The French Prize

by James L. Nelson

  Barère’s blood sprayed over the helmsman, who flinched at the sight, and Barère was flung backward. He crashed against the barrel of the helm, hung there for a moment, and then slumped to the deck.

  At that moment the burning in Renaudin’s ear became a pain like a knife thrust. He reached up and felt warm, wet blood on his fingers. He turned and looked across the water at the American. The rifleman, he thought. The damned rifleman who had shot down his helmsmen and the enseigne de vaisseau the last time they had tangled. This time he nearly took down the captain and the first officer in a single shot. Instead the bullet had clipped Renaudin’s ear on its way to taking off the back of Barère’s head.

  Renaudin looked back at Barère’s immobile form. His eyes were open and crossed, giving him an expression that might have been comical if not for the gore and great quantities of blood soaking his uniform and the deck below him. Renaudin felt the rage building. All of this, all the humiliation, the death, the insanity, Barère had brought it all.

  Straight from the Directoire, by way of me, who speaks for the Directoire …

  “Bastard!” Renaudin shouted. He stepped across the deck and kicked Barère’s body hard, then kicked him again, but the dead man only slumped over in a most unsatisfying way. Renaudin grabbed him by the collar of his coat and hefted him up, surprised at how light the man was. He half carried and half dragged him over to the taffrail, hoisted him up, and flung him over, watching with satisfaction as the man spun through the air, slowly twisting as he fell the fifteen feet to the sea, then hit with a splash that hid him from view for a moment before he bobbed up and settled, face up, still wearing that expression of surprise. Renaudin hoped he might see a shark set into that despised corpse.

  “Sir!” It was the helmsman and there was an urgent tone in his voice. Renaudin spun around. The American, who had been bearing up as if to pass astern of L’Armançon, was now falling off again, apparently looking to pass ahead, and in doing so threatening to take L’Armançon’s head rig clean off.

  “Merde,” Renaudin said. “Bear up, bear up!” He saw L’Armançon’s bow swing to larboard but already it was too late. The end of the jibboom was reaching out over the American’s foredeck and the corvette was driving closer still. Renaudin felt a gentle thump as the two ships locked together and L’Armançon’s way was checked.

  René Dauville came racing aft, his face streaked with soot, a tear in his blue coat. “Sir, where is Barère?” he shouted.

  “Dead,” Renaudin shouted back. “Get a boarding party, right up that bowsprit and see if you can’t get aboard that whoreson!” Renaudin could see the American sailors hacking at L’Armançon’s rigging, could see the jibboom twisting dangerously under the pressure being exerted by the American ship.

  “Aye, sir!” Dauville shouted, but before he could turn, Renaudin stepped closer and said in a lower tone. “Do not lead the boarders yourself. Send an enseigne de vaisseau to lead it.”

  “Sir, I must protest…” Dauville began, but Renaudin was thinking about the rifleman. He could not afford to lose his second officer. First officer, now.

  “That is an order, Lieutenant Dauville, a direct order, understand?”

  “Aye, sir,” Dauville said, not mollified, and ran forward. And five minutes later, Renaudin was vindicated in his decision when the damned rifleman dropped the enseigne de vaisseau into the sea, and the rest of the boarders, cowards to a man, turned and fled.

  Then the American ship, twisting in the breeze, snapped L’Armançon’s jibboom and wrenched the bowsprit sideways until it was hanging like a broken wing. Renaudin ordered the spanker backed, and as L’Armançon turned under the pressure of that sail they gave the arrogant, cheering bastards a broadside they would remember. He ordered Dauville to personally aim each gun for Dauville had brought down the American’s main topmast. But without the headsails they had been unable to check L’Armançon’s swing. The corvette turned up into the wind and the fore topmast came down around their ears.

  And here they lay, crippled, frantically trying to sort things out, to get steerageway at least, as a half mile away the Americans tried to do the same. Because the American master knew, as Renaudin did, that the first ship to get under way was the ship that would bring the other in as a prize of war.

  They worked like madmen, the newly disciplined crew, and Renaudin and Dauville drove them in the manner to which they were becoming accustomed. At such times, a mariner’s world closed down to the space between the bulwarks and straight up into the rigging, as if nothing existed beyond the gunwales or above the trucks of the mast. At first Renaudin would glance over at the American now and again, to see the state of their readiness, but he soon realized they were making no more progress than he was, and he stopped looking.

  And so it was several hours after the battle that he happened to look out to the east. He was actually looking at the bowsprit to see what progress was being made there, and it happened that the bow, which had been swinging all over the compass, was pointing east at that moment. Looking past the bow, Renaudin saw for the first time the long black line creeping up over the horizon, the great heaps of clouds building above it, the sign, well known to a man who had spent as much time in the West Indies as he, of a quick-moving and brutal storm.

  He looked over the wreckage strewn around L’Armançon’s deck, the rigging hanging in shreds above his head. “Merde,” he said for the second time that day.

  * * *

  By the time the sun was near to setting, the ugly black clouds, which earlier had been confined to the eastern horizon, were spread overhead, with the leading edge of the storm off to the west of them, making for a weird red-and-yellow sunset that bathed Guadeloupe, closer now by thirty miles, in its unearthly light. The Abigails were exhausted but their efforts had barely slacked because every man aboard could now see what they were in for. They needed no encouragement from Biddlecomb or Tucker to step it up. The black sky and the dull gray water, the breaking waves flashing dull in the fading light, the first stirrings of a cold wind like a spirit wafting by, these were enough to provide all the motivation needed.

  “Adams, Fowler, take a turn there!” Jack shouted to two of his seamen tending the fore topgallant heel rope. The hands had turned their attention to getting the remaining topgallant masts and yards down on the deck, reducing the weight and windage aloft in preparation for the storm, but those two were getting sloppy in their exhaustion. If the line got away from them, the mast would come crashing down. “We don’t need it to come down that damned fast,” Jack added, as Fowler took a turn of the line around a belaying pin.

  The debris had been cleared, the rigging knotted and spliced. Frost seemed to have disappeared after Jack broke off the fight with L’Armançon, but soon he was back on deck, fussing about the cannons, seeing they were double-lashed, then checking them and checking again. The topgallant yards were down and Tucker was seeing the mizzen topmast down to deck, and Jack was seeing to the fore topgallant. The fore topsail was triple-reefed, a narrow strip of canvas quickly being lost from sight in the gloom. The mainsail was also reefed, though Jack did not imagine they would hold on to that for long.

  Abigail had way on at last, driving along under the reefed topsail, mainsail, fore staysail, and the spanker with a balance reef. She was plunging into the chop, pitching and throwing up spray as the wind built and the seas came on, steep and breaking, and getting steeper still.

  “Deck there!” a voice called from the mizzen top, one of the British hands. “Lost her, sir!”

  Jack had sent him up there to keep an eye on L’Armançon. For all their worry about the storm, she was still a threat as well, she had to be considered. If her captain felt particularly ambitious he might fire a ball into Abigail as they were struggling to claw away from Guadeloupe. It would not take much damage to the rigging to put the merchantman in serious jeopardy.

  But it did not appear that that would be a problem. The Frenchmen were still struggling to get sail o
n, and they were being set downwind much faster than Abigail. It was not necessarily a matter of seamanship. The loss of the bowsprit and fore topmast was much more significant than the damage Abigail had suffered. Now Abigail, with sail set and making way, was nearly holding her own, fighting to windward to keep off Guadeloupe’s lee shore. The corvette was fighting the same fight and losing. The lookout had kept an eye on her for as long as he could, calling down occasional reports, but now he had lost sight of her.

  “Very well!” Jack shouted up, “”You may lay back to deck!” A gang of men came staggering aft. Walking was becoming markedly more difficult with the wild motion of the ship and the stumbling exhaustion that all hands were feeling. The men had a lee cloth in their hands and they began to lash it up into the mizzen rigging, a luxury Jack had not expected but one for which he knew he would be grateful. And he knew he had Tucker to thank for it.

  Another figure came aft, barely seen, and Jack realized it was nearly full dark. Abigail’s bow rose up, hung there, plunged down, and the water ran inches deep along the deck, rushing like a receding tide to the leeward side. William Wentworth pulled himself to the quarterdeck by the lifeline.

  “Captain!” he shouted, the word more like a greeting.

  “Mr. Wentworth!” Jack called back. Wentworth had his oilskin coat on, but half of it seemed to be hanging in tatters. “Your coat has suffered some injury, I see!”

  “Ah, the Frenchies, damn their revolutionary eyes! Put a ball right through my sea chest. This coat got off easy compared to some of it!”

  “I’m sorry to hear that!” Jack shouted.

  Wentworth shrugged, the gesture barely visible. “Casualty of war!” he said, then added, “It would seem we’re in for yet another nasty night!”

  “May be worse than the last!” Jack shouted back. “But shorter!” Along with the deteriorating visibility, Jack saw that it was becoming more difficult to speak. There was water in the air, some rain, some spray.

  “How do you know that?” Wentworth asked.

  “The barometer! Recall, I told you about it, second night of the voyage! When it drops fast, it means the blow will be short but strong!”

  Wentworth nodded. He was silent for a moment. “Captain, I wanted to say, I’m sorry about that incident back at Antigua! I have a notoriously short temper, and maybe have become a bit prickly on the matter of honor. Or I’ve come to like dueling too much, that can happen, you know!”

  “Never think on it, Mr. Wentworth!” Jack shouted. “In all decency I should say you were probably right all along!”

  Both men fell silent once again thoroughly embarrassed. “Is this normal, all this dirty weather we’ve managed to find?” Wentworth shouted at last, certainly to break the silence as much as anything.

  “We are at sea, Mr. Wentworth! There is no such thing as ‘normal’ at sea!” They were silent again, and then Jack added, “But we do seem to have had our share of foul weather! And this business about being shot up by a French man-of-war, that is not what I would call normal, in my experience!”

  Wentworth nodded. Jack reached up and grabbed on to one of the mizzen shrouds, an ingrained gesture, and Wentworth steadied himself on the lifeline. And then the note in the rigging rose an octave, the Abigail heeled far to leeward, then farther still, and the brunt of the storm rolled over them.

  29

  Wentworth remained where he was and Jack remained where he was but neither tried to speak, because the effort required was too great. Abigail rolled hard to leeward, held there, shipping green water over the lee rail like a dipper in a scuttlebutt, tons of water. Then she stood again, slowly, the groaning and popping audible even over the shrieking wind. The water cascaded across the deck as the ship righted herself. It hit the fife rails and masts and combings and the legs of the men clinging to the lifelines like surf on a rocky shore, jetting high and foaming white around the obstacles.

  The water gushed from the scuppers and through the gunports, partially blocked by the big guns thrust out and lashed in place. It rolled back across the deck and out the gunports on the other side. Abigail seemed to Wentworth like a man struggling over a rough road with a heavy load on his back.

  The bow rose up again as the sea passed under, plunged down in a welter of spray, water jetting up on either side. She rolled and scooped another sea and once again the tidal surge crashed across the deck. Wentworth looked at Jack, a dark shape by the mizzen shrouds. Lightning flashed and in the same instant thunder cracked like the cannon blasts of their fight with L’Armançon, but much louder, much sharper, more frightening.

  Jack was looking aloft; in the flash of lightning William saw him, contemplating the sails. Here was the calm he had seen during that first awful storm, so far beyond anything Wentworth had ever experienced. Then, as now, Jack looked as if he might be considering a painting hanging on a gallery wall.

  Wentworth had seen storms of course, several worse than this one, but always from the solid foundation of his Beacon Hill home. Save for the few occasions when he had been caught in the rain, a storm had never caused him any real discomfort. It certainly had never caused him to think he might be dead within a few hours.

  That was what made this unique. The storm was tossing them, rolling them, making the ship pitch wildly. They were part of the storm—the wind, the seas, the lightning, the ship, they were all part of this mad world. The storm was not an academic consideration, and Wentworth, for once, not a disinterested observer. This storm could kill him, could take the Abigail to the bottom or pile her up on the shore of Guadeloupe, and that made Wentworth as interested as a man could be. The same had been true of the fight with L’Armançon and Wentworth wondered if it was also the reason for his growing addiction to dueling. He was like a man waking up.

  Jack let go of the shroud, grabbed the lifeline, and stumbled forward, the water breaking around his legs. In the odd flashes Wentworth could see someone, he thought it was John Burgess, going from gun to gun, taking hold of the many, many ropes that bound them to the sides, and pulling to check they were still taut. Jack waited for the ship to stand more upright, then leapt across to the midships gun, and grabbed hold as the ship rolled off to leeward.

  With every burst of lightning Wentworth could see Jack frozen in a different pose; arm pointed toward the sails, arm pointed to the bow, both hands grabbing on the breech rope of the gun to keep himself from being swept away. And then he was heading back to the quarterdeck and the lightning showed Burgess and a gang of men at the pin rails, the men on the leeward side sometimes waist deep in the boarding seas as they cast certain lines off the belaying pins and grabbed hold, swaying with the rolling of the ship.

  They are clewing up the mainsail! William thought. He had been watching the men at work long enough now that he understood these basic operations, and he was secretly proud of that. Jack had paused on his way aft and was taking one of the thicker ropes off … not a belaying pin … Wentworth struggled for the word. A kevel! he recalled, and then realized he could be of help here, and not just a passenger standing dumb and useless on the quarterdeck.

  He shuffled forward, knee deep in water, then made the leap to the weather rail, grabbing hold of the ring behind where Jack stood. “I can tend the … main sheet!” he shouted, the name of the rope coming miraculously to mind just as he needed to speak it.

  Jack turned and looked at him, water streaming down and filtering through the stubble on his unshaved face. William could see the indecision, the internal debate as to whether the useless passenger could be trusted with this task. “Very well!” he shouted at last. “Pay it out as they clew up! Don’t let it get away from you, but don’t hold it fast and make those poor bastards work too hard!”

  Wentworth nodded. He almost said “Aye, aye,” but he could not summon the nerve, so he said, “I understand, Captain!” and took the line from Jack’s hand.

  Jack made a lunge for the lifeline and almost missed as the ship took an unexpected roll and hit him with a r
ush of water that knocked him sideways. But he hung on, and soon he was moving aft and Wentworth turned to his assigned task.

  He understood in principle what he had to do; as the hands at the starboard clewgarnet hauled that line, which would pull the starboard corner of the sail up, he had to ease the main sheet, which held the corner of the sail down. Presumably he had an opposite number on the larboard side. The main sheet was still wrapped in a figure eight around the top of the kevel. He had to unwrap it enough that he could let it slip free as the sail went up, but not so much that he could not hold it and keep the sail under control. It was the sort of thing that seemed very simple when he watched others do it, but appeared much more nuanced now that he had to do it himself.

  Carefully he removed a turn from one of the kevel’s horns and felt no added pressure. But the men of the clewgarnet were hauling, pulling, swaying, stumbling, and Wentworth knew he was keeping them from hauling the sail up. He took another turn off. The rope was hard to hold now, he could feel the enormous tension both from the clewline and from the shrieking wind. But his hands were tougher now than they had ever been. After having his palms flayed in the last storm while trying to hold back the sliding gun, the skin had grown back nearly as calloused as a sailor’s hands would be.

  He considered the pleasure of running his hands over a young lady’s smooth skin and wondered how much that sensation would now be diminished. Quite a bit, he concluded, but nonetheless, like his growing understanding of the workings of a sailing ship, he took certain delight in his tough hands.

  Foot by foot the line snaked through his hands and around the kevel and the men at the clewgarnets hauled it up. They fought with the line, pulling against the force of the wind, struggling to keep their balance as the boarding seas bashed against them again and again. Then the sail was up: in the seconds of illumination Wentworth could see it hanging below the yard and beating angrily, as if it was infuriated at having been brought in.