The Privateersman (A Poor Man at the Gate Series Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

acknowledged.
    “First round across her bows. If you fire a second
then hull her, no messing about.”
    The gun captain raised his hand in agreement – no
naval saluting or ‘aye-ayes’ on a privateer.
    Blaine’s voice rose again as they came within a mile.
    “Strip topsails.”
    The small crew needed a full five minutes to comply
with the order, as he had estimated.
    “Lower French flag. Shoot, Mr Smith!”
    The flags dropped and the chaser fired the moment
legality was restored – to fire under false colours would make them pirates,
the navy might risk shaving it, they dared not.
    A quick series of helm orders, Blaine seeming alive,
alert suddenly, and the Star swooped ponderously onto the merchant’s stern as
she hovered, irresolute.
    “Thinks we might be navy, ready to put a full
broadside into her if she tries to run, expects fifty men in the boarding
party, so be quick! Grapnels!”
    The hooks were thrown up onto the taller ship and
they scrambled up the four feet and over her rails. There was the normal thin
merchant crew, most of them with weapons in their hands, waiting for orders;
the bulk of them very obviously hoping the command would be to surrender.
    A minute and it became clear that there was only the
small party of a dozen on their deck and a voice called sharply in French. Just
three of the armed men jumped forward, unwisely eager for a fight.
    Tom fired three shots in less than as many seconds
and the remaining Frenchmen froze, then, as one, dropped their blades and
raised their hands, each trying to look innocent of intent, unthreatening,
demure.
    Ten minutes sufficed to disarm all of the crew and
make a quick search for any hiding. Half an hour more and their one boat was
lowered and they were thoroughly searched and then crammed aboard it, the
master relieved of all of his keys and the ship’s papers.
     
    “Take her back to Poole, Mr Smith, starboard
boarders as prize-crew. Keep in company.”
    They were too thinly manned to do anything else, and
it was wiser to keep enough men aboard Star to man the broadside if necessary,
pointless to spread the crew out and have too few men to fight either vessel.
    Smith glanced at the ship’s papers and manifest,
hopefully asked whether anybody could read French, was not surprised to
discover that none could, tucked the papers carefully away for the benefit of
the prize-agent in Poole.
    It seemed possible that they had been observed from
shore or from fishing boats, and the French crew would be on land and raising
Cain by evening, so they took a course south west to make as great a distance
from the coast as they could. The French would not know their home port, would
have no clues on which to base a pursuit, so it was most sensible to make their
way deep into the Bay and out of sight before turning their head towards Poole.
They set the courses and then the topsails, one by one, the minimum set of
sails that they could manage, just, and maintain a steady five knots. The wind
was veering, gaining an unusual amount of easterly, much to their satisfaction,
but they told each other that when the luck changed it generally did so
thoroughly, made a whole-hearted job of it.
    They took a glance into the holds, came away quite
satisfied with the loading of naval stores for the Atlantic Fleet in Rochefort
that filled the fore, not unhappy with the commercial cargo of sheet lead,
sacks of flour and beans and rice and barrels of olive oil stored dry in the
main hold.
    “Could have done a lot worse,” Smith commented.
“Naval stores will always sell – cables, ropes, cordage, canvas, spikes and
nails, pitch and turpentine and tar, powder paint – all will go in Poole or
even be bought up by contractors to the navy to send to Portsmouth. Foodstuffs,
always in demand just before harvest when the store cupboards are thin. Don’t
know about the olive oil, foreign muck, don’t seem the sort of thing English
folks are likely to have any truck with – though they