A King`s Commander

'Stand on, and ready the larboard battery,' Lewrie ordered.

The tartane had run into an invisible wall, almost coming to a full stop as she met the wind change head-on, forced to bear away more and more westerly to find the proper angle, fall away at a huge angle even beyond that to get some speed up before she could come back to a beat. The wind was now out of the nor'west, and Jester could turn up nor'east to run in much closer to the headland and the beach. And the struggling tartane.

Chases were like that sometimes, Lewrie realized; plod astern of a ship for hours, never fetching her a yard closer, but all along, gaining slowly. And suddenly, one's ship seemed to leap forward, and there she was, close enough for point-blank broadsides, as if someone had conjured the Chase to reappear within spitting distance. Within the blink of an eye, there she was, not a quarter-mile off, just back to speed but set too far west of the now-visible beach to ground upon it, and forced to tack again to the nor'east, slowing her even more!

'They've a boat alongside, sir!' Knolles shouted as he lowered his glass. 'Starboard side!'

'It's him!' Peel cried. 'Looks like Choundas, at any rate.'

Lewrie raised his own glass. Yes, so close now, he could fetch that ant-figure on her quarterdeck to almost fill the ocular, head-to-toe, he could recognize his foe of old, in the red breeches and waistcoat, the gold-laced blue coat and boat cloak of a French Navy officer!

'Mister Crewe, run out the larboard battery, and open fire!'

It was rushed, too rushed, with the range closing so quickly it made accurate aim impossible, going from a quarter-mile to two hundred yards in a trice. Round-shot went whizzing far overhead, splashed too far short, and too steep to ricochet. Only a few ball struck the tartane. And missing the rowboat completely! Men were tumbling down into it, Choundas among them, just as it was cast off to wallow astern, the tartane bumping and grinding alongside as it fell away, with no one at the helm. Falling down toward Jester, and just big enough to present a danger of collision! And mask her fire!

'Shift fire to the rowboat, Mister Crewe!' Lewrie howled, hot for murder. 'Cony, hands forrud to fend that damn' thing off! Mister Spenser, your eye, sir, to match course with her. Where's Andrews?'

'Heah, sah,' his cox'n answered, leaving his lee side carronade.

'Go below and fetch me my Ferguson rifle, the one with the screw breech,' Lewrie snapped. 'There's a shot pouch, cartouche box, and a powder flask stowed in my smaller sea chest in the bed space. Before that bastard rows out of range, hurry!'

Crewe got off another ragged broadside, rushed again, but a lot more accurate. Feathers of spray flayed the sea around the rowing boat, short, wide, a little over, so close-aboard they skipped once, caromed over the oarsmen to Second Graze near the headland's shoals. But nary a bit of harm could they do!

'Luck of the Devil, that'un,' Peel spat. 'Uncanny, ain't it.'

'Gotta fall off, sir!' Spenser announced, as the tartane came careening in toward their bows. Jester was doing about six knots and the tartane no more than four, her close-trimmed lateen yards strained and her sails flat-bellied the way her crew had left them, scudding to a beam-reach by then, heeled over by the unnatural press of wind.

'Cease fire, Mister Crewe!' Lewrie groaned in defeat. The guns were masked as Jester had to turn away from the coast, out of range of even his rifled Ferguson he'd kept since his escape from Yorktown. It came up from his cabins with Andrews, just a half minute too late!

Gun crews leapt from the waist to scramble up on the gangway as the tartane fell alongside. There was a shiver and scrape, a thud, as the hulls met. But Spenser and Brauer had judged it to a nicety, laid Jester parallel to the collision, and falling off the wind had slowed her to almost a match.

'He's going to get away,' Lewrie griped. 'Again!'

'Sir, you recall the orders you received,' Peel snapped, stony and crisply military again, and fearfully impatient to complete Mister Twigg's bidding to him. 'To render me every and all assistance to take or kill Captain Choundas.'

'Christ, yes, Mister Peel, but…'

'Can't count on the Genoese holding him, sir,' Peel rapped out. 'Can't count on him runnin' into an Austrian cavalry patrol, and being took, sir. The village may have horses. He could ride west, till he's in the French lines. You must land me at once, sir. Me, and any men of your crew who're horsemen, to pursue him. This minute, sir!'

'Sailors who can ride, my God…' Lewrie sighed, looking about the deck. Knolles, being a country gentleman, had his hand up. So did his clerk, Mountjoy. Cony could, but he couldn't spare the bosun.

'This minute, sir!' Peel demanded. 'There's not a jot o' time to waste!'

'Mister Knolles, you are in command, sir,' Lewrie snapped, taking the Ferguson and its accoutrements from Andrews. 'Mister Mountjoy, I hope you ride better than you scribble?'

'Country hunts and steeplechasing, sir.' Mountjoy swore.

'Andrews, fetch my pistols. Both pair, for me and Mister Mountjoy,' Lewrie decided. 'My hanger, and the Frog smallsword. Bring 'em to the larboard gangway, midships. Cony, grapnels! Keep the tartane alongside for a minute! You have money to rent or buy mounts, Mister Peel?'

'Some, sir.'

'Got me purse on me, sir,' Buchanon offered. ' 'Bout twenty or so pound, an' change.'

'God bless you, Mister Buchanon.' Lewrie smiled. 'Mister Knolles, you will stand out to sea to clear the headland, then enter Vado Bay to report to Captain Nelson. Hyde should be along, sooner or later, you should recover him and his crew, and wait our return. Well, let's go, then. 'Board the tartane. She's trimmed for a beat, and that'll take us ashore.'

'Spare hands, sir?' Knolles asked.

'Not for what I have to do, no, Mister Knolles.' Lewrie smiled grimly, trotting to the gangway entry port to scramble down the battens to the main chains. 'God speed, sir. And don't muck up my ship.'

'God speed to you, too, sir,' Knolles replied, suddenly feeling a lot older than his years.

CHAPTER

9

The tartane dribbled down Jester's side as she got a way on her, with Lewrie alone on the quarterdeck, shoving the helm hard over to the starboard corner, alee, to force her back onto the wind. Mountjoy and Peel sorted out weaponry below the ladders, amidships; a souvenir from Lewrie's Florida adventure in '83, a long-barreled.54 Cal. fusil musket, and a French cavalry musketoon, six brace of assorted dragoon, pocket or naval pistols, and their various reloads.

Finally, clear oн Jesters side, falling astern, and turning up to use the wind, instead of being wafted aimless by it. He eased the tiller sweep as Peel came to the quarterdeck, complete with a battered-looking saber and scabbard at his hip. They both gazed shoreward, as Choundas's rowing boat cocked and surged over the beginnings of feeble breakers within fifty yards of the beach, another quarter-mile inshore.

'Hell of a lead on us.' Peel grimaced, baring his horsey teeth. 'Village around the point, 'bout another quarter-mile, I recall. We'll sail around and put in there, I take it?'

'Thought we'd do things direct, Mister Peel,' Lewrie said, with a humorless laugh. 'He's lame. He can't scamper too far. Or quick.'

Lewrie swung the tartanes bows a touch off the wind, her decks canting over a mite more, but making more speed, as if he was aiming to shave the point by the thinnest of hairs, east of where Choundas would ground.

'Ah, land us 'twixt him and town, so he can't get a horse,' Mister Peel supposed aloud.

'Something like that,' Lewrie agreed.

'But, uhm…' Peel demured, 'we don't have a rowboat. They…'