The Letter of Marque (25 page)

'Mr Pullings,' he asked in the silence, 'is the anchor a-cock-bill?'

'Yes, sir: with a spring from right aft.'

'Then let it be lowered inch by inch to the hawsehole: then we can let it go without a splash. I am going to look at the boats.'

He gave the quartermaster his compass and walked aft. He was as much at home in the Surprise as he was at Ashgrove -perhaps more so - and he went over the taffrail and down the stern ladder without a thought. He made his way along the train of boats to the Tartarus'* launch: 'What cheer, Tartaruses,' he said in a low voice. 'What cheer, sir,' they all replied, quite as softly. He felt their muffled thole-pins and said 'Good, very good. Now we shall be putting off presently, so remember, not a word, not a word, and pull soft. When you are cast off, lie on your oars, put on your armbands and be ready to stretch out like heroes when I hail, but not a moment before.'

'Ready, aye ready, sir,' they murmured.

The Dolphins, the Camels and the Vultures had the same greeting, the same message, and they too seemed deeply impressed with the need for silence. When he was aboard again he began to take his bearings: he could see the surf now, and with the flap of his hat shielding his eyes the travelling beam of the light was a great help. He stood at the con, giving quiet directions to the helmsman, and as the lines of bearing came true he reduced her spread of canvas, so that she ghosted in on the tide of flood with no more than foretopmast and main staysails, the gentle wind abaft her starboard beam. In dead silence they passed under the tall lighthouse cliff so close inshore that they were on the very edge of the breakers, so close that men held their breath; and even when they were past the bulge of the headland they had the steady beat of surf within pistol-shot to larboard. Now they were under the shadow of the cliff and even the dispersed light of the beam did not reach them; but it did light the hill, the vital shielding hill this side of the fort. He started the sheets and murmured 'Stand by to let go.' The Surprise drifted on with the tide; again the beam swept round and lit the hill; she was exactly where he wanted her and he said, 'Let go, there,' quite loud. The anchor plunged silently into eighteen fathom water; they veered away in a fair scope of cable with half-words and gestures, and then, the anchor having gripped, they heaved upon the spring until her broadside bore on the isthmus, where several lights were to be seen, the most southerly parts of the town.

Jack looked at his watch by the light of the binnacle and said 'Blue cutter's crew away.' They had been gathered on the starboard gangway this half hour and they filed by him with the bosun; then the red cutter from the larboard gangway with the gunner; after them, from alternate gangways, the pinnace, with Davidge, the gig, with West, the jolly-boat, with Beattey the carpenter, and lastly his own launch's men. As Bonden passed, Jack took him by the arm and said in a low voice, 'Keep very close to the Doctor when we board.' Then he went below, where Stephen was playing chess with Martin by the glittering candle with his sword on the table in front of him. 'Will you come with me?' said Jack. 'We are on our way.'

Stephen stood up, smiling, and put his sword-belt over his shoulder; Martin fastened it behind, an expression of very great concern upon his face. Jack led the way up to the quarterdeck, aft to the taffrail, where Pullings and Martin followed to wish them God-speed, and over on to the stern-ladder. The boats had already formed in the long linked line that the captain's launch was to lead; and as Jack reached it, the last of the cutting-out party, Bonden shoved off and Jack murmured 'Give way.'

At first they had to row against the tide, the swell and the moderate breeze, but zeal made nothing of it for the first three quarters of an hour; by this time they were off the point of Bowhead, well clear of the breakers, pulling strongly with an even stroke, never a creak from rowlock or pin, never a sound but a strangled cough. From Bowhead, Jack looked out to sea: no squadron. Babbington would be moving quietly in.

Along the face of the cape and even more when they bore eastwards the tide was with them: Jack checked their speed which was growing impetuous, and passed the word back down the line to change rowers.

Another twenty minutes and the far side of the port was beginning to open, with a fair glow of light over it. It increased quite fast and now the whole northern side, the well-lit bottom of the bay, and, of infinitely greater consequence, the breakwater, could be seen. Nearer, nearer, rowing soft; and round the breakwater a small light, bobbing about and closing with them fast. Perhaps it was only a fishing-boat going out for the night. Jack opened his dark-lantern.

'Ohe, du bateau,' called the boat.

'Ohe,' replied Stephen, Jack's hand on his shoulder. 'La Diane, ou ce qu'elle se trouve a present?'

'Au quai toujours, nom de Dieu. T'es Guillaume?' 'Non. Etienne.'

'Ben. Je m'en vais. Qu'est-ce que tu as Id?'

'Des galeriens.'

'Ah, les bougres. Bon. Au plaisir, eh?'

'Au plaisir, etje te souhaite merde, eh?'

They pulled on, their stroke a little less steady; and now the breakwater, with lights shining from the embrasures of its rampart at the landward end, was full in view. And there was clearly a party going on in the rampart -singing, laughter, music of a sort. Jack took the tiller from Bonden's hand: he felt the current - the ebb had just begun - and he bore over, giving the breakwater as wide a berth as he dared for the sandbank on the other side. No challenge for the launch. No challenge for the next boat, no challenge for the third: no challenge at all. They were through, into the port: perhaps into the trap. And speaking quite distinctly over the laughter from the rampart Jack said to Bonden, 'Stand by with the blue light.' He was himself standing up and in the suffused glow he could make out something of the quay, with the shipping moored along it: quietly they moved a little closer and it was almost clear - a brig, some other craft, the Diane, and two merchantmen. Still closer, just paddling now, and the object ahead of the Diane could be seen to be two gunboats, now moored abreast.

'Very well,' said Jack. 'Tartarus, Dolphin, Camel, Vulture, lay on your oars. Bonden, the blue light.'

Bonden clapped his glowing tinder to the fuse, and with a wavering flight at first but then a determined soar the rocket climbed, climbed, and burst with a great blue star that floated to leeward together with its own white smoke. Within a second of the burst the whole southern sky flashed as the Surprise's broadside answered.

'Cast off and stretch out,' cried Jack, and as the boats leapt into motion the deep thunder of the carronades reached them, echoing from one side of the port to the other and back again.

The boats raced to their posts. As the launch bumped heavily alongside the mainchains an indignant voice called out 'Mats qu'est-ce qui se passe?' and a man peered over. But he was instantly overwhelmed by the boarding party that leapt lip the side, while the rest of the meagre harbour-watch, chatting over the rail with friends on the quay, were swept down the hatchways by parties coming from head and stern. Stephen, followed by Bonden, darted not into the great cabin but into that where he would have been himself in similar conditions: and here, writing at a table, he found a middle-aged man, who looked up with angry astonishment. 'Pin him, Bonden,' said Stephen, his pistol levelled at the man's head. 'Tie his hands and toss him into a boat. He must not call out and he must not escape.' Meanwhile Padeen and Darkie Johnson, racing over the brows fore and aft, the gangways to the quay, cut the cables; the topmen laid aloft and loosed the foretopsail, cutting the buntlines and clewlines as they did so; three boatloads of boarders were sweeping the lower deck clear of the watch below, turning them out of their hammocks and driving them and their girls down into the hold and clapping the hatches shut. And all this while the Surprise bellowed and thundered like a ship of the line, while in St Martin's the church bells rang madly, drums beat from a dozen points, trumpets sounded, and lines of torches could be seen hurrying towards the isthmus.

The boarders on deck and between decks rounded up the stray Dianes - there were a few scuffles, a pistol shot or so - and herded them too down into the hold, where the afterhatch was raised to let them pass. 'Mr Bulkeley,' said Jack, standing by the men appointed to steer, 'and Master Gunner, take the cutters and tow her head clear.'

The cutters' crews were over the side in a moment, and they carried out a line, pulling splendidly; but their zeal and an unhappy gust in the loosed topsail ran the Diane's stem tight between the two gunboats moored close ahead. Jack raced forward and peered down into the black water. 'Mr West,' he said, 'jump down with a party and carry the off gunboat out into the stream.'

'Sir,' cried West, coming back soaked, gasping, black in the face, 'she's moored with a chain fore and aft.'

'Very well," said Jack, and he saw that Davidge was next to him, and men all along both gangways. 'You two take your boats' crews and shift those two merchantmen astern. I do not think they will give you much trouble.'

Nor did they. But as the ships moved out into the stream so the scene changed entirely. From a street leading from the hill into the middle of the quay a group of sailors on horseback, the Diane's officers, followed by her liberty-men and a body of soldiers came pelting along over the cobbles.

Jack leaned over the starboard rail and hailed loud and clear, 'Davidge, West, heave her stern clear, and bear a hand, bear a hand, d'ye hear me?' There was no time for more. The Diane still had her brows across, and though she was free aft her larboard bow was wedged between the gunboats, fast against the quay forward; and the ebb was now wedging her tighter still.

The foremost officer leapt his horse clean on to the frigate's quarterdeck, his pistol aimed at the helmsman; but his horse missed its footing and came down. Jack plucked the man clear and hurled him across the deck into the sea. But others followed him - five horses at least - and men on foot were swarming aboard over the brows fore and aft, some hauling on the buntlines and clewlines to take their power from the sails, only to find them cut, while others tore along the gangway to join the very violent confused struggle on the quarterdeck: there were fallen horses kicking madly and forming a barrier, but as two of them got to their feet they left room for a singularly furious attack led by the Diane's captain. Jack, wedged against the capstan by the surging crowd, saw Stephen shoot him coolly in the shoulder and pass his sword through his body. Then came a heaving struggle, even closer-packed than before, with blows felt but unseen, Surprises from below and from the boats roaring Merry Christmas and flying into the thick of it with cutlasses and boarding-axes. But now there were far more people on the quay. The Surprises were outnumbered and the tide was setting against them; they were being thrust against the wheel and the mizen and the far rail.

Jack had forced his way to the front rank in the centre; here there was no room for fine-work, no room for sword-play; it was all furious short-armed cutting strokes, swords clashing like a smithy, until a maddened horse dashed between the opposing sides. Through the wider gap a French soldier, rising from the deck on which he had tripped, slashed upwards with his sabre, catching Jack's leg above the knee. His friends, pushing forwards, trampled the soldier down again and one of them lunged fast and hard; Jack parried, but a trifle late and the point ploughed up his forearm. The thrust brought the man within reach and Jack caught him with his left hand, stunned him with the pommel of his sword and flung him bodily against his supporters with such force that three of them fell. In the momentary interval he half turned to hail the squadron's boats and as he turned he felt a blow from behind, like a kick. 'Horse,' he thought, and filled his lungs to hail, yet now the savage attacking cry of the Dianes and the soldiers changed to a bellowed warning - run, run while you can. It was almost too late. Davidge and West now had a real purchase on the frigate's stern; they heaved, and first the after and then the forward brow left the quay and fell down the ship's side. Some Dianes leapt back before the gap was too wide, some leapt but fell short, some fought on with their backs to the taffrail until, hopelessly outnumbered, they threw down their arms.

Yet there was still pistol and musket fire from the quay, and Jack, calling out 'Come on Plaice, come on, Killick,' ran forward to the forecastle carronades - flint-lock pieces - heaved the short gun round to bear on the soldiers, and though his arm was streaming with blood he pulled the laniard. It was only loaded with ball, not the much more deadly case-shot, but it shattered the cobbles and the front of a house, scattering the men entirely.

'And now we are here,' said Jack, 'I'll be damned if we don't take the gunboats too.' As he said this the battery at the bottom of the harbour came to life at last, but the gunners' aim was impeded by their own vessels, and their shots only ruined the port-office and part of the quay. Jack's aim on the other hand was perfectly clear. 'Belay, there,' he called to those heaving the stern, as the next carronade aft bore full on the mooring-bollard. Again he pulled the laniard and the gun roared out, its long tongue of fire almost touching the target; when the smoke cleared there was no bollard to be seen, but the gunboats had swung out with the tide, and the chain, a loop-chain, had run clear.

'Mr Bentley,' he said to the carpenter, 'take the jolly-boat and your men and take care of the gunboats.

The Diane now had way on her; the men on the quarterdeck had cleared the wheel; they had hoisted topsails and forestay-sail, and with the tide, the cutters' towing, and the light breeze she was moving slowly away from the quay. Now at last Jack hailed the waiting Tartaruses, Dolphins, Camels and Vultures; there were five prizes and he had to get them clear of the port before the French galloped field-pieces down to the quay.

No field-pieces; and they moved out, a solemn procession, though faster and faster as both ebb and breeze increased upon them: a brisk fire of musketry at the narrow pass, soon discouraged by the Diane's full broadside, and they were out in the open sea, heaving on the familiar swell, with the impassive beam of the lighthouse sweeping the air overhead, the Surprise and the ships of the squadron standing in, not a mile away, top-lanterns all ablaze.