THE GUN KETCH

head up high as anyone! You won't quit now, Alan. You've too much pride to slink away. Too stubborn, too, if the truth be known. Part of what I absolutely adore, darling. Part of the father of our child I cherish and respect. And wish for our children to possess.'

It took everything he had not to weep with gratitude for her boundless confidence in him, or for the joy he felt, brief as it now could be, at being so unconditionally loved. This joy he was losing as the sun sank away his final hours ashore with her.

'Thank God for you, Caroline,' he muttered, his eyes hot and moist, be-dewing her sweet-smelling hair. 'Remember how much I love you! And God knows, as I'll remember whilst I'm gone!'

Slink away, he did, though, as Alacrity cupped the last of the twilight Trades, soft- parting slack harbour waters as she steered her way through the throng of shipping in the port at sunset.

The sun declined in almost gaudy grandeur, blood red as hothouse roses, as amber gold as dancing candle flames, with theclouds regular wavy mottles and swirls like angels' tresses. Lanterns were being lit ashore, on the docks, on the many moored vessels as twilight gathered, and Alacrity's fo'c's'le belfry, helm and taffrails glowed warm yellow as well.

'Put your helm down two points, Quartermaster,' Lieutenant Ballard instructed softly. 'Lay her head nor- nor'west for the main channel.'

'Aye, aye, sir, nor-nor'west,' Mr. Neill echoed. 'Ready for the gun salute to the flag, Mister Ballard?' Lewrie asked, sunk deep in the 'Blue Devils' and gazing astern to see if he could espy a light on the porch of a particular house above Potter's Cay, on the beach road. 'Aye, sir.'

'Wonder why yon ship is dressed all-over, sir?' Midshipman Parham said, pointing ahead to a fine three-masted lugger profuse with flags and bunting. Her decks were afire with lanterns in profligate array all down her gangways, and about her quarter-deck railings.

'Shut yer mouth, Mister Parham!' Lewrie heard Ballard whisper in a harsh tone as he recognized the house flag atop her mainmast.

'Sorry, sir,' Parham grunted, blushing as he saw it, too. Lewrie came to the nettings over the waist and raised his spyglass to look her over. 'She's a new 'un. Oh. One of Finney's. They seem to have something to celebrate yonder this evening.' The faint sounds of a band could be heard tootling merry tunes as the many guests danced or sang with rowdy good cheer.

'Goddamme!' Lewrie shuddered as he read the name on the transom plate of the new ship. 'Goddamn him!'

'What is it, sir?' Ballard asked.

'Here, see for yourself, Mister Ballard!' Alan said, shivering with dread, and strongly reconsidering an immediate resignation. 'Why, the bastard!' Ballard yelped in outrage. There, in ornate, serifed letters, bright with gold leaf, was the new ship's name: Caroline!

'How dare he presume, sir!' Ballard growled, repulsed by such a boorish, flaunting deed, his prim sense of decorum scandalized! 'Put your helm aweather, Mister Neill,' Lewrie decided quickly. 'New course due west. Steer up yon lugger's transom, but be ready to come about again to due north for the channel when I call.'

'Sir?' Ballard queried, coming to his side. 'Helm's aweather, sir. Comin' about t'due west, sir.'

'You'll be using the larboard battery for the salute, Mister Fowles?' Lewrie called down to his master gunner in the waist below.

'Aye, sir. Ready any time you want, sir.'

'Oh, sir,' Lieutenant Ballard objected, but not too forcefully, as he got his quizzical, bemused look. 'Surely not!' he tried to pout.

On their new course, they would ram Caroline in her very stern, or pass down her starboard side at close pistol-shot at best!

'Open your ports, Mister Fowles. Ready with the salute.'

At half a cable's distance from a collision, Lewrie turned to the quartermaster. 'Helm alee, Mister Neill. Nor'west.'

Alacrity bore away upwind of the anchored Caroline, crossing her starboard quarter at a forty-five degree angle at one hundred yards!

'Fire your salute, Mister Fowles,' Lewrie grinned.

BOOM! 'If I weren't a gunner, I wouldn't be here. Number Two gun… fire!' Fowles paced out the stately measure, walking aft with the guns. BOOM! 'I've left me wife, me home, and all that's dear. Number Three gun… fire!' BOOM!

Guests aboard the Caroline, and her mates, had cringed when they saw Alacrity bearing down on them. They'd laughed at Finney's japes against the Navy as he celebrated his victory. Then, here was the Navy bearing down upon them as if to ram and board her! Civilians dashed about in sudden terror as the first cannon fired its reduced powder charge. Women screamed, and the band came to a sudden gurgling halt! Crewmen ran for weapons, sure they were being fired at, or took themselves below for safety, as their mates bellowed for order on the quarter-deck. Hot powder smoke, rank with rotten-egg and hell-fires' stench, wafted over them as Alacrity cruised slowly by across their quarter like vengeance.

'Ah, there's our host,' Lewrie chuckled.

John Finney came clawing his way through his terrified, darting guests to the rails, to stand head-taller than the rest, gaudy in pale silks and satins, his white-powdered tie-wig askew on his head, as he shook his fist at them and mouthed curses lost in the shouting, the screams, and the deafening gunfire.

'Helm down, Mister Neill. North for the channel,' Lewrie said as the last shot of the salute belched forth and echoed off Caroline's hull. 'Haul taut, forrud! Brace up, sheet home! Give us a tune, you men!'

The ship's idlers who played fiddle and fifes lurched into life, playing a gay pulley-hauley chantey, 'Portsmouth Lass,' the onlyone allowed in the Fleet, as Alacrity turned her stern to Caroline and steered away for the sea, her flags flying and her commissioning pendant streaming as saucily as some teasing, taunting coquette.

'Salute's done, sir,' Fowles said after carefully counting his shots.

'I should certainly say it is, Mister Fowles!' Alan laughed.

Finney could be seen tearing the tie-wig from his head to throw it after them, screaming imprecations that were only thin howls under the chantey-tune, the hull's creaking, and the wake's bustling swash.

'He may play the hoary seaman, but he's a shopkeeper, Mister Ballard,' Lewrie said loud enough for the afterguard to hear. 'Just a jumped-up purser, and a 'Nip-Cheese' 'un, at that! Take that, you bastard! We'll have you yet!'

For a final fillip, Alan raised his right hand and presented an upright middle finger to Finney, a very English gesture of long usage.

To Alan's amazement, Lieutenant Arthur Ballard stepped to his side at the rails and did the same, as did the midshipmen, and Mister Fellows the sailing master!

The last Finney saw of Alacrity, as all but her lights faded into the rosy dusk, was her entire crew standing to attention as taut as Sunday Divisions, hands raised in scornful 'salute'!

Chapter 3

'Damme, Mister Keyhoe, there must be some correspondence!' he barked at his round little purser.

'Only pay vouchers, I fear, Captain,' Keyhoe sighed, shrinking into his dark blue coat to escape Lewrie's wrath. 'The paperwork that comes with Admiralty stores shipped down from Nassau in the packet.'

'Did they at least send money for the hands, then?' Alan asked.

'Uh… nossir. The usual certificates, and those six months in arrears, as usual,' Keyhoe had to confess.

'So the jobbers ashore'll buy 'em up, and the hands'll have a quarter to a half their true pay, aye,' Lewrie