"Now we shall try our luck against yonder bastards."
"Jesus!" Murray yelped, ducking into a half-crouch as a solid shot moaned overhead. "Where'd they get such heavy iron, sir?"
"That was our battery on the hillside above the fort, Murray," Lewrie commented, standing erect from his own crouch. "I pray those gunners know what they're about with that heated shot."
"Didn't miss our masts by a boat-length, sir," Murray carped as Culverin sailed right through the ring-shaped splash of the spent shot half a minute later. "An' they haven't got the range for very much longer. Cain't we signal 'em t' stop, sir?" "Ah… uhm, I'm afraid that's one signal we didn't discuss, Murray," Lewrie confessed, suffering another qualm at all he had not considered once again, and feeling the lack of prior planning acutely. "We shall have to trust to their good judgment."
"Good judgment from soldiers!" Murray gaped with a sour look.
"Ready the larboard battery, Mister Hogue! Fire as you bear!"
"And a half three!" the leadsman chanted.
"As you bear… fire!" Hogue screamed, his voice cracking.
Now the larboard guns lurched back on their recoil slides and a harsh, stinging cloud of powder blossomed forth, checked at the bulwarks by the winds and wafted back over them, blanking out the world for a minute. When the smoke cleared, the hands cheered at the sight of a pirate boat that was rocking keel-up about two hundred yards away, with survivors struggling and wailing about her.
"And a half, two!"
"Ready to come about!" Lewrie called. "Helm's alee!"
One more close-hauled short board on the starboard tack to the east, perhaps the last they could make as they neared the harbor entrance and the line of breakers. The next larboard tack would take them through the main channel and out to sea. Hogue let loose with a broadside from the starboard guns, once more hitting nothing, but the pirates trapped in the lagoon were too rattled to notice, and shied off again.
Back on the larboard tack. Breakers growling and fuming. The battery on the point firing at a boat ahead of them and straddling it with two shot-splashes, hitting it amidships with the third ball and shattering it so quickly that it jack-knifed like a paper boat, broke in two and went under.
"Two more hands to the tiller, Murray!" Lewrie snapped. "Stand by to pinch her up as we cross the bar."
There was more depth in the channel this time of day as tidal flooding rushed into the harbor, softening the shock. But Culverin could still broach on that deceptively calm-looking swell if she hit it wrong.
Culverin rose, soaring up on the swell, with a line of spume racing down past her sides, her bow cocking up for the skies.
"Helm down!" Lewrie shouted. "Luff up square to the wave!"
Four men threw their sinewy strength to the tiller to keep it from lashing to either side or throwing them overboard. Culverin lay on the tip of the swell, sails luffing and thundering, then began to fall as the wave left her behind, bow dipping until it looked as if she'd bury her bowsprit into the trough and keep on sliding down into the depths. She then began to gather speed after being checked in her slide.
"Helm up and give us way, close-hauled!"
It was like rowing a boat across the surf line without going arse-over-tit or being rolled like a stranded whale. Culverin paid off and her sails filled with wind as a second swell gathered her up out of the trough where they could find air, thundering and flapping, then taking shape once more with a series of loud boomings.
"Hold her no more than a point west of south, quartermaster!" Lewrie turned to say. Culverin soared upward once more, almost forcing him to his knees in her hurry to ascend to heaven, but she was halfway out of the wicked harbor entrance now. Even with her hellish tendency to go to leeward like a wood-chip, they would clear the western shoals under the point if they could only make this course good. To have to tack while fighting those entrance bar swells would be disastrous!
"Two fathom!" the starboard leadsman howled.
"Hold her!" Lewrie growled. "Pinch her up as you're able, but for God's sake, hold her head!"
"And a half, two!"
The point was astern, the shoals left behind in her wake. He breathed out as the leadsman found "three fathom" then "four fathom." The broken reef wall would be no threat, not on a flooding tide that would put six fathoms over those tumbled ruins. They were beyond the threatening swells, too, out on the open sea.
"Damn fine, damn my eyes if it wasn't!" Lewrie said to his shaky helmsmen as they eased their death-grips on the tiller bar.
"Thankee, sir, thankee right kindly," they mumbled, working on their cuds again in mouths gone dry as desert sand.
"Now let's get after our pirate friends!" Lewrie exclaimed, beaming. "Mister Murray, they seem to be trending east, running for home and mother."
"Aye, sir. Want t' tack an' pursue 'em now, sir?"
"Wait until we're safely over this broken reef first, then lay her on the starboard tack," Lewrie replied. "Break out the water-butts for anyone as thirsty as I feel for now. Gun crews stand easy."
"Aye, sir."
"Sail ho!" the lookout called.
"Where away!"
"Due south, sir!" the man replied. "Four points off the larboard beam! Full-rigged ship, sir!"
"Damme, d'you think Mister Choate finally got here, sir?" Murray asked. "Now between us, we'll put paid t' these motherless buggers!"
Lewrie took up his telescope and went up the mizzen shrouds to almost the top platform. He raised it to his eyes once he had an arm and leg threaded through the ratlines and stays to keep himself from falling, and took a look for himself.
Three masts, pale tan sails, coming on for the island from the sou'west with the wind large on her starboard quarter. Already almost hull up. Good lines. Frigate-built, he thought. Ayscough chose well.
A large swell over the broken reef wall lifted Culverin higher for about half a minute. Far off, another swell raised the stranger as well. Lewrie could espy a pale ochre hull with what looked to be a wide white gunwale stripe.
"Poisson D'Or!" he cursed. "Choundas!"
Why did he have to arrive now, of all times? Huge clouds of gunpowder hung over Spratly Island. Artillery still fired on those praos yet trapped in harbor or trying to run the gauntlet to sea.
To see a strange ship giving chase to a pack of pirates fleeing to the east would be the final straw. They could not lure Poisson D'Or into harbor. Choundas would be wise to the game, and sail off for parts unknown, as sure as Fate!
"Goddamn your bloody luck, you rotten shit!" Lewrie almost wept with frustration. Here he'd just won two battles in a fortnight, done away with pirates by the battalions, had sunk Frogs left, right and center, and all for nothing!
What to do now, he pondered. One course of action was to go back to seal the entrance to the harbor, so most of the pirates could end up slaughtered. Or, he could pursue the eight who were getting away. If he did continue the chase, he might be able to lure Choundas into action, but the man had long-ranged guns to his short-ranged carronades. Stout as Culverin was, she'd be pounded to bits while he would be lucky to inflict even minor damage to Choundas.
He raised his telescope again to peer at his foe. Poisson D'Or altered shape. She was turning north, putting all her masts in line, heading somewhere to the east of Spratly Island. To interpose between Culverin and Choundas' fleeing allies.