The King

'Not a one of 'em half the man you are, Hoolahan,' Lewrie assured him with a clap on the shoulder as he paced along down from the quarterdeck to the waist of the ship where the artillery waited, ready to fire when the word was given. 'Got your swivel charges ready for 'em, Spears?'

'Oh, aye, sir!'

'Good lad. Now wave your hat and cheer 'em!'

The blood-red praos breasted easily over the harbor bar through the disturbed breaker-water and spread out, furling their single sails at long last after a long passage. They might have stopped off on the coast of Borneo, dangerous as that was even for them among the headhunters, and done the last three hundred miles to Spratly. Most of the men in the boats stood and waved back, brandishing swords, muskets or older matchlocks like Hindoo jezails, whooping fit to bust. They had livestock with them, crammed in any-old-how. And slaves to do the rowing at the long paddles. Yes, they must have replenished on Borneo, Alan decided, to have that much food aboard.

And it appeared they'd come prepared for a long stay. Every prao was piled high below her rowing benches with bamboo logs and palm leaves with which to make huts.

Lewrie made his way back to the quarterdeck, watching the pirate fleet advance in a ragged band, making for the beach. Steering a course for Culverin, and for Lady Charlotte. Lady Charlotte wore the French merchant flag on her stern, and her spanker gaff had been given a stuns'l boom lashed to its inside end, to make it look like the older lateen that the pirates would expect to see on Sicard's La Malouine. Culverin, too, flew an extemporized French ensign painted on one of Lewrie's bed sheets.

'Oh, Christ, don't beach your damned ship there!' Hogue prayed as three praos angled for the inviting strand on the western peninsula. There were troops there, hidden in the rocks at the crest, with some light artillery to support them. Unlike newer naval guns, those were fired with powder-filled goose quills or tin ignition tubes to ignite the powder charges in the barrels, and that required a burning length of slow-match to touch the quills or tubes off. Slow-matches which were now lit and smouldering, giving off tiny trails of smoke. If a pirate spotted that before the ambush could be sprung, they'd have a battle-royal on their hands. And the troops could not hope for total cover in the rocks. Let someone walk up the beach a few yards, and the game would be over!

There were thousands of the buggers, just as he had surmised, and even with modern weaponry, Sir Hugo's troops could be overwhelmed. The two ships could be swamped with fanatically enraged pirates with no hope of aid from shore.

'Come on, you buggers!' Lewrie muttered. 'Go on and beach your silly arses by the fort, where the goodies are waiting!' The plan was to wait, wait until most of the pirates had beached or anchored their boats at the fort. Canvas-covered piles of what looked to be trade goods sat out in the open, delectably available. Once between Lady Charlotte and Culve-rin's guns, and the fire-power available ashore, the trap would be sprung. Sir Hugo had enough men to cover the north shore around the fort, and part of the western headland, only able to spare a half-company to reinforce the heavy battery on the point. If the pirates tumbled to it earlier, it would be a near thing as to who would get the worst of it.

Praos drifted by to bow and stern, some coming very close in as they passed. It was much like being in the middle of a pack of hungry sharks.

'I think this bastard wants t' come aboard, sir!' Murray said, pointing to one prao that was rounding up below the entry port. 'Do we let 'em, sir?'

'Christ!' Lewrie hissed. Hard as the battle to take the island had been on his nerves, it couldn't hold a candle to this. There was a person of some rank among the pirate band standing on the rails of his boat, waving and shouting, demanding entry. 'Ashore!' Lewrie said, pointing in that direction. 'Ashore, hey? You… go… there! No come here!' He was all but wiggling his bottom, trying to get the gist of his message across. One pirate's eyes over the bulwarks to see loaded cannon and crews at the ready, and they'd swarm Culverin like a hive of disturbed bees!

'He don't sound too happy about it, sir,' Murray warned. The pirate, clad in a cloth-of-gold turban, green silk skirt, jewels and weapons, was gesticulating and swearing to beat the band, upset that his will was being defied, that his august personage was being waved off instead of catered to.

'Oh, God, look sir!' Hogue yelped.

Those three praos had beached themselves on the western shore and their crews were disembarking, stretching and bending to loosen muscles kept taut at sea, and were spreading out in a dense pack over the peninsula's beach.

'Stand by with those grenadoes, Mister Hogue,' Lewrie warned. 'Well, if you want to come up, who am I to stop you, you little bastard?' he relented, waving and bowing for the pirate to scamper up. 'All hands, stand ready! Ready to hoist the proper colors!'

The pirate took on a smug look, having gotten his way with the infidels at last, and began to step up to the main-mast chains. The rail of the prao was not so far below Culverin's bulwarks.

'Most of 'em past us?' Lewrie asked, going to the starboard gangway to greet his unwelcome visitor.

'About half, looks like, sir,' Hogue shuddered, like to faint with anxiety. 'Only 'bout half, so far.'

'Best we'll do, then,' Lewrie sighed, his own nerves twittering like a dropped harpsichord. He stood and waited for his visitor, a smile on his face. The pirate stepped up on the bulwarks and frowned when he saw what waited him. He opened his mouth to yell.

Lewrie drew his hanger and lunged. He put the point in just around the navel and sank an unhealthy foot of steel into the man's belly. Before he even had time to shout or draw breath, he was over the side, tumbling back into the water between the ships!

'Grenadoes!' Lewrie screamed. 'Open your ports and open fire! Get English colors aloft!'

The signal for the opening of the battle. Even as the pirates were beginning to realize their captain was dead and starting to howl with rage, empty wine bottles went over the side, with wicks burning.

Some were filled with whale oil, some with gunpowder and cut up scrap-iron bits. When they shattered, they burst into flames among the densely packed pirates, among their galley-slaves at the rowing benches. Those that did not shatter, those wrapped about with cloth to protect them, exploded as their fuses burned out and reached the powder. They caused more panic than casualties, but it didn't do the pirates' nerves any good.

And then the ports were open, and the carronades were firing. The light two-pounder swivel guns were spewing lethal loads of canister or grape-shot down into the boats closest alongside, scything howling pirates down in mid-cry. Praos farther off rocked and came apart at the touch of solid shot, spilling their crews into the water.

Once the prao alongside was fended off and allowed to drift shoreward, on fire and already sinking, Lewrie ran back to the after deck where Cony waited with his personal weapons. He took the time to see Lady Charlotte blazing away with her remaining heavier long-barreled twelve- pounders, ringed with boats. The shore beyond her was almost lost in the crackle of musketry and the clouds of gunpowder produced by the infantrymen, and the firing of the light artillery. There was a blast of smoke high up the hill, as the first of the hidden battery up there fired, and a great feather of spray sprang into being next to a pirate boat farther off.

Lewrie went to the rail with the Ferguson rifle he had obtained at Yorktown and began picking off those pirates who seemed to be leading in the nearest boats. Cony was himself a fair shot as well, and he used a.65 caliber fusil to snipe at helmsmen and gunners.

'Aft!' Lewrie shouted. 'Hands aft! Get a swivel-gun here!'

There was a prao out there, not two hundred yards off, that was being turned with its oarsmen, aiming its two fo'c'sle-mounted guns at Culverin's unprotected stern!

Hands came running, bearing the weight of one of the portable swivels, dropping the long spike on the base of its mount into one of the holes along the taffrail as Lewrie fired again. Bullets sang in the air as pirates let fly with muskets at impossible ranges, only a few being able to reach him.

Lewrie sat down on the flag lockers to one side of the tiller-head, braced himself on the railing and aimed for the foredeck of the prao. He pulled the fire-lock of the Ferguson back to full cock and bent to sight on one of the gunners. Holding a little high for drop at that range, he let his breath out and pulled the