A Shot Rolling Ship (25 page)

‘Will she answer to the sails?’

‘She will,’ Latimer replied, ‘but not with anything like grace.’

‘She never had that, Latimer, but let’s try and bring her round.’

‘Top hampers gone, so’es you’ll need to let fall the maincourse and set a jib to keep her head steady.’

Pearce smiled at the old man. ‘Make it so, Mr Latimer. I will be back on deck before we are round.’

‘Mr Latimer,’ crowed Michael, ‘did you hear that lads. We’ll be tipping our caps to him now.’

Blubber could not be kept out of a jest. ‘One of those Frenchies gets your friend, Paddy, and he’ll be captain.’

Pearce went below again, to kneel by Lieutenant
Colbourne, who, still unconscious, lay flat out on the deck. Looking at the arm, with a tight tourniquet on the upper part having stopped the flow of blood, Pearce reckoned it so damaged, with the two ends of bone poking out and trails of sinew, that it would probably have to come off. There was no one aboard with the competence to undertake that; he needed a proper surgeon and casting his eyes about Pearce knew he was one of any number, these thoughts running through his mind as around him the shouts reverberated as instructions were called down from the deck to be relayed to the men working the rudder.

The thought that
Centurion
would have a surgeon was followed by one less welcome; so would the French 74. He could surrender the ship and quite possibly save some lives. That the idea was anathema to him was of little consideration; there were a lot of men aboard this ship which might well be in danger of sinking, and it was, as had already been proved, certainly not of a size to engage the enemy. Really, despite his earlier thoughts of personal revenge, the decision was one for the whole crew, not a notion that the man he was looking at would approve of.

Latimer had got
Griffin
round by the time he came on deck again, though with nothing sheeted home the ship was wallowing on the swell, so it was by looking over the bows he saw the deteriorating situation of
Centurion
. You did not have to be a sailor to see that she was in deep trouble and that was getting worse by the minute. Little now existed above her lower masts, the bulwarks were totally stove in along their whole length and the
firing for her remaining guns seemed uncoordinated.

That sailor’s head came up again. ‘Four foot of water in the well, sir, and still making fast.’

‘He should strike,’ Pearce said, nodding towards
Centurion
.

‘He won’t, Latimer replied, ‘he’ll force them to board.’

‘Why!’

There was a wry look on the old man’s face as he replied. ‘Happen you don’t know much about the navy you’re in, Mr Pearce, but we’s not much given to packin’ it in until we’re sure we’s beat.’

‘And our own crew?’

‘Same.’

While Latimer had been speaking, Pearce had been examining the situation, his mind strangely clear of all distractions. He felt a slight tremor run through his body, the same kind he had always experienced just before a fist fight. It had happened to him as a boy and as a man, being something seen by him as a frisson of fear, a sensation to be ashamed of. Yet as always it had produced a heightened sense of awareness, the ability to not only see danger but to anticipate it, and with it this time came a half notion of a plan.

‘
Centurion
will be taken, will she not?’

‘Be a miracle if’n she ain’t.’

‘How long?’

Latimer thought before replying. ‘Half a glass, a whole one at the most.’

‘And so will we.’

‘Right after, fer certain, if we don’t sink afore.’

‘Can we get away?’

‘Hard to see how, the way we’re taking in water. Sinking won’t be quick, but she’ll sail even slower.’

Surrender? Thoughts of the Conciergerie surfaced again, that and the Bridewell with a similar stench and sewage running through the straw if the River Thames rose. They would imprison him and the crew and that was something he was determined to avoid. Added to that desire to revenge himself it was a heady brew.

‘Will the crew fight?’

Latimer looked at him then, in a strange way, as if he had a notion of what Pearce was thinking. ‘That’s what they’re here for.’

‘What would make that bastard draw off?’

‘A hundred gun ship, which I take leave to doubt will suddenly appear.’

Pearce’s eyes were on the eighteen pounder carronades, that and the line of nine pounders, and then he looked towards the stern of the French 74, close enough now to pick out the name,
Valmy
, and some of the words Colbourne had used earlier came back to him. Could it be done, to get the crew of this ship aboard their consort and so disable the enemy as to allow them to get clear? If it was possible it was unlikely, but to Pearce it represented the only hope they had, so it had to be worth a try.

‘Let’s get under way. I want all starboard guns loaded and run out.’ An expression he had heard, one in common usage ashore, came back to him and he added, without
really being sure it was the right thing to say, ‘Double shotted!’

‘It’d be better if you give the orders, not me.’

‘Stay here, I will need you.’

Pearce stepped up to the small space that had once been the quarterdeck, now scarred, without a wheel or a binnacle, searching his mind for the words to use. ‘Michael, a party on the falls to sheet home. Let’s get some way on the ship. Blubber, sort out gun crews for the starboard battery and make sure each has a good captain.’

He looked at Latimer then who said quietly, ‘We need a party on the pumps.’

He gave the orders, then added, as he saw the man he so disliked. ‘Gherson, you lazy sod, get pumping.’

There was a pause while he thought through what else had to be done, things for which he did not need Latimer. ‘I want the carpenter and all his mates on deck with as much of their spare planking as they can get out of the holds. Michael, once the sails are set and drawing take your men below and fetch the wounded on deck. Lay them behind the bulwarks on the starboard side. Stand by with grappling irons and every man who can use a musket and is not otherwise engaged to get one ready for use.’

‘Christ, Pearce,’ exclaimed Latimer, ‘you planning to board the Frenchie?’ ‘

Wait and see.’

The creaks and groans of protesting timber, as HMS
Griffin
got under way, yards braced round to take the now helpful wind, were familiar and somehow strangely reassuring, so that Pearce felt a twinge of something approaching gratification as, with orders shouted below and with the men pulling hard, she answered to her rudder. It was not smooth, there was a certain amount of unwelcome yawing to and fro, but once he had got the course he wanted set, the bowsprit aimed right for
Centurion
’s side amidships, he told them to lash it off to hold it steady. Looking over the bows he could see the smoke-filled and narrowing gap into which he was heading. The high-pitched whistling sound was mystifying, until he recalled that he had already heard it twice that day. The
Centurion
’s deck was being swept with grape, designed to kill anyone who sought to oppose the act of boarding.

To the front of Pearce the carpenter and his mates were hammering and lashing together their spare planking to make stretchers. One or two completed, the comatose wounded, Colbourne and Short included, were being strapped on before being laid between the starboard guns, others who could walk were shepherded to a place of relative safety, sat back to the bulwarks. Muskets were being primed and loaded, swords, clubs and pikes laid ready, while aloft, on the stump of the mainmast yard, the topmen were rigging blocks with slings to lift those stretchers, so that once alongside
Centurion
, they could try to get them aboard. Pearce had no doubt that few of them would make it unscathed; that applied to every man in the crew if what he planned to do came to pass, but at least it gave them a chance, for there was no doubt in his mind that the last place they would be safe once he had completed the task he had set himself was on this deck. If it worked they might just live. If not? Well that was not a helpful thing to dwell on.

‘They’s spotted what we’re about,’ said Latimer, still by Pearce’s side, pointing to someone on the
Valmy
’s taffrail gesticulating at them. ‘Reckon we’ll take a salvo from their stern chasers afore we get under them.’

‘Under them?’

‘We’s low and those cannon are maindeck. Once we’s close they won’t be able to tip them enough to hit us.’

‘That’s good to know.’

‘By that time,’ Latimer said, with wry amusement, ‘we should be close enough to the lower deck thirty-two
pounders to look like a right sweet target.’

‘I was hoping they would think us too puny to care about.’

‘Then you was hoping wrong, mate.’

‘What do you reckon?’

Latimer’s hand went to hold his chin, a sign that what he was about to say was speculation, which reassured Pearce since it matched his own lack of certainty. ‘Our deck is about level with their lower guns and they will want the hull if they can get her.’

‘We’re sinking, you said so yourself.’

‘Pity is, they don’t know that, and with what they’ve got, they can take out the bulwarks both sides quick as kiss my hand. But them stern chasers are first to worry about, and I reckon they will pepper us with grapeshot.’

A head came up the hatch and a voice called out, ‘Eight feet of water in the well.’

The party on the rudder, and those pumping, were safe from that but that was not the case for others, so he called down those aloft. ‘Anyone not manning a cannon, get below. Everybody else, get behind the trunnion and keep your head down.’

‘Us an’ all?’ Latimer asked.

Pearce moved to the rearmost larboard gun and sat on the deck, followed by the older man. Lying there, they heard the whistle and swish as grape swept over the deck, the clang as some of it hit metal, the thud of straight shot and ricochets embedding themselves in wood, but he heard no screams, and that was what mattered.

‘Everyone up,’ he shouted, getting to his own feet. ‘Let’s show the bastards we’re alive.’

That brought forth not only sailors, but a load of shouted insults and filthy gestures aimed at the French gunners. Pearce went to the bows, then walked quickly back down the line of guns, ordering them elevated so that they would fire as high as they could.

‘How are we doing, John boy?’ asked Michael.

His tone was slightly jocular, the same as it always was when he asked that question. If the Irishman had any fear of what they were sailing into, he was not the man to show it, nor was he one to give a hint of any doubt about what his friend was doing. It had been the same every time they had gone into a fight before.

The answer was a whisper. ‘I feel like a fake, Michael.’

‘Don’t you believe it. Sure, have I not said before, you were born to be a blue coat.’

‘Is we goin’ to get out of this Pearce?’ asked Rufus, who was not too proud to tremble.

Pearce patted the carronade they were manning, the last on the deck, and spoke with a certainty he did not feel. ‘Ask me when this has been fired.’

It was a tense Charlie Taverner who added, looking over Pearce’s shoulder to the badly damaged
Centurion
, ‘Hope we have breath in us to do it.’

What could he say to them; lay out the choices, tell them they might accept being prisoners but he would not, add that he had only a vague idea of what he was about and it was a hope rather than a certainty that they would
survive. They had always burdened him with the making of decisions, now he was making them without considering that they might think differently, and for once, he felt no misgivings about doing so. Perhaps Michael O’Hagan was right.

Behind him Latimer was silently counting off the time with his fingers, and after he had gone across his hands several times, mouthing the pattern of loading and running out a cannon, he shouted, ‘Time to get our heads down again.’

Pearce complied, as did everyone on the deck, just seconds before another load of grape swept over. Apart from balls thudding into the masts there was little sound this time apart from the high-pitched whistle of its passing, until they heard the patter of a mass of small shot hitting the wake of the ship.

The armed cutter, with the wind coming over her starboard quarter, was making less speed as the water filling her holds slowed her down. Closing on the two near-stationary ships the gap was closing rapidly, now barely big enough for
Griffin
to enter, with the faces of musket-bearing Frenchmen leaning over the rail in plain view. Looking across the thirty yards of water he could see the remnants of
Centurion
’s gunners running out what was left of their maindeck battery, and within seconds the air was again full of sound, fury and shot, of breaking wood, of screams, which partly masked the sound as a lead ball hit the planking by his feet. Looking down, he saw how close was the gouged wood, and he
knew he had been lucky not to get it in the foot.

‘Those of you that have muskets ready and loaded, clear those sods off that rail above our head.’

Pearce went forward again as the guns were lifted, aimed and fired quickly by the marines, less efficiently by the tars, not looking at those returning fire from the enemy poop for to do so would be useless – providence would decide if he was going to take a shot – going to the first nine pounder and standing behind it. Each cannon would fire in turn, and since it was his scheme they were going to try and execute he was determined to be the sole arbiter of when the flintlocks should be sparked. They were under the
Valmy
’s counter now, close enough to touch the gilding on the stern decoration and ahead Pearce could see the first of the lower deck cannon that could do them damage, its black spout, with a wisp of hot smoke lazily exiting its muzzle, waiting for them to come alongside.

‘Sam, Matt,’ he called to the pair, ‘get some wads off the gunner and soak them in turpentine. We need something to set them alight as well.’

‘Slowmatch’ll do it for turps,’ Sam replied, as Matt ran below shouting for help.

Griffin
was hardly making any way at all now, and she was definitely wallowing as the bowsprit crept past the Frenchman’s stern. It went completely quiet;
Centurion
would not fire for fear of hitting
Griffin
and the Frenchman was just waiting, knowing that the armed cutter was placing itself in between the two fighting vessels in an attempt to save her larger consort, waiting to blow her out of the water
and out of the way before completing the day’s work. As the first cannon came abreast of the Frenchman’s rudder, Pearce pulled the lanyard on the nine pounder and jumped clear of the recoil.

At a range of less than thirty feet it should have been impossible to miss the rudder, but miss he did, the ball flying past to land harmlessly in the water beyond. By that time, having told the first crew to scarper aft, Pearce was behind the second nine pounder, this time more careful and more successful. The ball hit home, but even at such close range it did no more than create surface splintering on what was a substantial piece of timber. On down the line he went, seeing in the corner of his eye Sam with a pair of armourer’s tongs holding at arm’s length a flaming wad.

‘Through the gunport, Sam. Lets give the buggers on those cannon something to think about other than shooting at us.’

The French gunners could have fired at the foredeck, but they must have realised, looking along the muzzle, with the larboard side deserted, there was no one to aim at. So they waited until that first nine pounder came alongside, and assuming there must be a gun crew hiding behind the bulwarks, they blew both that and the gun asunder. The clang was deafening and the nine pounder and its trunnion, all a ton and a half of it, flew across the deck and smashed through the larboard side and jammed there. The balls that had been in the garlands were likewise dislodged and began to roll about the deck making that noise so like thunder.

‘This is no time to be thinking of mutiny,’ Michael called out, as he stooped to catch one of the cannon balls, a joke that brought forth a laugh from the men, a sound that increased in volume as he threw it hard at the side of the enemy ship.

As the thirty-two pounder was withdrawn to reload, Sam threw his flaming wad through the gap, while Matt followed that with half a bucketful of turpentine, whooping with delight as he heard the cries of panic that his action engendered, for he knew, if Pearce did not, just how much sailors feared fire. Flames shot out of the gunport, and they heard a dull explosion as some powder, possibly a waiting cartridge, blew up. By that time Sam had a second one going and that went through just as Pearce fired the next gun, taking more splinters off the rudder, again ordering the gun crew aft as the second French thirty-two pounder fired a ball that went right through both bulwarks of the ship.

Griffin
began to grind along the side of
Centurion
, and proof of how tight the gap had been came when the bow of the armed cutter collided with and bounced off the side of the Frenchman. Already the grappling irons were flashing out, not yet to secure
Griffin
but in readiness for when the order came. Hands were coming out of
Centurion
’s lower ports offering to take the walking wounded, an offer of which Gherson, who seemed not to have a scratch, took immediate advantage. The curse that Pearce wanted to shout after him died on his lips, being pointless. With only a foot to spare the ship ground on, crashing into one vessel
then the other, by which time five nine pounder balls had been aimed at the enemy rudder. If they weakened it, the two carronades did the real damage, the first of their heavier balls smashing it near in half, the second removing the lower section so completely that the enemy would be denied steerage way. That was when
Griffin
ground to a halt, finally crushed between the two ships, her bulwarks shattered, and guns dismounted by the relentless fire of the enemy, half the cannon balls on deck rolling into the scuppers. But Sam and Matt had done good service too, since many of the gunports were belching smoke from a fire those behind the scantlings were struggling to contain.

‘Lash us off tight,’ Latimer called, to those on the grappling lines.

Colbourne and Midshipman Short were already aloft by the time that order was given, hauled by the crew and hooked in to land on the larger ship’s deck. Just as they disappeared a rope hit the planking beside Pearce, as the first of the French boarders dropped to their deck, with others trying to get at them from those gunports free of flames. He might have died on the spot but for Michael O’Hagan, who stepped past him to clout, with another cannonball, an enemy sailor raising his short heavy sword. The man dropped like a stone as the Irishman’s hand caught his coat collar and pulled him backwards into a line that had been formed without his bidding, made up of all the crew that could hold a weapon. Now it was the turn of the enemy to face musket fire as the men on the
Centurion
fired over their heads. It created a temporary
respite, and dropped several of them, before they closed to fight hand to hand.

The men of the
Griffin
began to scrap hard, to contest their deck, their numbers as those below came up, which must have come as a shock to their enemies, initially pushing the French back to their own ship’s side. This was not what Pearce had in mind, for in the end there was no way they could hold off what the enemy could eventually throw at them, and there was precious little space on the armed cutter’s deck for the assistance that could come from their consort. His idea was to get on to
Centurion
and then hopefully Marchand could get that vessel, badly damaged as she was, away from the
Valmy
. If Pearce had read it right – and he had plenty of doubt that he had – without a rudder the Frenchman would be unable to chase, and once the British Man o’ War was out of range, she could get both her crew and that of
Griffin
to safety. As for the armed cutter, she would no doubt sink.

These thoughts came to him as he was heavily engaged on a deck that, even with the holds full of seawater, rose and fell with the swell. Colbourne’s sword might be a bit ceremonial, but it was a weapon with which Pearce was familiar; he knew how to use it to good effect, though it took several blows with the hilt, a jab with the knife in his other hand and a couple of well aimed kicks to deter those right in front of him and create the right amount of space to render the sharp blade dangerous and the thrusting point deadly. To his left he had Michael, formidable with just a marlin spike in his one hand, backed up by a left
fist, while on his right he could use his longer weapon to keep those before Charlie and Rufus at bay. They were fighting too, they were just not doing so as effectively as the Irishman.