A Jester’s Fortune

more dangerous foe, with her guns at last firing level, not heeled over and limited in range.

'Avast, Mister Crewe!' Lewrie exulted. 'Load with solid shot! We'll pass ahead of her and bow-rake her. Mister Knolles! Haul our wind again! Two points free, for a smaller target, while we reload.'

'Aye aye, sir!'

And there was Myrmidon, off the frigate's larboard stern, with a broadside of her own that peppered the sea round her transom of a sudden, worrying at her flanks like a terrier.

And astern…! Lewrie turned to look aft. Lionheart and Pylades had almost leapt windward, as if conjuring themselves within one mile or so of Jester. They'd be in the thick of it soon!

Gunfire! Bags of it, as the frigate lit off a broadside, very ragged and irregular, still cocked up as close-hauled as her damaged sails would let her. Still aiming for Jester, to give as good as she got, and die game!

Shot-splashes towered from the sea, and Alan could see one dark darting ball come bowling up from First-Graze over the quarterdeck in a shrieking bound! Black and fearsome as it sizzled past almost within arm's length, leaving a hot gust of wind that fluttered his coat.

The Thonk! and Rrwwarkk! of a hit that struck Jesters weak stern! Another squawking cry as another grazed her starboard side, but didn't penetrate, flinging a hen-coop's worth of fractured hull-planking over the quarterdeck bulwarks. The forward gangway bulwark seemed to burst to yet another hit, bulging inward but not breaking, yet flinging foot-long splinters about in a flurry of engrained dust and smoke. A waister from the starboard fore-braces was hurled off the gangway to the gun-deck, quilled like a porcupine!

And a last, shuddering Thonk-Rrwwarkk! as an 18-pounder shot smashed into her starboard side, down low, up forward, screaming in at over twelve hundred feet per second, and nothing could withstand that-no sloop of war ever built was made to take such a pounding.

'Bloody…!' Lewrie breathed, once he knew the last of that French broadside was done. The waister was clawing at his stomach, screaming high and rabbity as Mr. LeGoff the Surgeon's Mate and his loblolly boys came up from the fore hatchway with a carrying board. The waister's belly was pierced by almost a baulk of oak, groin pierced as well by less of a splinter, more like a two-by-four. LeGoff looked aft and shook his head to Lewrie s brow-cocked question; there was nothing to be done with a set of wounds like that. The Surgeons Mate turned his attention to those three other people-a Marine private and two seamen-who'd been splintered, but stood a chance.

'Mister Knolles, put her on the wind,' Lewrie growled in rage. 'Serve her the same… in bloody spades!'

'Helm alee, Quartermasters. Full-and-by!' Knolles obeyed.

'Wait for it, Mister Crewe!' Lewrie called, eying the range. They would almost be close enough to use the 18- pounder carronades on the forecastle and quarterdeck. His cox'n, Andrews, was gun-captain on one of them. He shared a look with him, and Andrews nodded, grim and ready. 'Double-shotted… a bow-rake!'

Far faster than the frigate now, which was hauling her wind to aim for Myrmidon, which had gotten up almost abeam, Jester would pass ahead of her at last. Faced with the danger of a bow-rake into her frailer curved bow-timbers, the frigate must turn up almost 'in-irons' to the wind, or haul her wind alee even more, to avoid it.

'Ready, sir!' Crewe reported eagerly.

Only two cables off, Alan speculated; a toucher under five hundred yards. 'Fire as you bear, Mister Crewe!'

'Right, lads! As you bear, hear me? As you bear.. .!' Crewe scampered forward to the Number One starboard-side 9-pounder. 'Fire!'

Bowstring-taut flintlock lanyards were pulled as each cannon came level with the frigate's bows, even as she tried to wheel up to wind once more to avoid the fire, trying to take what was coming at an angle, so the balls wouldn't punch through but would carom off, sparing her bare gun-deck from sudden slaughter. Carronades bellowed with deep, coughing roars, the 9-pounder artillery barking, then more carronades went off from the quarterdeck as they sailed past. There were keener gun-slams somewhere off to starboard, unseen in the clouds of powder residue. It was Myrmidon, spared by Jesters actions from a close-range broadside that she would have had to tack to avoid. She fired her own broadside first, on a parallel course with the French frigate, adding to the carnage Lewrie most devoutly wished for.

And then the smoke thinned and blew alee, and Jester was out in the clear, to windward of the frigate at last. Lewrie turned to give her a scathing search, pleased by what he saw. Her beak- head rails and her figurehead were gone, the petty-officers' roundhouse by the focs'le bulkhead were starred with shot, and no one living stirred by her chase-guns or foresail sheets. Her fore-mast was canted over as if shot from its keel step.

'Damn knacky,' he whispered. Myrmidon had put about in her gun-smoke, was swinging up 'cross the wind and rapidly falling astern of the frigate, to avoid that delayed broadside. She'd cross their stern and boot her up the arse with a stern-rake, into the bargain! Fillebrowne was a shrewd tactician, he had to confess.

'Sandwiched her, by God,' Lewrie laughed.

'Or is that 'shrewsburied,' sir,' Knolles drawled, even if he was a tad pinch-mouthed and pale from their hammering.

'Not you, too, Mister Knolles.' Lewrie groaned.

'Stand on after the merchantmen, sir?' Knolles enquired.

'Aye, we'll take the left-hand'un, fine on our starboard bows,' Mister Knolles,' Lewrie decided, lifting his telescope to eye her and estimate how long it would take to catch her up. 'Well leave t'other on the right hand for Myrmidon. Assuming Lionheart doesn't recall us?'

'Signal, sir!' Midshipman Spendlove shouted from the taffrail.

Lewrie frowned, wondering if Captain Charlton would need their presence to finish off the frigate. Was he the overly cautious sort?

'Our number, sir!' Spendlove read off, stepping up onto the signal-flag lockers and balancing with one hand about the larboard lanthorn post. ' 'Pursue Chase More Closely,' sir!'

'Well, right, then.' Lewrie sighed in relief. They'd begin the cruise with prizes. Another good omen, he thought.

'More, sir!' Spendlove shouted. 'She sends… 'Well Done,' sir! Our number, and 'Well Done'!' he concluded proudly.

'Mister Crewe, secure the guns,' Lewrie instructed the Master Gunner from the forrud quarterdeck nettings overlooking the waist and the still-smoking barrels. 'And pass the word. The flag sends us a 'Well Done.' Pass the word for the Purser, too,' he called down to the grinning, smoke-fouled sailors of his crew. 'Small-beer to be served up, a mug a man. 'Tis thirsty work, beatin' the French, hey lads?'

That raised a cheer from them. There'd be prize money from a big French frigate. Hull and fittings, stores and guns might earn a total of Ј20,000, with them receiving an eighth-plus 'head and gun money' for every seaman aboard, and each artillery piece. For battle, it had been relatively bloodless, too, barely a whit of what a real slaughter it might have been.

Mister Rees, their ship's carpenter, came up from the midships ladderway, brushing past the happy and relieved sailors, a look of some worry on his face, and Lewrie steeled himself for bad news.

'Hulled, sir,' Mr. Reese reported at the top of the starboard quarterdeck ladder, doffing his knit cap. He was fairly young for his warrant, hawk-faced and eagle-beaked, but baked into premature middle age by a lifetime at sea, his dark Welsh complexion permanently bronze. 'One int' yer great-cabins, sir, an' yer stern-lights all smash. One, alow that'un, Cap'um. Fish-room an' bread-room stores're scattered Hell t'breakfast… can't breathe down t'ere fer all t'biscuit-dust. Starb'd quarter scantlin's all smash, but nought below t'waterline. Forrud bulwark… but ye seen that'un, I guess, sir. A day's labour, in harbour, t're-plank, starb'd. Last'un, sir…' Rees said with a gleam in his eyes. 'Clean puncture… t' rough t'surgery, sir.'

'Good God, was anyone…?' Lewrie gawked. That was a shot in the orlop, below the waterline, even if…!