Dewey Lambdin - A King`s Commander

• Название: A King`s Commander
• Автор: Dewey Lambdin
• Жанр: Морские приключения

Alan Lewrie is now commander of HMS Jester, an 18-gun sloop. Lewrie sails into Corsica only to receive astonishing orders: he must lure his archenemy, French commander Guillaume Choundas, into battle and personally strike the malevolent spymaster dead. With Horatio Nelson as his squadron commander on one hand and a luscious courtesan who spies for the French on the other, Lewrie must pull out all the stops if he's going to live up to his own reputation and bring glory to the British Royal Navy.

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He winced into his wool broadcloth coat, as if it might be some protection, flinching from the avalanche of screaming iron, the jagged metal shards, whirlwind cloud of wood splinters, and the sagging ruin of masts to come. Though feeling an urgent desire to fling himself to the deck, like a sensible person!

The air trembled and moaned above the general cannonade between the fleets, a very personally directed moaning and fluting, as fifteen or more twelve-pounder balls bored their way toward Jester. Before their Revolution, France had possessed the finest guns, the finest school of naval gunnery in the world, with a dedicated corps of lifelong professional artillerists. And frail little Jester was about to receive…!

Nothing, pretty much.

A ragged line of feathers erupted from the sea, to either side of her bows, as irregularly spaced as a London urchin's teeth. Great, and rather pretty, pillars of spray and foam leapt up where the round-shot struck the sea at first graze. More feathers abeam, or astern, as cannon balls caromed and bounded over the wave tops like a young lad's stone might skip across a duck pond. Lewrie was sure he heard one or two howl overhead like extremely fat and fatal bumblebees… but so high above the royals they didn't even spill an ounce of wind from frail canvas, or sever a single stay in passing!

"Well, damme!" he cried in befuddled exaltation. "Those poor buggers couldn't hit the ground, if they dropped stone-cold dead!"

A first broadside, usually the best-laid and pointed, at less than three-quarters of a mile… and they'd missed completely? Lewrie jeered. Now, stand for mine, you poxy clown!

"Mister Knolles, give us a point free! Mister Bittfield, the starboard battery… fire as you bear!" he shouted.

Up the fairly steep slant of the deck to windward, nine-pounders on their heavy truck carriages rumbled and growled, foot at a time, as the hands ran their pieces up to the ports and beyond, to point deadly black-painted hog muzzles at the foe. A tug on the side-tackles, or a lever with a crow iron for aiming. Fists raised in the air, from the foc's'le to far aft in the great-cabins beneath his feet, as the gun captains drew their flintlock lanyards taut and stood clear of their charges' recoil.

"On the uproll… Fire!" Lewrie howled, primed for vengeance.

The foc's'le eighteen-pounder carronade began it, with a deep bark of displeasure. Then, a stuttering series of roars rippled down the starboard side. Lewrie looked aft to Andrews, serving as captain to a quarterdeck carronade. He jerked his lanyard and the piece erupted a short, stabbing flame, and a corona of muzzle smoke. It snubbed to the rear on its slide-carriage, greased wood compressors smoking, too.

"We fired under the French flag, sir!" Knolles cautioned. It was a grave breach of etiquette, that. A ruse de guerre was accepted practice, right up to the moment of initiating combat.

"Get that Frog rag down, Mister Spendlove, and hoist our true colors!" Lewrie yelled, not caring much beyond witnessing the strike of his shot. "Swab out, and give 'em another, Mister Bittfield!"

Glorious!

Feathers of spray, close-aboard the French frigate; short, some of them, but grazing along at reduced speed for a solid hit on timber. The sort of low-velocity hits that smashed more hulls in than faster strikes, which might punch clean through. The frigate's sails, yards and masts quivering and twitching as guns fired from leeward, up that slant of the deck even with their quoins full-in, went high. Spanker holed dead-center, mizzen tops'l winging out free of its weather brace, and the main course ripped in half!

The frigate stood on, stolid in spite of her hurts. Cannon appeared in her ports again, and a second ragged, ill-spaced broadside erupted from her. With little more success than the last one! And then, she was forced to tack. She could stand-on on the larboard tack, sail up to her fellows, or she must come about to continue the fight.

Tack, or wear, Lewrie mused, even as his guns spoke again. To wear would put her even with Jester, well-astern after completing the twenty-four-point circle. No, she must tack, he decided, or throw her hand in as valueless. And that'll silence her guns, for a bit.

"Our ensign's aloft, now, sir," Spendlove told him.

"Very good, Mister Spendlove. One hopes the Frogs'll take our error as a minor slip in punctilio."

"It appears they've worse things to worry about, at the moment, sir!" Midshipman Spendlove japed, pointing to the French battle line. Close as Jester had come to the fighting, they could now take gleeful note of British men-o'-war through the thick banks of powder fog, up almost yardarm to yardarm with the French, blazing away at pistol-shot range. "Oh, there she goes, sir… coming about!"

The frigate was presenting her stern to them, swinging up onto the eye of the wind, yards all a'cock-bill and canvas slatting.

"Took 'em long enough," Lewrie sneered. Jester's gunfire was splattering all about her as she slowed and turned. Sails caved in on themselves as they were punctured, to refill lank and disheveled, and Alan frowned as he thought he saw a round-shot strike her foremast's tops'l yard, spilling a wiggling speck or two loose. Two topmen who'd just fallen to their deaths on the hard oak below, or into the waters alongside, where they'd plunge deep before surfacing, to watch their ship sail on, uncaring, just before they drowned.

"Mister Knolles, harden up! Full-and-by!" Lewrie ordered, to put Jester back onto the wind, and wring out every foot of advantage above the frigate, which was visibly struggling to get around to her tack. The last French 74-gunned 3rd Rate at the tail of the enemy battle line was off Jesters starboard bows by then. Still with her offside gun ports closed, thank God! A minute or two more, and she would be too acutely angled to take Jester under fire-out of her gun arcs in the narrow ports. And that 74 was punch-drunk and reeling, her lower masts sprung and shivering to every new blow, ready to go by the board, any moment.

"Mister Spendlove, perhaps you might oblige me?" Alan inquired casually, in a moderate voice, as the gunners swabbed and loaded anew.

"Aye, sir?"

"Go aft and bend on this month's private signal to identify us," he suggested with a wink. "Once we get around to the British side of this battle, I'd not like to be shot to ribbons in error by some overeager repeating frigate."

"Aye, sir!" Spendlove chuckled.

The wind was dying away to nothing. Massive broadsides usually blasted air to stillness. And they were witness to one of the greatest sustained exchanges of massive firepower, even greater than any battle known so far in history. Jester was flagging once more, coasting along on her built-up momentum more than she was driving ahead close-hauled, hazed and half concealed in the sulphurous reeking mists that blew alee from that cannonading. The French frigate had come about to the starboard tack at last, but she was half-a-mile astern by then, though well up on Jester's starboard quarter.

"Mmm… Mister Ss,.. Spendlove's respects, sir," Boy First-Class Josephs almost hiccuped below Lewrie's waist. And shivering frightful, as if he'd quiver every bone from his body. Five days at sea- less than a month in the Navy, and he was already under fire, wondering what had ever possessed him to go a gentleman volunteer, or wish a naval career! And still half terrified of his own captain!

"Aye, Mister Josephs?"

"Pp… private signal aloft, sir, he bb… bade me tell you."

"Thankee, Mister Josephs," Lewrie replied, looking down at him intently, his father's heart softening. Sewallis was just as twitchy, just as miserable-looking, half the time. "Something to write home about, lad. To see a grand battle such as this'un. Perhaps the only one you'll ever see, your entire career! Now, d'ye understand why we start off harsh? So you end up the sort o' man'll stand such."

"I think so, sir," Josephs said with a gulp.

"Good lad," Lewrie said, rewarding him with a smile.

It was going to be Buchanon's "close shave," around the stern of that Frog 74, after all. Perhaps by no more than a quarter-mile. He could ease her off the wind a bit and parallel her, but the frigate on his starboard quarter was still pursuing, bulldog game.

"Broadside guns'll no longer bear, sir!" Bittfield shouted up from the waist. The nine-pounders were sharply angled astern in the ports. Any more, and they'd snap their breeching ropes, sure.

"Cease fire, Mister Bittfield! Mister Rahl? Supervise carronades on the quarterdeck. They have a greater arc of fire."

"Ja, zir!" Their emigrant Prussian barked, almost clicking his heels in glee to have some noisy toys to play with a bit longer.

And that frigate, Lewrie exulted to himself! She'll have to fall in almost astern of me, if she wishes to continue. She stays that high up on our quarter, we'll brush her off against the side of that last liner!

The frigate reopened fire, with her lighter forecastle chase guns. Five-or six-pound ball went sizzling across the quarterdeck.

"A little better shooting, at last," Knolles commented.

"They're not the skillful shots their fathers were," Lewrie agreed, with some relief.

"Bless me, sir," Knolles scoffed. "They're not the men they were two years ago!"

The starboard quarterdeck carronades belched fire, swathing them all in powder smoke for a period, before it was wafted away to the nor'east by the light winds, before Jester sailed past her own pall on the bruised air.

"Hit, I t'ink, herr kapitanl Jal" Rahl delighted, watching heavy ball strike and raise a gout of splinters, dust, and oakum.

On they stood, continuing their duel. The last French warship in the battle line was left astern, off Jester's starboard quarter. A run of five minutes more would give her sea room enough to come about and resume her original course of west-sou'west, with the entire Royal Navy a protective fence between her and danger.

Gunners aft, and the after-guard, began to jeer, as the French frigate was forced to haul her wind to avoid a collision with that last, limping 3rd Rate.

"Frigate, sir!" Hyde pointed out. "One of our repeating frigates, four points off the starboard bows!"

"Acknowledging our private signal, sir!" Spendlove chimed in.

"Mister Knolles, you may secure from quarters, now," Alan said with a great sigh of success. "Safe in Mother's arms, from here on."

"French frigate is wearing about, sir."

Lewrie looked aft. Aye, she didn't have room in which to tack so she was swinging broadside on to Jester's stern, presenting them her starboard side, to make the greater twenty-four-point circle off the wind to end up heading west, plodding along in company with the other vessels of her fleet. Deprived of her prey. Beaten.

"Better luck next time, you snail-eatin' bastard!" Alan bellowed in triumph, cupping his hands so his words might carry. Though he doubted a shout across half-a-mile would register on French ears, it was, after all, the smug, insulting victor's jeer-and thought-that counted!

Uh… sorry I did that, he told himself at once!

The frigate, outsailed then outshot, spent a last fit of Gallic pique upon Jester, rippling out one final, irregular broadside. A crash aft and below, as a ball scored at last, caving in the transom timbers abaft the stores rooms and officers' quarters, a great thonk as the ball continued to carom down the length of the empty berth deck. Glass shattered as another exploded the larboard quarter-galleries-both Lewrie's, and the gun-room's-toilets. Splashes and feathers to either beam around the stern, and a further hollow thonk and high whine as a ball ploughed a furrow down Jester's side.

And Josephs, up on the bulwarks, was beheaded.

One instant cheering and waving a fist in the air, the next he was flying, his small body flung almost amidships of the quarterdeck, minus his head, throat, and shoulders, which had been pulped into red mist by six pounds of wailing iron!

"My… word!" Lieutenant Knolles gasped, as his compatriot on the bulwarks, his mate Rydell, hopped down and began shrieking utter horror, and terror. He'd escaped unscathed, though they'd been close enough to rub shoulders. Close enough, though, to be spattered with droplets of gore, brains, and bone chips!

"Surgeon's mate!" Lewrie shouted uselessly. "Lob-lolly boys!"

Whey-faced himself, but determined not to show it, nor allow this horror to demoralize his crew, he was forced by duty to cross to Rydell.

"Shut your mouth, Mister Rydell! Stop that noise!" he rasped. "Go below, if you wish to unman yourself. Lob-lolly boys? Get that… that, off the quarterdeck, at once!"

And turn his back, to deal with Duty.

"Oh, dear Jesus," LeGoff whispered as he came up from the cockpit on the orlop, the place of surgery during quarters. "Poor little chub!"

"Deal with it, Mister LeGoff," Knolles ordered coolly, after he was over his own funk. "Anyone else injured below, or aft?"

"No one, Mister Knolles, praise God," Lewrie heard LeGoff say to the first officer. "Here, you men. Scrap o' canvas. The carrying board. Take him below to the cockpit, and ready him for burial."

"Mister Buchanon," Lewrie inquired, his face a stony mask. "I believe we have enough sea room to return to larboard tack?"

"Aye, sir," the sailing master muttered, as shaken as anyone.

"Very well, then. Mister Knolles? Stations for Stays. Come about. New course, west-by-south, till we're well up to windward of our line-of-battle ships. Then we'll ease her due west, to parallel."

"Aye aye, sir," Knolles replied, happy to have something constructive to do. "Mister Porter? Stations for Stays!"

"Onliest one, sir," Buchanon continued, with a whimsical air.

"Hmm?" Lewrie grunted, still in pain, but curious about that tone in Buchanon's voice.

"Josephs, Cap'um. Onliest one e'en scratched!" Buchanon said more soberly, almost in a rueful awe. "We got our comeuppance from th' oP mad buggers. An' 'ey took 'eir due from us. Th' gods o' th' sea, Cap'um. Th' ol' pagan gods o' winds an' seas, 'ey took 'im."

"Surely, Mister Buchanon, in this modern age…" Lewrie began to scoff, a little angered by such a heretical suggestion. Or, maybe a little angered at what he did not yet know. At himself, perhaps, for having the boy "started." For making his last days fearful.

"Me da', he was Welsh, Cap'um," Buchanon related. " 'Twas oft he toi' me 'bout 'em. Him an' th' granthers, all, sir, on th' stormy nights, with th' rain an' winds a'howlin' 'gainst th' shutters, 'r th' public house. Onliest folk still take note o' 'em'z sailormen, sir. Priests an' Church, ey drove 'em out, into th' wide, trackless seas. But 'at don't mean 'ey passed away, Cap'um. Oh no, not at all!"