H. M. S. Cockerel (50 page)

The corvette fired in reply; both her bow-chasers barked together this time, so near was she to being dead astern, framed on the very last vestige of his ship's foaming, spreading wake. One ball flew high, low above the starboard gangway, to smash into the forecastle bulkhead up forward. The second slammed into her transom again, low down, below the wardroom windows. There were muffled screams below. If the surgeons had been using the midshipmen's berth, the cockpit, as their surgery . . . ! On the orlop! Those were women's screams!

Just as easily, the corvette could pick her apart, too. Shoot
Radical
's
rigging to lace and slow her down, rendering her helpless. Then surge alongside, cannon blazing point-blank, boarders ready . . . Strike the colours, he mused? Surrender to the inevitable?

Then those French boarders, those revolutionary, Republican men with steel in their hands and blood lust in their eyes, would murder everyone aboard, soon as they found out what his passengers were, and cheat the guillotines. British sailors could expect no better treatment, either. They'd butcher and slaughter as merciless as pirates, those victory-drunk, vengeful French Republican sailors, niceties of nationality be-damned.

For a stark moment of bleakness, Lewrie looked upon his death as a given, an inevitability soon to be realised. Outrunning them wasn't in the cards. One more well-aimed shot could end it all, and render his ship as crippled as that first unfortunate corvette.

God, a little help here, I'm runnin' out of options, he prayed. Haven't a bloody
clue
what to do next. Shot my last bolt? So weary

I can't
think!
Got a storm in Your pockets? A slant of wind?

Another round-shot sighed in, singing a piccolo tune. Smashed into the transom again, blowing a cloud of splinters aloft from starboard as it demolished the wardroom quarter-gallery.

He surprised himself when he snickered aloud at that.

Thankee, God! Already scared so shitless . . . and here they just blew out the “jakes”! Strike? Stand on, clueless . . . or fight?

“Mister Spendlove? Oh, there you are,” Lewrie said of a sudden, turning away from his fell musings. “Right, then. Summon all the officers, foot, horse and Marine. We've some scheming to do.”

C H A P T E R 8

W
e
are too slow,” Lewrie announced, amidships of the quarter-deck nettings, looking down into the waist at his assembled “crewmen.” And Lieutenant de Crillart translated for him, phrase for grim phrase. “We cannot outrun her. We cannot strike our colours, either, and surrender. You know what that would mean . . . for yourselves . . . and your families.”

As that was turned into French, he peered into their bleak-set faces, lips compressed and mouths pale. Women and children had come up from the horrors of the echoing, drumming orlop, drawn by the cheering, and the lack of dangerous noises which had followed, the absence of broadsides being fired, gun-trucks thundering and squealing. A bang or two now and then from far aft, the keen of round-shot from the Frog corvette was nothing in comparison. They, too, stood with faces grim. Some whimpered, cooed to vex-some, querulous children, dandled babes in arms who sensed what was to come, without waiting for a translation.

They stood with their men where they could, those who still had men, listening as Lewrie stood four-square above them, delivering what even he thought was a “whistling past the graveyard” peroration.

Roman Legions got perorated before every battle, to boost their fighting spirit, Alan recalled from translating so many of them in his school-day Latin classes—wondering if his was on a par with the ones delivered just before Lake Trasimeno, or Crassus's before his army was wiped out at Cannae.

“The Royal Navy frigate put about to summon help,” he lied with a straight face, unable to tell them they were beyond aid. “The French frigate downwind yonder is too far away to matter. This last enemy vessel pursuing us is our greatest danger.”

While Charles turned that into French, he looked alee, raising his eyebrows in perhaps the only delight he could discover. The enemy frigate
was
too far downwind, dithering. She'd come hard on the wind on the larboard tack for a time, clawing her way south, but had gone about to starboard tack, to take a look at her injured consort before hardening up once more. She'd abandoned her pursuit of the two-decker on the horizon and the horse transport, and was now approaching those two transports Lewrie had earlier used as shields, content with taking
something,
at least, after a frustrating morning's work. That put her five miles alee, instead of four, and a full hour away, even should the transports strike to her at once.

“Ahum,” Charles prompted with a fisted cough, drawing Lewrie in-board once more.

“They have well-drilled gun crews . . .
we
do not,” Alan continued, pointing astern. As if in punctuation, two round-shot droned overhead, making everyone duck and cringe. “We cannot stand . . . beam to beam . . . and trade shot with them. But!” he cried, leaning one hand on the net and light wood railing, above the tangle of fallen mizzen topmasts, and pointing at them with the other. “You have defeated one ship. And you will defeat this one! We will close with her . . . they will not expect us to do that. We will lash to her . . . and we will board her! We have men of the 18th Regiment of Foot, the fearsome Royal Irish, among us. Among us we have brave infantry, Royalist infantry . . . gallant cavalrymen. And we have hard-handed men of the French Royal Navy . . . and best of all . . . my British tars . . . shoulder to shoulder . . . with their cutlasses . . . they may cut and slash their way to the Gates of Hell, may the Devil himself take arms against them!”

Right, I don't believe it, either, Alan groaned to himself, seeing what little encouragement the French civilians felt to his blood-thirsty promises, his mounting harangue. They looked like bored voters.

“And when we board her,” Lewrie concluded, “you courageous gentlemen of
la belle France
. . . you must strike them down!
Sans merci!
It is your blood or theirs. We must conquer them . . . or they will conquer you. When the time comes, fearless gentlemen of France . . .”

Bloody toady's what you are, me lad, he thought, in spite of all.

“Strike for your beloved, murdered monarchs! Strike for your nation! Strike for your honour! And strike,” Lewrie softened from a hoarse shout to a voice they had to strain to hear, “for the lives of your wives . . . your children . . . your dear ones . . . strike to protect the helpless babes. Put your own lives at risk . . . and fight like true men. 'Stead of kneeling like whipped animals at the foot of the guillotine.”

He paused, seeing some steel appear in their eyes, some heads up more erect. And some trembling like treed cats, with tears upon their cheeks, faces twisted with impending grief and fear into death grimaces.

“We dare all!” he called, loud once more. “We will fight! As men! If we die as men . . . we die on our feet, not on our knees! They . . . those Revolutionaries astern of us, have only their hatred to die for. Where are
their
families, where are
their
convictions? Be ready!”

The two stern-chasers went off with a close double bang, to end his peroration. And a thin cheer from the gunners aft, who'd finally hit something, said more than anything he could further compose.

He looked to Madame Hortense de Crillart beside her son Louis, trying to be as brave as a Spartan matron who'd send her children off to battle, urging them to come home “with your shield . . . or on it”—dead before dishonoured. Sophie de Maubeuge stood trembling with her, eyes wide in fear, eyes only for Charles. Phoebe Aretino, not too far away from them, among the lower-class dependents . . . and the few suddenly widowed or orphaned, therefore shunned, as if it was catching. “The ladies must go below once more, out of harm's way. See to your children and each other. Be as courageous as your menfolk will be.”

Lewrie turned away, to stride to the wheel and look aft at his foe. She was up within a half a mile of them by then, edging even more upwind of
Radical.
He could see down her starboard side.

“Magnifique, mon ami,”
Lieutenant de Crillart said, coming to join him. “Ve
Français . . . très dramatique, hein?
I add to you' speech,
pardon
. . . on'y
un peu.
Now, vot ve do to defeat zem?”

“Frankly, Charles, I haven't a bloody clue,” Lewrie confessed.

“Ah.”

The corvette would have to swing off the wind and lose all the progress she'd made upon them, if she wished to employ her main artillery. To swing up harder to the wind would put her in-irons, so it was not the starboard battery, which he could see, that would be the threat. She could fall off, haul her wind, slew about briefly, and touch off a broadside from her larboard battery before coming back to full-and-by. But that would sacrifice her slight, and hard-won, windward advantage. And perhaps an eighth of a mile of separation, which she would have to make back up.

“She'll stand on, as she is,” Lewrie muttered aloud. “Quarter-hour more, and she'll be upwind of us . . . 'bout an hundred yards or so. And off our larboard quarter. That is, if they don't shoot something else away from our rigging beforehand.”

“Ze wind an' sea . . .” Charles pointed out with a sour shrug: a drop in the wind, a calming of the seas. Neither vessel hobbyhorsed any longer, cleaving smoother paths. That was advantage to the French, they knew. They would have less wave resistance, could go faster to windward, and pinch up to gain even more windward position without a heavy quarter-sea butting against their bows when they did so. And it would make their foredeck a much less boisterous gun platform, so their aim would surely improve.

“Préparez . . . tirez!”
one of the French gunners called out to his men. The larboard, upwind stern-chaser barked.
“Hourra! Le coup au but!”
he crowed in triumph.

“Oh, well shot!” Lewrie exclaimed. The eight-pounder round-shot had hit along the starboard side, fine on the bows, among the pin-rails for the jib sheets, right next to the starboard bow-chaser. Men had spilled wounded or frightened from the gun. And the corvette's jib sheets had been set free. The taut ellipses luffed and spilled wind, nagging to leeward, bulging flaccid, losing their knife- edge tautness. Inner and outer flying jibs and fore topmast stays'ls balanced a ship working to windward, gave her the fore-and-aft drive to lay her there, slicing the apparent wind. Without them, she would have to fall off. Square sails, no matter how braced round, could never drive a ship that close to the wind.

The corvette slewed, indeed, heeling farther to starboard for a moment, her helm down to keep what they had. For a second, it appeared she might round up higher, yielding to weather-helm. But she did fall off at last, as men raced to control those sheets, haul them flat-in, and belay them once more. But when she settled, under full control . . . she was dead astern. Her windward advantage had been lost!

“A quarter-hour to close to musket-shot, but . . .” Lewrie grinned.

That close-aboard, dead in my wake, he schemed; let's say we haul our wind, give him the starboard battery, a point-blank broadside . . . no, he'll take it, then rush on past our stern. I'd have to fall away almost dead downwind to fire, and that'd lay our stern open for her to rake us . . .

That didn't sound promising. A stern-rake would expose everyone below, everyone on the gun deck, to round-shot bowling through the thin transom timbers, the great-cabins and wardroom, the orlop cockpit; an avalanche of iron, tumbling and ricocheting along her entire hull, the round-shot caroming from the thick hull timbers, contained within. There could be fifty . . . sixty dead and wounded in a twinkling. All his precious fighting men . . . women and children, too.

Best take it abeam, Lewrie thought;
Radical
's
a forty-gun frigate—built to take twelve-pounder fire. Reenforced to take eighteen-pounder shot? It'd make sense for them to stiffen her, to take the recoil of her new gun batteries, if nothing else. I can stand her eight-pounders a lot easier than her timbers could my shot, even hull to hull!

Or not take her fire at all? Bow-rake
her!
Let her stand on as she is, and . . . ! Lewrie almost squirmed with hopeful expectation.

“Quartermaster?”

“Aye, sir?”

“Let her fall off, slowly. Very slowly,” Lewrie commanded. “A half a point, no more. Give it up, spoke at a time.”

“Haul our wind, sir?” the helmsman yelped, turning to look over his shoulder at him for a dread, outraged instant, before discipline and years of training to concentrate aloft and nowhere else took over. “Aye aye, sir,” he said at last, returning his concentration to the coach whip of the pendant overhead, the luffs of the mainmast sails. He eased the helm a single spoke, then began counting to himself, under his breath, before he'd yield the second.

“Alain . . . pourquoi?”
de Crillart demanded, similarly outraged.

“Why, to
have
the bastard, Charles!” Alan replied, almost gleeful. “To
have
the bastard! Mister Porter, come to the quarterdeck!”

“Aye, sir?” Porter said, hat in hand. “Leak, sir? They be nigh to a foot below now, if that's wot y'r askin' 'bout, Mr. Lewrie.”

“Mostly aft?” Lewrie asked with a chuckle.

“Well, aye, sir,” Porter rejoined, seeing nothing humourous about their predicament. “Wot got past th' forrud chain pumps.”

“That'll make her quicker to come about, the bows light and the stern heavier,” Lewrie nodded, seeming pleased. “When I give you the word, Mister Porter, I want the hands to brace her round, like we were tacking. Before that . . . just before, I want everything aloft scandalised, brailed up damned sharp, in Spanish reefs. Then belayed, before every hand takes arms, ready for boarding.”

He glanced astern, as the corvette's bow-chasers were got back in action, barking shrill as terriers.

“We might have about ten minutes, Mr. Porter. I wish you to be ready with at least four grapnels. Two light'uns, for tossing, when I give you the order. And two more on heavier lines . . . three'r four-inch manila that can take a strain. About half a cable each for the heavy ones . . . ready round the capstans, fore and aft. Got that?”

“Aye, sir, I
think
so. Scandalise, brail up . . . the first order. Stations for stays, the second. Two light grapnels, and two heavy, to the capstans. Then ‘all-hands' to the gangways as boarders.”

“Until the heavy grapnels are across, and a strain taken, leave a crew at the capstans, Mr. Porter. Three men each, even after, so we stay put. More important,
she
stays where we put her.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Porter agreed, though mystified.

“I'm giving her the wind-gauge, Porter,” Lewrie explained, with a hand on the man's shoulder. “She'll take it, certain. Then, when we are too close and she's going to shoot us to flinders . . . we'll brail up and slow down like we just threw over a sea anchor. Tack right up, in-irons, across her bows, and grapnel to her. With
our
guns, Charles . . .” he said, turning to look at de Crillart . . . “with
our
guns aimed point-blank, in a bow-rake, and none but her bow-chasers able to bear upon
us
and Major de Mariel?” he called, letting Porter go. “Then your sharpshooters will clear her foredecks, and we will board. My sailors first, with pistols and cutlasses. And the heavy grapnels . . . then, Lieutenant Kennedy, your company after us. Cover my men with volley-fire, whilst we affix the grapnels. After that, gentlemen . . . it'll be bare steel, and Devil take the hindmost! Then we all board her, over her bows, to support my sailors and Lieutenant Kennedy's 18th Foot. To
take
her, gentlemen. To take her, before she can hope to take us! A fight to the finish, toe to toe. And no quarter until we stand upon her quarterdeck . . . and cut her colours down!”