A Sea Unto Itself (36 page)

“Let me speak,” Charles shouted back.

“We’ve ‘ad it wif yer promises,” someone else called out. “You don’t keep ‘em.” They were crowded together, so that Charles had difficulty recognizing who was speaking. He couldn’t find a pause to get a word in. “Sail past.” “Run for it.” “We ain’t gonna fight.” “You promised us,” all jumbled together and competed to shout him down. His hopes for reason turned to frustration, his frustration to anger. He raised his hands again with no result. Cassandra had already glided into the head of the narrow passageway, only Cromley and the quartermaster guiding her course. Without the men in the yards there was no way to add sail or shorten it. He had to do something soon; he could make out the tops of the French warship’s masts from where he stood.

“Quiet!” Charles screamed at the top of his voice. He drew his own sword and waved it in the air. “Shut your mouths, all of you!” The noise abated marginally, but did not stop. Furious, he snatched the musket from one of the marines protecting the quarterdeck, pointed it skyward, cocked its hammer, and fired. “Cease your jabbering or by God I’ll run us upon a rock.” He knew that he was on the edge of losing control of himself, of everything. He needed quiet. “We don’t want to fight,” one seaman said. “We want to go back, just like you said.” Charles saw the man clearly.

“I don’t give a damn what you want, Hill,” he snapped. He stepped toward the head of the ladderway, his sword held out in front. “Get off the ladderway. Back onto the gundeck where you belong. I’ll not have this kind of behavior. Who the hell do you think you are?”

 
The men within the reach is his blade backed part way down, still glaring in defiance at him. “We ain’t . . . ,” a seaman began.

“Shut your mouth, Tipperman,” Charles said. “I’ll flog the next man who speaks out of turn. I will talk with you man to man, but I’ll not be shouted at. Where’s Able Seaman Sherburne?”

Sherburne was pushed forward to the foot of the ladderway. “What’s your grievance?” Charles snarled.

“We want ye to sail past and make a run for it,” Sherburne said. “There ain’t no need for a fight. Ye promised us.”

Charles was not in any mood to be reasonable, or in any temper to compromise. Indeed, there were no compromises to make. Cassandra was well into the passage and barreling straight ahead at close to her best speed. “I know what I promised. The situation has changed. We have no choice but to fight. Will you or won’t you?”

“That ain’t as it is,” a man beside Sherburne blurted out. “O’ course we got choices. We got the choice to run by.”

“No . . . ,” Charles began, promptly out-shouted in an uproar of protest.

Sherburne looked around him to a chorus of nays and shaking heads. “We won’t do it, sur,” he said. There was a finality to it.

Charles glared down at the crew a moment longer, humiliated by the refusal and stung by their insubordination. His eyes settled on Sherburne. “Fine,” he said coldly. “You are dismissed; you’re all dismissed. The next time you are called to order it will be as prisoners to the French.”

“Dismissed, sur?” said Sherburne.

“Yes, dismissed. You may not be willing to fight, but I am. I’ll do it myself. All of you get out of my sight. I’m sick of looking at you.” He turned on his heel to walk away.

“I beg your pardon?” Bevan said, catching his arm. Charles hadn’t realized that his lieutenant had been standing beside him. “Do you know what you’re doing? You’re going to fight who? What with—a one pistol broadside?”

Charles looked at his friend and saw Winchester and Beechum on his other side. There was also Augustus immediately behind him, and the midshipmen and other petty officers. All were staring at him. “I’m sorry, Daniel,” he said. “I should have said, ‘we.’”

“We, who?”

Charles felt no need to explain. There was one hope upon hope, his last hope, that the crew would see the inevitably of it and come to their senses. And if not? He knew that he would have to strike as soon as the enemy brought her broadside to bear. At least he would have offered some resistance. They were already in the center of the straights, the open sea beyond. He could easily see the French frigate’s masts over the bow, square in the middle at the end of the narrows. “Mr. Baker,” he shouted at the boatswain.

“Sir?”

“Loose all of the sheets and let them fly. All of them, do you hear?” He had to get the way off. Since he had no topmen to send aloft to furl the sails, the simplest procedure was to undo the halyards holding their lower corners and let them stand out in the wind like laundry on a line. It wasn’t very tidy, but it would have to do.

“Aye, aye, sir,” Baker’s voice came back.

Charles had already turned to Bevan. “You’ll have to go forward and get the anchor down. Put a spring on so that we may direct the guns.”

“Bevan’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “How?” he said.

“I don’t know how; any way you can. Use the petty officers, some of the marines. Afterward the marines will have to man the capstan to bring our broadside to bear.”

Bevan looked at him in disbelief. “You’re really going to fight? Who’ll man the guns?”

“We will,” Charles snapped. “The anchor please.”

Bevan opened his mouth, then shut it. He started reluctantly forward, limping slightly on his gimpy leg. Charles heard a snapping sound and looked up to see the sails on the mizzenmast lose their bellies as the clews ran free, the foot of each sail flopping lazily forward. Baker and the two boatswain’s mates were undoing the mainmast halyards. Forward of the bow, broadside on, he saw L'Agile, the line of her upper deck visible on the horizon. Her captain would certainly see Cassandra's disordered canvas. What would he make of it? A flying sheet was a time-honored signal that a ship was in distress. He wouldn’t believe that, would he? He should; it was the truth. It could also be interpreted to mean ‘enemy in sight,’ as if he were signaling to some unseen reinforcements just over the horizon. The French captain would know that he was bluffing; he might interpret it as an act of desperation. That would be accurate; it was an act of considerable desperation.

Baker and his men had finished their work on the mainmast and were moving to the foremast belaying pins. Charles could feel his ship begin to slow. He picked up his prized glass from the base of the mizzen and trained it forward. He wouldn’t have it much longer, he reflected; some French officer would surely covet it. There were figures of men climbing the French ship’s shrouds. As he watched, her fore mainsail, which had been laid against the mast, began to turn.

Charles took a deep breath and wondered if maybe it would have been better to run after all. His eyes searched along the gangways and down into the waist. The deck seemed strangely empty except for the boatswain and Bevan’s anchor party by the beak. Only Cromley remained with him on the quarterdeck, and he was conning the ship. The crew had evidently taken him at his word when he’d told them to get out of his sight. The foresails ran free. Cassandra lost way rapidly. “Bring her to, Mr. Cromley,” Charles said. As the bow began to swing he yelled, “Let go the anchor,” to Bevan forward and waved his arms. He heard the splash. L'Agile's canvas expanded as if by magic, braced tight, beating up into the wind toward them. The distance couldn’t be more than three miles.

Charles went down into the waist to examine the guns in a state of high agitation. He counted on his fingers what men he could rely on. He had three lieutenants and three midshipmen—Sykes might be useful on a gun, if only just. Aviemore and Hitch could act as powder monkeys. There was Augustus, Cromley, Baker and his two mates, and Burrows, the carpenter, if they were willing. He didn’t think Wells, the purser, would be of much use, and the surgeon would soon have better things to do. Two guns. They could probably manage two of the twelve-pounder cannon. It didn’t really matter if it were two, three, or four. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Sherburne, with two others—Hurley and an American named Townes, he thought—move along the far side of the deck to prop themselves casually against one of the port side guns. Charles ignored them. The starboard battery would be employed against the Frenchman; at least the numbers eleven and thirteen guns, he decided.

Cromley came down from the quarterdeck. “You’re going to assist?” Charles asked.

“I am,” the master answered soberly. “Such as I can. It’s years since I served afore the mast.”

“Thank you,” Charles said. Augustus appeared next, without saying a word. After a few moments Winchester, Beechum, Bevan, and the trio of midshipmen came from forward, followed by Baker and a few others.

 
“Lieutenant Winchester, you will captain the eleven gun,” Charles said formally. “You will have Mr. Baker, his two mates, and Mr. Burrows. Mr. Aviemore will carry the powder.”

Winchester nodded, his expression grim.

“Lieutenant Bevan will captain the thirteen gun with the rest of us.”

“Why am I the gun captain?” Bevan asked suspiciously.

“Because you’re lame and can’t haul on the tackle,” Charles said.

“I’m not lame, just slow.”

“Whichever you prefer.”

“Charlie,” Bevan said.

“What?”

“You’re crazy, you know that don’t you? They have a space at Bedlam Hospital already reserved in your name.” He sighed in resignation. “Well, we might as well enjoy ourselves.”

“Just shut up and run the goddamned gun out,” Charles snarled, with all the self-righteousness that only one who knows he is probably making a serious mistake can muster. “And no one is going to enjoy themselves.” Augustus and Beechum took up the relieving tackle on one side, Charles, Cromley, and Sykes on the other. Charles threw his weight on the line.

“Open the gunport,” Bevan said, taking his watch from his pocket and glancing at it. “No point in doing the Frenchmen’s work for them.”

Charles muttered an obscenity under his breath and let go the line. He went to the bulwark, unlatched the port, pulled its rope to trice it up, and tied it off. “Now run the thing out,” he growled, returning to his place at the gun tackle. He heaved, Sykes in front of him strained manfully, Cromley grunted. The gun inched forward with small thump, thump, thumps as is crossed the deck boards. Christ, the beast weighed a ton—two tons actually, he recalled. With a twist of his head he saw that Winchester’s gun was already hard up against its port, waiting for the order to fire. Charles redoubled his effort. In his uniform coat and hat, sweat ran off him in rivers, stinging his eyes. Just when he was certain that a hernia could not be long in coming, he heard a satisfying clunk as the carriage bumped softly against the bulwark. “There,” he said breathlessly. “You may fire the damned cannon.”

“Out tompkin,” Bevan said with a broad smile. The wooden plug to protect the gun barrel from the wet had been left in.

“Bloody hell,” Charles swore. “Fire it off anyway. It’ll come out on its own.” He had done this once by accident when he was a midshipman, much to his captain’s displeasure.

“That tompkin’s the king’s property, I’ll remind you,” Bevan answered.

“Fire the goddamned, sodding, whoreson’s, bloody gun.”

“Can’t, the Frenchman’s still out of range. Beside which, you don’t tell me when to fire. I’m the gun captain.”

“Hell,” Charles said. He knelt to look out the gunport. L’Agile was easily visible, her masts in a line, every stitch of canvas set as she bore up into the wind. She was not more than a mile and a half distant. It would be a very long shot, but what possible difference could it make whether they hit her or not? As he straightened he noticed that more of the crew had come to stand along the far side of the deck to watch their officers struggle with the cannon. No doubt they were greatly amused. He wiped at the sweat on his face with the back of his hand, then stripped off his jacket and hat and threw them over the fifteen gun. “Fire anyway, or I’ll make you haul on a line, lame or not.”

“Step aside, gentlemen. Stand clear, please,” Bevan intoned. Positioned well beyond the limit of the recoil, he pulled the lanyard. The gun exploded with a deafening bang, as did Winchester’s, whose crew had been waiting patiently. Charles easily saw the tompkin flutter away from the ship like a spinning coin, to land in the sea forty yards out. The ball went farther, sending up a geyser a quarter-mile short and well to starboard of L'Agile's relentlessly approaching bow. The second gun was also short, but on line.

“Well, that was certainly satisfying,” Bevan said, looking again at his watch. “Only six-and-a-half minutes so far, not at all bad. Of course, we haven’t completed the full sequence yet. Tompkin removed? Oh, yes. Sponge out, if you please.”

Muttering every obscenity he could think of under his breath, Charles took up the five-foot length of stiff cable, unraveled into a brush-like ball at one end, dipped it into a tub of water, then rammed it into the cannon barrel. Because of the restricted distance to the bulwark, it was necessary to slide the long handle of the sponge out of the gunport. It caught against the side, slipped from his grasp, and dropped into the sea. He swore loudly. Sykes tactfully handed him the one for the fifteen gun. Charles struggled to push the awkward, flexible instrument in the full length of the barrel, twisting it around to be certain that all of the embers and bits of burnt cartridge were extinguished. Satisfied, he pulled it out.