Sea of Grey

Royal Artillery officer, a Captain Wandsworth, announced at last, after several minutes of arcane scribbling and muttering over a slate with his assistant, a younger lieutenant; arcs, windage, elevation, range, charge to be used et al had been figured and refigured.

'Very well, Captain Wandsworth. Carry on, if you please, and Devil take the hindmost,' Lewrie said, hands in the small of his back and his fingers crossed for luck; hands well clear of actual responsibility! Then Lewrie nodded to Mr. Carling on the forecastle; the man stiffened and winced so openly that Lewrie could almost feel the fellow's lips stretch as he stepped clear of a 6-pounder chase-gun and yanked the trigger lanyard.

The 6-pounder yapped, spewing a great cloud of smoke from a barrel elevated higher than normal, and rolled back on its truck-carriage, slewing a bit out of true as it recoiled. The solid shot soared into the sky, visible for a split-second as it slowed at its peak of apogee and dashed downward.

'May work, after all,' Captain Wandsworth muttered, taking off his cocked hat and running his fingers through his sweaty hair. 'Did we fire direct, well… your decks are only twenty feet above the sea, and our trenches are about fifty. At ten degrees elevation, as high as one'd risk an iron barrel with a full charge without bursting… hope no one's standing up, over there, else he'll have his head took off.'

Lewrie wasn't quite sure that Wandsworth had addressed him directly, so he raised one eyebrow and said 'Hmmm?'

'Not to mind, just nattering,' Wandsworth said, waving him off. 'Ah! There! Fifty yards beyond our lines… no effect. Still…'

'Shame we don't have Colonel Shrapnel's bursting case-shot, sir,' the lieutenant told his superior. 'Timed fuses… spread some grief?'

'No way to graze solid shot, true,' Wandsworth responded, lost in his arcane work, whilst he scribbled some more on a slate. 'Can't lay 'em waste like a game o' bowls, this way. What guns we have on the line'll have to see to that. Droppin' heavy things on their heads… wheee… plop. Cow-pats. Won't even bounce, I'll warrant.' 'This won't do any good, after all?' Lewrie asked. 'Put the wind up 'em, Captain Lewrie, t'be sure,' Wandsworth replied with a fiendish little grin. 'Who knows? You hammer away at a wall for days, before you effect a breach. I'm thinking grape-shot or cannister might get a rise out of 'em. Saturate an area, 'stead of an aimed shot at high angle, where a miss is as good as a mile. Try one of your carronades?'

'Lovely things,' the lieutenant said in praise and envy. 'We never get to play with such. Now, do we increase the charge by a dram or two, sir… stand of grape on its wooden wad base… uhm, that's eighteen and one-half pounds total shot, with one cannister atop…?' Lewrie shared a look with his lieutenants, Langlie and Wyman. Like watchin ' witches stir their pot, Lewrie thought; one more eye o ' newt, or no? Two wolf teeth, or was it three?

'No no, four drams, at the least, but…!' Wandsworth quibbled. They fussed with one of the quarterdeck carronades, pushing the regular crew out of the way, whose members looked to Lewrie for a clue as to whether they should submit or not. All he could do was toss them a shrug and let the Army piddle.

'Now, then!' Wandsworth announced. 'Would you be so good as to let fly, my man? What's your name? Harper? Blaze away, Gun-Captain Harper, blaze away!'

The 24-pounder carronade, never meant to be fired at such high elevation, lurched backwards on its slide- carriage, wood rails groaning and smoking despite the grease and slush slathered on to prevent too much friction, and slammed into the cross-timber at the rear that stopped the recoil.

'You know, sir,' the Royal Artillery Lieutenant said, 'was it up to me, I'd come up with some sort of snubbers, some screw-jack compressors to increase friction, and reduce recoil.'

'Well, it's a thought… ah!' Wandsworth mused, before raising his telescope to peer shoreward for the signalmen. 'Well, damme! One hundred paces beyond our troops, and roughly on target! Well, well! I make out… saturation. Twenty… yards… wide, oh how wondrous!'

'Did it do any good?' Lewrie asked once more.

'A fall of hail, twenty yards wide and perhaps twenty deep, sir? Grape and cannister shot?' Wandsworth crowed. 'I should imagine that'd take down young trees, Captain Lewrie. Knock more than a few heads to flinders. Here, let's load up all your carronades, and give it a go!'

'Half a dram more, loose poured atop the bagged charges, and a single cannister atop a stand of grape to each barrel,' the lieutenant pointed out. 'Spread of two degrees 'twixt guns?'

'Yes, that'd share the grief about. Direct the aim of the guns back there, whilst I see to these two,' Wandsworth ordered.

'Aft,' Lewrie stuck in, feeling he had to contribute something.

'I've my pocket compass,' the lieutenant told his senior.

'But of course you do, dear boy.' Wandsworth chuckled. 'With a bit of luck, and two-and-one-quarter pounds of powder per barrel, we could duplicate these results with the six-pounders, hmm…'

'Once you find the proper angle, I'll send a man forrud to the forecastle and he may lay those guns, as well,' Lewrie offered.

'Oh no, sir!' Wandsworth countered. 'Once we've found our pace way back here…'

'Aft,' Lewrie supplied again, feeling more than useless now.

'I'll send Scaiff to deal with those,' Wandsworth bulled on. 'That's his name, d'ye know. Now, let's see… hmmm.'

This time, all four 24-pounder carronades on the quarterdeck lit off, almost as one, the heavier charges punching the air with an earthquake of sound, and a mountain of roiling smoke, making the ship reel and shiver. For long minutes, with so little wind in the harbour, the gun smoke lingered, only slowly drifting away to let them see the flags waving from the end of the longest pier.

'Think we caused a stir, that time,' Wandsworth said. 'Thought I heard screamin'… could've been the shot fallin'. Oh, well. Now… dear me, what hath we wrought?'

They had stirred up something. Suddenly, there came a crackle of musketry, brisk and urgent; volley fire, followed by a rolling platoon fire up and down the central lines, punctuated by the louder barks of field guns. Piles of smoke began to build in the forests like the thunderheads of a sea-squall, hanging thick and greasy-grey.

'Under assault, dammit,' Wandsworth spat. 'Stirred 'em to rise up and charge. Stung 'em to move or die, I'm hoping. Half dram less, and the same loads, if ya please!' he shouted to the gunners. 'Ready? Stand clear… by battery… fire!'

This time, they could hear faint and thin screaming! A moment before, there had come the chanting, that chilling 'Canga, bafio tй!' shout. Then the screaming. The musketry and cannonfire went on for a minute or two, before fading away to a last few sputtered shots.

'Damn this smoke,' Wandsworth said, coughing and fanning the air with his hat, as if that would disperse such a gigantic pall. Proteus was almost completely wreathed with it. 'Ah, here's something… well, I'm damned! Charge… broken! Shift… right. Range… same.'

'Easier do we haul in on the springs, Mister Wandsworth,' Lewrie reminded him. 'How far?'

'Oh, 'bout ten or fifteen degrees, I s'pose,' Wandsworth mused, conjuring on his slate, and squinting at it and the shore.

'Mister Langlie? Haul in the stern spring-line.'

'Aye aye, sir!'

'Deck, there!' a lookout called down. 'Ships off the larboard beam… workin' into harbour! Five sail… full-rigged ships! First is a seventy-four!'

Lewrie walked over to the larboard side and raised his telescope, but it was hopeless; Proteus was so swathed in spent powder that everything beyond fifty yards from the deck was lost in a bellicose haze.

'What flag?' Lewrie shouted upwards.

'Ours, sir! Leadin' seventy-four is Halifax! Know her tops'l patches!' the lookout confirmed.

'Did your brigadier send a small boat for aid?' he asked of the Royal Artillery man.