The King`s Coat

gawky, thatch-haired young man leaped up in front of Lewrie with a cutlass, and Lewrie engaged with him as more poured over.

The man was strong but clumsy. Lewrie beat his guard aside and cut back across, slashing the man's throat. The man fell back into the sea, blood shooting out like a claret fountain. The next man up took a boarding pike through his stomach and also fell into the sea. The third, Lewrie had time to skewer with the point of his cutlass, and he too raised a splash alongside.

The enemy had gained the midships gangway but were being cut up by boarding pikes and Marine bayonets, and the enemy's stem was pivoting away from Desperate.

Lewrie waved his cutlass, attracting more angry bees that rushed by him. 'Fend 'em off the forecastle.. ‘.

With rarnmers, with handspikes, crows and boarding pikes, about a dozen hands were there with him, some slashing the air with cutlass steel, others fighting like wild Indians with tomahawks. The rebels who had gained the forecastle began to fall back, leaping for their own decks. A Marine corporal came forward with ten privates and began to volley into them. ’Do we board her?' the corporal asked. ’Won't trap me over there,' a gunner said. ’I think she's sinking,' Lewrie said. 'Look how low in the water she is.’

The brig was indeed very low in the water now, the sea almost up to her gun ports; her wale and chain-plates were already under. Lewrie could see the tangle of bodies on her forecastle and forward gun deck, piled up like slaughtered rabbits after a successful hunt; how two guns were shot free of any restraints and rolled back and forth on the bloody deck.

But they were still firing. Swivels and light four-pounders on her quarterdeck, where the only resistance still stood, an occasional musket or rifted gun, and pistols still popped. ’Cut her free,' Lewrie ordered the tomahawk men. 'We’ll” not be able to save her, and if we roll over she'll have the sticks out of us.’

The three-inch lines grappled to Desperate were already iron-hard and taut, groaning and crying with tension, and each time the brig slunk into a wave there was a pull downward on the frigate.

Once cut with an axe, the lines twanged like bowstrings and almost snapped a man's right arm off as they parted. The brig's forecastle was level with the sea, and her beakhead and jib boom was under, sinking quickly now by the bows. She would not last long. Ominous rumbles came from her as the surging waves explored her innards. ’Strike 1' Treghues yelled. 'In the name of humanity, strike!’

‘Hell, no, you British duck-fucker,' their young captain yelled back, cupping his hands and standing foursquare on his shattered deck. 'You tell the world, we were the brig 0' war Liberty, Continental By God Navy.. ‘.

Then with a foamy surge the ocean broke over her bows and she tilted up by the stem, gear and shattered timbers and loose guns and internal stores screaming in pain and bulkheads battered into ruin. She slipped beneath the sea, leaving a few survivors swimming in the light flotsam. Her mainmast was the last to go under, still bearing the striped rebel colors with the starry blue canton nailed to the mast. She had lost her fight, but it didn't feel so.

They fetched up and went over with a boat to pick up survivors, but there weren't a dozen men left and the young captain was not one of them. Treghues offered them dry clothes and rum and put them below.

Lewrie wished that the day was over but it was not to be. Once they had swayed up a new t' gallant mast, roved a fresh outer jib stay, taken down the damaged tops'l yard, fished it with a stuns'l boom, rehoisted it and bent on a new sail, they were off once more in search of prizes that lay tantalizingly to leeward.

After their labor a late meal was brought up from the galley, cold meat and cheese and biscuit. The rum ration was doled out along with as much small beer as they could drink. Their dead were hustled below out of sight by the loblolly boys and the decks washed clean of blood and offal to keep up their fighting spirit.

They came across another brig beating up to windward for Fredericksted from the west, unaware that anything was happening, and did not notice that Desperate was British until it was too late. She turned out to be French, come for a load of stores to smuggle, and was crammed to the deckheads with I1lIIl. molasses and naval stores. There was no resistance, and Mr. Monk went away with Carey in charge of her, leaving Alan as the last midshipman still aboard.

Let it be over, he thought in weariness, and the awful let~ down he had come to know as his normal reaction after each hard fight. All he wanted to do was find a patch of shade and go to sleep as some of the hands could, never mind slinging a hammock below. They had finally stood down from Quarters… every sail still in sight was hull-down over the horiwn running for their lives.

By late afternoon even Treghues had to admit that they had run out of hope of future prizes, that they had seemingly swept the ocean clean. On their way nor'west toward Culebra and Vieques Islands, they could see sails jogging along behind them, and in trail of the other warships, perhaps ten captures in all, in which all the frigates and sloops would share. Actually in material terms they had not made a real dent in the volume of imports to the rebellious Colonies, but perhaps the audacity of the raid would give the smugglers pause, or make them choose new areas in which to operate.

Lewrie stood by the taffrail, reveling in the quarter breeze now that the strength had gone out of the sun. The wind held his coat open, and he spread his shirt wide below the neckcloth to allow the cooling wind to play on his chest and sweaty ribs. 'Getting indecent with the mermaids, Mister Lewrie?' Lieutenant Railsford asked, coming aft to join him. ’That would be a novel experience, sir,' Lewrie said, taking off his hat to cool his scalp. ’That was good work you did up forrard today, Lewrie,' Railsford told him, letting his own coat spread open. 'Thank you, Mister Railsford, I am grateful that someone appreciated it. ’

‘I do not mean to pry, Mister Lewrie, but…' Railsford now spoke in a softer tone since Treghues' cabin skylight was slightly forward of them. and was open for a breeze… 'I get the feeling our lord and master no longer approves of you.’

’No need to worry, sir, I'll bear up.’

’Take a round turn and two half-hitches?' Railsford grinned. 'And as Mister Monk says, sir, the more you cry, the less you'll piss,' Lewrie bantered, his eyes overbright and his mood a bit too chipper to pass unnoticed. 'The captain has his… moods,' Railsford said, treading on soft ground… there had been officers who had been courtmartialed for a habit of criticism. A captain could demand obedience from his officers and also a united front of one mind once he had determined what opinion should be held. ’If it is any comfort, Mister Lewrie, those moods can be swift to change in most instances.' That was as far as Railsford would go in criticism of the captain. Any gossip passed on would undermine both Railsford's, and Treghues', authority. ’Aye, sir.’

’Remember, every captain has something to teach you, for good or ill. Life in the Reet can be a series of disasters to be borne sometimes.’

’I shall bear up, Mister Railsford. Thank you for that…' Desperate took in her t' gallants and brailed them up, lowered the yards to the caps, took a reef in their tops' Is and got the speed off her for evening sailing at the rendezvous, as well as to allow her prize vessels to catch up with her. Then it was clear- decks-and-up-spirits, supper, evening Quarters and hammocks below for the night. At dusk the masthead lookouts came down, and hands took up upper-deck viewing posts.

Amphion ordered all prize vessels gathered in an impromptu convoy, with the sloops off to windward to guard the flank.

Amphion brought up the rear and Desperate worked out ahead and to leeward of the convoy as they set off sou' east for the nearest British ports.

Lewrie had had his supper alone. Both master's mates and all the other midshipmen were away in prizes. The steward brought him some boiled salt-pork, a couple of new potatoes, biscuit and Black Strap cut with water. Aft, the officers were celebrating loudly, those still on board. Their steward came through several times with bottles which had been cooling on the orlop, while Alan ate and drank in isolation, which condition he was sure was to be permanent.

He had the evening watch, and Mr. Gwynn stood in for a deck officer with him. The sky was clear, littered with bright stars, and though there was no moon, the sea shone at each wavetop, now and then breaking into a white chop. Lewrie made a tour of the lower deck with the ship's corporal and master-at-arrns to inspect the galley and lanterns to make sure all fires were out, then went back to the quarterdeck and loafed by the forward nettings. The Trades sang sweetly through the rigging, and the hull held at a slight angle of heel to starboard, hissing and groaning as she made her way toward home.

Gwynn was near him, looking up at the stars and the sails. There was a gurgling noise as Gwynn pulled on a pocket flask of rum, and the sweet odor wafted by like a woman's perfume. 'Summat ta keep yer eyes open, Mister