Under Enemy Colors (41 page)

Giles closed his eyes again from the pain. And Aldrich stepped silently forward, a pale hand reaching for the gun.

Hayden plunged into the magazine after the seaman.

Aldrich grabbed the gun, but Hayden knew that in his weakened state he was no match for Giles.

Clenching his fist, Hayden drove it into Giles’ abdomen, doubling the boy over. He grabbed the giant with both hands and hauled him bodily out of the magazine, Aldrich still clinging tenaciously. They tumbled down in a heap and Hayden searched for the gun in the tangle, but Aldrich rolled free, lying still, exhausted, the pistol in hand, resting across his chest.

Someone had the sense to shut the magazine door. Hayden pushed the boy off him and scrambled to his knees.

Giles lay twisted, his shoulders heaving. Crouching quickly, Wickham rolled the giant over where he convulsed terribly, eyes rolled back. But then he lay still, releasing a long, slow sigh, as though he had found some unexpected satisfaction in the last second of his life.

“Aldrich? Are you hurt?” Hayden asked.

The man shook his head, paused, then nodded. He began to weep, releasing the pistol so that it bumped gently to the floor. He covered his eyes and rolled onto his side, his flayed back coming to view.

No one knew what to say, but stood mutely, embarrassed, moved by the grief of this man they all respected. It was a hard but brief squall, and then Aldrich staggered to his feet, wiping away tears with callused fingers. Men jumped forward to assist him.

“That was a great chance you took, Aldrich,” Hayden said.

“I jammed my finger behind the trigger, Mr Hayden. He nearly crushed it, but the gun would not fire.”

“It was a brave thing to do, and but for it we might all be dead.” Hayden could see Aldrich was swaying on his feet. “Please take Mr Aldrich back to the sick-berth. And ask the doctor to attend him as soon as he is able.” Like the crew, Hayden found himself calling Aldrich “Mr.”

Hayden set three men as sentries over the magazine, climbed the stair, and made his way aft along the berth-deck. Near the gunroom he met Hawthorne emerging from the aft companionway.

“Have you secured the magazine, Mr Hawthorne?”

“I have, Mr Hayden, and an easy task it was, as there was no one near it.”

“You’ve left some men you trust to stand sentry over it, I suppose?”

“So I have.” The marine’s hair was glued to his forehead from sweat, and one hand was wrapped in a crude bandage.

“Then will you take a company of men and search all the decks from stem to stern, and chase out any rats still hiding or they might do us some mischief yet.”

“I will, sir.”

Hayden returned to the deck, only to be met by a French officer climbing over the rail, naked sword in hand. The
Themis
men all stood about in dumb bewilderment. Thrusting down his sheer surprise, Hayden reached into his pocket, tore out a handkerchief, clapped it over his mouth, and said loudly in French: “Monsieur! Monsieur! You must not board this ship. These English have the fever, the yellow fever. That is why they are only half a crew; all the rest are dead. Get off! Get off!” He waved his free hand to chase the man from the deck. “Back into your boat—immediately!”

The officer hesitated only a second while his startled brain caught up with the meaning of the words being shouted at him, and then he scrambled over the rail, chasing the men who followed him back down the ladder.

Hayden went to the bulwark, and looked down at the Frenchmen in their boats.

“The fever,” they were saying. “They have the fever.” And these words galvanized them, set them to flight in a clumsy scramble of backing oars and thumping hulls.

As the lead boat cleared the
Themis
’ stern, Hayden heard a lone voice call out in French. “They are English! You must listen. It is a ruse. They are English!” And then the voice was muffled. Hayden turned to find Marin-Marie being hauled bodily from the rail of the
Dragoon
, though he clung tenaciously to the shrouds.

“Return that madman to the doctor!” Hayden shouted in French. “Have we not enough troubles without his foolish delusions?” Hayden turned to the French officer. “We will do what we can here, and then tow the English ship into a quarantine berth. Will you go ahead and alert the harbour authorities so that no boats approach us, please?”

“Will you not require our assistance?” the officer called out, standing up in the stern sheets of his boat.

“No, thank you, Lieutenant. We will manage. I only hope you have not carried this terrible fever away with you.”

Hayden thought he could see the man go pale even at that distance.

“Good luck to you,” the man called, found his seat, and ordered his boat swiftly on.

“Mon Capitaine,”
Wickham addressed him in French. “What are your orders?”

“Round up the English prisoners, and separate the sick from the healthy. The wounded English must be kept apart from our wounded. Let their own doctor attend them.” Hayden’s eye found Mr Barthe. “We must make repairs and prepare to tow the prize into Brest.” And then quietly in English: “We must repair the two ships, Mr Barthe, but not before nightfall. It is my intention to slip away as soon as darkness is complete.”

Hayden looked around the deck for the first time. It was a scene of shocking carnage, dead and wounded lying in grisly tableaux here and there. A few cowed-looking mutineers, clutching bloody wounds, were held by Hawthorne’s marines and armed seamen. Archer moved among the prostrate men with a pair of midshipmen, terribly dividing the dead from the living.

Ascertaining the distance to the French boats, Hayden spoke quietly in English: “What are our losses, Mr Landry? Do we know?”

“Mr Archer is making the tally, sir.” The first lieutenant hesitated, his demeanour disintegrating a little, but then he mastered himself. “I fear it will be a terrible butcher’s bill, sir. There aren’t twenty mutineers left alive, and I dare say, they are all wounded, for they fought until they were killed or we subdued them. Not a one laid down his weapons of his own doing.”

“They didn’t intend to be taken prisoner—by anyone. We interrupted Giles, about to fire the magazine.”

Landry ran his fingers back into his hair, this bit of news shaking him utterly. “And I felt lucky to have survived the fight…”

Hayden glanced up. “If you please, Mr Landry, send men aloft to quiet those sails or they shall flog themselves to rags.”

Landry reached for the hat he’d lost in the fight, and then went rushing off.

With the
Dragoon
grappled to her larboard side, the
Themis
had swung slowly so that the wind now lay on her beam, causing her sails to slat about in their gear. Fortunately, both sea and wind were small.

Wounded were borne past to the doctor still aboard the
Dragoon
. A knot of sullen mutineers had been assembled just off the quarterdeck, and every few minutes another of their kind was added, flushed out of some hiding place below. Splinters lay everywhere, and the rigging hung in tatters.

“Captain Hayden!” The rather urgent tone of Wickham’s voice interrupted his assessment of damages. Hayden found the acting lieutenant, not surprisingly, standing at the stern rail with a glass held up to his eye.

“The French captain still has his ship hove-to, and he’s signalling, sir.”

Hayden shaded his eyes and regarded the ship, which was not nearly as distant as he would have liked. “What has become of our signal book, Mr Wickham?”

“I’ll fetch it, sir.” In a moment, Wickham returned, quickly thumbing through the open signal book. “Here it is!” He jabbed a finger triumphantly at the page. “It is the signal for ‘standing by to provide assistance.’”

“Damned interfering Frenchman,” Hayden heard Hawthorne mutter, which expressed Hayden’s sentiments with precision.

“Shall I make an answer, sir?” Wickham asked.

“Just acknowledge the signal. Set a man to keep watch on the French frigate, as well. I should like to think that they are only being helpful, but that damned Marin-Marie might have kindled some doubt in their minds—perhaps some little detail that struck them as being false, as being ‘un-French.’” Hayden swept his eyes over the scene, wondering what it could have been.

But he had no time to dwell on that, or on the French ship hove-to nearby.

“Pass the word,” he said. “No shouting from the tops or from the deck. Sounds can travel a great distance over water, as you all well know. Mr Barthe, you will have to make do with quiet commands or by sending men aloft with your orders.”

Mr Barthe saluted.

“Mr Hawthorne, I think our mutineers deserve to be in irons.”

To which Hawthorne grinned and nodded.

Hayden strode quickly forward. “When you are quite finished there, Mr Archer, we must see to the gun-deck. Men still lie there—too many—though I fear they have all departed this life.”

A grim-looking second lieutenant glanced up at him. “Aye, Mr Hayden,” he answered softly.

“Where is our carpenter?”

“In the hold, Captain,” Stock reported.

“Just the man I’m looking for. Mr Stock, jump over to the
Dragoon
, if you please, and learn if she is making water.”

The boy set off at a run.

On the gangway, Hayden stared down onto the gun-deck, and found Chettle emerging from below. “What is the verdict, Mr Chettle? Do we sink or swim?”

“Swim, sir, for the moment. There’s a terrible mass of damage, Mr Hayden: smashed planking, hanging knees blown to splinters, cracked frames, and the like. But she’s making very little water, all the same.”

“All above the waterline, then. Have you seen to the
Dragoon
?”

The man squinted up at him. “I shall slide over there and have a look, Mr Hayden.”

“I have sent Mr Stock to find if she’s making water, but I would hear your more expert opinion.”

Chettle made a knuckle, and then, followed by his mates, wormed his way stiffly out one of the shattered gunports and into the ship lying alongside. Hayden went down onto the gun-deck to take stock of the damage himself, but found it difficult to see anything for the carnage. The two ships had been firing at each other from a few yards, and it looked it. Many of the gunports had been blasted and the rest ripped off in the collision. But the damage was not quite as bad as he had expected. The ship could be made more or less watertight. Enough to allow them to sail for England.

Wickham dropped down from the gangway, and could not hide his reaction to the sight.

“Where is Mr Franks, Wickham? Aloft?”

“He was taken to see the doctor, Mr Hayden.”

“Not too bad a hurt, I hope?”

“I don’t know, sir. I only just learned it myself from Holbek.”

“I shall have to stand in for Mr Franks as best I can.”

Hayden divided the crew, putting Landry, Barthe, and Archer on the
Themis
, while he did what he could with one of Franks’ mates, a handful of able seamen, and an only slightly larger group of landsmen and ordinaries. The two ships were pulled apart to stop them from thudding heavily together and to allow the hulls to be crudely repaired. A shortage of skilled seamen and the relentless westering of the sun meant the work could not be done to Hayden’s standards, but they had to slip away that night before any other French ships happened upon them. Hayden was not sure his yellow-fever bluff would work twice.

The sea, which had been almost calm, developed a noticeable lump originating from the south-west. A chill air reached them as a smoky grey spread from the western horizon across the clear blue vault.

“Pass the word for Mr Wickham, if you please.” Hayden sent a ship’s boy to find his only lieutenant.

A moment later, Wickham appeared, his overlarge uniform shifting about him oddly as he hurried along.

“There is a gale in the air, Mr Wickham, and the weather-glass appears to agree. Find the gunner and be sure all the guns are double-breeched where possible, and where the repairs will not allow it, lashed alongside. Coverings for all but the fore-hatch. We shall only have time to house the top-gallant masts, but the yards must be sent down. Lower the crossjack-yard. We shall double up tacks and braces, rig relieving tackles to the tiller, preventer braces to larboard on the lower yards.” Hayden stopped to run through his mental list.

“Heave in the boats, sir?” Wickham prompted.

“That, too. And the topsail yard parrel was contrived by a landsman; be sure it is well slushed, for we haven’t time to make it anew.”

“We’ll never have time to complete all the repairs before the gale strikes.”

“I fear you’re right.” Hayden thought a moment. “Go down to the French prisoners with some marines, if you please, Mr Wickham. Find out if their carpenter and bosun and any of their mates are still among the living. We will release them under Mr Hawthorne’s care. Better to have a skilled French seaman doing the job than a lubberly marine, who will be put to better use watching over them. I would let some of these prisoners up on the deck, a few at a time, for they have not had air the whole day, but that damned French ship is still too near.”