The French Prize (42 page)

A minute before, the deck had been the epitome of a merchant ship at sea in fine weather, the men moving about with a busy but unhurried quality. With one order all that changed as the men plunged into the job of getting the ship ready for a fight, of putting her in the proper state for battle, a battle for which they had been preparing since the day they arrived in Antigua. It was a wonder to Jack that not one of the original Abigails had pointed out that this was not at all what they had signed aboard for.

Too caught up with the drama of the thing,
Jack thought, shaking his head at what blockheads such men could be. Irony was sometimes a foreign language to him.

“Cleared for action, the men are at quarters,” Tucker said, his voice faltering as he was not sure if that was indeed what he should say, and likely feeling a bit silly using such naval parlance.

“Very good, Mr. Tucker,” Jack said. He looked out to windward.
L'Arman
ç
on
was a mile and a half away, and the two ships were closing fast. He looked aloft. Wentworth was in the maintop, rifle in hand. He had not seen him go back up there. There were others as well, some of the new hands from English Harbur with muskets cradled in their arms.

Frost must have sent them up
, Jack thought, but Frost was keeping his distance and Jack did not wish to call him over to ask. He turned back to Tucker. “In ten minutes or so we'll clew up the courses and get stuns'ls in, leave the rest of the sails set. I want the guns on the starboard side depressed just a bit below the horizontal, if you follow me.” He suspected there was some more technically proper way to express this, but what that might be he had no idea.

“Aye, sir, just a bit below horizontal,” Tucker said, apparently understanding.

“We'll man the larboard battery, make it look as if we'll be engaging that side. Then, as we get close to
L'Arman
ç
on
, very close, we'll come about, just spin on our heel, and the men will cross quickly over to the starboard side as we're coming about, do you see, starboard guns will be run out and ready, and we'll give them that broadside as we pass. They'll be quite surprised, I should think.”

Tucker was smiling. “Good plan, sir!” he said, and Jack found his approval a comfort, despite the fact that Tucker knew even less about such things than he did.

Twenty minutes later, looking through his glass, Jack could clearly make out individuals on the Frenchman's deck, the white shirts of the men, the blue coats of the officers. As he watched, the perfect smooth domes of the Frenchman's fore and mainsail collapsed and flogged and the clews rose up as those lower sailed were hauled up to the yards.

“Mr. Tucker,” Jack said, “let us get the stuns'ls in and clew up the courses.” He said it calmly, slowly, hoping to disguise the fact that he had completely forgotten about it until that moment. The speed dropped off and the
Abigail
stood more upright as the canvas was reduced. The men stood silent at their guns, the sail trimmers ready at the braces and bowlines. Frost was forward of the mizzenmast, supervising the three guns aft. A petty officer from the English Harbour men was in charge of the forward battery.

Jack no longer needed the glass to see the figures moving about
L'Arman
ç
on
's deck. A minute or so more. All this effort, all this worry, leading up to this inevitable moment: two ships converging on the open sea.

“Stand ready…” Jack shouted.
L'Arman
ç
on
's forward-most guns would bear, he wondered why they did not fire. A hundred yards separated the ship. Half a minute more.

The first time they had met
L'Arman
ç
on
Jack had been unable to give the order to engage but he felt no such hesitancy now. “Helm's a'lee!” he shouted and the helmsman turned the wheel and
Abigail
flew up into the wind. “Let go your headsail sheets! Mainsail haul! Gunners, shift sides, now!”

The headsails made a thundering sound as they flogged in the wind, the foresails came aback, pushing the bow around, and like a herd of spooked cattle the gunners abandoned the larboard battery and charged across the deck to take their places on the starboard side.

“Let go and haul!” Jack shouted as
Abigail
settled on the new course and
L'Arman
ç
on
came charging down on them, fifty feet off the starboard side.

“Fire as you bear!” he shouted and the foremost gun on the starboard side went off with a great roar, the jet of flame visible even in the brilliant sun, and a hole was punched right through
L'Arman
ç
on
's bulwark, dead center between two gunports.

The next gun fired, the ball hitting the Frenchman's hull and lodging there. The next smashed two deadeyes on the main shrouds, and still the Frenchman did not respond. Then, in the instant before the fourth gun went off, Jack heard, clear as birdsong, an order shouted down the length of the Frenchman's deck and
L'Arman
ç
on
fired her entire broadside, six twelve-pounders fired from forty feet away, level at
Abigail
's deck, and
Abigail
's guns seemed like puny toys in comparison.

Jack had time enough to see the first jets of gray smoke and then a ball hit the bulwark just forward of where he stood and his world was knocked aside in a storm of shattered wood and splinters and smashed planks from the new-built sides. He was aware of putting his arm up, of being lifting off the deck, of the agony of coming down hard. He could hear shouts and high-pitched screams. His head spun and for an instant he thought, genuinely thought, that it was a dream, that it was all too unreal to be a waking moment.

He pushed himself up with his arms, felt a pain in his side. There was a splinter like a long knife sticking out, and without thinking he grabbed on to it and pulled and screamed in agony as the wood came free and the blood began to spread across his shirt.

The deck was a ruin. One of the guns had upended and the screaming was coming from the man, one of the British sailors, who was caught under it. His mates were working at the barrel with crowbars and handspikes. Beyond him the bulwark had been beaten flat, the windlass, so recently moved, no more than debris. Ropes hung loose and swayed with the roll of the ship.

Jack realized that the motion was wrong, the ship did not feel right underfoot. He looked up. They were in irons, the bow pointing right into the wind, the sails aback. He spun around. There had been only one man at the helm, and he was down, knocked to the deck by splinters, alive or dead Jack could not tell. “Mr. Tucker! Get forward, get the sail trimmers to back the jibs! You there, Maguire,” he called to the Irishman, who was captain of the aftermost gun but one, “get on the helm!”

He looked over at
L'Arman
ç
on
. She had sailed clean past and was rounding up behind
Abigail,
which meant they would be firing into the stern, a bad situation for a ship with a lower gun deck, but the merchantman did not have much below decks to hit. His cabin, Jack knew, would be destroyed, but if that was the worst of it he would be happy.

“Sail trimmers! Brace the foresails for a larboard tack! We'll cast to starboard!” He could see there were more dead and wounded than he had thought, great frantic patches of wet blood on the deck.

The fore yards swung around, the sails came aback, the bow began to fall off to starboard as
L'Arman
ç
on
's guns fired again, one after the other, destroying the great cabin windows below Jack's feet. He had a vision of the stern rail blowing apart the last time they were in this circumstance and every bit of him wanted to move forward, out of the way of any flying debris, but he fought that urge down, remained where he was, clasped his hands behind his back. He could feel the blood from his wound, warm and sticky and spreading over his side, just opposite the place where Wentworth had cut him.

Now I shall have matching scars
, he thought and resisted the insane urge to giggle.

He looked down the deck. The man under the toppled gun had died and his mates had abandoned him and the other gun crews were busy loading and running out.
L'Arman
ç
on
had come up on a starboard tack and
Abigail
was casting off onto a larboard tack and the space between the two was opening up. For a wild moment Jack considered running for it, but there was no point; even poorly handled, the French corvette was faster than the merchantman by a couple of knots, and it seemed to Jack that the Frenchman's ship handling and gunnery was much improved from the last time they had crossed paths.

“Let go and haul!” Jack shouted and
Abigail
swung off the wind and her sails filled and she gathered way once again. He turned to Maguire on the helm. “Keep her coming around, we'll get the wind right aft.” He looked astern.
L'Arman
ç
on
was also turning, falling off, so soon the two ships would be sailing side by side, right downwind and about fifty yards apart.

That's no good, no good
 … Jack thought. That first broadside had showed him the absolute folly of going up against a ship that mounted guns twice as powerful as his own, with scantlings a third again as thick. He kept seeing the image of that six-pounder ball lodged in
L'Arman
ç
on
's side. It had not even pierced her hull, while
L'Arman
ç
on'
s twelves seemed to go through
Abigail
as if she was made of wet paper.

And then the ships were broadside to broadside and
L'Arman
ç
on
started in again, firing at
Abigail
's already crippled starboard side. Roundshot screamed over the quarterdeck and like a magic trick the head of one of the British sailors disappeared. One moment it was there, the next it was gone, and his knees buckled and his headless body slumped to the deck and Jack thought he might vomit.

Round after round slammed into
Abigail'
s side. A ball struck amidships, just below the starboard gunwale, and Jack saw it burst from the larboard side in a swarm of shattered planking, passing right through the hull and plunging into the sea. The Abigails were firing back now, and Jack could see some of the shot strike, saw a respectable hole shot through the after side of the mainmast, but he could see no damage beyond that.

“Keep coming around, Maguire, keep coming around!” Jack shouted. “Sail trimmers, starboard tack!” If he kept turning, then he would present his ship's bow to the enemy, which at least would make for a smaller target.
Abigail
was turning to starboard and Jack could see
L'Arman
ç
on
turning to larboard so the two ships were coming bow to bow, fifty yards between them, and Jack had another idea.

“Hold her there, Maguire!” he shouted. “Sail trimmers, stand by!” The smoke was thick like a fog, or nearly so, a heavy morning mist, and the guns belched more and more even as the breeze whipped the old smoke away.

“Fall off, Maguire, fall off! Sail trimmers, square up!” Maguire turned the helm the other way.
Abigail
stopped in her turn to starboard and began swinging back to larboard, downwind, turning to cross
L'Arman
ç
on
's bow. The Frenchman checked in her turn as well, turned back to meet
Abigail
, but it was too late to stop the American from crossing ahead of her.

“Bear up now, just a point!” Biddlecomb shouted to Maguire and Maguire, good hand that he was when sober, turned the wheel. But he was a merchant sailor, not a man-of-war's man, so he felt he had the right to say, “Sir! We'll be aboard her!”

“Not full aboard her, Maguire!” Jack shouted, then thought,
Dear God I hope not!

They were close, very close,
L'Arman
ç
on
coming down on
Abigail
as
Abigail
tried to duck under her bow. Jack saw the tip of the Frenchman's jibboom stretching up over his foredeck. The forward-most gun of
Abigail
's starboard battery fired and he saw
L'Arman
ç
on
shudder and then the jibboom passed between the forestay and the foremast and fouled and the ships were locked together.

“Mr. Tucker! Hands up in those fore shrouds, cut that Frenchman's headstays!” Jack shouted, but some of the British sailors were ahead of him and already scrambling up the starboard fore shrouds, axes and cutlasses in hand, hacking away at the Frenchman's rigging. The second and third gun in the starboard battery fired and the two ships drifted together in their weird grappling dance.

L'Arman
ç
on
's fore topgallant stay swung free, cut through by eager hands, and the guys that offered support to the jibboom were hanging limp. A figure in a blue coat appeared on the heel of the Frenchman's bowsprit and headed outboard, sword in hand, a gang of seamen behind him. He made it as far as the cap of the bowsprit before jerking backward as if suddenly coming to the end of his leash. His arms flailed out and he fell with an audible splash into the sea and the men behind him, discouraged by this, turned and raced inboard again.

Jack looked up into the maintop. The smoke was still wafting from the end of Wentworth's barrel as he slowly lowered the weapon to reload. Another of the British sailors fired, but with his smoothbore musket it would be as much luck as skill if he managed to hit one of the fleeing Frenchmen.