Time of Terror

by Hunter, Seth

  He looked about him and saw that the admiral appeared to have taken the con though he kept to his armchair, with Bowen standing beside him to direct the sails. He had hauled up the courses and they were constantly backing the mizzen topsail to keep station but other ships were forging ahead of the line and Howe was become extremely agitated about it. Then a dull rolling roar like distant thunder announced that the French had opened fire. Nathan leapt on to the starboard carronade so he could peer over the rail and saw the whole enemy line engulfed in smoke penetrated by flashes of orange flame. Hundreds of individual water spouts rose up in front of the advancing British ships and kept on rising as if the sea was boiling: a vast pan of spitting and seething water. A sound in the air above and a hole appeared as if by magic in the foretopsail. Another and another. The French ships lying to leeward and a decent swell running, they were heeling hard over and firing high; though at such extreme range most of their shot was still dropping short. The smoke billowed back on them obscuring the hulls so that the sails seemed to be moving through a dense low fog. A halliard parted with a loud twang, the broken end snaking across the deck and two more holes appeared in the foretopsail.

  Nathan looked astern and saw the Speedwell about half a mile behind and lifted his arm to wave in case Tully or Keeble were watching through their glasses. Beside her was the strange two-decker the Charon that had been converted into a hospital ship. An unfortunate name for such a vessel, Nathan reflected: Charon being the name of the ferryman who rowed the newly dead across the River Acheron to Hades. It was to be hoped they did not become better acquainted in the next few hours.

  He became aware that people were yelling at him.

  “Lie down, sir,” thundered Douglas. “Did you not hear the order?”

  Nathan saw that everyone was either sitting or lying on the deck, saving the two helmsmen and Bowen—and the admiral himself in his armchair at the con. He jumped down off the gun and sat with his back to it facing forward. After a moment he realised he would have been safer sitting behind it but he did not like to draw attention to himself by moving. In any case the main danger, he thought, would come from above, from falling spars and rigging. He pulled out his watch. Twenty past nine. The firing was now like a continuous roll of thunder and there were more crashes from up forward. Nathan wondered how long they must endure this without returning fire. Still they kept backing and filling the mizzen topsail to slow the ship down. They could not have been moving at more than two knots, Nathan calculated. At which rate they would be twenty minutes or more under fire before they reached the enemy line.

  He became aware that the admiral and the captain of the fleet were engaged in another argument. Howe had told Curtis to prepare the signal for “close action” but Curtis maintained there was no such signal.

  “No, sir, but there is a signal for closer action,” maintained Howe. “And I should know for I devised it.”

  He had the signal book open—his signal book—and began reading it out aloud with Curtis sitting at his feet looking up at him like an overgrown schoolboy with a sulky frown.

  “Number five, sir. Number five: ‘To engage. If closer, a red pennant over the flag.’ So, sir, if you fly number five with a red pennant the meaning is clear: ‘Engage more closely.’ ”

  “Very well,” Curtis agreed petulantly, “but I doubt more than a few will understand it, my lord.”

  Howe looked up from his book and saw the whole quarterdeck watching them.

  “Oh very well,” he said, closing the book and throwing it down to the deck. “No more book, no signals. I look to you to do your duty of engaging the French admiral. I do not wish the ships to be bilge and bilge but if you can lock the yardarms so much the better, the battle will be the sooner decided.”

  The thunder louder, closer, the shot thudding against the hull like the beating of a giant drum or flying the full length of the ship in a lethal hail, though mostly above their heads. Nathan caught the eye of one of his gun crew who was not much older than Francis Coyle and was muttering some incantation to himself that sounded like the chorus of “Heart of Oak.” He smiled encouragingly.

  “It will not be long now and we will be able to give it back to them with a vengeance,” he assured him.

  “Yes, sir,” said the boy with a shaky grin. “The gunner says I am so small, sir, that the shot will pass over me, even when I am standing up.”

  “Very good. I am sure he is right. What is your name?”

  “Jameson, sir, if you please.”

  Nathan pulled out his watch again. Just after nine-thirty. Surely they must be almost there. He was tempted to stand up and look but then came the roll of the drum beating to quarters, though technically speaking they were already at them and the ship had been cleared for action these past few days. They scrambled to their feet and Nathan raised one of the gun ports so he could look out. A huge three-decker loomed through the smoke, startlingly close, so close he thought they must run down on her. Her massive hull was painted black and yellow with three broad black-and-red chequered stripes and he knew her at once as the French flagship, the Montagne, of 120 guns. Even as he looked the lower deck guns blossomed flame through the black smoke and he jerked his head back so fast he almost fell over, losing his hat. He stooped to pick it up and saw the admiral on his feet shouting that there was no room to pass between the Montagne and the Jacobin.

  “That’s right, my lord,” shouted Bowen, apparently having misheard him. “The Charlotte will make room for herself!”

  But Howe still appeared agitated. “Starboard your helm!” he shouted. “Starboard your helm!”

  Bowen turned on him, his face red: “If we do we will run aboard the Jacobin, my lord.”

  “What is that to you, sir,” snapped Howe. Nathan saw Bowen turn away again: “Damn my eyes if I care if you don’t,” he said, clear enough for Nathan to hear him if not the admiral. “I’ll go near enough to singe your whiskers, you old bugger.”

  Another crashing roar and Nathan felt the wind of the shot. The noise was deafening. He pulled out his handkerchief to tie round his ears as the gunners already had.

  “Why do we not fire?” he asked Dowling who looked at him wildly as if to say “Why are you asking me?” then fell back with his hands to his face and blood spurting through his fingers. The lad, Jameson, took a step towards him and a cannonball took off his head.

  Nathan stared at him in astonishment. It had taken off the top of his head as cleanly as an axe leaving his ears still sticking out on each side. His body remained upright for a minute and then fell to the deck with the blood gushing out of the gap where his scalp should have been. Even as Nathan stared in shock two of the boy’s mates picked him up and threw him through the open gun port.

  Nathan looked wildly about the quarterdeck. Christ, who was supposed to order them to fire? He had never served on a first rate. He looked to the admiral but he was arguing with Curtis again, pounding his fist against the chair in his agitation. Douglas, the flag captain, was leaning against the first lieutenant, blood pouring from a head wound. One of the other lieutenants was lying on the deck clutching his knee with nothing left of his leg below it. An officer of the Queen’s Regiment drew his sword with a flourish only to have it shattered in his hand by a shot. He staggered back, staring in dismay at the hilt sticking out of his stomach and the red stain spreading across his white waistcoat.

  Nathan thrust his head back through the port. Another ship, a two-decker, heading straight at them; she must be the Jacobin that Bowen had been shouting about. They were crossing her bow and could fire down the length of her if only someone would give the order.

  “Oh for God’s sake.” He pulled his head back in and ran to the starboard carronade and crouched down beside the gun captain to peer along the stocky barrel. The Jacobin’s bow filled the port.

  “Fire!” he yelled, remembering just in
time to leap back from the recoil. He rushed forward into the smoke and thrust his head through the port again just as the Charlotte’s lower decks erupted in a rippling broadside. He could see nothing for smoke.

  “Take command here,” he shouted in the ear of the gun captain and raced across the quarterdeck, stooped down by the larboard carronade and glimpsed the huge stern of the Montagne through the open port.

  “Fire!” he yelled again. As he leapt back he felt the Charlotte shudder as her larboard guns fired from one end of the ship to the other. Through the smoke he saw the Montagne sailing serenely on apparently unharmed. Then it cleared a little and he saw the shambles of her gilded stern and the bodies hurled out from her gun ports and the blood running down the yellow paint work. But if the Jacobin crossed the Charlotte’s stern she would serve them the same way. He saw Bowen at the quarterdeck rail shouting through his speaking trumpet and the men hauling on the braces to bring the flagship ponderously round in the lee of the enemy line. Nathan could see the Jacobin coming up beside them at a distance of no more than a few yards. Why did she not fire? Then he realised: the French had not manned the guns on their lee side. Once she was round Charlotte could run down the length of the enemy line, pouring broadside after broadside into them. Nathan turned to pull his men off the starboard guns but in that instant he saw the foretopmast lurch at an impossible angle, then come crashing down on to the deck in an avalanche of falling sails and rigging. The ship began to fall away, the stern swinging back towards the Jacobin.

  Nathan shouted at his gunners to traverse. He grabbed a handspike himself and thrust it under the truck of the carronade. It moved surprisingly easily, much easier than the 6-pounders on the Nereus or perhaps panic gave him manic strength. He peered along the barrel and glimpsed the figurehead of the Jacobin: an ancient goddess with a red Phrygian cap on her head.

  “Fire!” he roared as he jerked the lanyard, arching his body as the carriage shot back beneath him. He ran forward and thrust his head through the port. The figurehead was still there but the bow was falling off to larboard and still she was not firing. His men were cheering as if they had won some great victory, wild-eyed and exultant. They were stripped to the waist with their handkerchiefs round their heads, their faces black with smoke, more like demons than men.

  “Silence!” he roared. “Remove the charge.”

  The long worm was thrust down the bore and came wriggling out with the smoking rag at the end of it.

  “Sponge your gun.” The sponger splashed his sheepskin swab into the fire bucket and crammed the flexible sponge down the bore of the carronade, bringing it out blackened and steaming.

  “Load with cartridge.”

  The powder boy had the cloth bag ready and the rammer rammed it down the bore. Nathan glanced along his small line of guns and saw the crews working at the 12-pounders but it would be the carronade that did the most damage at this range.

  He thrust his head once more through the port. The Jacobin was no longer there but here was another ship bearing down on them through the smoke. French or British? Flames blossomed along her side and he jerked his head back in like a startled rabbit. Shot ploughed into the hammocks above his head and a great splinter of wood pierced the deck at his feet.

  “Load with canister,” he roared running down the line of guns and repeating the order so they would all hear him. The noise was deafening. Impossible. He lowered his head to peer along the barrel of one of the 12-pounders and something struck the breech in front of him and flew into his head. He fell down with a cry, a terrible pain above his left eye. He clapped his hand to it thinking half his head was gone but then to his utter astonishment he saw the thing come flying back at him: a ball of red and black fury, striking again and again as he lashed out at it with his fist. And then it went flying up to perch on the yard, flapping its wings and crowing. He felt the warm blood flowing down his neck.

  “What?” he said looking round at the crew who were looking as astonished as he and then they were laughing.

  “Which it is a cock, sir,” called one. “Got free when the coop was smashed by a shot and the waist is full of dead hens.”

  Nathan scrambled up and bent his head to the gun again, the blood from his wound boiling and spitting on the hot breech. He saw the yellow and black hull filling the port and stepped back.

  “Fire!” he roared again. “Remove the wad . . . sponge out your gun . . .”

  And so it went on. It was pointless to give orders. No one could hear him. And besides, every man knew what he had to do. Every gun fired and loaded at its own speed. All he could do was run along the line encouraging them. At times he would catch a clear glimpse of the battle, or at least part of it, as the wind tore a hole through the smoke to reveal the kind of tableau an artist might have attempted—a detail rather than a bird’s eye view. Only a handful of British ships appeared to have penetrated the French line. The only two Nathan recognised with any certainty were the Brunswick and the Queen, flying the flag of Admiral Gardner, another of his father’s old shipmates. She was way down to leeward with her mizzenmast gone and no fewer than three French ships pouring their broadsides into her. Nathan saw Lord Howe gazing anxiously towards her over the taffrail. The Charlotte seemed to be on her own now, her guns quiet, and Nathan heard him call out to Curtis, “Go down to the Queen, sir, go down to the Queen.”

  “My lord, we can’t,” came the frantic reply. “We are a mere wreck, the ship won’t steer and there are three sail of fresh ships coming down upon us.” The captain was practically wringing his hands. “What can we do when the ship won’t steer?”

  “She will steer, my lord.” Bowen’s angry voice as he came striding aft. “We have the spritsail up and we can get her before the wind.”

  Then there was a shout from the tops that the French were running. Nathan leapt up to the shroud. The firing had fallen off and the smoke was clearing. He saw a cluster of French ships closing on the Montagne far to windward but the sea between them appeared to be full of shattered and dismasted hulks and he could not tell if they were French or British. The only two ships still firing at each other were the Brunswick and the Vengeur du Peuple way over on their lee. The Charlotte had come up into the wind now and was moving towards the Queen but the three French ships had broken off the contest and were closing on their distant flagship. Nathan felt a desolate sense of loss akin to despair. Surely they could not have gone through all of this only for it to end without a clear-cut victory. He found himself next to Bowen who was shaking his head and muttering under his breath.

  “What is it?” He was conscious that he was shouting. But he could barely hear his own voice. “What’s the matter with you, man?”

  “The captain of the fleet will not permit us to pursue the enemy,” said Bowen through gritted teeth. “He has persuaded his lordship to make the signal to close round the admiral.”

  “But why? Surely we can still catch them?”

  Bowen turned away. “Try telling him that,” he said.

  “By God, I will,” said Nathan.

  He looked round but could see neither of the two men on the quarterdeck. The door of the poop was open, though, and he made his way towards it, tugging his handkerchief off his head. The deck had been cleared for action and he saw the two men at the far end framed against the light from the stern windows and heard the captain’s frantic voice: “If you renew the action, my lord, who knows what may be the result? Many of our ships are dismasted or can no longer steer. Make sure of what you have got, for I am persuaded that if you do not assemble the fleet they will turn the tables on us.”

  Howe said something Nathan did not hear and Curtis continued in a calmer voice: “Your lordship is tired. You had better take some rest. I will manage the other matters for you.”

  They came forward towards Nathan, still standing in the doorway. Curtis glared at him. “What do you want, s
ir? Go about your duties.”

  But then the admiral stumbled and almost pitched forward on to the deck. Nathan caught him and supported him with an arm round his waist.

  “Let me help you to your chair, my lord,” he said.

  “If you want to be of any assistance,” sneered Curtis, “help his lordship to his bed.”

  “You hold me as if I were a child,” said Howe with a weary grin. “Better do as the captain says.”

  When Nathan came back on deck he saw many of the crew standing on the rail or clinging to the shrouds staring out to their lee. He leapt up on the carronade and put his hand on the rail to steady himself and saw the French 74, the Vengeur, that had been fighting the Brunswick, laid on her beam ends with hundreds of her crew clinging to her sides. The Brunswick had ceased firing and many of her boats were in the water picking up survivors. Nathan took out his glass and saw men clinging to a floating spar and a cutter with an English lieutenant in the stern directing his men to fish them out of the water with boathooks. Then there was a great shout and he lowered his glass and saw the French ship roll over in a cloud of smoke and steam and spray. When it cleared she was gone.