All four ships were now reaching across the north-westerly wind, the Russian heading north-north-east, with the Arbeille and L’Aigle on a similar course, but some three miles to the southward of the Gremyashchi. Between them Andromeda now headed back to the south, her course laid for the gap between the two French ships. At the same moment Drinkwater saw the folly of this move Birkbeck made the suggestion to pass downwind of the leeward ship, the weaker corvette Arbeille, a suggestion Drinkwater instantly sanctioned, it having occurred to him simultaneously.
‘You know my mind, Mr Birkbeck, but feint at the gap and make them think they have us.’ Drinkwater could hardly believe his luck. On a reciprocal course it was not unreasonable for an arrogant British officer to take his ship between two of the enemy and while it exposed her to two broadsides, it allowed the single ship the opportunity to fire into both enemy ships at the same time and thus double her chances of inflicting damage. But by suddenly slipping across the bow of the leeward ship, he would place the Arbeille in the field of fire of L’Aigle and thus deprive Contre-Amiral Lejeune of the heavier guns of the bigger vessel.
Drinkwater ran forward to the waist and bellowed below. Frey’s face appeared, then that of Ashton. ‘Starboard guns, Mr Frey: double shot ‘em and lay them horizontally; zero elevation!’
‘Aye, aye, sir!’
Ashton looked crestfallen. ‘You’ll get your turn in a moment or two, Mr Ashton, don’t you worry.’
They were rushing down towards the enemy now and Drinkwater resumed his station, casting a look astern at the Gremyashchi; she remained standing northwards. Rakov was detaching himself. At least for the time being. A sudden, sanguine elation seized Drinkwater, the excitement of the gambler whose hunch is that if he stakes everything upon the next throw of the dice, all will be well. It was a flawed, illogical and misplaced confidence, he knew, but he dare not deny himself its comfort in that moment of anxious decision.
But then he felt the unavoidable, reactive visceral gripe of fear and foreboding. There were no certainties in a sea-battle, and providence was not so easily seduced.
CHAPTER 17
Sauce for the Goose
May 1814
‘Fire!’
The French corvette lay to starboard, so close it seemed one could count the froggings on the scarlet dolmans of a dozen hussars standing on the Arbeille’s deck with their carbines presented, yet so detached one scarcely noticed the storm of shot which responded to the thunder of Andromeda’s broadside.
Drinkwater felt the rush of a passing ball and gasped involuntarily as it spun him around and drew the air from his lungs. Beside him Protheroe fell with a cry, slumping against Drinkwater’s legs, causing him to stumble. One of the helmsmen took the full impact of a second round-shot, his shoulder reduced to a bloody pulp as he too swung round and was thrown against the mizen fife-rail so that his brains were mercifully dashed out at the same fatal moment.
As Drinkwater recovered his balance, a small calibre shot shattered his left arm. One of the hussars had hit him with a horse pistol. The blow struck him with such violence his teeth shut with a painful, head-jarring snap and a second later he felt the surge of pain, which made him gasp as his head swam. For a moment he stood swaying uncertainly, submitting to an overwhelming desire to lie down and to give up. What the hell did it matter? What the hell did any of it matter…?
‘Are you all right, sir?’
What was the point of this action? They were little men whose lives had been lived under the shadow of the eagle. Rakov and Lejeune and Captain Nathaniel Drinkwater were mere pawns in the uncaring games of the men of power and destiny. Why, he could feel the chill in the shadow of the eagle’s wings even now, and see the beguiling curve of Hortense’s smile seducing him towards his own miserable fate. What would the omnipotent Tsar Alexander care for the fate of Count Rakov and his frigate? Or would the great Napoleon, whose ambition had contributed to the deaths of a million men, concern himself over the fate of a few fanatics who could not settle themselves under a fat, indolent monarch?
‘Are you all right, sir?’
The British contented themselves under a fat, indolent monarch; or at least a fat, indolent regent. Why could these troublesome Frenchmen not see the sense of playing the same game … God’s bones, but it was cold, so confoundedly cold …
‘Sir! Are you all right?’
He saw Marlowe peering at him as though through a tunnel. He could not quite understand why Marlowe was there, and then his mind began to clear and the nausea and desire to faint receded. He was left with the pain in his arm. ‘I fear,’ Drinkwater said through clenched teeth, mastering his sweating and fearful body, ‘I fear I am hit, Marlowe …’
‘But, sir …’
‘Send… for… laudanum, Marlowe … Pass word… to Kennedy … to send me … laudanum.’ He breathed in quick and shallow gasps which somehow eased him.
‘At once.’ Marlowe saw with a look of horror the bloody wound just above Drinkwater’s elbow.
Drinkwater’s perception of the action was seen through a red mist; it cleared gradually though his being seemed dominated by the roaring throb of his broken arm. He was dimly aware the guns had fallen silent, that the shadows of the masts and sails once again traversed the deck which pitched for a few moments as Andromeda was luffed up into the wind. Then the guns thundered out again, adding to the throbbing in his head. Somewhere to starboard, he perceived the shallow curve of the Arbeille’s taffrail lined with shakoed infantrymen, and the sight roused him. By an effort of will he commanded himself again.
A fusillade of musketry swept Andromeda’s quarterdeck. Drinkwater felt a second ball strike him, like a whiplash across the thigh, then someone was beside him, holding a small glass phial.
‘Here sir, quick!’
He swallowed the contents and for a moment more stood confused, trying to focus upon Hyde’s marines whose backs were to him as they lined the hammock nettings, returning fire. Then Arbeille drew away out of range and Andromeda, having raked her, fell back to port, making a stern board.
Drinkwater felt the opiate spread warmth and contentment through him; the pain ebbed, becoming a faint sensation, like the vague memory of something unpleasant that lay just beyond one’s precise recollection. He was aware that Andromeda had come up into the wind under the stern of the French corvette and he was aware of Kennedy blinking in the sunlight, hovering at his elbow.
‘Hold still, sir, while I dress your wound.’ Kennedy clucked irritably. ‘Hold still, damn it, sir.’ Drinkwater stood and supinely allowed the surgeon to cut away his coat and bind his arm. ‘You have a compound fracture, sir, and I shall have to see to it later.’ Kennedy grunted as a musket ball passed close. ‘Luckily the ball must have been near spent; ‘tis a mess, but no major blood vessels have been severed. I may save it if it don’t mortify.’
‘Thank you for your encouraging prognosis, Mr Kennedy’ Drinkwater said, his teeth clenched as Kennedy finished pulling him about with what seemed unnecessary brutality. He turned back to the handling of the ship as Kennedy grabbed his bag of field dressings and scuttled back to the orlop. It must have been the first time the surgeon had been so exposed to fire, he thought idly.
‘Who gave orders to rake?’ he asked no one in particular.
‘You did, sir,’ a hatless Birkbeck reassured him.
‘What are our casualties?’
‘I’ve no idea, though a good few fellows have fallen, but we knocked that corvette about…’
‘Where’s Marlowe?’
‘Here, sir.’
Under the laudanum, Drinkwater’s mind finally cleared. The elation he had felt earlier returned, imbuing him with confidence. The wound in his thigh was no more than a scratch, his broken arm no more than a damnable inconvenience, already accommodated by shoving his left hand into his waistcoat. He strode to the rail. The marines withdrew to make room for him and he stared to starboard. The sterns of both French ships were now eight or nine cables awa
y: the Arbeille trailed a tangle of wreckage over her port side and L’Aigle had shortened sail to keep pace with her. Their stern chase guns barked and a brace of shot skipped across the water and thudded ineffectually into Andromeda’s hull.
‘Where’s that damned Russian?’
‘Somewhere beyond the Frogs, sir,’ Marlowe volunteered.
Drinkwater cast his eyes aloft. All the topsails and topgallants were aback. Intact, they were nevertheless peppered with holes, and severed ropes hung in bights. Men were already aloft splicing.
‘Throw the helm over, Mr Birkbeck!’ Drinkwater ordered, ‘Let’s have her in pursuit again and bring that lot to book!’
Contre-Amiral Lejeune lay board to board with his wounded consort only as long as it took him to appraise the damage. A moment later L’Aigle’s yards were braced sharp up and the frigate detached herself on the port tack, moving away from the corvette preparatory to rounding on the British frigate. As Andromeda also gained headway and began to come up with the almost supine Arbeille, L’Aigle tacked smartly and began to run back towards the British frigate. This time being caught in the cross-fire was inevitable. By using the Arbeille to mask L’Aigle’s guns, Drinkwater had also ensured the French frigate’s preservation and fed her company with the desire to avenge her weaker consort. Undamaged, L’Aigle bore down to finish off the perfidious Englishman. Lejeune was staking his own mission on a final gamble.
‘We are the bully cornered, I fancy,’ Drinkwater remarked light-heartedly. He was aware that he had held the initiative and was now about to surrender it. But he was thinking clearly again; in fact his mind seemed superior to the situation, detached and almost divine in its ability to reason, untrammelled by doubts or uncertainties. He gave his orders coolly, as the first of Arbeille’s renewed fire struck Andromeda, in passing the corvette to engage her larger and more formidable sister.
Frey’s battery fired into the Arbeille. Drinkwater could see the boats smashed on her booms and the wreck of her main topgallant and her mizen topmast; he saw men toiling on her deck to free her from the encumbrance while the brilliant tunics of her complement of soldiers fired small arms, augmenting her main armament of 8-pounders. It puzzled Drinkwater that shots from Andromeda had flown high enough to knock down so much top-hamper, but they were soon past the Arbeille and preparing to engage L’Aigle.
‘Mr Ashton! Now’s your chance! Fire into the frigate, sir!’
‘Aye, aye, sir!’
‘Stand by to tack ship!’
Then Ashton’s port battery crashed out in a concussive broadside, only to be answered by the guns of L’Aigle. Within a few moments, Drinkwater knew he had met an opponent worthy of his steel. Whatever the history of Contre-Amiral Lejeune, here was no half-sailor who had spent the greater part of the last decade mewed up in Brest Road, living ashore and only occasionally venturing out beyond the Black Rocks. Nor had his crew found the greatest test of their seamanship to be the hoisting and lowering of topgallant masts while their ship rotted at her moorings. Lejeune and his men had been active in French cruisers, national frigates which had made a nuisance of themselves by harrying British trade.
As they passed each other and exchanged broadsides, both commanders attempted to swing under their opponent’s sterns and rake. L’Aigle, by wearing, retained the greater speed while Andromeda, turning into and through the wind to tack, slowed perceptibly. The guns were now firing at will, leaping eagerly in their trucks as they recoiled, their barrels heated to a nicety, their crews not yet exhausted, but caught up in the manic exertions of men attending a dangerous business upon which they must expend an absolute concentration, or perish.
Aboard both frigates the enemy shot wreaked havoc and although the smoke from the action did not linger, but was wafted away to leeward by the persistent breeze, to shroud the Arbeille as she too drifted to the south-eastward, it concealed much of the damage each was inflicting upon the other.
Having tacked, and having not yet lost any spars, Drinkwater temporarily broke off the action by holding his course to the southward in an attempt to draw Lejeune away from Rakov, who still stood northwards but who had, significantly, reduced sail. Lejeune bore round without hesitation.
‘He’s damned confident,’ said Marlowe, studying L’Aigle through his telescope.
‘Of reinforcement by the Russian?’ mooted Drinkwater, levelling his own glass with his single right hand, then giving up the attempt.
‘Are we to resume the action, sir?’ asked Birkbeck.
‘Very definitely, Mr Birkbeck. Now we are going to lay board to board on the same tack. That will decide the issue, and we have at least reduced the opposition to one.’
‘For the time being, sir,’ Birkbeck said, looking askance at Drinkwater.
‘I am not insensible to the facts, Mr Birkbeck,’ Drinkwater said brusquely, ‘but if we can but cripple L’Aigle, she will not be in a fit state to take Bonaparte to the United States, and if we can but take her, well the matter’s closed.’
‘You are considering isolating and boarding her then, sir?’ asked Marlowe.
‘I am considering it, Mr Marlowe, yes. Please shorten down, Mr Birkbeck. We will allow this fellow to catch up.’
‘Very well, sir.’ Birkbeck turned away.
‘The master ain’t happy, Marlowe,’ Drinkwater remarked, raising his glass again.
‘I think,’ Marlowe said slowly, ‘he is not insensible to the fact that you have taken an opiate, sir.’
Drinkwater looked hard at the first lieutenant. ‘He thinks I am foolhardy, does he?’
‘He wishes to survive to take up that dockyard post you promised him.’
‘I had forgotten that. And what of you, Mr Marlowe? Do you think me foolhardy?’
Drinkwater saw the jump of Marlowe’s Adam’s apple. ‘No sir. I think you are merely doing your duty as you see it.’
‘Which is not as you see it, eh?’
‘I did not say so, sir.’
‘No. Thank you, Mr Marlowe.’ Then a thought occurred to Drinkwater. ‘By the bye, Mr Marlowe, pipe up spirits.’
The helmsmen heard the order and Drinkwater was aware of a shuffling anticipation of pleasure among them. It would do no harm. ‘Sauce for the goose’, he muttered to himself, ‘is sauce for the gander.’
The respite thus gained lasted for only some twenty minutes. The forenoon was almost over, but the day was unchanged, the sea sparkled in the sunshine and the steady breeze came out of the northwest quarter. The four ships were spread out over a large right-angled triangle upon the ocean. At the northern end of the hypotenuse lay the Gremyashchi, now hove-to; at the point of the right-angle, the battered Arbeille continued to lick her wounds and drift slowly down to leeward. Both vessels were awaiting the outcome of events at the far end of the hypotenuse, where Andromeda lay, and astern of her, swiftly catching her up, L’Aigle followed.
Despite the scepticism of his sailing master, Drinkwater was confident of having almost achieved his objective. If the Arbeille was commanded by an officer of similar resolution to that of L’Aigle, and it seemed impossible that he should not be, the fact the corvette had dropped out of the action suggested she had sustained a disabling proportion of damage. He clung on to these thoughts, arguing them slowly, interspersed with waves of pain from his arm which gradually became more assertive as the effect of the laudanum wore off.
Under her topsails, Andromeda stood on and her crew awaited the enemy. As L’Aigle approached, Drinkwater skilfully maintained the weather gauge by edging Andromeda to starboard every time he observed Lejeune attempt the same manoeuvre with L’Aigle. On the upper-deck the marines and the gunners relaxed in the sunshine, going off a pair at a time to receive their rum ration on the gun-deck. This hiatus was soon over.
His head throbbing with the beat of his pulse, Drinkwater strode forward and bellowed down into the waist, ‘Stand-to, my lads. The Frenchman is closing us fast; there’s hot work yet to do.’
Lieutenant Ashton had
not given a second thought to Sergeant McCann after the marine had departed from the gun-deck. His baiting was the vice of a man who habitually used a horse roughly, sawed at the reins and galled his mount with a crop, a man who was given to mindless and petty acts of cruelty simply because fate had placed him in a station which nurtured such weaknesses. Since his schooldays, Ashton had learned that small facts gleaned about others could be put to entertaining use, and McCann had been a trivial source of such amusement. Yet he was not a truly vicious man, merely a thoughtless and unimaginative one. His solicitude for Marlowe, expressed in his question to young Paine, had been out of concern more for his sister and her unborn child than for the actual well-being of the man responsible for impregnating her. Blood-ties, if they were inevitable, should not be reprehensible, and it mattered much to Josiah Ashton that Marlowe acquitted himself well, perhaps more than to Frederic Marlowe himself. It would not have mattered much to Ashton had Marlowe been killed, provided only that his death was honourable, or appeared so, even if some stain upon his sister’s good character was then unavoidable.
As he waited in the gun-deck for the action to resume, Ashton, having dispensed with Marlowe, was calculating his chances of advancement if matters fell out to his advantage. Down below he was relatively safe, unless they were boarded, and even then he was confident that his own skill with a small sword and a pistol would keep him out of real trouble. Marlowe, he judged, might attempt some quixotic act and was as likely to get his come-uppance in a fight, assuming he survived the next hour. Word had already come down to the gun-deck that Captain Drinkwater had a shattered arm. If he did not fall it was quite likely that gangrene would carry him off later. On the other hand, perhaps some opportunity for Ashton to distinguish himself would emerge during the forthcoming hours.
Ashton looked across the deck to where Frey, ever diligent, peered out of a gun-port, striving to see the enemy frigate coming up from astern. Frey was senior to him, but who knew? Perhaps he too would stop a ball before the day was over.
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