A Brig of War (19 page)

‘Braces there,' growled Griffiths in a low and penetrating voice. Drinkwater saw a French officer on the quarter-rail bowing. He swept his own hat across his chest in response. ‘
Bon chance
!' he yelled across the diminishing gap between them. An angle of sixty degrees lay between the ships, with everyone of
Hellebore
's guns levelled at that crowded rail.

‘Colours!'

Griffiths threw aside the mask.

Above their heads Old Glory replaced the half lowered tricolour. The gunports snapped open.

‘Fire!'

The gun captains jerked their lanyards as the crews leapt back to the deck and grabbed rammers, swabs and buckets. The charring of the port lintels was quickly extinguished as the men toiled to reload.

‘Up helm! Braces there! Wear ship!'

Hellebore
turned, pointing her vulnerable stern at the Frenchman but avoiding the ignominious possibility of failing to tack. Griffiths had gambled on his plan working and, had it not done so, he had only to stand on and carry himself swiftly out of range. But a single glance astern told the ruse had been complete. Details were obscure but amidships the corvette's rail was a splintered and jagged shambles. The human wreckage behind that smashed timber could be imagined.

‘Aloft there, let fall! Let fall!' Tregembo and his mates slipped
the topgallant gaskets and the sails fell in folds.

‘Leggo bunt and clewlines there! Sheet home!'

Hellebore
was before the wind and still turning, bringing the wind first astern and then round, broad on the starboard quarter. Drinkwater descended from the tiny poop. ‘The advantage of surprise sir,' he said.

Griffiths nodded, his mouth suppressing a grim smile of self-congratulation. ‘Do unto others, Mr Drinkwater, before they do unto you . . . clew up the foresail, I intend to rake.'

‘Aye, aye, sir. D'you intend boarding?' Griffiths shook his head.

‘Too great a risk of heavy casualties. Flesh wounds'll be the very devil to heal in this climate. No, we'll stand off and pound him.' Griffiths nodded to the distant Ben Yusuf. ‘He's playing a waiting game.'

They clewed up the forecourse as they made to cut across the corvette's stern. She was still running before the wind though many ropes had been severed at the pin rails on deck. Smoke appeared from her guns now as she attempted to halt the Nemesis that bore relentlessly down upon her. Then they were suddenly very close to her, surging across her stern, masking her from the wind. Rogers was shouting and running aft, commanding each gun to fire as it bore into the corvette's stern. Drinkwater read
La Torride
a split second before it was blown to atoms, saw the crown glass windows of her cabin shatter and the neat carvings about her quarters disintegrate into splinters. A row of men with pistols and muskets fired at the British ship as she rushed past and the hat that he had so insouciantly waved but a few moments ago was torn from his head. He aimed his own pistols, his mouth pulled back in a grimace. Then Griffiths was putting
Hellebore
on a parallel course with the Frenchman.

‘Starbowlines to larboard!' Drinkwater roared. As if eagerly awaiting the call the frustrated men from the starboard guns hopped nimbly across the deck to fling their weight on the tackles of the larboard six pounders.

La Torride
fired her starboard battery as the brig overtook and a storm of shot poured across
Hellebore
's deck. Men were flung back clutching their heads and bellies. One stood staring at a vacant arm socket and from aloft a body fell on the deck with an obscene impact.

But the surprise of
Hellebore
's manoeuvre had robbed the French of their greater weight of metal. The sudden appearance
of a British cruiser had utterly surprised them, the more particularly as they had known Blankett's squadron did not include a brig. To this psychological advantage the British had added that first devastating broadside. The lethal spray of canister combined with the round shot to produce an appalling effect. The destructive power of the shot was augmented by the splinters it caused while the range concentrated its effect. French resistance was robbed of its edge. Half of
La Torride
's gun crews were already dead or wounded, her wheel was shot away, her rudder stock split and her commander mortally wounded in the space of a few minutes.

Hellebore
ran past her adversary as
La Torride
swung to starboard, broaching into the trough of the sea, out of control.
Hellebore
also swung to avoid being raked and came round to starboard, tacking through the wind and, once on the larboard tack, running back onto her victim. As the yards were secured there was a mad rush across the deck where the starbowlines returned to their guns.

‘Maximum elevation there!' yelled Drinkwater, judging the angle of heel as the brig lay over to the wind. ‘Cripple her, Rogers!' roared Griffiths and Drinkwater leapt at the after guns to pull out the quoins. Spinning round he grabbed a tiny powder monkey. ‘Boy! Get Mr Trussel to send up some bar shot.'

But
La Torride
had recovered slightly, her men were not yet finished. Under her first lieutenant she had had the time to prepare another broadside for the British.

‘Heel's too much, sir,' shouted Drinkwater straightening up from sighting along a gun barrel. ‘Leggo t'gallant sheets!'

The pressure at her mastheads eased slightly and the brig came nearer the vertical as she sped past
La Torride
. Both ships fired their broadsides simultaneously. Amidships a gun was dismounted at the moment of discharge with a huge crash. Men fell back and blood spurted from a dozen wounds while splinters of wood flew about. Griffiths was spun round by a musket ball that left his single epaulette hanging drunkenly from his shoulder. Drinkwater was hit by a splinter which lanced across his face, missing his eye and cheek and nicking his right ear. Then
Hellebore
was past and preparing to tack again. In the temporary respite Drinkwater supervised clearing the deck of wounded, while Lestock hauled the yards. He was aware of a large number of casualties, of blood staining the sanded planks in the waist but
also of an unshaken band of men who toiled to make their lethal and brutish artillery ready for another broadside.

La Torride
had had enough. A cheer from first one gun's crew spread along
Hellebore
's deck. Looking up Drinkwater saw the tricolour that lay over the corvette's shattered rail. Her foremast had gone by the board.

‘Take possession, Mr Drinkwater; Mr Lestock, heave to.' Drinkwater went to inspect the boats and found the cutter serviceable. Griffiths came up to him.

‘I want neither prisoners nor prize, Nathaniel. Toss her guns overboard and order an officer aboard her as hostage against her good conduct. They may proceed to Suez if they are able.'

‘Aye, aye, sir.'

‘I think we have winged the eagle, Nathaniel,' he added confidentially. Drinkwater grinned back. ‘Indeed sir, I believe you are right.'

Drinkwater threw a leg over the rail to descend to the cutter bobbing alongside.

‘Knocked the bollocks of that Froggie, eh, Drinkwater?' said Rogers, smiling broadly, his tendency to criticise temporarily quiescent.

‘Then perhaps you will consider our commander less senile than you are wont to assert.'

Drinkwater and his party scrambled over the side of the corvette to the disquieting crackle of musketry and the shouts and screams of intense fighting. The sight that met their eyes was astonishing. Amid the ruin of her upper deck, covered as it was by the wreckage of her foremast, broken spars and torn sails, amid the tangled festoons of rope, amid the bodies of her dead and the writhing tortures of her wounded
La Torride
's survivors fought a furious hand to hand action with Yusuf ben Ibrahim and his men. The Arab's sambuk had held off, awaiting the outcome, but was now alongside the defeated corvette her men boarding in search of loot. Catching sight of the British a young
aspirant
waved frantically at the folds of the tricolour lying over the stern.

‘
M'sieur . . . J'implore . . . m'aider
 . . .' The boy looked wildly round, seeing Drinkwater's bare sword blade, drawn in self defence at what he might find aboard the prize. The young officer had fallen at his feet in terror and Drinkwater put a calming hand upon his shoulder, but even so it was several minutes before the
combined bullying of Drinkwater and his men had beaten off the fury of the Arabs.

Yusuf himself seemed angry at Drinkwater's refusal to allow his men to butcher the French. ‘
In'sh Allah
,' he said shrugging, his eyes wild with the effects of hashish: ‘It is the will of Allah.'

Drinkwater shook his head ‘
Bism' Allah
,' he said in the only Arabic he knew, ‘In the name of God, Emir Yusuf, the dhows . . .' he conveyed the gift of the captured dhows with dramatic gestures, knowing Griffiths was not interested in prizes so far from home. God knew there were enough Frenchmen aboard them to satisfy Yusuf's bloodlust without putting the corvette's crew to the sword. ‘You,' he said pointing at Yusuf's chest, ‘take dhows. This,' he said stabbing a finger at the deck of
La Torride
and to the French cadet, ‘this belong me . . .' he waved his arm in a circular motion ending up pointing at his own chest.

To Drinkwater's surprise Yusuf rocked back on his heels and roared with laughter. Several members of his crew that had come menacingly to his support during the argument joined the laughter, after Yusuf had addressed a stream of Arabic at them. Yusuf made an aggressively sexual gesture with his forearm, tousled the cadet's hair and slapped the amazed Drinkwater upon the back. Then, still laughing, he took himself off, followed by his men who made a series of good naturedly obscene gestures in Drinkwater's direction.

Beneath his tan Nathaniel flushed at the implication. ‘Dirty bastards, zur,' muttered Tregembo loyally but Drinkwater was not to escape so lightly. To his further embarrassment the young Frenchman, who was trying to smile while tears made furrows through the powder grime upon his face, embraced him.

Drinkwater shook the youth off. ‘
Vôtre capitaine? Où est vôtre capitaine?
' he asked. The reply was a torrent of French, incomprehensible to Drinkwater but containing what he took to be names, each succeeded by the word
mort
, from which he deduced that most of
La Torride
's officers were either dead or dying. Certainly no other uniformed figure appeared. Leaving the
aspirant
to muster his crew and draw up a list of the casualties Drinkwater made a brief inspection of the ship before returning to
Hellebore
.

‘She's the ship corvette
La Torride
of the Rochefort squadron, sir, hulled in several places and unmanageable with her steering destroyed . . .' He went on to outline the shambles he had found.
When he had finished Griffiths pursed his lips and thought for a moment.

‘If we can get a dhow back from Ben Ibrahim we'll let them go,
bach
, on parole for Suez. Take out of her powder, any useful shot, stores, water and rope, I recollect you want rope. In fact ransack her, though no man is to touch an item of personal belongings, we'll leave looting to our Arab friends. Go on, get back to her, quick now. I'll send Rogers and the other boat to requisition a dhow if that pirate has already grabbed them all. Bring back the cadet, he may be more forthcoming than a recalcitrant officer with ideas of his honour.'

There followed a day of back-breaking endeavour in which Drinkwater, with an enthusiasm engendered in first lieutenants when storehouses are thrown open to them, replenished almost every want of the
Hellebore
. On the basis that there were no officers surviving to lay claim to her cabin stores, he judiciously appropriated a quantity of wine which brought a gleam to Trussel's eye comparable to that bestowed on the French powder. Trussel begged Drinkwater for a pair of fine brass chase guns but the condition of the boats and the state of the sea prevented their removal. The operation was carried out despite the sharks that were congregating astern, round the flotilla.

By nightfall, when Drinkwater's weary party finally returned to
Hellebore, La Torride
was stripped of useful moveables, an empty shell with smoke issuing from her hatchways and sufficient powder left aboard to dismember her. She blew up and sank an hour later but by then
Hellebore
with her attendant dhows was five miles to the southward, standing towards the Strait of Tiran and the Red Sea.

Leaving the deck to Lestock, Drinkwater stumbled wearily below, calling for Meyrick to pour him a glass of grog. He was relaxing as Dalziell entered, thrusting the French cadet before him with a vicious shove. He seemed slightly discomfitted to find Drinkwater in the gunroom.

‘Er, Mr Rogers's orders sir, the captain wants to interview him.' He jerked his head at the dishevelled French youth who looked terrified.

‘You may leave him here, Mr Dalziell, and on your return to the deck acquaint Mr Rogers with my desire that he draws up a list of our casualties and brings it to me on completion.'

Dalziell took the muster book from Drinkwater's outstretched
hand. Drinkwater motioned the French cadet to a seat and poured him some grog. He saw the boy gag on the spirit then swallow more. Gradually a little colour came to his cheeks.

‘
Nom, m'sieur?
' asked Drinkwater in his barbarous French as kindly as he could manage.

‘
Je m'appelle Gaston, m'sieur, Gaston Bruilhac, Aspirant de la première classe
.'

‘
Comprenez-vous anglais, Gaston?
'

Bruilhac shook his head. Drinkwater grunted, finished the grog and made up his mind. He leaned across the table. ‘
Mon Capitaine, Gaston, il est très intrepide, n'est pas?
'