Sloop of War

by Alexander Kent

  Bolitho did not hear the rest of it. The brig was slowly edging round until she was lying almost diagonally across the larboard quarter. Smoke fanned down around him and he felt musket balls thudding into the deck planks, the maniac whine as one ricocheted from a swivel gun just feet away.

  Stockdale said desperately, “Keep on the move, sir! Them buggers’ll mark you down else!”

  Bolitho stared at him, knowing his own face was set in a wild grin. It never failed to amaze him that it was so easy to lose control and reason once a battle had begun. Later perhaps . . . He shook himself. There would be no later when they closed with the bigger ship.

  He yelled, “They are shooting blind, Stockdale!” He waved his sword around the quarterdeck. None of the officers had found time to get their uniform coats or hats and like himself were dressed only in shirts and breeches, and those were already grimy with drifting powder-smoke. “See? They can take their pick of us today!”

  A seaman at the mizzen braces gave a terrible scream and was hurled on to his side by the force of a musket ball. Blood spurted from his chest, and as he rolled about in agony Bolitho called, “See to that man, Mr. Bethune!” When the midshipman hesitated, his face like chalk under the freckles, he added harshly, “Your mother is at home, boy, so you can weep alone after you have done your duty!”

  Bethune dropped to his knees, his breeches spattered with the blood, but his face suddenly determined as the dying sailor groped for his hand.

  Buckle yelled, “The Yankee will try to work across our stern, sir!”

  Bolitho nodded. There was nothing else the enemy could do. With most of his sails damaged by cannon fire, and already over-reached by Sparrow’s maddened attack through the transports, the brig’s captain must either try to cross astern or tack and risk his own poop coming under fire.

  He snapped, “We will wear ship, Mr. Buckle. Lay her to the larboard tack and follow the brig round, nose to tail!”

  He was still grinning, but could feel his mouth raw with tension as once again the men hurled themselves on the braces, their smoke-grimed bodies glistening in the glare as they angled back above the deck, their eyes on the yards above them.

  “Helm a’lee!” Buckle was adding his own weight to the wheel.

  Bolitho watched the bowsprit swinging, heard the immediate crash of guns as Graves directed his newly loaded battery towards the other ship.

  Through the dense gunsmoke Bolitho saw the murky shape of the leading transport, now some two cables away.

  “Steady as you go, Mr. Buckle!” A ball whimpered overhead, and when he glanced up he saw a neat hole in the centre of the big spanker. “Keep station on Golden Fleece, she is better than any compass today!”

  He winced as the hull jumped once, twice and yet again, as some enemy shots smashed into it. But the brig was in a bad way, and she was drifting stern-first, her complete foremast dragging over the side like a fallen tree. Men were working in the wreckage, axes flashing, while others continued to fire and reload the guns as before.

  “Steady, sir! Nor’-west by north!”

  Bolitho raised his sword, his eyes narrowed against the reflected sunlight as he watched the brig swinging drunkenly on the tow of fallen spars.

  “Easy!” The sword held the sunlight. “Easy, lads!” Not a gun fired, and along the deck only at the weapons not yet reloaded was there any sort of movement.

  Another ball slammed into the lower hull, and somewhere a man screamed in torment as he was clawed down by flying splinters.

  The sun was shining into his eyes now, and through the drifting smoke he saw the outline of the brig’s tattered maintopsail, the glint of glass as she helplessly presented her stern.

  “Fire as you bear!”

  Driven by the wind, the smoke came funnelling inboard through port after port as Graves ran along the gun deck, his voice cracking from the strain of shouting directions.

  A shadow passed briefly above the smoke, and through the din Bolitho heard the splintering crash of a complete mast failing, and guessed it had been sheared off between decks by the Sparrow’s merciless bombardment.

  Then as the Sparrow forged ahead once more he heard cheering and knew it was from the Golden Fleece. As wind drove the smoke apart he saw the brig very clearly and someone on her splintered deck waving the flag in surrender. Mastless, and with her stern gouged open by the slow broadside, she was little better than a hulk. Within her small hull her company must have been savagely mauled.

  Tyrrell was staring at it, his eyes bright with concentration, and by his side Heyward was almost jumping up and down, his voice half choked by smoke.

  Then, almost before the Sparrow’s dazed company could feel the taste of their conquest, the air was blasted apart with one deafening explosion. Spars, complete sections of timber and deck planking, all whirled above an angry scarlet core, and across the water a shock wave rolled towards the sloop like a miniature typhoon. When the smoke and flying fragments subsided there was nothing to show of the privateer but for a few pieces of charred flotsam and an upended jolly boat which was miraculously undamaged. A sudden spark, an upended lantern, or someone so crazed in the horror between the shattered decks that he had ignited a fuse, the brig’s end was terrible in its completeness.

  Bolitho said, “Get the maincourse on her, Mr. Tyrrell! We must make haste to assist Miranda.” He waited until Tyrrell had brought the stunned seamen to their senses, his voice hoarse through his speaking trumpet, and then added, “They will know that we can still sell our lives dearly.”

  It took little time to overhaul the Golden Fleece and to see the two embattled ships about a mile distant. They had drifted in the fury of combat, their hulls masked in smoke, through which the flash of musket fire, the occasional glare of a swivel, were clear to see.

  The frigate was listing against her heavier adversary, like a hulk already dead, and without using a glass Bolitho could see that the fighting had spread down across the fore deck as more boarders hacked their way between the grappled ships.

  “We will go about, Mr. Tyrrell. Lay her on the starboard tack once we have gained some room and prepare to engage with the other battery.”

  He bit his lip to steady his racing thoughts. A quick glance aloft told him that the masthead pendant was lifting as firmly as ever. The wind was steady from south-southwest.

  “Pass the word for Mr. Graves to lay aft.”

  When the lieutenant arrived, his face gaunt with fatigue, Bolitho said, “I want the starboard bow-chaser to keep firing at the enemy. As soon as we have gone about I’ll expect it to concentrate on that ship, no matter what.”

  Buckle called, “Ready on th’ quarterdeck, sir.”

  Bolitho nodded. “Put the helm down, if you please.”

  “Helm a’lee, sir!”

  Tyrrell was already bellowing through his trumpet, and forward the seamen were leaping like demons at the headsail sheets, and with canvas flapping the Sparrow started to swing into the wind.

  “Man the braces!”

  Bolitho gripped the rail, his eyes smarting as the sun lanced between the shrouds.

  “Heave there! With all your weight!”

  Across the wind and still further round, the yards groaning in unison. Then as the sails refilled and laid the deck over in the opposite angle he watched the distant ships edging very slowly between the foremast shrouds as if caught in a giant web.

  “Steady, Mr. Buckle! Hold her!”

  He paced a few steps this way and that, aware that Tyrrell was urging the men at the braces to trim the yards still further, that the dead seaman had gone from the quarterdeck, and that Ben Garby, the carpenter, with his mates, was slithering through the after hatch to inspect the damage there. Aware of all this and more, yet not a part of it as he had once been.

  “Steady, sir! Full an’ bye!”

  He nodded, his mind busy with the two ships. Closehauled it would take thirty minutes to reach them, maybe more. Miranda was almost overrun by enemy boarders.
Outnumbered from the start, she would have lost many good men in that first savage broadside.

  “Fire!”

  As the muffled cry came from forward he saw the puff of smoke beneath the starboard cathead, felt the sharp convulsion as the thirty-two-pounder crashed inboard on its tackles. He snatched up a glass and saw the ball plunge close to the enemy’s hull, throwing up a tall waterspout.

  Heyward muttered hoarsely, “Near!”

  Bolitho looked away. The big ex-Indiaman mounted anything up to forty guns, at a guess. She could finish Sparrow, if ever she could bring her artillery to bear, with even a badly aimed broadside. Less.

  Bang. Another ball crashed away from the bow-chaser, and he watched the feathers of spray lifting from wave to wave until it plunged hard alongside the other ship.

  They should hear us and see we are coming. He tried to clear his brain. What should he do? Signal the transports to run? No. They were helplessly overladen and slow. It would merely prolong their agony.

  Overhead, the spanker cracked noisily, and Buckle cursed it before allowing the helm to be eased still further.

  Bolitho knew without looking that sailing so close to the wind was cutting away his chances of reaching the ships in time to help.

  Someone walked past him. It was Bethune, his arms hanging at his sides, his breeches covered with dark blood blotches and a smear where the seaman’s fingers had made their last agonised grip on this earth. Bolitho stared at him.

  “Mr. Bethune!” He saw the youth jump. “Come here!”

  He walked to the rail and back again. It was worth an attempt. Anything was now. If they arrived alongside after Miranda had struck to the enemy, Sparrow’s decks would be as red as the flag above his head.

  The midshipman waited. “Sir?”

  “Make this signal at once.” He rested his hand on Bethune’s plump shoulder. He could feel the skin through his shirt. Like ice, in spite of the sun.

  “Signal, sir?” He stared up at him as if he had misheard. Or his captain had gone mad.

  “Yes. To Miranda . Sail in sight to the nor’-east!” He tightened his grip. “Then move yourself!”

  Bethune fled, calling shrilly for his assistants, and within a minute the bright signal flags broke to the wind, while Tyrrell stared from them to Bolitho, first with incredulity and then with slow understanding.

  Buckle said, “There’s few poor devils’ll see that aboard Miranda.”

  Tyrrell was studying Bolitho. “No. But th’ privateer will. He might just think that a patrol from th’ squadron has come to join th’ fight!”

  Bolitho waited until Graves’s bow-chaser had fired yet again and said, “It is all we can do at present.”

  Minutes dragged by like hours, and then as a freak downdraught of wind swept across the two snared ships Bolitho caught his breath. A thin shaft of light where there had been none. Then a glint of water. Wider still, as the ships drifted apart and the big privateer set her foresail and jib to work clear. Then Miranda was quite separate, the water between her and the other ship dotted with wreckage and torn canvas, where here and there a man thrashed to stay afloat amidst a litter of bobbing corpses.

  A ragged cheer came up from Sparrow’s gun deck, and several ran to the gangways to watch while the enemy spread more canvas and lengthened her outline against the wind.

  Tyrrell’s grin froze as Bolitho snapped, “Keep those men silent!” He realised he was still holding his sword, that his hand was aching with the force of his grip. “Look yonder, Mr. Tyrrell. There’s no call for cheers this day.”

  Tyrrell turned to stare at the Miranda’s dark shape. The rising clouds of smoke as her remaining hands quenched fires and groped amidst the wreckage of their ship. As Sparrow drew closer they could see the thin tendrils of scarlet which ran from her scuppers, the great pitted holes along every part of her hull.

  “Pass the word for Mr. Tilby to prepare boats for lowering. Call the surgeon and send him with them.” Bolitho hardly recognised his own voice. Clipped, dull, inhuman. “Then shorten sail and get the t’gallants off her. We will stand under Miranda’s lee for the present.”

  He ignored the rush of feet as Tilby’s men dashed to the boat shackles. He saw Graves walking aft towards the quarterdeck, wiping his face and chest with a wet rag. Above the activity the sails were still drawing well, but there were plenty of holes which would need attention before nightfall. A few stays and halyards were broken, and he knew the hull had been hit several times on or near the waterline. But the pumps sounded normal enough. She was taking it like a veteran.

  Dalkeith came hurrying up the ladder, his heavy bag gripped against his chest, face streaming with exertion.

  “How many, Mr. Dalkeith?” Again he heard his own voice as a stranger’s.

  The plump surgeon was staring at the frigate, his eyes dull. “Two killed, sir. Five wounded by splinters.”

  Bolitho tried to recall the man who was killed by his side. Manners. That was his name.

  He said, “Manners. Who was the other?”

  “Yelverton, sir. He was killed by a ball at the foremast.” He looked down. “Took his head off.”

  Graves was halfway up the ladder but recoiled as Bolitho said, “Yelverton. Did you hear that, Mr. Graves? The one man who kept his senses when all others were too blind to see the truth. The one you wanted to flog?” He turned away. “Well, he’ll not trouble you further, Mr. Graves. Nor we him.”

  Blindly he saw Stockdale watching from the foot of the mizzen mast. “Call away the gig. I will visit Captain Selby and see what must be done.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Stockdale glanced back at him as he hurried to the boat tier. He had never seen Bolitho so stricken or so moved before. And for once he did not know what to do to help.

  Bolitho entered his cabin and unbuckled his sword before throwing it on to the bench seat below the windows. Fitch and a young seaman were busy replacing the furniture, and another was mop-ping away smoke stains from the low deckhead. For in action even the captain’s quarters were not spared. With the hasty removal of screens the cabin became an extension of the gun deck, and on either side of it was a squat twelve-pounder, now once again hidden by discreet chintz covers.

  He stared at the nearest gun, his eyes blurred with strain. A woman’s touch. Then he turned abruptly to face Tyrrell and Grave who had followed him into the cabin upon his return from the crippled Miranda .

  His mind was so filled with questions and suppositions, his brain so wracked by the sights and sounds aboard the frigate, that for a moment he was unable to speak at all.

  Beyond the bulkhead he could hear the steady thud of hammers, the rasp of saws as the ship’s company continued work on repairs. After a full hour aboard the Miranda he had returned to find his own command settling down to the task of making good the damage from their encounter with the privateer with such orderly dedication that he had been unable to compare the scene with what he had just left. The sailmaker and his mates had already replaced the punctured canvas, and with their needles and palms flashing in the sunlight covered every foot of deck space as they patched the others sent down from the yards.

  Garby, the carpenter, had greeted him at the entry port and had told him that the brig’s gunnery had not been too damaging. Two shot holes below the waterline which his men were already plugging, and several others which he would repair before sunset. Garby had spoken quickly, professionally, as if like the rest he was unwilling to think about the Miranda and the fate which could have been theirs.

  Graves was the first to break the silence.

  “All guns secured, sir. No damage to tackles or ports.” He dropped his eyes under Bolitho’s unmoving stare. “Better’n we could have hoped.”

  Tyrrell asked quietly, “How was it, sir?”

  Bolitho let himself drop into a chair and thrust out his legs in front of him. The breeches were black with powder stains and his climb up the frigate’s side. How was it? Once again he saw the pictures of
death and horror, the few uninjured men who were trying even now to put the frigate to rights. Smoke stains and great patches of drying blood, gaping corpses littered amongst the fallen spars and broken planking. It was a miracle that Miranda was still able to keep afloat.

  He said, “They hope to get a jury rig hoisted by sometime tomorrow. Provided the wind doesn’t get up, or the pumps foul, they will obtain steerage way.” He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, feeling the weariness enclosing him like a vice. “Some of the wounded will be transferred to the transports directly. There they will have more room to recover.”

  He tried again to shut the agony from his mind. Men so badly mutilated by splinters that they should be dead already. Midshipmen and even seamen in charge of repairs because of the carnage on the quarterdeck. He had found the frigate’s first lieutenant supervising the recovery of the mizzen topmast when he had climbed aboard. The man had had one arm in a sling and his forehead had looked as if it had been laid open by a hot iron.

  Graves breathed out very slowly. “They did well against such odds.”

  “Yes.”

  Bolitho wanted to get them out of the cabin. Seal the door and shut them away from his uncertainty.

  Tyrell said, “I’ve passed th’ word around th’ ship, sir. I think our people know how satisfied you . . .”

  Bolitho’s tone made him fall back. “Satisfied?” He lurched to his feet. “If you feel cause for complacency, Mr. Tyrrell, then please contain it!” He moved to the windows and back again. “I have seen it for myself. Our people are not moved by a sense of victory. They are relieved, and nothing deeper than that! Thankful to be spared a similar mauling, and all too eager to overlook their own shortcomings!”

  Tyrrell said quickly, “But that’s a mite unfair, surely.”

  “You think so?” He sank down at the table, his anger spent. “Raven had the measure of it. He saw what he expected to see, as did Captain Selby in Miranda . And like you, Mr. Tyrrell, our people thought that fighting an enemy was just an extension of drill, a few cuts and a few curses, and all would be well. Perhaps we have been too victorious in the past and have been overreached by this newer kind of warfare.”