by M. C. Muir
Within minutes of the drum’s beat, the wooden and canvas walls, which provided privacy to the captain and his lieutenants, had been dismantled by the carpenter’s mates and consigned to the hold, along with all other portable furnishings, leaving only the guns remaining. The captain’s personal items, including charts and logs were gathered up by his steward and taken below or stowed in chests for safety.
While some men were designated to go below, others crowded the companionways heading on deck with spare hammocks to pack in the netting around the channels in order to protect the deadeyes and lanyards from being severed. If the shrouds or stays were damaged, the mast would topple, and if a ship lost its mast, the captain was likely to haul down his flag and all would be lost.
A few hammocks were hoisted aloft to provide some cover for the sharp shooters, and while their muskets were also hauled into the tops, the marines climbed the ratlines cautiously. For most of them, the fear of falling was far greater than the fear of the enemy. But they had their orders. They were to shoot down the opposing topmen. Without control of its canvas, the enemy was going nowhere and was doomed to defeat.
On the gun deck, every man in a crew of eight or ten, knew his post and the job it entailed. The cast iron cannon were released from their lashings. Gun ports opened and tied securely. Side tackles, preventer tackles and breeching ropes for each carriage were checked. From the cannon’s breech, the leaden apron that prevented accidental fire was removed and the tampion unplugged from its cold muzzle. Handspikes, worms, and sponges were made ready, while cheeses of wads were brought up from the hold and piled close by. Spliced circular garlands were laid between the gun carriages to prevent the balls from rolling away on the heeling deck. From the beam above his head, the gun captain’s powder horn swung pendulously from a hook, but he carried his priming iron in his belt.
Despite the sun shining in from the open port, a lantern was hung above it in case the action ran on into the night or the smoke was so thick the men couldn’t see what they were doing.
‘Light the glims?’ Mr Parry shouted. ‘And dowse the deck with sand. And you,’ he said, turning to the black Jack, ‘On deck to draw some water.’
Eku hurried up the ladder to the gunnel where a line of buckets was waiting to be filled from the sea. There was one for each gun and one to be hoisted to each of the mastheads. As every topman knew, a damp sail held more wind than a dry one, while a flaming sail would quickly drag a ship to a halt. The booms and boats also needed a dowsing, and water was required in the half-barrels on the gun deck for the gun-captains to hang their smouldering slow-matches over.
After making sure the fire hearth in the galley had been doused, cook hobbled to the powder magazine to assist the gunner and his mates filling cartridges ready for collection by the powder monkeys. In semi-darkness, sailors cleaned flinted gun-locks and prepared cartouche boxes of powder quills and tubes ready for the gun captains who came to collect them. They worked in silence, for although the gunner was stone-deaf, he wouldn’t allow a word spoken in his magazine. The entrance to his domain was shielded by a frieze-screen, a woollen blanket wetted to prevent sparks shooting in and blowing him up and the rest of the ship with him. The curtain smelled of wet sheep.
Outside the magazine, a young marine stood guard preventing anyone, with no business there, from entering. Other members of the corps were posted at the hatchways to prevent cowards sneaking below to escape the action. Only the powder monkeys and officers were allowed to pass and, even then, the boys had to present their leather powder boxes and state their names to prove their intentions.
In his workshop, the carpenter prepared a spare sail for fothering any damage should the hull be holed below water level. He also selected several large wooden plugs, and an equally large wooden mallet for hammering them into position.
It was the bosun’s job to check the pumps and hoses which would be needed to dampen sails or extinguish fires, and later to hose the decks clean of its slippery carpet of blood.
In the cockpit, the surgeon made preparations for the human cost, pushing sea chests together to make tables on which to operate on the wounded who needed stitches or amputations. He also dispatched a loblolly boy to deliver a tourniquet to each of the gun crews.
When Tommy was handed one, he turned it over in his hands, examining the short leather straps and turning the screw. ‘What do I do with this?’ he asked.
‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ Eku answered. Then he thought better of his response. ‘See here,’ he said, laying it around the boy’s arm. If a man’s bleeding from his arm or leg, you fasten this on him, then turn the screw and squeeze it real tight. Squeezing it is the only thing that’ll stop his blood from running out.’
‘What if he’s bleeding from his neck or his belly?’
‘Then you step over him, or drag him out of the way and get on with your business.’
‘Will he die?’ Tommy asked.
‘Likely he will, but that’s not your concern.’
‘Where is the bosun?’ the captain asked of one of the mates on deck.
‘Gone below for blocks and lines, Capt’n.’
Oliver nodded. They would be needed if the French fired grapeshot into Perpetual’s rigging. The sound of boys giggling made him turn around and glare at a young drummer and a pair of fifers sitting cross-legged on the deck joking while loading pistols and tossing cutlasses carelessly into the deck lockers.
‘Corporal, give an eye to these men.’
With Perpetual and Compendium slowly gaining on the four vessels, Captain Quintrell completed a final inspection and was satisfied his ship was ready for action. The whole process had taken a little over ten minutes.
‘It appears the corvettes are leaving the other two as bait and trying to make a run for it,’ Mr Parry said.
‘Then, it is time to teach these pirates a lesson,’ Oliver said. ‘We can mop up the slavers later.’
Carrying limited sail and manned by a small ill-disciplined French prize crew, the old Portuguese-built merchants would be an easy target.
‘The hotter the fight the sooner it’s over!’
‘Or so they say!’ Bungs said. ‘But I’ve known fights drag on for days, ships crippled, men the same, and neither captain willing to haul down his flag.’
‘Don’t make much sense to me,’ Muffin argued. ‘Most of the men dead and the ships not even fit for kindling, and if a storm comes up, both sides will end up arguing over a patch of sand on the seabed.’
‘It’s honour. That’s why they don’t haul down,’ Ekundayo said.
‘Honour! My arse! Stubborn pride and greed – that’s what I call it. Not a thought for the poor suckers on the guns especially those in the slaughterhouse.’
Tommy looked across to his black friend for an explanation. ‘Where’s the slaughterhouse?’ he asked Eku sheepishly.
‘The waist, that’s what he means. It’s the middle of the ship that takes most hits. It’s not a good place to be.’
Tommy looked along the deck from where they were standing. The waist was only one gun’s distance from them.
‘Best get below to the magazine,’ Eku said, ‘or you’ll be in trouble from the gunner.’
‘Aye,’ Tommy called. ‘Good luck’.
While the sand oozed slowly through the narrow neck of the hourglass, waiting for the action to commence seemed to take forever. During that time, no man was allowed to leave his post and apart from swaying to the reel of the deck, no one moved, or said anything, or shifted a piece of equipment, or even took a drink from the water butt. Everyone waited, ears pricked for the order to be issued by the captain on deck, to be relayed by the lieutenant, to be shouted to the division officers and, finally, to be bellowed to the gun crews. But sometimes the roar of enemy thunder obliterated that sequence.
On deck the captain and master also waited. Aloft, the marines clung to the rigging as best they could, a few unable to control the flow of green bile that they projected on
to the wind. Sitting almost directly beneath them, the youngest Royal Marine, barely eleven-years-of-age, stood ready to haul up mesh bags of musket balls when ordered.
Higher in the rigging, two of the topmen manned the swivel guns taken from the wreck in the Strait, hoping to pick off easy targets, or direct their aim at the enemy’s helm, or capstan, or rudder, or the deadeyes and lanyards on the channels, depending on which target best presented itself.
Now an unspoken, but palpable feeling of euphoria, tempered with anticipation, radiated between the seamen. A quiver of positive excitement electrified the air dispelling any sense of fear or panic that had previously oppressed them. Struck with the stark reality that not every man aboard would see the day out, they accepted their fate; some even willing their belongings to their closest mates should they not survive the day.
Stripped to the waist, the sailors wound lengths of cloth around their heads to hold in place the rolled oakum which sprouted from their ears. A few wore knitted mittens or leather palms they had made to protect their hands against running ropes or red-hot iron. Occasionally, a man popped his head from an open port and related news to the rest of his crew – the number of enemy ships in view, their size and type, their flags, how far distant they were but, most importantly, how many guns they were carrying.
With Perpetual closing on one of the corvettes, Compendium headed after the other. One on one was a fair fight.
‘Is everything ready, Mr Parry?’
‘Aye, Captain.’
‘Mr Greenleaf, kindly bring her up on the privateer’s port side.’
‘Aye, Captain.’
‘Time to show these French sailors what we think of them.’
The fighting began with little warning. Balls hissed and screamed as they cut across the deck only a few feet above the officers’ heads showering them with scraps of sailcloth, lengths of rope and twisted fittings. While spars and sails were captured in the protective netting, smaller fragments rained down and fell through the holes. A sailor was indeed unfortunate if he was standing below at the time. Most dangerous of all, however, was a loose block. Swinging like a huge wooden pendulum, it could slice through the netting like a hot knife through tallow and fell any man in its path without interrupting its rhythm.
For those below deck, able to hear, but unable to see what was happening, there was no knowing what course the action was taking or when it would end. The once orderly gun deck, where everything had its place and was in place, became a stage filled with smoke, smells and thunderous discharges rumbling one after the other. The planking bounced beneath the jumping guns and carriages, weighing two tons or more, searing flames spitting from both breech and muzzle. Splinters, from the size of toothpicks to the thickness of table legs, exploded around the deck impaling anything that got in their way.
Death on the gun deck was indiscriminate.
Just as Tommy was passing, the gun captain from one of the nearby crews was speared through the shoulder, the sharpened paling pinning him to the main mast – his feet full ten inches off the ground. The vibration of the next broadside set him dancing like a ragdoll, but he never released his grip on the length of slowmatch gripped in his hand till a member of his crew grabbed it from him.
After blowing across the ember till the core glowed red and fizzed, the sailor held it over the touch-hole and yelled, ‘Fire!’ The powder exploded. The gun carriage recoiled. And while the rest of the gun crew prepared to worm and swab out the barrel, he called for help to lift his dead mate down. For those serving on the gun, even with the glimmer of the lantern, there was nothing to see until the smoke had cleared.
Ear-splitting explosions followed one after the other. And when temporarily deafened by the sound, it was only the look on the gun captain’s face, or the movement of his hand over the breech that indicated he was ready to fire. Pity those who did not read the signs.
There were cries of relief, even elation, when an enemy shot failed to reach the frigate’s side and splashed into the sea a few yards short. But what followed was the frisson of fear that the next ball would reach its target. Fear festered when the rope holding the port lid was severed and the lid slapped closed. Unable to see out, the crew feared another shot would follow on the same trajectory. Re-opening the port lid was imperative but often impossible, so the crew took cover while the gunner fired the next shot straight at it – blowing the wooden lid from its hinges and carrying it several hundred yards out to sea or transforming it into a shower of matchwood. Worst of all was when the call went out that a gun was about to blow. Immediately every man in the vicinity ran for cover or ducked and said a silent prayer.
When a sailor was down and done for, there were urgent calls for spare hands to replace him. There were calls, too, for powder when a boy failed to return. There were screams for help from the injured who’d been dragged clear of the gun carriages. But the moans of those dying went unheeded and, when a full broadside exploded, ears became deaf to any sound at all.
From the deck, around each gun, any trace of black powder was washed away, but nothing could shift the acrid smoke which hung beneath the deck beams and roiled with each new ignition. For the windward guns the smoke from the muzzle blew its vileness straight back through the port to the gun crew that had fired it. Cheeks ran wet with involuntary tears making it almost impossible to see.
And with no other means of escape than upwards, smoke drifted to the waist and billowed up in clouds worrying those on the quarterdeck that the belly of the ship was alight.
For the men who were designated to remain below decks, they could only imagine what was happening above them. When the ship heeled suddenly, they feared it had suffered a lethal hit. Was it taking water? Were they about to sink and drown? Or was the captain merely bringing his ship around to rake the enemy’s stern? Then, as the ship continued to heel and waves poured through the gun ports, the deck was soon awash with a tide of frothy pink spume, while the smell of smoke, death and bilge water filled the sailors’ nostrils.
Chapter 21
The Human Toll
Striding the full length of the gun deck, Lieutenant Parry stopped briefly at every gun, encouraging the crews and the junior officers, most of whom were much younger than the men in their divisions. If a flintlock had broken or a length of slowmatch was almost exhausted, he heeded the gun captain’s needs. He covered his ears to the cry of Fire, and stepped aside when the boys ran by crying, Make way for powder! There were plenty of requests but, surprisingly, no complaints. The men had their designated jobs and were intent on doing them to the best of their ability.
Down in the hold, men who’d been loading round shot into baskets or passing them up by hand, where grateful to be relieved. With arm muscles worn to jelly they were hardly able to lift a six pound shot. Being sent on deck to fetch water was sweet relief. The idlers from the waist, whether they had the stomach for it or not, were sent to assist in the cockpit, to help with the injured, to move bodies aside or, in dire circumstances, to drag corpses to an open port and push them through.
In the magazine, the peg-legged cook seemed content to be with the gunner perched on a barrel of gun-powder filling quills and tubes. In his opinion scraping rust from shot was little different to peeling potatoes. Despite the gloom, he recognized every face that emerged from behind the damp blanket, saw tears glistening on the blackened cheeks of the powder monkeys – boys little older than nine or ten years – lads who should have been running errands for their mothers or improving their brains in the schoolroom with slate and chalk. Cook asked himself if the tears were stirred by emotion or the sting of acrid smoke. A modicum of both, he decided. Like the gunner, he said nothing but felt every vibration when Perpetual’s guns fired. He registered every thwack as a ball struck the hull, and he held his breath, waiting for the next, wondering where it would strike.
For the gun crews below deck, the only warning that the battle had reached its apex was the jolt as two hulls brushed together, or the appea
rance of the enemy’s muzzle glaring directly at them, like a giant Cyclops, through their own gun port. Now urgency consumed them. A delay or misfire at this stage could mean instant death. But even a successful shot could deliver a shower of lethal splinters.
An ear-splitting boom shot flames and smoke through the open port and almost instantly the enemy returned fire.
When the forearm of one of his mates was severed, Tommy’s face was splattered. He wiped the blood from his eyes onto his sleeve.
Without a cry or complaint, the sailor thrust his left hand over the stump but that didn’t stop a fountain of blood spurting in the air. Pushing him to the deck, Hobbles grabbed the tourniquet, fixed it on the man's arm, tightening it around the mangled flesh that remained.
‘You’ll be all right,’ he said. But the seaman seemed transfixed. He was puzzling over the sight of one of his fingers lodged in the deck beam over his head. That was all that had survived. The rest of his limb had been pulverized leaving blobs of blood and meat to drip down on the crew from the timbers above.
Young Francis, the powder monkey for gun Number 7 was not so lucky. Having caught a spark in his apron, the cartridge he was carrying had flared in a blinding flash, stripping his face clean off. Before he fell, his jaw dropped open, but not a sound came from it.
In the few moments of silence which ensued, the pitter-patter of dripping blood accompanied the stretcher bearers towards the companionway. As one man was carried by, Tommy noticed the tourniquet sitting uselessly on the sailor’s chest. Wherever his wound was, it was obviously not possible to stop the blood from flowing.
