‘Which ship? Which ship?’ he shouted at them. Neither man responded or even seemed to notice.
‘Quelle frégate?’ he cried.
‘Minerve…’ the man on top gasped, and Hayden ran a cutlass into his heart so that he slumped down onto his adversary. Hayden rolled the dying Frenchman off, and found Childers underneath.
‘Good lord, Childers,’ Hayden said, dragging the coxswain up, ‘I almost murdered you.’
‘He… chocked me…’ Childers gasped, almost slumping down.
Hayden was near to dropping himself, when around him Frenchmen began throwing down arms and calling for quarter. Quickly, they were herded together, some so badly wounded they could not stand without aid. Hayden bent to catch his breath, but then forced himself upright to assess the situation. Smoke rolled up from the Fortunée, and her guns were silent. There was no fighting aboard that ship, nor any sign of men from either nation.
The sounds of firing and battle had also ceased in the redoubt, but had been taken up by the batteries around the tower to the south of Fornali Bay.
‘They’re firing into the Convention Redoubt, sir.’ Wickham stood a few feet away, right hand pressed to his left arm above the elbow.
‘Are you injured, Mr Wickham?’
‘Not at all, sir. Well, no more than a scratch. I shall hardly need to bother the doctor with it. Mr Ariss can patch me up when he has a moment.’
‘Where is Mr Gould?’ Hayden called out, looking around, fearing he might find the midshipman lying, still, upon the deck.
‘Here, sir,’ some of the crew replied, and Gould emerged from the group, apparently unhurt.
‘See to Mr Wickham’s arm, if you please, Mr Gould,’ Hayden instructed. ‘I have too few lieutenants as it is.’ Hayden looked about again. ‘Where is Mr Hawthorne?’
‘He led some men below, sir,’ Wickham informed him, ‘chasing Frenchmen.’
‘Ah. Who is hale enough to go to Hawthorne’s aid?’
Men, almost unable to stand from exhaustion, stepped forward, and Hayden sent them after Hawthorne, under command of a marine.
‘And Mr Ransome, what has become of him?’
‘We have him, sir,’ one of the men replied. ‘If you please, sir. Over here.’
Hayden found Ransome slumped upon a gun carriage, propped up by Freddy Madison and a crewman. A sailor was tying a neckcloth about his thigh.
‘Mr Ransome, you appear to be injured.’
The young man nodded, looking a little sickly and faint. ‘Frenchman ran a blade through the meat of my leg, sir. Very little bleeding, though.’ He pressed his eyes closed and let out a low grunt of pain.
‘I am very sorry to see it. Bear him down into the barge. All the most grievously wounded we will send back to the Themis. Don’t you worry, sir,’ he said to Ransome, ‘the doctor will soon see you put to rights.’ Hayden turned around. ‘Mr Gould? When you have done with Mr Wickham, see to the wounded, if you please. We shall send them back to the doctor in the barge.’
‘Aye, sir.’
‘And you, Mr Madison: take possession of the magazines, if there is powder in them. There might yet be some Frenchmen lurking about.’
A crewman emerged from the gundeck. ‘Captain Hayden, sir,’ he called out. ‘Mr Hawthorne begs that you come at once, sir.’
Hayden fell in behind the man and was quickly down the ladder onto the gundeck. Men with lanterns stood as distant as they could from a barrel, with its ends knocked out, wedged in the centre of the deck. The smell of oil and fat stung his eyes.
‘Put those lanterns out!’ Hayden ordered. ‘Station men at the ladder heads. No one is to come below with a light. Do not fire a weapon under any circumstances.’
Men ran to obey orders and the lamps were blown out, but before the shadows fell, Hayden had clearly seen a torn and soaked sail and bits of kindling in the barrel.
‘There’s powder on the deck, sir,’ one man offered.
‘Captain Hayden?’ It was the man whom Hawthorne had sent. ‘Mr Hawthorne is in the hold, sir.’
‘Lead on.’ Hayden had thought the barrel, prepared by the French to fire the ship, was why he had been called. ‘You men, put that barrel over the side. Douse all flame aboard ship until this powder has been cleared away. Wet it down, first.’
Hayden descended into utter darkness, suddenly apprehensive that Frenchmen might lurk in the shadows. Down the ladder to the lower deck and then down again onto the forward platform, where there was a blessed bit of lamplight. Hayden found Hawthorne and some hands, below, shifting a barrel by brute strength. Another hand was down in the bilge water on hands and knees, feeling about.
‘Mayhap, they’ve opened a seam, Mr Hawthorne,’ the man said, his voice echoing around the hold.
‘A seam!’ one of the top-men sneered. ‘What kind of bloody foolishness is that?’ This man, too, plunged down into the water.
‘Are we taking on water, Mr Hawthorne?’
Hawthorne looked up as Hayden jumped down onto the barrels.
‘Aye, sir. It has risen half a foot in but a few minutes, I swear.’
Hayden cursed.
One of the hands who was down in the bilge water banged his fist on a barrel. ‘We have to move this one.’
A large hammer was quickly found and the end of the barrel stove in, brine and chunks of beef sloughing out and bobbing in the bilge water. Hayden slipped down into the water and helped the men roll the empty barrel out of the way.
The seaman went back to feeling along the hull, water up to his chin. ‘I can’t be certain, Captain. Water’s floodin’ in. Look at it rise! The ceiling has been chopped way in places. Mayhap they’ve drilled holes, then rolled barrels back down here to stop us from finding them.’
Water poured in so quickly that Hayden could clearly see it rising. Some hands appeared on the platform and stood looking on. ‘Mr Dryden? Is that you, sir?’
‘It is, Captain.’
‘We shall fother this opening if we can locate it. Have you experience in this?’
‘I have, sir.’ And without waiting for further orders, set off up the ladder.
Hayden touched one of the men on the arm – with the blackened faces and poor light he did not know whom. ‘Find men to man the pumps. We are going to lose our prize if we cannot check this water flooding in.’
‘Aye, sir.’ The man scrambled up out of the water, and a moment later the hollow rattle of chain in the pump-well echoed around the hold.
Hayden turned to the men who were desperately splashing about in the rising water, hands groping along the submerged planks. ‘Have you found our leak?’
Even as he said this, Hayden realized that it was almost too deep to do anything about the ingress, even if he were to find its source.
‘Keep them at this as long as you can,’ Hayden said to Hawthorne, and then climbed up onto the barrels and leapt to the platform. A river of water trailed behind as he went thumping up the ladder. Upon the gundeck he found the men at the pumps, frantically turning the cranks and gasping for breath. They did not plan to win one battle only to lose another – and their prize money – but he knew they could not keep this up for long.
Up into the cool night, Hayden was faced with the terrible sight of the Fortunée, burning. Flames climbed the tarred rigging and set aflame the sails furled on the lower yards. From the waist, a column of flame and black smoke erupted up into the night, blotting away stars and flowing out over San Fiorenzo Bay.
‘Save us,’ Hayden muttered. He turned to the nearest man. ‘Find Madison. I sent him below to take possession of the magazines. I must know this instant if the powder has been carried ashore.’ He turned back to the burning ship. If the Fortunée’s magazines exploded every man aboard understood what the consequences would be. The men who were not engaged in any activity had moved as far aft as the deck would allow.
Dryden was lowering a sail over the larboard bow, men running ropes, attached to the sail’s corners, under the sprit and up t
o others standing by the starboard barricade.
‘Leave this matter to me, Dryden,’ Hayden informed the master’s mate. ‘Take a lead into a boat and sound astern. We shall warp her astern as far from the Fortunée as possible. If we cannot stop the water, I shall attempt to settle her in the shallows.’
Dryden made a quick knuckle. ‘Aye, sir. Depth of hold twelve feet, sir?’
‘So I would think. She must settle in fewer than four fathoms – three would be better – if we hope to patch and float her again.’
‘Aye, Captain.’ Dryden began calling out names of oarsmen as he hurried aft to the boats.
Madison appeared at that moment.
‘Ah, Mr Madison. What of the powder?’
‘Gone, sir. But for a small quantity for the muskets and pistols and some cartridges for the great guns.’
‘Let us pray the same was done aboard the Fortunée,’ Hayden said, feeling a small sense of relief. The powder would have been needed by the batteries and, if it had been left aboard, could have endangered the surrounding French positions when it exploded.
Hayden heard the voice of Mr Wickham, calling instructions. ‘We shall have to have weights on the ropes to sink them – they will never take up quickly enough.’
‘Mr Wickham, did I not send you back to the Themis with the wounded?’
‘No, sir. Excuse me, Captain. I meant, I did not realize that you had. I’ve only a scratch, sir.’ His arm was in a sling, but he raised it a little as though to prove it undamaged.
Hawthorne came hurrying onto the deck. ‘Captain! We’ve found the leak – or leaks, sir. These cursed Frenchmen drilled holes through the planks and then they must have bunged them up – there must be a hundred of them. They pulled the bungs when we boarded.’
‘Then we shall have to find them and bung them up again.’
Hawthorne stood a moment, chagrined and hesitating.
‘Mr Hawthorne?’
‘Water’s already very deep in the hold…’
‘I will see for myself. Mr Wickham? Leave off fothering. I do not think it will answer.’ Hayden thought a moment. ‘The men at the pumps must be relieved. Have them stand by the riding bits to cast off. It is my intention to haul her into shallow water, if it is at all possible.’
‘Aye, sir.’
In the hold Hayden found the situation worse than he’d hoped. Men were diving down into the water, searching for holes, but to little avail. The looks on their faces when they broke the surface told all.
He turned to Hawthorne. ‘Bring these men up to the deck; we might be forced to abandon this ship, yet.’
Hayden returned to the deck, where he found the French prisoners sitting in a group, surrounded by Hawthorne’s marines, muskets levelled. A shot from the Fornali batteries screamed overhead at that moment, and ploughed into the earthworks of the Convention Redoubt. Forward, the Fortunée was engulfed in flame; spars began falling to the deck, and the entire bay was illuminated.
Hayden hurried to the taffrail. ‘Mr Dryden?’ he called into the darkness. For a moment he could not find the boat, but then it appeared, a dark apparition in the wash of moonlight.
‘Sir,’ came Dryden’s voice, ‘the stern anchor has been cast in very shallow water. I believe you can warp her directly astern and will find the bottom in sixty yards or fewer.’
‘We shall go astern immediately,’ Hayden called.
Hayden hastened to the gundeck ladder and called down into the darkness. ‘Mr Wickham. Cast off the bower, but keep the cable taut. We shall warp astern immediately.’
‘Aye, sir. Messenger almost rigged. I require hands to man the capstan, if you please, Captain.’
Hayden found all the healthy men he could and sent them down to the gundeck.
‘You, there!’ Hayden called out to one man forward. ‘You cannot carry that lantern down onto the gundeck lest you blast us all to hell. Mr Hawthorne, I ordered guards set at the ladder heads. No lanterns below.’
‘Aye, sir.’
In the confusion, Hayden feared he might have ordered the ladder guards below. Everyone was working in near darkness on the gundeck, for though the fire-barrel had been put over the side, oil and fat and powder had yet to be cleaned away. A light could still set the ship ablaze.
‘Mr Madison. Send men aloft with buckets. We will wet the sails and rigging, and then the upper deck. If this breeze were to turn we would have embers raining down upon the ship.’
Hayden stood on the moonlit deck, hands on the cool rail cap, staring at the darkened shore and then at the cable stretching off astern. He could actually feel heat from the burning ship upon his back.
For a long moment there was no sign of movement. He was about to call for a lead to sound astern, when he realized that the ship was making stern-way; so glassy was the water that the motion was almost undetectable.
Very slowly the frigate went aft, water swirling aside. Hayden could gauge their progress against the firelit shore. And then the frigate came to a gentle stop. Hayden called to the man at the ladder head. ‘Inform Mr Wickham that we are aground. Thank God.’
‘Aye, sir.’
‘Mr Madison. Once the deck has been thoroughly soaked, order all the men down to the lower deck but for a few sentries.’ If the Fortunée exploded, Hayden wanted his men below.
At that instant there was a dull thump aboard Fortunée and a section of her quarterdeck buckled upward a few feet, settling in a clatter of burning planks.
One magazine gone, Hayden thought, and not much powder in it. As he watched the ship burn, hardly able to take his eyes away, her main-topmast, yards and all, came tumbling down, tearing away burning rigging. The ship, a virtual inferno, began to drift out towards the larger bay, her anchor cables burned through. The conflagration that had been the frigate Fortunée spun slowly to larboard, the flames glittering upon the calm waters. Her mizzen fell aft, crashing into the taffrail. The main tumbled down to larboard. In a few moments she was carried out of the little bay and around the point, where she still illuminated the night.
Hayden turned back to the rail, gazing out over the small V of bay bathed in moonlight. The undulating line of dusky hills blocked out the low stars. Bright flashes of musket fire could be seen, as the French retreated towards Fornali, pursued, no doubt, by vengeful Corsicans. Even as grapeshot hissed overhead, Hayden felt a calm come over him. The letter he had written, but not sent, to Henrietta could wait. He would write another, mentioning that they had taken a frigate but without recalling any of the brutal fighting or the men lost – on both sides. He drank in a breath of air, a fragrant zephyr slipping down from the hills, leavened by moisture as it passed over the bay.
A figure appeared beside him at the rail.
‘There you are, Mr Gould. Have the hurt been sent off to the Themis?’
Hayden could see the boy nod in the moonlight; all his excitement had drained away and he looked about to weep.
‘All but a few Frenchmen,’ he answered thickly, ‘who are not too badly off, sir. I shall send them along when the boat returns.’
‘And you? Unhurt, I hope?’
‘Scratches and bruises, sir.’
‘You are one of the lucky ones. I have not thanked you for saving my life – you and Wickham.’
Gould looked confused and then surprised. ‘I suppose we did…’
Neither spoke for a moment – a blessed moment.
‘We lost a good number of men, Captain Hayden… and many of the men I sent back,’ his mouth worked but no words came. ‘I am not confident they will survive, sir.’
‘In a few short weeks, Mr Gould, you have seen much of the worst the Royal Navy can offer. If my introduction to the service had been similar, I am not sure how I would have felt.’
‘I am not at all confident that I am made for this profession, Captain,’ Gould blurted out, he turned a little away – to hide his face.
Hayden did not quite know what to say to this young man. ‘The brutality of it all, the ki
lling…’ But he was not sure what direction his speech would take. ‘Not everyone can make their peace with it. I am not certain I have, though I have been witness to my share.’
‘It is difficult… sir,’ the boy replied, struggling to master the emotion in his voice. ‘That a man I have never met is set on murdering me, and I am equally intent on murdering him, though he has wronged me in no way, nor I him.’ The boy paused to work some moisture into his mouth. ‘It seems… mad.’
Hayden agreed. At times it did seem mad… that a stranger might end his life for reasons that sometimes appeared to lose their meaning.
‘If you please, Captain…’ A voice from behind.
Hayden turned to find one of the hands, two yards distant. ‘It’s one of the Frenchies, sir. His wound has opened, and he’s gone down in a swoon.’
Before Hayden could speak, Gould replied.
‘I shall see to him.’ He turned to Hayden. ‘If you have no other duty for me, sir?’
Even by moonlight, Hayden could see the distress, poorly hidden, upon the boy’s face. ‘By all means, see to the man.’
Wickham appeared at the ladder head, looked around the deck quickly, and hurried aft.
‘I believe she’s settled, Captain Hayden. We’re not taking on any more water.’
‘I believe you’re right, Mr Wickham. Do you not feel the difference in her motion – that is to say, there is none.’
Wickham fell uncommonly still – for a second he even closed his eyes.
‘Well, the bay is very calm, sir.’
‘Yes, but the deck now slopes forward, as you shall certainly see by daylight. We have some wounded French sailors I should like Dr Griffiths to see. And we should run cables to the main-top. Row a kedge out to starboard and a cable ashore to larboard. I do not think it is likely she will begin to heel, but one can never predict the bottom, and I shall take no chances.’
‘Aye, sir. May I have Mr Dryden? He is already in a boat.’
‘Yes, certainly.’ The next question, Hayden dreaded. ‘Have we a butcher’s bill, Mr Wickham?’
‘Fifteen dead, sir,’ he replied softly. ‘And many more wounded – twenty-two by my count.’
A Battle Won Page 41
