Winds of Folly by Seth Hunter Read Free Book Online Page A

saw Duncan and the other officers on the quarterdeck grinning back at him, and even some of the hands, too, and if they thought he laughed at the prospect of battle or imminent death then who was he to contradict them?
    They were now on a parallel course to the five privateers and a little behind the third in line, and every minute that passed pushed the enemy further out to sea. If they did not turn soon they would sail right across the front of the convoy, shepherded by the frigate at their heels.
    But they were not sheep. They would not come on such a hunt only to sail away unsated and the prey in sight. They would lose too much face with their men – and each other.
    Further, further he hounded them out to sea. Then, at the very last moment, just when he was beginning to think they had missed their chance, they made their turn. First the two large brigs, then the smaller vessels. On a course that would bring them across the frigate’s bows and into the heart of the convoy.
    Still he let the
Unicorn
run on. He could sense the tension on the quarterdeck. Perry staring up at his sails, Duncan fixedly out to sea. No one would look directly at him. The first brig was just off his starboard bow at a distance of about five hundred yards. He had no need of the glass now to see her guns. They were only 6-pounders, he told himself, and they would be firing at extreme range. But the distance seemed to grow less, the black muzzles larger the longer he looked at them until, with a suddenness that made him flinch, a rippling line of fire and smoke erupted from stem to stern. His mind even registered that they were firing chain shot before he heard the peculiar whining, whirring sound of their approach, like angry, darting hornets – if two iron balls joined by a murderous length of chain could be thought to resemble anything as insignificant as a mere insect. They would do more than sting if they hit you, he reflected grimly – he had seen a man cut in two by them – but their real target was the rigging. They could cause mayhem aloft and leave a ship dead in the water. But they had fired too soon. Most of the rounds fell harmlessly into the sea – all but one, probably from the last gun to fire, that struck the bower anchor with a tortured screech of metal upon metal. And then another scream that was entirely human as the shattered fragments went spinning off into the crew of the starboard bow chaser, the only gun to have fired back.
    Then, only then, did Nathan give the order to port the helm and they came heavily round to larboard and fired their own rippling broadside – thirteen 18-pounders and the four 6-pounders on the quarterdeck – the successive reports rolling down the gundeck towards him so that to his deafened ears it sounded like one long roar as if the air itself had been torn asunder by a giant hand.
    He ran up the mizzen shrouds a little and when the smoke of the guns cleared, he saw the brig, still running on to the south-east, apparently unharmed. But then as he stared – astonished and appalled that every single round had apparently missed its target – the brig’s foremast came toppling slowly down, like a giant tree in a forest, bringing spars and rigging with it, forestays, jibs and all, crashing down across the forecastle and into the sea, pulling her round by the head.
    She was well within range of the big 18-pounders, and every shot of the second and third broadsides hammered home, bringing down mainmast and mizzen and tearing huge bites from her gunwale, for she was not built to withstand 18-pound round shot, and they left her a dismasted hulk, drifting away to the south.
    Nathan backed the mizzen to let the second brig draw level. But she had no stomach for this kind of fight and he did not blame her. She fell off the wind and began to wear away to the south-west with the two smaller brigs behind her. But not the schooner. As he had predicted, she was making a dart