For a backwater of the war, the Adriatic teemed with shipping. Farther on south, Pylades and Jester encountered another enemy merchantman, just west of Ragusa, and seaward of Pylades, in deep water. A fine two-masted brig became their prize, a prize that temporarily put up the French Tricolour flag before striking at the sight of Pylades and her open gun-ports.
By dusk of the same day, they'd met another, this one inshore of them, and beating hard to flee into the protection of Ragusas fortress guns. Jester had begun the chase badly out of position, a bit too far Sou'west of her to cut the angle, this time, and had been forced to go right for her stern, only weathering her the slightest bit. It was the longest sort of chase, and they'd lost the race in the end. Once more, a French merchant ship had hoisted their blue-white-red Tricolour flag.
This time, however, it was in derision, as they sailed almost into spitting distance of Ragusas well-armed fortifications before making the larboard dogleg turn that would take them into the harbour proper.
And, as Lewrie continued to close the coast to within a mile of the fortifications, with his gun-ports closed, all thoughts of fruitful pursuit gone… the French crew hoisted their bare arses over the rails and jeered their failure!
Dawn found Jester well south of Ragusan territory, and south of the tiny Venetian enclave of Cattaro, loafing along under all plain sail to a slight Easterly wind off the shore, a Levanter. Though a Levanter was usually a sign of bad weather-in this part of the world, nothing good ever came from the un-Christian East!-it seemed rather a benign beginning for a new day. And it was not as chilly as that Bora which had dominated on the previous day, from the North or Nor'west.
"Bar, sir," the Sailing Master intoned.
"Where away?" Lewrie frowned in sudden dread. Could those damn Venetian charts be trusted, or not?
"No, sir." Mr. Buchanon chuckled. "Bar, meanin' th' name o' th' town, sir. Off our larb'd beam, now, Captain."
"Ah." Lewrie reddened, irked that he'd taken fright of running his Jester onto an uncharted bar. "Just so. Now, Mister Buchanon… would that be a Montenegran Bar? Or is that the Albanian Bar? I mind the border's somewhere over yonder." He japed his way out of embarrassment.
"Think it's still Montenegran, sir," Lieutenant Knolles supplied, full of good cheer that morning. "Had a peek at the charts, just 'fore the change of watch. That rebel Pasha of Scutari the Austrians told us of? He's inland, somewhere just abaft of abeam. And the port of Dulcigno, sir? Where the Corsairs lurk? Allies, I'd suspect. Somewhere yonder, at any rate. Ah, coffee! Capital!"
Aspinall came up from the great-cabins with a set of mugs upon a hank of twine and a pot of coffee for them all. With him, unfortunately, came Lewrie's new clerk, Padgett, with a selection of ledgers under his arm. And up from the waist came the Purser Mr. Giles, grinning in a dangerous fashion, with his own new clerk, his "Jack in the Breadroom," Lawless. When a purser grinned, it could put the fear of God in even the greatest sinners, and Lewrie felt a sour shudder take him. It would be one of those mornings, then, all hen-scratches and receipts, all finger-cramp, eye-strain, and ink-smuts.
"Bloody…" Lewrie whispered, as he sipped his hot coffee black and unsweetened. Trying to make it last so long that perhaps Mr. Giles and his pettifogging ledgers might go away.
"Sail ho!" The main-mast lookout halloed. "One point abaft th' larboard beam! Bilander! Sailin' large!"
"Ah, too bad, Mister Giles," Lewrie cooed, trying not to sound too gleeful at this most-welcome interruption. "Later in the day, sir? Or tomorrow? Same for you, Mr. Padgett, less there's something very urgent?" Lewrie more than strongly suggested.
"No, sir. 'Scuse me, sir." Padgett nodded and heading aft for the narrow, after-captain's companionway ladder. He wasn't half the man Lewrie's former clerk, Mr. Mountjoy, was; a taciturn, silent plodder of a fellow. Though he was miles more competent.
"Mister Knolles, once you've enjoyed your coffee, I'd admire you put us nearer the wind… say, Sou-Sou'east, to intercept. Plain sail will do, for now. No need to spook her too soon. And no colours."
"Aye aye, sir. Quartermaster…?" Knolles burbled, trying both to obey at once and finish a rather well-brewed cup of a very good Venetian coffee.
"Deck, there!" The lookout halloed, again. "Two sail! Bilanders both! One point abaft the larb'd beam, an' sailin' large!"
Lewrie set his cup down to rub greedy palms together. Two vessels to pursue, and both bilanders! They were hellish-ugly ships, bad as any hermaphrodite brig, with a large lateen mains'l aft and square sails on the foremast. From two years' service in the Mediterranean, he couldn't recall seeing that antique rig much, except on the French Provence coast, round Marseilles, Toulon and in convoys running the Riviera to supply the French army last year. Short, squat, round as Dutch butter-tubs… and not particularly fast or weatherly, either! Meat on the table?
He certainly hoped so.
So far Pylades had taken the honours, furnishing prize-crews for both their captures, and it was time Jester held up her end of the bargain. Both captures had been sizable vessels, requiring larger prize-crews to guard the sailors and mates they'd taken and to work their ships for them. It was quite likely that Pylades had given up over 30 hands from her crew already! Even a 5th Rate frigate had only so many hands to spare, before safeguarding prizes took so many people that she would be ill-served should they run across an enemy warship.
"Mister Spendlove?" Lewrie barked.
"Aye, sir?"
"Signal to Pylades. Inform her we've sighted two strange sail to the east'rd, and are closing the coast to stop and inspect them," Alan said quickly, even as Jester heeled as she took the Levanter more upon her larboard bows as she turned Sou-Sou'east.
He finished his coffee, begrudging his breakfast, which would be cooling and congealing below. But he didn't think, this time, to go to his cabins for it. No, he'd stay on deck to oversee every moment of their closure and possible pursuit. After Ragusa, and the sight of all those pale, round fundaments aimed at him, he'd be damned if he'd let a prize slip away again! Or let a Frenchman have reason to insult or jeer him!
It promised to be a clear, fine day. The sun rose a little higher over the forbidding inland mountain chains, casting its glow over the waters like the raising of a stage curtain. For a precious half hour it left Jester in murky shadows, alee of the dawn. And, for that precious half hour, Jester ranted and rolled, even under all plain sail, closing swiftly on a course almost at right angles to the unsuspecting merchantmen, with the knot-log's every cast showing over eight knots or better. The hands were spared the daily deck-sluicing and holystoning, sent down to their breakfasts early-so they could come back on deck, rig the guns for action and wait… completely ready for whatever came.
"Deck, there! Chases go close-hauled on larb'd tack!"
Turning upwind, Lewrie fretted, gnawing on a thumbnail corner. They're turning on the same course we're steering-Sou'-Sou'east. But close! Not four miles between us, now they've finally spotted us! Not like yesterday, Christ, no! Slow, wallowing… a scant wind…
Christ, pray not, he amended a moment later, still fretting, even though he could see that Jester was pinching up close-hauled a full half point, about six degrees higher to windward than the bilanders.
"Mister Knolles, Mister Cony!" he snapped. "Get t'gallants set!"
Bosuns' calls shrilled high and eerie and insistent, piping hands aloft, as Will Cony and his mate, Sadler, drove them by dint of call and the sight of their stiffened rope "starters" in their hands-an unspoken threat for the slow and clumsy.
Up the ratlines, out over the futtock shrouds and past the fighting tops to the upper masts they went. Spry young teenage topmen and wary top-captains scampered up, then out, along the arms of the t'gallant yards, even as the hands on the deck tailed on the jears and halliards to hoist those heavy yards up from their resting positions to far above the crosstrees. Men stood ready, freeing clew-lines and buntlines as gaskets were cast off. More wind-greedy canvas began to appear as the t'gallants were drawn down, bellying and flagging as crisp as gunfire. And Jester moaned as she heeled even more, masts groaning and hull-timbers resettling as she set her starboard shoulder to the sea and surged forward. T'gallant sails shivered into taut stillness, arced outward and alee by the force of the winds, set more fore-and-aft than the tops'sls, or the courses, in a proper spiral.
A rogue wave, a placid little three-footer, broke under her bows on her cutwater, and she drummed as she shattered it to foam. Another and then another, soggy crashes and hull-drummings, which turned to hisses and sibilance as Jester stretched her legs and began to lope, shrouds and rigging beginning a faint, atonal but eager hum.
"Nine and a quarter knots, sir!" One of the afterguard shouted after another cast of the log.
"Go, lady!" Buchanon muttered to their ship. "Go it, darlin'! Ah, th' joy o' it, sir! A fine mornin' f'r a neck-or-nothin' chase."
"It is, indeed, sir," Lewrie heartily agreed, springing at the knees, feet spread wide, to ride her as she galloped windward.
"Like she's hungry, sir," Buchanon extolled further. "Like ol' Lir's hungry with her. Not twelve mile more, an' 'ose bilanders'll be hard aground, do 'ey hold 'is course, sir."
Lewrie looked aft. Once more, there was Rodgers's Pylades back to leeward, a touch to starboard of Jester's stern, should one of the Chases haul her wind and run Sou'west.
And that'd be about all they could do, Lewrie pondered; it made no tactical sense to try and tack this far offshore, to run northerly. Even the finest-handled warship-5th or 6th Rate, or sloop-could not tack quickly enough without losing a horrendous amount of speed for a long minute or two, then a long minute or two more to accelerate back to her original speed. Should the bilanders turn, should one or both of them try and tack once they got closer ashore, Jester would be nose-deep in their transoms before they could say "Merde dors!"
Rising, swooping, her wake almost sizzling as it creamed along her quarters, Jester strode toward the two bilanders. Three miles, then two miles off. Then one mile and almost within Range-To-Random-Shot, with that ruggedly beautiful coast looming up higher and higher: stark, dramatic, green but seemingly desolate.
"Coasters!" A lookout called down. "Small ships t'wind'rd. A point off t'sta'b'd bows!"
"Damme, not again!" Lewrie growled, all but stomping his feet in anger. With a telescope to his eye, he could see a gaggle of sails off to their Sou'east, at least half a dozen. More damned pirates?
The bilanders weren't waiting round to find out. In the blink of an eye, the left-hand of the pair tried to begin a tack, whilst the right-hand bilander, which was leading by perhaps a half mile, hauled her wind suddenly, almost laying herself on her beam-ends as she swung abeam the wind, pivoting about to run off the wind to the Sou'west. A quick glance astern told Lewrie that Pylades was well up by then and could deal with the one trying to run off the wind.
"Mister Knolles, we'll tack ship. Mister Crewe? Once we're on starboard tack and settled down, be ready with the starboard battery!"
"Aye, aye, sir!"
And, once settled down, after a breathless burst of energy from the hands to cross the eye of the wind, there the bilander was off the starboard side, just a bit forward of abeam, and within a quarter mile of Jesters guns!
"Ready, Mister Crewe!" Lewrie alerted him again. "We'll haul off a point, to let the entire battery bear. Helm up, quartermaster."
"Aye aye, sir. Helm up a point. Steerin' Nor-Nor'east."
"Starb'd batt'ry…!" Crewe bellowed over the rush of the wind in the sails and rigging. "Wait for it! Fire!"
Rolling slightly, rising slightly, atop the scend of the sea and stable for a moment-"on the up-roll"-the guns erupted. Great hot gouts of smoke and embers burst forth, to be quickly winged away alee; a full dozen long-guns or carronades flung solid shot at the struggling old bilander, and she disappeared in a furious froth of spray and pillars of foam, close-aboard her larboard side. That grotesque lateen mains!, whose boom stretched from her amidships to far over her stern, shattered by the mainmast trunk to come sagging alee like a broken goose's wing, as she shivered to the impact of 9-pounder and 18-pounder iron. She rolled hard to starboard in recoil, against the press of wind on her remaining sails, before rolling again, this time so far to larboard they could look down on her main deck. Without the balance of that lateen mains'l, and with square-sails and lateen jibs up forward close-hauled, she fell off fast, slowing in a welter of snuffled foam. Crippled.
Aha! Lewrie exulted to himself, seeing the Tricolour soar up her damaged main mast. She was a Frog, just as I thought! He then gave vent to a real, audible cheer as that flag was just as quickly hauled down, in sign she'd struck to them… to Jester.
"Mister Hyde," Lewrie called for his eldest midshipman, "do you take a party aboard her. With Mr. Sadler, the Bosun's Mate, as senior hand. My cox'n Andrews to assist. Mr. Knolles, fetch to! Mr. Cony, we'll fetch to! And hoist a boat off the beams for the boarding party!"
"Aye aye, sir!"
"Mister Crewe!" Lewrie crowed, "Damn' good shootin', sir, as you always do! Two guns to remain manned until the boarding party's aboard her. Secure the rest."
There were dozen things to do at once; take in sail, cock Jester up to the wind and rig out the falls and tackle to hoist a boat off the waist tier which spanned the amidships. And all the while he kept a wary eye on their supposedly helpless prize, which was now also cocked up into the wind, her yards nearly bare of canvas and her crew slumping hangdog and dejected at her rails.
It was a full quarter hour later that Lewrie had a moment to spare for what else was going on, and he was only called away from his own concerns by the sound of more gunfire down to the Sou'east.
Pylades had stood on, close-hauled on the larboard tack, chasing after the second bilander. She was three miles further inshore by then. Without her prize, it seemed, and venting her anger over it upon a host of local feluccas and small xebecs. The pirates had the bilander not only surrounded, but under way and heading inshore for Bar, snapping back with light artillery like a pack of starving wolves guarding their first kill in weeks from a rogue lion.
Lewrie raised his telescope to take a good gander, standing by the starboard quarterdeck ladder to the waist.
"Sir, it's Hyde!" Midshipman Spendlove intruded. Lewrie swung his ocular leftward, refocusing on the figure of a grinning Midshipman Hyde on the captured bilander's larboard bulwarks, waving at them. The bilander had fallen down off-wind to Jester in the meantime and was now a bit less than a cable's distance-or 240 yards-off, and within hailing. He could see that the prize-crew had erected a spare fore-tops'l yard on her, aft, fitted with a longboats lug-sail for a spanker, so she would have some drive and some leverage to counter her foresails for steerage.
"Speaking-trumpet, Mister Spendlove," Lewrie bade, trading telescope for the open-ended brass cone. "Mister Hyde!" He bellowed across the distance. "Follow in my wake! We'll head out to sea!" He gestured with one emphatic wave of his left arm westward.
"Aye aye, sir!" Came the answering wail, thin and reedy. "We'll follow you out!"
There was more gunfire from the Sou'east, thin and flat. A final fit of pique, it seemed, for Pylades was hauling her wind, turning away from ' the coast to make her own way out to deep water. Denied her prize.
Another quick exchange of telescope and speaking-trumpet with Mr. Spendlove and Lewrie could see even more boats had come out from shore-tiny fishing smacks, small coasters, feluccas or light galleys- just about anything that could bear sails or oarsmen. The second unfortunate French bilander was in the centre, within a mile of the shore, hemmed in closely between her original half dozen captors. Had Pylades contested them for her, Lewrie realised, she'd have been swamped on every hand by six dozen craft bearing hundreds, perhaps upwards of a thousand bloodthirsty pirates or half-starved villagers. They would look upon the coming of a European ship laden with rare goods like the inmates at Bedlam would the arrival of a drunken pieman in their midst, his trays heaped with piping-hot treats. Neutral Mon-tenegran or Albanian villagers, he reminded himself with a snort of frustration, people they had no plaint against, nor any business fighting!
Were they as poverty-stricken as Major Simpson suggested back in Trieste, one scruffy bilander would represent a king's ransom, with all her nails, iron bolts, blocks, rope, furniture, guns and powder, as well as her canvas and cargo. And they'd fight to the last tooth and nail before they'd let her go, as fiercely as a she-bear defending her cubs. But it looked, from where he was standing, much like a horde of rats savaging a side of beef left unguarded!
"We'll not go inshore and cut her out, sir?" Spendlove asked. "Doubt it, Mister Spendlove." Lewrie grimaced as he lowered his telescope. "Mister Knolles? Make sail, and shape a course Due West for now. We'll escort our prize out, and close Pylades."
"I mean, sir…" Spendlove gently insisted. "Mr. Buchanon says this stretch of coast is Muslim. Ottoman Turk. And she's French, so…"
"Want t'die, young sir?" Buchanon sneered, having heard his name cited, as they plodded back toward the helm. "See some o' th' hands die t save Frogs? Or a ship 'at'd be mostly looted 'fore dark anyways?"
"Well, no, sir, but… mean t say, sirs… Frogs or no, they are fellow Christians. Even if they are Papists." Spendlove reddened. "I just wondered… what would happen to them, do we not…"
"Fetch a pretty penny." Mr. Buchanon sighed, rubbing the side of his nose. "Per'aps th' most value o' 'at prize, do 'ey sell 'em in a slave-market. Blue-eyed, white-skin Christians're valuable. Do 'ey not cut a few throats first, mind. Nor rough 'em up too vicious."
"As the old saying goes, Mister Spendlove," Lewrie said, as he slammed the tubes of his telescope shut and stored it in the binnacle-rack, " 'God help the French,' sir. And it was their choice. Run in that close to a piratical shore to escape us? Well, on their heads be it, Mister Spendlove."
"An' 'ey are Frogs, after all, young sir," Buchanon reminded the midshipman. "Like you say, Cap'um… 'God help th' French.' For 'ere's ought we could do for 'em, now, 'thout gettin' dozens o' men o: our own killed t'save 'em. Poor motherless bastards."