Take, Burn or Destroy, page 42
A ball found the upper quarter-gallery, causing audible cries from the men below, who then came dancing out onto the quarterdeck, staring aft in horror. Of an instant, Hayden was down the ladder and found the gun crews dodging this way and that as a red-hot ball rolled dangerously among them, threatening to blow them all to hell if it touched the powder cartridges. Snatching Bowen’s speaking trumpet, Hayden caught the ball up in it as it rolled past and then he emptied it out the nearest gunport.
“Return to your stations!” he ordered sharply, thrusting the brass speaking trumpet back into a surprised Bowen’s hands. “Do not leave them again until you are ordered to do so.”
Hayden went back up the ladder. His ship was coming under increasing fire, and though he did not like it, he resisted the urging of his crew to return fire, instead ordering the bosun to keep the men silent.
“Do you see the name, sir?” Gould asked, aiming his glass at the stern of the ship they were to engage. “L’Achille.”
“Then we shall have to wound him in the heel,” Hayden replied.
A broadside from Achille, aimed at the Queen Charlotte, obscured the French ship entirely.
“Let us hope they fire as we approach,” Gould said, noting the same thing.
“I do believe they will preserve their fire until we are abeam—though we shall try to rake them first.”
The reports of the guns were like thunder that grew nearer and nearer. Raisonnable passed through the fire of one ship into a brief area of calm, and then into the fire of the next. Their rigging was being shot away, and Hayden took a moment to gaze aloft, assessing the damage. Losing masts in battle left one at the mercy of the enemy ships that could still manoeuvre—and Hayden was not expecting mercy.
Hayden could see on the forecastle Hawthorne with a company of marines, muskets at the ready, just waiting until they were within range.
“Only a moment now,” Hayden whispered, though no one could hear above the din.
He had hardly given voice to this when a marine standing but two feet from Hawthorne toppled backwards to the deck. Hawthorne raised his cutlass, gave the order, and fire was immediately returned.
They were almost upon the larboard quarter of Achille. Pounding down the ladder lest his orders to the helmsman be lost in the crashing of guns, Hayden pulled up in the centre of the quarterdeck, within three yards of the helmsman.
“Your name?” he asked of the senior man at the wheel—for there were two and another pair standing by.
“Bullfinch, sir.”
“Well, Bullfinch, do not turn before I give the order. But if I am shot, you must make your turn just after our broadside is fired and bring us through on such a slant that we might fire both our batteries into the enemy ships while not becoming entangled with the starboard vessel.”
“I’ll manage it, sir.”
“Seventy yards, Captain,” came the call from the man on the beak-head, and this was echoed back along the deck by the appointed hands.
Hayden gazed forward at the tip of the jib-boom. He could see his officers staring at him nervously—but none of them spoke. The ship aft of Achille was now almost abreast, but she had just brailed up her sails, believing Raisonnable was to engage her, so she quickly dropped back, opening the gap Hayden hoped to pass through.
“Sixty yards, Captain.” The word passed aft.
Still, Hayden delayed, watching both ships, estimating their speeds, measuring in his mind.
“Fifty yards from the tip of the jib-boom to sternpost, Captain.”
Archer kept glancing at him with apprehension, but Mr Barthe appeared as intent as Hayden and showed no signs of doubt.
“Ten yards, do you think, Mr Barthe?”
“That will be shaving it very near, sir. Her mizzen boom must overhang five yards, at least.”
“Fifteen?”
Barthe glanced at the ship aft of Achille, which they had passed now. “I believe you are right, Captain. Ten yards.”
“Thirty yards, Captain,” the word passed back again.
Musket fire had reached the quarterdeck now, and Hayden did his best to ignore the deadly thwack of lead balls piercing into oak.
In a lull in the gunfire, Hayden heard, “Twenty yards, Captain!”
Still, Hayden delayed. Then, “Mr Archer? Fire both batteries.”
“Aye, sir.” Archer lifted his speaking trumpet to his mouth and gave the order.
Men positioned to relay the orders called down to the decks below, and two decks of guns fired only an instant apart, the sound almost knocking Hayden off his feet. The great blossom of smoke roiled up and obscured everything beyond a dozen paces.
Hayden gazed up at the men brailing in the mizzen, which had to be done before the ship could turn downwind. The instant it was completed, Hayden nodded to the helmsman. “Port your helm.”
The ship began to turn. Hayden could not see the bow of his own vessel clearly, and the stern of the Frenchman was not visible at all. He waited for the sound of his jib-boom being torn away, but it did not come. Hurrying to the larboard side between carronades, he leaned out over the water, the open gunports visible below. The smoke began to clear, but there was no French ship. Had she comprehended his intentions and turned as well?
“Mr Archer!”
“Sir?”
“You will order the starboard guns fired when you can bring them to bear on the next ship aft in line.”
Raisonnable continued to turn, justifying Hayden’s claim of her being handy. And then, just visible through the smoke, the great bulk of Achille’s stern, officers at the taffrail calling out and pointing aft.
“Too late,” Hayden whispered. He watched as his own crews traversed their guns, and when he saw them come to bear he called out so loudly that the cry pained his throat, “Larboard battery . . . fire as she bears.”
The French ship was not forty yards distant, and the destruction wrought upon her was monstrous. The first few balls stove in her galleries, and the next screamed the length of her gun-deck, wreaking terrible destruction and death. The gun crews forward were in a whirl of motion to load again, and a few of the guns most forward fired a second time into the stern . . . and then they were past.
At that instant the starboard battery finished firing, and Hayden turned to see the tip of a jib-boom emerging from a cloud of smoke. Most likely the crew of that ship had not been able to discern Raisonnable since the moment she fired her first, obscuring broadside.
Hayden turned to the helmsman. “Bring her up in the lee of L’Achille, Bullfinch. Mr Barthe! I do not want to fly past our chase.”
“We shall not, Captain Hayden. Don’t you worry,” and he went off shouting orders to the sail handlers. There was a notable excitement and even relief in the master’s tone. He understood that they had done what they could to even the odds.
The starboard guns of the French seventy-four began a ragged fire at that instant. Hayden had ordered guns concentrated on the lower gun-deck of his enemy—where the largest guns lived and which could be levelled at Hayden’s own ship in such a way as to cause the greatest damage. Now, if he could keep his ship near enough, the quarterdeck and forecastle guns of the seventy-four could not be brought to bear on his own upper deck, or so he hoped. It was what remained of the lower gun-deck and the upper gun-deck with the French equivalent of twenty-four-pounders that worried him.
His own crews fired and reloaded and fired again in fury of activity. Smoke blinded everyone and Hayden employed all of his senses, attempting to gauge which ship gained the advantage. The aftermost quarterdeck gun—a nine-pounder—was struck by a ball and thrown out of its carriage upon three of its crew. Hayden hurried immediately aft.
“Take up your crowbars,” Hayden ordered, snatching a bar from a man’s hand. “You, take the bar from the starboard gun. No, not under the cascabel—here under the muzzle, where the burden is less. One, two, heave!”
The gun was raised just enough that the wounded men were slid out from beneath, all of them crying out in pain.
“Secure this gun, then carry these men below to the doctor.”
Hayden hurried back to his place just as the mizzen topsail yard came swinging down, broke free, thudding down on its boom-iron, then crashing upon the starboard gangway and hammock netting, striking no one. All around him a storm of devastation raged. Splinters spun across the decks and ruin rained down everywhere. Through the smoke Hayden could see men thrown down on the deck, broken and unmoving, and the massive shot of the enemy’s thirty-two-pounders crashed through the side of his hull. Hayden felt as though he stood in the middle of a hurricane and would be swept off at any second.
Through the dense smoke the and deafening thunder of guns all around, Hayden could just make out L’Achille, men at the guns and clearing away wreckage. The French were fighting with great ferocity, and though Hayden had done damage to her lower gun-deck and killed many men, he was sure, these guns were now being manned and fired, if slowly. Each shot at that range crashed into Hayden’s hull, shaking the ship from end to end.
A few feet away, Hayden could make out Archer, who glanced his way, his face smoke-stained and grim. There was no mistaking the message written there: We are losing. Hayden was not certain that Archer was wrong.
“Bullfinch, a point to port. Do not let the Frenchmen alongside.”
Hayden did not know if it was by intent, but the French ship was turning to starboard, and Hayden did not want to repel boarders, as the French possessed greater numbers.
Through the darkening veil Hayden saw a man on the gangway stagger three steps, then topple limply to the deck below. An unseen ball struck just aft of the mizzen mast and killed all the men manning one side of a carronade in an instant, then tore through the hull again on the starboard side. Hands manning the starboard gun opposite pulled the shattered bodies away and took their places. The sight of the mangled bodies lying in a heap was so horrifying that Hayden could not bear to look that way again.
But wherever his gaze lit, men fell at the guns and were replaced immediately by their opposite numbers from the starboard battery, which had no target at that moment. Forward, the bosun mustered a crew and slid the fallen yard overboard, men with axes cutting away rigging and jettisoning it the same way. Boys wove among the men, bravely bearing powder for the guns. For an instant Hayden thought to admire them—children, among all the destruction and mangled men, performing their single duty. Frightened, yes, but bearing up to it.
Firing from L’Achille’s forward guns appeared to have ceased, and then his own gunners paused. The smoke cleared a little and the enemy ship was not to be seen.
“Captain!” Bullfinch called out. “The helm, sir. It does not answer.”
A glance up told Hayden that the wind was now almost dead aft. The head of his ship had been blown off course and Achille had shot ahead.
“Pass the word for the bosun!” Hayden called. He went immediately to the wheel and pulled on the tiller ropes, one of which slid up without the wheel responding. “Lost a tiller rope . . . and no more, I hope.”
He was down the companionway steps, pushing by men coming up. Racing aft, the cause of the problem was quickly seen—a severed tiller rope.
“Thank God it is not the tiller smashed,” he observed.
“Where has our Frenchman gone, sir?” Huxley asked.
“Shot ahead when we lost our helm, Mr Huxley.”
Huxley realised immediately what Hayden meant. “Rope! We need rope!”
The bosun came hurrying through the fog, bearing a coil of thick rope.
“I shall leave this to you and the bosun, Mr Huxley.”
Hayden went bounding back up to the deck, and then up the quarter-ladder to the stern-deck. At every point of the compass he could see ships, smothered in black silken skeins drawn to leeward on the breeze—ships locked in pairs and threes and fours, a relentless cannonade assaulting the ears and nerves. Masts fell in tangles while other ships appeared to burn. Fire and horror and death were everywhere, carried from ship to ship by screaming, iron balls that sounded like nothing so much as a horde of ungodly banshees.
A hundred yards off he found L’Achille, her mizzen and main gone, her crew cutting masts away and setting sail upon her foremast. Not distant, all but obscured in a dusk of smoke, three ships fought, and the centre vessel bore the pennant of Lord Howe.
“Sir!” Archer appeared from beneath the poop. “Our helm answers.”
Hayden pointed at the flagship. “Take us across the sterns of those three ships, Mr Archer. We shall assist Lord Howe if we are able.”
Archer turned and stared only a moment, then touched his hat, words lost in the booming of guns. Immediately his ship began a turn to larboard, and Hayden saw Archer at the ladder head communicating their intentions to the lieutenants commanding the batteries below.
Hayden leaned over the rail and shouted at the top of his lungs, “Mr Archer! You comprehend the situation? A French ship, then the Queen Charlotte, then the French admiral’s flagship. We will rake the first ship as we cross, reload, and do the same to Montagne.”
Archer nodded vigorously. Barthe had climbed up to the afterdeck, face red, out of breath.
“We have a great deal of rigging shot away, sir. Larboard lower shrouds of both fore and main are a shambles. We’re risking both our masts on this tack—even in so small a breeze. We’re hauling cables aloft to brace them, sir, but it will take some little time.”
Hayden gazed up at the forward masts. “Will they stand for five minutes, Mr Barthe, or will they not?”
“I cannot say, Captain, but let us pray they do. I would not dare tack until we have cables taut.”
“Then we will have to wait to come about. Let us hope they hold.”
Barthe turned to face him, his hat gone and coarse, red hair standing out at all angles. “Our ship is in ruins, sir. If we had not broken it off, all of our masts would have been lost. We’ve many men killed and hurt. A very great many, sir.”
“I know, Mr Barthe, that seventy-four all but did for us. But while we can steer where we will, it is our duty and obligation to engage enemy vessels, no matter their weight of broadside.”
“I know, sir.” Barthe nodded. Hayden thought the man might weep. “I know . . .” he said again, then reached up to touch his missing hat and retreated forward to oversee repairs.
A little cat’s-paw rippled the water, and Hayden felt his hands take stronger hold on the rail. With his naked eye he could see the few shrouds remaining stretch, though the familiar sound was hidden beneath the firing of guns. The three ships were not a hundred yards distant, he was sure, but the shrouds might not bear them so far.
Hayden turned in a quick circle to be certain that no ship had singled them out or slipped up from astern. Smoky clouds, thick and clinging, drifted low over the waters, and in each Hayden imagined an enemy ship, cloaked and deadly. The firing of the ships ahead was so intense that single shots could not be distinguished in the din. Only a terrible, unbroken thunder, pealing on and on without respite.
The little cat’s-paw increased; Hayden felt it on his face and saw it flow over the water. If a gust caught them now, the masts would not stand. He could see the men in the tops, risking their very lives, working with great energy, all their movements sure and without hesitation. Smaller ropes were used to haul the cables aloft. They ran through notch-blocks rigged for that purpose alone, men on the deck hauling with a will, the larger cable stuttering aloft, four feet to each “Heave!” One cable had reached the tops already and the bosun was there with a mate to make up a temporary seizing. It was dishonourable to think it, but Hayden was not unhappy that the bosun was not the late Mr Franks, who was not nearly so competent as Mr Bellamy, as much as Hayden esteemed his other qualities.
Archer looked up at Hayden from the quarterdeck. “If these masts do not fall, sir,” the lieutenant informed him, “it is because some saint’s invisible hand holds them up.”
“Why, Mr Archer, you have found religion at last.”
“Not entirely, sir.”
“Mmm. Mr Archer, order those marines out of the foretops, if you please. If that mast goes by the board, they will all be in the sea—if they are not broken upon the deck.”
“Aye, sir.”
“What is Mr Hawthorne about?” Hayden complained to Gould, who stood three paces off. “He should have had those men on the deck before now.”
“I saw Mr Hawthorne being helped below, Captain,” Gould said, almost too quiet to hear.
Hayden looked sharply at the midshipman. “Not too badly hurt, I hope?”
“I do not know, sir. He was not being carried, but only aided, so perhaps it was not too bad a hurt. The doctor will put him to rights, I am certain.”
The sterns of the great ships were suddenly drawing near, all but smothered in thick, acrid smoke.
“Mr Archer. Go forward, if you please, and be certain the guns are fired into the French ships and not our flagship.”
“I will, sir.”
Hayden’s eyes stung from powder-smoke, and if his face resembled those of his crew, it was stained with sweat-smear as well. On the forecastle, Archer stopped where he could look down to the gun-deck below yet still gauge the position of the enemy ship. The lieutenant’s hand raised, hovered a moment, and then cut swiftly down, his cry lost in the explosion of guns.
Raisonnable sailed close across the sterns of the trio of ships, blasting away in the fog of smoke, as though they were half in this world and half in a dusky Hades where the light of day did not penetrate. As they passed the first ship, an opening in the cloud revealed a sailor with musket tight to his shoulder, tracking Hayden’s ship as though it were a stag. Before he thought, Hayden pulled a pistol from his belt, thumbed back the cock, and shot the man through the neck so that he fell back into the all-consuming smoke.
