“See to him, Mister Snelling,” Lewrie called to the Surgeon, who had stood to one corner, appalled, throughout the punishment. “Dismiss the off-watch hands, Mister Harcourt.”

“Aye, sir,” the Second Officer replied, sounding more natural, almost whimsical, for once.

Lewrie went back to the poop deck and fetched his book, then came back down and went into his cabins.

“Cool tea, Pettus,” he ordered, going to sprawl on the starboard-side settee to continue reading.

“Aye, sir, right away,” Pettus said. “Ehm … that was quite a lesson, if I may say so, sir.”

“You may, and I hope it was,” Lewrie agreed, propping a foot on the brass tray-table.

“By the time Clegg’s back to full duties,” Pettus went on, “I’d expect he’ll be saying ‘pretty please’ and ‘thank you’ before he dares reach for the mustard pot in his mess.”

“If they’ll have him, at all, Pettus,” Lewrie said, grinning briefly, and quite satisfied with his decision.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The convoy attained the 15th Longitude a few days later, then hauled their wind to steer Due South, with the transports managing to perform a passable semblance of Alter Course In Succession, by then. The prevalent Westerlies in the Bay of Biscay came upon them on their starboard beams, shifting only a point or so from day to day, blowing in varying strength. A beam reach was an easy point of sail, which HMS Sapphire seemed to enjoy, with her decks canted over only a few degrees, gently rolling to the scend of the sea.

It was time for more live-fire exercises, this time with a target. The gun crews were able to run in, load, run out, and discharge their guns right smartly, by then, with even the hands on the lower gun deck managing to get off three rounds every two minutes with the massively heavy 24-pounders.

Two cables of tow-line were spliced together, and an empty water cask was sacrificed, and painted white. Crawley, the former captain’s Cox’n, chose his men, and manned the pinnace under sail, going out a full cable’s distance from the ship’s larboard beam, the full 240 yards, to stream the target cask astern.

“Fingers crossed, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie hopefully said.

“And one’s tongue on the proper side of one’s mouth, too, sir,” Westcott said with a laugh.

“Haven’t heard o’ that’un,” Lewrie confessed.

“Oh, I hear it’s all the go at Woolwich, these days, sir,” Westcott japed, referring to the Royal Arsenal and artillery school.

“Carry on, then, Mister Westcott, and remind ’em t’aim damned careful,” Lewrie ordered.

Muffled cries below carefully put the gunners through the many steps of gun drill; Cast Off Your Guns, Level Your Guns, Take Out Your Tompions, Run In Your Guns, Load With Cartridge, Shoot Your Guns, then Run Out Your Guns, Prime, and Point Your Guns.

“By broadside … on the up-roll … fire!”

HMS Sapphire shuddered, shoved a foot or so to starboard as the larboard battery went off as one, with stentorian roars and a great pall of powder smoke that only slowly drifted alee, masking the target.

“All over the place, sir!” Midshipman Kibworth, posted aloft in the main-mast cross-trees, shouted down.

“Overhaul your run-out tackle, and swab out your guns!” officers on both gun decks cried.

Guns were charged with fresh powder bags, shotted, then run out once more. Sapphire grumbled and roared again as the many carriages’ truck wheels squealed, as un-told tons of artillery lumbered up to the port sills. Lewrie thought that their time was acceptable; his pocket watch had a second hand and his gun crews were close to his demanded three rounds every two minutes.

“Point your guns!” was the order, and gun-captains bent over to peer down the lengths of the cannon, fiddling with the wooden blocks, the quoins, under the breech-ends, or called for their tackle men to heave with crow levers to lift the rear ends of the guns to shift tiny increments to right or left, lifting the carriages a few inches.

“By broadside … fire!”

Sapphire’s larboard side erupted in another titanic roar, and wreathed herself in yellowish-grey powder smoke, with hot red-amber jets of discharge jabbing out, mixed with swirling clouds of sparks.

“Closer, from right to left, sir!” Kibworth shouted. “Short, or far over!”

“Overhaul your run-out tackle, and swab out your guns!”

A third broadside followed within the required two minutes, then a fourth, a fifth, and a sixth. Despite the mildness of the day, the gun crews began to work up a sweat as they fed their cannon, ran them back out, heaved upon the levers to shift traverse, heaved again to lift the breeches so the quoins could be inched in or out to elevate their barrels, then stood clear, making sure that the recoil tackles and run-out tackles would not foul—and that their feet were safe—before the next broadside roared out.

Fifteen minutes elapsed from the first broadside, and the hands were beginning to slow, much as they would in battle, for human muscle could only do so much arduous labour for only so long. They were not machines. If they were in real combat, lasting an hour or longer, the broadsides would be discharged closer to one a minute, and those would be ragged, stuttering up and down the ship’s side as if “Fire At Will” had been ordered.

“Smothered, sir!” Midshipman Kibworth shrilled in a joyous whoop. “The target’s smothered in shot splashes!”

As the smoke drifted clear and thinned, Lewrie raised his telescope to behold a long, disturbed patch of white water round the white-painted target cask, a patch which stretched at least one hundred yards from right to left, and perhaps only fifty or sixty yards in depth. Had they been firing at an enemy ship, there would have been misses to the right or left of the foe, ahead of her bows or astern of her transom, but the bulk of the heavy shot would have taken her “’twixt wind and water”, smashing into her sides.

“I think we’re finally gettin’ somewhere, Mister Westcott,” he said, with a sly grin beginning to form upon his face. “You lads,” he addressed their youngest Mids, Ward and Fywell. “Scamper down and tell the officers on the gun decks to mind their traverses.”

“Aye, sir!” and they were off, as quickly as monkeys.

Two more broadsides were fired, with even more excited shouts from Midshipman Kibworth. Word had been passed to the gun crews of the “smother”, and despite their weariness, the pace of serving their guns had picked up a bit. Finally …

“Target’s destroyed, sir!” Kibworth screeched. “It’s gone!”

Lewrie abandoned the middle of the quarterdeck and dashed to the lee side, whipping up his telescope. “Yes, by God! Yes!”

That patch of disturbed sea, churned foamy white by the impacts of all those roundshot, was about the same size in depth, but shorter from right to left, very much shorter, which would have smashed into an enemy warship from bow to stern, with very few misses ahead or astern. A fine mist from feathers and pillars of spray was falling.

“Secure!” Lewrie bellowed. “Cease fire!”

That welcome order was passed down from the quarterdeck to the upper gun deck, then the lower gun deck, and the ship fell silent, at long last; an eerie, ear-ringing silence in which the normal sounds of a ship on-passage, the faint groans of the hull, the piping of the wind, and the clatter of blocks, sheets, and halliards suddenly sounded alien.

“Pass the word, you lads,” Lewrie said to the Mids, Fywell and Ward. “My compliments to all, and that that was damned fine shooting!”

“Quite suitable aiming,” Lt. Westcott commented as he and Lewrie pulled their wax ear-plugs out. “At much longer ranges, though, we wouldn’t be all that accurate.”

“At much longer range, Geoffrey, neither would the French, or the Dons,” Lewrie replied, with a twinkle in his eyes. “How much gunnery practice d’ye imagine they get? Much like their seamanship, it is all ‘river discipline’ in harbour, and hope they can pick it all up on their way to somewhere. I think we’d stand a good chance, better than them, at any rate, do we run a’foul of them.”