Havoc`s Sword

line of mid-ships ports had turned several into one long, bloody gash. Below her gunn'ls and gun-deck her glossy black hull had been punctured, leaving star-shaped holes and ragged plank ends, with one smallish one right on the waterline. And, music to Lewrie's battered ears, the Nor'east Trades bore sounds of fright, suffering, and consternation as the enemy frigate's way fell off from the loss of so much sail, and her attempt to swing abeam to them by brute helm force. She could not turn quick, though, could not protect her vitals from a bow-rake!

'As you bear… fire!'

Amid squeals of agony, many tortured rrawrks! of rivened wood, and the pistol-pop of stays, they bowled shot down her entire length through her flimsier bow planking. Her foremast tumbled into ruin and her mizen top-masts swayed, pivoted, then plummeted down, taking the broken cro'jack yard, fighting-top, and spanker gaff with it burying her quarterdeck in a blizzard of trash!

'Cease fire, Mister Catterall!' Lewrie shouted, going forward. 'I think the Frogs've had their fill of us for a good long while, hey, lads? Think we've left a calling-card they'll remember next time?'

Then, more softly to Mr. Langlie, 'Take us dead off the winds, sir. Seaward, and alee of the Saintes, yonder. Stand ready to wear her onto starboard tack, the wind fine on the quarter, should it be necessary. Let fall the main course and sheet home, too. We've done a good morning's work.'

'We'll not stay to take her, sir?' Langlie just had to wonder.

'And risk them getting even a little of their own back, Mister Langlie? I think not. Far as they know, we didn't lose a single man, and sank or crippled three vessels in an hour. Let 'em think on that and be daunted,' Lewrie said with a smug sniff. 'Damme! What in the hell…?'

Light shot had moaned overhead, smacking through the mizen tops'l and t'gallant.

'That schooner, sor, he's up our stern, sor!' Mr. Larkin said, so close that Lewrie almost tripped over him.

'Hands to the braces, Mister Langlie. Mister Catterall, you will man the starboard battery, once we wear about!' Lewrie snapped. 'And why didn't you alert me, Mister Larkin, when I-'

'Couldn't make ye hear me, sor! All but tugged at yer coat, Oi did, but niver th'…' Larkin spluttered in sudden fear.

'Oh,' Lewrie grunted, knowing how remiss he'd been. 'Thankee, Mister Larkin. My pardons, but I do that sometimes. Tug away, next time, if you must. It saves our ship and our people's lives, I'll not chide you for it.'

'She'll most-like duck away, cross our stern once we've altered course, sir,' Mr. Winwood sourly supposed.

'Perhaps we'll get lucky and wing her, first,' Lewrie replied. 'Either way, we force her to cut and run. Then we'll sail away to the Nor'west and out of reach of her puny broadsides. Like she's not worth our attention.' Lewrie paced aft to stand by the taff-rail and lifted his telescope, then snorted in disgust.

'Will you look at this?' he scoffed. 'She's firing at half a mile, perhaps a tad more… with four-pounders, I expect,' he guessed as he gauged the keen of a ball passing to larboard, well clear of any hope of striking.

'Ready to come about, sir,' Langlie reported. 'Larboard guns secured, and the starboard battery manned.'

Lewrie watched the schooner haring up their wake, swaying back on course after yawing to open her gun-arcs for her last 'broadside.' Did Proteus come about, she'd rapidly lose speed, whilst the schooner kept lashing along, reducing the range to a quarter-mile, hopefully too quickly for that schooner captain to appreciate his danger. One good broadside from his 12-pounders should put the wind up him!

'Very well, Mister Langlie. New course, Nor-Nor'west, full and by. Mister Larkin, run tell Lieutenant Catterall we'll be hard on the wind, and he's to put the quoins full-in before he fires.'

'Aye, sor… sir!' the little imp happily cried before dashing forward, glad to have escaped his captain's wrath and to be 'back in his good books.'

'Oh, dear,' the Sailing Master muttered as they watched the wee foeman begin to swing, as Proteus, too, began to heel over and change course, 'but the poor fellow just chose the wrong tack to take, sir.'

'Let's hope we make his life a little more exciting, the next few moments, sir,' Lewrie snickered.

'Stand by!' they could hear Lt. Catterall shouting faintly, half his volume stolen by the rush of the wind. 'On the down-roll…'

'Eu, merde!' petty officer Gaston muttered once again, wincing into his thin coat as the British frigate's gun-ports opened.

'Fire!' Lt. Hainaut shouted urgently. 'Fire now, then get on the sheets and we'll wear about… quickly!'

His larboard 4-pounders fired, smouldering linstocks put to the touch-holes of the old-fashioned guns without even an attempt to lay or aim them. Crisp, terrier-like bangs rapped out, then a sharp double bang as the swivel- guns made their contribution. Even pointing upwards at forty-five degrees, their loads of scrap-iron and pistol balls would more likely come back down like a sudden rain squall not a third of the way to the anglais warship-which fired back!

Moans, keens, and shrieks of deadly, hurtling metal ran up the musical scale as they neared, some passing close enough to bludgeon men half off their feet with the wind of their passing, one smashing close-aboard, not twenty new-fangled meters from the larboard side a monster column of water leaping skyward as high as the foremast truck, to come pelting down like the rains of a tropic hurricane, wetting everything and everyone in an instant, smothering the wind from the fore-and-aft gaff sails and jibs, knocking Hainaut's elegant cocked hat off into the filthy scuppers, and drenching his best uniform and his carefully combed coif, 'til he looked, and felt, like a half- drowned wharf rat.

'We will tack!' he cried. 'Hands to the sheets. Ready to come about?' Yes, they were more than ready, by the look of it. 'Helm is… alee!' he shouted, putting his whole weight on the tiller bar.

Away L'Impudente danced, force back in her sails and agile again, showing her stern to the 'Bloodies' ' next broadside, then swinging past the eye of the wind to run just a dab South of Due East, making herself a very small, thin target… incidentally.

'Now, we will haul our wind and show her our starboard sides,' Hainaut screeched at his shaken crew. 'We will fire one last set of shots from the starboard guns, then go back on the wind. I promise.' He had to add that; the first part of his orders had them looking outright mutinous! 'Just one more, for the honour of our glorious flag, mes amis! To show les anglais we will never be daunted!' Hainaut didn't care if shot was rammed home or not; the bangs and the powder smoke would suffice for a show of defiance. For a show.

'Free sheets and take a strain… helm's up! Ease the sheets. Wait 'til the deck's level, for God's sake, wait… Now, fire! And sheet home. Helm is alee! And we are bound for home and mother!'

'What in Hell was that in aid of, I wonder?' Lt. Devereux, the Marine officer, asked with a wry, gawping, one-eye-cocked expression.

'Some young and cocky Monsoor, with dung for brains,' Catterall chuckled. His guns were shot out, swabbed clean, flintlocks removed, and the tompions inserted into the cooling muzzles. The gun-ports had been let drop and lashed shut, and his magnificent 12-pounder Blomefeld Pattern great-guns were now firmly bowsed to the bulwarks, their trucks chocked, and train and run-out tackle neatly overhauled. A last sponge-down to remove the powder stains, and Catterall could go aft for a well-deserved glass of claret from the gun-room stores. Looking up at their Marine officer on the gangway above him, Catterall imagined that Devereux was looking a tad 'dry,' himself, and might even, after such a successful morning's work, dip into his personal stores and offer to share a bottle with them. Devereux had private funds in addition to his pay, and a much more refined palate; his wine stock was head-and-shoulders above anything to which Mrs. Catterall's second son could ever aspire… not if they kept blasting perfectly good prize vessels off the face of the ocean instead of taking them, that is.

'Good rub-down, Sarn't Skipwith,' Devereux instructed, handing over his Pennsylvania rifle-musket. 'And do tell