Until the Sea Shall Give Up Her Dead

by Sean Thomas Russell

  ‘But, Sir William. Why this little brig? There is a harbour full of ships.’

  ‘Come along, Hayden,’ Jones replied testily, ‘I will lead the way.’

  He set his men to the oars again, leaving Hayden, again shaking his head, and all but speechless.

  ‘What shall I do, sir?’ Childers asked.

  ‘We have no choice. I cannot leave him to cut out this brig on his own.’

  Hayden put his boats in train aft of Jones’s. He could sense the mood of the men, though they made not a sound. Like him, they thought this the height of folly.

  Hayden looked up at the clear sky and the expanse of bright stars sweeping across the vault. Cloud would have been preferable – cloud and a little rain to mask both the sight and sounds of their approach.

  Hayden kept his eyes on Sir William’s boats, wondering at what distance they were still visible. He was distressed to find it to be much greater than he had hoped. If there were alert watchmen aboard any of these ships, the British would be spotted at a distance. He could only hope they would be mistaken for Frenchmen.

  The stretch to the back of the bay was short – a mile and a half, Hayden thought. He could feel his excitement and anxiety growing; his traitorous stomach gave an audible growl, much to his chagrin. The tension among the men was palpable now, especially among the marines in the bow, who sat stock still, staring into the darkness ahead as though the gates of Hades lay there. Jones was taking them near the little island that lay to the west of the narrow channel that divided the two large islands that made up Guadeloupe. Hayden was certain it was invested with cannon to guard the entry to the channel beyond. He could only hope the gunners stationed there were in their cups or sleeping.

  The head of the island drew abreast. Hayden could make out the dark forms of vessels in the anchorage. And then the sounds of voices reached him over the water. He turned his head this way and then that, trying to discern from what direction the sounds came.

  Gould pointed at the nearby island, and Childers nodded agreement. The oarsmen slowed their pace without being told, dipping their oars as silently as they were able. It was when the oars returned to the surface, dripping, that they inevitably made noise – a small patter of drops on the surface.

  ‘Listen!’ a voice said in French, and Hayden held up his hand; the oarsmen stopped in midstroke – oars in the water. Behind him, Wickham, fluent in their enemy’s language, had his men do the same. To his great relief, so did Jones – who often bragged that he had sailed up to the mouth of Brest harbour and spoken to a French Navy cutter there in such impeccable French that they had never for a moment suspected him of being English.

  For some minutes they lay there in the dark, trying to control the sound of their breathing, no one moving in the slightest. And then another voice drifted out to them.

  ‘Have some more wine, Mathias,’ it said, ‘to calm your excited nerves.’

  They waited until the conversation resumed, and then a man began a song in French and others joined in. Hayden ordered the oarsmen on. ‘Easy. Silent as you can, lads.’

  The singing went on without interruption, and every man aboard began again to breathe. At the head of the bay lay another, smaller bight, too shallow for larger vessels and almost enclosed by shoals and reefs and islands. Their brig would certainly draught too much to have got in so far, so Hayden expected her to be lying just short of it, if she was not out among the larger ships.

  Jones stood up in his boat, which was now twenty yards ahead and to starboard. He fixed his gaze forward and then turned and began waving Hayden up. Seating himself, his oarsmen suddenly picked up their pace.

  ‘It seems Captain Jones has found his quarry,’ Gould intoned.

  ‘Yes, and right up in the back of the bay, where we must sail her out through a French convoy. At least he is right about one thing – they will not be expecting us to come this night – such a thing would be beyond foolish.’ Hayden leaned forward a little. ‘Put your backs into it,’ he whispered, ‘let us not have Sir William take the ship before we arrive.’

  After a very lengthy ten minutes, Hayden descried a smaller dark mass ahead and ordered Childers to steer for that. He drew his cutlass, felt down into the shadowy bottom of the boat to be certain he could lay his hand on an axe, and prepared to stand.

  ‘Bring us up on her starboard side, head to wind, Mr Childers.’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  Hayden glanced toward the shore – all still seemed quiet, the soft notes of the French song drifting slowly out to them, quieter by the moment.

  The smooth cadence of the oarsmen increased to Childers’ urging, and the boat surged over the calm bay. Hayden glanced aft, where he found Ransome’s cutter keeping pace. The distant brig did not seem to grow larger but instead appeared to be receding, the distance to it mysteriously growing.

  Without warning, the brig materialized out of the murk, appearing larger than it should. Childers brought the barge, almost silently, alongside, the oarsmen unshipping sweeps and sliding them silently down on to the thwarts. Fore and aft, men climbed quickly up and made ropes fast to the brig – to their surprise, they found boarding nets! In a bay full of ships! But all remained quiet aboard; if there were watchmen awake, they remained unaware of the English.

  Hayden stepped up on to the barge’s gunwale and began cutting through the boarding net. Upon the cutter, which had come alongside immediately aft of them, men were doing the same, when a heavy thump sounded. Someone in the cutter had dropped an axe. Immediately, Hayden ducked his head.

  ‘They are upon us!’ came a cry in French.

  Hayden rose and went back to cutting through the net, with renewed energy. He could hear the thudding of feet upon ladders, and then there was a flash, hardly ten paces distant.

  Musket balls buried themselves in the bulwark planks. A man on the cutter dropped into the bottom of the boat like a sack of meal tossed down. Hayden braced himself, drew a pistol, rose up and fired into the mass of men who were now crossing the deck toward him. The marines in both British boats began firing, the air bright with flashes.

  Hayden dropped down, shouldered a man aside and came up with an axe. He took this to boarding nets, hewing through the ropes. A Frenchman came at him with a cutlass, which Hayden managed to evade on first thrust. Gould, who was climbing up beside him, shot the man in the gut and, pressing back the boarding net, tumbled on to the deck, where he immediately became the target for the Frenchmen surging toward them.

  Gould scrambled up, drew his other pistol, fired, and then, realizing the odds, turned to lunge back into the barge, but came up against the netting. Hayden drew his own pistol and shot one of Gould’s attackers.

  ‘Turn and fight! Turn and fight!’ he screamed at the midshipman, who was the lone Englishman on the French side of the netting.

  The boy began madly thrusting and twisting, trying to keep from being run through.

  Just then, the boarding net was thrust upward and the hands surged over the rail as a single mass. Hayden was pushed upward and over the bulwark, whether he wished to go or not. And then he was alongside Gould, wielding a cutlass and screaming what he did not know.

  The battle was fierce and brutal, neither side giving a foot of deck without a man falling. The planks were quickly wet and slick with blood and the footing treacherous.

  There were too many Frenchmen aboard to be accounted for by the little brig’s crew, so Hayden had been right – they had been reinforced: which meant they had expected – or feared – the English were coming.

  A man threw himself upon Hayden, stabbing at him with a dagger and managing, despite all Hayden did, to cut him twice, how seriously could not be gauged. And then this man was torn free and thrown down upon the deck by some of Hayden’s crew, and stabbed again and again until he lay still.

  Hayden was standing on bodies now. The British had not managed to push the French back but only to hold their little beach-head of deck, and Hayden thought they might not
even keep that much longer. The tide turned as Hayden was thinking this, and the British began to step back, even as they fought furiously against the dark mass of shadowy men who tried to murder them with almost invisible iron. A step, and then another, the British sailors were forced into a little crescent of deck so that the men in the centre of the half-moon were hemmed in by their own kind and unable to fight. All forward momentum had been lost and now it was only a question of jumping down into the boats and getting clear before the French followed them over the side and forced them either to swim or to surrender.

  ‘Men in the rear into the boats!’ Hayden shouted. ‘Men in the fore, hold your ground.’

  There was a shout at that instant, and gunfire from behind the French. A moment of confusion, and then the fight was not being pressed; the wall of hostile, dark bodies jostled and lost confidence.

  ‘Press forward! Press on!’ Hayden shouted. ‘Sir William has come! Sir William is upon them!’

  The men around him all shouted and suddenly they were thrusting cutlasses and swinging their tomahawks with deadly energy and purpose. And now it was the French giving ground, frightened and confused, beset from both sides. Men were falling to the deck before them and the British balanced upon the bodies as they fought their way forward. And then the French were casting down their weapons and calling for quarter.

  Jones came striding through the surrendering French and, even in the dark, Hayden could see the smile upon his face, the triumph in his step.

  ‘Hayden! Well done! The ship is ours.’ He waved a hand at the vessel, unaware that half the still bodies lying upon the deck were British. ‘They have a boat streaming aft. I will put all the wounded French and any other prisoners we can into it and set it adrift. Then we will cut the cable and slip out of here before the dawn finds us.’

  Jones did not seem to notice that Hayden made no reply. He only turned away and began shouting orders.

  The soldiers on the nearby batteries must have decided that the brig had been taken, and they opened fire. Cannonballs screamed through the air and plunged heavily into the waters to either side.

  ‘They will find the range soon enough,’ Hayden said aloud. ‘Mr Wickham?’

  ‘Here, sir.’

  ‘We will offer aid where we can. Gather some men to go aloft to loose sail, and two men with axes to cut the cable – but not before they are so ordered.’ Hayden turned and found another midshipman nearby. ‘Mr Gould – see to our wounded, if you please.’

  The marines had taken charge of the prisoners, a great number of whom were wounded and, like their British counterparts, crumpled on the deck, many praying and moaning.

  An iron ball struck the transom aft, sending up a shower of slivers.

  ‘Captain Jones!’ Hayden called out. ‘Shall I get this vessel underway?’

  ‘If you please, Hayden.’

  Hayden went to the wheel himself. ‘Lay out aloft, there!’ he called to the men climbing on to the top.

  Galvanized by the situation, hands were on the foot-ropes and the yards manned in a trice.

  ‘Loose mainsail!’ The sail came shivering down and immediately backed against mast and rigging. ‘Mr Wickham? Cut the bower cable, if you please.’

  There was a dull chopping forward and then Hayden felt the vessel begin to make sternway. He put the helm to starboard and, though it seemed to take forever, very slowly the stern began to swing to larboard.

  The men had scrambled in off the mainsail yard and Hayden ordered it braced and then the stay sails set. The latter shot up their stays with the buzz of rings on tarred rope. The mizzen sail was released from its brails and run out.

  The ship’s movement aft began to ease, she appeared to hover a moment, and then very slowly began to make way, but not toward the harbour entrance; they would never lay that narrow channel on this wind. They would have to slip out to the south, skirting around all the anchored ships – a task difficult enough by daylight when the shallows could be clearly seen from aloft.

  ‘I need a leadsman forward,’ Hayden called.

  ‘I’ll find the sounding lead, sir,’ an unknown hand called back, and hurried off. In a moment Hayden heard the splash of the lead being cast, and then, ‘Six fathoms, sand and shell!’

  ‘Mr Hawthorne, is that you?’ Hayden called to the tall figure standing, musket in hand, by the prisoners.

  ‘It is, sir, and very happy I am to see you among the standing.’

  ‘And you, Mr Hawthorne. I need the binnacle lamp lit.’

  ‘I shall have it done in a trice.’

  More prisoners were being sent into the boat alongside where the wounded were passed down, with more haste and less care than Hayden would have approved. He set his course by what he could see of islands and headlands, but he was only guessing. Jones came out of the dark.

  ‘Shall I con us out, Hayden?’ he enquired. ‘I have been in here before.’

  Hayden relinquished the wheel with the greatest relief – almost gratitude. He had made a careful study of Barthe’s chart but that would be no substitute for local knowledge – there were shoals and reefs and shallows all around.

  A man appeared with a ship’s lamp and quickly transferred fire from it to the binnacle lamp. Hayden hoped the compass did not require a large correction.

  Wickham hove out of the darkness then. ‘I have a lookout forward, sir,’ he reported, then stood, saying nothing, his face concealed by the darkness. ‘We have a great many wounded, sir.’ He took a deep breath. ‘And dead, too, I fear.’

  Hayden nodded. ‘We were struck astern, Mr Wickham. Take some of the hands below, if you please, and see if we are making water?’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  Hayden feared that Wickham was absolutely right – there would be a butcher’s bill that could never be justified by this little two sticker and her cargo. The French boat was filled to its gunwales with wounded and prisoners and then cut loose. There were not a dozen prisoners left, sitting on the deck.

  ‘Carry the compass up from the barge,’ Hayden ordered Childers, ‘then stream the boats, if you please.’

  More iron balls plunged into the water nearby, and one tore open a staysail, which then hung, wafting, in rags.

  The coxswain appeared, with the barge’s compass in hand. He consulted the brig’s compass and compared the heading with his own.

  ‘Their compass is half a point off, sir,’ Childers informed him. ‘Our true heading is south-south-east. The brig’s compass reads east by south, half a point south, sir.’

  ‘You have an excellent, steady crew, Hayden,’ Jones said. ‘They do you credit.’

  Despite himself, Hayden thanked the man.

  ‘So what do you think of our little brig, Hayden?’ Jones asked. ‘She is light on her helm and appears properly built. Seventy-five feet, I should think. Small, but handy.’

  Hayden could not help himself. ‘I should like her a great deal better had her cost not been so great.’

  Jones nodded. ‘Yes. I should like war better if it could be fought with wooden swords and broken off each day at supper. But it is not so.’

  A ball crashed into the midst of the prisoners, smashing the deck and throwing shards of oak in all directions. Both Hayden and Jones fell back themselves, but were quickly on their feet, grabbing hold of the spokes as the little ship tried to round up.

  There was then a mewling and calling out in French, as half the prisoners, it seemed, were down and wounded – those who had not been killed outright. There was a moment of stunned helplessness from the English, and then some of the older hands waded into the devastation and began staunching wounds and endeavouring to find who among the very still remained among the living.

  ‘Bloody lucky shot …’ Jones cursed, half under his breath.

  ‘Not so for the prisoners.’

  ‘No, Hayden. Killed by their own gunners …’ Jones shook his head.

  ‘I will look to the ship forward,’ Hayden said, unable to bear the man’s c
ompany a second more.

  There was calling out from many of the nearby anchored ships now, and lights were appearing. Hayden blessed the dark night. Maybe they could slip out before the French realized what went on. It would be Jones’s luck – and would add to his ever-growing myth. Hayden made his way forward to the forecastle.

  Wickham reappeared then.

  ‘We are not making water, sir,’ he told Hayden. ‘But I have the butcher’s bill from Mr Gould, Captain.’

  Hayden held his breath.

  ‘Seven dead, sir. And four more wounded – two very gravely.’

  ‘Not seven dead just among our own people, surely?’

  ‘I am afraid that is the tally, sir. Sir William has his own losses, which I am informed are not small either.’

  Hayden closed his eyes a moment.

  ‘Do you wish to know the cargo, Captain?’

  ‘I am afraid to know it.’

  ‘Bar iron, paper and sundry other goods. Mr Ransome believes it would be valued at four thousand pounds.’

  Hayden said nothing.

  ‘Not an insubstantial sum, sir …’

  ‘Two thousand pounds less the admiral’s share. Is a man’s life worth two hundred pounds, do you think?’

  ‘That is not for me to say. I should like to think my own worth somewhat more, though.’

  ‘Mmm. I want you all about the ship, Mr Wickham, keeping lookout. If we run aground, we shall likely be forced to leave this brig behind, which I am now loathe to do.’

  ‘I am on watch, sir. And I shall see to the leadsman. It must be a man who knows what he is about.’ A quick touch of hand to hat, and the midshipman hurried off.

  The cannonballs were sending up heavy plumes of water astern now, as the brig sailed beyond their range. Hayden felt the muscles in his shoulders and neck release to the smallest degree. If the wind held, they would be free of the harbour in an hour, and out to sea.