“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 presentation 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 un-wanted 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.

“There’s a fight in the offing, Mister Cadbury, and there’s no reason for the pigs and goats to be shot to pieces, or drown!” Lewrie told him with hard-summoned false good humour.

“I see, sir,” Cadbury said, much sobered and subdued.

“Lieutenant Westcott is coming?” Lewrie asked the Purser.

“I’m sure he is, sir, though…” Cadbury shrugged and turned to look shoreward for the second barge.

Coming! Lewrie told himself with an audible snort; I’m bound that he has, the once at least.

Besides himself in his younger days, Lieutenant Geoffrey Westcott was as mad for strange and lovely “quim” as any man ever he did see, and after better than two years in active commission, so did every Man Jack in Reliant’s crew! His harsh hatchet face and alarmingly fierce and brief smiles to the contrary, Westcott always seemed to find himself a bit of “fresh mutton”, was he set down on a desert isle, and the sailors were right proud of him for it!

Aha! Lewrie told himself as he spotted the second barge setting out from the town docks; There’s our Lothario! The set of Westcott’s uniform might be askew, but he was up and dressed, after a fashion, and standing by Midshipman Rossyngton near the tiller, urging the oarsmen for more effort.

Lewrie turned his attention closer aboard, to the gigs bearing Lieutenants Darling, Lovett, and Bury to the main-chains. He glanced at their vessels, satisfied that Thorn, Lizard, and Firefly were being stripped down for action, as well.

Before his junior officers ascended the man-ropes and battens in order of seniority, Lewrie could spare another glance shorewards to the fine houses at the top of the hill behind the fort and the government buildings, and let out a wistful sigh.

She might’ve refused me, anyway, he sadly thought.

CHAPTER TWO

“There’s little I can tell you, gentlemen,” Lewrie said to his junior officers as they stood round the dining table in his cabins to hold a quick conference. “There are reports of warships approaching, whose we don’t know, or how many so far. We are it as far as a naval defence goes, so … we will up-anchor and stand out into the Nor’east Providence Channel. Reliant will lead, and draw their initial fire, should it come to that. Lovett, Bury … you must pair together with your six-pounders and get Thorn into range where her carronades might have some effect. After that, you must stay together as a pair, and double on another target … one that looks beat-able.”

It was a grim crowd, with pursed lips and dark scowls once he told them that. Lt. Oliver Lovett of Firefly, a slim, dark, and piratical-looking fellow, game for anything, usually. Lt. Tristan Bury, their scholar and marine artist, who had surprised them all with his daring and energy, looked pale and stiffly prim. Merry Lt. Peter Darling of Thorn slowly nodded his head, his round face flushed.

“Of course, if the foe is come in substantial strength, with large frigates and two-deckers, then all bets are off,” Lewrie went on. “Then, discretion may be the better part of valour, and the best we may do will be to return to the harbour entrance and anchor athwart it, delaying their entry to the last of our shot and powder.”

“If they do plan to land troops as well, sir,” the young but sage Lt. Bury said in cold logic, “might I or Lovett be allowed free rein to cover the shoal waters and beaches West of Fort Fincastle, to take their small boats under fire? Reliant and Thorn can block the entrance channel with eighteen-pounder long guns and carronades for a goodly time.”

“Hmmm…,” Lewrie pondered, then shook his head. “I fear that your presence may block the fire from Fort Fincastle’s guns, which are already sited to cover those beaches. Best we stick together to the end.”

“If they do bring troop ships, sir, why not have a go at ’em?” Lt. Lovett said with a chuckle, and a feral look on his long Cornish face. “If we could get round, or past, the escorts, we could make a very bloody meal of ’em! What say to that, hey?”

“Damned good idea, Lovett!” Lt. Darling congratulated him, with a hearty thump on the shoulder. “Kick them in their ‘nut-megs’, while they expect us to box them toe-to-toe!”

“A forlorn hope,” Lt. Bury intoned most gravely, as was his wont. “I believe that is what the Army terms such fights. But…” For once, Bury smiled, adding, “such battles win undying glory for the participants, and gild their honour forever.”