Ebb Tide (13 page)

'Up helm!' Callowell roared again. 'Up helm or we'll be raked!'

Callowell's order was too late. The flicker of the enemy cannon showed close ahead, just as the helmsmen began to drag the great tiller across the steerage below.

'Larboard battery! Fire as you bear!' Smetherley's voice cracked the night in its imperious shrillness. As the enemy shot tore into
Cyclops,
there was a brief pause and then a desultory fire was returned. The strange ship continued to turn off the wind to larboard and the two frigates ran down each other's sides on opposite courses, with
Cyclops
herself beginning her swing off the wind.

'Belay that order!' Smetherley now shouted, confusing the issue. 'Put your helm
down,
sir!
Down!'

As the British frigate turned, she increasingly presented her vulnerable stern to the enemy, inviting further raking fire. Smetherley now sought to cross the enemy's rear, but the matter had been left far too late. The reversing helm dragged speed off the British frigate's progress and the brief moment in which
Cyclops
had her quarry at a disadvantage was lost. The larboard guns had yet to be reloaded, and the raking shots fired were far too few to achieve anything of significance. Then, as the enemy extended the range, the opportunity was lost.

Drinkwater reported his sighting of the enemy's ensign. 'French colours, sir.'

Smetherley's attention, however, was swiftly diverted to a more immediate concern.

'She'll not stay, sir,' Drinkwater heard Blackmore shout as
Cyclops
came up in the wind with a sluggish feel to her.

'God damn!' Smetherley swore as the ship steadied, heading into the wind's eye. With a crack and a kind of roaring noise that was compounded of parting ropes, flapping canvas and wood and iron descending in slow motion, the foretopmast went by the board. The extra pressure of the wind had parted forestays damaged by the enemy's opening shots and now, as
Cyclops
emerged into a patch of moonlight, the foredeck was littered with fallen spars and festooned with rigging and canvas from aloft. Some hung over the side; to tear at the frigate's forechains where men were already cutting away the wreckage.

Drinkwater dutifully returned his attention to the progress of the enemy. He thought the Frenchman would now escape entirely, but the enemy commander, having seen the predicament of the British frigate in the sudden moonlight, was not about to let an opportunity slip through his fingers.

'Enemy's wearing ship, sir!' Drinkwater reported.

'What's that?' Smetherley spun round, distracted from the mess on the forecastle and in the waist by Drinkwater's shout.

'He's wearing ship, sir.'

The patch of moonlight spread and they could plainly see the enemy cruiser's larboard broadside as she turned her stern through the wind.

'He's going to re-engage, sir,' Drinkwater remarked. Smetherley raised his glass and Drinkwater could hear him muttering. 'Call the master,' he said audibly after a moment.

Drinkwater went forward in search of Blackmore whom he found directing the work of clearing the mess forward and bringing the ship under command again.

'Captain wants you, Mr Blackmore,' he said.

Blackmore grunted, gave a final instruction and walked aft. 'Carpenter's reporting water in the well, sir,' he stated. 'That Frenchman's hulled us.'

'And he's coming back to finish off what he started, Mr Blackmore,' Smetherley said, pointing astern just as the moon disappeared again and they seemed suddenly plunged into an impenetrable gloom.

'Well, we're making a fine stern board at the moment, sir, he may misjudge matters.'

'I wish to re-engage,' Smetherley replied. Then, turning to Drinkwater, he ordered, 'Let the officers on the gun-decks know they're to open fire when their guns bear, the unengaged side to assist the other. D'you understand, Drinkwater?'

'Perfectly, sir.' Drinkwater ran off to find Wallace and cannoned into Callowell at the head of the companionway.

'Where's the master?'

'On the quarterdeck, sir, with Captain Smetherley. The Frenchman's running back towards us and I'm to let the officers on the gun-deck know'

Callowell made off as Drinkwater descended into the greater darkness of the gun-deck. In contrast to the chaos above, a sinister order reigned below. Almost on the very spot where Drinkwater had turned aside the mutiny, all had changed. Gone were the grey lumps of the hammocks and the neat row of officers' cabins; gone were the white painted bulkheads shutting off the after end of the ship for the privacy of her commander and officers. Now a long, almost open space, intersected by stanchions, gratings, half-empty shot-garlands and the massive bulk of the two capstans, was lined by the gleaming black barrels of the frigate's main armament of guns. The fitful light of the protected battle-lanterns threw long shadows and conferred an ominous movement upon what was largely a motionless scene, with the gun-crews in readiness about their pieces and only the scampering of the ship's boys making any significant noise in the expectant gloom. It struck Drinkwater with peculiar force that these men had almost no knowledge of what was going on above their heads. He ran forward in search of Wallace and found him peering out of a gun-port.

'Mr Wallace, sir.'

Wallace turned and straightened himself up as far as the deck-beams would allow. 'Ah, what news do you bring?'

'We've lost the foretopmast...'

'We thought something must have given way...'

'And the enemy's worn ship. You're to re-engage with whatever battery bears, the other side to assist.'

'Short range?'

'I would think so, sir.'

'Shot?'

'Whatever you think fit, sir,' said Drinkwater, only afterwards noting the significance of the phrase.

'Ball on ball, then. That should do for a start.' Wallace turned and shouted, 'Double-shot your guns, my lads! They're coming back for a taste of rusty iron!'

Suddenly the gun-deck was alive with movement, like a nest of rats stirred from their sleep, the gun-trucks rumbling on the planking and sending a trembling throughout the frigate.

'Good luck, sir.' Drinkwater hurried aft in search of the companionway and the upper-deck. Here too all had changed, for the distance between the two ships had closed and the enemy seemed to tower over them as he drove across their bows for a second time. But this was a more ponderous manoeuvre in contrast with the quickwitted desperation of the first. The enemy ship had shortened sail and, while
Cyclops's
stern board had robbed the Frenchman of the chance to attack from leeward and rake the vulnerable stern of his quarry by throwing her maintopsail aback at the right moment, he might still inflict severe punishment on his former pursuer by lying to athwart
Cyclops's
hawse.

However, now that the French ship was committed to raking from ahead,
Cyclops's
stern could be thrown round so that her larboard broadside bore upon the Frenchman. Callowell and Blackmore were urging this on Smetherley who gave the impression of dithering before agreeing. By hauling the main braces and putting over the helm,
Cyclops
was now brought round by degrees so that as the enemy guns reopened fire, the British frigate's larboard guns roared out in reply.

But the French commander was a bold man and backed his own maintopsail, drifting slowly down on to
Cyclops
and fighting his opponent gun for gun, matching discharge for discharge. A slow cloud of acrid powder-smoke rolled down upon them, musketry swept the deck like hail and, while heavy shot thumped into
Cyclops's
hull, the lighter calibre ball from the Frenchman's quarterdeck guns, mixed with deadly canister and langridge, blasted holes through the hammock nettings and knocked men down like bloody ninepins in the cold light of the growing dawn.

The view each man had of the fight became obscured in the smoke. Drinkwater, obliged to be always at the captain's elbow, kept his eyes on the dull gleam of Smetherley's figure. The din of the guns and the sharp crack of musketry rendered him partially deaf so that he felt rather than heard the almost simultaneous discharge of a French broadside. It struck him as a wave of hot, stinking gas, accompanied by the whirring roar of a passing ball and the involuntary gasp as the thing winded him.

Two more such devastating detonations followed, acts calculated to have maximum effect before boarding, for Drinkwater heard Callowell, as if at a great distance although he could be seen through the smoke, screaming to repel boarders.

Drinkwater saw Smetherley draw his sword and, as he drew his own, he caught a glimpse beyond the captain of a looming hedge of cutlasses and boarding-pikes a moment before there came to him the jarring impact as the two frigates ground together. A moment later he was fighting for his life.

He thrust his right shoulder forward and parried a pike, recovered and hacked at the arm that held it. He missed, but the man was past him and lunging to the left where, out of the corner of his eye, Drinkwater saw a marine jabbing a bayonet. He was confronted next by an officer with fiercely gleaming eyes. Drinkwater beat the man's extended blade and, in something akin to disbelief, watched the blade drop from the officer's fingers. Dully he realized the man's wrist had been shattered and that the ferocity in the poor fellow's eyes was the shock of pain. A cutlass blade seemed to appear from nowhere, being drawn back to hack at him. Drinkwater swept his arm in a cutting arc which Hollins would have approved of and felt his blade bite into the cutlass-bearer's side as the weapon in turn slashed down. Somehow it missed him as the man dropped, knocking into Drinkwater with considerable force. Twisting away, Drinkwater slithered and fell. He felt a foot on his back and gasped for breath, filled with the vague idea that he would now be in further trouble for having deserted the captain. Then, the next instant, he was overcome by a desire to stay where he was, to give up this madness and succumb to the aching of his muscles. Who would notice? He might lie like a dog while the world took its course without him. It cared not for him; why should he care for it? He looked round and saw, twenty feet abaft him at the frigate's taffrail, a French officer fiddling with the ensign halliards.
Cyclops
was taken!

The thought filled him with an odd contentment. Smetherley and Callowell could go to hell, along with Baskerville and his miserable crew of insufferable cronies. But then he thought of poor White and of the things he had done for Drinkwater in tending him while he was enduring his two mastheadings; and Wheeler, who had helped him the previous morning; and poor old Blackmore and Appleby. Then the thought of captivity suddenly burst upon him as the French officer seemed to clear the halliards and begin to take down the British ensign. A second later Drinkwater was on his feet and rushing aft. The man looked round just as Drinkwater ran him through. Ice had settled in his heart now and his mind was strangely clear. He drew his blade from the dead weight of the fallen body, belayed the halliards and swung round. Looking forward he saw Captain Smetherley surrounded by three French seamen who were jabbing at him with pikes. Taking them in the rear, Drinkwater had dispatched two of them before the third fled and he confronted Smetherley who drew his breath in gasps.

'Recall, sir,' Drinkwater shouted, 'my loyalty's in question!' He was lightheaded now, not with the fainting fit which had almost overwhelmed him in Smetherley's cabin, but with a mad yet calculating coolness. Smetherley had regained his breath and, imbued with a bloody fighting lust and scarcely recognizing Drinkwater, flung himself at the rear of more Frenchmen who were pressing Wheeler's marines amid the heaving mass of men who struggled for possession of the forward quarterdeck. Drinkwater was left in sole possession of the space abaft the mizen and someone on the French frigate had noticed. A musket ball scored Drinkwater's shoulder, opening the seam of his coat and half turning him round with the force of its impact. As he stumbled, another French officer came over the rail, obviously intent on sweeping Drinkwater out of the way and finally hauling down the British colours.

Drinkwater met him with a savage swipe. The officer parried, but only partially, and such was the force of Drinkwater's blow that his blade slid down the French officer's sword, cutting into the man's thigh, severing a tendon and causing him to drop to one knee. As his head slipped forward, Drinkwater thumped at the back of the man's skull with the pommel of his sword, felling him completely.

A moment later another man slumped at his feet and Drinkwater recognized the bloody wreck of Smetherley who had been cut down by three or four Frenchmen intent on taking him prisoner and securing the surrender of the frigate. 'Drinkwater!' Smetherley cried.

Drinkwater stepped across the captain's body and stood over him, slashing wildly left and right, holding off the attackers. Beyond his immediate surroundings, he was quite oblivious of anything else. Down below, the gunners still plied their deadly trade, the gunfire unabating as the guns' barrels warmed up and the great pieces fairly leapt with eagerness at each discharge.

He could not tell that the fire from the French frigate had slowed and then almost stopped as the battering of the British guns gradually overcame their opposition. Thus, as the French boarders gained ground on the upper deck of
Cyclops,
the fierce tenacity of the British gunnery from the deck below was pounding their ship to pieces. Drinkwater drove off those of the enemy immediately intent on securing Captain Smetherley, unaware that he himself had received several light flesh wounds.

As the French withdrew, Drinkwater regained his breath, aware of a general retreat and of an increasingly panic-stricken scrambling backwards of desperate men, pricked by Wheeler's marines' bayonets and hounded by British seamen. He had no idea what had caused this retrograde movement, but once started it seemed irreversible and soon Drinkwater saw the backs of the marines stabbing their way over the rail. Looking down, Drinkwater caught sight of Smetherley staring up at him, his eyes fixed and already clouding. The captain's white waistcoat was dark with blood and a great pool of it spread out round Drinkwater's feet. Then something splattered the pool of blood. Looking up, Drinkwater saw the French sharpshooter still in the mizen top. Without a pistol Drinkwater relinquished his charge and stepped to the larboard rail, put his foot on the truck of a quarterdeck gun and hoisted himself into the mizen rigging.