H.M.S. COCKEREL - Dewey Lambdin

"We dare all!" he called, loud once more. "We will fight! As men! If we die as men… we die on our feet, not on our knees! They… those Revolutionaries astern of us, have only their hatred to die for. Where are their families, where are their convictions? Be ready!"

The two stern-chasers went off with a close double bang, to end his peroration. And a thin cheer from the gunners aft, who'd finally hit something, said more than anything he could further compose.

He looked to Madame Hortense de Crillart beside her son Louis, trying to be as brave as a Spartan matron who'd send her children off to battle, urging them to come home "with your shield… or on it"-dead before dishonoured. Sophie de Maubeuge stood trembling with her, eyes wide in fear, eyes only for Charles. Phoebe Aretino, not too far away from them, among the lower-class dependents… and the few suddenly widowed or orphaned, therefore shunned, as if it was catching. "The ladies must go below once more, out of harm's way. See to your children and each other. Be as courageous as your menfolk will be."

Lewrie turned away, to stride to the wheel and look aft at his foe. She was up within a half mile of them by then, edging even more upwind of Radical. He could see down her starboard side.

"Magnifique, mon ami," Lieutenant de Crillart said, coming to join him. "Ve franзais… trиs dramatique, hein? I add to you' speech, pardon… on'y un peu. Now, vot ve do to defeat zem?"

"Frankly, Charles, I haven't a bloody clue," Lewrie confessed.

"Ah."

The corvette would have to swing off the wind and lose all the progress she'd made upon them, if she wished to employ her main artillery. To swing up harder to the wind would put her in-irons, so it was not the starboard battery, which he could see, that would be the threat. She could fall off, haul her wind, slew about briefly and touch off a broadside from her larboard battery before coming back to full-and-by. But that would sacrifice her slight, and hard-won, windward advantage. And perhaps an eighth of a mile of separation, which she would have to make back up.

"She'll stand on, as she is," Lewrie muttered aloud. "Quarter-hour more, and she'll be upwind of us… 'bout an hundred yards or so. And off our larboard quarter. That is, if they don't shoot something else away from our rigging beforehand."

"Ze wind an' sea…" Charles pointed out with a sour shrug: a drop in the wind, a calming of the seas. Neither vessel hobby-horsed any longer, cleaving smoother paths. That was advantage to the French, they knew. They would have less wave resistance, could go faster to windward, and pinch up to gain even more windward position without a heavy quarter-sea butting against their bows when they did so. And it would make their fore deck a much less boisterous gun platform, so their aim would surely improve.

"Prйparez… tirez!" one of the French gunners called out to his men. The larboard, upwind stern-chaser barked. "Hourra! Le coup au but!" he crowed in triumph.

"Oh, well shot!" Lewrie exclaimed. The eight-pounder round-shot had hit along the starboard side, fine on the bows, among the pin-rails for the jib sheets, right next to the starboard bow-chaser. Men had spilled wounded or frightened from the gun. And the corvette's jib sheets had been set free. The taut ellipses luffed and spilled wind, flagging to leeward, bulging flaccid, losing their knife-edge tautness. Inner and outer flying jibs and fore topmast stays'ls balanced a ship working to windward, gave her the fore-and-aft drive to lay her there, slicing the apparent wind. Without them, she would have to fall off. Square sails, no matter how braced round, could never drive a ship that close to the wind.

The corvette slewed, indeed, heeling farther to starboard for a moment, her helm down to keep what they had. For a second, it appeared she might round up higher, yielding to weather-helm. But she did fall off at last, as men raced to control those sheets, haul them flat-in, and belay them once more. But when she settled, under full control… she was dead-astern. Her windward advantage had been lost!

"A quarter-hour to close to musket-shot, but…" Lewrie grinned.

That close-aboard, dead in my wake, he schemed; let's say we haul our wind, give him the starboard battery, a point-blank broadside… no, he'll take it, then rush on past our stern. I'd have to fall away almost dead downwind to fire, and that'd lay our stern open for her to rake us…

That didn't sound promising. A stern-rake would expose everyone below, everyone on the gun deck, to round-shot bowling through the thin transom timbers, the great-cabins and wardroom, the orlop cockpit; an avalanche of iron, tumbling and ricocheting along her entire hull, the round-shot caroming from the thick hull timbers, contained within. There could be fifty… sixty dead and wounded in a twinkling. All his precious fighting men… women and children, too.

Best take it abeam, Lewrie thought; Radical's a forty-gun frigate-built to take twelve-pounder fire. Re-enforced to take eighteen-pounder shot? It'd make sense for them to stiffen her, to take the recoil of her new gun batteries, if nothing else. I can stand her eight-pounders a lot easier than her timbers could my shot, even hull to hull!

Or not take her fire at all? Bow-rake her Let her stand on as she is, and…! Lewrie almost squirmed with hopeful expectation.

"Quartermaster?"

"Aye, sir?"

"Let her fall off, slowly. Very slowly," Lewrie commanded. "A half a point, no more. Give it up, spoke at a time."

"Haul our wind, sir?" the helmsman yelped, turning to look over his shoulder at him for a dread, outraged instant, before discipline and years of training to concentrate aloft and nowhere else took over. "Aye, aye, sir," he said at last, returning his concentration to the coach-whip of the pendant overhead, the luffs of the main-mast sails. He eased the helm a single spoke, then began counting to himself, under his breath, before he'd yield the second.

"Alain… pourquoi?" de Crillart demanded, similarly outraged.

"Why, to have the bastard, Charles!" Alan replied, almost gleeful. "To have the bastard! Mister Porter, come to the quarterdeck!"

"Aye, sir?" Porter said, hat in hand. "Leak, sir? They be nigh to a foot below now, if that's wot y'r askin' 'bout, Mister Lewrie."

"Mostly aft?" Lewrie asked with a chuckle.

"Well, aye, sir," Porter rejoined, seeing nothing humorous about their predicament. "Wot got past th' forrud chain-pumps."

"That'll make her quicker to come about, the bows light and the stern heavier," Lewrie nodded, seeming pleased. "When I give you the word, Mister Porter, I want the hands to brace her round, like we were tacking. Before that… just before, I want everything aloft scandalised, brailed up damned sharp, in Spanish reefs. Then belayed, before every hand takes arms, ready for boarding."

He glanced astern, as the corvette's bow-chasers were got back in action, barking shrill as terriers.

"We might have about ten minutes, Mister Porter. I wish you to be ready with at least four grapnels. Two light'uns, for tossing, when I give you the order. And two more on heavier lines… three' r four-inch manila that can take a strain. About half a cable each for the heavy ones… ready round the capstans, fore and aft. Got that?"

"Aye, sir, I think so. Scandalise, brail up… the first order. Stations for stays, the second. Two light grapnels, and two heavy, to the capstans. Then 'All-Hands' to the gangways as boarders."

"Until the heavy grapnels are across, and a strain taken, leave a crew at the capstans, Mister Porter. Three men each, even after, so we stay put. More important, she stays where we put her."

"Aye, aye, sir," Porter agreed, though mystified.

"I'm giving her the wind-gauge, Porter," Lewrie explained, with a hand on the man's shoulder. "She'll take it, certain. Then, when we are too close and she's going to shoot us to flinders… we'll brail up and slow down like we just threw over a sea anchor. Tack right up, in-irons, across her bows, and grapnel to her. With our guns, Charles…" he said, turning to look at de Crillart… "with our guns aimed point-blank, in a bow-rake, and none but her bow-chasers able to bear upon us And Major de Mariel?" he called, letting Porter go. "Then your sharpshooters will clear her fore decks, and we will board. My sailors first, with pistols and cutlasses. And the heavy grapnels… then, Lieutenant Kennedy, your company after us. Cover my men with volley-fire, whilst we affix the grapnels. After that, gentlemen… it'll be bare steel, and Devil take the hindmost! Then we all board her, over her bows, to support my sailors and Lieutenant Kennedy's 18th Foot. To take her, gentlemen. To take her, before she can hope to take us! A fight to the finish, toe to toe. And no quarter until we stand upon her quarterdeck… and cut her colours down!"

Chapter 9

Soldiers gathered to larboard, huddling below on the gun deck or hunkered down behind the bulwarks, on their knees. Aristocrats in the tops, cautioned to clear the enemy's foredeck; rifled hunting guns loaded and primed. Once again, Lewrie deplored his stupidity, dearly wishing he had but three light swivel guns aloft, one in each fighting-top, to spew clouds of pistol-ball or langridge.

Lieutenant de Crillart was admidships in the waist, his gunners low to the deck behind the guns of the larboard battery, which had been run-in, charged and shotted, primed, and runout to the port sills, double-shotted with their few precious grape-shot loads atop solid-shot, with the powder-monkeys ready with only one more cartridge bag, the gunners ready with only two more round-shot for a second double-shotted broadside, before they'd abandon their guns, take up small arms and board.

It was a slender hope, he knew, a tenuous, neck-or-nothing act of desperation, no matter how enthusiastically he had couched his plan to the others. He paced to the windward bulwarks of the quarterdeck, studying his command, looking astern at the French corvette. She was now within two hundred yards of Radical's stern, banging away with her starboard bow-chaser about once a minute, and employing her two for-rudmost main-battery eight-pounders which could be crowed or levered about to bear. Whilst his own gunners had been reduced to the single twelve-pounder in the great-cabins of the larboard battery, and the lone eight-pounder stern-chaser to larboard, as well.

The frigate? He turned to look to the north, downwind. There she was, overhauling the trailing transport at last, gun-smoke shrouding her side, the transport attempting to shoot back. But too far off to even hear the reports of their guns.

The corvette, again-perhaps twenty yards closer, up to windward by about a single musket-shot.

"Quartermaster? Nothing more to loo'rd," he called. "Begin to luff up, spoke at a time. Very slowly."

He heard the clinking of bottles somewhere.

Damned good idea, he thought; someone's thinking. Liquor your boots for this madness. And wishing he had a glass of something, too.

"Sir?" Cony called to him from the waist.

"Aye, Cony?" He forced himself to grin, going forward to look at his long-time man. "Bloody Hell, Cony, there a dram left for me?"

Will Cony held an entire armful of squat port bottles, swaying a bit more than the sea demanded, as if he'd been into all of them. With him was an older French gunner, who bore a short, smouldering linstock with slow match coiled about its length, and laid in the top fork.