The King`s Commission

made the most of her longer hull form. The Spanish ketch grew in size, bringing all her hull up over the horizon as the Gulf of Guacanayabo opened out before them. Try as she might, she did not have the sail power or the length of hull to make enough speed to escape.

'Ahoy the deck, thar!' came a call from the lookout aloft. 'Sail, three points off the starboard bow!'

'Rossyngton, get aloft and spy him out,' Alan barked, and the well turned out midshipman paused for a moment as he considered how dirty his white waist-coat, slop trousers and shirt were going to get from the tar and slush of the standing rigging.

'Today, Goddamn you!' Lilycrop howled.

Rossyngton was off like a shot, pausing only long enough to take a telescope with him as he scampered up the shrouds to the top and almost shinnied up to the cross-trees.

'Guarda Costa sloop, sir!' Rossyngton finally shouted down. 'One-master!'

'Must have been on patrol out of Manzanillo, sir,' Alan said, hanging from the shrouds himself for a better view. With his heavy glass, he could see a small ship, as Rossyngton described a single-masted sloop or cutter, with a large fore-and-aft gaff-rigged sail and one square-rigged tops'l above that, and a long jib-boom and bow-sprit that anchored three huge jibs. Even in the protected bay, she was hard at work off the wind, pitching noticeably.

'Fifty, sixty foot or so,' Lilycrop speculated, leaning on the starboard quarterdeck bulwarks by Lewrie's feet with his own telescope. 'Maybe two heavy guns forrud, nine or twelve-pounders, and little four-pounder trash abeam. That's why she's pitchin' like that.'

'She'll interpose our course, sir, to save that ketch.'

'Damned if she will!' Lilycrop chuckled. 'Mister Lewrie, beat to Quarters. We'll take her on first, then have our prize.'

Shrike did not run to a richer captain's private band replete with fifes and drums. Her single young black drummer rattled his sticks, first in a long roll, then broke into a jerky, cadenced beating of his own invention that sounded like a West Indies religious rite or revel.

'She'll try to fight us like a galley, Mister Lewrie,' Lilycrop informed him once the ship was rigged for battle with all unnecessary items stowed below (and his precious cats ensconced with Gooch in the bread rooms). 'Keep her bows aimed at us to let her heavier bow guns bear.'

'We could fall off the wind, sir,' Alan suggested, scanning the tactical set-up and trying to solve the puzzle of three ships, each on its own separate course and proceeding at different speeds. 'We've room enough to windward of the chase now.'

'No, she'd still get within range, or chase after us, and damme if I want my stern shot out,' Lilycrop replied. 'Stand on as we are, and give her broadsides close aboard. Mister Cox, I'll want three shots every two minutes at your hottest practice, double-shotted, mind!'

'Aye aye, sir!'

'On this course, the chase'll get inshore near Santa Cruz del Sur, Captain,' Caldwell told them, waving a folded up chart at them. 'There's a battery there, I'm told. About forty miles before we'd be in their range, though, sir.'

'The bitch'll never make it,' Lilycrop said confidently. And before a half-hour glass could be turned, the Spanish Guarda Costa sloop was within range of random shot, and her heavy bow chasers barked together. One shot moaned overhead and forward of the bows to raise a large feather of spray to leeward. The other ball smacked into the sea abeam of Shrike, but about a quarter-cable short, and skipped once but did not reach her.

'He'll go about now, or we'll leave him behind,' Lilycrop said.

Shrike was racing nor'nor'west, with the sloop to her right side, about a mile east of her, and about half a mile ahead, bound on a course roughly west'sou'west. She did not have the speed to pass in front to rake Shrike, so she would have to turn soon on a parallel course and bring her guns to action down her larboard side.

'She's leaving it a bit late if she is,' Alan observed as more minutes passed. The sloop's heavy fo'c'sle guns spoke again, this time raising splashes much closer, though once more without harm. Her bows were pitching too much for proper aim even as the range shortened.

It was a beautiful day for it, Alan noted with pleasure, unable to believe that the small sloop could be much of a menace. The sea was sparkling blue and green, azure near the eastern shore, and the hills around the small port of Niquero, and the mountains of the Sierra Maestras were a vivid, luscious green after the last heavy rains of the hurricane season, sweeping fluffy trails of cloud above them in a perfect blue sky.

'There!' Lilycrop pointed as the sloop finally foreshortened in a turn as she came almost abeam of Shrike's, jib boom, not half a mile away now. 'Mister Cox, skin the bitch!'

'Aye aye, sir!' Cox agreed joyfully. 'As you bear… fire!'

The small four-pounder chase gun yapped like a terrier, then the more substantial explosions of the six- pounders of the starboard battery pounded out. Caught in the act of wearing ship, controlling that huge fore-and-aft mains'l and those over-sized jibs, the broadside shook her like a shark's first bite as ball after ball hammered into her. The sloop seemed to tremble, then swung about quickly, almost pivoting on her bows as her mast, the tops'l yard, and the mains'l gaff came down in a cloud of wreckage, and the uncontrolled jibs billowed out to drag her bows back down-wind. For a second, she had heeled like a capsize.

'That's one way to gybe a ship!' Caldwell exulted.

'Bit rough on the inventory, though,' Lilycrop chuckled in appreciation. 'Well done, Mister Cox! Hit her again!'

They passed her at long musket-shot, about one hundred yards, as the sloop was tugged down to them bows on, and iron round-shot tore her to lace, flinging light scantlings into the air in a cloud, ripping her bow and fo'c'sle open.

'Luff up and hit her one last time, sir?' Alan asked, excited at how much damage they were doing.

'She's a dead 'un,' Lilycrop scowled. 'Let's get on to our prize. If we've a mind, we might come back for her later. She's not goin' anywhere but down-wind and out to sea, away from rescue.'

'Mister Cox, stand easy!'

''Bout another hour to catch yon ketch, Mister Caldwell?' Lilycrop surmised with a practiced eye.

'Hour and a bit, sir,' Caldwell agreed.

'Secure from Quarters. Issue the rum and a cold dinner.'

They did catch the ketch, nearly one hour later, prowling up to her starboard side with the advantage of the wind-gauge. One ball from the larboard battery settled the matter, splashing close abeam to ricochet into her upper-works and shatter a bulwark, raising a concerted howl of terror. The ketch lowered her colors and rounded up into the wind quickly, while the howling continued.

'Jesus, what's all that noise?' Alan wondered aloud as one of the boats was led around from being towed astern to the entry port.

'I suspect yon Dago is a slaver, Mister Lewrie,' Lilycrop said sadly. 'We're upwind where we can't smell her, but keep a tight hold on your dinner once you get inboard. Now, away the boardin' party before they change their feeble minds.'

The winds were freshening, and the sea heaved a little more briskly as Alan sat down on a thwart in the cutter. The captain's cox'n got the boat's crew working at the oars, and within moments they were butting against the side of the ketch, and Alan was scrambling up the mizzen chains to swing over the low rail, glad to have pulled it off without getting soaked or drowned.

'Jesus!' He gagged once he was firmly on his feet, and the men from the boarding party were following him up onto the ketch's decks.

It stank like an abattoir, brassy with corruption, almost sweet like decomposing man-flesh, mingled with the odor of excrement and stale sweat, of foul bilges and rot. Most ships smelled to a certain extent, but he had never, aboard a prize or a well-found Royal Navy ship even after a desperate battle, smelled the like, and his stomach roiled in protest.

An officer walked up to him, a sullen brute in rumpled and soiled breeches and shirt, legs exposed by lack of shoes or stockings. He began to rattle off a rapid burst of Spanish, which was definitely one of the world's languages that Alan lacked, and Alan waved him off, trying to shut him up.

'You the captain?' he asked when the man took a breath.