The Shadow of the Eagle (32 page)

‘You know my mind, Mr Birkbeck, but feint at the gap and make them think they have us.’ Drinkwater could hardly believe his luck. On a reciprocal course it was not unreasonable for an arrogant British officer to take his ship between two of the enemy and while it exposed her to two broadsides, it allowed the single ship the opportunity to fire into both enemy ships at the same time and thus double her chances of inflicting damage. But by suddenly slipping across the bow of the leeward ship, he would place the
Arbeille
in the field of fire of
L’Aigle
and thus deprive
Contre-Amiral
Lejeune of the heavier guns of the bigger vessel.

Drinkwater ran forward to the waist and bellowed below. Frey’s face appeared, then that of Ashton. ‘Starboard guns, Mr Frey: double shot ‘em and lay them horizontally; zero elevation!’

‘Aye, aye, sir!’

Ashton looked crestfallen. ‘You’ll get your turn in a moment or two, Mr Ashton, don’t you worry.’

They were rushing down towards the enemy now and Drinkwater resumed his station, casting a look astern at the
Gremyashchi;
she remained standing northwards. Rakov was detaching himself. At least for the time being. A sudden, sanguine elation seized Drinkwater, the excitement of the gambler whose hunch is that if he stakes everything upon the next throw of the dice, all will be well. It was a flawed, illogical and misplaced confidence, he knew, but he dare not deny himself its comfort in that moment of anxious decision.

But then he felt the unavoidable, reactive visceral gripe of fear and foreboding. There were no certainties in a sea-battle, and providence was not so easily seduced.

CHAPTER 17
Sauce for the Goose

May 1814

‘Fire!’

The French corvette lay to starboard, so close it seemed one could count the froggings on the scarlet dolmans of a dozen hussars standing on the
Arbeille’s
deck with their carbines presented, yet so detached one scarcely noticed the storm of shot which responded to the thunder of
Andromeda’
s broadside.

Drinkwater felt the rush of a passing ball and gasped involuntarily as it spun him around and drew the air from his lungs. Beside him Protheroe fell with a cry, slumping against Drinkwater’s legs, causing him to stumble. One of the helmsmen took the full impact of a second round-shot, his shoulder reduced to a bloody pulp as he too swung round and was thrown against the mizen fife-rail so that his brains were mercifully dashed out at the same fatal moment.

As Drinkwater recovered his balance, a small calibre shot shattered his left arm. One of the hussars had hit him with a horse pistol. The blow struck him with such violence his teeth shut with a painful, head-jarring snap and a second later he felt the surge of pain, which made him gasp as his head swam. For a moment he stood swaying uncertainly, submitting to an overwhelming desire to lie down and to give up. What the hell did it matter? What the hell did any of it matter…?

‘Are you all right, sir?’

What was the point of this action? They were little men whose lives had been lived under the shadow of the eagle. Rakov and Lejeune and Captain Nathaniel Drinkwater were mere pawns in the uncaring games of the men of power and destiny. Why, he could feel the chill in the shadow of the eagle’s wings even now, and see the beguiling curve of Hortense’s smile seducing him towards his own miserable fate. What would the omnipotent Tsar Alexander care for the fate of Count Rakov and his frigate? Or would the great Napoleon, whose ambition had contributed to the deaths of a million men, concern himself over the fate of a few fanatics who could not settle themselves under a fat, indolent monarch?

‘Are you all right, sir?’

The British contented themselves under a fat, indolent monarch; or at least a fat, indolent regent. Why could these troublesome Frenchmen not see the sense of playing the same game … God’s bones, but it was cold, so confoundedly cold …

‘Sir! Are you all right?’

He saw Marlowe peering at him as though through a tunnel. He could not quite understand why Marlowe was there, and then his mind began to clear and the nausea and desire to faint receded. He was left with the pain in his arm. ‘I fear,’ Drinkwater said through clenched teeth, mastering his sweating and fearful body, ‘I fear I am hit, Marlowe …’

‘But, sir …’

‘Send… for… laudanum, Marlowe … Pass word… to Kennedy … to send me … laudanum.’ He breathed in quick and shallow gasps which somehow eased him.

‘At once.’ Marlowe saw with a look of horror the bloody wound just above Drinkwater’s elbow.

Drinkwater’s perception of the action was seen through a red mist; it cleared gradually though his being seemed dominated by the roaring throb of his broken arm. He was dimly aware the guns had fallen silent, that the shadows of the masts and sails once again traversed the deck which pitched for a few moments as
Andromeda
was luffed up into the wind. Then the guns thundered out again, adding to the throbbing in his head. Somewhere to starboard, he perceived the shallow curve of the
Arbeille’s
taffrail lined with shakoed infantrymen, and the sight roused him. By an effort of will he commanded himself again.

A fusillade of musketry swept
Andromeda’s
quarterdeck. Drinkwater felt a second ball strike him, like a whiplash across the thigh, then someone was beside him, holding a small glass phial.

‘Here sir, quick!’

He swallowed the contents and for a moment more stood confused, trying to focus upon Hyde’s marines whose backs were to him as they lined the hammock nettings, returning fire. Then
Arbeille
drew away out of range and
Andromeda,
having raked her, fell back to port, making a stern board.

Drinkwater felt the opiate spread warmth and contentment through him; the pain ebbed, becoming a faint sensation, like the vague memory of something unpleasant that lay just beyond one’s precise recollection. He was aware that
Andromeda
had come up into the wind under the stern of the French corvette and he was aware of Kennedy blinking in the sunlight, hovering at his elbow.

‘Hold still, sir, while I dress your wound.’ Kennedy clucked irritably. ‘Hold still, damn it, sir.’ Drinkwater stood and supinely allowed the surgeon to cut away his coat and bind his arm. ‘You have a compound fracture, sir, and I shall have to see to it later.’ Kennedy grunted as a musket ball passed close. ‘Luckily the ball must have been near spent; ‘tis a mess, but no major blood vessels have been severed. I may save it if it don’t mortify.’

‘Thank you for your encouraging prognosis, Mr Kennedy’ Drinkwater said, his teeth clenched as Kennedy finished pulling him about with what seemed unnecessary brutality. He turned back to the handling of the ship as Kennedy grabbed his bag of field dressings and scuttled back to the orlop. It must have been the first time the surgeon had been so exposed to fire, he thought idly.

‘Who gave orders to rake?’ he asked no one in particular.

‘You did, sir,’ a hatless Birkbeck reassured him.

‘What are our casualties?’

‘I’ve no idea, though a good few fellows have fallen, but we knocked that corvette about…’

‘Where’s Marlowe?’

‘Here, sir.’

Under the laudanum, Drinkwater’s mind finally cleared. The elation he had felt earlier returned, imbuing him with confidence. The wound in his thigh was no more than a scratch, his broken arm no more than a damnable inconvenience, already accommodated by shoving his left hand into his waistcoat. He strode to the rail. The marines withdrew to make room for him and he stared to starboard. The sterns of both French ships were now eight or nine cables away: the
Arbeille
trailed a tangle of wreckage over her port side and
L’Aigle
had shortened sail to keep pace with her. Their stern chase guns barked and a brace of shot skipped across the water and thudded ineffectually into
Andromeda’
s  hull.

‘Where’s that damned Russian?’

‘Somewhere beyond the Frogs, sir,’ Marlowe volunteered.

Drinkwater cast his eyes aloft. All the topsails and topgallants were aback. Intact, they were nevertheless peppered with holes, and severed ropes hung in bights. Men were already aloft splicing.

‘Throw the helm over, Mr Birkbeck!’ Drinkwater ordered, ‘Let’s have her in pursuit again and bring that lot to book!’

Contre-Amiral
Lejeune lay board to board with his wounded consort only as long as it took him to appraise the damage. A moment later
L’Aigle’
s yards were braced sharp up and the frigate detached herself on the port tack, moving away from the corvette preparatory to rounding on the British frigate. As
Andromeda
also gained headway and began to come up with the almost supine
Arbeille, L’Aigle
tacked smartly and began to run back towards the British frigate. This time being caught in the cross-fire was inevitable. By using the
Arbeille
to mask
L’Aigle’
s guns, Drinkwater had also ensured the French frigate’s preservation and fed her company with the desire to avenge her weaker consort. Undamaged,
L’Aigle
bore down to finish off the perfidious Englishman. Lejeune was staking his own mission on a final gamble.

‘We are the bully cornered, I fancy,’ Drinkwater remarked light-heartedly. He was aware that he had held the initiative and was now about to surrender it. But he was thinking clearly again; in fact his mind seemed superior to the situation, detached and almost divine in its ability to reason, untrammelled by doubts or uncertainties. He gave his orders coolly, as the first of
Arbeille’
s renewed fire struck
Andromeda,
in passing the corvette to engage her larger and more formidable sister.

Frey’s battery fired into the
Arbeille.
Drinkwater could see the boats smashed on her booms and the wreck of her main topgallant and her mizen topmast; he saw men toiling on her deck to free her from the encumbrance while the brilliant tunics of her complement of soldiers fired small arms, augmenting her main armament of 8-pounders. It puzzled Drinkwater that shots from
Andromeda
had flown high enough to knock down so much top-hamper, but they were soon past the
Arbeille
and preparing to engage
L’Aigle.

‘Mr Ashton! Now’s your chance! Fire into the frigate, sir!’

‘Aye, aye, sir!’

‘Stand by to tack ship!’

Then Ashton’s port battery crashed out in a concussive broadside, only to be answered by the guns of
L’Aigle.
Within a few moments, Drinkwater knew he had met an opponent worthy of his steel. Whatever the history of
Contre-Amiral
Lejeune, here was no half-sailor who had spent the greater part of the last decade mewed up in Brest Road, living ashore and only occasionally venturing out beyond the Black Rocks. Nor had his crew found the greatest test of their seamanship to be the hoisting and lowering of topgallant masts while their ship rotted at her moorings. Lejeune and his men had been active in French cruisers, national frigates which had made a nuisance of themselves by harrying British trade.

As they passed each other and exchanged broadsides, both commanders attempted to swing under their opponent’s sterns and rake.
L’Aigle,
by wearing, retained the greater speed while
Andromeda,
turning into and through the wind to tack, slowed perceptibly. The guns were now firing at will, leaping eagerly in their trucks as they recoiled, their barrels heated to a nicety, their crews not yet exhausted, but caught up in the manic exertions of men attending a dangerous business upon which they must expend an absolute concentration, or perish.

Aboard both frigates the enemy shot wreaked havoc and although the smoke from the action did not linger, but was wafted away to leeward by the persistent breeze, to shroud the
Arbeille
as she too drifted to the south-eastward, it concealed much of the damage each was inflicting upon the other.

Having tacked, and having not yet lost any spars, Drinkwater temporarily broke off the action by holding his course to the southward in an attempt to draw Lejeune away from Rakov, who still stood northwards but who had, significantly, reduced sail. Lejeune bore round without hesitation.

‘He’s damned confident,’ said Marlowe, studying
L’Aigle
through his telescope.

‘Of reinforcement by the Russian?’ mooted Drinkwater, levelling his own glass with his single right hand, then giving up the attempt.

‘Are we to resume the action, sir?’ asked Birkbeck.

‘Very definitely, Mr Birkbeck. Now we are going to lay board to board on the same tack. That will decide the issue, and we have at least reduced the opposition to one.’

‘For the time being, sir,’ Birkbeck said, looking askance at Drinkwater.

‘I am not insensible to the facts, Mr Birkbeck,’ Drinkwater said brusquely, ‘but if we can but cripple
L’Aigle,
she will not be in a fit state to take Bonaparte to the United States, and if we can but take her, well the matter’s closed.’

‘You are considering isolating and boarding her then, sir?’ asked Marlowe.

‘I am considering it, Mr Marlowe, yes. Please shorten down, Mr Birkbeck. We will allow this fellow to catch up.’

‘Very well, sir.’ Birkbeck turned away.

‘The master ain’t happy, Marlowe,’ Drinkwater remarked, raising his glass again.

‘I think,’ Marlowe said slowly,
‘he
is not insensible to the fact that
you
have taken an opiate, sir.’

Drinkwater looked hard at the first lieutenant. ‘He thinks I am foolhardy, does he?’

‘He wishes to survive to take up that dockyard post you promised him.’

‘I had forgotten that. And what of you, Mr Marlowe? Do you think me foolhardy?’

Drinkwater saw the jump of Marlowe’s Adam’s apple. ‘No sir. I think you are merely doing your duty as you see it.’