The Gun Ketch (50 page)

No longer a mystery, Lewrie thought with satisfaction; now she was a chase!

The afternoon wore on, with both vessels clawing up to windward.
Alacrity
was already the possessor of the wind gauge. Weatherly as a lugger was, she could attain perhaps a full point closer to the winds, but
Alacrity
was just the slightest bit faster. Making leeway as she did, she still head-reached her chase, and closed the range to eleven miles, to ten, to nine, bringing the lugger almost hull-up, as
Alacrity
sailed the shorter closing angle.

"We're gaining on her, by Christ!" Rodgers chortled with glee.

"The
Caroline
was New Providence-built, sir," Lieutenant Ballard told him coolly, blushing a bit as he pronounced her name."As flat-ran and shoal-draught as
Alacrity.
Perhaps more so. But she makes just as much leeway as we do, with so little below the waterline for the sea to bite on. Long as we hold the weather gauge..."

"And damme if we might just be half a knot faster," Lewrie added with joy. "A full knot off the wind in the Gulf Stream. She'll be within range of random shot in six hours."

"He'll try to slip away once it's dark," Rodgers snorted. "No lights showin', they could tack an' pass astern."

"We've moon enough to see that, sir," Lewrie countered. "And, to expect to beat
against
the Gulf Stream? No."

"Chase is 'aulin' 'er wind, there!" the lookout interrupted., "Turnin' west an' runnin' free, d'ye hear, there!"

"By God, here's another angle to cut short!" Lewrie laughed as he grabbed Ballard by the arm. "Arthur, haul our wind, now! We might gain a mile on him if we're quick enough! Come about to west-nor'west!"

"Aye, aye, sir. Mister Harkin, all hands! Ready to come about!" Rodgers and Lewrie got out of Ballard's way, taking a corner of the quarter-deck free of tumult to inspect their chase with telescopes.

"Runnin' for Charleston, it appears, into neutral waters," Com- . mander Rodgers decided. "Damn him."

"He has too much sail aloft," Lewrie stated. "Inshore, he'D pick up a land breeze later today. See how she heels, sir? That's too much heel for a flat-run hull, even off the wind as she is now. She's sailing on her shoulder, not her bottom. If he doesn't reef in those lateener topmast stays'ls, she's working too hard, bows-down."

"By God, he's no real sailor, is he, Lewrie?" Rodgers hooted. "Had you some champagne, I'd pop it now, to celebrate. We'll have him, by God, we'll have the bugger yet!"

"Many a slip, 'twixt the cup and the Up, sir," Lewrie smiled. "Aye, he may not be as tarry as he boasted. But he's running us one merry little chase. And, when it comes to it, he'll fight like some cornered rat. Now, to keep him out of American jurisdiction, we have to overtake him, take the lee position to block him."

"We'll have him," Rodgers insisted stubbornly. "We'll have him."

By sunset,
Alacrity
left the Gulf Stream, inshore into waters that chopped instead of rolled.
Caroline
was still an hour ahead at the least, out of the Stream first, and making a more direct course, with less leeway, even as the land breeze found her. Try as they might to counter the last of the powerful current,
Alacrity
ended up dead astern of the chase, beating against the land breeze, lumping and booming against the chop and the short rollers of the returning scend of waves breaking over the horizon against the Carolina coast.

"She still makes too much heel," Lewrie decided after pondering the dark spectre in his telescope. "So do we," he added, comparing the angle of his decks against the chase's.

"Nighttime land breezes will be gentler, sir, not as strong," Ballard speculated. "That'll ease her."

"Topmen of the watch aloft, Mister Ballard. We'll take first reef in the fore-tops'l," Lewrie ordered.

"Are ya daft, Lewrie?" Rodgers hissed from the gloom of sunset by his elbow. "I thought ya wanted t'catch the bastard?"

"I do, sir. But the fore-tops'l depresses the bows, and heels us too much, even going close-hauled as we are. Letting the fore-and-aft sails do the work lets us pinch up to windward half a point."

"You are captain, sir, but I'm your superior," Rodgers grunted.

"Do but let me try it, sir," Lewrie begged. "Two hours. There's moon enough to see her, and a sextant'll tell us if she's gaining, by the height of her mast-trucks 'bove the horizon. We're even in speed for now, perhaps a quarter-knot or half-knot faster, and that's not enough to intercept her before she's in American waters."

"Two hours, then," Rodgers allowed at last. "But should we fall too far behind, it'll be your fault, Lewrie. Your fault, hear me?"

"Aye, aye, sir."

Eased just the slightest bit, though, sailing more upright on her natter bottom,
Alacrity
closed the range. Six miles off, five and then four, with more of Finney's
Caroline
visible above the horizon at each chiming of the watch bells. Satisfied that his solution had worked, Lewrie slumped down for a nap far aft on the signal-flag lockers, muffled against the sea-wind's chill in a gro-gram boat-cloak. With his head lolled against the taffrail, he nodded off at last, his last waking sight the dark, creaming wake alongside.

Cony came to wake him just before eight bells of the middle, a few minutes before four a.m., with a mug of black coffee. Alan took one sip to sluice foul sleep from his mouth, spat it over the side, then drank deep before handing the mug back to his servant. He walked forward for his telescope, and a view ahead, to assure himself that their chase was still there.

Caroline
loomed even taller above the horizon of false-dawn, a slanted black semi-colon on the glittering silvery trough of the last of the moon astern. Using a sextant and a slate, Lewrie determined, assuming
Caroline's
masts stood seventy feet above her decks, that she was still being slowly overtaken, and was now a little less than three miles off, no matter how much sail she flew, which course she steered. And she was still heeled over too far!

"He said he'd made third mate," Lewrie muttered to himself as he stowed the sextant away in the binnacle cabinet. "Surely, he must know to ease her aloft."

"Sir?" Sailing Master Fellows queried his grunts. "Two hours, I make it, to good practice for our guns, sir," he substituted.

"But by dead reckoning, Captain, sir," Fellows countered wearily, "three hours to the Charleston Bar. And within range of the forts. We will be cutting it exceeding fine, sir. I doubt our rebellious cousins would appreciate us taking her right on their front stoop."

"I doubt the United States of America would shelter pirates. All the more reason to catch her up before we reach their waters."

"Aye, sir," Fellows nodded in agreement "Excuse me, sir, but I do believe the sea-wind is returning. A puff or two from the south'rd, so far, but it is veering, sir. We'll have stern winds in an hour, I believe, on our larboard quarter, from the sou'east."

"My respects to the first lieutenant, Mister Fellows, and..."

"I'm here, sir," Ballard announced from Lewrie's off-side, just at his elbow, which made Alan almost leap in surprise.

"Ah, good morning, Mister Ballard. Hands to the sheets and the braces, sir. And shake out that reef in the fore-tops'l."

"Aye, aye, sir."

"Land ho!" a bow lookout shouted aft. "Charleston Light, fine on the bows!"

"Less than three hours to Yankee jurisdiction, then," Fellows sighed. "Sorry, sir, it seems my dead reckoning's off a mite."

"Time enough," Lewrie insisted. "Just barely. I hope."

True sunrise came, and with it, steady offshore winds out of the east-sou'east, laden with the smell of storm and rain later in the day; the dawn a gray and gloomy beast that dingied the whitecaps and stained the seas iron-gray as spilled washwater and suds. Two miles astern of
Caroline
they approached, relentlessly gaining; then only one mile, the range of random shot for their six-pounders, even as the coast appeared to the west, a thin dark green and blue thread, and the tall spire of St. Michael's church rose skyward above The Beacon and the Charleston Light.
Caroline
wore off the wind a little to the nor'west and
Alacrity
surged directly up her wake, following the leads and the sea marks for Five-Fathom Hole inside the Charleston Bar, south of the Ship Channel.

It would be cut exceedingly fine, as Mr. Fellows had predicted; half an hour would spell the difference between Finney's escape or his ruin, of being brought to battle or his gaining American waters.

"Seven cables, sir," Ballard estimated hopefully. "About fourteen hundred yards. We could try shots from the bow chase guns."

"It's no good, Lewrie," Commander Rodgers griped, all but wringing his hands. "To fetch him to close-broadsides, we'll have to sail within range of Fort Johnston an' Fort Moultrie. Damme if we ain't but two miles off the Charleston Light now, sir."

"They do not have a battery to enforce their jurisdiction there, sir," Lewrie countered, drawn from dire musings about something aloft carrying away, of some structural failure which would rob them of the prize at the last second. "We can chase her another two miles farther, out of Five-Fathom Hole, right to the bar, sir. That's what their guns cover, sir."

"He must bear off more northerly out of Five-Fathom Hole,sir," Ballard suggested slyly. "Might we not wear ship now and cut the angle to close even more?"

"Splendid, Mister Ballard!" Lewrie grinned. "And begin firing with the larboard battery. I'd admire did you Beat to Quarters, sir."

"Chase gun!" Midshipman Parham shouted, spotting a puff of gun-smoke on
Caroline's
stern. The light ball moaned past the starboard side to skip twice until it buried itself astern. "She has opened her fire upon us, sir!"

"Mister Harkin, hands wear ship! Mister Neill, larboard your helm. Steer nor-nor'west," Ballard called, as another ball soared by to strike closer to the starboard side.
Alacrity
went tearing past a local fishing boat busy with her nets, the Americans aboard shaking fists at them, and the black slaves gaping wide-mouthed at the sight of a British warship with all her colours flying. "Beat to Quarters!"

Alacrity's
crew boiled into action, casting off the lashings of the great-guns, fetching handspikes and crows, removing tompions from the muzzles of both batteries, and opening the gun ports. Charges came up from the magazine, shot was selected and rammed home, flintlocks were primed and cocked. "Ready for battle, sir," Ballard reported at last. "We'll bear off a little more to starboard to give the gunners a better angle," Lewrie decided. "Oh. With your permission, Commander, of course."

"Ahum," Rodgers pondered heavily.

"Sir, we've come this far!" Lewrie groaned in a soft voice. "A half a mile more? With round-shot?"

"The repercussions, Lewrie!" Rodgers whispered. "We'll never hear the end of it from the damned Foreign Office, the Admiralty..."

"Please, sir. There's time enough!"

"You'll not violate American waters," Rodgers wheedled. "Open fire, Mister Ballard," Lewrie snapped, before Rodgers had a chance to change his mind, interpreting that for a "yes."

"Larboard yer helm! Mister Fowles, as you bear, sir! Fire!" Ballard shouted at once.

The forward two-pounder chase-guns rapped out first, followed by the deeper voices of the six-pounders, angled in the portsills as far forward as they might bear. The range was six cables, twelve-hundred yards, with
Caroline
stern-on to them, a difficult and narrow target. Shot tore the sea around her, close to her waterline, raising towering pillars of spray twice as high as her rails. Her mizzenmast jerked to a hit, and the aftermost lugsail folded in on itself as it was pierced by a ball, before ripping in twain from leech to luff! A ball struck her right on the stern, low on her transom near the rudder and made it twitch once like a dog's ear pestered by a fly.

"Chain-shot and bar-shot, Mister Fowles!" Lewrie shouted to his grizzled old gunner, who was pacing the gun deck bareheaded. "Play a Frog, and aim high to take his rigging down, sir!"

It was French practice to open fire at long range with expanding bar-shot, two halves of a round-shot connected by sliding lugs on iron bars, to tear rigging and sails and shatter yards and spars. Chain-shot was two lighter balls, connected by a stout length of links, designed to whirl end over end. British practice was to close beam to beam and aim " 'twixt wind and water" to smash hulls, overturn guns, and shoot crews to rags; to slay, not cripple; to sink, not capture.

Caroline
lengthened as she turned off north in the narrow and shoal-lined channel. Her gun ports flew open. Inexplicably, instead of running, Finney was going to fight it out!

"Eight side guns to our five, I make it, sir," Ballard pointed out after studying their foe with a spyglass. "Nine-pounders, no less."

"For what we're about to receive," Lewrie nodded, muttering me old saw, "may the good Lord make us grateful."

Caroline
opened fire, her starboard side erupting in a gush of brownish-gray powder smoke shot through with stabs of quick, hot flame.
Alacrity
seemed to shudder in fear to the rising moan of round-shot on the air before she was struck, and rose a little on the scend of the sea, as if holding her breath in dread anticipation. A nine-pounder ball struck forward near the larboard anchor cathead, turning part of the bulwarks to flying splinters. Another fell short but skipped over the water to thud home deep in her lower hull amidships, and the sea around her was flayed with close misses, crashing up spray like the breaching of whales.