'Huzzah!' the Marines and onlookers could not help exclaiming at the old fellow's accuracy.
'Oh, it is no great thing,' Rybakov modestly said as he lowered the rifle, and drew the lock back to half-cock. 'At fourty yards, that is still an easy shot. Now, when the little barrel is further away… that is the challenge, n'est- ce pas? Not so?'
'Yer rifle an things, sor,' Desmond announced, as the second rank of Marines tried their eye at the receding barrel.
'Carry on, Mister Eades,' Lewrie urged, wishing them to continue whilst the bottle and barrel were still within range, and not waste any precious time gawking over his Ferguson. Lewrie pulled the lock back to half-cock and tore the top fold-over flap of a paper cartridge with his teeth, to sprinkle a small amount into the pan. One turn round went the trigger guard and hand-grip, rotating the large screw below the end of the barrel, into which he crammed the paper cartouche, the ball-end first. Another single turn to raise the screw upwards, and the barrel was sealed and ready for firing.
The second rank of Marines had fired at the barrel, now bobbing and rocking about sixty yards astern. Lewrie brought the Ferguson up to his cheek, pulled the lock to full-cock, took aim, drew one breath and slowly let it out, then gently squeezed the trigger, hoping for the best, in point of fact, for it had been months since he had fired a single shot at practice, and nigh a year since he had even thought of using the Ferguson. Pop!-Bang! and his shot was in the wind.
'Good'un, sir!' Eades enthused, for Lewrie had clipped the barrel right on the top, raising a tiny cloud of wood splinters.
Encouraged, and in a mood to show off, Lewrie went through the loading process again, showing how a breech-loader could get off at least three or four rounds a minute. Within fifteen seconds, his second shot went off, with the barrel over seventy-five yards astern this time. And he hit it again!
'Pardon!' Count Rybakov cried, stepping up to the taffrails for a shot of his own almost at once, and clipping the barrel's lid, driving a large, visible hole in the thin slab of wood. 'Ah ha!'
'We're forgettin' the bottle, sir,' Lewrie said, rapidly loading for a third shot. 'It's what… an hundred yards, by now?'
'One of your guineas, Kapitan?' Rybakov teased, going red in the face as he primed his pan, poured powder down the barrel, and set a lead ball atop a paper-thin oiled leather patch at the muzzle of his jaeger, and strained to drive it down to rest against the powder.
Why the Devil not? Lewrie asked himself, ready to fire again; I can afford a little flutter. And plead Navy-pay poverty, if he's as good as I think he is.
'A guinea, d'ye say, my lord? Done, and done,' Lewrie replied with a grin and a shrug. 'First honours to you, when you're ready.'
'Ha!' Count Rybakov laughed with glee for his wager to be accepted, as he stepped to the taffrails and brought his jaeger rifle up to his shoulder once more. 'Over one hundred yards, now, so…' Count Rybakov seemed to mutter cautions to himself in French, taking his own sweet time before barely touching that over-sensitive trigger.
Pop!-Bang! and a tiny feather of spray arose, barely a foot or so short of the champagne bottle, grazing over the neck, and clipping the mouth of the bottle off!
'My stars, sir, what a shot!' Lt. Eades whooped.
'Your turn, Kapitan,' Rybakov said, quite pleased with himself, and his moment of adulation.
'Well, all right then,' Lewrie said, frowning in concentration as he stepped to the taffrails and took aim. Rybakov's shot had set the bottle rocking like a lunatic duck, and it was nigh 150 yards astern, by then. He held a touch high, loosening his knees, to spring with the motion of the ship and absorb all the uncertainties in his lower body. Here goes my guinea he told himself, firing at last.
'Dead on, my word!' Lt. Eades shouted. 'Shot the neck, not the body, clean off, sir!'
'Well, I was aimin' for the biggest part,' Lewrie said in seeming modesty, though secretly amazed that he'd hit it at all.
'Another bottle, my lord?' Lewrie asked the Count.
'No, Kapitan Lewrie!' Rybakov guffawed. 'I cede the field to a sharper eye than mine,' he said, digging into a waist-coat pocket for a coin, and handing over a golden guinea. 'Did we continue, I imagine you would end up winning even my jaeger rifle, when I am reduced to a sad state of poverty! Urrah!' he cried, taking Lewrie in a bear hug and dancing him round the deck.
'Another bottle, da!' someone snarled. 'I have it here. Will you match shots with me, Angliski Kapitan?' Count Levotchkin had come on deck, had mounted to the quarterdeck despite Lt. Fox's cautions to not do so without permission, and had shoulder-bludgeoned his way past the after-guard and the rear ranks of Marines. Instead of a rifle, he held a bottle of champagne in each hand, and his man, Sasha, behind him carried two polished wood boxes of pistols.
'Empty, are they?' Lewrie asked with one brow up in mockery.
'Does not matter,' Lovotchkin snapped, swaying more than necessary to the motion of the ship. One bottle was open, and he raised it to his lips to drink from the neck.
'No one ever drinks spirits on deck, my lord,' Lewrie told him with sterness. 'And most especially never in front of the crew, when they're limited to their rum rations at set times. Count Rybakov, do oblige me to inform your compatriot that he is violating the discipline of my ship, and should take himself, and his champagne, below at once.'
Whatever Count Rybakov urgently, angrily, said to his younger relative mattered no more than water to a duck's back, for Levotchkin just sneered, swayed, and took another deep drink. 'Pistol, Sasha!' he demanded, reaching behind his back without looking. His manservant handed him a sleek duelling pistol, taking the off-hand champagne bottle in exchange, so Levotchkin could cock it with the back of his wrist, then throw the bottle from which he'd drunk high into the air. With a feral cry, the young Count rushed to the taffrails, shoving people out of his way, frankly making everyone scamper to avoid the cocked pistol which he handled so breezily and dangerously. He looked astern, then took a duellist's stance, feet wide apart, one hand on his hip, body turned sideways to make the slimmest target for an opponent, and fired. The bottle, about twenty yards astern, was hit, of course, and Count Levotchkin turned to look at Lewrie with triumph on his face, cruelly smiling, To make his drunken point, he raised the empty pistol to his mouth and blew across the muzzle, then pointed it directly at Lewrie, and barked 'Pom!' to imitate the bark of a pistol.
'Now see here, you!' Lt. Eades shouted. 'Put him in irons, sir? Threaten our Captain, will you?'
'A bottle, Sasha,' Lewrie said, raising a hand to still the ire of his crew. 'And a pistol.' He looked at the brute, who glared back 'neath heavy, beetled brows, snorting at the effrontery. Sasha looked to his master, matching Levotchkin's top-lofty sneer.
'Seechas, yob tvoyemat!' Lewrie barked in a fair approximation of Eudoxia's father; 'Now, fuck your mother!' he added in English so everyone would know what he'd said in poor Russian.
Lewrie jerked his gaze from Sasha to Levotchkin, savouring the looks of utter surprise on their faces. The manservant looked again to his master for instruction; the Count shrugged and nodded, sure of himself… or, too drunk to care. With a growl of displeasure, the servant opened the box and handed Lewrie the mate to Levotchkin's pistol. It, too, was French, Lewrie took note as he quickly examined it; long-barreled and slim, and worth a fortune in its own right. The mouth of the barrel revealed the crisp-cut rifling. Lewrie drew the lock back to half-cock, freed the frizzen and pan cover, and saw that it was already primed. 'You keep loaded weapons in my cabins, sir?' he asked in a voice loud enough to carry to every curious ear, from officer to cabin boy. 'That is something else I will not tolerate from a guest, Count Levotchkin. Hear me plain, do ye, sir?' he demanded. That was met by yet another sneer. 'Bottle, if you please,' he said to Sasha. 'No, don't hand it to me… toss it high and hard as you can. Understand? Ponyimayu?'
And for God's sake, don't fuck this up, Lewrie chid himself as the brute drew his arm back. He'd always been a better-than-average wing-shot, and when up the Mississippi to spy out Spanish New Orleans, he'd reaped his share of wild ducks with a musket; had even tried his eye at potting turtles resting on logs on the banks, and shooting off-hand at thrown bottles with that trading fellow with the Panton, Leslie and Company.
'Throw it!' Lewrie snapped. Sasha gave a great heave worthy of a weighted messenger line or a grapnel 'tween ships. The bottle soared aloft and astern, tumbling end-for-end. Lewrie raised his pistol and took aim, leading it as it fell, and…
Pa-Bang! as the pistol bucked in his hand, and the ball hit the bottle, shattering it ten feet above the ship's
