On a level deck, guns fired and recoiled inboard, placing them neatly for sponging out and reloading. Preussen now was finding she did not have that assistance: her guns after firing rolled out again under their own weight and must now be hauled uphill bodily and held while recharged with powder and shot, throwing out of rhythm any well-drilled sequence.
By the time the first reply came, Tyger had got in two, three shots—a massive advantage. Her weary hours of gun-drill were paying off. Preussen was finding she was facing not a lesser 32-gun frigate but one with the equivalent of sixty to ninety guns, that of a ship-of-the-line!
She was taking real punishment now, damage visible, ominous dribbles of blood coming down from beaten-in gun-ports. In any other circumstance Kydd would have allowed a feeling of triumph, but not now, not with what had to be endured still.
It was a short time only before the other frigate would emerge to turn the tables. He had to get in a settling blow before that happened or …
The roar of guns was a continuous din and he had to shout at a trembling youngster: “Odd numbered guns to fire high, target the enemy’s rigging!” The lad scrambled off to the gun-deck below to pass the message to the hatless Brice, maniacally shouting at his gun-crews.
It was British practice to smash and hammer at the hull at close range. This took time—the real battle-stoppers were masts falling, spars carrying away and this was what the French generally tried for. It had its own drawback: there was a lot of empty air between ropes and the chances of dealing a settling blow were slim and, of course, sails could still draw with holes in them.
Kydd had compromised but at the cost of half his guns taken from the task of battering the enemy into surrender.
His senses registered the sea darkening off Preussen’s bow and with a tightening heart knew what it was: the shadow of Odin at last entering the contest.
She burst into view and Kydd was left with a last decision: to leave his duel with Preussen unfinished and face a fresh adversary—or stay locked together and fight the two simultaneously.
As Odin curved about, the decision was taken for him. As though swept away like a spider’s web Preussen’s fore-topmast staysail was shot away and with its gear it fell to the fore-deck, the lines entangling and smothering.
Kydd reacted instantly, giving the orders to get under way.
It was not a deciding blow but it was a reprieve. Until Preussen could make repair she was unable to manoeuvre and her guns were falling silent as men were called away and she shivered into the wind. Now he had what he wanted: an even match, one on one.
This was no time for subtle navigating—Tyger had to be brought around to face Odin in the most advantageous way, which meant falling off the wind and putting distance between them and Preussen.
Odin reacted immediately and warily shaped course to intercept. Her captain could be counted on to be on the alert for any trick—he had seen what Kydd had done to Preussen—but he would know as well that Kydd needed to bring on the encounter as soon as possible, if he were to have any chance at a conclusion before Preussen rejoined the fight, her repairs complete.
They circled each other like prize-fighters, looking for an opening, but this gave Kydd precious time to reload guns on both sides.
He knew his men must be desperately tired and would recognise that they were up against a fresh and vengeful opponent, but any doubts he had vanished when a roar of cheering spread through the ship—some even hanging on the rigging and shaking their fists, shouting, goading their rival unmercifully.
It couldn’t last and the two ships came together under topsails in an oblique fashion, making it impossible for either side to open fire on the other until they met, for their guns could not be pointed so far forward.
They straightened at fifty yards opposite each other and fire was opened simultaneously in a hell of shot and noise. Again the cruel hits and rain of debris—and Kydd saw a ball take one of the midships guns in a welter of splintered carriage and upturned barrel, the gun-crew brutally thrown aside.
Beside him, Dillon walked slowly, his face a mask of control, Bray on his other side, his expression tigerish. At the headrails of the quarterdeck Kydd could see down into the infernal regions of the gun-deck where men strove and fought on in a nightmare of pain and fatigue.
At the wheel Halgren was blank-faced and calm. He was chewing tobacco, which Kydd had never seen him do before, his gaze fixed on some tranquil world beyond Tyger’s bowsprit. His eyes flicked up to the sails from time to time. Although in idleness, as they fought it out, he nevertheless had a duty to counter any wind flaw in the backed sails that might compromise their position.
With all his heart Kydd wished the man should survive the day. In this time of courage and death, the helmsman’s duty was both the most dangerous and the most helpless.
It went on and on—it was almost impossible to think. Kydd snatched a quick glance at Preussen, receding on their quarter. She had men swarming over her forepart—how long before she could rejoin the fight?
But Odin drifted closer, her fire telling, and on both ships casualties steadily mounted.
The frigate loomed—was she closing in for the kill?
Tyger’s gun-crews never faltered, in a manic frenzy serving their iron beasts to pound the enemy in a fight to the finish. It was grit and tenacity, fearlessness and pugnacity on a heroic scale, but in war this was seldom enough. So often fortune dictated the terms: one fatal ball, a worn rope giving way, a stray spark to powder—any could alter the course of the fray and put at nothing the valour of men.
And so it was that day. A chance eighteen-pounder ball shot from a gun with quoin removed to give maximum elevation fired up in the vague direction of the delicate tracery of lines and rigging found a mark: Odin’s foreyard, near the tops. The ball gouged and splintered and, with a massive crack that sounded above the din of battle, the big spar, with its brailed up fore-course, broke in half and gracefully hinged down in a chorus of twanging from severed ropes.
In itself it was not a catastrophe. The fore-course was not set and had little effect on manoeuvrability—the fight could go on. It was what followed that ended the contest.
The doused sail, loosed from its restraints opened and spread as it fell, smothering in canvas the first three guns of the frigate. Even this was no calamity: the sail and tangle of rigging could be cut away readily enough. It was the action of a single gun-captain that ended everything.
Knowing that his reloaded piece had, seconds previously, just been laid on the enemy, he’d fired the gun blindly through the fallen canvas.
In the heat of battle it was understandable—but it had fatal consequences.
The wads seating the powder and shot flew out of the muzzle with the ball but were caught in the loose canvas. Instantly there was a flaring up, spreading fast.
It had all happened so quickly. Kydd was held in horrified fascination as he saw the fire leap and catch in Odin—and then, without warning, there was a muffled whoomf and the entire fore-part of the vessel blazed up.
He knew what had happened and was sickened. Somewhere, trapped under the tangle, a powder monkey had been sent sprawling by the falling wreckage. His salt-box with its cartridge had been knocked open and when the flames reached the struggling boy it had gone off, incinerating the child—and dooming the ship.
As if in recognition of the awful moment Tyger’s guns fell silent and men stared at the spectacle, the increasing roar of the fire easily heard as the tarred lower rigging caught and spread paths of fire aloft.
“Get us out of here,” Kydd demanded hoarsely, aware that to leeward of the conflagration they were in deadly danger.
Tyger bore off slowly and, as the wind caught, slipped ahead, leaving the charnel house to its fate, for a reckoning was waiting.
Preussen was under way—she had set to rights her forestay by some epic feat of seamanship and now was to weather of Tyger, altering towards for the final sanction.
They
couldn’t abandon the scene for the enemy frigate was quite capable of single-handedly causing the destruction of the transports. And at the same time Preussen could not achieve this while Tyger remained at large to prevent it.
Logic demanded that they meet in single combat to decide the issue.
Kydd gave orders that saw Tyger fall off the wind and away. This was not flight, it was buying time, for the ship desperately needed relief to tend the wounded, clear the decks of the debris of battle and prepare an exhausted crew for a new onslaught.
There were few preliminaries. Kydd ordered Tyger to wheel about. The two ships approached to grapple, like two punch-drunk pugilists.
They met and the battle began again. This time it was clear that Preussen’s captain was determined on a quick finish. Closing inexorably, the frigate opened fire with all it had—great guns, swivels, muskets—a deathly storm of evil that staggered Kydd with its ferocity.
He forced his mind to absolute concentration—so much depended on it and this was too hot work to last long. Side by side, the ships moving at a slow walking pace while pounding shot into each other, it was a chaos of noise and destruction that beat at the senses, and out of it death could come at any instant.
Every detail of the enemy frigate could be seen through the eddying powder-smoke: the frantically labouring figures behind the gun-ports, the sadly scarred scroll-work and the glitter of blades as a boarding party readied.
Then her deck erupted in a lethal spray of splinters, scattering the assembled party in a welter of screams. His last order to fire high was sending shot upwards through the higher enemy deck.
It went on but Kydd could see that the tide of war was shifting. Tyger’s skill at arms—her matchless rate of fire—was telling. And with her guns charged double-shotted it must be near unendurable on the enemy decks.
Quite unexpectedly the picture changed: Preussen was slowing, slipping back! Amidships there was some sort of tangle of canvas where the staysail had been. In a wild leap of desperate hope he watched men struggle to deal with it. If this was another of Fortune’s hands dealt against the enemy, then …
The ship slowed further and Tyger increasingly pulled ahead. In a glorious surge of feeling, he knew that this was the defining moment of the contest and made ready to act. But the reek of the gun-smoke was making his throat dry and the words stuck in his throat.
His glance happened to flick to the after end of Preussen and saw it was no lucky stroke that had crippled Preussen—it was a deliberate and clever ploy to end the fight!
The big fore and aft driver sail on the mizzen was being hauled out by tackle to the wrong side, against the wind. In sudden understanding his gaze shot back to the midships shambles. He focused carefully and saw what it was—the whole thing was a mockery, the men heaving and tugging aimlessly and achieving nothing.
They had nearly got away with it, but Kydd had their measure. Their captain was intelligent and cool—he was falling back in pretence of damage but using the occasion not to disengage from a bloody duel: at the right point he would abruptly put over the helm and, aided by the backed driver, slide around Tyger’s stern. And there he would be in a perfect position to send a broadside in a brutal raking fire down her entire length, a mortal wound.
Kydd hesitated but only for a moment. If they turned away it would make things worse, presenting her stern so much the quicker. There was only one course to take.
“Helm up! Put us across her bows!” he croaked urgently.
The quartermaster stared unbelievingly—Preussen’s bowsprit was only just passing opposite but Halgren at the helm acted instantly, the spokes whirling as he wound on turns.
Tyger obediently swung towards the enemy frigate, closer and closer and at an ever steeper angle until she was madly sheering across the bows. Preussen’s jib-boom speared across Tyger’s quarterdeck snapping and splintering in a crazy progression—but what Kydd had trusted to happen, did.
One by one, as they passed across, Tyger’s guns spoke in an endless hideous sequence, the balls smashing into the naked bow—he had turned the tables and raked Preussen instead.
His officers and men had nobly risen to the occasion and, on their own initiative, had held fire in anticipation of this crushing blow.
They passed to the other side but Preussen did not attempt to wheel and follow. She could not: the epic repair to the forestay had been shot through and the frigate once more was helpless.
With bursting emotion Kydd knew the day was theirs. The enemy was at his mercy.
Coldly, he gave the orders.
Tyger circled around until the angle was just right. Then she went in for the kill, arrow straight for Preussen’s stern.
There was nothing to stop him from pass after pass of raking fire into the helpless vessel until there were only corpses, but this was war and a battle could only be won by one side.
There were figures at the taffrail, brave men who could do nothing. They were waiting for release—death or their commander hauling down their flag in surrender.
Colours still flew, therefore the dread logic of war demanded Kydd do his duty and begin the slaughter.
Sail was shortened to bring Tyger to a slower pace to prolong the battering—but Kydd couldn’t do it. These were men as brave as his own and deserved a better fate.
He sent word to the guns to hold their fire and sent for a speaking trumpet. As they passed the high stern he bellowed in French, “Strike your flag, sir! You have done enough this day for the honour of your country.”
There was a thin cry in return and with a sinking heart Kydd heard the unknown captain passionately refuse.
They were past by now and he wore around slowly and came down once more on his mission of destruction but again held his fire and hailed—with the same refusal.
Bleakly Kydd brought Tyger round for the last time.
This then was the final act. He must perform his duty and—
“He’s struck!” Bray roared hoarsely. “The bastard’s dousing his rag!”
Kydd saw that he was right: the proud tricolour at the mizzen halyards was slowly descending to half-staff.
The last frigate had surrendered to Tyger.
In a tidal wave of emotion he looked round at the sea battlefield that had seen so much blood and heroism, agony and death, and rocked with fatigue and relief.
Far off, the disabled Albatros drifted while over on their beam the wreck of Odin still burned fiercely. Nearby he could see Stoat and boats picking up survivors from the water.
And there, lying under their guns, was Preussen, fairly beaten in as harsh a combat as he’d ever in his life known.
“My barge, Mr Bray. And I’ll trouble you for the butcher’s bill on my return.”
With his coxswain at the helm, he stepped into the boat, still in his battle-stained dress. He settled into the sternsheets, barely hearing the quiet orders Halgren gave that had it bearing off and making for the enemy.
His towering exhaustion gave rise to a feeling of unreality, a floating of the mind outside the body that brought a calmness, a strange tranquillity. The men at the oars pulled slowly, their red eyes in pits of white against the grey of smeared powder-grime, their clothing torn and stained.
No one spoke. There was no exultation, no cheers as they approached the vanquished. Too much had happened.
The bowman hooked on at the main-chains and stood aside to let Kydd mount the side-steps.
This close, the marks of the recent encounter were stark and plain. Great shot-holes in the wales, an infinity of lesser scars, the brightness of shattered timber against the black hull, a snarl of forlorn ropes and blocks dangling from above and trailing in the water.
Weighed down by fatigue, he pulled himself slowly up the lacerated sides. On deck he found a group of officers, grey-slimed and red-eyed, but one held himself erect, thin-lipped and grim.
Kydd recognised the lace of a frigate captain and crossed to him, ignoring the others. The man’s arm was in
a sling and blood seeped but there was nothing in his cold, hard expression to betray his feeling.
For a long moment they faced each other without speaking, then the Frenchman bowed painfully.
“Capitaine de vaisseau Jean-Yves Marceau. I have the honour to command the French National Ship Preussen.” The voice was husky, controlled, the eyes coolly taking Kydd’s measure.
“Captain Sir Thomas Kydd, of His Majesty’s Frigate Tyger.”
The expressionless gaze held, then eased a fraction. “I should say that you have been favoured beyond the ordinary by the gods of war, Sir Thomas.”
Kydd inclined his head and waited. Behind him Halgren stood loosely, huge and impassive. Next to him were Clinton and three marines.
“But I will not. It has been a hard-fought action and against great odds—but this contest has been fairly won by you, sir, and I honour you for it.” There was a glimmer of a smile, then a sigh. “So I do invite you to take possession of my ship, for it is yours by right of conquest.”
A lieutenant stepped up with rigid control, thrusting out a sword and scabbard.
Kydd ignored it. “Sir, your ship fought to the very end. The outcome could have been very different. I cannot take the sword of a brave man.”
An unreadable shadow passed across the hard features, then wordlessly the man snapped to a low bow, which he held.
“I must nevertheless ask you for the key to the magazines, Capitaine,” Kydd said formally.
Another boat was already on its way. The rest of the business of the yielding of the vanquished could be left to others.
CHAPTER 20
BRAY GRAVELY HANDED KYDD a folded paper and Tyger’s captain sought the privacy of his cabin.
He’d instantly known what it was, the butcher’s bill. Those who had turned to that morning after a tense sleep had been doing their damnedest for their captain, their messmates and their ship and had seen the day go against them. Some had been touched by death, others suffered mutilation, many condemned to … The rest of their shipmates had life and a future. Where was the meaning in all of this?
Tyger: A Kydd Sea Adventure (Kydd Sea Adventures) Page 28
