The King`s Coat

gunner said, squinting at their spectral foe. ’Number one larboard gun… fire!' Gwynn called, and the six-pounder closest to them below the larboard gangway fired. It was a spectacular sight at night to witness the tongue of flame that stabbed out through a nimbus of gunsmoke, and the sound seemed much louder than during the daytime. Lewrie was almost blinded by the flash. When he looked for their target it had disappeared for him, though the experienced gunners still peered at it intently.

The enemy ship returned fire, a single gun from her sternchaser, and the ball moaned into the night without hitting anything. By then Desperate was rapidly closing on the other vessel. The main guns began to bark regularly, though it was hard to tell if they were achieving any better results on their target than the enemy had. ’I kin hit him now, sir, I think,' the gun captain said. 'Blaze away!’

‘Stand clear.’

The carronade lurched inboard on its slide. Seconds later the sure sign of a solid hit on the hull flashed into life, and the night was full of the thin sound of screaming. 'Jaysus,' a hand said. ’Mules, sir. Or horses. No wonder he stinks. ’

‘God help the poor beasts,' Lewrie said, and the men around him echoed his sentiments. For the enemy, they would have no mercy, yet could weep real tears over their birds and dogs and manger animals.

Desperate was now within a cable, and one could discern the foe clearly in the starlight well enough to aim true. They put another ball from the carronade onto the poop of the enemy, and this time the screams were men, not dumb beasts. There was a hail of musket and swivel fire from the quarterdeck, and the ship's guns, sounding like nine-pounders, began to fire irregularly, but their aim was incredibly poor and did little more than raise great splashes close aboard.

Close enough to see people… Lewrie could make out a mass of men in white uniforms on the quarterdeck. almost a full company of troops that were firing by volley with their muskets. A ball from the carronade took a third of them down like a reaper. Desperate's guns were speaking as regular as a tolling bell from bow to stem, about ten seconds apart, each shot painting the water between the two dueling ships blood red and amber and lighting up their sides. The carronade fired again, providing enough of a light as the ball exploded to see the men with muskets writhing in agony as another third were scythed down and the remainder were faltering in their musket drill, falling back from the rails as Desperate's own Marines began to volley into them.

Once more that day, musket balls began to buzz about Lewrie's ears, and strike the decks and rails with solid thuds. There were more men across the way in white uniforms, now on the gangways and forecastle, loading and firing their muskets regular as clockwork. Their own Marines were taking a toll of those people with musket and swivels. ’That bunch, gun captain,' Lewrie ordered.

The carronade spoke once more, and the range was so close that the bursting of the shot was almost instantaneous, flicking whining bits of shrapnel around their own ears, but the welldrilled platoon of men on the gangways disappeared in the flash and the bang.

There was a narrowing tide-race of channel between the two ships, and Desperate's guns were spitting blazing wads at the enemy ship in addition to the solid shot, firing point-blank across the foamed breadth of water as their bow waves merged. 'Reload larboard gun… quickly! There's some men on her forecastle. Take 'em down,' Lewrie said. ’Grapnels! Prepare to board!' Railsford called out from aft.

There was little return fire from the enemy ship now, her gun ports silent and not a muzzle showing, though the resistance from her musketeers was still hot. There was a dense knot of them on the forecastle, first rank kneeling and second and third ranks alternated, lowering their muskets for a volley. ’Fire as you bear!' Lewrie ordered, his testicles shrinking up inside him at the sight of glittering bayonets and musket bores.

The carronade belched fire and smoke, and when the residue blew back over them downwind there was nothing left of the forecastle but a pile of bodies in white uniforms painted red with gore. ’Bow chaser, sir,' a gunner warned.

There was a light cannon on the forecastle, and the sailors in slop clothing were running to man it while more men in uniform ran forward with them to where the two ships would bump together.

Lewrie tried to attract the Marine sergeant's attention to them, but he was busy directing musket volleys farther aft. Alan saw the other crew removing the tompion of the bow chaser. ’Load, Goddamnit! Kill those people!' A musket barked, and the larboard carronade rammer screamed and fell to the deck. the rest of the crew shrinking away. ’Load. damn you, load.' Lewrie plucked a heavy Sea Pattern pistol from a weapons tub, checked to see it was primed and drew back the heavy cocking lever.

There was a volley of musket fire that spanged off the carronade, driving men into hiding behind the bulwarks and taking down two more men. Lewrie turned to face the enemy. He could see a man passing up a powder charge, leveled his pistol and took aim. He fired, and the ball hit the barrel of the bow chaser, spanging off with a flash of sparks, and took a sidetackle man in the stomach. The rammer man was now tamping down his charge.

Lewrie took up another pistol and aimed for the man who cradled a bag of musket shot. Not only did he miss him, he punched a scarlet bloom dead in the chest of a man with a handspike on the other side of the gun. ’Shitten goddarnn pistols I' He threw the thing across the gap, which by then could not have been fifty feet. If that bow chaser went off, they were all dead.

He was amazed to see the heavy, long-barreled (and wildly inaccurate) Sea Pattern pistol knock the teeth out of the gun captain with the slow-match ignition fuse and drop him out of sight. ’Stand clear!' the carronade gun captain finally barked out.

The men on the opposing forecastle began to shrink away. 'About bloody time,' Lewrie said in profound relief as his life was spared once more, but his relief was lost in the explosion of the powder charge and the bursting of the shot. As the two forecastles nudged together, and grapnels flew across to lash the two ships together, it wa…«; nearly as silent as the grave. 'Boarders!' Railsford ordered by Lewrie's side, waving his bright sword. 'Away, boarders!' Lewrie scrabbled for a cutlass from the weapons tub and then was borne forward like a pinnace surged onto a beach by a powerful burst of surf as the men who had gathered forward went over to the enemy ship in a howling mob.

He had no choice but to leap across the narrow gap-either that or fall and be ground to sausage meat between the hullswhere he was immediately tripped by a bight of shredded heads'l sheets and fen to the deck, to be almost trampled by his own people, as they screamed and whooped and fell on the enemy.

Haven't I done enough, dammit? he thought to himself, feeling the pain in his knees and shins. There was a strong ann lifting him up, a flash of smile in a dark face from one of the West Indian hands, and then he was stuck into it whether he cared to participate or not.

He headed aft for the larboard forecastle ladder and began to descend, but a pike head came jabbing out of nowhere, bringing a scream to his lips. He thrust out in the general direction of the pike's wielder, and his sword met meaty resistance.

The pike was withdrawing for a second thrust, and he grabbed the shaft behind the wickedly gleaming point and was pulled into the enemy, his cutlass sinking deeper into whoever it was. Suddenly there was a shrill yell almost in his ear, a hot and garlicky breath on his face, and he slammed into the man. There was enough light to see that he had his cutlass sunk hilt-deep into an enemy sailor, and it could not be withdrawn. Lewrie let go the pike shaft and twisted and pulled, bringing another shriek of agony. The sword came free, as did the man's entrails, slithering out like some image from a nightmare.

The entire waist of the enemy ship was a heaving mass of men who were clashing blades like a tribe of Welsh tinkers. Steel flickered and struck, knives flashed, bayonets and pikes dipped and thrust and came away slimed with blood. Underfoot there were already bodies enough, sailors and soldiers ripped to pieces by carronade shot, the decks gleaming wet and sticky. Pistols spat, muskets barked, giving little flashes of light on the scene.

Alan left the waist, going back to the silent forecastle, and made his way aft along the larboard gangway, picking his way across tangled rope piles and torn nettings and bodies. There was hardly any fighting there. He would have liked to have assisted but wasn't sure who was friendly and who was an enemy. He advanced slowly, his cutlass ready. ’Salaud!' someone snarled, leaping for him. Alan clashed blades with him, using both hands to go into the murderous cutlass drill, and also trying to remember his poor French… had the man just called him a 'dirty beast'?… The man stumbled backward from a hard blow, and Alan brought the blade flashing down once more, catching him on the side of the neck, slicing down through the collarbone. This time the cutlass could not be dislodged, so he bent down and took the man's rapier and a pistol from his waistband, pulled