Take, Burn or Destroy, page 20
He could not know if his voice was heard, but the razee began turning to starboard and the frigate to larboard. Before Les Droits de l’Homme had turned a point, Hayden was thrown down onto the deck, landing on one foot and then sprawling. One of the chase guns thundered by on its carriage, barely missing him. A rending and splintering came from forward and the foremast went over the bow. The ship was hard aground.
Hayden staggered up to see Indefatigable making her turn, barely out of the breakers, and bear off south. The frigate also managed to turn, but then she too went aground and was thrown immediately upon her beam ends. Hayden saw the first wave break over her side and exposed copper.
A wave lifted the stern of Les Droits de l’Homme and threw it to larboard. Hayden stood up to find water sloughing down the gun-deck below, no doubt washing in through the shattered stern gallery.
Lacrosse screamed orders to his officers, but even they looked about to panic. The men were jumping to the shrouds and clambering aloft, but as they did so the mainmast went by the board, throwing the men down hard upon the planks below. Hayden hurried over the sloping deck to Lacrosse.
“Capitaine!” he shouted above the sound of men calling and crying out. “My officers . . . they are locked up below.”
Lacrosse grabbed the shoulder of a frightened aspirant. “Go with Capitaine Hayden,” he ordered, “and release his men.”
The boy, for he could not have been more than fifteen, ordered Hayden’s two guards to accompany them, but by the time they were on the upper gun-deck the two men retreated with the stream of men coming up from below.
“We must hurry!” Hayden urged.
But panicked men climbing out of the bowels of the ship would not let them pass, and they were forced to stand aside until what seemed like all six hundred souls had passed. The boy looked so terrified that Hayden thought he might bolt with his frightened countrymen. Water was pouring down the next ladder, which was leaning at a precarious angle as Les Droits de l’Homme began to heel to larboard.
As each wave struck, the ship was driven further up the rocks upon which she had impaled herself, and Hayden and his companion were hurled almost off their feet into the knee-deep water. The lower deck was half awash, the larboard side almost filled to the deck-head. Any lanterns that had been hung here were out or gone, and almost no light made its way down through the streaming scuttles. Above the grinding of the hull on rocks and the general hubbub of wind and frightened men, Hayden could hear the muffled shouts of his crew, crying out, and pounding upon the door. But the two sentries who had been standing guard were gone, the door still barred and locked.
“I have no key,” the aspirant said, looking around in terrible distress, as though he might find a key hanging upon a hook.
The hammering on the bulkhead became more desperate by the second. Hayden called out but could not be heard over the banging. Finally, he hammered on the boards with his fist and heard Archer and Hawthorne urging the others to silence.
“Mr Archer!” Hayden yelled at the top of his voice. “The guards have run off with the key to the lockup, but I shall find a way to have you out in a moment. Compose yourselves and remain quiet so that I might give orders for you to aid me.”
“Aye, sir,” Archer called back, his throat already hoarse from shouting. “But the water is rising in here, sir. I don’t know how long we shall remain above it.”
“I will have you out of there, Mr Archer, if I must break all of my bones to do it. You have my word.”
“Bless you, sir.”
Even in the quick light Hayden could see that the lockup had been built in such a way that it would be easier to break in than out. The fastenings were driven from the inside through substantial, horizontal planks and into temporary posts.
“What is your name?” Hayden asked the aspirant.
“Pierre, Capitaine.”
“We must have an axe, Pierre, or even a capstan bar.”
The boy, who was shivering from the cold water that washed about their belts, shook his head. “An axe . . .” He shrugged.
“Then let us hasten up to the capstan.”
Reaching the ladder on the half-flooded, sloping deck was no easy feat, and Hayden knew that getting a bar and returning would take more time than he wished. But there was nothing for it. He needed something to batten down the planks. His fists would not answer, even if he broke them as he promised.
Hayden pushed the boy up the streaming ladder and clambered up hand over hand behind. They went as quickly as they could to the capstan and took down one of the ash bars. These were both long and heavy upon a seventy-four-gun ship, and two of them were required to bear it under those conditions.
It took a moment to slide it down the ladder, brace it from getting away, and then both clamber down onto a deck even more filled with water than when they had left but a moment before. Bracing themselves on the uphill side of the lockup so that gravity might aid them, Hayden and the aspirant used the bar as a battering ram and soon drove one plank loose.
Hands took hold of it from inside and they quickly wrenched it free so that Hayden could now see the faces of all his captive men, staring out at him from inside, panic barely held in check.
The next plank was more stubborn, but with the men all pulling and Hayden and Pierre driving their bar as hard as they were able, it finally gave way and was pulled free. The midshipmen clambered out through this hole, but the others were all too large. With the aid of Wickham, Hobson, and Madison, the battering ram became more effective, though they once lost their footing and took Hayden sliding into the bulkhead in a pile, the deck was so slick. As each wave drove the ship up the reef, Hayden and his helpers had to wait a moment for the ship to settle, then quickly smash their ram into wood.
The third plank was torn from its posts, and the rest of the Themises struggled out, Mr Barthe needing Hawthorne and Franks to pull his substantial bulk by the arms through the too-narrow opening.
“All of you with me,” Hayden called over the noise. “And bring along that French boy. When all the others lost their nerve and fled, he kept his head. I should never have managed it without him.”
The boy got such a pounding upon the back as they went, one would never have thought him an officer but merely a mascot, much caressed by all the crew. He hardly knew what to make of it.
Hayden led the way up to the next deck. As he put his feet upon the wet planking at the ladder head, the mizzen went by the board. There was no mistaking the rending and breaking of timber, the snapping of rigging. He felt it all through the deck. Hawthorne brought up the rear, and here, in better light, Hayden could see that all of the men, including the marine lieutenant, were shaken and blue-pale.
“Is anyone injured?” Hayden asked, noting that Archer’s hand was bleeding.
Everyone denied any such thing, even Archer.
“Doctor, will you see to Mr Archer’s hand when we are upon the upper deck?”
“I will, sir,” Griffiths responded. Hayden took a count of heads and led them on—twelve Englishmen, including himself. Hawthorne, Griffiths, Archer, Ransome, Wickham, Hobson, Madison, Gould, Barthe, Franks, and the Reverend Smosh.
The upper gun-deck was reached in a moment, and just as they were all accounted for, two guns broke free from the starboard battery and slid down the deck, one toppling from its carriage and rolling and bouncing until it thundered into a gun opposite, shattering its carriage. The other gun tumbled down the ladder opening forward and crashed upon the deck below.
“This is a dangerous place to be,” Hayden said to Barthe. “Follow me.”
In a moment they were upon the upper deck in the face of the storm. And what a scene it was. Men clung to the high side of the ship and to one another as though to let go would begin a slide to hell. All around the seas broke, sending heavy spray crashing over the weather side. The ship lay, listing terribly to larboard, her bulwarks all but in the water. With each sea the ship heaved a little and then settled with a rending of planks and timbers. The shore was distant some half a mile or more, and in between stretched a thousand yards of churning, running ocean, April-cold and murky grey.
If that was not enough, the wind drove rain upon them without mercy. The drops slashed down upon Hayden’s face as though they were beads of glass. His hat had been lost, and he held up an arm to protect himself.
“God have mercy,” Hayden heard Barthe intone.
The crew members of the Themis all looked around as though they had just woken to find themselves in some level of Hades, unexpected and undeserved.
“Good Lord, Captain,” Hobson cried out, “are we lost?”
“No, Mr Hobson, we are not lost,” Hayden said, firmly if not testily. “Nor will we be if we master ourselves and do not give way to panic and fear. I do not think boats can be launched and taken safely ashore in such a sea, but this gale will take off shortly, I hope, and until then we will remain patient, follow my orders and those of Captain Lacrosse, and we will all survive. This ship will not break up for some days, and I do not think our gale will last so long. Have patience and good faith. God will preserve us.”
When Hayden had spoken Barthe, who sat with his good foot wedged up against a scuttle, addressed his crew mates. “I would venture I am the only man here unfortunate enough to have been wrecked before, and I will tell you that panic is a greater enemy than the sea. If we do not give way to it and follow the captain’s orders with a will, we shall stand a very good chance of passing through this with our lives. Give in to the fear that we all wrestle with and you will surely die.” The old sailing master fixed each of the midshipmen with a dark glare, as though to be certain they understood the gravity of his words. Hayden thought that if they were not frightened near to death before, they certainly were now.
“Captain,” Smosh said, “if I may . . . ?”
“Yes, Mr Smosh, certainly.”
And Smosh led them all in prayer. Hayden had not heard an appeal so heartfelt aboard the Themis since he had first come aboard, not even when Smosh had held service in the midst of a pestilence that had killed over twenty of the Themis’ crew and laid low double that number for some weeks with a grave illness.
Every man there bowed his head penitently—even the papist French sailors nearby, so in fear were they for their own lives. The French, however, crossed themselves thrice when Smosh completed his prayer.
Hayden took hold of the bulwark and stood, holding on lest he slide down the deck. Not far to the north he could see the British frigate in much the same position, beam on to the sea, laid over on her beam ends, hard aground yet still quite distant from the shore. Her masts, too, were gone. The other British ship had disappeared into the rain and growing twilight. Darkness was all but upon them. Shore, backed by cliffs, was already a dim line of white where the seas broke heavily upon the beach.
Hawthorne dragged himself up beside Hayden and cast his own gaze upon the distant shore. “Could you swim it, Captain?” he asked quietly.
Hayden shook his head. “No. The sea is too great, and it is common in such places for there to be an undertow that will drag a swimmer out to sea. We have the ship’s boats and, come daylight, we shall build rafts. That is our best hope. We shall not have rescue unless this gale moderates a good deal, and I see little sign of that.”
Hawthorne, for once, did not look the least jocular but, like all the others, ashen and blue-lipped, his hair plastered over his forehead from the pelting rain. “There are some six hundred French sailors,” Hawthorne said so low that Hayden could hardly make out his words over the wind, “will they be the least concerned for English prisoners or will we be left here to our own devices?”
“Lacrosse is an honourable man—an officer and nobleman, though citoyen now. He would give up his place in the boats to one of us, I am sure . . . but his crew . . . I saw the officers openly defied by a boarding party but a few hours ago. If the French sailors refuse to take orders, we shall be in a great deal of trouble. We are but a dozen, but much may fall to us, for I do not believe our men will forget their duty or shy from danger.”
“Sir . . .” Hawthorne said, nodding his head towards the stern, “Captain Lacrosse in the offing.”
The French officer was making his way along the sloping deck. Here and there a sailor would give him a hand, for they lined the bulwark, clinging to it as the point furthest from the terrifying sea. Many a man, however, turned his face away and Lacrosse was forced to get by as best he could.
Hawthorne made room for him at the rail. It appeared to Hayden that Lacrosse had aged several decades; he looked gaunt and thin and bent. As he pulled himself to the rail beside Hayden, Lacrosse was racked by a prolonged fit of coughing.
When he straightened, red-faced, he asked Hayden, “Are all your men present and unharmed?”
“Yes. My first lieutenant has injured his hand,” Hayden gestured towards Archer, whose wound Griffiths had already dressed with a strip of cloth, probably torn from a shirt hem. “I would never have got my crew free without your aspirant, Pierre.”
Lacrosse brightened slightly at this news. “He has the body of a boy but the heart of a man, that one.” Lacrosse leaned closer to Hayden and in heavily accented English said, “You must know, Capitaine Hayden, that discipline has broken down in the French Navy. Liberté and fraternité mean that no man is obliged to take orders from another but is free to do as he pleases. Our very lives depend upon all of the men here taking the correct measures at the right time . . . Though I am ashamed to say it, I am less than certain my crew will accept this.”
“You may rely upon my own men, Capitaine,” Hayden informed the Frenchman, trying to allow no sense of pride to enter his voice. “They are very steady and have proven themselves again and again. They will attempt whatever is asked of them. But we are only twelve.”
“I may be forced to ask your aid, Capitaine Hayden, and the assistance of your men. We are in a very dire situation. This gale will draw the heat from men who are wet to the skin. We have no food and no water. But a short time ago the weather glass was seen to be still falling. This gale will last at least a day more, and I have seen spring gales last much longer.” Lacrosse looked off at the distant shore, now almost dark. “Is it possible, do you think, to row ashore through this surf?”
“Perhaps, but a boat could never return against this sea. Launching boats safely will be near impossible.”
Hayden could see Lacrosse nod agreement; apparently, Hayden had confirmed his own belief.
“If there is no sign of the storm abating by first light, Capitaine Hayden, I will order a boat put over the side. I might be sending men to their deaths, I don’t know, but we must try. As frightened as the men are to be stranded on the ship, they will be more frightened to go into a boat until they know it can be managed.”
“I have men I could send,” Hayden offered.
“I might accept this offer, Capitaine, if you are certain.”
Hayden assured him that his offer was in earnest.
“Thank you, Capitaine. There is little I can do for you in this situation, but do not hesitate to ask my help if you require it.”
Hayden found he was touched by this, for both men knew there was little either could offer, but even so Hayden was certain Lacrosse would do whatever was within his power.
“Thank you, sir,” Hayden replied.
“Bonne chance.”
The deck was sloping to the degree that men could just sit upon it and not slide down, though walking upon it with wet leather soles was treacherous. Everyone was huddled in the shelter of the starboard bulwarks or behind the netting where hammocks were stowed. Although this offered some little protection from the wind, it offered next to none from the pelting rain.
Hayden had begun to shiver, and he could see many others in much the same state. It was going to be a night of great misery, and he could see the men gathering into knots in largely vain attempts to gain warmth. His own men did the same, but Hayden feared it would make little difference.
Darkness settled about them, but the gale did not abate or even falter. The wind continued to howl up and down an eerie scale, and the seas crashed against the hull with numbing regularity, some sending icy salt spray over the already shivering men. The noise and bitter wind overwhelmed the senses and drove men inward in an attempt to escape into some kind of silence and calm.
Hayden’s hands and feet began to ache, and he stuffed his hands into his armpits as best he could. Exhaustion leached away all his strength, or so it seemed, for he had been awake for much of the previous three days. He lay down and curled onto his side on the hard deck, closed his eyes and felt the rain clatter down upon his face and the wind push at him like a hand trying to rouse him from his slumber. For moments at a time he would slip away into unconsciousness, but then he would be roused back into a kind of torpor where lethargy overwhelmed him, cold racked his limbs, and his mind was blank and despairing.
And so the endless night crept on. There was no bell or even a moon to measure out the hours, but Hayden began to think that dawn would not come to this place. Men would now and then sit up and beat their arms against their sides in an attempt to restore some warmth, but it profited them little. Sometime, deep into the night, Hayden heard men shouting from a distance and then realised the sound was coming up through the planking from the half-flooded gun-deck. He was certain he heard cursing in French and the sounds of a struggle, but then it came to an end. Were Les Droits de l’Homme his own ship he would have forced himself up to investigate, but this was Lacrosse’s vessel and Hayden did not think French sailors would obey orders from an English prisoner when they openly defied their own officers.
He slipped back into his torpor, listening to the menacing voices of the gale, occasionally doused by heavy, salt spray from the icy Atlantic. Upon one of these rude awakenings, Hayden opened his eyes and caught sight of something. Immediately, he sat up and realised there were flames burning some distance off—upon the shore, no doubt.
