Jack Frake (41 page)

L’Fléau
drew abreast of the
Sparrowhawk
and began to edge closer. The wind that drove the merchantman was blocked by the privateer now, allowing the frigate to use it to close in. Jack Frake watched with the others as the privateer’s gun crews prepared for a broadside. Sharpshooters infested the French ship’s rigging and fighting tops like starlings. A man ostentatiously garbed in a gold-laced greatcoat and ruffled cravat raised a trumpet and called over to the
Sparrowhawk
. “Captain of the good ship
Sparrowhawk
! I am Paul Robichaux of the
Scourge
, and you know I do not repeat myself! You will be wise to surrender, or we will sink you or take you! What is your answer?”

Ramshaw, on the quarter deck, raised his own trumpet. “I am Captain John Ramshaw, and my compliments to you! We regret to say, ‘Rule, Britannia!’” His men cheered at this reply, and he nodded to his master gunner to order a broadside.

Robichaux did the same, and both ships fired with thunderous roars that tilted them both in the water. Most of the cannon balls bounced off of the side of each vessel, but some did damage. A lucky shot from the
Sparrowhawk
shattered the gammoning of
L’Fléau
’s bowsprit, loosening the rigging to the foremast and rendering the privateer less manageable. Another severed a length of the mizzenmast’s shrouds and a dozen sharpshooters tumbled to the deck or were forced to drop their muskets to hang on to the ropes. Shots from the privateer, in turn, crippled the merchantman’s spanker, and struck one of the “Quakers” with such force that it was ripped from its carriage and flew against a sergeant of the marines, killing him.

While each vessel’s gun crews rushed to swab and reload, the air crackled with musket fire. Men on both ships fell, and Jack Frake’s crew tried to bring down the pilot or damage
L’Fléau
’s wheel or capstan. But it was difficult to hit anything as the two vessels rose and fell in the water. His swivel gun managed to fire its third shot by the time the two ships’ main gun crews exchanged second broadsides. In the cool May air his hair and shirt were soaked with sweat.

It was an uneven battle, for while
L’Fléau
was able to bring to bear twenty-two of her guns, the
Sparrowhawk
could fire only ten. Soon, the privateer could fire twenty-one guns; the
Sparrowhawk
, just eight, for one of its guns had been blown off its carriage and the crew of another killed by sharpshooters. The marines, crew and Huguenot men kept up steady musket fire at the privateer, but even here the odds were in favor of Robichaux’s men, and grew better as more and more men slumped down behind the railings and sandbags, dead or wounded.

The men of the
Sparrowhawk
heard the men on
L’Fléau
begin to laugh and shout cries of derision and victory. A shot from the privateer hit the lanyard of the merchantman’s ensign, and the banner fell to trail in the water. Through the smoke, Jack Frake saw men on
L’Fléau
crowd at the railing with grappling hooks, and only twenty feet of water separated the two ships. Ramshaw gave an order, and boys and men rushed from below
to pass out swords, cutlasses and pistols. The captain paced up and down the quarter deck, his sword under one arm, loading a pair of pistols. His tricorn had been shot away, and even as Jack Frake watched, a musket ball jerked one of the man’s coat-tails. He wondered if Skelly had looked like that at the Marvel caves.

L’Fléau
’s sharpshooters fired a disciplined volley at the deck of the
Sparrowhawk
, and the privateer inched closer to boarding range. “There’s Robichaux!” exclaimed one of the men at Jack Frake’s gun. The gun was pointing to the sky, and Jack Frake dumped a small chest of powder into the muzzle, then hefted a cannon ball into it, and packed it all in with his ramrod. As the gunner brought the weapon down and around to aim at Robichaux, a hail of musket balls peppered the aft. The crewman with the linstock fell dead, and the gunner ran.

Jack Frake took up the linstock, then grasped one of the gun’s handles and aimed it at the strutting, laughing figure on
L’Fléau
. He blew on the slow-match at the end of the linstock, and as another rain of balls whizzed around him, steadied his aim, waiting for the bobbing privateer to ascend to a particular point. Something struck his iron collar, and the impact seemed to turn his bones and muscles to jelly. But he applied the linstock to the gun’s touch-hole, and an unholy halo of flame from the blast blinded him and obliterated all sight of
L’Fléau
.

He had put too much powder in the gun, and the force of the recoil snapped the oaken stanchion in two and the gun flew back at him and knocked him down. He was stunned for a moment, but recovered quickly and rolled the heavy, hot iron off of his chest. He ran down the main deck and picked up a fallen marine’s musket. He could not see Robichaux.

But
L’Fléau
was drawing away now. Curses and cries of panic came from the privateer. The men of the
Sparrowhawk
delivered a volley of musket fire into the attacker, and the crews of the remaining six serviceable guns worked feverishly to reload. On the master gunner’s command, they fired together and wrought havoc on
L’Fléau
, tearing open one of her foremast mainsails. One ball struck the mizzenmast, and though not powerful enough to topple it, cracked the timber so that it would be dangerous to use, for its sails were set to funnel wind to the sails of the main mast. The least attempt to move its spars to adjust the direction of the wind might lengthen the crack or even bring the mast down.

The
Sparrowhawk
and
L’Fléau
began to drift apart. When the ships were beyond effective firing range, Captain Ramshaw appeared behind Jack
Frake and touched his shoulder. “They’ll leave off now, Jack, thanks to you! You blew off Robichaux’s head, and killed his second in command! I saw it happen through my glass. They thought he was immortal.” He paused, and added with a chuckle, “So did I, for years.”

The
Sparrowhawk
caught the full wind again, and soon
L’Fléau
was a quarter mile away, dead in the water. It did not follow. Ramshaw’s crew commenced with repairs, first clearing the decks of the dead and wounded.

That evening, in his cabin, Ramshaw took a key from his desk and unlocked the padlock of the jougs around Jack Frake’s neck. He paused to inspect the collar, and saw two indentations where musket balls had struck it. He shook his head once in amazement, then dropped the collar on the floor. “You’re a free man, Jack. At least, on this ship you are. Damn what the officials think! They owe you their lives.”

“Will they make trouble for you?”

“They don’t dare. None of them volunteered to handle a musket, you might have noticed.” Ramshaw paused to drink some rum. “Well, they’ll be talking about today’s fight for a long time, in every tavern and inn on the Continent, from Stockholm to Bilboa. I heard a rumor that Louis was going to make Robichaux an admiral. He never lost a fight, you see. He was the toast of the privateers. Sailors used to murder each other just for a place on his ship. Now? Damn it all!” laughed the captain. “Every privateer on the Atlantic is going to mark my
Sparrowhawk
for extinction.”

Ramshaw lit a pipe. “When we get to Yorktown, I’ll hold you aside from the other convicts. It may take a few weeks to find the right man to buy your indenture, but we’ll wait. Jack, you’re going to a new world.” The light from the lantern on his desk swayed with the ship and cast moving shadows over the boy’s face. There were still some powder smudges on it, and these were deepened by the shifting light. It was an eager, expectant, innocent face, thought Ramshaw. But in the eyes he saw intelligence and a species of wisdom that he thought would be at home in the colonies. “Yes, Jack. A new world for you. I wonder how you’ll do in it — after your eight years are finished.”