A Jester’s Fortune - Dewey Lambdin

"Bend on and hoist an 'Affirmative,' Mister Hyde," Lewrie replied. "Quartermaster, down-helm. Lay us two points closer to the wind, on a soldier's wind. Mister Knolles, duty-watch to the braces."

"Aye aye, sir."

"Then we'll make sure everyone's had a solid meal before closing yon stranger," Lewrie decided. "Gruel, this morning, if I'm not mistaken, sirs? With a dollop of treacle? A princely dish for a hard morning's work."

"Oh, aye, sir!" the watch-keeping staff on the quarterdeck said with a droll roll of their eyes. "Princely!"

"I'll have a bowl, myself, sirs," Lewrie insisted with mock seriousness. "Once I've gone aloft to 'smoak' our new arrival. Mr. Knolles, you have the deck. Keep my mush hot for me, now."

Once in the mizzen-top, he could see for miles, even with mists rising from a chill morning along the coast, shrouding the isles with a thin blanket of fog. The Chase was a full-rigged, three-masted ship; her top-s'ls or t'gallants were already above the horizon, as she beat into the wind, laid over on starboard tack, and came roughly along a reciprocal course to jester-North by West. Once she espied a brace of warships off her bows, Lewrie imagined, she'd turn and run back the way she came, through the Hvar-Vis channel. She could tack and swing eastward, and run into Venetian waters eventually; perhaps into Spalato itself to take shelter in a neutral port. She could haul off the wind and flee West-no, he groused, that'd lay her open to Pylades or getting entangled in that chain of isles round Bisevo.

And just how did you pronounce 'em? Lewrie wondered, grinning.

Cut between Hvar and Brae, thread the narrow gut between Brae and Solta, should the wind shift? They'd never catch her, then. But, from what he recalled of his last peek at those new Venetian charts, Jester had deep water anywhere she went in pursuit.

Another long minute went by, and still the merchantman stood on her course, as if her lookouts were blind as bats. He could determine that he was looking at t'gallant sails, now with a hint of her tops'ls showing below them-not twelve miles away, and she still didn't see them?

Finally! And it took ya long enough, ya simple bastard! Alan thought smugly. She was hauling her wind, swinging her masts in line with each other and pointing her jib-boom directly at Jester, as if to flee Westward, dodge round the lee of the Bisevo chain, brushing off pursuit. But still blind, Lewrie realized; she hadn't spotted Captain Rodgers's Pylades yet! And when she did…! There! Even close to twelve miles off, he could see her sway, as if startled by a mouse, as she realised the Westerly escape route was blocked by a second warship. And came back hard on the wind once more, putting her masts in line… was she? Yes, Lewrie decided, seeing the first rippling of her canvas… she was going to tack across the wind and flee Easterly!

"Mister Knolles?" Lewrie bellowed down. "A point more to windward. Hands aloft… shake out royals!"

Jester sailed the longer leg of an intersecting triangle between the wind, the Chase, and escape. But she had a long, clean waterline, and the winds pressed clear from the Nor'east, Leading winds or Fair at times, her best points of sail. The Chase was closer to the eye of the wind, Beating. While it felt faster, with a ship's speed combined with the wind's speed, they were fighting against it. The island of Brae lay before her bows, the narrow dogleg channel between Brae and Solta even closer to the wind's eye. She'd have to tack to stand into it, then do another tack to roughly her original course, to follow its winding into safety, all of which would slow her.

Cool, clear morning air, brisk and bracing, filled Jester's sails drumhead taut. The Adriatic was running seas of not over three or four feet, and Jester loped over them, pressed over less than ten degrees from upright, her forefoot and cutwater slicing through them as finely as the keenest butcher's blade, creating a rumbling, hissing, seething clash of foam, a slight yawing and lifting of her stern when the foresails, which lifted the bows, were now and then blanketed by those of the main and the mizzen. But she was gaining… relentlessly. And pointing before the Chase s bows, so that longer leg of intersection she sailed would meet with her long before she gained the islands' shelter.

"Haulini" the lookout shouted. "Chase'z haulin' 'er wind!"

Just shy of the isle of Brae, she was coming about, falling off the wind and showing them her stern. Lewrie stood at the lee bulwark on the starboard side, telescope to his eye, and another mug of tea in peril. He suspected the winds off the Balkan mountains had swung foul farther south, where the Chase lay-were come more Easterly with less Northing, or were altered by the headlands and hills of the islands from the Nor'easterly they enjoyed. She couldn't make the narrow channel without tacking at once, which would run her right back into gun-range! Lewrie turned to espy Pylades, now about three miles alee of Jester, and astern of her starboard quarter, blocking any attempt to turn and run back out the wider channel to the south between Hvar and Vis.

She was, however, well placed for a run through another channel, a little South of East, between Brae's southern shore and the north shore of Hvar! South of Venetian dominion, and safety!

"Half a point free, Mister Knolles. Pursue her more directly," Alan directed. "Mister Buchanon? The local chart, please, sir?"

"Here, sir," that cautious stalwart from the Blackpool fisheries all but chortled in glee. "Oh, 'ey've chose poor, sir. See here…" he said, happily spreading the chart on the traverse board near the binnacle cabinet, amidships by the wheel. " 'Is Hav… Huw… 'is 'break-teeth' island's long an' narrow, nigh on fifteen leagues, end t'end, an' less'n a mile'r two off th' mainland, at th' end of it, if she wishes t'turn the far point, and run back down its southern coast. With 'is wind t'day, I doubt she'd turn North, f'r Brae, or Spalato… same problem she had with 'at other channel. She's sailin' inta th' sack, sir. Her master must know ought o' 'ese waters."

"Or possess Austrian charts." Lewrie snickered as he turned one more time to look astern and alee for Pylades. The signal flags she'd first hoisted still flew; for Jester to pursue closely, and inshore. A flicker of canvas, a slight turn, and Pylades was slowing, well short of the entrance to that southerly channel. She cocked her bows up into the wind, some sails still trimmed to drive ahead, the rest backed or cross-sheeted to check forward motion, as if she'd failed to make it across on a tack-fetched-to, to wait for Jester to take that Chase, or to stay where she could dash off north of Solta, or below Hvar, to intercept if the strange merchantman emerged.

Here we go again, Alan Lewrie thought with a sigh, and recalled times in the Bahamas when Benjamin Rodgers had stood off safe, while he'd been forced to tiptoe through coral reefs with his little gun-ketch, Alacrity. There was no danger here of ripping Pylades' hull open. But someone must be the blocking force. And full post-captains got what they wanted, when compared to a lowly commanders wishes.

It wasn't navigational perils that worried Lewrie this time, no. Diplomatic, perhaps, should he run afoul of a Venetian patrol ship deep in their waters-what Charlton had warned him about. Or be separated from heavier guns in support, a full forty-five miles, should there be a French warship lurking at the far, unseen end of that channel. What other reason could this Chase's captain have to flee East into a sack, unless he expected some help at the far end of it? Lewrie pondered.

"Growl we may, but go we must," Lewrie whispered, lowering his telescope. "Quartermasters… make for midchannel."

The merchant ship went out of sight for a few minutes, slipping into the narrow Brac-Hvar channel before them, 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!