The Fortune of War

by Patrick O'Brian

  'There,' cried Stephen, flinging a retractor at a particularly bold rat. 'I very nearly had him, the thief. Surely, Mr Fox, you have more than your fair share of rats aboard? Have you thought of introducing a parcel of weasels? We find them answer admirably, in Ireland.'

  'I thought you had no weasels, no serpents, no salamanders, in your country.'

  'No more we have; the Irish weasels are all stoats. But they are the devil for rats.'

  A tremendous triple knock, a bang or crash reverberating along the cable-tiers, cut off the surgeon's reply: the Constitution had opened fire at half a mile, and three of her round-shot had struck the Java's side on the ricochet.

  'Good practice,' observed Jack; and as he watched, bent low to see through the port, he saw another jet of smoke from one of the American's after-guns. The shot struck the sea, skipped three times, with each splash in a direct line for his eye, came aboard—a muffled thump in the tight-packed forecastle hammocks—and could be heard rolling about overhead. Forshaw darted out and came back with the ball, a twenty-four-pounder.

  'A pity it is so big,' said Jack, turning it over. 'I remember when I was a boy in Ajax, and the Apollon was blazing away at us like Guy Fawkes's night, a spent eighteen-pound ball came in at our port. The lieutenant—it was Mr Homer: you remember him, Bonden?'

  'Oh yes, sir. A very sprightly gentleman, that loved his laugh.'

  'He picked it up, called for a piece of chalk, wrote Post Paid on the ball, rammed it down our gun, and so sent it back in double quick time.'

  'Ha, ha, ha!' went the gun-crew and their neighbours on either side.

  'And not long after that, he was made a post-captain, ha, ha, ha!'

  Nearer, and the Java was almost on the Constitution's larboard beam. The American's side vanished in a cloud of smoke: her broadside, some seven hundred pounds of iron, ripped up the water, a series of white fountains short of their mark by a hundred yards; and a few harmless balls struck the Java's side.

  Nearer still. Little more than musket-range, and they could see their enemies' faces. They stood poised and tense over their guns, waiting for the order to fire, Bonden glaring along the barrel, perpetually shifting it with his handspike as the Constitution came full in the beam. Point-blank range, but still no order. The Americans were running out their guns: Jack had been counting the seconds from the first broadside, and he reached a hundred and twenty before the vast thundering eruption hid the enemy again, all but her topgallantmasts, that could be seen high above, the smoke, quivering from the shock. This time the whole well-grouped broadside raced humming deep far overhead. Two minutes; quite good gun-drill, though he had managed seventy seconds. And they had misjudged the—

  'Fire as they bear.'

  The welcome order came as the Java reached the top of her roll and was just beginning to lean to leeward. The whole of her starboard, broadside roared out and instantly the deck was filled with smoke, with the marvellous powder-smell. Laughing aloud, Jack and his mates clapped on, ran the gun in, sponged, reloaded, rammed home the charge, working like powerful machines, and as the smoke cleared they saw that they had hit her hard—gaps in the hammocks, the wheel destroyed, some shrouds and a backstay hanging loose. On either side the Javas cheered like fury; and as they heaved so they came closer still, within pistol-shot of the Constitution's bow. And at pistol-shot the Constitution fired again. A few splintering crashes aft, but nothing to interrupt the cheers forward as they ran their guns out, thumping them hard against the sills. Yet as they peered into the dense cloud of American smoke to point their loaded guns, staring and ludicrously fanning with their hands, the sail-trimmers were called. The Constitution, having fired, had instantly filled her headsails and put before the wind: she had worn, and the Java, without waiting to catch her and rake her on the turn, was wearing after her: the starboard guns no longer bore. The Leopards exchanged a glance.

  The smoke cleared entirely, drifting away in a solid bank and showing the Constitution well to leeward, with the Java coming up fast on her quarter but still turning with her as she hauled up on the other tack, presenting her undamaged starboard ports. In the long pause Jack hurried up and down the forecastle battery, making them stop their noise, house the starboard guns safely and cast loose those on the other side. The two Java midshipmen, first-voyagers, had no notion of anything beyond the formal movements of the great-gun exercise. His heart was still beating high with the immense vitality of battle, and this violent activity—heaving, shoving men into their places, checking the tackle-falls, breeching, cartridges, grape and round-shot—covered the uneasy feeling in the back of his mind. Lambert might have missed one golden chance, but there would soon be another.

  Very soon. The Java was ranging up on the Constitution's starboard side. The larboard guns, trained hard forward, began to bear; and as they bore, so they fired. One; three and five together; and as Bonden fired number seven he saw the shot strike the Constitution's mainchains, just before the smoke swept down. But now there were orange flashes in the smoke as the American after-guns replied; and after a few savage moments both full broadsides were at work, a continuous bellowing roar, punctuated by the even louder crashes of the next-hand guns and the carronades overhead. A prodigious omnipresent din, and in it the kicking number seven broke its breeching after the fourth discharge. Worse than that, number three had been dismounted and there were several men lying on the deck, including both midshipmen. Leaving the practised Leopards to their tasks, Jack ran to trip and secure the gun. Its crew had little notion of what to do, but by gesture and bellow and example in the incessant roar and clangour he got them to make it fast, slid a dead man through the port, and made them carry the wounded below.

  The fire was very hot, with a furious discharge of musketry as well, almost as hot as he had known it; and there were three of the maindeck guns knocked out—perhaps some of the larboard carronades too. Amidships and aft the pattern of the Java's fire was gone. An officer, running to deal with the confusion, was shot dead from the Constitution's tops, and the next moment his body was struck, jerked against the starboard rail by a twenty-four-pound ball. But that was the last shot from the Constitution's great guns, the last for this bout; an eddy cleared the smoke and they saw her wearing once again, wearing very fast.

  This time Lambert quickly let fly his topsail sheets, checking the Java's way. Jack smiled: clearly Lambert meant to cross the Constitution's wake, raking her from stern to stem, the most damaging fire a ship could receive.

  'Sir, sir,' cried the midshipman from number eleven, the gun to which poor Broughton had been running, 'what shall we do? The shot is jammed.'

  Jack had taken three strides aft when he fell—it was nothing, he found, scrambling up and slipping again in Broughton's blood—a musket-ball had grazed his head. But now the Java was beginning her turn: in less than a minute she would cross the Constitution's wake right under her stern—a beautifully calculated move—yet most of these poor brave willing silly fools were milling about to port, unaware that the starboard guns would be engaged.

  'T'other side, t'other side,' he roared, on his feet at last. They raced across the deck, willing and eager in spite of the hail of small-arms fire; but to his utter horror he realized that on quitting them they had not reloaded their starboard guns. The turn continued: the Constitution's tall, unprotected, naked, infinitely vulnerable stern was right before the Java's broadside, the Java so beautifully steered that her main yardarm crossed the Constitution's very taffrail: and only a single gun went off.

  Cursing did no good; blasphemy brought bad luck. Jack split his remaining crew—Mr Byron had copped it with a nasty splinter in his chest, Bates the Flitch had lost the number of his mess—divided them among the other forward guns, and helped load two or three. There was no time for cursing, either: the Java was running alongside the Constitution, and now the fire resumed its utmost fury, firing, reloading, firing again as fast as the powder could run up from the magazine. And all the time he had to try to s
top the Javas from madly overcharging, from ramming two cartridges into their guns, and any bits of metal they could find.

  The Americans' aim was better now, and they were firing low; the twenty-four-pound balls sent splinters racing across the deck in clouds, great jagged lumps of sharp-edged wood, and one of these struck Bonden down. Jack heaved him out of the way of the recoiling gun, and when it had fired knelt by him on the deck and shouted into his deafened ear, 'Only a handsbreadth of scalp; your pigtail's all right. Get you below for a stitch.'

  'Bowsprit's gone, sir,' said Bonden, peering through his blood, and following his gaze Jack saw the jib and forestaysail blowing free.

  'Give the Doctor my regards,' said he, and ran along the deck, checking each gun, helping to point, cheering the men. Not that they needed much cheering: they were firing much better, much faster, now they had the hang of it, and they roared like devils as their shot went home. No sign of flinching from the guns, though three ports were battered into one, and amidships the dead and wounded lay by the score, blood oozing thick.

  'Heave, heave,' bawled Jack at number three, and as the gun ran up he stared into the smoke to place his shot, waiting for the roll with his mates poised over the scorching barrel; but this time there was no shifting hint of the enemy's side. The roll came: again: and still the thick smoke lay. Nothing beyond it as it cleared—the American had worn again.

  'Hands about ship,' came the cry; and then, 'Ready, oh!'

  The sail-trimmers ran to their stations and in the silence Jack moved back to the forward scuttle-butt and took a long, long-needed drink. Lambert was going to tack rather than wear, so as to cut the Constitution on her turn—to cut across her stern. A fine move, if only the Java could make it quick enough; there was little way on her, and her headsails were gone.

  Here was Bonden, a reddening bandage all round his head. 'All right, sir?' he asked.

  Jack nodded, and said, 'Warm work, Bonden. How are things below? How is Mr Byron?'

  'Mr Byron looks a bit old-fashioned, sir, as far as I could see. Powerful lot of work down there—Doctor's as busy as a bee. Sends his love, though. Their premier, Mr Chads, he got a nasty swipe.'

  The Leopards had no stations for tacking ship: they gathered round their Captain and drank deep from the scuttle-butt as the Java swung up into the wind. Slowly, slowly.

  'I have no notion of all this wearing,' said Babbington.

  'He may do it once too often,' said Jack. 'The most dangerous movement I have—'

  'Christ, we're going to miss stays,' whispered Babbington. And indeed, with neither jib nor forestaysail it looked as though the Java could not cross the wind's eye, but must fall off, stern to the enemy, now a quarter of a mile to leeward. Jack glanced aft, and there she was, luffing up to show her starboard broadside. In another minute the Java would be raked.

  'Lie down,' he said, pressing on Forshaw's shoulder: and the broadside came, striking the Java's stern and tearing the whole length of her deck. But in the same moment her backed foretopsail filled, and slowly she began to pay off—she was round.

  'Larboard guns,' cried Jack, springing up, and now the Javas scarcely needed any teaching. They flew to their guns and as the ship turned a little further they returned the fire, a hearty though ragged volley that went right home; and once again the Constitution wore.

  The Java came straight down for her, ranged alongside, received her fire, returned it, the guns so hot that they leapt clear of the deck at each discharge. Rough work, rough work: the difference between twenty-four and eighteen pounds was telling now, and the Java could not stand much more of it. In the short seconds between guns, between making the cheering men reduce their charge, fire low and steady, and swab clean, Jack saw the enormous wreckage amidships, the shattered boats, the grim wounds in the mainmast and above all in the unstayed foremast. 'We must board,' he said to himself. 'We still have about three hundred men'; and as the words formed he heard Lambert roar, 'Boarders away.'

  The Java bore up, heading straight at the Constitution's side. The boarders swarmed on to the forecastle, cutlasses, pistols, axes ready. Chads was there again, pale at his Captain's side; both of them caught Jack's eye—a savage, eager grin. A few yards more and there would be the crash of impact, the spring aboard, the hot work hand to hand. The Americans were firing from their tops as fast as they could load: it made no odds to the furious impatience of the crowd of men poised for their leap.

  But then over all the din, cutting clear through, the high shrieking hail from the Java's foretop, 'Stand from under', and the mast, the towering great edifice of the foremast with all its spreading yards, its fighting-top, its sails, its countless ropes and blocks, came crashing down, the lower part kicking aft to cover the maindeck, the upper covering the forecastle.

  There was an immense amount of rigging, of spars over them and over the forward guns; there were some men pinned, others wounded; and for the next few minutes, in the fury of clearing so that the guns could fire, Jack lost all track of the relative position of the ships. When at last the forward battery was to some extent restored he saw the Constitution well ahead, in the act of wearing across the Java's bows. Not a gun could the Java fire in this position, and the Constitution raked her deliberately from stem to stern, killing a score of men and bringing down her maintopmast.

  Once again the wild labour of clearing, slashing at the wreckage with axes, anything that came to hand; and now the Constitution lay on their starboard quarter, pouring in a diagonal fire; lay there a moment before bearing up and giving the Java her full larboard broadside.

  'Captain's down,' said a Java, having carried a wounded mate below. 'But Mr Chads is back.'

  'Never say die,' cried the captain of his gun, and firing he knocked away the Constitution's maintopsail yard to a frenzy of cheering all along the deck.

  Yet at the same time the Java's gaff and spanker-boom went by the board, and a little after the mizzenmast followed them. The Javas, undismayed, fired like demons, streaming with sweat under the smoky sun, often with blood; and the stabbing flames from almost every shot they fired set light to the tarred wreckage hanging over the side: fire-buckets, powder, fire-buckets, powder, the remaining officers had them running in a continual stream. At one point the ships were side by side again, and the Java's great guns gave as good as they got; or at least did all they could to do so; and she being low in the water now, some of her round-shot made cruel wounds. But the Java lacked her fighting-tops—fore and mizzen were gone and the maintop was a wreck—whereas the American did not. Her tops were filled with marksmen, and it was one of these that brought Jack down. The blow knocked him flat, but he thought nothing of it until on getting up he found that his right arm would not obey him, that it was hanging at an unnatural angle. He stood, swaying, for with two masts and all but one sail gone the Java was rolling very heavily; and as he stood amidst the din, still shouting at the crew of number nine to depress their gun, an oak splinter knocked him down again.

  He had a vague awareness of Killick's voice swearing at a Marine—'Handsomely, handsomely, you fat-arsed, Dutch-built bugger'—and then he came fully to his wits as Stephen leant over him, searching the wound. 'Stephen,' he said. 'Quick, just bind it up, splint it up. You shall have it off afterwards if you wish. I must go on deck.'

  Stephen nodded, splinted and bound the arm, and turned to a man lying on his own liver while Jack made his way through the long, long rows among the smell of blood to the ladder. On the quarterdeck he found Chads, equally bandaged, equally pale, with a fine determined light blazing in his eye: Chads was now in command of the ship. He was getting the wreckage of the mizzen free, before the heavy floating mast should ram the Java with its butt end, sending her to the bottom a little before her time. The carpenter and the gunner and the armourer were all standing by him, waiting for the chance to have a word. 'Pray go forward, sir, if you can,' he said to Jack. 'If we can get her before the wind we'll board her yet.'

  Forward he went along t
he bloody deck, lurching on the enormous roll and watching the Constitution: she had run ahead out of gunshot and her people were busy knotting and splicing. The thin gun-crews he passed were in high spirits, bawling after the American, challenging her to come back and have it out.

  'Game young cocks,' he reflected, hurrying faster. With such men, if only they could get before the wind, and if only they could fall aboard the American, they might carry her yet. He had known victory snatched from a situation worse than this, with an over-confident enemy making a mistake. Constitution had already made at least two very dangerous moves: she might make another.

  On the forecastle Babbington and a party of seamen had roused an almost undamaged topgallant mast from the wreckage of the booms and they were trying to make a jury foremast of it. But the Java's roll and even more her pitch was so violent that they were having a cruel time with it; and at every pitch wreckage from the maintop showered down on them, while the remnant of the mainmast itself, with never a shroud on either side and backstays gone, threatened to fall outboard at any moment.

  'The mainmast must go,' said Jack. 'Forshaw, jump to the quarterdeck and ask Mr Chads for permission and for the carpenter's crew. Forshaw—where is Forshaw?'

  Nobody answered for a moment, and then Babbington said, 'Gone, sir. Blasted over the side.'

  'Oh Christ,' said Jack: a very slight pause, and then, 'Holles, cut along.'

  Holles came back with the carpenters and their axes. The mast was gone, clean over the side, and the ship was steadier. Chads and all the seamen from aft were now on the forecastle, working on the jury foremast with intense effort and concentration; and all the time the gun-crews cheered and called after the Constitution. The jury-mast rose up, straight up; they made all fast, rigged out a lower studdingsail-boom. The awkward sail rose, filled, and the Java gathered way, answering her helm. She turned, bringing the wind a little abaft the beam, and moved towards the distant Constitution, her tattered ensign flying from the mizzen's stump.