The King's Commission by Dewey Lambdin Page A

grape-shot ball, a full ounce of lead that had almost ripped his limb off above the knee, and was now hanging by a few tattered sinews. Sedge was seizing a piece of small-stuff about the upper thigh to staunch the copious spurting of blood, and Lewrie knelt to aid him.
    â€œSedge, ya’ve more experience, do ya take charge,” Monk gasped from a pasty white face sheened with shock-sweat.
    â€œAye, I shall, Mister Monk,” Sedge promised as the surgeon’s assistants rushed to his side with a carrying board.
    â€œAt least Dome won’t have ta saw much to take this bugger,” Monk tried to jest, too freshly wounded to feel much pain yet. The loblolly boys rolled him onto the board, strapped him down, and made off with him by the larboard ladder, and Monk began to moan as the pain hit him. “Hurry me below, damn yer blood!” he cried out.
    â€œSpare quartermaster to the wheel,” Sedge barked. “Hot work, ain’t it, Lewrie?”
    â€œGod’s teeth, yes!” Alan concurred.
    Sedge laughed and strode away to assist Toliver the bosun’s mate in ordering the afterguard into shape once more, leaving Lewrie by the wheel with two new white-eyed quartermasters who flinched every time something whined nearby, their feet slipping in the blood trails of their predecessors.
    â€œWatch your helm,” Alan told them, being careful to station himself to windward, using them and the wheel drum as a shield.
    The guns were now firing as fast as the frightened and weary crews could load and run out, all order lost in the maelstrom of battle. Every few seconds there was discharge, followed by one from their foe. Lieutenant Peck and his Marines were now firing by squads from the rail, and the masts of the French frigate were towering alongside, nearly as high as Desperate ’s own; less than half a cable off, perhaps sixty yards and adequate musket-shot. To confirm it, a volley of balls hit the quarterdeck, one warbling off the rim of the compass bowl, another raising a large splinter from the deck before Alan’s feet.
    Desperate reeled again like a gut-punched boxer.

    â€œMister Lewrie, come here!” Railsford yelled through a speaking trumpet. “Go forrud into the waist and take charge!”
    â€œAye, sir?” Alan said, dashing to his side.
    â€œGwynn is down!” Railsford snarled, shoving him to the larboard ladder. “Go, no time to chat about it! Keep the guns firing!”
    Alan hammered down the ladder to the waist. The master gunner Mr. Gwynn was stretched out on the deck to larboard, his shirt and waist-coat sodden with blood, and flecks of bloody spume on his lips as he tried to breathe.
    â€œGod save me!” Alan whispered, then mastered himself. “Avery?”
    â€œAye, sir?” a white-faced David Avery asked, trotting aft.
    â€œI’ll take charge. Go aft and tend the gunners there. Is Burney still alive?”
    â€œAye, sir.”
    â€œGood. Quarter-gunners!” Alan bawled, glad to have something concrete to do. “Pace your damned gun-captains! Ordered firing!”
    Alan watched as the senior quarter-gunners passed among their charges and stilled their individual efforts, making them work in unison once more, loading and touching off together. He bent down to peer out a gunport at the enemy.
    â€œDirect these guns at the same aiming point, here! Base of the main-mast is your target. Punch a hole clean through her! Burney, do you aim at the base of their foremast!”
    â€œWait for it, ya stupid get!”
    â€œPrime your guns … point your guns … on the up-roll … fire!”
    Three at a time, the guns barked and leaped backwards, first Burney’s charges, then Alan’s, then the guns below the quarterdeck in the cabins aft.
    â€œBetter,” Alan snapped. He strode aft to look at the hands as they swabbed out and began to load. Gwynn gave a mournful groan as one of the men did him the