The Corvette (28 page)

Hill altered course and Drinkwater watched the yards squared and the topmen work aloft, stiff monkeys in the frozen air as the studding sails fluttered on deck. He looked astern. A dozen burgomaster gulls flew in their wake and a few fulmars swept the sea to starboard but he no longer had time for such natural wonders. He was studying the strange ship coming up on their starboard quarter.

She was bigger than themselves, a frigate of twenty-eight guns, he reckoned, more than a match for the
Melusine
and wearing French colours.

A shot plunged into the water just astern of them. A second following a minute later struck the hull beneath his feet. Drinkwater hoped Cawkwell had lowered the window sashes. A third ball plunged under their stern. Her guns were well served and there was no doubt that, whether a national frigate or a well-appointed corsair, she was determined upon making a prize of the
Melusine
.

Drinkwater set his mouth in a grim line. He had fought the
Romaine
off the Cape of Good Hope from a position of disadvantage, but now there were no British cruisers in the offing to rescue him.

‘Ship's cleared for action, sir.' Bourne touched his hat. Drinkwater turned forward and looked along the deck. The gun crews were kneeling at their posts, the midshipmen with their parties in the fore and main tops, two men at each topgallant crossing and marines aloft in the mizen top. The sail trimmers were at the rails and pins; on the fo'c's'le the bosun stood, his silver whistle about his neck. The helm was in the hands of the two quartermasters with Mr Quilhampton standing casually alongside, his wooden hand holding the log slate. Gorton and Rispin commanded the two batteries, seconded by Glencross and Walmsley, while Mr Frey attended the quarterdeck, with Drinkwater, Hill, Bourne and Lieutenant Mount, whose marines lined the hammock nettings.

‘Very well, Mr Bourne.' He raised his voice. ‘Starboard battery make ready. I intend to haul our wind and rake from forward.' He
paused as another enemy ball found their stern. ‘You may fire as you bear, Mr Rispin, but take your time, my lads, and reload as if the devil was on your tail.' He nodded to Hill, ‘Very well, Mr Hill, starboard tack, if you please.'

Melusine
began to turn, heeling over as she brought the wind round on her beam. Gun captains pulled up their ports and drove home more quoins to counter-act the heel. Rispin, leaped from gun to gun, his hanger drawn.

‘God damn! Mr Frey, pass word to Tregembo to get my sword . . . Where the devil have you been, Tregembo?'

‘Sharpening your skewer, zur, 'twas as rusty as a church door knocker . . .' Tregembo buckled on the sword and handed Drinkwater a pair of pistols. ‘An' I took down the portraits, zur.' He reproached Drinkwater, his old face wrinkling with a kind of rough affection.

Drinkwater managed a half smile and then turned his attention to the ship. Above their heads the braces were swinging the yards. From forward he heard the report of the first gun and watched the enemy for the fall of shot. He saw splinters fly from the vessel's knightheads. Each gun fired in turn as
Melusine
crossed the stranger's bow, and although one or two holes appeared in the Frenchman's fore course and several spouts of water showed on either bow, most seemed to strike home. But as
Melusine
stretched out on the starboard tack she too exposed her stern to the enemy. They fired a broadside and several balls furrowed the deck, one wounded the mizen topmast and holes opened in the spanker. Somewhere below there rose the most horrible howl of agony and Drinkwater was aware of little Frey shaking beside him.

‘Mr Frey,' said Drinkwater kindly, ‘I don't believe anyone has loaded Captain Palgrave's fancy carronades. Would you and your two yeomen attend to it, canister might be useful later in the action, wouldn't you say?'

Frey focussed his eyes on the two brass carronades that Captain Palgrave's vanity had had installed at the hances. They still slumbered beneath oiled canvas covers. Frey nodded uncertainly and then with more vigour. ‘Aye, aye, sir.' It would be good for the child to have something to do.

Astern of them the enemy hauled into their wake. The
Melusine
's French build began to take effect. She started to open the distance between them.

‘Mr Bourne, pass word for the gunner to report to me.'

The gunner was called for at the hatchways and made his appearance a moment or two later, his felt slippers sliding incongruously upon the planking.

‘Ah, Mr Meggs, I want a caulked keg of powder with a three-minute fuse sealed up in canvas soon as you are able to arrange it.'

The gunner frowned, raised an eyebrow and compressed his toothless mouth. Then, without a word, knuckled his forehead and waddled below. Drinkwater turned to Bourne.

‘Well, Mr Bourne, whatever our friend is, he'll not get a gun to bear at the moment.'

Hill came up. ‘D'you intend to mine him, sir?'

Drinkwater grinned. ‘We'll try. It's a long shot, but I'm not certain that he's a national frigate. I have an idea that he may be a letter-of-marque, in which case he'll be stuffed full of men and we cannot risk him boarding.'

‘I am of the same opinion, sir. There's something about him that marks him as a corsair.'

‘Yes. Now, we don't want him to see the keg dragging down on him so we will put it over forrard and lead the line out of a forrard port. That way he will not observe any activity around the stern here . . .'

‘Use the log-line, sir? It's handy and long enough,' asked Hill.

‘Very well. Do that if you please.' Drinkwater looked forward. ‘But first, I think you had better luff, Mr Hill.'

‘Jesus!' Hill's jaw dropped in alarm as the berg reared over them. Drinkwater held his breath lest
Melusine
struck some underwater projection from the icy mass that towered over the mastheads. ‘Down helm!'

Melusine
swooped into the wind, her sails shivering, then paid off again as the berg drew astern. Their pursuer, his attention focussed ahead, had laid a course to pass almost as clear as his quarry. That the
Melusine
could shave the berg indicated that it was safe for him to do so, and Drinkwater remarked to Hill on the skill of their enemy.

‘Aye, sir, and that argues strongly that he's a letter-of-marque.'

Drinkwater nodded. ‘And he'll be able to read our name across our stern and know all about our being a French prize.'

Hill nodded and Bourne rejoined them. ‘Meggs says he'll be a further ten minutes, sir, before the keg is ready.'

‘Very good, Mr Bourne. Will you direct Rispin to take watch on the fo'c'sle and warn us of any ice ahead. Take over the starboard battery yourself.'

Bourne looked crestfallen but acknowledged the order and moved forward to the waist.

Meggs brought the wrapped keg to the quarterdeck in person.

‘Three-minute fuse, sir,' he said, handing over the keg to Hill who had mustered three sail-trimmers to carry the thing forward, together with the log-line tub. Five minutes later Drinkwater saw him straighten up and look expectantly aft. Drinkwater nodded and leaned over the side. The keg drifted astern as
Melusine
rushed past, the log-line paying out. Snatching up his glass Drinkwater knelt and focussed his telescope, levelling it on the taffrail and shouting for Quilhampton.

‘Mr Q! The instant I say, you are to tell Hill to hold on.'

‘Hold on, aye, aye, sir.'

Drinkwater could see the canvas sack lying in the water. It jerked a few times, sending up little spurts of water as the ship dragged it along when the line became tight, but in the main it drifted astern without appreciably disturbing the wake. He wondered if his opponent would have a vigilant lookout at the knightheads. He did not seem a man to underestimate.

Suddenly in the image glass he saw not only the keg, but the stem of the advancing ship. The bow wave washed the keg to one side.

‘Hold on!'

‘Hold on!' repeated Quilhampton and Drinkwater saw the line jerk tight and then the persistent feather of water as
Melusine
dragged the keg astern, right under the larboard bow of the pursuing Frenchman.

He wondered how long it had taken to veer the thing astern. Perhaps no more than a minute or a minute and a half. He wondered, too, how good a fuse Meggs had set. It was quite likely that the damned thing would be extinguished by now. It was, as he had admitted to Hill, a long shot.

‘Stand by to tack ship, Mr Q!'

Quilhampton passed the order and Drinkwater stood up. He could do no more, and his shoulder hurt from the awkward position it was necessary to assume to stare with such concentration at the enemy's bow. The keg blew apart as he bent to rub his knees.

‘Larboard tack!'

He felt the deck cant as the helm went down and Hill ran aft telling his men to haul in the log-line. Struggling down on his knees again he levelled his glass. At first he thought they had achieved nothing and then he saw the Frenchman's bowsprit slowly rise. The bobstay at least had suffered and, deprived of its downward pull the jibs and
staysails set on the forestays above combined with the leeward pull of the foremast to crack the big spar. He saw it splinter and the sails pull it in two. There was a mass of men upon the enemy fo'c's'le.

He spun to his feet. ‘We have him now, by God!' But
Melusine
had ceased to turn to starboard. She was paying off before the wind.

‘She won't answer, sir! She won't answer!'

It was then that Drinkwater remembered the rudder.

Drinkwater did not know how much damage he had inflicted upon the enemy, only that his own ship was now effectively at the mercy of the other. It was true the loss of a bowsprit severely hampered the manoeuvrability of a ship, but by shortening down and balancing his loss of forward sail with a reduction aft, the enemy still had his vessel under command. And there was a good enough breeze to assist any manoeuvre carried out in such a condition.

As for themselves, he had no time to think of the loss of the rudder, beyond the fact that they were a sitting duck. But the enemy could not guess what damage had been inflicted by fortune upon the
Melusine
.

‘Heave the ship to under topsails, Mr Hill!' Drinkwater hoped he might convey to his opponent the impression of being a cautious man. A man who would not throw away his honour entirely, but one who considered that, having inflicted a measure of damage upon his enemy, would then heave to and await the acceptance of his challenge without seeking out further punishment.

Despatching Hill to examine and report upon the damage to the rudder Drinkwater called Bourne aft.

‘Now, Mr Bourne, if I read yon fellow aright, he ain't a man to refuse our provocation. It's my guess that he will work up to windward of us then close and board. I want every man issued with small arms, cutlasses, pikes and tomahawks. The larboard guns you are to abandon, the gun crews doubling to starboard so that the fastest possible fire may be directed at his hull. Canister and ball into his waist. Mr Mount! Your men to pick off the officers, you may station them where you like, but I want six marines and twenty seamen below as reinforcements. You will command 'em, Mr Bourne, and I want 'em out of the stern windows and up over the taffrail. So muster them in my cabin and open the skylight. Either myself, Hill or Quilhampton will pass word to you. But you are not to appear unless I order it. Do you understand?'

‘Aye, aye, sir.'

‘Oh, and Mr Bourne, blacken your faces at the galley range on your way below.'

‘Very good, sir.'

‘And you had better warn Singleton what is about to take place. Tell him he'll have some work to do. By the way who was hit by that first ball?'

‘Cawkwell, sir. He's lost a leg, I believe.'

‘Poor devil.'

‘He was closing the cabin sashes, sir.'

‘Oh.'

Drinkwater turned away and watched the enemy. As he had guessed, the Frenchman was moving up to windward. They had perhaps a quarter of an hour to wait.

‘Mr Frey!'

‘Are your two carronades loaded?'

‘Aye, sir.'

‘I think you may have employment for them soon. Now you are to man the windward one first and you are not to fire until I pass you the express order to do so. When I order you to open fire you are to direct the discharge into the thickest mass of men which crowd the enemy waist. Do you understand?'

The boy nodded. ‘I need a cool head for the job, Mr Frey.' He lowered his voice confidentially. ‘It's a post of honour, Mr Frey, I beg you not to let me down.' The boy's eyes opened wide. He was likely to be dead or covered in glory in the next half-hour, Drinkwater thought.

‘I will not disappoint you, sir.'