“Boarders away!” yelled Jones, trying to rally the men. He leapt onto Renegade’s railing and then down to Tigre’s deck, landing with both feet in a dead man’s open chest.
The fighting was back and forth, each side gaining and losing ground, as more than three hundred sailors screamed in a riot of blood and fear. It seemed to last forever, and Jones thought at one moment the Renegades were losing more than they were gaining. But then a yell, a voice he knew, and Aja and fresh seamen climbed over Tigre’s larboard railing, firing into the Spaniards and hacking at the rear guard of the Spanish crewmen, forcing them back onto their own men who were fighting the Renegades. Now the Spaniards began to lose their spirit at this new onslaught, and Jones looked for the capitán to demand he strike. But Ramos would issue no more orders. He was down at the binnacle, a jagged splinter sticking into one eye, the other eye sightless in death.
Jones leapt to his side and stood over him. “¡Rendición! Surrender!” he screamed.
And slowly, like the dazed men they were, the Spanish sailors laid down their cutlasses and then they, too, lay down, too tired to stand.
SIXTY-THREE
KINIS HAD WATCHED Coeur complete her tack—that had taken a while—and saw that the big first-rate was now sailing more or less in his direction. She was sailing as close to the wind as possible, making considerable leeway, and her speed had dropped in consequence. Still, she was falling down toward Avenger, which was good.
He could see Rascal sailing hard and fast, and it seemed they might all intercept Coeur at the same spot. In spite of the admiral’s orders, he never expected Rascal to stay out of the fight. Not with Fallon aboard.
“Captain Kinis, are you ready to take on a French first-rate?” asked Davies, who had been standing just behind Kinis with his telescope to his eye.
“We’re ready, sir!” exclaimed the normally austere Kinis. He was a thoroughly competent British officer, and what he lacked in charm or personality he made up for with courage and a certain pragmatism. If he said the ship was ready for this battle, it was.
Kinis looked through his telescope at the oncoming Coeur. Her bows looked poxed; Jones had seen to that handsomely. But her jury-rigged bowsprit stood proudly raked at its upward angle, with the flying jib, jib, and fore staysail all set and drawing. Kinis stared a moment more and then reached a conclusion.
He would ask Davies for his approval, though in truth, as captain of the ship, he didn’t need it.
“DECK THERE!” Rascal’s lookout called. “Signal from Avenger: Crossing!”
At the lookout’s call, Fallon swung his telescope toward Avenger and he and Beauty both nodded instinctively. Kinis was going to attempt to cross Coeur’s bows and loose a broadside into that most vulnerable part of the ship, doubly vulnerable since Renegade had attacked the bows already. But it meant Avenger would likely pay a heavy price because, after passing Coeur, her stern would be exposed to a broadside, or perhaps even two. And those were massive broadsides, indeed.
“Beauty!” called Fallon. “Lay a course to cross Coeur’s stern but out of her angle of fire! Can you do that? Can we do that?”
“What are you thinking, Nico?” asked Beauty, looking closely at their sailing angle relative to Coeur’s and working out the answer to Fallon’s question in her own mind.
“I’m going to try to give the capitaine something else to think about to take his attention away from blowing Avenger’s stern to hell,” said Fallon. “Although I don’t have much hope.”
Beauty stared forward, her eyes on the shortening distance between Rascal and Coeur, and then she looked at the approaching Avenger, sailing with a bone in her teeth to cross Coeur’s bows. Fallon kept quiet, knowing Beauty was better at sailing angles than he was.
“I believe we can bear off a bit about a half mile from Coeur and make up the ground with better speed toward her stern,” said Barclay, reaching the exact conclusion that Beauty had already reached. “That should keep us outside her firing angle.”
They sailed for perhaps another cable’s distance, and Beauty ordered the schooner to drop down onto a beam reach. After she gave the order she turned to Fallon with a smile.
“Nico,” she said, “I’ve got an idea that ought to get that fucker’s attention.”
DAVIES WATCHED Coeur grow larger and larger in his telescope. She had run out her starboard guns in anticipation of Avenger’s arrival, but of course Kinis had no intention of coming under them. Avenger was close hauled and, unless a fluke of wind should alter things, they should just make it across the big ship’s bows.
Kinis raised his telescope to look at Rascal again. She was making excellent speed and might intercept Coeur, but he wondered what Fallon’s strategy was. Certainly, he should stay away from Coeur’s guns, but then what could he hope to accomplish? Give him this, Kinis thought, he’s a brave man.
As he watched, Rascal seemed to bear off to the west slightly. At that angle, she would not intercept Coeur but rather cross somewhere behind her. Mystified, Kinis sighed and turned his attention back to his own ship.
“Load and run out larboard!” he yelled.
FALLON WATCHED Beauty stand by the helmsman, giving him subtle and barely audible direction as Rascal arched like an eyebrow to the west of Coeur and then hardened up to the east toward the first-rate’s quarter. Here is where Rascal’s sailing qualities came to the fore, for she could point closer to the wind than any square-rigged ship and, even now, seemed to be sailing right up to Coeur’s stern. Would Coeur’s guns bear? The answer came almost immediately as the big ship’s aft-most guns barked, and splashes exploded less than fifty yards from Rascal’s larboard railing.
Fallon smiled as Beauty shrugged.
“Cully!” she yelled. “Ready the larboard guns!”
Again, Coeur’s guns fired, but again the shots were wide. Rascal was going to reach Coeur’s stern before Avenger reached her bows, just as Beauty had planned. They were gaining ground with every surge forward, and the enormity of Coeur’s size stunned the entire crew. Most of the men had never seen a building that big.
Close. Very close, now. Suddenly they were up to the ship’s stern, preparing to cross, Coeur’s huge size filling the sky.
“Fire!” yelled Beauty, and the damnedest thing happened: Flaming arrows shot out from Rascal’s eight larboard guns! It was like Zeus hurling lightning into Coeur’s open stern gallery! The arrows trailed smoke like an afterthought to mark their path up, up, and then into the big ship.
And then Rascal bore off quickly to protect her own stern as Coeur sailed on.
DAVIES LOOKED at Kinis and asked: “Did you see what I saw?”
Kinis smiled, giving the moment and Rascal their due, for he’d had the chance to bring fire arrows aboard but had scoffed, not seeing the sense of it when a cannonball did the real damage.
Now Avenger was almost up to Coeur, perhaps a cable away, and Kinis leaned into the binnacle as if to push his ship a bit higher to clear the oncoming first-rate. God, it was going to be close. As the ships drew closer he found himself holding his breath.
“Deck there!” the lookout called. “Smoke coming from Coeur’s stern! She’s on fire!”
“Goddammit, she’s burning!” exclaimed Davies. “Look at that smoke!”
Coeur was trailing brown smoke against the sky now, and Davies could see the capitaine, who appeared to have one arm, waving frantically and giving orders to crewmen who were running here and there. Every seaman’s greatest fear was fire aboard, and Davies knew there was real panic on that ship. And that was just the beginning, for Avenger was about to cross Coeur’s bows and Kinis was taking a deep breath.
“Fire!” the flag captain yelled.
Gun after gun fired in succession, 37 explosions in all, and Coeur’s bow opened like a daylily in sunshine, water pouring in as the big ship plowed on, gulping thirstily. When the last gun fired, Avenger was by! Kinis kept his course, sailing at a perpendicular angle away from Coeur, bracing for the expec
ted hail from fifty guns into Avenger’s stern.
But only the first-rate’s forward guns fired, for smoke was now drifting from the aft gun ports as the stern of the ship was fully engulfed in flames. Davies felt the shot come aboard but could not see the damage. Quickly, Kinis called for a tack to bring Avenger onto larboard and sailing parallel to Coeur, though considerably behind her.
No matter. The first-rate was swallowing water even as her sails drove her bow deeper into the sea. Her stern was on fire, and there would be only one way to put out the flames.
Coeur de France had to sink.
Avenger hardened up to the east and Rascal moved away, fearful that Coeur could explode before she sank. Her bows down, the big ship slowly nosed deeper and deeper into the sea, her forward progress slowing, her downward progress increasing.
Wooden ships take a long time to sink. Wood, of course, doesn’t want to sink, but the sheer weight of such a massive ship with its cannons and stores and humanity gives it no choice. It would take the better part of the remaining daylight for Coeur’s bows to slowly point directly at the bottom, the ship dropping deeper by degrees, groaning as she continued to sink below the surface.
At the last, Coeur’s massive stern stuck out from the sea, flames dancing from her timbers and sending sparks zigzagging upward, lighting the night sky like a giant torch.
SIXTY-FOUR
THE SUN rose into a pale sky, a somber yellow orb that bathed the world in light but not cheer. Certainly, there was little cheerfulness aboard Rascal as she prepared to leave Dame Marie for Antigua.
Rascal and Avenger had rescued every French sailor they could find; not surprisingly, the one-armed capitaine was not among them. Finally, darkness had put paid to the search; no doubt there were several hundred bodies floating ashore or out to sea. Most sailors didn’t know how to swim, so survival was counted in minutes. British tars could gladly inflict maiming and death in a ship-to-ship battle, but seeing an enemy ship sink with all hands left the victors morose. The cries of drowning men were pitiful to hear and remained in memory long after they ended in a final, merciful silence.
Rascal and Avenger had anchored in Dame Marie after dark and had been joined before midnight by an exhausted but jubilant Jones bringing Renegade and the captured Tigre into the tiny harbor, followed by an equally elated Aja aboard Mistral. Renegade had lost sixteen men and had twenty-two wounded. The loss of life aboard Tigre had been spectacular, first from Coeur’s pounding but especially from Renegade’s last grape broadside. What prisoners there were had been locked below decks. The wounded had been transferred to Renegade, and her surgeon had done what he could, but he had his own shipmates to tend first.
Now, as Rascal and Mistral left Dame Marie, Davies and Jones were preparing to leave for Port-au-Prince to land the prisoners under a white flag. The French sailors would have quite a tale to tell about Spanish duplicity, a tale that might wend its way all the way to Paris.
Once in the open sea, Somers approached Fallon at the windward rail to have a word. He had observed the battle with Coeur as an amazed, if impotent, bystander.
“Nico, this whole thing, your whole plan to draw France and Spain into battle with each other, to make allies distrust each other, was the God-damnedest thing I’ve ever seen,” he began. Fallon made to object but Somers cut him off. “No, I won’t hear it. I know about luck and all that, but I’m telling you straight up that what happened these last few days was art. Fucking art! There’s no other word for it. I know you feel bad about sinking Coeur. But, son, think of the hundreds or thousands of British lives that might have been saved over the rest of the war. Who knows where that ship might have gone next or what she might have done? It’s not easy seeing death on that scale, I admit it. But better him than us. I, for one, am damn glad it was him!”
With that monologue, Somers went looking for Beauty to give her more or less the same speech, adding something about those fucking fire arrows! Damned if he would see long faces after a victory like that!
BY TWO bells in the forenoon, a degree of happiness had returned to Rascal, the officers and crew having realized the role they played in sinking a first-rate. Cully, his good eye gleaming over his Irish smile, held up a fire arrow to the group of freedmen and described how it worked and why it worked. He didn’t have to explain what it did, as every man had seen that for himself.
Beauty’s mood had lightened somewhat as well. Yet, although her wound was not hurting, the same could not be said for her heart. She wanted to get to Antigua, welcome Elinore aboard, and depart for Bermuda as quickly as possible.
The day seemed brighter to Fallon now, and indeed the morning’s haze had lifted wonderfully, and Rascal plunged along on a bow line. He looked astern and saw Aja wave; Mistral seemed to dance above the waves instead of sailing through them. Aja would be a brilliant captain one day, Fallon thought. He had let go of the toddler’s hands, and the toddler had taken his first step.
Off to windward was Santo Domingo, lush and mountainous. And Spanish, unless Louverture was planning to conquer the whole of Hispaniola for France. Well, he was a determined leader, thought Fallon, at least as long as he could stay in power. Fallon hoped he had helped the general stay a bit longer.
He thought of Elinore now, no doubt looking out to the mouth of English Harbor throughout the day. Or walking with Paloma along the beach, the two of them becoming deeper friends: Paloma was a good influence on Elinore’s recovery from such a devastating loss.
Fallon had felt the loss as well. But his mind had been forced to put it away, deep down, because there was a war to fight. He realized now it wasn’t so deep down after all.
He thought about the baby—boy or girl? Was it Jack or Mary? He could picture himself playing with his baby, holding the pink-skinned fellow—yes, Jack—above his head and making him laugh and giggle and love his father. Love his father.
My God, he thought, that was almost me.
He walked the length of the ship, past cannons and crew, to stand at the bows and look to the east. The sea was an unimaginable blue, and dolphins surged alongside Rascal in a race to Antigua. The past was in his wake, he realized, but the future could be everything he wanted it to be.
AFTERWORD
IN 1802, Touissant Louverture was deported to France and imprisoned. He died soon after. Napoleon, as First Consul of France, revoked the decree abolishing slavery in all French territory the next year. France would not finally abolish the slave trade in her colonies until 1848, with a general and unconditional emancipation of all slaves.
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