A King`s Commander

really asked was, 'Just what the Devil you think you're playing at, you damn' fool!'

He raised his telescope once more to study his laboring prize ships. Yes, they'd begun to make more sail, to alter course harder on the wind to get closer to Jester's protective artillery. Even Mister Spendlove's weary old dhow-thing-gummy had sprouted a mustache of foam under her bows. Not much of one, admittedly, but it was there. Lash the fore-ends of the lateen yards low to the center of the decks, and haul them fore-and-aft by brute force, though… she simply must sail better to windward, like a gaff- rigged cutter or sloop.

'Sir?' Knolles prompted at his elbow, his voice soft and confidential. 'What reply do we send Ariadne?'

'The only one she'll understand, I s'pose, Mister Knolles,' Alan snickered, with a lift of his eyebrows. 'Bend on good old Number One.'

Admiral Howe's revisions to the code flags always put the most important message, the one that alerted warship captains to the prime reason for existence, at the very top of the list, and, in an easily understandable single-pennant hoist.

Number One of the Howe System was, 'Enemy in Sight!'

CHAPTER 2

'Mister Knolles, is there a code flag for 'Suggestion'?' Alan inquired, once Jester had worn off the wind, and had begun to run alee toward her struggling prize vessels.

'Uhm… there's 'Submit,' sir,' Knolles answered.

'And I s'pose that's a picture of a man tugging his forelock?' Lewrie posed, tongue-in-cheek.

'Groveling most humbly, as well, I should imagine, Captain,' his first lieutenant replied with a bright grin.

'Make to Ariadne, then… most humbly, mind…' Lewrie ordered, 'Submit-her number-Pursue Chases-uhm, Closer Action? He might make some sense of that. Followed by… Our number- Closer Action-Chase to Leeward. No sense losing those two poleacres, to deal with a single armed ship. Jester can handle this'un, by herself.'

'Aye aye, sir,' Knolles agreed, full of pride in their ship.

'Besides,' Lewrie continued. 'Damme if I'll make that fellow a richer man, at the expense of our people's freedom. I'll not lose 'em, when we've come this far together.'

Farther off the wind, then, running almost 'both-sheets-aft,' on a landsman's breeze, due north; Jester passed the first of their prizes and put herself between the overly aggressive French poleacre and their tartane. The strange-acting Frenchman hardened up on the wind, as well, coming more nor'easterly, to meet them, ignoring the bilander and dhow.

'Mister Bittfield, we'll engage with the larboard battery,' Alan told his master gunner. 'Porter! Be ready to brail up the main course. Chain-slings on the yards, now, and lay out the boarding nettings!'

At least eighteen prime hands gone, Lewrie fretted; gunners, and tacklemen, rammers and loaders, off on the prizes. This short of a voyage from Toulon to Corsica, the Frog'll most like have no need to worry 'bout victualing a large crew. He's liable to have a hundred men or more, aboard that damn' thing. Like a Breton chasse-marйe privateersman. Two hundred, more like!, he thought, with a wary sniff. We have to stand off, so he doesn't board us. But blow the living hell out of him! Lewrie thought a full cable's range would be cautious.

Both so eager for combat, the two ships closed each other rapidly. The range fell off to barely five cables-half a nautical mile-and Alan sorely regretted not having six-pounder chase guns up forrud on the forecastle, with which he could open the affair. He raised his telescope to scan the poleacre.

Indeed, she swarmed with seamen, as thickly clustered as a pack of cockroaches around a butter tub. At least his estimated 200 men, aboard a ship little larger than a merchant brig. 'Bout 85 feet, on her waterline? he pondered. Flush-decked, almost-gun deck and weather deck the same, with only a slightly raised quarterdeck astern. How many guns could she carry-and how heavy a battery could such a small ship bear? he wondered.

There! Gun ports coming open.

'Ready, Mister Bittfield?' he called in warning. 'Make your first broadside count, sir! Full battery firing… on the uproll!'

'Ready, sir!' Bittfield shouted back. 'On the uproll… wait for it!… Fire!'

Almost as one, they opened upon each other; the poleacre disappearing behind a cloud of spent powder smoke, gushing from bow-to-stern as if she'd just blown up! And Jester, poised atop the scend, a stable gun platform for a breathless second or two without rolling, hammering and shuddering at the violence of her own broadside's eruption.

Then shaking and quaking, as round-shot hit her, almost flinching as thick iron ball droned or screeched past in near-misses! Spray flung high from strikes that landed short, wetting down her gunners and brace-tenders!

Seven guns, at least, Lewrie thought, coughing on niters as the smoke-pall from Jester's broadside ragged away to leeward, creating a sour fog-bank just yards alee, through which he could barely make out their foe. And a heavy seven guns, he frowned in perplexity, seeing the quick damage done to Jester's larboard side. The twenty-six-foot cutter on the cross- waist beams had been shattered. There were hammocks and thin, rolled-up mattresses scattered like so many fishing worms about the gangway bulwarks. Bulwarks that had been caved in, in places, by the impact of heavy shot! There were men down, lying still; men, too, who shrieked in sudden terror, writhing frantically over their wounds!

'Again, Mister Bittfield! Quickly!' Lewrie shouted. Quicker to load and fire, the quarterdeck carronades behind him were coughing thunderously. Followed by the pleasing sound of French timbers being penetrated with booming thonks and rawrkks) No hastily converted merchantman, no matter how billeted in-board with reinforcing baulks, had a chance against the weight of eighteen-pounder iron!

A second broadside, still controlled, but a little more ragged this time, spat from Jester's larboard guns. Aiming was perhaps more a hoped-for thing, though; blazing away through a bitter haze, firing into a thicker bank of smoke, now only four cables off.

'Tricolor, sir!' Buchanon pointed out. 'French national ship, no error! Damme! She's comin' hard on th' wind! Clewin' up, sir!'

Out of that fog-bank came the thrusting jib boom and bowsprit of the poleacre, her anchor catheads jutting through the haze. That taller mainmast bore topmen aloft, taking in her tops'l and t'gallant sails, clewing them up to the yards by sloppy 'Spanish Reefs'! Using her weatherly fore-and-aft lateen sails to keep drive on her!

'Christ!' Lewrie gasped, appalled by his stupidity. She would claw up abeam the wind, cross his stern and rake Jester at close range!

'Quartermaster, helm hard alee!' he cried, trying not to sound panicky, as Jester trundled on north, with the poleacre slipping astern on her, moving from afore the main chains to afore the mizzen chains in the blink of an eye. Shorthanded, he could not man his starboard guns in time. He must keep the larboard battery engaged! And round Jester up abeam the wind on the opposite tack, to keep her thicker side wood facing those unexpectedly heavy guns, instead of her frail transom!

'Mister Knolles, scandalize her, eveiy square sail!' Alan said in a rush. 'Waisters, bend on main and mizzen stays'ls! Bow-rake her now, Bittfield, while we have the chance!'

A bloom of smoke from the French poleacre's bow, from her forecastle. A damn' heavy chase gun, its report deeper-bellied than a six-pounder, as ominously loud, even upwind of her for the moment, as any twentv-four-pounder gun aboard a 3rd Rate! A tremendous pillar of spray, which leaped into being close-aboard. Jester feeling almost wrenched off her course by the slamming impact! A damn' heavy gun, of some kind!