ta the cockpit, sor,' a gunner said as he was picked up. One splinter stood quivering in his upper right arm, and another in his lower chest, driven sideways under skin.

But Lewrie motioned for him to be hauled away, and kicking and fighting, he was dragged to the midships batch. The Marine's body was stuffed under the fore jear bitts. ’Shot your guns!' Lewrie ordered as Mr. Gwynn busied himself at the carronade. 'Run out! Number four, overhaul that side-tackle now!' The carronade slammed aloud once more as Lewrie supervised the battery. Gwynn gave a cheer as his latest shot went home somewhere in the brig. ’Prime your guns,' Lewrie commanded. 'We shall fire together on the uproll.' Carey was there at his side. f.The captain wants you on the quarterdeck, Lewrie.’

’Aye. Point your guns.’

The range was now about two cables, and even a linstocktired gun with no sights of any kind could be devastingly accurate that tlose. ’On the uproll… fire!' Lewrie shouted, feeling the scend of the sea through his feet. The first gun bellowed, now hot and leaping straight back from the sill. He ran aft with the broadside, since some gunners did not get a clean ignition on the first uproll, and had to wait for the second, each gun captain now doing his own aiming. ’You wanted me, sir?' Lewrie said after gaining the quarterdeck. 'Mister Lewrie, Mr. Gwynn or the gunner's mate are in charge on the gun deck, and I'll thank you to remember that,' Treghues told him. 'Mr. Gwynn is dealing with the carronade, sir, and the gunner's mate is below in the magazine, sir-’

‘You shall return forward and remind Mr. Gwynn of his duties as master gunner, and you shall summon the gunner's mate from the magazine for the forecastle gun. I shall not have any of my midshipmen circumventing the proper chain of command.’

’Aye aye, sir,' and Lewrie doffed his hat. Treghues turned his back on him, and Lewrie was left staring at Railsford and Monk as they shook their heads. He put his hat on, shrugged to them with a smile that seemed to say you-figure-it-out and ran back forward.

Gwynn really would much rather have played with his carronade, but he sighed and went down the ladder to the gun deck. Lewrie took time to see that the brig was taking a real beating, half her larboard side pitted with shot holes and her sail-handling gangway tom away.

Lewrie ran below down the midships hatch and rapped on the hatchway to the hanging magazine on the orlop deck. The gunner's mate stuck his head out through the slitted felt curtain. ’The captain wants you to help Mr. Gwynn supervise the guns,' Lewrie panted. Robinson spat. He and the Yeoman of The Powder Room were busy enough passing cartridges to the ship's boys to run up to the guns, and no one ever allowed many cartridges to be made up, so he was busy filling silk bags and tying them off to service the hungry artillery. 'What's happenin' up top?’

‘We're shooting hell out of a rebel brig.’

’Then whadduz 'e want me for?' Robinson asked. ’He doesn't want me running the guns, Mister Robinson,' Lewrie said with another eloquent shrug as Robinson squeezed through tht: felt curtain and followed him toward midships. 'No pleasin' officers,' Robinson said. 'Nor figurin' what they want, neither.’

Once on deck there was really nothing for Robinson to do, since they had closed to within half a cable of the brig and the remaining Marines were having a field day shooting by volley from the hammock nettings, ramming and spitting ball down the barrel, cocking and stepping up to the nettings, aiming and firing two rounds a minute at their hottest pace.

The brig was still fighting back gamely. Her colors now flew from her maintop, the gaff of the spanker having been shot away. It looked as though the flag had been nailed to the topmast. ’Damned tough, they is,' a quartergunner shouted to Robinson. 'Cap'n called on 'em ta strike, an' their master tol' Treghues ta go fuck 'isself.’

’They're Englishmen, by God,' Robinson said. 'May be rebel Englishmen, but they're our sort, game as guinea cocks.' There was another volley from the brig's guns, three distinct barks from all her surviving guns, and three hard knocks that rocked Desperate as though she had been kicked by a giant. ’Prime yer guns,' Robinson shouted. 'Point. On the uproll…' There was a flurry of gunfire from the rebel ship, swivels and musket fire that struck quills of wood from bulwarks and decks. 'They've men in the foretop,' Lewrie yelled to Lieutenant Peck but could not make himself heard. 'Christ!' Robinson grunted. He had been struck by a ball in the knee. 'Mister Gwynn,' Lewrie yelled. 'It's Mister Robinson.’

’On the uproll… fire!' Gwynn commanded, finishing the sequence that Robinson had started. 'They'll take me fuckin' leg, I knows it,' Robinson groaned as he rocked and shivered with agony. 'I had ta leave the magazine fer this…?' There was another volley of musket fire and two Marines went limp, falling back over the starboard gangway. Lewrie remembered what he had tried to tell Peck, and jumped for the gangway, levering himself up in clear shot to speak to the Marine officer. ’Sharpshooters in the foretop, sir.’

’Rifles, by God!' Peck called out, spotting where the fire was coming from. The men aloft on the enemy ship were dressed in some kind of uniform, rifle-green tunics with white facings and buff breeches, and round hats pinned up on one side. This was no expensively outfitted privateer or a merchant vessel feeling overly aggressive- this was a rebel warship of the so-called Continental Navy! 'By volley, at the foretop,' Peck ordered, pointing at the target with his smallsword. 'Mister Lewrie!' Gwynn roared. 'Lay the carronade on them!' It was an order he was glad to obey… he had not yet been allowed to play with the carronades and it relieved him from standing about like a supernumerary. 'Quoin out, gun captain,' Lewrie yelled in the man's ear after failing to get his attention any other way. 'Lay on her foretop!’

‘Too close, sir, won't bear that high.’

’The larboard gun.’

’Aye, might reach.’

’Even if you hit the mast, that'll bring 'em down,' Lewrie said, running to larboard. The carronade mount could be swiveled about in a wide arc, so it was easy to lay it in the general direction. But their activity attracted the sharpshooters, and a powder boy screamed as his eleven-year-old life was snuffed out with a larger-caliber rifle ball through his spine.

Lewrie dove for the powder cartridge and shoved it into the muzzle, standing aside as the rammer man thrust away. They got a ball down the muzzle, but then the rammer man gave a shriek and spun about, a bullet through his brains. ’Jesus Christ, save us,' the gun captain said, picking up the rammer and giving the ball a few taps. ’Quoin out, there!' Lewrie told the man behind the gun. He felt a breath of air on his face, heard a hum like a summer bee and saw the larboard rail toss off a burst of tiny wood chips as a rifle ball nearly divided his skull. ’Hot work, sir,' the tackle man nearest him said with a gaptoothed smile. 'At least you're getting paid,' Lewrie said, lost in a fighting fever. ’Stand clear!' the gun captain said, lowering his linstock.

Up close, the explosion of the powder charge was like having one's head down the muzzle, and Lewrie's ears rang and ached, but he saw the foretop shattered by the explosion of the carronade shot, and the cluster of sharpshooters was tom away in pieces as the topmast came down in chunks as well, and her rigging draped her like a netting.

The foremast gave a groan, and then the thick column of the lower mast began to split like a sawn tree that had been felled badly, pivoted forward with the pressure of the wind on a loose forecourse yard and came down with a crash across the enemy's forecastle, crushing the bow-chaser gun crews that must have been firing at them at that point-blank range but had gone unnoticed in the general tumult and chaos.

The brig was now almost alongside, her gangways slightly below Desperate's taller railings, and the Marines were having a great time shooting down into the enemy ship's waist. ’Boarders,' Railsford yelled, drawing his sword. 'Repel boarders… ’

‘Holy shit on a biscuit,' the carronade gun captain shouted. ’I don't believe these people!' Lewrie seized a cutlass from a weapons tub and went to the starboard forecastle rail. The brig was bumping into Desperate, and such of her crew as had survived were tossing grapnels to hold their ship against the frigate even as the Marines' volleys cut swathes out of their closely packed ranks. A