Second to None (17 page)

Cristie had told him something about the
Tetrarch
which he had not known. She had been in a state of near mutiny when she had been attacked by the French frigates. Another bad captain, he thought, like
Reaper,
in which the company had mutinied against their captain's inhuman treatment and had joined together to flog him to death.
Reaper
was back with the fleet now, commanded by a good officer, a friend of Adam's, but he doubted that she would ever entirely cleanse herself of the stigma.

And
Tetrarch
might be the same. Her armament had been
reduced in order to allow for more hold space, but she could give a good account of herself.

He looked up at the black, vibrating shrouds, the soft underbelly of the main topsail, seeing it in his mind even now.
Anemone
torn apart by the American's heavy artillery. Men falling and dying.
Because of me
.

He squared his shoulders, and felt his shirt drag against the ragged scar where the iron splinter had cut him down.

It was enough.

He said, ‘Run out!'

Every spare man, even the Royal Marines were on the tackles, hauling the guns up the tilting deck to thrust their black muzzles through the ports. The enemy was faceless, unknown. But it would be madness to show
Unrivalled
's shortage of hands from the outset. After that . . .

There were a few hoarse cheers as the crouching gun crews saw the enemy angled across each port, and he heard Lieutenant Massie's sharp response.

‘Keep silent, you deadheads! Stand to your guns! I'll have none of it!'

Adam walked to the rail and watched the nearest vessel, the brig. Like his old
Firefly.
Well handled, leaning over while she changed tack. Probably steering south-east. He thought of Cristie.
By guess and by God.
He measured the range, surprised still that he could do it without hesitation. The
Tetrarch
had taken in her fore and main courses and was preparing to await her chance, poised across the starboard bow as if nothing could prevent a collision.

There was a dull bang, and seconds later a hole appeared in the main topsail. A sighting shot. He clenched his fists.
Not yet, not yet.
Another shot came from somewhere, sharper, one of the brig's bow-chasers probably. He saw the feathers of spray dart from wave to wave, like flying fish. Still short.

‘Forecourse, Mr Galbraith!' He strode to the opposite side. ‘Lay for the mainmast, Mr Massie! On the uproll!'

The enemy might be expecting a ragged broadside, and be waiting for a chance to close the range before
Unrivalled
could reload.

Adam heard Massie yell, ‘Ready!
Fire!
'

He kept his eyes fixed on the other ship. Massie was
managing on his own, pausing at each breech, one hand on the gun captain's shoulder, the trigger-line taut, ready, the target framed in the open port like a painting come to life.

‘Fire!'

Gun by gun, the full length of
Unrivalled
's spray-dashed hull, each one hurling itself inboard on its tackles to be seized, sponged out and reloaded, the men racing one another to run out again, whilst on the opposite side the crews waited their turn, with only the empty sea to distract them from the regular crash of gunfire.

Someone gave a wild cheer.

‘Thar goes 'er main topmast! B' Jesus, look at 'er, mates!'

But the other ship was firing now, iron hammering into
Unrivalled
's lower hull, a stray ball slamming through a port and breaking into splinters.

Adam tore his eyes from the spouting orange tongues of fire, feeling the blows beneath his feet like wounds to his own body. Men were down, one rolling across the deck, kicking and coughing blood, another crouched against a gun, fingers interlaced across his stomach, his final scream dying as he was dragged aside and the gun run up to its port again.

Galbraith yelled, ‘He's standing off, sir!' He flinched as a powder monkey spun round, his leg severed by another haphazard shot. Adam saw another run and snatch up the fallen charge, eyes terrified, and averted from someone who had probably been his friend.

He turned. ‘Wouldn't you? If you were full to the gills with powder and shot?' He shut them from his mind. ‘Stand by on the quarterdeck!' There was smoke everywhere, choking, stinging, blinding.

He could no longer see the other ship; the forecourse was filled to the wind, blotting out the enemy's intentions.

‘Put the helm down!' He dashed his wrist across his eyes and thought he saw the ship's head already answering the helm, swinging bowsprit and flapping jib across the wind.

‘Helm's a' lee, sir!'

Adam heard someone cry out and knew a ball had missed him by inches.

Come on! Come on!
If
Unrivalled
was caught aback across
the eye of the wind she would be helpless, doomed. He felt the deck planking jump again and knew the ship had been hit.

‘Off tacks and sheets!'
He walked level with the quarterdeck rail, his hand brushing against the smooth woodwork. Without seeing, he knew the forward sails were writhing in confusion, spilling the wind, allowing the bows to swing still further, unhampered.

‘Fores'l haul! Haul, lads!'

One man slipped on blood and another dragged him to his feet. Neither spoke, nor looked at one another.

She was answering. Adam gripped the rail, and felt her standing into the opposite tack, sails filling and booming, the yards being hauled round until to an onlooker they would appear almost fore-and-aft.

‘
Hold her!
Steer east-by-south!' Adam glanced swiftly at Cristie. Only a second, but it was enough to see a wild satisfaction. The pride might come later.

‘Starboard battery!' Massie was there now, his sword in the air, his face a mask of concentration as he watched the brig swinging away, caught and unprepared for
Unrivalled
's change of tack.

‘Fire!'

It must have been like an avalanche, an avalanche of iron. When the whirling smoke, swept aside by the wind, laid bare the other vessel it was hard to recognise her, almost mastless, her shattered stumps and rigging dragging outboard like weed. She was a wreck.

Adam took a telescope from Midshipman Fielding, and felt the youth's hand shaking.
Or is it mine?

‘Again, Mr Cristie! Man the braces and stand by to wear ship!' He tried to calm himself and steady the glass.

The terrier was dead. The real target could never outpace them.

‘All loaded, sir!'

He watched the other ship. Saw the scars left by
Unrivalled
's first controlled broadside, the holes punched in her darkly tanned canvas.

Galbraith called, ‘Ready, sir!' He sounded hoarse.

‘Bring her about and lay her on the starboard tack.' He
glanced up at the forecourse, at scorched holes which had not been there earlier.
Earlier? On my birthday
.

Galbraith's voice again. ‘We could call on him to strike, sir.'

‘
No
. I know what that feels like. We will open fire when we are in position.' The smile would not come. ‘The wind will not help him now.' He saw Midshipman Bellairs watching him fixedly, and said, ‘Signal the brig to lie-to. We will board her presently.'

Bellairs beckoned to his signals party. ‘A prize, sir?' Like Galbraith he sounded parched, as if he could scarcely speak.

‘No. A trophy, Mr Bellairs.' He looked at Galbraith. ‘Bring her about and take in the t'gallants. We shall commence firing.' He measured the distance again. ‘A mile, would you say? Close enough. Then we will see.'

He watched the sudden activity on deck, the shadows swinging across the flapping sails while the frigate continued to turn, the grim faces of the nearest gun crews.

It was neither a contest nor a game, and they must know it.

He saw Massie pointing with his sword and passing his orders, the words lost in the din of canvas and tackles.

Unless that flag came down, it would be murder.

Using the wind across his quarter to best advantage,
Tetrarch
's captain had decided to wear ship, not to close the range but to outmanoeuvre and avoid
Unrivalled
's challenge.

Adam observed it in silence, able to ignore the bark of commands, the sudden protesting bang of canvas as his ship came as close to the wind as she could manage.

He raised his telescope again and trained it on the other vessel as she began to come about; he could even discern her figurehead, scarred and rendered almost shapeless by time and weather, but once a proud Roman governor with a garland of laurel around his head. Her captain might try to elude his adversary until nightfall. But there was little chance of that. It would only prolong the inevitable. He stared at the other ship's outline, shortening, the masts overlapping while she continued to turn.

He could sense Galbraith and some of the others watching him, all probably full of their own ideas and solutions.

If they came too close and the other ship caught fire, her lethal cargo could destroy all of them. Adam had done it himself. Jago had been there then, also.

He said sharply, ‘Stand by to starboard as before, Mr Massie! Gun by gun!'

He wiped his eye and looked again. The enemy was bowson, and in the powerful lens it looked as if her bowsprit would parry with
Unrivalled
's jib boom.

‘As you bear!'

He saw the
Tetrarch
's canvas billow and fill, the bright Tricolour showing itself briefly beyond the braced driver. What did the flag mean to those men, he wondered? A symbol of something which might already have been defeated.

He thought of
Frobisher,
the cruel twist of fate which had brought her and her admiral to an unplanned rendezvous with two such ships as this one.

‘Fire!'
He watched the first shots tearing through the enemy's forecourse and topsails, and felt although he could not hear the sickening crash of falling spars and rigging.

Like
Anemone
 . . .

But she continued to turn, exposing her broadside and the bright flashes from her most forward guns. Some hit
Unrivalled
's hull, others hurled waterspouts over the side, where gun crews were working like fiends to sponge out and reload.

He heard Lieutenant Luxmore of the Royal Marines yelling a name as one of his marksmen in the maintop fired his Brown Bess at the enemy without waiting for the order. At this range, it was like throwing a pike at a church steeple.
The madness
. No one could completely contain it.

There was a wild cheer as with tired dignity
Tetrarch
's fore topmast appeared to stagger, held upright only by the rigging. Adam watched, unable to blink, as the mast seemed to gain control, tearing shrouds and running rigging alike as if the stout cordage were made of mere twine, the sails adding to the confusion and destruction until the entire mast with upper spars and reeling foretop spilled down into the smoke.

Only a part of his mind recorded the shouts from the gun captains, yelling like men possessed as each eighteen-pounder slammed against its open port. Ready to fire.

He moved the glass very slightly. There was a thin plume of smoke from the maindeck of the other ship. Any fire was dangerous, in a fight or otherwise, but with holds full of gunpowder it was certain death. He glanced at
Unrivalled
's upper yards and the whipping masthead pendant.

‘Fall off a point!'

He saw Massie staring aft towards him, his sword already half raised.

There was no room for doubt, less for compassion.
Because that captain could be me
.

Tetrarch
was still turning, her bows dragging at the mass of fallen spars and cordage. There were men too, struggling in the water, calling for help which would never come.

The next slow broadside would finish her. At almost full range, high-angled to the rise of the deck, it would smash through the remaining masts and canvas before
Tetrarch
's main battery could be brought to bear.

‘As you bear!'
It was not even his own voice. He thought he saw the sun lance from Massie's upraised blade, and somehow knew that the gun crews on the larboard side had left their stations to watch, their own danger forgotten.

He stiffened and steadied the glass again. This time, he knew it was his own hand shaking.

‘Belay that order!'

There was too much smoke, but certain things stood out as clearly as if the enemy had been alongside.

The forward guns were unmanned, and there were figures running across the ship's poop and halfdeck, apparently out of control. For an instant he imagined that the fire had taken control, and the ship's company were making a frantic attempt to escape the imminent explosion.

And then he saw it. The French flag, the only patch of colour on that broken ship, was falling, seemingly quite slowly, until somebody hacked the halliards apart so that it drifted across the water like a dying sea bird.

Cristie grunted, ‘Sensible man, I'd say!'

Someone else said harshly, ‘A lucky one too, God damn his eyes!'

Tetrarch
was falling downwind, her maincourse and mizzen already being brailed up, as if to confirm her submission.

Adam raised the glass again. There were small groups of men standing around the decks; others, dead or wounded it was impossible to tell, lay unheeded by the abandoned guns.

Midshipman Bellairs called, ‘White flag, sir!' Even he seemed unable to grasp what was happening, even less that he was a part of it.

‘Heave to, if you please!' Adam lowered the glass. He had seen someone on that other deck watching him. With despair, hate; he needed no reminding. ‘Take the quarter-boat, Mr Galbraith, and pick your boarding party. If you find it safe for us to come alongside, then signal me. At any sign of treachery, you know what to do.'