On the Lee Shore, page 26
‘Shipmates,’ he began, quiet at first, which made the men lean forwards to hear him properly. ‘I have just been reflecting on what a long way we have come since I first took command of our ship. That day, back in Plymouth I stood here, on this very spot, and I looked out over a ship full of anger and hate and division. But what a change we have wrought to our ship. Now when I look at you, I see a fine crew of steady men all ready for action. There ahead of us is our enemy,’ he pointed at the mass of masts and rigging that loomed ever closer. ‘Two ships to our one, yet I have no doubt who shall triumph in this battle. For while they have been sulking in Brest these last few years, growing fatter and slower week by week, we have been out at sea, battling with storms and training hard for this day. They come against us like the lubbers they are, one rushes ahead while the other struggles even to raise an anchor. We shall destroy the first enemy before the second has time to draw near. Do your duty. Fire as fast as I know you can. Aim as true as you are able. Trust in your fellow Titans, and may God watch over you.’
‘Three cheers for Pipe!’ yelled a voice, and a storm of noise engulfed the ship.
*****
‘Here we go again, Tom,’ said Preston. ‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends.’ The young lieutenant had gone to stand next to the marine at the back of the quarterdeck. This gave them both a good view of the enemy frigates as they bore down on them. The second ship had just got under way, her anchor at last pulled free of the seabed. The first ship was much closer as she continued to claw her way up wind towards them. Taylor was conning the Titan in a long sweeping turn that would bring them onto the same course as their opponent in the next few minutes.
‘Once more indeed, Edward,’ said Macpherson, his voice quiet. ‘It is good of you to come and see me like this, but I am quite restored, really. A touch of colic was all it was earlier.’ Preston looked the older man up and down and saw that his hand still trembled a little by his side. The Scot noticed where his friend’s eyes rested and clasped his hands together out of sight behind his back.
‘You did seem a little ill earlier,’ he said.
‘But now I am quite fine,’ said the marine. ‘The captain addressed the men well, I thought. It surprised me to hear him speak with such passion. I had not thought of him as a man much given to oratory.’
‘Nor is he,’ said Preston. ‘But it informed the men what they need to do well enough. Do you suppose we can knock down this fellow before the other ship comes up with us?’
‘If the French are foolish enough to let us come at them from close range, perhaps,’ said the Scot. ‘My fear is they will haul off and take pot shots from range until they can both engage us together.’ The two men watched their opponent as the ships’ courses converged. The French frigate had grown very close now. The long broad white stripe that ran down her side changed into a checkerboard as her gun ports swung up, and a line of heavy cannon came poking out. All along her rail they could see the glitter of sunlight on weapons.
‘She seems to be carrying a large crew,’ commented Preston. His companion shook his head.
‘That is the glitter of bayonets, or I have never seen any,’ replied Macpherson. ‘She must still have a good deal of those soldiers she was carrying on board. We must go and warn the captain to be wary of her trying to use them to take us.’
‘But surely this is good news?’ said the young lieutenant. ‘If her plan is to try and board us, she will not keep her distance as you feared.’
‘Perhaps so,’ said Macpherson. ‘But if she is carrying several hundred extra soldiers, she might overwhelm us in such an encounter. Will you go and speak with the captain? I should stay here with my men.’ Once Preston had gone, Macpherson returned his attention to the French frigate. They were within easy cannon shot, and the range was dropping all the time. Then the side of the French ship lit up with tongues of orange flame, masked an instant later by a wall of smoke. Splashes leaped up all about the Titan, and several shots ripped over the deck of the frigate with a noise like tearing cloth. Moments later the sound of the broadside boomed across to him.
Macpherson glanced around the mizzen mast to check for damage, but could only see a few severed lines and a single ragged hole in one of the sails. From the bow came the gravelly voice of Hutchinson, the boatswain, directing his men to repair the damage to the rigging. If their opponent was as woeful in their shooting as this, he thought, there was hope for them yet. He returned to his place next to his sergeant and glanced over his men. All were alert, waiting for the order to open fire. The French frigate was much closer now. Her masts began to tower up above him. Her hull stretched across his vision. Up in her fighting tops he could see her parties of marines. He could almost feel their eyes as they looked towards him, picking him out in his brilliant red tunic, stood in his place beside his men. He felt beads of sweat forming on his brow, and his right hand began to tremble once more.
‘Closer still, Mr Taylor,’ he heard the captain call. ‘Mr Blake! Standby to open fire.’ Another broadside roared out from the Frenchman. Much of it poured into the sea behind the Titan, but some of the shot was better aimed. He heard a pair of solid crashes from somewhere forward as balls struck home and more shot flew past overhead. The ships came even closer together.
‘Open fire, if you please, Mr Blake,’ ordered Clay.
‘Wait for the down roll,’ shouted the lieutenant to his gunners. A small wave rocked the frigate, and as the ship leant towards the enemy the Titan’s guns roared out. The deafening noise of the broadside was followed an instant later by a storm of crashes from somewhere in the smoke as the well directed broadside thundered home.
‘Marines,’ yelled Macpherson, his voice cracking. ‘You may open fire at any targets that may present themselves.’
Now the Titan and her foe disappeared into a grey world of chaos. The gun smoke of both ships intermingled to create a thick bank of fog, with only the stabbing tongues of flame from each side’s cannon to show where their ship lay. Macpherson could tell that the Titan was firing much faster than her opponent. Her first broadside had followed close on the heels of the French ship’s second, but her next seemed to draw no fire from the other ship, and it was only when she fired her third broadside that a ragged response came home from the Frenchman. He watched Taylor as he conned the ship. The first lieutenant barked an order to spill some wind from the mizzen topsail as he strove to keep the frigate level with the line of gun flashes of their opponent.
He winced as a cannon ball punched through the quarterdeck gunwale in front of him in a spray of splinters. Moments later a second ball ploughed through one of the carronade crews. Two men fell in succession like dominos. One had been killed in an instant. The other sat upright on the deck and stared in disbelief at his shattered foot. Macpherson found his eyes held by those of the stricken sailor. His gaze was wide-eyed with shock, seeking reassurance from the marine officer.
‘You two there,’ he called across two members of the afterguard, his voice gruff with strain. ‘Take him below to the surgeon.’
Now his marines began to take casualties too as the ships drifted closer. Lines of little orange flames flashed out from the heart of the smoke. Macpherson realised that the soldiers on board the French frigate must be firing volleys of musket fire back at him. Balls whined past his head and a marine spun back from the rail, dropping his musket with a clatter. His hands clawed at a spurting wound in his neck. The Scot dropped to his knees beside the man and tried to hold back the tide of blood that ran hot through his fingers. He watched the soldier’s eyes slip from desperation as he clung to life into a blank stare as he died. Macpherson let the dead man’s body slip back down onto the deck. He rose to his feet and felt his whole body start to tremble. He closed his eyes for a moment and the French soldier sprang back at him again, dark and huge, swinging his musket round to settle his aim on Macpherson’s heart. He jerked his eyes open before the shot could be fired. Stop this, he urged himself. He forced his legs to pace up and down the deck. Another line of little orange flashes stabbed out, much nearer this time. The ships have drifted very close, he thought. He hurried forward to warn the captain.
‘Tom, are you wounded?’ asked Clay. He looked with alarm at the Scotsman’s pale face and blood-sodden hands.
‘What?’ said Macpherson. ‘Oh, no, sir. This is not my blood. I have been tending to one of my men who had been shot. I wanted to warn you that the French have come very close. They have the advantage of a large number of soldiers, and I fear they mean to try and board us in the smoke.’
‘Yes, Mr Preston told me of your misgivings,’ said Clay. He strode across to the ship’s side and stared towards their enemy. At that moment another of the Titan’s broadsides crashed out, the sound of it striking home almost instantaneous, the ships had drawn so near to each other. One of the balls hit a French gun barrel with a deep clang like that of a struck bell. No more than a handful of cannons fired in return from their opponent, the flashes close in the fog of smoke.
‘They are certainly very close to us,’ said Clay. ‘Their return fire has been petering out in the last few minutes, which may show that they are bringing up their gun crews from below in order to board us. Perhaps this will give us the opportunity to deliver the final blow.’ He turned back towards the marine. ‘Are you sure of what you say, Tom?’
‘Sure as I can be, sir.’ Clay held his gaze for a moment and then called towards the midshipman of the watch who still stood by the wheel.
‘Mr Russell! Tell Mr Blake to have the guns elevated to their maximum and loaded with canister. He is to await my signal to fire. Run, boy!’
‘Aye aye, sir,’ came the reply, and the teenager fled for the companionway ladder.
‘Mr Preston!’ I will have the quarterdeck carronades loaded with canister too,’ ordered the captain. ‘Keep her on this heading, Mr Taylor, if you please.’
‘Aye aye, sir,’ replied the first lieutenant.
Clay stepped away from the side and stared up towards the foremast. The gentle breeze had begun to tear away at the gun smoke, revealing the state of the frigate’s rigging. Macpherson followed his captain’s gaze. A large gash had been torn in the side of the mast, the splintered wood white in the weak sun, and one of the upper yards on the main mast had been shot through. He could see Harrison high up in the rigging as he lead a party of seaman to secure the damage. But apart from the numerous shot holes in the sails, and the many lines that swung free, the masts were still largely undamaged.
‘Masthead there!’ yelled Clay. ‘Any sign of the other enemy frigate?’
‘Deck there! Two points off the starboard beam sir, and beating up the bay towards us,’ came the reply.
‘How distant is she?’ asked the captain. The little figure high on the mast paused to consider matters before he replied.
‘Maybe half a mile, sir.’
‘Half a mile, gentlemen,’ said Clay. ‘We need to finish this first opponent quickly, before the second frigate can arrive to spoil matters. Let us hope that you are right, Mr Macpherson, and our enemy is gathering her crew with all these soldiers of yours on their gangways ready to take us. If so, they will present a fine target for a full broadside of canister.’
‘Will the guns answer to stop them all, sir?’ asked Macpherson. Clay indicated the nearest of the quarterdeck thirty two pounder carronades. Two of the crew struggled to slot a heavy copper cylinder down the barrel.
‘That one round there contains five hundred musket balls,’ he said. ‘The blast will sweep all before it who are in the open, but it will have precious little effect on men that are stood behind six inches of oak. If the French are indeed intent on boarding us, it will serve very well.’ At that moment Russell came running up the companionway ladder from the main deck.
‘Mr Blake’s compliments, and the guns are loaded and ready, sir,’ he said.
‘Thank you, Mr Russell,’ replied the captain. ‘Kindly tell him that the moment the guns have fired he is to send his gun crews up to board the enemy. Mr Macpherson, please gather your marines on the quarterdeck ready to board too. We shall give them a whiff of canister, and then pay the French back in their own coin.’
‘Aye aye, sir,’ replied the marine.
Clay returned his attention to their opponent. Both sides had stopped firing now, and without the regular flashes in the smoke it was hard to make out where the French ship was. He angled his head on one side to try and catch any faint sounds in the gloom. The creak of rigging from the other frigate seemed to be only yards away. Then he heard a shouted order in French. Someone close to the bow shouted back ‘Oui, mon capitaine!’ Overall came a continuous murmur, the accumulation of many little sounds. It was the noise generated by a restless crowd of people. The smoke thinned a little in the breeze, and shapes began to appear in the gloom. He saw one of the Frenchman’s masts, strange and misshapen with its upper half hanging down in a mass of torn rigging and shattered wood. Then a portion of their opponent’s hull was visible, riddled with holes where their remorseless broadsides had smashed home. At one shattered gun port a gun barrel poked out at a strange angle, its barrel pointing up towards the sky. Clay turned his head and called over his shoulder towards the wheel.
‘Back the foretopsail if you please, Mr Taylor,’ he said. ‘I want to drift closer to her.’
‘Aye aye, sir,’ replied his first lieutenant.
The last of the smoke slid clear and Clay could see there was no more than forty yards of water between the two ships, the gap shrinking all the time.
‘My God, we have hit her hard, sir,’ exclaimed Preston from beside him. The hull of the French ship was pockmarked all over with holes torn by the Titan’s gunfire. In addition to having lost much of her foremast, her mizzen mast had gone too, leaving only a shattered stump to mark where it had once been. From below her deck he could hear a chorus of groans from her many wounded.
But there was still fight in their enemy. All along her side the sunlight glinted and flashed off the numerous weapons that were brandished in defiance. Some of the soldiers had placed their cockaded hats over the ends of their muskets, and waved them in the air as if they were flags. Mixed in amongst the troops were the remaining members of her crew armed with cutlasses and boarding pikes. Other sailors had climbed a short way up into her shot-torn rigging and swung grappling hooks backwards and forwards, ready to hurl them across at their opponent. The excited babble of noise that drifted over the water was in stark contrast to the silent approach of the Titan.
‘They certainly mean to board, sir,’ warned Preston.
‘Indeed they do,’ replied Clay. ‘We have guessed right, but I almost wish we had not. What a dreadful waste of life.’ He gauged the distance, now down to thirty yards. The ships were so close that Clay could pick out individual expressions amongst the packed faces opposite him. He could see bravado and excitement on some, doubt and fear on others.
‘Would you call that range point blank, Mr Preston?’ he asked.
‘Yes, sir,’ murmured the lieutenant, transfixed by how close the enemy ship was.
‘Ready, Mr Blake?’ shouted Clay.
‘Ready, sir,’ came the reply from forward.
‘Fire!’ shouted Clay.
With a deafening crash every gun on the starboard side of the ship fired at the same moment. For an instant the air was alive with a shrieking swarm of noise as thousands of musket balls ripped across the space between the ships. The Titan rolled away from her opponent with the recoil of her guns and smoke engulfed them once more. After a pause a mass of men poured up from the main deck with Blake at its head. The gun crews spilt out along the ship’s side, armed with their cutlasses and pistols, just at the moment that the French frigate loomed up alongside. The hulls touched with a bump and Clay stared through the haze of smoke at their devastated opponent. Masses of severed rigging hung down from above like jungle creepers, the strands of rope sliced through a few feet above the ship’s side. Mutilation and death had come randomly to the packed boarders who had waited to attack them. Where the men had been caught in line with one of the Titan’s cannon, they had been swept away in blocks, leaving groups of survivors, stunned but unharmed between the swaths of devastation.
‘Titans!’ yelled Clay. He drew out his sword and climbed up onto the quarterdeck rail. ‘Let us finish this now! Boarders away!’ With a roar of noise, the crew of his ship swept over the side and spilt down onto their enemy’s deck.
*****
The moment that Lieutenant Macpherson had dreaded was at hand. He watched as Clay leapt across the gap between the two ships as easily as a man on a country walk might spring over a ditch. He was followed by Sedgwick, a naked cutlass held high, and then a surging mass of seamen. He looked across at the other ship. Now the stunned groups of French sailors and soldiers in front of him were returning back to life after the shock of the point blank broadside. Behind him he sensed the unease of his men. He heard his sergeant clear his throat, the sound obvious to him in spite of the din of battle. Come on, he urged himself. It will be fine. How many times have you done this before?
