Sea of Grey l-10 Read online

  Aye, come over all modest-like! he thought; more becoming to a tale, than boasting. But, he chid himself once more, I was a damned fool! And the after-action report he'd written Admiralty had been one of his rather more creative endeavours, to disguise idiocy!

  "His usual custom, since boyhood," Sir Hugo supplied, though he wore a proud grin.

  Lewrie reshuffled the order of the walnuts and such, recalling the smoke and haze, the low, scudding clouds of a raw, grey day, turned in an instant to a pea-soup fog, a reeking, hammered, echoing mist, as Proteus had reached West towards Onslow, just out of effective range of the Dutch liners in the middle, before putting about to sail back East towards Duncan, who by then (at a quarter 'til one) was also firing as fast as his gunners could load and run out.

  "Now, the Dutch were sailing in two columns," Lewrie explained, indicating the hickories and filberts nearer the row of biscuits. "In their lee were some eighteen-gunned brigs or sloops, at least three twenty-four-gun ships or brigs, and four frigates, of varying metal. Not all were true warships, thank God… again, converted and armed merchantmen penned up in port, thanks to our blockade, and our cruising frigates hunting prizes. But, once we broke their line, those escort ships opened fire, though they were there to serve the same duties as ours… signals and salvage, and… well, sirs, once one fires on a larger ship, one turns into fair game!"

  Duncan 's Venerable had smashed her way through astern of their 74-gun 3rd Rate Staten-Generaal, opening the way for Triumph and Ardent and threatening the Dutch Admiral de Wynter's flagship, Vrijheid. It was a wide, most tempting gap, and beyond it Lewrie could see the lee line of sloops, brigs, and frigates, now and then, turning up windward.

  Gun-smoke, towering and blooming like cloud-heads from a summer thunderstorm, vision reduced to mast-tips, the quick-blossoming buds of cannon-shots… the staccato stutter of guns, by decks, by broadsides, making even more smoke and confusion, 'til the whole sky was blotted to grey gloom, the sea turned dull leaden for lack of reflecting sunlight; the Dutch ships, their own ships, so wreathed with sour, sulfurous mist that they became spectres.

  He caught himself frowning, in a silent, fell musing, absently massaging the dull ache of his wounded arm. Not for show, this time, nor for approbation from his "audience" as he play-acted the pensive hero for their admiration or applause.

  From dour remembrance, as he recalled that hideously glorious scene afresh, the scents and sounds, the rocking of his quarterdeck as Proteus swashed her way down the line, toward that gap…

  "They paid for their mistake, sirs… indeed," he told them.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Are they daft?" Lieutenant Langlie, the First Officer, commented as he lowered his telescope, after watching the nearest brace of Dutch sloops open fire on Venerable and Triumph.

  "Perhaps more desperate than daft, Mister Langlie," Lewrie said as he stepped back towards the wheel and compass binnacle. "If they've waited so long for the winds to shift, so they can come out, maybe cooperate in some French intrigue based in the Channel ports… well, this fat Dutch mynheer de Wynter can't run back into harbour without being seen doing something!"

  They watched as HMS Triumph yawed to show more of her starboard beam, opening the limited arcs of her guns, as she intersected the enemy's line. With a titanic roar, she opened with a full broadside, the first and the most carefully aimed and laid in any battle, at the next Dutch ship astern of the one already pummeled by Venerable. That was a deathblow of 32-pounder and upper gundeck 18-pounder iron shot that tore giant gouges and eruptions of side-timbers, that harvested upper yards and masts in an eyeblink! They could hear horrid thuds or howls of rivened wood, as scantlings and beams shattered.

  "Do we sail on like this, we'll mask her guns," Lewrie decided aloud, to his quarterdeck officers. "Let's bear up to windward, three points or so, Mister Langlie, and pass upwind of her."

  "Aye, sir."

  "Deck, there!" a lookout, high aloft on the mainmast, shouted down to them. "Two Dutch brigs alee… four points off t'starboard bows!"

  That gap was filling with a rolling wall of spent powder smoke, but even from the deck they could espy the spectral shapes of two light Dutch warships, hesitantly hovering under reduced sail, and firing at Venerable. Venerable, already busy with her larboard guns, replied to that harassing long-range fire with a starboard broadside. The Dutch brig was swatted away, much like a pesky midge; great chunks of timber were blown from her sides and bulwarks, while a sudden hurricane erupted 'round her hull and waterline, like massive breakers crashing on a rocky shoreline.

  "And just how does one say 'oops' in Dutch?" Lewrie chortled in glee, as his crew cheered the sight of an enemy half-smashed to matchwood in a twinkling!

  Venerable then swung back to larboard, abandoning the equally hurt Staten-Generaal to turn her left-hand artillery against the starboard side of the prominently flag-bedecked Dutch admiral's ship.

  "Deck, there!" a lookout stationed atop the mizzenmast called. " 'Ware astern an' larboard! Our liners!"

  Lewrie turned and frowned, for there were Bedford and Director, not a quarter-mile off, with about a cable's worth between them as they surged forward to the battle line. In the middle distance beyond was their consort Lancaster. They weren't steering directly for that gap, but seemed to want to sidle Eastward along the Dutch line, to the windward side of Ardent, Venerable, and Triumph.

  "Avast, Mister Langlie," Lewrie said with a scowl. "Hold this course, instead. We're blocked." He peered aloft; yes, they still had Engage To Leeward and Close Action signals flying. So why the Devil ain't they doin' it? he groused to himself.

  Did Proteus stand on much longer, though, she'd run afoul of Venerable's group. As well, she couldn't stand sharp to windward, for fear of masking the Bedford group's guns, if not come nigh to a collision with one of them!

  The wind? He shifted his gaze to the commissioning pendant at the mainmast truck. As in all sea-fights where heavy guns barked and boomed, the wind was getting flattened. The long pendant was curling and flagging limply. Not enough wind to work ahead of Bedford 's trio, nor was there enough wind to tack and pass astern of them, either. It would force them to fetch Proteus to, cocked up motionless to the wind, with her fragile stern bared to the foe, who had already proven to be eager to violate the old customs against firing at escorting frigates.

  "Nothing for it but to haul our wind, Mister Langlie," Lewrie announced, with a sour note to his voice. "Let us wear ship over to starboard tack, swing 'round in a circle, then harden up and beat past our ships, to windward of 'em… where we should have been."

  "Hmmm…" his darkly handsome First Lieutenant mused, unconsciously scratching at the side of his curly locks. "To leeward of our ships and their line for a bit, sir? Int'restin', if I may say so."

  Naturally Lt. Langlie could not say "Are you barking mad?" or show any hint of disagreement with a captain; that was insubordination. It could also be taken for an inkling of fear and cowardice!

  "We run into anything we can't handle, we duck right back out," Lewrie assured him. "P'raps even snuggle up to one of our liners and ask her t'shoo the big, bad bullies away. Aye, haul our wind, Mister Langlie. Five points alee, and prepare to wear ship."

  "Aye aye, sir!" Langlie echoed, lifting his brass speaking trumpet to shout orders to the brace-tenders and landsmen.

  A frenetic minute or two later, Proteus was off the wind, taking it large on her starboard quarters, her yards still groaning, her sails still clattering and slatting as they refilled.

  "Mister Wyman?" Lewrie called from the quarterdeck nettings as he looked down into the ship's waist, searching for his Second Officer in charge of the main battery of guns. "Do you ready both batteries, just in case." Lt. Wyman was an angelic but eager young fellow, prone to a flushed, gingery complexion when excited, as he most certainly was at that moment. Lewrie could almost imagine he heard Wyman's wide-eyed gulp, and his customary "My goodness gracious!"

  "I wish us to b
e the biter, today, sir… not the bit!" "Aye aye, sir!" Wyman piped back, springing to redirect his gun-captains and quarter-gunners, his powder monkeys and excess crewmen on the run-out, train and breeching tackles over to larboard, then to run in the 12-pounders, remove their tompions and load with powder and shot, then open the gun-ports and run them out in-battery… just in case.

  Proteus sloughed her way further alee toward the gap, the only clear and unimpeded water open to her, into that sour, towering pall of gunsmoke, coastal haze, and low cloud scud, with her bowsprit and jib-boom, forecastle and chase guns, then her foremast, becoming indistinct.

  By sound, Lewrie tried to plot the dangers; astern, now, where Venerable, Ardent, and Triumph were hammering away, being answered with Dutch broadsides; to the West, where Vice-Admiral Onslow was breaking through the rear of the Dutch line, and a general cannonading roared. Nothin' much in between, though, Lewrie thought; yet! "Deck, there!" a lookout howled. "Ship o' the line, starboard and abeam! Dutch flag on 'er fore jack!"

  "Bear away, Mister Langlie… make her head Sou'east, and run 'both sheets aft' off the wind!" Lewrie quickly snapped.

  Boom! Boom! Two quick cannon barks from that ship's focs'le chase-guns, and six or nine pound round-shot went sizzling and moaning overhead and astern! As their blooms of powder smoke blossomed, the Dutch warship seemed to melt away, to grow fuzzier and less distinct in the fog. A moment later, it was as if she had never been!

  "Gap's not as wide as I hoped," Lewrie confessed in a soft voice, as if loath to speak too loudly and be rediscovered… with a broad-side, next time! "Mister Langlie, a cast of the lead."

  They were now running full off the wind, with the shifting and curling mists traveling with them, for Proteus could sail no faster than the wind could blow; Sou'east, toward a coast that ran Nor'east, shallow and filled with shoals and bars!

  "Eight fathom! Eight fathom with this line!"

  That's only thirty feet of water under our keel, Lewrie thought, in a quandary; we draw about eighteen feet aft. Put about… soon!

  "Two points a'weather, Mister Langlie," Lewrie ordered. "We'll start circlin' back, anew. Hopefully, well clear of that…"

  "Deck, there! Two brigs… two points off t'larboard bows!" "Ready the larboard battery!" Lewrie shouted, "Hop to it, sirs! Mister Wyman? Ready quarterdeck carronades, as well."

  Spectral, grey-on-grey forms emerged, turning hard-edged, gaining colour. A two-masted brig o' war was cocked up to weather, motionless, with her stern towards Proteus, a perfectly helpless target for her guns! With none but stern-chasers able to fire back, her fragile stern timbers, transom, and galleries so easily shattered, turning her inner decks and gun-deck into bowling alleys for hurtling shot, it'd be a brutal buggering, a rape, and quick, wholesale murder!

  "Stand by… on the up-roll!" Lt. Wyman yelled, brandishing his sword, eager to slice it down to release Hell.

  "Avast, Mister Wyman!" Lewrie countermanded. "Hold your fire!"

  Dutch officers were at the brig's taffrail, shouting and waving frantically; a white waistcoat was wig-wagged, in sign of surrender or an urgent truce.

  For there was a second brig o' war a bit beyond the first, down by the head and canted far to larboard, sinking from the swatting that Venerable had given her earlier. Her yards and masts hung in shambles of torn rigging and sails, canted forward and nearly horizontal as she heeled over. Dozens of men thrashed and yelled in the water between the two brigs, some swimming to the over-crowded boats the first brig had lowered. Dozens more sailors clustered at her larboard bulwarks, now almost awash, tossing over hatch-gratings, anything that would buoy them up, whilst some tried to manhandle their own damaged boats off the cross-deck boat tier beams and into the water before she went under.

  The near Dutch brig o' war fired one forward gun, to leeward, in a plea for gentlemanly conduct and mercy!

  "Mister Wyman, one starboard gun to fire, to leeward."

  "Aye, sir!"

  God, but it would've been beautiful! Lewrie sadly thought, as Proteus ghosted past the brig's stern at close range; one broadside up her stern, and she 'd have sunk before her sister!

  But, as a 6-pounder from the forecastle fired, Lewrie only lifted his cocked hat to doff it in salute, and the Dutch captain and his officers solemnly doffed their fore-and-aft bicorne hats high over their heads in reply.

  "A point more to starboard, Mister Langlie. Keep us circlin'."

  "Aye aye, sir. Poor devils."

  "Commissioner Proby at Chatham told me that the Dutch require all their sailors to learn to swim," Lewrie off-handedly informed him. "And if they drown, they roll them over a keg laid on its side, until the victim coughs and spews up what he's swallowed or inhaled, so they stand a decent chance… if they got off that other brig, unwounded."

  "I see, sir," Langlie replied. "Damn' odd, though, sir. Never seen the like… not in a full-blown battle, that is, Captain."

  "What, the bloody bicorne hats?" Lewrie shrugged it off. "You're right… I've never seen the like, either! They may be all the 'go,' but you'll never see a British officer in one! Too damn' Frenchified."

  Proteus sailed on, bearing away, and the two Dutch brigs o' war were enveloped in the gloom and smoke once more. A quick peek into the compass bowl showed Lewrie that their frigate was now headed just a bit West of South, away from that treacherous coast, almost abeam what wind there was, and still turning up to weather, the hull beginning to heel, the sluice of water 'round her gurgling and sighing more urgently. It was a hopeful sound.

  "Nine fathom! Nine fathom t'this line!"

  That news was hopeful, too; as was the dimly perceptible thinning of the haze, smoke and mist, the sky ahead and North'rd brighter, as if within moments they could sail out into sunshine, and safety.

  "Deck, there! Three-master, one point off t'starboard bows! I think she's a frigate! Dutch flags! Bearin' Easterly!"

  "Dammit!" Lewrie spat, peering intently into the smoke to spot what the lookout could see from aloft. "This is worse than tryin' to cross the Strand in a thick Thames fog! Coaches to right and left…" "There, sir!" Mr. Langlie all but yelped, pointing. As if a stage curtain had been raised, a Dutch frigate appeared just off their starboard bows, crossing their course almost at right angles, her quarterdeck staff almost leaping with surprise as they also pointed and jabbered, now silhouetted against the mists.

  "Ready, starboard battery, Mister Wyman! Helm hard alee, helmsmen! Lay her full and by! Brace in, Mister Langlie! We'll shoot her up the arse, 'stead of that poor brig! Stand by to fire as you bear! Mister Devereux?"

  His elegant and aristocratic Officer of Marines stepped forward.

  "Lay waste her quarterdeck… your best marksmen in the tops and along the starboard gangway!" Lewrie insisted, his words tumbling out in a rush, urgent from the closeness and quickness of the situation. "I want grenadoes, too… lashings of 'em!"

  "Aye sir… two bags full!" Lt. Blase Devereux answered, saluting, but with a tongue-in-cheek joy. "Marksmen!" he bawled, turning away.

  Long musket-shot, Lewrie speculated as the Dutch frigate sailed on Eastwards, opening the range, her brailed-up main course lashing as it was freed and hauled down to increase her speed; 'bout a third of a cable as our bows come abeam her transom?

  "As you bear!" Lt. Wyman was screeching, sword aloft again. "On the up-roll! Fire!"

  First, a 6-pounder chase-gun, shrill and sharp; then one of the 24-pounder carronades, a "Smasher" that Lewrie had shifted forward to the forecastle shortly after taking command, for Proteus had the fullness of form under her bows to bear the weight. The first of the starboard 12-pounders, the long-barreled Blomefield Pattern guns, erupted, followed by a slow blasting as each of the remaining twelve guns along the starboard side came level. Lastly, the quarterdeck 6-pounders and the pair of 24-pounder carronades mounted there also belched and roared.

  Muskets aloft and along the bulwarks spat and crackled, as well.

  "Uuppp… yours!" Lewrie sho
uted in mad joy to see his round shot strike, one at a time, with the deadly, metronomic pace of a good gun salute! Quarter-galleries, the sash windows of the Dutch captain's great-cabins, the small ports of the officer's gun-room immediately below, the taffrail and the lanthorns and posts, her transom wood, along with her thick rudder post and rudder, were smashed in! Pieces of her double-wheel and compass binnacle went flying, her mizenmast shuddered and jerked, her lower spanker boom sagged, broken in three pieces, and guns run-out on her larboard side, facing the unseen British battle line, jerked, tilted, and slewed in their ports as they were struck and shifted by the howling weight of metal bowling down inside her at more than 1,200 feet per second!

  "Too far for grenadoes, sir… sorry," Lt. Devereux said with a sorrowful expression. "Still… we gave them a good peppering."

  "She's turning up, sir!" the Sailing Master, Mr. Winwood, noted. "Can't see just how, with her rudder and helm shot up so thorough."

  "To unmask her larboard battery… the one that was manned," Lewrie realised at once. "Mister Langlie, ready to tack! We'll fall below her on larboard tack, and use our ready-loaded larboard guns to serve her another stern rake!"