A Jester’s Fortune

before they cleared the point. Lewrie took another squint at the chart. The passage began as a narrows, with a low-lying finger of land and a mutton-shoulder point jutting north, once inside. For at least ten miles, the channel was a tight squeeze… perhaps only two miles or less wide. He frowned. Brae was blanketed on the north by tall hills and budding mountains, just the sort that could play 'silly buggers' with even the steadiest breeze. About mid- length, the channel widened, turning into a rectangular bay, as Hvar narrowed and flattened like the outline of a cutlass blade.

He jerked his head up suddenly. Shared a worried look with Lieutenant Knolles and Mr. Buchanon in the second moment.

'Gunfire, sir!' Knolles grunted. 'Upwind.'

'Aloft, there!' Lewrie shouted to the lookouts. 'See her?'

'Nossir! Not yet, sir!'

'Damn, damn, damn!' Lewrie spat, stomping round his quarterdeck, resisting the urge to dash forrud, scale the foremast, right to the truck-cap, for a look beyond or over that pestiferous damn point of land that blocked their view!

'Mister Crewe!' Lewrie called down to the waist. 'Bosun Cony! Beat to Quarters.'

He heard another stuttering, irregular series of distance-muffled, land-blanketed bangs came wafting on the wind.

Jester's crew thundered bare feet on oak planking as they dashed to the artillery, cast off the lashing and bowsings that held the guns secure and the gun-port lids shut. 'Beau-Nasty' ships boys came from belowdecks with leather cylinders cradled in their arms, which held the first serge powder cartridges. Gun-captains selected the best of the round-shot from the rope garlands, or the racks that circumferenced the hatchways, looking for shot without scales, rust or dents, to assure that they would fly straight and true. Flintlock strikers were affixed, their flints test-struck; tompions were removed from the muzzles; slow-match was lit and coiled around the water-tubs between the guns, in case the flintlock igniters failed. Water was sluiced from those tubs, where gunners would slave, and kegs of sand were opened to scatter about for sure traction. Aft and below, partitions for mates' cabins, the Marine quarters and the officers' and warrants' gun-room were stripped of furniture, the light deal hanging partitions and doorways swung up out of the way to the deck-heads, or passed lower down to the orlop, so a shot that penetrated Jester's side wouldn't create any more man-killing splinters than necessary.

Lewrie nodded to Aspinall on his way below to his post on the orlop as part of the carpenter's crew, knowing his own cabin was being reduced to an echoing bare oak chamber. Aspinall had Toulon under one arm. The cat had never liked the sound of gunfire, and had gotten the knowledge, at last, of what preparatory sounds for gunfire were. Were Aspinall not carrying him snugly and reassuringly, he'd have beaten everyone below, skittering with his belly an inch off the deck.

'Deck, there!' a foremast lookout howled. 'Chase, there! Two point orf t'larboard bows! Orf t'wind! Runnin'… fine on 'er starb'd quarter!' Jester at last had fallen level with the last stub of land that had blocked her view. And there was the Brac-Hvar channel, glittering and shimmering in the midmorning sun, spreading out before her. There was the Chase, that unidentified full-rigged merchant ship…

Coming straight for them! Flying her t'gallants and royals, and men aloft to rig out stuns'l booms for more speed! With a national ensign now flying from her mizzen…

'Dutch, sir. Batavian Republic,' Midshipman Spendlove supplied. 'Mister Crewe, ready the larboard battery!' Lewrie snapped. 'We will bow-rake her. Quartermaster, helm a'weather… one point…'

The French had taken the Netherlands, set up a puppet republic of 'the people,' captured the navy… and, to Lewrie's disgusted amazement, a rather popular Batavian Republic, too! One of their warships, now in the Adriatic, under French control? Even as a grudging ally, the Dutch had always been doughty sea- warriors. Why, one of their admirals back in the 1600s had sailed right up the Thames and gone home in triumph with a broom lashed to his masthead, in sign he'd swept the seas clean of the Royal Navy! Jester could be in for the scrap of her life, if it was a Dutch frigate they'd been chasing!

'Deck, there!' The lookout added. 'Small boats t'weather!'

Lewrie looked astern again, hoping that Rodgers had spotted the sudden change in their situation. Sure enough, Pylades was back under way, with a bone in her teeth, coming up quickly and about two miles astern. She could be up to them in ten minutes, with her heavier guns run out and ready.

Local allies? Lewrie wondered, nibbling on a corner of his lips. Oh, horse-turds! Yet… who are those small boats, then?

He raised his telescope to eye them. Xebecs, he saw. Just like those Austrian schebecks at Trieste, or those light Venetian warships behind the Lido or the Arsenal. Low, fast, wickedly quick to weather, with heavy guns forrud, and light guns on the beams, swarming with men to work them with oars, if the winds didn't suit.

There! A puff of gunsmoke from the Chase!

From her stern-chasers? He goggled.

This was followed by shots in reply from the bow-chasers of the smaller vessels astern of the full-rigged ship. He could see three or four of them, spread out across the channel, lateen sails spread right-angled to their decks like curvey triangles, counter-cocked as they ran 'wing and wing,' so the after-lateen didn't blanket all of the forrud.

'Half-mile, I make it, sir,' Lieutenant Knolles prompted, licking his lips. Lewrie shared a glance with him, stalked forrud to the edge of the quarterdeck, by the nettings overlooking the waist, to see his Master Gunner looking up in expectation. The gun-captains idled with the lanyards in their hands, ready to stand aside and draw them taut, to 'fire as they bore.'

'Mister Crewe… a single shot, sir!' Lewrie shouted. 'One of the forecastle carronades. Put a shot 'cross the merchantman's bows.'

'Aye, sir!' Crewe responded. 'Larboard carronade only… fire!'

'Well, I'm damned!' Lewrie crowed.

The heavy 18-pounder ball struck nowhere close; the 'Smashers' were close-in weapons of great power, but they could only shoot half the required distance of half a mile, even with their elevation screws fully down. Yet the Batavian struck her colours!

In an eyeblink, men along the rails were flagging white cloths at them, were aloft and taking in stuns Is; her taut royals, t'gallants and tops'ls and her courses were going flaccid and baggy in surrender!

'Quartermaster, steer a point more to loo'rd,' Lewrie called to the helmsman. 'We'll let her pass down our larboard side, to weather. Mister Crewe, if it's a scurvy trick, you'll serve her a broadside, no matter. Should her gun-ports open…'

'Aye, sir!' Crewe agreed, more than ready. After going to all the trouble of beating to Quarters and running out, to him it would be a shame to not let fly at something!

More off the wind now, Jester fell down toward Hvar, clearing her guns to deal with the xebecs as the merchantman held her course off the wind, running slowly Westward. She limped past them, less than two musket-shots up to windward, clewing up her courses to slow herself even more, with her few gun-ports firmly shut. Another minute more, and she was astern, off Jester's larboard quarter and out of gun-arcs, showing them her vulnerable stern. She would be Pylades's pigeon, then, Lewrie thought. The 5th Rate was close enough to deal with her alone. The local ships came on, running up the channel, still spread out along the larboard side of Jesters bows. They flew no flags, but still had their heavier bow-guns run out. Hesitantly, though… weaving just a bit, as if thinking about turning away, Lewrie imagined. He raised his telescope again. He could see raggedly dressed men aboard the one nearest, arguing and gesticulating like rug-merchants over a sour deal. The xebec had seen better days, he thought; her sails were patchwork quilts, her hull scabrous and filthy, patched, too, with newer wood in places, and her rigging as thin and worn, he could conjure, as a pursers charity. No one in uniform to be seen on her small, high quarterdeck aft, either. The crew wore smocks, jerkins, ragged-hemmed knee-length tunics that showed bare legs, or loose last-century style trousers. 'Definitely not a Venetian flotilla,' he decided. He lowered his telescope. The nearest xebec was standing on in pursuit, doggedly intent on catching up with the merchantman, in spite of the presence of two Western ships.