Sea of Grey

Within the three-mile limit, inside which we at this very moment stand, we have no jurisdiction.'

'Does Denmark have a frigate in these waters, sir?' Lewrie shot back. 'Any forts outside Charlotte Amalie, with more than a corporal's guard to man a few rusty guns?'

'I have not heard of such reinforcements, sir.'

'Then bugger 'em,' Lewrie decided. 'Ah! We're nigh to the west end of Norman Island. We'll be able to see deep into Coral Bay within a minute or two.'

'Sail ho! Deck, there!' a foremast lookout cried, dancing with delight on the narrow cross-trees. ' 'Cross the point! Two sail standin' outta the bay! Two points off the starboard bows!'

Lewrie sprang forward along the starboard gangway to the break of the forecastle in his eagerness, his expression joyous and wolfish, creating excitement in the hands he passed, in those clustered below on the gun- deck. Perhaps it was 'uncaptainly' to show feelings, exciting people for nothing, especially if he could not deliver, but he could not help himself.

He raised his glass. It was that magical, dim time of the dawn before the sun was truly up and everything was soft twilight, the sea and clouds and sky pearly blue-grey, the isles and cays muted and dark. Against that background, two dark hulls stood out starkly, their sails ghostly white, before sunrise revealed them to be a weary and stained tan. There was a large schooner, and a chunkier, dowdier brig or snow, both bound Sou'west, just clear of Leduck Island and headed out as if to pass Ram Head, and not three miles off! And their flags…!

One was French, the schooner; the brig was a Yankee.

First out of his mouth was a loud whoop, followed by orders he shouted back to the quarterdeck through cupped hands. 'Mister Langlie, hands aloft to set t'gallants and shake out the reefs in the courses! Mister Winwood, steer direct for Ram Head and cut them off!'

He whirled back to face the two suspicious vessels again, experience juggling courses and possible speeds. The schooner and brig had the initial advantage, almost completely exposed to the Nor'east Trade wind, but were deep up the bay. Was Proteus partially masked from the full force of the morning winds, she could deploy thousands more square feet of sail more quickly, and her waterline was longer; slower to accelerate, but once she had a bone in her teeth she'd be the fastest off the wind.

The American brig bore the same limitations of all square-rigged ships; she would find it hard to go to windward, to point as 'high' as a fore-and-aft rigged vessel like the schooner, so the only way she had to escape would be to run like a scalded cat for Charlotte Amalie and throw herself on the mercy of the Danish authorities. She could round Ram Head and surge up Pillsbury Sound, with the winds abeam or just a bit abaft, and go for the Middle Passage or the Leeward Passage.

Lewrie looked aloft at the commissioning pendant streaming from the main-mast truck. The Trades were weak, as they always were in good weather round dawn, weak but steady from the Nor'east, so he thought a try up the Middle Passage from Pillsbury Sound, abeam the winds, out of the question. It would be too slow. No, he thought, if she tried that she would head for the incredibly narrow and treacherous Leeward Passage. He stowed that thought away as improbable.

The schooner, though, was much more manoeuvrable and it was not out of the question for her to spin about almost in her own length and try to run Sou'east, abeam the Trades, and pass astern of Proteus at a rate of knots, hoping that the brig would be considered the most valuable prize. With her greater speed, she might dare the risk of broadsides hurriedly ranged and fired. The schooner might dodge right past before a gun could hurt her, and show them a clean pair of heels.

'Don't think of that, don't think of that,' Lewrie muttered on his way back aft, pacing sideways to keep his eyes on the brig and the schooner. 'Just panic and run, you bastards.'

'Courses, tops'ls, and t'gallants all set, sir,' Lt. Langlie reported as Lewrie gained the quarterdeck. 'Outer flying jib, the inner, and the fore top-mast stays'l set, as well.'

Lewrie looked aloft for confirmation, also noting that the main and mizen t'gallant stays'ls filled the spaces between the masts, as they had since they'd come about off Salt Island Passage, to make best use of the weak predawn Trades without showing too much aloft for an enemy to espy and be warned off.

'Were they smart, they'd turn and run back up the bay and get ashore,' Catterall commented, still coatless and fiddling with his neck-stock. 'We'd get the ships if they don't fire them, but the crews would escape us.'

Lewrie spun on his heel to glare at him, freezing Catterall in mid-toilette. 'Then let us pray our Chases are bereft of your great experience, sir. Let's pray they're bumbling idiots… sir!'

Catterall gulped and shrugged into himself as his hammock-man held out his coat to don, and he slipped into it as if it were armour.

'Everyone down from aloft, Mister Langlie? Good,' Lewrie said. 'Now, beat to Quarters. Mister Catterall?'

'Sir?' the hapless Second Officer replied, now dressed but still trying to shrink away.

'Tell off an armed boat crew, with six or eight Marines, and be ready to board one of the prizes, should we be fortunate.'

'Aye aye, sir! Mister Towpenny! A boat brought up from towing astern to short stays!'

Lewrie turned back to their Chases, relieved to see that they were still mindlessly intent on fleeing, holding their course, aiming to get round Ram Head into deeper water and run almost due West, with the schooner ahead, of course, and steering a bit further out from the land, almost as if she would challenge Proteus and protect her consort. The French tricouleur stood out boldly from her gaff, swung by the wind to lay against her mainsail. But Proteus was hitting her stride, now, and beginning to surge forward with a purposeful bustle, the apparent wind keener and brisker, and her stout hull 'talking' to him in groans and swashings as she parted the rather calm seas like a broad farmer's plough through rich loam.

Gun-ports were hinging up and out of the way on the schooner's larboard side, at least five that Lewrie could see, and she was coming a point 'lower' to intersect their course, her gaff-hung sails arcing away from them into mere slivers to cup more stern wind.

'I make the range as under a mile, sir,' Langlie said.

The schooner was most likely a French privateer, Lewrie thought, judging her lines more critically. As fine and lean as she appeared, she couldn't bear the weight of more than eight or ten guns, and those could not be much more than 6-pounders. 'Man's a bloody Lunatick!' he grunted. 'Mister Langlie, I'll thank you to shoot his grandiose dreams to flinders.'

'Very good, sir! Mister Catterall, Mister Adair… on the uproll, and open upon her!' Langlie shouted down to the gun-deck.

The schooner opened first, wreathing herself in a sudden bank of sulfurous fumes, the sound of her artillery a muffled stutter; five guns as Lewrie had surmised, and terrier-sharp by the sound of them-6- pounders, or more likely 4-pounders.

Shot shrieked overhead, a splash was raised far out to starboard and the ball skipped high enough to chew a small segment of a bulwark railing and strew stowed hammocks in the racks like wakened worms.

'On the up-roll…' Catterall could be heard yelling, 'fire!'

The air was moist and cool with sea mist. Proteus's guns roared and reeled back in- board almost as one, making not only a deep bank of gun smoke, but an instant fog of tortured air, each gun's eruption standing for a moment as a horizontal sea-spout from the muzzles, and making thirteen distinct smoke- and-fog rings that quickly merged into a cloud that only slowly drifted away to larboard and alee as Proteus sailed beyond it, leaving a semi-opaque, surface-level cumulus astern.

'Hit… hit!' Langlie was noting, striving for professional detachment, though almost dancing on tip-toes. 'Three… four… six!'

'There is a nasty shoal, sir,' Mr. Winwood muttered, coming to Lewrie's left rear. 'Eagle Shoal, 'tis called, almost dead ahead, by our charts. They're coming to us, so…'

'A turn away will not increase the gun-range, aye,' Lewrie said quickly, with only a slight turn of his head to acknowledge him. 'Two points alee, and keep us clear.'

He only had eyes for their targets, now. The schooner had taken the worst of their exchange, with holes punched in both her sails, and sections of her bulwark torn open, a low deckhouse afore her wheel shot up, and her inner jib flying loose of both controlling sheet and halliard. His hands took time to cheer as they swabbed out, thumb-stalled vents, and began to wave the powder monkeys forward with fresh charges borne in flash-resistant leather cylinders.