The Distant Ocean Page 12

  ‘Meantime, what will become of the second sloop?’ asked Windham. ‘The one which the Prudence has chosen to concentrate her fire upon?’

  ‘She will be in for a hard pounding, I make no doubt,’ conceded Sutton. ‘Which is why it is essential that both sloops move into their respective positions as quickly as possible.’

  ‘I understand sir,’ said the captain of the Echo. ‘You can rely on me.’

  *****

  The twin roar of drums echoed across the waters of the bay as the two Royal Navy sloops prepared for action. In both ships their captains’ possessions were swept down into the hold, and the bulkheads that made up their suites of cabins were knocked flat by the carpenters to leave the whole gun deck as a continuous space. Men rushed to their places around the carronades, stripping themselves to the waist and rolling their neck cloths into bandanas to protect their ears. Sand was scattered on the planking to improve the gun crew’s grip, and the ships’ boys were sent rushing down to the magazines to bring up fresh powder charges. Over the men’s heads the sail was reduced to fighting trim with a single topsail on each mast, while in the tops marine sharpshooters settled into position, ready to pick off anyone on the Prudence’s deck.

  After the bellow of orders and the rush of feet had subsided, the drums fell silent. The quarterdeck of the Rush was now very crowded. Clusters of sailors were grouped around the little swivel guns that were mounted on posts along the rail, with more marines filling the gaps between them. The wheel had an extra quartermaster in case of injury, and the afterguard were grouped by the mizzen mast, ready to trim the sails. Lieutenant Wise picked his way over to Sutton and touched his hand to his hat.

  ‘Ship is cleared for action sir,’ he said. ‘The Echo has just signalled that she too is ready.’

  ‘Very well, Mr Wise,’ said Sutton. ‘Put her on the other tack and take us across towards that village over there. The leadsman can resume his work.’

  While the Echo waited by the headland, the Rush sailed across towards the centre of the bay. The blue water parted before her and ran away in long lines like folds in silk towards the shore on both sides. Sutton watched the French frigate with care. So far, apart from rigging her boarding nets and turning on her spring, she had showed little sign of responding to their arrival. All work had stopped on her jury rigged foremast, however, and she squatted low in the water, huge and dangerous, like a crouching beast.

  ‘Mr Appleby,’ he said. ‘Can you take a bearing on the Echo, if you please. I want us to approach the enemy at ninety degrees to their line of attack.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ said the master. He pulled his sextant from its place near the wheel, turned it on its side and sighted along it. The ship sailed on, and as it did he inched the arm along the scale, following the changing angle. Everyone on the quarterdeck seemed to be watching him in silence.

  ‘By the mark seven!’ called the leadsman. Appleby turned his sextant round to check the reading, then resumed his work.

  ‘By the deep six!’ came from the forecastle. The master checked the instrument again, and turned towards Sutton.

  ‘Just passing ninety degrees now, sir,’ he said. He walked over to the wheel and retuned his sextant to its place.

  ‘Wheel hard over!’ ordered the captain. ‘Hands to the braces! Steer directly for the enemy, quartermaster.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir. Steer for the enemy it is.’

  ‘And a half seven!’ added the leadsman.

  ‘Mr Croft,’ said Sutton. ‘Kindly signal the Echo. Engage the enemy.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’ A seaman attached the toggles of each flag to the halliard as Croft read out the numbers, and then he hauled the message aloft. When it reached the mizzen peak, he broke the flags out with a snap of his wrist.

  ‘Echo acknowledges, sir,’ reported the midshipman.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Croft,’ said Sutton, staring across the bay towards the French ship.

  The enemy frigate now lay at the point of a right angle. Coming down one side of the triangle towards her, parallel to the cliffs of the headland, was the Echo. Approaching along the side which stuck out into the centre of the bay was the Rush. The French ship could turn herself around her anchor cable by hauling in, or letting out, her spring, but she could only face her main battery towards one of the two ships at a time.

  ‘That has given them a poser, sir,’ said Lieutenant Wise with satisfaction. ‘Which way do you imagine they will turn?’

  ‘Towards the foe that approaches the swiftest, I should think,’ said his captain. ‘But as to which vessel that is, I cannot say.’

  As if to answer the question the profile of the frigate began to change. The two remaining masts grew farther apart and the hull seemed to stretch even longer across the water as she twisted around, foot by foot, till every one of her long line of guns pointed towards them.

  ‘It would seem to be us then, gentlemen,’ said Sutton, his throat dry. The comment was heard across the quarterdeck in the sudden quiet. A flash burst out of the frigate’s side and a ball of dirty white smoke rose into the air. A scatter of sea birds flew up from the face of the cliffs behind the frigate. Moments later a chain of splashes rose up off the smooth water of the bay as the ranging shot skipped over the surface. The loud thud of the cannon arrived a little later.

  ‘Two cables short sir,’ reported Appleby, and the sloop continued on.

  Sutton took the few minutes before Rush would be in range to look around him. He first checked over his ship. In the bow his boatswain stood with his party of forecastle men. These were all prime seaman, capable of the feats of gymnastics that would be required to repair cut up rigging high in the masts. Next he looked down into the well of his ship, at the gun crews that stood in patient groups around their weapons as they waited for battle to start. He was pleased to detect a general air of confidence about them. There were smiles and fist bumps in evidence, together with the nervous tapping of equipment on the deck. Last he looked around the bay. The beach in front of the village was crowded with people. Goodness, the whole population must be there, he thought. And why not? It was not every day that the navies of Europe did battle, a few miles from their front doors. Lastly he looked back at the enemy, just in time for her to vanish behind a wall of fire and smoke.

  The first broadside was widely spread. A scatter of splashes tore up the water on either side. A single hole appeared in the foretopsail, and there was a solid thump from near the bow.

  ‘Even our scantlings should be able to keep a spent ball out at this range,’ muttered Wise. Sutton pulled out his pocket watch and flipped it open. It had no second hand, but he would be able to estimate how quickly the enemy reloaded by the movement of the minute hand. The second broadside arrived a little over a minute later. One ball streaked past his head with a sound like tearing cloth. Several cut ropes hung down like jungle creepers, and some of the forecastle men where climbing up to splice them.

  ‘They make reasonable practice for Frenchmen,’ he commented to his lieutenant. ‘Although note how they fire all their guns together, Mr Wise. Their captain does not trust his men to serve their pieces independently.’

  When the enemy next fired they had covered perhaps a third of the distance between them, and the bombardment was starting to tell. More holes appeared in the sails, and all of the boatswain’s men seemed to be aloft as they struggled to make good their repairs. Sutton heard a double crash from the bow, and shortly afterwards two seaman appeared from under the forecastle carrying a wounded comrade towards the fore hatchway. He watched his men, noting some of the looks of unease that were starting to appear amongst them.

  ‘This is always vexing for the men, is it not, sir?’ said Wise, echoing his thoughts. ‘It is never congenial to be fired upon without the possibility of reply. They will be happier when we are alongside.’

  Now they were much closer. The French ship seemed to fill the whole of Sutton’s vision. The hull was wrapped in a bank of smoke, and the side of her hul
l bristled with cannon. Then she vanished in orange flame and shot tore into the little sloop. Splinters flew up from the front of the ship. There was a whirl of movement next to him as two marines fell to the deck, while from above came a cascade of falling blocks and cut rope.

  ‘Steady lads,’ he called, more to himself than to those around him. He glanced across the narrowing gap to the frigate’s side. ‘One more of those and we shall be able to say our piece. Stand by your guns there!’ The smoke began to thin and Sutton realised they were so close that he could now hear French orders being shouted. There was a rumble as the cannon were run up on the enemy ship, and a row of thick black muzzles appeared all along her side.

  ‘For what we are about to receive...’ intoned Appleby, and the side of the French ship vanished in fire once more.

  ‘Helm up, quartermaster!’ yelled Sutton, ignoring the crash of shot striking home all around him. ‘Lay me alongside.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ replied the man at the wheel. Sutton strode forward to the quarterdeck rail and looked down on deck once more. One carronade had been dismounted, but the armourer was supervising a party of men as they tried to heave it back onto its slide. There were a few bodies lying on the deck and some of the crews were a little thinner than before, but they all looked up expectantly at him.

  ‘Standby, starboard guns!’ he yelled. ‘Fire as you bear and pay those Frogs back with interest, lads!’ They all cheered at that. The sloop continued to turn and the side of the French frigate appeared out of the smoke beside them. All along the line of carronades the gun captains shouted a warning to their crews and jerked on their weapon’s lanyards. With a colossal roar the guns of the Rush spoke at last.

  Now Sutton’s consciousness narrowed to the single world of the two ships. Clouds of smoke billowed all around them, blotting out the sky overhead. The thin gap between the two hulls was a corridor of fire, with tongues of flame darting backwards and forwards. Above the deep roar of the guns came the lighter bang of muskets as the marines fired at any shadow they could see in the fog. Down on the main deck the light carronades barked out, pumping ball after ball into the enemy, while in reply came the slow but steady French broadsides, each one a tempest of shot that slammed into the Rush. The bulwark near him disappeared in a cloud of splinters and a seaman fell back, clutching at a wound that had opened in his chest. Red blood spread like an ink spot over his shirt as his comrades carried him below. A gust of wind rolled the smoke apart for a moment, and he saw the splintered holes that had been torn all along the sides of his ship. The sloop’s rigging hung down in festoons and the main mast now had a jagged wound near the base. Sutton had just started to wonder how it was still standing when he saw the foremast start to topple forward. Slowly at first, but then with gathering speed it crashed over the bowsprit, sending debris pelting down over the front of the ship.

  Death was all around him. Musket fire pattered on the planking from soldiers in the French ship’s rigging. First the quartermaster was struck down, then Appleby, and finally Wise. Piles of dead lay along the centre line of the main deck, and still the fighting went on.

  ‘Keep at it, lads!’ shouted their captain. ‘The Echo will be giving them hell. Raking the bastards again and again.’

  ‘The Echo, sir?’ replied Midshipman Croft from beside him on the quarterdeck. ‘But she has hauled her wind.’

  ‘What?’ exclaimed Sutton. ‘What did you say, boy!’ He rushed along the gangway of the sloop, vaulting over dead and dying seamen as he went, in his haste to get to the bow. Once there, he clambered over the ruins of the foremast till he reached the rail. A gust of wind parted the smoke a little to reveal Windham’s ship, stationary with her foretopsail backed. The sloop was firing, but she was so far away that her shot fell some distance short of the enemy’s stern. From behind him the cries of the wounded were briefly masked by a huge juddering crash as the mainmast came down to join the foremast over the side, and still the remorseless French fire thundered on. As if she had now seen enough, the Echo turned gradually around and headed back out to sea.

  Chapter 8 Reunion

  In the stern cabin of the Black Prince, Commodore Sir George Montague was becoming increasingly frustrated with his visitor.

  ‘But I simply do not understand!’ he said, banging his hand down on the top of his desk. ‘What on earth has become of the Rush?’

  ‘I regret that she is no more, Sir George,’ replied Windham. ‘When I returned to the scene of battle on the following day the Prudence had departed. The Rush had been beached close to the village and set fire to. There was little left beyond a few charred frames and her keel. I imagine she will have surrendered, but was too badly damaged to be of any use to the French.’

  ‘There we have it, again!’ exclaimed the commodore. ‘You imagine that she had surrendered? Does that mean that you were not present the previous day to witness her actual defeat? I fail to comprehend how it was that you came to abandon her in such a fashion?’

  ‘I did not abandon her, and I resent you saying that I did, Sir George!’ exclaimed the commander of the Echo.

  ‘You can be as indignant as you like, Nicholas, but in the absence of a proper explanation of your conduct, I shall be forced to draw my own conclusions.’ said Montague.

  ‘As I have tried to explain, Sir George, when I left the battle she was already a dismasted wreck. I withdrew so as to ensure that at least one of your sloops survived the debacle, and as a result I did not witness her final hours.’

  ‘Very noble of you, I am sure,’ snorted the commodore. ‘And yet your casualties seem to have been very light, in a battle that saw a fellow ship destroyed. How is that possible?’

  ‘It was all that fool Sutton’s fault,’ said Windham. ‘We agreed that we would stand off from the Prudence and cripple her from a distance, before we moved in to finish her off. The French chose to concentrate their fire on the Rush, hence the difference in our casualties. Then the next thing I knew, Sutton had closed with them and was fighting yardarm to yardarm. A sixteen-gun sloop against a thirty-six gun frigate, I ask you? There could only have been one victor.’

  ‘I am well aware of the unequal odds, Nicholas,’ replied Montague, his voice icy. ‘That is why I dispatched not one but two sloops of war. What I fail to understand is why you did not consider going to Captain Sutton’s assistance?’

  ‘I did try, of course, Sir George. If you care to see my gunner’s indent, you will see that we expended a considerable quantity of powder and shot. But regrettably the wind was unfavourable for us to close with the enemy. By the time we were near enough, the Rush was barely still fighting. I am quite certain that Captain Sutton will have perished in the battle. At that point I took the difficult decision that any continuation of the action would merely serve to endanger my ship, too.’

  ‘And so you fled,’ said Montague.

  ‘I did no such thing!’ protested Windham. ‘I stood clear of the battle to avoid being brought to action by the Prudence.’

  ‘Which has now disappeared, presumably back to Reunion to be repaired. So I am left the weaker by one sloop, yet still have three French frigates to defeat. In fact, until the Titan returns from Cape Town, I only have your ship and mine.’ Montague stood up from his desk with a gesture of despair. ‘I must say you have made a sad cock of things, Nicholas. Do you know that I specifically petitioned the Admiralty to have you assigned to my command, out of respect for your uncle? This is a fine coin in which you choose to repay me.’

  ‘It wasn’t my fault,’ muttered Windham.

  ‘Wasn’t your fault! What kind of explanation is that? You left a brother officer to his fate! How do you imagine your fellow officers will regard these events, once the particulars are generally known? At best you will be thought of as incompetent, at worst as a coward and a poltroon! I might almost think that you were trying to gain some sort of revenge… oh my God!’ Montague spun round in horror and stared at his visitor.

  ‘What?’ said Windham,
his face colouring.

  ‘Enough of this dissembling, I want you to speak plain. Did you act as you did because of that damned nonsense of yours about Percy Follett?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said the captain of the Echo. He cleared his throat as Montague continued to glare at him. ‘No, that played no part in matters at all.’

  ‘What have you done, Nicholas? Tell me the truth now? Did you hold back deliberately from coming to assist the Rush?’

  ‘No, no, it all transpired as I laid it out,’ said Windham. ‘It was that hothead Sutton’s fault.’

  ‘Nicholas, I don’t know what you have done, but unless you are absolutely candid with me, I shall not be able to help you.’

  ‘The Rush is no more. Captain Sutton is no more. There was nothing I could have done,’ Windham folded his arms and sat back in his chair. Montague tried to hold the young man’s gaze but it slipped away from him whenever their eyes met. You are lying, boy, he thought to himself. I think I know what truly happened off the coast of Madagascar. Then he struck his head with the flat of his hand as another thought came to him. What if this should all come out, he asked himself. It was on my recommendation that Windham was promoted. My preferment that got him his command. What will the Admiralty say of a man who showed such poor judgment? The captain of the Black Prince turned away in frustration.

  ‘Oh, just let me think, Nicholas!’ he exclaimed, as if Windham had been speaking, and he began to pace up and down the deck in front of the cabin windows.

  ‘I need to win a victory,’ he muttered to himself. ‘If I can fulfill my orders, fewer questions will be asked. Report failure, and those bloody nib scratchers will want to know why. But I can achieve little until the Titan should return. Now young Clay, he has a decent reputation as a fighting captain. If only I had sent him to bring back the Prudence instead of those two puppies.’ He paused to glare at the surviving puppy, who was now examining the backs of his nails as if nothing had happened. With a growl of frustration he resumed his pacing.