He returned to the quarterdeck as Proteus began to pay off from fetched-to to larboard tack, and began to gather way for a reach down the Leeward Passage to Pillsbury Sound. Lt. Langlie had reduced sail, since there was no more need for "dash" to catch a prize. The winds were cooperating, too; veered to Nor'east-by-North, and weakening as the morning warmed. There might be two or three hours more of gentle sailing before the tropic heat created stronger gusts, and fresh veers or backings. By then, they could be back off Ram Head and beyond, in deep water and miles from any shores or shoals.
"Deck, there!" a lookout called down as Proteus neared the mouth of Pillsbury Sound. "Smoke round the headland, four point off the weather bows! Small boats under sail, too, d'ye hear there?"
The smoke was as thin as a pipesmoker's for a minute or so, then quickly became a belching gush of darker, thicker smoke on the far side of Ram Head, flame-driven upwards by a catching conflagration. Lewrie began to worry and fret about the safety of his boarding party. It had been too long for the French to have fired the ship to prevent seizure, but hours too late for Catterall to have done it, he thought.
"Two boats, sir, under lug-sails," Langlie prompted, turning his attention closer in. "Ours, I do believe."
"A point of lee helm and close them, then, Mister Langlie."
"Aye, sir. Quartermaster, helm alee one point."
Within half an hour, Lewrie could feel a true sense of relief, and one of accomplishment, too, for the boats were theirs, and in the ocular of his glass, he could make out faces and put names to them in quick inventory, realising that every man jack he'd disembarked would return safe and sound, and with no sign oн blood or bandages to mark any wounded, either.
Lieutenant Catterall was standing up in the stern-sheets of his boat, whooping and hollering, waving exuberantly as Proteus and her prize brig fetched-to once more. Catterall pointed astern, threw out his chest proudly, and polished his fingernails on the white facings of his uniform coat, beaming fit to bust.
His boat swung round to the starboard, lee entry-port, where he was first up the man-ropes and boarding-battens to give his report, taking the salute due him from the side-party offhandedly, and almost swaggering as he doffed his hat.
"A Frog privateer, right enough, sir," Catterall boasted, "the Incendiare, she was called. Quite apt, now she's lit up like a pile of winter deadfall, haha! Crew of ninety, all told, before she struck the shoal, and mounted eight six-pounders." He related the important facts of her demise; for captured privateers, the best most crews would receive from a Prize Court would be "head and gun money," mere shillings paid out for each crewman and each piece of artillery. "No prisoners, sorry t'say, Captain. She was well and truly stuck on the rocks 'til the Final Trump, and nigh awash aft, when we gained her. The Frogs had departed in their own boats for the island. But they were in such a rush they abandoned all her paperwork. Not her Letter of Marque, sorry, but her box of correspondence in her master's cabin. There's more than enough proof of her being a privateer. Why it took me so long before we lit her off, and headed back to sea, d'ye see, sir? Since I can make out French rather well…"
"Oh, aye!" Langlie muttered under his breath, rolling his eyes.
"Well, I do, Anthony," Catterall objected, "though I don't say it well as I read it. I decided that goin' over her with a fine-tooth comb for documents'd be best. Glean some insight into what the Frogs are intending, where they operate, and such."
"Exactly as I would have, Mister Catterall," Lewrie praised him. "Good, quick thinking, that. Let's get your party back aboard, first, get the boats a'tow aft, then we'll discuss what gems you may have discovered. Enough of import to please Admiral Sir Hyde Parker and his staff-captain, one would hope?"
"Er, aye, sir!" Catterall replied, taken all aback for a moment to be the object of praise, instead of the odd grudging grunt of acceptance, and a muttered "carry on."
"No hope of salvage, though?" Lewrie had to ask.
"Smashed all to pieces up forrud, sir, her keel snapped in two abaft her forecastle, and half her knee timbers and planking spraddled or gone, to amidships. Just hangin' on the shoal, she was, sir. Sorry."
"No need. She's out of business, and her crew's marooned ashore on a rarely visited island," Lewrie said with a shrug. "They can sail over to Charlotte Amalie and be interned, but it'll be months before an exchange can be arranged through the local French consul. The prize we took more than makes up for it. And… do you talk sweetly to Lieutenant Devereux, perhaps he'll gift you with one of the items he captured off her. 'Tis something you'll drool over, trust me."
"Oh, ah… well, sir!" Catterall said, beaming at a good day's work, and glancing about greedily for a sight of the Marine officer.
The boarding party was coming aboard then, sailors and Marines tramping the starboard gangway and the after ladder to the waist, with their arms removed from bandoliers and baldrics, ready to be put back in the arms chests. They were crowing over their own deeds, getting chaffered by those who'd stayed aboard as to who had had the best adventure, or had accomplished the greater deed.
"You new men," Lieutenant Langlie ordered, "assist Mister Tow-penny at leading the boats aft to their towing painters."
Lewrie was standing by the rails and nettings overlooking the waist, just about to clap his hands together with satisfaction, when he glanced down. One of his recently "volunteered" hands, the one who went by George Gamble, looked up, aghast, his mouth dropping open and his tanned face paling in shock, darting a look at Mr. Towpenny, who stood on the inner edge of the starboard gangway over his head, still burdened with cutlass, pistol, and musket as part of the boarding party.
"Hennidge?" Mr. Towpenny exclaimed of a sudden, just as aghast. "Martin Hennidge?" he added, this time scowling, the name spat out in loathing. His musket came up quickly.
Lewrie jerked his head back to look at Gamble, who started like a deer at a dog's barking, quickly lashing out to seize a musket from a seaman who'd been idling with a messmate, the butt on the deck, and one forearm draped casually over the muzzle as a hiking stick. Gamble scampered forward, musket at port-arms, and using it as a bludgeon to either hand to clear his way!
"Mutineer, sir!" Mr. Towpenny cried, putting his musket to his shoulder as if to aim. "One of the Hermiones! Knew him years ago, I did… know him anywhere!"
"Proteuses, seize that man!" Lewrie barked.
"Keep back!" the fugitive sailor shrieked, spinning to face the crew and levelling his musket to point at them from his hip. "Leave me be, or by Christ I'll shoot at least one o' ye! Keep back, I say!"
He swung the muzzle back and forth, frantically, daunting the few hands who had obeyed Lewrie's order. He climbed the larboard companionway ladder near the focs'le belfry to the gangway, near the larboard anchor cat-heads.
"Sir!" the seaman who had lost his musket called up. "Sir! 'At musket ain't loaded!" Mister Catterall wouldn't let us back aboard wif one!"
Lewrie tipped the sailor a wink, drew his sword, and took off at a quick trot down the larboard gangway. "Give it up, Gamble, or whatever your name is!" He forced himself to look stern and menacing, sure that the joke would soon be on their "armed" mutineer.
Hennidge looked down to his piece, used one hand to make sure it was at full cock again, and raised it, aiming at Lewrie's heart.
"Won't be taken, I won't! Back, ya tyrant, or I'll kill you, if it's the last thing ever I do!" Hennidge cried.
"Murder another officer, would you?" Lewrie snarled, sword extended and almost within reach of the muzzle. "There were ten slaughtered aboard Hermione … in their beds! Those not enough for you, Hennidge? Thrown overside, still alive but bleeding, even the wee midshipmen who pleaded for their lives. Have a hand in that, did you? Did you, you traitor?"