Across to America: A Tim Phillips Novel (War at Sea Book 9) Read Free Page B

privateer cut herself away from the trailing wreckage and tried sailing away. All guns were now ordered re-loaded with grape, and this load was fired into the enemy at long musket range.
    Dozens of the swarming boarding crew were smashed to the deck, with gallons of blood spilling out of the scuppers, and then Stately was there. She proceeded to show the nippers how it was done. The privateer had managed to get away from Ferret, but Stately, with a good amount of way on her, came right up alongside and fired her full broadside into the little brig.
     
    Afterward, everyone said that privateer captain was a fool for not hauling down his flag when he saw Stately approach. After Stately’s massive discharge at close range, closely following Andromeda’s broadside, the enemy ceased being an armed, sea-going vessel and instead was transformed into a mass of floating firewood.
    Ship’s boats and surgeons were kept busy the rest of the day. The boats searching out the few survivors of the smashed brig and ferrying the injured to whatever ships in the convoy with surgeons aboard. Half of Ferret’s crew were dead or wounded, including her captain and the single first officer.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER FOUR
 
     
    A pair of officers and some seamen from Stately were brought aboard Ferret to re-inforce her crew. Phillips suspected some of Stately’s midshipmen were about to be appointed acting lieutenants in lieu of the transferred officers. There were some wry looks among his own mids at the lost opportunity, but Phillips well knew some of these would have their chance before long.
    Now it became the convoy’s turn to furnish men to the warships. Officers with boarding crews went onto every ship in the convoy and determined whether any of the merchantmen could spare any people.
    Of course many ships had aboard only the barest minimum of crew needed to make sail, but a few ships did have an adequate crew and these were the ones penalized. Naval crews were sent to the ships damaged in the action to assist in repairs. Besides the needs of Ferret, men were needed to man the crippled schooner which was snapped up by Alceste after the action.
    She would furnish the only prize money available for the action since the destruction of the enemy brig eliminated any profit from her. There were some harsh words spoken about Stately’s treatment of the privateer brig. Some felt Andromeda could have easily finished the task herself with the bonus of having an intact hull to sell afterward.
     
    Captain Phillips saw some wondering looks from the men and was perplexed until he recalled his promise to the gun crews. With hands swarming around the ship, each bent on his own mission, he called over a carpenter’s mate. Finding the first officer had assigned the petty officer and his crew the task of replacing a section of splintered deck an enemy shot had plowed up, Phillips judged this repair to be mainly cosmetic and not immediately necessary. Speaking first to Mister Gould, he ordered the petty officer to put a crew of men to work putting his quarters, along with that of the envoy’s back together again. Before the action, all partitions had been knocked down and struck below to allow free access to the guns and to minimize injuries from flying splinters.
    Now the envoy’s gear was being brought up from below. Phillips ordered Mister Gould to belay the furnishing of his own quarters until later, but added he would like it if a five gallon cask of his own personal spirits were brought up. These spirits were the remnants of a supply purchased in Cape Colony in Southern Africa on a previous voyage. At the time, Phillips had thought the ship might run out of rum if she stayed out much longer so had purchased a supply of locally distilled spirits.
    In the end, the liquor was not needed and Phillips had taking to using the potent liquor himself on occasion. When necessary work on the ship showed signs of completion, he