Game of Bones

by David Donachie

  But this time Harry knew of their presence, knew they were waiting for the command to raise the gunports and pour a devastating salvo of roundshot low into the centre of the channel, where any enemy advancing on the town would be. But the centipedes weren’t there. They were pressed against the riverbank, their shallow draught allowing them to brush the very undergrowth that hung over the gurgling waters of the River Aure.

  In order to achieve maximum surprise, Tressoir let off his first salvo a second before he fired off a flare. Harry saw the gunports go up, the black side of the ship turning into a dozen squares of faint light. They soon disappeared behind the orange glow of the discharge, and the great clouds of billowing smoke which belched from the muzzles. The flare burst overhead to show the whole centre of the channel a boiling mass of broken water as the roundshot, fired from a minimum elevation, bounced over the water. The sight made Harry bless the return of his good fortune. If he’d been stronger he might have killed the man he’d taken prisoner, and if he had the two boats would have rowed right into that maelstrom of certain destruction.

  The flare lit up more than the river. It revealed the entire hull and upperworks of Tressoir’s floating battery and showed Harry that he was no more than twenty yards from the end of the stone quay. The shouting, magnified by the confined space between decks, floated down to them as the men aboard l’Hyène reloaded. Harry imagined he could hear the rammers slamming into both deck and carriages, to lever the guns round to aim at the boats. But they could only heave them around as far as the gunport allowed, no great problem when a ship was at sea, but hopeless for one tied firmly to a spring, and by the time they were ready to fire the targets were gone, inside that area of safety. Harry and his men were soon on the quay and he yelled for a few to stay behind and get the boats further up the quayside.

  Tressoir had discharged another flare so that he could see what was happening, but all he did was reveal to the raiding party the line of guns ranged along the quay, ready to fire across the front of l’Hyène in the unlikely event that any boats coming upriver survived the original salvos. The gunners were poised over their pieces, ready to let fly. The one thing they were not ready to do was suddenly take up weapons and repel a furious attack on their flank.

  Harry, steadying his party, lined up those with muskets and delivered a fairly disciplined fusillade that broke whatever resolve they had. Tressoir had hauled men from his guns for the same purpose, and the raiding party was treated to a dose of its own medicine, though delivered at a greater range and therefore less deadly. Some of his men were hit, but Harry had no time to think about that. Yelling the order to charge, he raced for the nearest gun, pistol out and cutlass waving above his head. The gunners on the first cannon, already suffering the most from musket fire, broke and ran, which spread to all the others. More tellingly, not one of them had the wit to discharge their weapons before they abandoned them.

  ‘Pender,’ Harry yelled, ‘get as many men as you can on the guns!’

  He had no need to say more. Pender knew who to call on and what the target was. As Harry took half the men on to the last cannon, chasing the gunner up the quay, he detailed a gun crew for the first, personally taking the handspike to lever it round as Flowers, with the aid of Jubilee, lifted the cascabel and rammed in the elevating wedge. Peppered by musket and pistol fire there was no time for careful aiming, but the French ship presented such a big target that it was scarcely necessary. As he pulled the lanyard to fire the flintlock his gun crew were on the second weapon.

  At close range, using Lothian’s guns, and shooting into a stationary target that could not reply with its own main armament, the effect was overwhelming. The shot smashed into Tressoir’s hull, ripping the edge out of one of the gunports as it burst through to mangle anyone in the way on deck. Harry, having cleared the other gunners, was on the last cannon. The Frenchman’s stern had been left without deadlights and the ball did even more damage as it flew the length of the ship smashing off deadly splinters no flesh could withstand.

  ‘Axes!’ Harry yelled, above the screams from wounded Frenchmen.

  Only a few obeyed. Most, men from his long-serving crew, stayed on the guns, going through the loading routine as though not exposed to retaliation. It was what their captain had trained them for over two years for, the swabbing, loading, and aiming of guns so well rehearsed that it was automatic. It was also quick, even if the odd member of the gun crews spun away with a wound. Pender was the first to discharge again, sending his ball into the piece of l’Hyène he’d wounded previously, the clang of metal on metal hinting he’d hit the gun. In the dying light of the last flare they could see what they’d achieved. The whole side of the corvette was a mess of broken timber. The gunports were no squares of light now, instead they were ragged outlines of broken wood.

  Pender, realizing that the men on board had ceased to return fire, called out for grenades, to be lobbed for the holes in the side in an attempt not only to kill the crew, but also to set the vessel alight. Meanwhile Harry, with his party, was hacking at the upriver cable that acted as a spring to hold the ship in place.

  The next flare showed Tressoir himself, standing on his quarterdeck, calmly lining up his men so that the next volley of musket fire would do some damage. His hand was raised, pointing at Harry Ludlow and the party hacking at the bollard and the cable. Pender, who’d just lit a grenade, rushed up the quayside, yelling to Harry and his men to take cover. He threw it as they dived in all directions to avoid the fusillade. The grenade flew in a long arc, the fuse spluttering in the night sky. It exploded in mid-air, above the heads of the Frenchmen, who’d been forced to duck themselves when they saw it coming.

  Harry and his men didn’t wait. They were on their feet hacking again as soon as the musket balls flew past. More grenades were arcing over l’Hyène’s side, bursting on deck and setting fire to the dry ship’s timbers. The cable, under strain from the river current, parted with a crack, whipping across the water like an angry snake. Harry was at his gun again, in the company of his party, frantically reloading as l’Hyène swung slowly but inexorably side-on to the quay, to smash into the stonework. Only half the guns were manned, but the fire they poured into the hull, at an even closer range, was the most telling yet. So close to the target, the fiery wad followed the balls, setting fire to everything combustible on a deck that the Frenchmen had abandoned.

  Harry Ludlow was levering round his cannon point at the bollard holding the second cable. The crack as the metal ball hit the iron-hooped wood no more than a few feet from the muzzle drowned out every other sound. The bollard blew apart, metal and wood shooting upwards and outwards, some striking the ship’s hull with such force they deeply embedded themselves. The cap took a Frenchman’s head off just as he aimed a pistol, the shattered skull and wood rising on a fount of blood. The end of the cable tipped over into the river, and the released l’Hyène drifted on the current, grinding down the quay, jagged pieces of smashed timber ripping off, until the flow took her out from the side towards the midstream.

  Harry’s yell had them abandon both guns and revenge. He was here for Bucephalas first and foremost, with the Lothian if he could get her, his main worry that any guards left in the ships would fire them both before he could get aboard. Tressoir, and the fate of his corvette, had limited interest.

  There was no return fire now, since every Frenchman was either fighting the blaze or working furiously to get an anchor over the side to moor the ship. And that presented a problem. If l’Hyène wasn’t destroyed by fire, she’d be armed and across their path as they tried to make their way downriver. The damage to her hull made no difference in these waters. Indeed, it was quite possible that she could be brought under control sufficiently to be brought up, by warping if necessary, to bombard them. Harry began to castigate himself for blowing apart that bollard, then realised that he’d had no choice, since even after taking casualties Tressoir probably had more men available to fight than he did.

&n
bsp; ‘Flowers,’ said Harry, stopping so suddenly that Pender cannoned into him. ‘Take a party and stay with the guns. Heave one round and keep up a steady fire downriver, just in case they anchor, or try to come back in boats. If they do, and those bastards show any sign of trying to get ashore, tip the whole battery into the river.’

  ‘Aye, aye, Capt’n.’

  It was odd how quickly silence descended and the smoke cleared. Apart from the glow of fire from Tressoir’s ship, still drifting down the Aure, it was as though no fight had taken place. If any of the inhabitants of Isigny were curious they were not about to poke their noses out of window or door to have a look. Indeed Harry rather suspected that at the first gunshot they’d abandoned hearth and hob for the safety of the dilapidated citadel. The silence didn’t last long. Flowers had set up one of the cannon, and his first shot boomed out, sending a ball into the river that threw up a great spout of silver water.

  By the time the party came abreast of the Lothian it was pitch dark again, only a faint glim of light on the edge of a billowing cloud serving to show the outline of the darkened ship.

  ‘There has to be some kind of guard, surely?’ said Harry, as he reached the bottom of the gangplank.

  ‘Happen they’s run,’ Pender replied, following his captain gingerly as he made his way up on to the deck, any noise they might make covered by Flowers’s second salvo.

  Even in this constant current, once the sound of that shot died away, the ship creaked and groaned slightly. But that was the only sound Harry could hear. He fought the temptation to pass straight on to Bucephalas. An armed party aboard was a threat that must be dealt with before he could go aboard his own ship. Slowly, he and Pender crept towards the poop, passing into total darkness as they approached Illingworth’s cabin door.

  Placing an ear next to it, Harry could detect no sound. Slowly he took hold of the lever and pushed it down, Pender behind him with raised pistols in both hands. As soon as it was free he pushed it and jumped backwards, only to be greeted by a dark and deserted corridor. There was no alternative to making their way down past the chartroom and Derouac’s quarters to the main cabin door, which yielded just as easily to the touch.

  ‘Is anyone there?’ said Harry softly, as he pressed his body back against the hallway bulkhead, feeling extremely foolish, since this was no game of hide and seek but a risky venture in which a man had only to fire a pistol at the narrow doorway to be almost certain of doing mortal damage.

  ‘We are here,’ came a female voice.

  ‘I told you to be quiet!’

  There was no mistaking the peremptory tone of Sir William Parker’s irate response. Judging by the lilt in the other voice it was that of the travelling companion, Lady Katherine Fitzgerald.

  ‘Are there any guards aboard?’

  ‘None,’ the girl answered.

  The gun on the quay spoke again, the orange glow from the discharge silhouetting several figures, that followed by a lantern, which threw out a burst of proper light as Sir William unshaded it, flooding the cabin. Harry, tense as he was, nearly laughed. The entire group of captives, barring Illingworth, were sitting around in a semicircle as though attending a musical interlude at a party. The merchant captain was lying across the foot-lockers, the white bandages that covered his torso picking up more light than that which shone on the others.

  ‘Ludlow!’ said Parker, standing up. ‘I might have guessed it was you.’

  The note of anger threw Harry for a moment, and robbed his response of any force. ‘If you guessed, why are you sitting in the dark?’

  ‘To avoid detection, of course.’ He turned to glare at Lady Katherine Fitzgerald. ‘Which we might have achieved if this young lady had done what she was told.’

  ‘Forgive me, Sir William, I don’t follow.’

  ‘That does not surprise me, sir, since you could scarcely be classed as a gentleman.’

  ‘Sir William,’ Harry barked, his eyes blazing. ‘Have you ever been clipped around the ear with the barrel of a pistol?’

  The older man wasn’t frightened, puffing his chest out in indignation. ‘How dare you, sir.’

  ‘He’s given his parole, Captain Ludlow,’ said Illingworth. His voice was weak and his face had lost all the high colour that Harry remembered. ‘And being Sir William, he believes he should stick to it.’

  Harry walked straight past Parker, to kneel by Illingworth. His hair was much more grey now than red. But the eyes showed some fire, as though the vital spark of his being was intact.

  ‘Then Sir William is, as we always suspected, a damned fool.’

  ‘I heard that, Ludlow!’

  Flowers fired a fourth time, but still Harry was sure he heard the sound of repressed female laughter, though he chose to ignore both that and the butt of it. ‘Do you feel well enough to con the ship, if I give you some men to help unmoor her?’

  ‘Tressoir?’

  ‘Is beaten,’ Harry lied. ‘Now we must get Lothian ready so that when the tide peaks you can steer her out into the estuary.’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing, Ludlow. Did you not hear what Captain Illingworth has said? I have given M. de Tressoir my parole.’

  Harry shot to his feet, so quickly that Parker was forced to take a step back. ‘I don’t care what you gave him. This ship, and you, are sailing out of here, and if I have to tie you to a mast to achieve that then so be it.’

  ‘My honour—’

  ‘Is as stupid as the man who claims it,’ Harry shouted, a remark that produced an anxious look from Lady Parker and an outright giggle from the two girls. ‘I am telling you what to do, and if it doesn’t sit with what you call your honour you may blame me.’

  Parker raised his head, to look at a point over Harry’s shoulder, one hand on his breast. ‘I shall, sir, I most certainly shall.’

  ‘Pender, help Captain Illingworth to his feet. I think the air of hypocrisy in here might be bad for his condition.’

  Harry was gone before Parker could respond, and one look at Pender’s face was enough to make the old man back out of the way. Tenderly, Pender helped Illingworth to his feet, asking one of the ladies to fetch his coat. The young red-haired girl with the green eyes obliged, favouring him with a conspiratorial smile as she did so.

  ‘Just make sure that old sod don’t lock the cabin door behind us,’ Pender said softly. ‘We ain’t got the margin of time to hack it down.’

  Harry found the rest of his crew gathered alongside Bucephalas’s hull, not one of them having dared to go aboard before their captain. He made his way up the gangplank with the care he’d shown aboard Lothian, unable to believe that Tressoir had been so confident of his defences that he hadn’t bothered to man either ship with even an anchor watch.

  The smell of fresh-cut wood rose to his nostrils, and as he groped his way around the deck he was sure he could feel the places where new timber had replaced old. The deck was untidy, full of shavings and carpenter’s tools. Gently, the ship rocked, as the current sped up or slowed down enough to move her. Harry felt that familiar sensation in his chest as the deck moved under his feet, the feeling of affection for a ship that was impossible to relate to a landsman.

  Bucephalas was alive; in a mess, but still a ship. And then as he looked aloft, the cloud cover broke, to show a complete set of masts, fore, main, mizzen with driver gaff and boom, and traces of rigging already in place. Flowers let fly again, which dragged him back to reality, and the mammoth task he still faced if they were to get out of this place in one piece.

  ‘Right, lads,’ he called over the side, ‘get aboard and see what needs to be done to take her to sea!’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  THERE WAS a mass of things requiring attention and very little time available to do them. Downriver, the tide would be at flood within five hours and that would be the only chance Harry would have of getting either his ship or the Lothian out into deep water. The alternative was to stay in Isigny for a whole day, at constant risk of a counteratta
ck by Tressoir or the residents of the town, then drop downriver on a tide several inches lower. That was unattractive, to say the least, because he might find himself aground on a sandbank, with no prospect of a tide high enough to float him off for a fortnight. And to cap all that, the less time Tressoir had to adopt measures to stop him the better.

  His acute shortage of manpower was another factor in his calculations, since it could only be made worse by delay, but even if it exposed his men to fire he had no alternative but to light as many lanterns as he could find. A quick inspection showed that the rudder assembly had been entirely rebuilt, although despite her masts there were no yards aloft to carry even the minimum of canvas. And when he went below he discovered that Tressoir had obviously raided her sail locker leaving just two bolts of canvas, as well as removing the powder and shot. The realization wasn’t long in coming that there would be no time to prepare Bucephalas for departure under her own power, and no way of turning her into a fighting ship without an armoury.

  Drifting was too dangerous; that left the option of a tow by the Lothian. Leaving Pender to tidy things up he went back down the quay to have a quick look. The damage to the larboard bulwarks was still there but his heart lifted somewhat when he saw that her yards were crossed, some with furled sails still rigged. Before going aboard he decided to find out why Flowers had stopped firing.

  ‘There’s not much more’n ten charges left, your honour, an’ I didn’t want to blaze them off without your say-so.’

  ‘Any sign of the enemy?’ Harry asked, peering downriver.

  ‘None. From what little I could see they got their fires under control. I reckon, instead of anchorin’ right off, he let his ship drift down below that soddin’ battery.’