Until the Sea Shall Give Up Her Dead

by Sean Thomas Russell

  Hayden crossed to the starboard rail, where he found the Themis, almost a mile distant on their quarter. Archer was not risking collision by night – he had been witness to that variety of calamity – but now he would almost certainly have to tack to bring his ship up to Hayden’s.

  Apparently, the privateers came to this same realization, for at that moment the lookout called down, ‘On deck, Captain! The frigate is making ready to tack, sir.’

  Ransome came running along the gangway at that moment, coatless and shaking off sleep.

  ‘Ah, Mr Ransome,’ Hayden said to his lieutenant. ‘Call sail handlers to their stations and coil down. We shall wear ship upon my order.’ He turned to his other officers. ‘Mr Wickham. Lieutenant Reverte. You have the gundeck.’

  The two touched hats and hurried off at the same moment as Hawthorne appeared, bearing a musket.

  ‘What are the French about now?’ he asked as he passed Ransome, who was calling orders as he went.

  ‘They were hoping to catch us unawares, Mr Hawthorne,’ Hayden informed the marine, ‘and pass us to either side, allowing each ship to fire at least one broadside. I suspect they would target our rig, and then hope to do something similar to the Themis.’

  ‘But the second ship does not appear to be tacking.’ Hawthorne pointed.

  ‘No, Mr Hawthorne, but we shall soon see how deeply he comprehends the situation – the master of the privateer, I mean. He should allow the frigate to pass ahead of him, for if they approach us at the same time we will wear and rake the privateer – unless she also wears, of course. If the frigate is allowed to range ahead, then we will not dare wear ship for fear of being raked ourselves.’

  The crew, both Spaniards and Englishmen, came streaming on to the deck and began immediately to coil down ropes in preparation to wear ship. Ransome stationed himself on the gangway, just forward of the quarterdeck so he could relay Hayden’s orders to the hands who would brail up the mizzen, allowing the ship to turn downwind.

  The distant frigate came through the wind, sails flailing and beating the air a moment, and then calming as they were set to drawing properly. The second ship was doing as Hayden’s command was, sail handlers at their stations, ropes removed from their belaying pins and coiled down on the deck so that they might run freely.

  ‘It would appear that this captain comprehends the situation well enough,’ Hawthorne said, clearly disappointed.

  ‘I expected no less,’ Hayden replied.

  ‘Shall we wear ship, then, sir?’ Gould asked anxiously.

  ‘Mr Gould, are you not assigned a station at this time?’ Hayden enquired peevishly.

  ‘Most certainly I am, sir. The forecastle, Captain.’

  ‘Then see to your duties, Mr Gould, and I shall see to mine.’

  ‘Aye, sir. My apologies, sir.’

  Although it was Hayden’s policy to allow his young gentlemen to ask questions of him, on the principle that this would aid them in acquiring their trade, there were, clearly, some questions that served only to vex him, and these he felt should be discouraged … sharply, when necessary.

  He turned to find that Archer was tacking the Themis in an attempt to get to windward so he might bring his ship into the action. The privateer’s frigate was now coming toward them, on a slant that would take it to windward of Hayden’s ship.

  ‘Mr Ransome,’ Hayden called. ‘Open the larboard gunports, if you please.’

  ‘Larboard gunports, Captain,’ Ransome called back, and relayed the order to Reverte and Wickham.

  There was a moment of utter silence on the forecastle. The gun crews had released their guns, removed tompions and run them out, and now they waited.

  ‘At the risk of sounding like a green reefer,’ Hawthorne said quietly to his captain, ‘do you plan to stand on or wear ship?’

  ‘That depends, Mr Hawthorne, on what our enemies do. I will order whichever seems most advantageous, but it will be determined by the arrangement of the enemy’s vessels and when each will reach us. Do have a little patience, Mr Hawthorne. I have not gone to sleep.’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  Hayden assured himself of the Themis’s position and then estimated the speed of the approaching captured frigate. It had the wind more or less on the quarter and was closing with them at what appeared to be great speed, for the combined velocity of the converging vessels was easily eleven or twelve knots, he was certain.

  The second privateer began to turn into the wind, but her master seemed to have incorrectly estimated the speed of the other vessels and was making his turn too soon.

  ‘There,’ Hayden announced. ‘Mr Ransome! We will alter our course to pass to leeward of the first privateer.’

  Ransome repeated his orders and went immediately to the helmsman.

  ‘Do you see, Mr Hawthorne? We shall attempt to manoeuvre the privateer between ourselves and the captured frigate, which will not be able to turn downwind to rake us, for fear of running afoul of his consort. If he wishes to come after us, he must tack, which I intend to do myself the moment we have passed the privateer.’

  Hayden turned and made his way back along the gangway so that he might be upon the quarterdeck before the ships met. The helm was put up a little and the bow of the ship fell off the wind. Hayden could see the privateer tacking.

  ‘Will she not try to force us up by sailing below us, Captain?’ Ransome asked quietly.

  ‘I do not think she can tack so quickly.’ Hayden exchanged his nightglass for one made for the day and quizzed the nearest ship. ‘Does it not appear, Mr Ransome, that she is undermanned?’

  Hayden passed his glass to the lieutenant, who gazed into it a moment. ‘Could he have manned both batteries, Captain?’

  ‘Perhaps, but I wonder if much of the crew has not been transferred to the other ships?’

  Ransome brightened noticeably. ‘I do hope you are correct, sir.’

  ‘Let us prepare to fire our larboard battery as we pass, Mr Ransome.’

  Ransome moved immediately to the break in the deck so that he might relay his captain’s orders to the gundeck.

  Marines and other men with muskets were settling themselves on the tops, preparing to fire on the enemy’s deck as she passed. Hayden would not, under different circumstances, have left his lower square sails drawing where they might be set afire accidentally from sparks blown back by the wind, but he had need of all the speed he could manage. Ransome had ordered the hands to wet down the sails with buckets, but the trade would dry them in a moment. It was simply an unavoidable risk.

  Despite the number of actions Hayden had been through, he still felt both his heart pounding madly in his chest and a shortness of breath. A sea officer might steel himself to stand upon the quarterdeck in the midst of gunfire, but fear could never be eliminated. It was elemental, he believed, more animal than human.

  As the sun broke free of the horizon, the enemy vessels appeared to grow larger, the light picking out the details of the ships and casting long, stark shadows. The privateer came through the wind just before her sister ship reached her, and just as Hayden’s own vessel passed her to leeward. Had she tacked a moment sooner, she could have turned downwind and raked Hayden’s ship but, as it was, she was forced to pass him beam-on, and almost dead in the water after tacking. Her gunports, however, were open.

  ‘Mr Ransome, we will fire our larboard battery all at once,’ Hayden said, loud enough for the lieutenant to hear. There was silence all along the deck at that moment.

  The two ships came up to one another, and their respective guns fired almost at the same instant, a great, jarring explosion of fire and smoke. All about Hayden there was a rending of timbers and shouting. Shards of wood and deadly slivers spun by in the pall of smoke. Hayden picked himself up and began tugging slivers out of his coat, some with bloody ends.

  He wondered that he remained whole and could still stand. The smoke blew off quickly, revealing the damage all around, and men thrown down on the deck, twisted into u
nnatural positions and some still as stones.

  He tore his eyes from this horrible scene and looked aft to the enemy ship, which was in far greater ruin than his own. Hayden had half expected her to turn downwind in an attempt rake him from astern, but she did not.

  ‘We shall tack, Mr Ransome.’

  Immediately, the lieutenant began calling out orders.

  The privateers’ captured frigate stood on, and Hayden wondered if she would tack. But then he realized that the Themis was tacking, even as he did, and would be on a course to intercept the frigate in but a moment.

  The master of the captured frigate must have come to the conclusion that his ships would be overtaken and so had chosen to turn and fight, likely hoping to inflict damage on Hayden’s rig, but the captain of the second ship had not perfectly understood his intentions and came about too soon, allowing Hayden to avoid the heavier broadside of the frigate. Ship handling and tactics would now come to the fore, as the privateers had no hope for escape but to run off downwind, into the great expanse of the Caribbean Sea, where there was no land to impede them for a hundred leagues.

  Hayden watched the two ships, fascinated. What would they do now that their plan had failed?

  ‘We appear to have taken no damage below the waterline, Captain,’ Ransome called out.

  ‘And how have the men on the gundeck fared?’ Hayden enquired, not taking his eyes from the enemy.

  ‘We have lost some men and we have one gun dismounted, sir, but it is no danger to us.’

  Hayden’s ship came through the wind with a shaking of sails and gear, and then the sudden, percussive thup! of sails filling. Yards were shifted and braced, sheets drawn home. The frigate gathered way and set off in the wake of her sister ship – the ship carrying Hayden’s bride, or so he prayed.

  Hawthorne trotted along the deck to where Hayden stood at the rail, watching his adversaries and trying to divine what they might do.

  ‘I do not know how best to station my musket men, Captain,’ he said. ‘Will Mr Archer come up into the wind and attempt to rake the frigate?’

  ‘I do not believe he will, Mr Hawthorne – not with two ships bearing down on him. I believe he will stand on and exchange broadsides.’

  ‘Two knights riding along the barrier …?’

  ‘It is very much like that. Rate of fire will count for nothing, as there will be opportunity for only a single broadside. There is, however, a very great change in our situation. In a few moments, our ships will lie between the privateers and any French or neutral islands to which they might reasonably sail. They have, I think, made a very grave error.’

  ‘If you were the master of the French frigate, Captain, what would you do?’

  ‘I would run off downwind and hope to slip away by darkness.’

  ‘That sounds like an act of desperation,’ the marine lieutenant stated. ‘The Frenchman made an error turning to fight.’

  ‘The master of the converted transport made an error. He tacked at the wrong moment and allowed us to use him as a shield. Now they are in a difficult situation, as our two ships have the greater weight of broadside.’

  The gun crews and sail handlers on the upper deck all stood silently at their stations, eyes fixed upon the three ships before them. The frigate and the Themis were closing on one another rapidly. Gunports of both ships were open, and on the upper decks the gun captains could be seen elevating or lowering their weapons. The Themis was not going to pass as near to the French ship as Hayden had, he could now see but, even so, they would be close enough that much damage could be inflicted.

  Hayden’s own ship was being put to rights by the Spanish sailing master, the bosun and his crew, who hurried about the decks and climbed aloft, shouting to one another in rapid Spanish.

  The two combatant ships came abreast of one another and Hayden was sure every man on deck held their breath an instant. At such short distance the flash of powder and the sound of the explosion were simultaneous. Dense, roiling smoke enveloped both vessels. Immediately, it began to blow off in long tendrils, even as it swirled into the back eddies of the sails.

  The ships emerged from this darkness, and Hayden could see that the enemy frigate had much damage to her sails and rig.

  Hayden pointed. ‘I believe Mr Archer has fired bar and chain, Mr Hawthorne. Do you see the ruin he has made of the Frenchman’s rig?’

  As the Themis emerged from the veil of smoke that clung to her, the second French ship – the converted transport, sheered off, shifting her yards to run dead before the wind.

  ‘At least that privateer has mastered rudimentary sums,’ Hawthorne observed. ‘A dozen 12-pounders opposed to a broadside of 18-pounders … Clever lad.’

  ‘And his rig has less damage than Mr Archer’s, so he will have the advantage for a short while.’

  The two British ships converged in but a few moments, and Hayden climbed up upon the rail, holding on to the mizzen shrouds. He pointed off at the retreating privateer. ‘That ship is yours, Mr Archer,’ he called.

  Archer waved back and nodded, turning to call out orders. The two ships passed of an instant, and Hayden’s vessel held her course, quickly gaining on the frigate that Archer had partially disabled.

  Hayden went striding forward on to the forecastle, where he might see his chase more clearly. Gould was there with a glass screwed into his eye, though the ship was so near Hayden had to wonder why.

  One of the hands quietly warned the midshipman that the captain approached and he hastily lowered his glass and touched his hat. ‘There is a great deal of damage to her rig, sir,’ he reported. ‘I think her topmasts might carry away with but a little more encouragement, and they are taking in all sail above the topsails.’

  Even without a glass, Hayden could see that this was true. He could also see that they would overhaul this ship in but a few moments.

  ‘Mr Gould, go down to the gundeck, if you please, and inform Ransome that I intend to range up to windward of this frigate and engage her at close range. Pass the word for the Spanish officers.’

  ‘Aye, sir.’ The midshipman went off at a run.

  A moment later, sailing master and junior lieutenants hurried on to the deck.

  ‘We will overhaul this Frenchman in a moment,’ Hayden informed them in Spanish. ‘Let us clew up our courses. We will be to windward of her, so she will be in much smoke, but I do not want to give them an opportunity to board, as I believe they have numbers.’

  The Spaniards nodded approvingly and immediately began sending men to stations. Hayden took one last look at the frigate before them and strode back to the quarterdeck. Two ships built to the same draught and identically armed were about to engage each other at short range. Around him, Hayden could see a smouldering and determined anger. These were the Spaniards who had fallen victim to and been made fools of by these same French privateers. The opportunity for redemption, if not revenge, was welcomed most heartily.

  Hayden’s frigate slowed just as they caught up the privateers, the Spanish sailing master estimating the speed of the two vessels precisely, and clewing up sails at the appropriate instant.

  Hayden returned to the quarterdeck, where he could stand near the helmsman and where Ransome could both relay his orders to the gundeck and take his place should he fall. As his ship drew near the privateer, Hayden found himself hoping above all things that Angelita would be deep within the ship, as Reverte had suggested, and would remain untouched by the violence.

  As the bow of Hayden’s ship came abreast of the privateers’ aftmost gun, it fired, and then the next. Clearly, the French hoped to do damage and kill members of Hayden’s gun crews before his ship could fire a broadside – and it was certainly worth trying, in Hayden’s view.

  ‘Mr Ransome,’ he called out between shots, ‘order Mr Wickham to fire as she bears, if you please.’

  Immediately, the forward guns spoke and then each gun aft of that in order. It took a moment for Hayden’s ship to come abreast of the Frenchman, as
the difference in their speed was so small, but then they were firing guns as quickly as they could be loaded and run out.

  Around Hayden, chaos erupted. Splinters from the bulwarks spun past, even as musket fire and iron balls from the deck guns murdered his crew and tore away his rigging. When men of the larboard battery fell, others stationed at the starboard guns took their places, sometimes pulling the dead or wounded clear, and leaving thick smears of blood upon the planks.

  The binnacle exploded not a yard from Hayden, and he picked himself up from the deck a second later, dazed and uncertain if he were injured. A moment he stood, searching his side, where he felt pain, but decided he was bruised only.

  For a quarter of the hour the two ships battered one another from close range, until it became clear that the guns on the privateer spoke less and less frequently, and then they fell silent altogether. The enemy vessel was half hidden in smoke, but Hayden ordered his own crew to leave off firing and, in a moment, the wind cleared away the great cloud. There lay their sister ship, her rig in ruins, her decks littered with bodies and debris, her guns blasted from their carriages.

  Men draped a flag over the ruined bulwark of the quarterdeck, but it was not, as Hayden expected, a British flag to signal their surrender – it was a yellow ensign. The Yellow Jack.

  Thirty-three

  Hayden ordered boats launched and went himself aboard the prize, anxious the entire way and searching among the Frenchmen at the rail for a sign of Angelita. As he came up the side, he found the crew gathered on the quarterdeck – a smoke-stained and beaten group who to a man appeared to bear some small wound or other. Among these downcast sailors he found both de Latendresse and Don Miguel Campillo, the latter with his arm bound in what appeared to be a bloody shirt.

  ‘Who is the master of this vessel?’ Hayden asked in French.

  De Latendresse replied. ‘The captain was killed in the action – may God have mercy on his soul.’