It was wonderful to be out of the ship, to draw clear air into smoke-filled lungs, and to feel the cool evening breeze waft across blistered skin. From farther forward the sound of battle was changing. They heard Blake and Preston yelling at their men, and the French shouts turning to jeers as the British withdrew. Then came the first cry of alarm.
‘Push off larboard side!’ gasped Sedgwick, coughing and spitting to clear away the last of the smoke. ‘Together, both, and put your backs into it!’
The cutter ran smoothly away from the Peregrine, floating on water that was turning to molten gold in the light of the burning ship. Russell looked back and saw long tongues of flame licking out of the sloop’s stern most gun ports, and lines of yellow racing up her mizzen mast. Soon the whole back of the ship was engulfed, while from on board came the urgent bark of orders as her crew tried to save her. Backlit by a growing wall of fire came the two other boats, rowing in haste towards them.
‘Wait for the others here, Sedgwick,’ ordered Russell. ‘We should be out of range now.’
‘Easy all,’ ordered the coxswain, turning around to watch the spectacle. The flames had reached the main mast, and balls of fire were following each other up her tarred rigging as this too caught fire.
‘Holy Mary fecking save us,’ muttered the voice of O’Malley. ‘Hell must be very like to that.’
‘Them Frogs ain’t never going to put it out, sir,’ commented Sedgwick.
‘I think some of them are of your way of thinking,’ said the midshipman, pointing to a boat that had been launched from the stricken sloop, with men tumbling down her side into it. Closer too was the first of the Griffin’s two launches. Between the lines of oarsmen lay a group of injured sailors.
‘Good work, Mr Russell,’ said Preston, as his boat drew level. ‘Although it looks to have been a close-run thing, to judge from how scorched you all seem.’ The blazing ship was now lighting the whole bay. In the glow Russell looked at the blackened faces and clothes all around him. Sedgwick had lost both his eyebrows, and a good piece of hair from his scalp, while one of Mudge’s bristling sideburns had vanished altogether. Wherever he looked, he could see painful burns and missing hair. He glanced down at his own clothes, and realised that the white lining of his coat was visible through a large burn in the sleeve. His left hand felt as hot as if it was still on fire.
‘Come, gentlemen, there will be time for discourse later,’ said Blake, as his launch came up on the cutter’s other side. ‘We must depart before the enemy recover themselves. Look, they are already busy launching craft!’
Now the whole of the harbour was illuminated by the blazing sloop. Across an expanse of glittering water, he could see the wharfs and buildings of Pointe-à-Pitre lit in a wash of amber. Faces where appearing in windows, and people were massing on the quayside to watch the spectacle. Beneath the walls of the fortress, the main harbour entrance was blocked by a line of rowing boats, with more hastening from the shore to join them. Several had small boat carronades mounted in their bows, others had lamps hung from spars, and all were packed with men.
‘Fortunately, they seem to be expecting us to leave by the front door,’ shouted Preston. ‘Let us hasten to the tradesmen’s entrance, before they realise their error.’
‘Follow astern,’ ordered Blake. ‘Make haste!’
The boats had hardly set off before a massive blast deafened them. Russell felt himself knocked forward, as if the cutter had been shunted heavily from astern, and night rushed back.
‘Keep rowing!’ yelled Sedgwick beside him, his voice woolly and distant through the ringing in Russell’s ears. The dazed crew of the boat picked up a faltering stroke, just as fragments from the destroyed ship plunged down around them, throwing up columns of water. Moments later a wave rushed under them, lifting the boat with it and sending them surging forwards. Russell looked behind him at the bay, but all that remained of the Peregrine were a few smouldering timbers floating on the water, and a ball of black cloud rising up and expanding out into the starry sky.
One ear popped, and he could hear again. He turned his attention to the boat. Sedgwick had the men back in order, and the cutter was heading steadily towards the western end of the island, where they had crossed the shallows. The French boats clustered at its eastern end looked like fireflies in the night, with their bobbing lanterns, but search as Russell might, he could not see any between him and their escape route.
‘Ha! I do declare we have the French properly foxed,’ he exalted to Sedgwick beside him. ‘See how they are all set to prevent us leaving in the Peregrine. The captain’s plan has worked splendidly.’
‘Aye, that it has, sir,’ said the coxswain. ‘Shame for the lost prize money, mind, and I ain’t sure as my whiskers will ever grow back.’
‘Oh, but what a triumph,’ continued the youngster. ‘We might get a whole page in the Chronicle! Think of that!’
‘We done alright, sir,’ agreed Sedgwick. ‘An’ I shall give you joy of your page, just as soon as we are safely back in the barky, an’ not bobbing about in an enemy harbour no more.’
The young midshipman sat back against the thwart and considered this, but it was hard for him to keep still. He had been both excited and scared in equal measures ever since Clay had given him the critical role in the attack. Keeping it all suppressed and maintaining the calm expected of an officer had been a sore trial for the teenager. But now they had succeeded, not even the pain from his scorched hand could prevent him from bubbling over with relief.
‘Mr Russell, sir,’ said the sailor pulling on the stroke oar. ‘I reckon I can see a brace of launches astern. Going like the clappers, they is, which is how I marked them. Reckon they’ve come from that big Frog bugger, maybes.’
Russell looked around, and saw the boats instantly, even in the dark. They were bow on to him, and both were pulling hard, their oars splashing and foaming to either side. The nearest was perhaps a half mile behind, but was gaining on them fast.
‘Put your backs into it, lads,’ he urged, and the cutter gathered pace.
‘Keep the stroke clean, mind,’ added Sedgwick beside him, before turning to whisper an explanation to the young officer. ‘The lads will be tired with all we’ve done this night, sir, while I daresay them Frogs was kipping in their hammocks until not half an hour ago.’
Soon the cutter began to overhaul the launch.
‘What are you about, Mr Russell?’ demanded the voice of Preston. ‘It is not the damned St Ledger, you know?’
‘Two big enemy launches closing from astern, sir,’ reported Russell. ‘From the size, I would judge them to have come from that ship of the line.’ There was a pause while Preston looked behind him.
‘They may prove troublesome, but if they are as large as you say, they will struggle to follow us across the shallows,’ he said. ‘See, we are very nearly at the island.’
Russell looked to where the Isle of Pigs filled his view. On this side the trees seemed taller, rising in a thick dark mass against the night sky, with a faint line of white beach at their feet. Just ahead of him, Blake’s launch had turned aside, and was heading straight for the channel at the island’s end. Russell indicated for Sedgwick to follow. They had almost reached the sand when a challenge rang out.
‘Who goes there?’ demanded the bass voice of Corporal Edwards, from somewhere in the shadows.
‘Griffins,’ replied the voice of Blake.
‘I should get hauling those boat across as swiftly as you can, Mr Blake,’ said Macpherson, calm as always. ‘You have brought a brace of friends with you, I collect.’
‘Wounded to stay on board, crew disembark,’ ordered the lieutenant, the moment the launch grounded in the shallows. ‘Handsomely there.’
The other two boats arrived alongside Blake’s, and the crews tumbled out.
‘Mr Russell, I shall need your men to assist to get the launch through, before returning to help Mr Preston,’ ordered Blake.
‘Aye aye, sir,’ sai
d Russell. ‘Sedgwick and Trevan, stay with the cutter, the rest of you clap onto the boat.’
Soon the combined crew were busy hauling the first boat through the shallow channel, the water glowing with phosphorescence as the men splashed along beside her in their haste to drive her onwards. The night was full of curses and oaths as the salt water found the more painful of the cutter crew’s many burns.
‘Barrel of fecking lamp oil!’ muttered O’Malley to Evans. ‘Why stop there, and not chuck on a powder keg, an’ all?’
‘Aye, perhaps I did get a bit carried away,’ acknowledged the Londoner. ‘But what a bleeding fire, eh!’
While Russell waited for the two larger boats to be hauled through, he went and stood beside the elegant marine officer as he watched the approaching enemy.
‘We managed to destroy the Peregrine, sir,’ he reported, trying to keep the excitement from his voice.
‘Oh, did you, laddie?’ queried Macpherson. ‘And there was I thinking a fresh volcano had erupted in the bay.’ Russell turned to walk away, but the Scotsman pulled him back. ‘Stay a moment. You did a hard thing very well. I only make light of it in jest. I have much to attend to at present, as do you, so don’t let a fine tale spoil with a hasty telling. When we are safe back on board, I shall want to learn all you have done this night. Now away with you, and let me think how to stop the enemy spoiling your triumph.’
Russell returned to the cutter, and left the marine stroking one of his sideburns with his gloved hand. He looked across at the slowly moving British boats, and then at the rapidly approaching French pair. Then he came to a decision.
‘Still no sign of anyone advancing from the battery, Corporal?’ he asked the figure beside him. ‘No sir, not a peep.’
‘Excellent. Have the pickets withdrawn to join the others, and then I want the men to fall in here, in a close order line.’
‘Yes sir,’ replied the corporal. ‘Shall we be giving them Frogs a quick volley, and then scarper back to our own boat?’ Macpherson looked at the nearing French. They were so close he could hear the rattle of their oars and see the glint of starlight on the muskets of the soldiers. His right hand closed around the hilt of the old claymore he always wore.
‘No, they are too numerous and press too close for that to answer,’ he said. ‘We shall have to make them fear this island first. Bring the men swiftly, now.’
*****
Earlier, Lieutenant Etienne Albert of the French eighty-gun ship of the line Centaure decided that he was not having a good night. It had started promisingly enough, with an excellent dinner ashore hosted by the officers of the garrison. Most had left France over six years ago, and had been starved of news from home for much of that time. The arrival of the Centaure the previous month had been a godsend for the homesick soldiers, who had long since tired of each other’s company. In honour of the occasion, some of the best wine the fortress’s cellar could offer had been produced. This had been followed by a particularly fine cask-aged rum from a local producer who had learned his craft among the vineyards of Armagnac. It was after midnight that Albert and his fellow naval officers, all now thoroughly drunk, had returned to their ship, singing loudly as they made their unsteady way to their cabins to be undressed by their servants. It was only after considerable persistence from a burly young midshipman that he had been roused from sleep, a half hour later.
‘Wake up, monsieur!’ the youngster had urged, shaking the lieutenant’s cot until its snoring occupant was forced into consciousness. ‘The captain wants you! The enemy are in the port!’
Five minutes later, Lieutenant Albert burst out onto ship’s huge quarterdeck, still buttoning his shirt, with his neckcloth stuffed in a pocket. From somewhere he could hear the distant pop and bang of small arms fire. Closer at hand, the ship was alive with activity. Down on the main deck the boatswain and his mates were bellowing orders to a party of men who were at work on the booms. They were struggling to extract two of the ship’s bigger launches from all the upper masts and yards that had been struck down on deck. From farther forward the ship’s company of marines were being bawled at by their sergeant. On both sides, the cannon were manned by their crews. Lines of smoke rose like incense in a church from all the smouldering linstocks, making him gag a little. He looked up at the stars and breathed deeply, hoping that a few lungfuls of tropical air might halt the constellations from turning across the night sky in such a disturbing way.
‘Where is your sword, Etienne?’ demanded Jean Senard, the first lieutenant, stepping from his place beside the wheel.
‘Er … my sword? Now, let me think, sir,’ he said, looking around him as if the missing weapon might chance to be lying on the deck.
‘Are all of my officers drunk, Senard?’ raged the Centaure’s captain, joining the pair. His fury at having been pulled from his bed in the middle of the night was only matched by his annoyance that he had been obliged to dine with the island’s teetotal governor that evening.
‘I … I assure you I will be quite able to perform my d– duties, sir,’ said Albert, stifling a belch.
The captain exchanged glances with his first lieutenant, who shrugged in response. ‘Dupont continues to be sick, and Bisset can’t get up the ladderway, sir,’ he explained.
‘Come with me, both of you,’ barked the captain, setting off along the ship’s starboard gangway with the two lieutenants trailing in his wake. He reached the forecastle rail, high above the waters of the port, and pointed towards the dark bay scooped into the western side of the inlet.
‘Do you see that damned mutineers’ ship?’ he asked. ‘The English are trying to cut her out.’
In truth, Albert could see two damned mutineers’ ships, but the night air had sobered him up sufficiently to realise that letting his captain know this was unlikely to end well. Instead he narrowed his eyes in concentration, forcing the twin images to merge. Although the Peregrine was at least a mile away, he could still detect the fierce struggle taking place on board from the prickle of small arms fire on her forecastle. His captain passed across a night glass, and the scene became much clearer. Now he could also see the shape of the two launches bracketing the sloop’s bow. Something in the scene troubled him, but search as he might, he could not think what it was.
He rubbed his temples, trying to massage some life into a mind fogged by drink. ‘How did the English pass the fortress, and the guard boat undetected, sir?’ he asked.
‘How does the Royal Navy achieve half the things they do?’ snapped his captain. ‘Perhaps the garrison were too busy pouring rum down the gullets of my officers to watch the harbour entrance properly? But never mind that! The enemy must not seize that ship! Monsieur Senard, I want you to take the longboat. Monsieur Albert, you shall command the blue launch. Arm the crew, and take a file of marines each. Go and end this nonsense, swiftly.’
‘Aye, aye, sir,’ replied the two officers, touching their hats in salute.
By the time the boats were launched, Albert had managed to gulp down some water, complete getting dressed and recover his sword from its place in his cabin. Feeling a little more alert, he climbed down the ship’s side and into the stern of the launch. The boat was packed full, with the normal crew supplemented by a double row of soldiers seated along the centreline. Each man held a musket upright in front of him.
‘Push off,’ he ordered to the coxswain, ‘and follow Lieutenant Senard in the longboat.’
It was dark on the water, after the lamp-lit main deck of the Centaure. The boat passed along the bulging side, and then underneath her bowsprit, which sprang out from the hull for almost a hundred feet, pointing the way like an enormous compass needle. Directly above Albert was the ship’s figurehead, silhouetted against the night sky. The prancing centaur looked enormous from beneath, almost the size of a small elephant. Then he turned his attention to the sloop ahead, in its little bay. The fighting was as intense as ever, still concentrated on the forecastle. From behind him three bell strokes sounded from the
ship of the line, and he began to realise what might be wrong.
‘When were the first shots heard?’ he asked the coxswain beside him.
‘A little after two bells, sir,’ replied the sailor.
‘Almost half an hour ago!’ exclaimed Albert, ‘and yet the Roast Beefs have got no farther than the forecastle?’
‘Yes, our men must be fighting very well, sir.’
‘Fighting like the devil himself, you mean,’ scoffed the officer. ‘A sleepy anchor watch, surprised by two boatloads of attackers? Are the Republican Guard manning the ship? The English should have swept the deck clear in an instant, and be halfway to the open sea by now.’ He bowed forward and massaged his temples once more. His forehead touched the metal of his sword scabbard, cooling his brow. ‘Think, Etienne, think,’ he muttered.
‘Sorry, sir. Did you say something?’ asked the sailor at the helm.
‘I am trying to work out what the enemy is truly about.’
‘They don’t just want their ship back, sir?’
‘They are setting about it in a very odd way if they do,’ said Albert. ‘I was at Toulon back in ninety-four, when they cut out L’Utile from under the noses of two shore batteries. The first the gunners knew about it was when she was heading out of the harbour.’
‘Perhaps this time they have made a dreadful error, sir,’ gloated the coxswain.
‘Maybe, in which case, why not retreat? What attacker keeps fighting for half an hour, once he has no surprise …’
His voice trailed off, and he looked towards the harbour entrance. The dark walls of the fortress were invisible on their cliff, but he thought back to earlier in the evening, when he had been on the ramparts, admiring the sunset with one of the garrison’s officers. The man had been boasting how impregnable the port was, with an airy sweep of his glowing cigar. He had slapped the solid breech of one of the heavy cannons that dominated the deep-water channel. Then he had pointed out the difficult turn that forced ships across the face of the battery on the Isle of Pigs. He remembered how a guard boat had been setting out from the little jetty beneath them, and how there had been a flotilla of others, tied up and ready.
Larcum Mudge (Alexander Clay Series Book 8) Page 12
