H. M. S. Cockerel (49 page)

“Loblolly boys!” Lewrie shouted, directing the pasty whey-faces framed in the midships companionway hatch. “Help 'em, damn yer eyes!” The dentist appeared, seized the one at the top of the companionway ladder and dragged him out. They skittered fearful, as low as hounds to the decks, following him with a mess table turned into a stretcher. Three men were dead, abandoned round the base of the mainmast, while two who screamed and wept were carried below to whatever further horrors awaited them at the surgeons' hands.

The range had closed to about three-quarters of a mile. Alan took a quick look astern for the second corvette. She was coming on, still on the wind, bows pointed almost directly at him. There was a bloom of gunsmoke from her larboard forecastle chase gun. Still about a mile off, he decided; still time to hurt the other even worse.

“Hit her again, Charles! Rip her guts out!” he shouted. “Hurry!”

Shocked as they were, though, the gun crews hadn't much “hurry” in them. A well-served artillery piece could average three rounds in two minutes, in Royal Navy practice. These poor fellows were lucky to get off one in a minute and a half.

The corvette managed to fire again, a ragged, stuttering broadside. More shot coming for them, trembling volunteers flinging themselves flat on the deck to hide from it.
Radical
quivered as she was struck twice, thrice . . . then thrice again.

Not bad shootin', Lewrie thought, for a crew who'd been in port so long, without much chance for live-firing practice. Quivering in his boots himself, willing himself not to flinch or duck. Damme!

There was a crash above his head, a groan of rivened timber, and he looked up to see their mizzen-royal and t'gallant masts shot away, to come down in a spiral like a badly sawn tree!

“'Ware below!” he shouted, scampering aft, away from its arrival. Jack-knifing upon themselves, the masts dropped, trailing rope rigging and furled canvas, yard ends flailing blindly, ripping across the face of the mizzen tops'l before the entire mess speared into the deck just at the forward edge of the quarterdeck, hung up by the broken spars on the nettings over the waist. Down with it had come two topmen, and one of the aristocratic French marksmen from the fighting-top.

“Cut it away, sir?” Spendlove yelled through chattering teeth at his side.

“No men to spare,” Lewrie groaned. “No, leave it. But see to the men who were aloft.”

“Aye, sir,” Spendlove nodded, his eyes wide. But he dashed off on his errand, chivvying loblolly boys to their ministrations.

“Préparez!”
de Crillart screeched from forward and below, ordering his spare tacklemen away to the sides.
“Tirez!”

Slow they might be, quaking and gulping hot bile in near terror, but the gun crews were still slaving away, sticking to it like men. A broadside lashed out and away, ordered, controlled and well aimed by the steadiest older men. Eight-pounders yapping, twelve-pounders erupting in harsher barks . . . and the four eighteen-pounders bellowing, almost going off as one immense avalanche of noise, fired on the uproll, when the ship would hang pent for a breathless second of steadiness.

The French corvette took the brunt of it, as the sea beside her frothed with near misses and ricochets from the lighter guns. Heavier twelve-pound round-shot tore through her sides this time, flinging bulwarks and scantlings into trash, flicking planks into the air. And her mainmast was shot away completely! It was shorn off, halfway between gun deck and fighting-top, that massive trunk carved in twain. It jumped, hung suspended for a second upon the very air, then the shattered butt slid forward, and it teetered, half-turned and fell to starboard, and all above it came crashing down in disparate bits, the fighting-top to hammer itself onto her starboard gangway, crushing everything beneath its brutal weight! She showed her coppering as she rolled and rocked.

“Cheer, lads, cheer!” Lewrie shouted, encouraging his English sailors. “Charles!
Vivats, vive
. . . what you call 'em! Make 'em yell and cheer! Look what they just
did!
”

The poor, scared buggers, he thought. Aye, cheer, you bastards. Put some heart in yourselves, at last! You
can
do it, if you try!

For a moment, they gaped in total disbelief, then began to yell, to throw their hats in the air, clap each other on the back, embrace and buss in Gallic fashion, and exult.

Not Navy practice, is it, Alan asked himself with a smirk, but they needed that. Now maybe they'll have more confidence. Now, just where do we stand? he wondered, peering about. He went to the side to look out with his telescope, past the ruin of the corvette, which was sagging down to leeward, all her masts and sails trailing over the side and acting like a sea anchor. She wouldn't be going anywhere but round about in circles for awhile, not until they hacked all that loose. And without replacement upper masts and mainmast, nowhere very quickly for some time after, either, with only her mizzen standing.

The frigate! The most dangerous warship present had finally put about, taken in her stuns'ls and stays'ls, and was close on the wind on the larboard tack. But she was at least four miles down alee, and four more miles farther to the nor'west. To beat back to
Radical
where she was at the moment would be the better part of an hour, since she would have to tack first. And Lewrie was mortal certain he'd not be anywhere near his current position when she arrived.

The second corvette had fallen off, had hauled her wind, a little below the ruin of the first, as if she were about to go alongside to aid her. She was less than a mile off, still on
Radical
's
starboard quarter.

No, not to aid, Lewrie saw—to shoot! Her gun ports were open, already blossoming with orange-y flashes and gushes of smoke! Feathers of spray leaped into the air astern, glass and transom wood shattered as round-shot lashed her stern. A portion of the taffrail went flying, and one of the lanterns burst asunder.

“Cease fire, cease fire!” he directed. “Mister Porter, lay us on the wind! Man the braces and sheets, ready to haul taut! Quartermaster, helm alee. Lay her full-and-by.”

“Full-an'-by, sir, aye,” the senior man grunted, already heaving on the spokes.

He'd whittled the odds down, thoroughly disabled one corvette— and most importantly, placed himself so advantageously that the frigate might have to spend the rest of the morning to catch him up. And close-hauled,
Radical
would all the time be driving roughly sou-sou'west, to the Balearics, into shelter, into the patrol areas, perhaps, of Spanish warships which might aid him.

No, he thought; let's not be greedy ourselves. Get back up to wind-ward, draw this last one after us, if he wishes. I think we might run him a decent chase. He follows us, the transports get clean away, too. If he follows.

With a shrug, he realised that the corvette and frigate might be more amenable to going to the aid of their crippled consort, or bagging the transports, after all, and letting
Radical
escape, too tough a bone to gnaw. Realising, too, that he'd shot his bolt, in essence. Fought and won, without getting his precious civilian charges slaughtered by artillery and sword-swinging boarders. Well, not too many, he amended.

Yet, what if they went after the transports, at least? Aye, I've saved most of my own, but those others are just as full of
émigrés
, just as packed with women and children. Can I turn a blind eye? Perhaps I must. Every man for himself now, and save what you can?

The corvette astern turned back onto the wind, barely a minute after
Radical
had altered course. This put her, from Lewrie's view by the wheel, just atop the starboard corner of the taffrail, bows-on to him, heeled hard over as she laboured for every last inch of windward progress. She got a gust, he saw, a puff of wind that he did not, and she pinched up higher as that gust backed, clawing out ten yards or so.

“Mister Porter, I think we're ready to send the topmen to loose the fore and main t'gallants,” Lewrie ordered, then checked himself . . . aghast. “And let fall the main course! Let fall and sheet home!” He flushed with anger that he'd been so remiss, so muzzy without sleep!

As more canvas appeared aloft,
Radical
heeled further over and began to surge, hobbyhorsing over the waves, casting first her bows, then her stern toward the sky. Spray began to dash alongside, droplets wetting the starboard gangway.

“Mister Lewrie, sir,” Cony called, appearing from below. “Got a leak, sir. Starb'rd side, forrud. Betwixt th' cathead an' fore chains. Think we got hulled by one o' their shot.”

“Bad?” he muttered.

“On this tack, aye, sir,” Cony winced. “Suckin' water like a drain. Got a couple o' chair-makers down there, nailin' on a patch t' slow h'it down, but we need to fother a patch from over-side. There's nigh on five inch o' water in th' bilges now, an' it's climbin'. An' the seams're workin', o' course, but that's nothin' new, sir. But, I 'spects, long'z we beat t' windward, sir, they'll work 'arder. Need t' pump soon, sir.”

A hole in her quick-work, starboard side, heeled over starboard, too—that would practically shovel water into her. And she'd flood forrud, when what she needed most of all, close-hauled, was for the bows to ride high and light over the water, reducing the effort which went into beating. Should her bow end get too heavy, she'd slough in and snuffle, all the fineness of her entry and forefoot cancelled out.

“Tell Mister de Crillart to secure his guns for now,” Lewrie decided after a moment's thought. “Work the forrud chain pumps. Maybe some will trickle past, aft. And tell Mister de Crillart to send men to the quarterdeck. We'll shift two of the eight-pounders right-aft to the taffrail, for stern-chasers. Maybe raise her bows a couple of inches, and take some pressure off the shot hole. Fother from inboard, spare sail and bosun's stores, once your . . . chair-makers finish their plugs.”

“Aye, sir.”

There was a rustling in the air, an atonal whistling that rose up the scales. Then round-shot cracked overhead, to sail past and hit far up to windward on the larboard side. The French corvette had her bow-chasers working.
Radical
heeled a little farther and slowed.

“Watch yer luff!” Lewrie said, rounding on the helmsmen.

“Wind veered ahead, sir. 'Adda bear off,” the senior hand replied, working on a massive tobacco quid, gazing aloft, as he regained the spokes he'd lost, sailing most intently by his luff, and the Devil with the compass at that moment. Course did not matter; but the very razor's edge of the apparent wind, where lay safety in both speed and windward advantage, did.

Another shot from the corvette astern, this time pocking a hole in the main tops'l, as gunners loosed one of the quarterdeck eight-pounders from the breeching-rope ring-bolts, and laid on block and tackle to a fresh set, farther aft. Tethered like a trussed hog, the cannon must be restrained, moved gingerly from one lashing to the next, before being sited at one of the pair of stern-chase gun ports in the taffrail.

The French corvette reached the point in
Radical
's
wake where the wind had veered ahead. She wavered, fell off perhaps a point, no more. And sailed through it, pinching up once more as the wind steadied. Pinched up higher, luffing up a touch, trading forward progress for another ten yards uphill to weather. She was head-reaching them.

And she was faster, Lewrie realised by the time the first gun was ready at the taffrail, and the second began to be moved. Larger, she loomed back there, framed now from the wheel squarely in the center of the taffrail. She'd gained about one hundred yards in a little less than five minutes.

Three-quarters of a mile . . . Lewrie's mind creaked over his sums. Two thousand yards to the sea mile, five minutes to make an hundred so . . . she'll have her jib boom over the rail in a little over an
hour?

A horrible harpy-like ululation came up from astern. There was a crash forward, aloft. The main t'gallant yard shattered, lee side draping like a broken wing. Multiple bar-shot.

“Maybe less than an hour,” he sighed softly, sensing defeat at last. “Goddamn fool! Could have
stayed
to windward, run, never took time to fight! Gave up a mile advantage to windward . . . for nothing!”

“Le canon, il est préparée, capitaine,”
a French gunner called out, patting the breech of his eight-pounder.
“Nous tirerons?”

“
Oui. Tirez.
Blaze away,” Lewrie nodded, too spent to care.

The gunner directed his small crew to charge, to shot, to runout. He knelt, hopped, fiddled with the quoin, had it spiked to the right a touch, then waved the men away. He primed, waited . . . then lit it off. With a sharp bang the eight-pounder reeled inwards. A waterspout leaped up to the right of the corvette's bows, close under her jib boom and bowsprit.

Lewrie watched, groggily detached and above it all. There was a chance, he was sure, that their stern-chasers
might
damage the French vessel enough to slow her, to rob her of just enough speed to reel out this pursuit 'til nightfall. Late afternoon
should
fetch Minorca under
Radical
's
bows. Did God grant them just a
morsel
of luck . . . !