Until the Sea Shall Give Up Her Dead

by Sean Thomas Russell

  Serrano shook his head, his face drawn tight as if in pain. ‘With all respect, Captain Hayden, it is a very risky plan. So many things could go wrong. We might be raked from bow to stern, they might drop their own anchor and be only a pistol shot distant. They might carry away our bow sprit and jib boom—’

  ‘But there are spars aboard to replace these,’ Hayden interrupted the man.

  ‘Yes, in time, that is true, but we could lose our foremast …’

  ‘I do not think there is much chance of that – with so little sea running and no wind at all.’

  ‘I simply think it is too great a risk, Captain Hayden. I say this with all respect; I have been at sea twenty years longer than you and I should never attempt such a thing.’

  ‘And I say this with equal respect, Captain Serrano: I think the risks are smaller than you imagine. It is a dark night, we will be hidden by a dense cloud, and if they penetrate our intentions and anchor, then we must have the advantage in weight of broadside; if they tangle in our rig and swing alongside, then we will have the advantage in men. If they pass us by, we will rake them and drift down until they either anchor or are swept on to the reefs. It is not without risks, I realize, but we cannot continue on to the reefs and must anchor sooner or later at any rate.’

  This last argument even Serrano could not counter, though he appeared to be desperately searching for a rebuttal. The man might have been at sea twenty years longer, but Hayden wondered how many battles the man had fought, for he seemed to be the type who could envision only the disasters and never the successes.

  ‘Station men to drop anchor, Captain,’ he said, no longer able to tolerate the man’s indecision, ‘and to fire both batteries at once on my order. We will prepare to fight the starboard battery or board, as the situation requires.’ He made a small bow – a respectful dismissal, he hoped – and turned back to Scrivener. ‘Pass the word for my officers, if you please, Mr Scrivener.’

  The Spaniards went off and, within a few yards, were whispering to each other. Hayden watched them retreat, thinking as they went that boldness in battle was ever more preferable than caution, for the enemy almost always expected what they would do themselves. Serrano would never expect what Hayden was about to do and he hoped the privateers were of the same mind.

  Hayden lurked about the deck, listening to the orders given to the Spanish sailors. It appeared that Serrano’s lieutenants approved the plan more than their captain, for they passed the orders along with barely concealed enthusiasm, which revealed more about Serrano than the man would have liked, Hayden guessed.

  Ransome, Gould, Hawthorne and Wickham were quickly informed of Hayden’s plan and approved it most heartily. Guns were run out on both sides and, at an order from Hayden, all fired at once. The cloud this created roiled for a second from the violence of the explosion and then settled into a languid mass. For a long moment it clung to the ship, and then the ship appeared to drift away from it. Hayden attempted to calm his racing heart, and counted to sixty slowly. He then gave the order to let the anchor go, which was managed with only the smallest splash, the cable running out ever so slowly. Immediately upon being snubbed, the ship began to swing.

  The deck guns were then reloaded with grape – an order Hayden almost hated to give.

  Shot from the privateer continued to land near, but in only a few moments Hayden noticed that most passed overhead and none struck the hull. As the ship turned, she presented a smaller target and even more shot hissed by to either side. The dense storm of black smoke continued to hang over the water, hardly dissipating, only a few tendrils reaching out toward the Spanish frigate, as though reluctant to let it go.

  The boats, which lay alongside, were moved aft and streamed with the current.

  ‘Aloft there!’ Hayden called to the lookout. ‘Can you see our privateer?’

  ‘I cannot make her out, Captain.’

  ‘Inform me the moment you can.’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  ‘If we cannot see them,’ Hawthorne said quietly, ‘does it mean they cannot perceive us?’

  ‘So we might hope.’ Hayden looked up at the clouds sailing over and the moonlight knifing down through the channels between the clouds. The sea was still illuminated here and there by shafts of moonlight, but none of these drew near.

  The men at the deck guns on the quarterdeck were silent and unnaturally still, as though they listened for their pursuers’ footsteps. No one knew when the privateer would appear and whether she would come through the cloud dead ahead with raking fire or if she would pass to starboard, as Hayden had predicted.

  ‘Which do you expect, Captain,’ Hawthorne whispered, ‘that we will rake her as she passes or that she will tangle with us and we will board?’

  ‘I do wish I knew, Mr Hawthorne. Certainly, she appeared to be ever so slightly south of us, nearer the coast, but precisely where the current will bear her … Anyone’s guess would be as accurate as mine.’

  ‘I rather doubt that, Captain. Your “guess” is the one I should take most seriously.’

  The two stood at the rail – “friends”, as much as their respective ranks and positions allowed, and Hayden found comfort in the marine lieutenant’s presence. He wished he felt less like he was proceeding to his own hanging, but thus were the trials of command – the captain was the individual who would be held accountable for decisions such as the one he had just made; the captains of the court martial would be told of Serrano’s expressed reservations. Hayden hoped his youth and inexperience would not lead to a disaster here, costing many lives from both his and Serrano’s crew – there would almost certainly be a Spanish mutiny at that point.

  He could not allow the Spanish to regain control of their ship. Somewhere, beyond the cloud of smoke, he imagined his bride, lying awake, hoping with all her heart that Hayden would not fail her. The marine officer standing beside him had once warned him of this propensity in men – to attempt the rescue of maidens in distress – but they had then been discussing the doctor and the maid of all work whom he had rescued. Hayden, however, seemed as prone to this as any man – as his recent history proved.

  ‘On deck! She is coming through the cloud, Captain.’

  A shaft of pale moonlight fell upon the cloud at that instant, illuminating it and, if anything, making it more impenetrable. And then the masts and yards of a ship appeared, high up, and then the ship itself, beam on and a little to starboard. Her stern was to them and she fired a broadside, none of which struck Hayden’s Spanish frigate.

  It was so silent aboard the ship that Hayden could hear the shouting in French as the privateers realized their situation.

  He pushed off the rail and called down to the gundeck. ‘Mr Ransome, we will rake her as she passes. Fire each gun as she bears.’

  Before the lieutenant could answer, Hayden heard the splash of the privateer’s anchor being let go in panic. The captain is certainly no fool, Hayden thought, as he must have had his cable faked upon the gundeck and ready to veer. The privateer was not seventy-five yards up-current from them and would certainly pass just beyond pistol shot, stern on if the anchor did not hold immediately.

  Hawthorne ordered his men to open fire, and the crack of musket fire sounded from both ships. A ball struck a gun on the quarterdeck, ricocheted and came so near Hayden’s ear that he swore he felt the wind of its passing. He touched his ear to be certain it was intact.

  The bottom of the channel was, as Hayden knew, uncertain. Much of it was sand, but there were numerous coral heads as well. The Frenchman’s anchor might snag one of these and they would be able to snub her up on very little cable. They might also try to snub her to lay her alongside the Spanish frigate, only to find their anchor ploughing ineffectually through soft sand. If the Frenchman’s anchor held as it should, the two ships would be less than pistol shot distant and Hayden would not have the usual advantage provided by his British crew – a higher rate of fire. If this was one of the privateers Jones had told him about, s
he would likely carry only 12-pounders, and Hayden’s ship bore the Spanish equivalent of the British 18-pounder.

  With one eye on the enemy ship, Hayden ordered guns traversed as far forward as possible. He then positioned himself a few yards behind one of the deck guns so that he might sight along it. There was no shot.

  The forward chase piece fired at that moment – but it was a small gun and Hayden could not see if it caused any damage at all.

  If he had been the French captain, Hayden knew he would not snub his cable until the last possible instant, which would allow the most cable to be veered, increasing the chances of the anchor holding. Hayden thought he would snub it just where he thought it would bring the ship to before it came under the Spanish frigate’s guns. If he had the men, he would attempt to board and carry the frigate by main force.

  What the master of the privateer would do, Hayden could not say. The man was formidable and not the least shy, he believed. To have slipped his anchor and ridden the current down to the frigate as it was being attacked by boarders was enterprising in the extreme. Hayden was not certain he would have thought of it himself – nor dared it if he had.

  The privateer continued to be carried down-current at the pace of an old man out for a stroll. So close were the ships to one another that Hayden heard the master order the cable snubbed. All eyes were fixed upon the enemy ship as she drifted … and then, almost imperceptibly, her bow began to lag behind, and then it was clearly so. Where the ship would fetch up or whether her anchor would hold once the entire mass of the ship came upon it, no one knew.

  ‘Pass the word for my officers, if you please,’ Hayden said to a British sailor at one of the guns. ‘And Captain Serrano, as well.’

  In a moment, Ransome, Wickham, Gould and Hawthorne appeared, followed almost immediately by the Spanish captain.

  ‘Are we to board, her, Captain?’ Ransome asked, clearly both excited by the prospect and anxious as well – as any sane man would be.

  ‘It would appear to be the most logical course, Mr Ransome,’ Hayden replied. ‘Mr Wickham, I will leave you in command of the ship.’

  Before Hayden could say more, one of the Spanish lieutenants came on to the quarterdeck; Hayden had seen the man hurrying along the gangway.

  ‘Captain,’ the man said, but he addressed Hayden, not Serrano, much to the Spanish captain’s surprise, ‘the privateers are rigging a spring. We could hear their orders from the forecastle.’

  Hayden needed only a second to comprehend what that meant.

  ‘Then we must do the same,’ he ordered, ‘in all haste.’

  The privateer was going to swing his ship to bring his broadside to bear on the frigate, and from the angle his ship would achieve he would be firing diagonally across the deck – not a raking fire, but damned close.

  The Spanish lieutenant and Ransome went running off, calling out orders as they went. No doubt the French would hear – just as they had overheard the French – but it did not matter. They must swing their ship to bring their own guns to bear or they would be at the mercy of the privateer’s cannon. If one of the frigate’s masts could be brought down … the ship would be lost.

  Hayden found himself standing at the rail with Serrano and Hawthorne. ‘Have you ever seen what can be done with a ship in a tideway or a river when a spring is employed, Mr Hawthorne?’

  ‘I do not believe I have, Captain.’

  ‘When a ship is set at an angle to the flow so the current strikes one side of the vessel, she can be shifted to one side or the other – and quite substantially.’

  Hawthorne contemplated this but a moment. ‘Could they swing their ship down upon us?’ he wondered.

  ‘It is a weak current,’ Serrano answered, in Hayden’s stead, ‘but then, the ships are not distant one from the other. I should say it is just possible.’

  ‘This privateer …’ Hawthorne observed with something like admiration, ‘he is a cunning dastard, is he not, Captain?’

  ‘Indeed he is, Mr Hawthorne. I do wonder how large his crew might be.’ Although he had asked this question of Serrano once already, he glanced at the Spaniard again. The man shrugged.

  ‘I wish I had an answer for you, Captain Hayden,’ he offered softly. ‘When they boarded our ships, they did so in overwhelming numbers.’

  At that moment, Hayden wished above all things that he had his own crew about him, for they would have a spring rigged in a trice. As it was, Hayden did not know if he should allow the French to come alongside. If they had superior numbers he might lose his frigate – for which he had paid dearly already. Better to use his greater weight of broadside – the very thing this privateer was attempting to nullify – damn his eyes.

  Hayden felt himself leaning out over the rail, attempting to part the darkness. He could barely make out the ship, but the tops of her masts could just be distinguished against the star-scattered sky. Her chase piece had ceased firing and Hayden wondered if it could no longer be brought to bear because the ship was turning. He suspected that the French would fire bar or chain into the frigate’s rigging. At such close range a great deal of damage could be inflicted – even by 12-pounders.

  A flash and simultaneous report left no doubt about the privateer’s position. The sound of iron tearing through the rigging could not be mistaken. A foremast yard came swinging down but did not strike the deck. A man tumbled out of the rigging and struck the planks just before the mainmast. He lay utterly still and was quite certainly dead.

  Everyone aboard held their breath while the privateers reloaded their guns.

  Wickham appeared at the head of the companionway. ‘We have a spring rigged, sir.’

  ‘Veer the bower cable, if you please, Mr Wickham.’ Hayden spoke the order as clearly and calmly as he was able.

  ‘Aye, sir.’ The midshipman thumped down the ladder, leaping the last three steps, Hayden could tell, and went running forward, shouting Hayden’s order as he went.

  The privateer’s guns fired again, tearing through the rigging, doing untold damage. Hayden held his breath, but the masts stood. The head of his ship was paying off quickly to larboard and would move more quickly once the current caught it.

  The men stood at the guns, which had been traversed as far forward as was possible. Gun captains positioned themselves to sight along the barrels, but it seemed to take for ever for the guns to be brought to bear.

  Hayden thought the privateers would fire a third broadside before his own guns could be fired, and he felt himself bracing for it, as did all the men around him, hunching up their shoulders and stiffening. None, however, shied or tried to hide.

  Ransome appeared at the ladder head to the gundeck, his body facing Hayden but his head turned back so that he could hear what was being said on the deck below. His head snapped around suddenly.

  ‘Guns are bearing, Captain,’ he called out.

  ‘You may fire the battery, Mr Ransome.’

  Ransome’s order and the firing of the frigate’s broadside occurred simultaneous with the firing of the privateer’s guns. Flame erupted from both ships and then a dense pall of smoke hid even the stars. British and Spanish crews went about reloading and Hayden believed the Spaniards were trying not to be outdone by the English, crack gunners whose rate of fire had never yet been equalled by the enemy.

  Hayden’s greatest worry was that the privateers would sever his spring line, but their guns were aimed into the frigate’s rigging, attempting to disable her, and nowhere near low enough to find the spring.

  For a quarter of an hour, the two ships fired broadside after broadside at one another but, with each explosion of guns, the French rebuttal was reduced, as her gun crews were decimated and guns dismounted.

  ‘On deck!’ the lookout cried. ‘The privateer is moving, Captain … down-current.’

  Hayden hastened to the ladder head. ‘Veer the spring, Mr Ransome! With all haste!’

  Out of the smoke, the privateer drifted. Between the darkness and the smoke lying on
the water, Hayden was not certain of the ship’s attitude, but it appeared she had slipped her anchor again and was drifting free, attempting to get clear of the frigate’s guns.

  As Hayden’s spring was veered and the ship turned slowly head to wind, she shifted to starboard, nearer the enemy vessel. Guns were hurriedly traversed and, after the briefest interruption, began again to fire. At such close range the 18-pounders were devastating.

  The privateer was borne along the current until the two ships were almost abreast.

  ‘She is very near, Captain, is she not?’ the gun captain beside Hayden asked quietly.

  ‘Distances are ever deceiving by darkness,’ Hayden replied. But then he began to wonder if the man was not correct, if the French ship was not swinging nearer. For a moment he stood, trying to measure the water between the ships.

  ‘Prepare to repel boarders!’ he cried suddenly. He ran to the ladder head and called down to the gundeck. ‘Fire a last broadside, Mr Ransome, and then close and secure gunports. All men to the upper deck. They are swinging their ship alongside!’

  Hayden pulled a pistol from his belt, thumbed back the cock and then drew his sword. As guns were fired aboard his ship – at less than pistol shot – he went to the rail. A curtain of grey wafted before him, the enemy ship ghostly, glimpsed and then lost. Men came crowding up from behind, bearing arms and swearing oaths. A few jumped up on the guns or on to the rail, waving cutlasses and shouting threats and defiance. Musket and pistol fire began in earnest, and this first group of the foolishly brave paid the price for it, being taken down from their perches and tumbling into the mass of men behind.

  The cloud thinned and out of it the rail of a ship appeared. Hayden lowered his pistol and shot a man not ten feet distant. The two ships were moving so slowly that they came almost gently together, even as violence spread over their decks. For a long moment the two crews fought at the rail, neither able to press forward on to the other ship’s deck. One of the Spanish lieutenants then led a charge, up on to a quarterdeck gun and over the rail, leaping down into the mass of Frenchmen and breaking the line. Hayden followed immediately after, jumping from rail to rail and then down on to the deck and into the melee.