Michael got off an occasional shot. Forward, axes and swords were hacking at the point where the rigging had fouled. Free now to look, those on the quarterdeck could see the current was swinging the stern round to a point where it would run them ashore to a quayside crowded with yelling Frenchman, some bearing torches, others so drunk they were unable to shake their fist without falling over. It would be fatal to get near them, for enough of those numerous enemies were sufficiently sober to cause trouble – a pair with muskets and the powder to load them were already doing so.
‘Michael, I need those guns silenced.’
‘Then you’d best come and aim this thing yourself, John-boy, for it is of little use in my hands.’
‘Let me,’ said Martin Dent, putting a hand on the weapon.
‘It will blow you off your feet,’ Michael scoffed, but he did let the boy take it, and Martin laid it on the bulwark and took aim, slowly squeezing the trigger. Michael was right, the discharge threw Martin backwards, but there was an immediate scream from the nearby shore that meant he had found a target in the yelling crowd of drunks.
‘Look,’ said One Tooth, pointing forward. Pearce followed his finger, to see two things. That a fight was going on between the anchor watch of the Mercedes, and at the same time a party of the shore-side Frenchmen with torches was making its way down the quay to commandeer fishing boats. ‘We can’t fight them all if they get aboard.’
There was a hiatus, with no one doing much from the shore to impede their progress. Firing had stopped, the only activity taking place in the bows, where the Frenchmen were trying and failing to get lines on the Lady Harrington so that they could lash her off to their stationary ship. Those on shore must have been pinning their hopes on a number of men getting aboard, sufficient to take back the prize.
‘Then we must ensure they do not.’ Suddenly Pearce added, ‘What is your damned name, anyway?’
‘Twyman.’
‘Everyone forward to keep the crew of that ship off our deck,’ said Pearce, his mind going back to the chase that had started this whole affair. ‘Twyman, have you got a cannon we can aim forward on those boats?’
‘With the swing on the barky any one of the side armament will do.’
‘Powder, balls?’
‘Balls should still be by the guns, though they might have emptied the magazine.’
‘Send someone to look. Dysart, that barrel of powder?’
‘Still in the cutter.’
‘Burns, go with Martin and fetch it.’ The midshipman stood stock still, until Pearce shouted. ‘You must do something, boy!’
‘I’ll go,’ said Rufus. ‘Me and Charlie, it’s sort of ours like.’
‘Slowmatch, Dysart.’
‘Aye. Roond ma waist still.’
‘Well, get your flints on it and get it lit.’
‘We’re clear forrard,’ came the cry.
‘On the wheel, keep us that way,’ shouted Twyman.
Pearce went down the starboard gangway to look at the guns, aware that the ship was moving – slowly, but it was moving, running out on the falling tide. On the opposite deck the Harringtons were fending off with their capstan bars. The Frenchmen opposing them could have used a cannon – not more than one for they were too few. Was it that they were stupid, or did they fear to damage their prize? What difference did it make?
Being an East Indiaman, the ship was well armed, with half a dozen long nines a side. Twyman was right, there were balls left in the garlands, and within a minute he had a flintlock to fire the piece, the ship’s own powder in cartridges, swab and rammers, linstock burning slowly in case the flint didn’t fire, two buckets of water and his own mates as gun crew.
‘Martin, you’re powder monkey. Let go of the breechings. Open the port. Michael, Rufus, Charlie, on the tackle. Mr Twyman we need more hands.’ Charlie didn’t wait – he was already swabbing the gun just in case it had been fired when the East Indiaman had been taken. Dysart showed Pearce how to attach the flintlock while a cartridge was picked, the touchhole covered and the rest rammed down the barrel with the ball.
‘Now all ye have to dae,’ instructed Dysart, handing Pearce the firing line, ‘is look doon the piece, point it where you want the ball tae go, and pull this hard.’
‘You know what you’re doing, Dysart.’
‘Aye. But I’m no up tae bein’ the gun captain, Pearce, especially no with this gammy arm. You are.’
It was an odd way for the Scot to say he was grateful, but that, judging by the look on his face, was what it amounted to. Pearce realised that he was, and had been, enjoying himself; his blood had been racing for an age now, a strange and compelling feeling that had first surfaced when he started fighting, and had still not diminished. Leaning down, picking out one of the bobbing torches as a target, he called for the gun carriage to be levered round as far forward as the cannon would bear. They had to take the quoin out and reverse it to depress the muzzle, but the time came when one torch was in sight right down the line of the cannon.
‘Stand clear,’ said Pearce, stepping back himself so that he was holding on to three feet of firing lanyard, his own arm fully stretched. He pulled, saw the spark, then jumped even further back as the cannon fired, sending out an orange tongue of flame that lit the night sky, and a solid ball that crunched into a berthed fishing boat and turned it to matchwood, as the gun shot back into its straining breechings.
‘Reload,’ Pearce shouted.
‘We’re clearing the Mercedes.’
That shout made Pearce look aft to where the privateer’s foredeck was slowly, for they were still drifting, but surely coming abreast of the Lady Harrington’s poop. Behind him, amidships and well away from the powder, he could see the slowmatch fizzing as it burnt into a tub of sand. Dysart was sitting on the small barrel of gunpowder they had fetched aboard, with his broken arm sticking straight out. The ropes which had carried the barrel were still there, loops of hemp that were too tempting to resist.
‘Dysart, can you make that barrel you’re sitting on live?’ The questioning look made Pearce continue. ‘I think a little bit of that slowmatch, inserted, might make it into a useful bomb. Only you can tell what would happen if that went off on an enemy deck.’
‘Why, it wid be terrible.’
‘Can I ask you to make it so?’
The cannon was reloaded, Pearce had it hauled up, adjusted his aim and elevation, them pulled the firing lanyard again. This time, with shortened range, the effect was even more devastating, as the ball sliced through the flimsy scantlings of the small fishing boats, sending slivers of wood in all directions and bringing in its wake the satisfying sound of men receiving wounds.
‘That cleared the buggers,’ shouted Charlie Taverner, looking over the bulwarks, ‘and some of them have taken splinters.’
Pearce moved forward to follow Charlie’s finger, and to see the privateersmen seeking cover, with the exception of those half dozen writhing on the ground.
‘Mr Burns, sir,’ called Dysart, ‘will you oblige me by turning this wee barrel on its side.’
Pearce turned to look at that. The boy did not respond, indeed he seemed to be getting ready to slink away again. Pearce’s harsh tone stopped him. ‘Move, Mr Burns! You wear an officer’s coat. It would benefit us all greatly if, just this once, you were to behave like one.’
Pearce’s censure brought compliance – slow, not enthusiastic, but forward movement nonetheless. With the barrel on its side, Dysart handed Burns a knife, with which the boy went to work on the bung, creating a hole down the side of the cork into which the Scotsman could feed his linstock, all the while talking the young midshipman through.
‘We want it cut short, Mr Burns, very short, an inch showing and nae mair.’
A cry came from the men on the wheel. ‘Mercedes has cut her cable.’
Pearce was forced to leave off gun-laying to find out from Twyman what that meant.
‘They are lighter than us, a shallower draught, so t
hey might drift out with greater speed.’
‘So?’
‘They will hope to foul us, run their bowsprit over our rail, snare us on lines and act as a sheet anchor so that we drift into the shore.’
‘Then,’ said Pearce emphatically, ‘I think spoiling their game comes first. Charlie, Rufus, you said that powder barrel was yours.’
‘It is, Pearce,’ shouted Charlie, for the first time in an age his face happy, something like it had been that night in the Pelican. ‘It most surely is.’
Pearce wanted to light the slowmatch before they moved from the gangway, but Dysart had too healthy a respect for powder to let him. He insisted on patience until the entire party was on the poop. Then, and only then, would he take the small piece of linstock, already burning, and apply it to the bare inch left exposed.
‘The honour,’ Pearce said to his two messmates, ‘is yours.’
‘Dinna rush,’ warned Dysart. ‘See how slow it burns.’
What crew remained on the Mercedes must have sensed something coming, even if they could not see what it was. Those who could be spared took up position to fire a couple of muskets at the party on the Indiaman’s poop, but they were rebuffed by a fusillade, led by Michael O’Hagan, made by his musket and numerous captured pistols.
‘Get ready,’ warned Dysart as the burning fuse reached the very edge of the bung. Charlie and Rufus lifted the barrel by the ropes and started to swing, with the Scotsman intoning an interminable one-twa-three for the throw. On three, the two Pelicans gave a mighty heave backwards, then forwards, and slung the barrel of powder, its fuse fizzing angrily, onto the privateer’s deck.
‘Now get doon,’ the Scotsman ordered.
It was as well they obliged. Almost as soon as the barrel hit the enemy deck, following no more than a couple of rolls, it went off, a great crashing explosion that tore lumps out of the French ship. Flaming staves rose into the rigging and lodged there, setting light to tarred rope wherever they came into contact. It seemed only minutes until the Mercedes was ablaze all along her forepeak, those who had been left aboard no longer seeking to close her in on the Indiaman. Now they were looking for a way to survive.
‘Back on the gun,’ Pearce shouted, finding he had to drag some away from the terrifying sight.
‘Aye, aye, Captain,’ called Charlie.
Pearce grinned, and in doing so realised how tense he had been. ‘Only a gun captain, Charlie.’
They got off one more shot, that one aimed at a target that lay astern of the ship, and this time the ball landed on the shore to bounce along, sending Frenchmen flying in all directions.
‘I never wanted to be a sailor, Michael,’ said Pearce, leaning wearily on the Irishman’s shoulder. ‘But right now I would be happy to change places.’
‘Only a fool would believe that, John-boy,’ Michael replied, ‘an omadhaun in the Erse.’
‘Is that what it means, a fool?’
‘Aye, though one tinged with madness.’
‘Then I have found my true rating.’
The flash of the exploding powder that set in motion the destruction of the Mercedes lit the night sky and was visible for fifty miles, brilliant fading to constant, reflected off the cloud cover. Lieutenant Digby, who had the watch aboard HMS Brilliant, deliberated about waking his captain, worried that a man who seemed to have clutched at so many straws would do likewise with this. He knew that the frigate should not be here, three days sailing at least from the convoy. If Gould had obeyed his instructions and cleared the great headland at Ushant he would be well on his way to passing Brest and entering the Bay of Biscay. But reluctant as he was, he had no choice – Barclay’s standing orders were quite specific.
‘It came from the Estuary de Trieux?’ Barclay demanded, night glass to his eye, nightshirt flapping in the breeze.
‘I can only report that the explosion came from the general direction, sir.’
‘An opinion, Mr Digby.’
‘I feel obliged to decline to give one, sir. It could be anything.’
‘And what, sir,’ Barclay enquired drily, passing the lieutenant his telescope, ‘would you say that was?’
Digby looked, not knowing whether to be pleased or despairing about the orange glow that tinged the sky. ‘Fire, sir.’
‘A large fire, sir, perhaps even a ship fire?’
‘We cannot assume that, Captain Barclay.’
‘No Mr Digby, we cannot. But I think we are obliged to investigate. Please set me a course for the mouth of that estuary. I want to be close inshore by dawn.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
Unbeknown to Pearce, Twyman had been busy getting some kind of sail on the ship that would enable the helmsman to hold her head steady. Firing his cannon, watching the gunpowder bomb and the subsequent fire, he had not even been aware that men had gone aloft. They had rigged a jib and the gaff, as well as a topsail that could be braced round into what were now light airs. With this the Lady Harrington could set and maintain a course, with the added advantage that the topsail, backed, could slow their progress down the channel, very necessary if they did not wish to run aground.
Nor was he aware, as a nautical novice, just how swiftly the tide fell in the bight of Brittany, the speed with which the water exited from this estuary. At the mouth of the inlet it was like a tidal race, a cataract that met the incoming seawater, breaking over rocks in abundance, to create a maelstrom of white water, something the locals avoided like the plague.
‘I need hands on the braces,’ Twyman yelled. ‘For if we don’t have sails set right we could broach to in that water, an’ that don’t take no account of the rocks.’
He had caught Pearce cold; he was still, like his shipmates, basking in the glow of the martial success. One Tooth Twyman had no tact at all, so when he yelled at them for some activity it was well larded with expletives.
‘Are we being required,’ Michael scoffed, with an expression that boded argument, ‘to do willingly what we hated to do for Barclay?’
‘We are,’ Pearce replied, ‘and I fear we must.’
In a voice full of irony he simulated what he had heard on Brilliant. ‘So clap on to them falls, me hearties, an’ pull like the very devil.’
Which the Pelicans did, their spirits as high as his, running to where they were told, hauling on ropes like demons, aware that Martin Dent was aloft doing what he did best on Brilliant, handling the highest sails, while Mr Burns was likewise replicating his naval behaviour, standing by the wheel being utterly useless. Dysart, with only one good arm, had taken on the task of ensuring that ropes were properly attached to their cleats, that they would not fly off and endanger the whole ship.
The Indiaman hit the disturbed water to rear and buck like a horse, with Twyman and two others fighting a wheel that wanted to rip itself out of their hands. The bows dipped alarmingly, and the long bowsprit shot well east. Pearce and his mates raced to loosen one set of braces, then ran with equal alacrity to tighten those on the larboard side. The wind on the sails, in that configuration, brought the head round and the Lady Harrington ploughed out into less tempestuous waters.
The boom, and the shock that hit them seconds later, took everyone aboard by surprise. They had been too busy seeing to the needs of their ship to think of what was happening to the Mercedes, illuminated like a torch by the flames that ran through her sails and rigging. The hull had been ablaze too and as the flames reached her store of gunpowder she simply blew up, a great cataclysmic explosion that sent most of the decks skywards, while the scantlings were blown out to reveal the fiery red ball that was the seat of the blast.
‘Jesus,’ said Michael, crossing himself.
‘Fire got the magazine,’ said Dysart.
There was a moment of uncertainty for Pearce; part elation, part regret at the death of a ship and quite possibly several men aboard her, pride at what they had achieved tugging at every pacifist tenet he had ever been taught. If that had been Brilliant and Barclay would he care so muc
h? That was a thought that brought him abruptly back to consideration of the next dilemma.
‘Twyman,’ he shouted, ‘is it possible to set a course that would take us east?’
‘Whatever for?’
Pearce looked out into the inky western darkness of the sea, lit only by a streak of moonlight. ‘I think our frigate is out to the west, and I have good reasons for wanting to avoid her.’
‘Then if that’s what you want you’d best get back on those bloody falls and haul away on command, though I won’t put the helm down till we are well clear of that damned shore.’
Once on a settled course, sailing easy, everyone aboard could relax and count the cost of what they had done. They had one Harrington dead; the two wounded were brought in to rest in what had been the Indiaman captain’s sleeping cabin and rendered what aid was possible. It was not much, and worryingly, Michael identified one fellow who had saved his life as critical. It was that smooth-faced cove that Pearce had first met at their prison window, the one known as Dusty.
‘Seen it before, John-boy, that lack of colour. Poor sod can barely breathe. He needs a medical man.’
‘How long, Twyman, till we raise the home shore?’
‘God alone has knowledge of that, mate, and if you was a sailor you would know better than to ask. The wind will decide. If it favours us, and the weather stays clear, two to four days. But I’ve been stuck in this stretch of water for a whole fortnight, beating up the Channel into the teeth of an endless easterly, and that with a full crew of hands.’
‘I would hate to be responsible for anyone’s death.’
‘We’s all got to go sometime,’ Twyman replied, heartlessly.
Pearce was now feeling guilty, his mood black, not only about the remarkably few casualties they had suffered, but also about those amongst the Frenchmen – he was sure he had killed more than one – which he knew to be absurd. They would have killed him if they could, and probably celebrated the fact of doing so. But being irrational did not make that emotion any easier to avoid. He was assailed by the stupidity of some of the decisions he had made, easily able to imagine the consequences had the whole party not been favoured with remarkable good luck. Added to that was the certain knowledge that he had risked a great many lives to achieve an utterly selfish end – his own return to England. The excuse that he was acting for them collectively was now, obviously, so much moonshine. His mood rendered him uncommunicative, which did not register with the crew of the Indiaman, but offended those with whom he had come ashore.
By the Mast Divided Page 42
