Havoc`s Sword

'At a cable, Mister Langlie, let fly all to get our way off, so we don't scud right past her,' Lewrie continued. 'Grappling hooks and boarding parties to be ready… the larboard bow-chaser to fire, when I call for it.'

'Aye aye, sir,' Lt. Langlie replied, leaning over the rail and nettings to pass the word forward and below to the crew. Barely had he done so when the unidentified ship's watchstanders stiffened and froze in surprise, having spotted Proteus bearing down on them, at last, and began to fling their arms about and tumble out a string of orders.

'Mon Dieu, qu'est-ce que tues fous? Ca va pas, non?' the senior watchkeeping mate howled with the aid of a brass speaking-trumpet, his voice a horrified screech. 'Detourner, detourner, maintenant!'

' 'What the hell are you doing? Are you crazy? Turn, now,' ' Mr. Peel was translating, quite enjoying the Frenchman's discomforture.

'Bow-chaser, Mister Langlie,' Lewrie drawled.

'Larboard chase-gun… fire!' Followed by a loud bang!

'Open the larboard gun-ports,' Lewrie instructed, 'and begin to round up on her, if you please. Mister Peel, you speak good Frog. Do you inform her that we're British, and I'll blow her to kindling if she doesn't surrender, this instant. Ici la fregate anglaise Proteus, and all that. And we'll see which gives 'em the collywobbles… our artillery, or dare I hope, our fearsome name!'

Peel took Lt. Langlie's speaking-trumpet and went over to larboard-not without a new tangle with a ring-bolt and a curse or two-and shouted their identity and demands. At the same time, Proteus seemed to roar and snarl as the heavy gun-carriages' trucks thundered forward, as the gun-ports swung upward to bare blood-red squares above, and the sight of glossy-black muzzles below them, run out in battery.

'Putain! Mon Dieu, merde alors! Mort de ma vie ! Aack!' could be made out among screeches, shrill screams, and distressed howls of sudden terror as the off-duty watch came boiling up from below to gape at the slaughter which lay not a ship-length from them. 'Oui! Not to fire, we are the surrender! Reddition, please!'

'Ease us alongside, Quartermasters. Mister Devereux! Ready to board her and round her rabble up!' Lewrie chortled. 'Ready, boarders!

Order was being sorted out of the French crew's panicky chaos. Braces and sheets were being released from the pin-rails to allow her sails to flag and luff, powerless, as Proteus thundered again with the roar and snarl of defiance, from every hand's throat, this time. With throat-tearing, savage yells of triumph!

CHAPTER TWENTY

Why the Devil are they lookin' at me that way?' Lewrie groused as the French captain of their latest prize and a seedy-looking Dutch 'trullibubs' continued to goggle at him and shrink into themselves whenever he paced near them on the quarterdeck.

'Frankly, sir, you scare the piss out of them,' Mr. Peel replied.

'Well, hmm…' Lewrie mused, shooting his cuffs and re-setting the line of his coat. 'Good.'

'And who wouldn't be, I ask you, Captain Lewrie,' Peel smirked. 'Considering, hmm?'

Lewrie had grabbed one of his bled-out sky-blue coats, had slung his hanger's waistbelt over his chest like a cutlass's baldric, and had a pair of his double-barreled pistols shoved into his waistband. Still without stockings or neck-stock, and still bare-headed, he had to admit that he just might present the slightest image of an unshaven, tousled buccaneer of the last century, of the bloodthirstiest piratical bent!

For a fillip, Lewrie screwed his face into a murderous grimace, glared at the pair of them, and uttered his best theatrical 'Arrr!'

Peel had to turn his back before he laughed out loud. After he had mastered himself once more, he crossed the quarterdeck to Lewrie's side up to windward, as Proteus and her prize 'trailed their colours down Basse-Terre's leeward coast, just a cable or two outside the range of the French forts, but well within plain view, and with their Union Flags flying atop every mast, as well as over the biggest French Tricolour they could find aboard the merchant ship.

'Captain Fleury, I strongly suspect, did piss himself after he got to his quarterdeck, sir,' Peel said in a confidential murmur. 'He had heard the rumours about our last raid, and taken the Dutch captain of that ship we sank aboard as a passenger, who'd told him all about how brutal we, and you, were. Haljewin is his name, and a fount of information, he is. Though he did manage to contain his bladder.'

'Actually pissed himself?' Lewrie snickered. 'My word!'

'Let's just say that his stockings are yellow, and his breeches buttons are rusting, sir,' Peel said with a chuckle. 'This Haljewin, though… Choundas and Hugues had chartered his ship to bear munitions to Rigaud, at Jacmel or Jeremie, and we cost them sore when it went up in flames. Haljewin had a rather unpleasant tete-a- tete with Choundas afterward, and fled aboard Captain Fleury's ship for safety, and a way off the island, soonest. Before Choundas murdered him for letting him down, d'ye see. And before Fleury set sail, they had a week or two to hear other interesting bits, come down to the waterfront.'

Dammit, but Peel was beginning to play his superior's game, that pregnant pause and brow-arched leer that would force the other person to ask him to continue, that would allow Peel (or Pelham) to make the un-informed party twist slowly in the wind, give them their moments of smug superiority… that, or slap 'em silly for holding out!

'Arrr?' Lewrie growled, with a black-visaged grimace at Peel.

'Won't work on me, sir,' Peel assured him. But Peel did relent and inform him of how they had removed Choundas's frigate from the equation; that Choundas and Hugues were at deadly logger-heads; that there were now two corvettes and two additional vessels converted to privateers in Choundas's little 'squadron'; and that the lack of powder and shot, of boots, tents, blankets, muskets, and such with which to bribe or bedazzle the lighter-skinned, French-educated Gen. Rigaud on St. Domingue to be Gen. Hedouville's instrument, was most effectively ruining French hopes to reclaim the island colony outright.

'Captain Fleury's ship, though, sir,' Peel continued. 'Just a general cargo. He'd gotten into Jacmel and back out with sugar and coffee, cocoa, molasses, and rum, and had come back to Basse-Terre in hopes of selling some of it to local merchants, getting an escort from Hugues out to the open seas, past our patrols round Hispaniola, and getting his goods back to France.'

'Aye, tight as the French are blockaded, here and there,' Lewrie surmised, 'that sort of cargo would be worth its weight in gold.'

'Even more relishing, sir, Fleury was chartered by Hugues,' Peel added, beaming with pleasure. 'He and this Captain Fleury were to split the profits. Dare I say, this loss will anger Hugues, no end. And drive another wedge 'twixt Hugues and Choundas.'

'Where was their escort?' Lewrie asked.

'None available, since Hugues's own frigate is off far west, on the Spanish Main, searching for American prizes, sir,' Peel said, ''and Choundas was so stung by Hugues's criticism that he sent all his ships to sea. Six of one, half- dozen of the other. Either way, Choundas is sure to be held responsible, no matter what he did or didn't do.'

'So, does this Haljewin fellow, or this Fleury, know where we'd find Choundas's privateers?' Lewrie demanded, eager to crack on sail, secure his prize with the Admiralty Court not half a day's sail South on Dominica, and start hunting them down.

'Another matter, first, sir,' Peel insisted, a finger raised.

'Arrr, Mister Peel!' Lewrie gravelled.

'Impressive, sir, truly,' Peel mocked. 'No, from what Haljewin says, Choundas is turning the island inside-out, seeking a spy. 'Twas Choundas's conviction that you, sir, are simply too dim to have pulled off our raid, with such an exquisite timing as to estop a vital and secret cargo,