The cutter was not halfway back alongside Reliant, the boat’s crew straining on the ears, when they almost collided with a fishing boat scuttling into port under lugs’l and jib, crewed by an old Free Black man and two wide-eyed youngsters as crew, all of whom were paying more attention aft than looking where they were going.

“ ’Vast there, ya blind bashtit!” Stroke-Oar Patrick Furfy yelled at them. “Sheer off!”

“Ya gon’ fight dem Frenchies, sah?” one of the youngsters cried. “Law, dey gon’ ’slave us all!”

“You saw them?” Lewrie snapped. “You know they’re the French?”

“Nossah,” the older fellow at the tiller shouted back, “but we got told by ’nother feller who got told by dat brig’s mastah dat dere was a whole fleet o’ warships comin’ down de Prob’dence Channel, guns run out, an’ mo’ sails flyin’ dan a flock o’ gulls! Oh Law, oh Law, what gon’ happen t’us’uns?” he further wailed, taking his hands off his tiller to actually wring them in fear.

“Pig-ignorant git,” Cox’n Desmond snarled under his breath.

The next fishing boat fleeing astern of the cutter, headed for the shallows of East Bay and the dubious safety of Fort Montagu, told a different story; her crew swore it was the Spanish who were coming.

“That’ll be the day!” Lewrie scoffed. “Maybe it’s the Swedes, or the bloody Rus sians! It might be one of our—”

There was another boom, much louder and closer this time, for someone on the ramparts of Fort Fincastle, much higher uphill, must have spotted something out to sea, and had fired off an alert gun. At that, church bells began to ring in the town, summoning off-duty soldiers to their duties, and the townspeople to a panic.

Well, perhaps not one of ours, Lewrie silently conceded.

Lewrie’s quick return to the ship stirred up an ants’ hill of bother as he hurriedly clambered up the man-ropes and batten steps from the cutter to the entry-port, making the sketchiest salute to the flag and the quarter-deck as he did so, and waving off the Bosun, Mr. Sprague, and his silver call, and the hurriedly gathered side-party.

“Mister Eldridge,” Lewrie directed the first Midshipman of the Harbour Watch he could see, “do you load and fire a nine-pounder as a signal gun, and hoist ‘Captains Repair On Board,’ along with a recall to our working-parties ashore.”

“Aye aye, sir!” the mystified young fellow gawped.

Lieutenants Spendlove and Merriman had been aboard, napping in the wardroom, and were coming up from below in their shirtsleeves. The Marine Officer, Lt. Simcock, followed them, throwing on his red uniform coat, with his batman in trail with his sword and baldric, his hat and gorget to be donned later.

“It may be a rumour, it may be true, but there are reports of un-identified warships coming down the Nor’east Providence Channel, sirs,” Lewrie quickly explained. “Just whose, we don’t know, but there is good reason to suspect they might be French. Prepare the ship to weigh, and make sail. We’ll have a quick palaver with the captains of Thorn, Firefly, and Lizard, and then we shall all sortie… God help us. The First Officer is ashore with the Purser?”

“Aye, sir, with the working-party,” Lt. Spendlove said with an audible gulp. He was a Commission Sea Officer in His Majesty’s Navy, and it was not done for him, or any of them, to show fear before the hands. Nor were they to express doubts, even if all of them thought that putting their little ad hoc squadron, chosen months before for shoal-draught work close inshore against lightly armed enemy privateers, would stand no chance against a French squadron, even if that squadron was made up of corvettes and lighter-armed frigates. They were facing the grim prospect of certain death, dismemberment, wounding, or capture. Even pride, honour, and glory had a hard time coping with that.

The cutter had been led astern for towing, and the boat’s crew had come on deck, and Lewrie turned to face them.

“Desmond, I’d admire did ye and the lads strip my cabins for action, and whistle up my steward, Pettus, so he can see the beasts to the orlop,” Lewrie bade. “And, he’s to fetch me my everyday sword and a brace o’ pistols.”

“Aye, sor,” Desmond said, though pausing for a bit before obeying the order. “Ya wish th’ ship’s boats set free for a better turn o’ speed, too, sor?” Desmond asked in a softer voice.

“No,” Lewrie grimly decided. “We may need them, later.”

For the survivors should the ship go down, was left unsaid.

“Clear for action, now, sir?” Lt. Merriman, usually their jolliest, formally intoned.

“Aye, that’d be best,” Lewrie told him. “Let’s get the gun-deck cleared o’ chests, sea bags, and mess-tables, first, but we’ll not beat to Quarters ’til we’ve made our offing,” Lewrie ordered as he stripped off his best coat and hat. Fortunately, beguiling young women required his best silk stockings and shirt. Silk was better than linen, cotton or wool for battle; it could be drawn from wounds much more easily, reducing the risk of sepsis or gangrene.

Bisquit, the perk-eared ship’s dog, had been prancing round them for attention and “pets”, making wee whines in confusion as to why he was being ignored. The dog could grin quite easily, but he was not now.

Lewrie went to the quarterdeck as Pettus emerged from the door to his great-cabins on the weather deck, followed by the younger cabin-servant, Jessop. Jessop had Lewrie’s cats, Toulon and Chalky, in the wicker travel cage, headed for the main ladderway down the hatch for the orlop, the usual place of shelter below the waterline. He gave a whistle and made “Chom’ere” sounds to Bisquit, took him by the collar, and led him below, too.

“Your plain coat, hat, and weapons, sir,” Bettus said as he took the finery and handed over the wanted items, helping Lewrie put on his coat, and belting Lewrie’s hanger round his waist. The hundred-guinea presen ta tion sword would go below to the orlop, with the cats.

One of the starboard 9-pounders erupted, echoing that first warning gun from Fort Fincastle, and the quarterdeck was briefly fogged with a sour-smelling pall of spent powder smoke. Lewrie looked aloft to see his ordered signals flying two-blocked to the starboard halliards. He turned to look at his frigate’s consorts and noted that each had hoisted the same signal in sign that they had seen it and were obeying. Gigs or jolly boats were putting out from all three of the smaller ships, bearing their commanding officers to Reliant for a quick conference before they sortied.

And just what’ll I order them t’do? Lewrie pondered as Reliant thundered to sounds of shoes and horny bare feet as the gun-deck was cleared, as the wardroom was stripped bare, and all the canvas-and-deal partitions which gave a semblance of privacy came down to be piled like unwanted stage scenery and sent below out of the way. From great-cabins aft to the break of the forecastle, the gun-deck would become a single long space, broken only by guns and gun-carriages, the carling posts, and sailors.

The Ship’s Purser, Mr. Cadbury, was coming alongside with one of the thirty-two-foot barges that Lewrie had borrowed from HM Dockyard better than a year before for experimental work in the English Channel and had conveniently forgotten to return. In addition to the barge’s oarsmen, helmsman, and Midshipman Munsell were the hands in the working-party who would have loaded supplies into it.

“Mister Cadbury!” Lewrie shouted down to the boat even before it was hooked on to the main chains with a gaff. “Do you release the men of the working-party, but use the boat’s crew to strip the forecastle manger of beasts, and stow ’em in the barge. We’ll tow ’em astern, ’stead o’ tossin’ ’em overboard.”

“Well, aye aye, sir, but…,” Cadbury replied, looking stunned.