by Jan Needle
Raven did not know, but it hardly seemed to matter much. The two bodies of Englishmen combined, and turned aft to make a concerted front. Simpson pushed forward and craved indulgence of both gentlemen, as was required of a common man.
‘Sirs, can I take a party onwards?’ he said. ‘I think that they’ve retreated aft. I think they’m leaderless or summat. There ain’t enough of them, ’tis not a crew. It do not seem they’ve got an officer.’
‘Robinson?’ said Swift. ‘What think you, man? Is this giant telling true, or is it just a booby, over-fed?’
Robinson, dour though he was, allowed himself a laugh.
‘Simpson ain’t no booby, sir. My own thought is that they are routed. They’re in retreat. Although I surely cannot tell how that should be.’
Swift swelled with sudden pride.
‘I hit an officer,’ he said. ‘A tall man in fine linen, with my first proper shot. By God, mayhap he was their only one!’
‘But they may have gone to form an ambush, sir,’ said Raven. ‘They may be massing with a gun. A swivel, sir!’
‘So can I go, sir?’ Simpson barked. ‘Before the damn chain-shot mows us into mother’s mincemeat!’
‘I’m with you, Sawdust!’ yelled another man. ‘Sawdust Samson breaks the bastards’ necks!’
Too sharp to be overwhelmed by disobedience for a second time, Swift swept them onwards with his cutlass arm.
‘Go lads, and at ’em! And if they’re lurking, cut the scum to pieces!’
‘Put shots through the curtain first!’ said Raven. ‘Go through the sides! Protect your flanks!’
‘Don’t play the coward, Craven Raven! One burst and we can take this ship! Nobody likes a lilywhite, my boy! So move!’
Sixteen or twenty men went roaring aft, glims lit, swords lifted, big pistols primed to blow men into buggery.
And Daniel Swift was laughing in delight.
Chapter Seventeen
Glims notwithstanding, it was like swimming in pea soup. The English stumbled over ropes, and guns, and people, some of them moving, most still. It was the movements Raven found disturbing, there were squirms and twitches mixed with the anguished groans, and the air with stinking with the smell of blood and powder. But there were too few. The whole complement of people they had engaged or seen so far was not enough. The ship was empty.
One man held a gun in a drooping hand, and Swift went across and kicked it to the deck. The man’s arm, then his torso, dropped to the slimy planks as well. His face did not alter. He was already dead.
‘Back further! Is there a roundhouse? Do they have an armoured room?’
There were kicks and banging from the leading Pointers. Simpson and his two mates were up ahead, with Raven tagged to the party as if stuck. Then he saw something, and was galvanized.
‘Sir! Lieutenant Swift! I think it is your officer.’
‘Move on, move on,’ said Swift. He pushed and jerked men past him, past the sprawling casualty, further back down aft. ‘There may be a lazarette,’ he added. ‘There may be hidey holes below us, under the cabin deck. Trust nowhere! Trust no one! Raven – show me your man!’
Raven lifted his light, and it shone down on a tall, pale sight. It was indeed the man that Swift had shot, and he was indeed an officer. His shirt might have been of silk, except that now it was black and vile with blood. Heart’s blood, clearly. It had pulsed and pulsed.
‘Hah!’ said Swift. ‘My God, the villain lives. You, sir! You, sir, speak! Where are your people? Speak now or I will kill you straight!’
It seemed to Raven that the lieutenant was too late. The Frenchman’s eyes did flutter, as did his lips. His mouth opened as Swift gestured with his dirk, but no sound came out. A foamy bubble, though. A bubble tinged with blood.
Swift leaned down and shook him by the shoulder, savagely.
‘How many men? How many matelots? Where are the crapeaux hiding themselves?’
The Frenchman spoke. It startled Raven, because he had assumed it was impossible. But the lips moved, the tongue moved pale and swollen between the swollen lips, and a sound emerged. Raven had no French. He realized, suddenly, that the lieutenant had none also. And the officer spoke, as well he might, in French.
‘Bastard!’ shouted Daniel Swift. ‘Speak English, cochon! Where are your men? Where is your captain? Where are your other officers?’
The crippled man was leaking blood out through his lips. Amazingly to Raven, he did not give up. He forced himself to speak again.
‘Zey go,’ he murmured. ‘All go. Ze ozzer sheep. Zay go brung more.’
Feet were heard on the deck above their heads. Simpson burst into the cabin from right aft.
‘They’re in the boats!’ he shouted. ‘They skipped through the stern windows! Two skiffs! A gig, sir! They’re pulling for the shore!’
Swift turned on Raven.
‘You derelict!’ he snapped. ‘Why have you let them do this? Shoot them down! Run out a gun or two! By God, Craven, you are a millstone round my neck!’
There were more footsteps on the deck. An outburst of swearing and of fury. Then a pistol shot, and three, four more.
‘Sir! Sir!’ a voice came down. ‘Mr Raven! Mr Raven; here!’
Swift aimed a fast kick at the dying Frenchman’s stomach, not waiting to see the end result. He shot aft towards the stern gallery, fury in every move he made. The sweeping of his cutlass bade fair to do decapitation.
But Raven beat him to the afterdeck, going up the companion like a rat. Simpson had gone before him, and was looking forward, shouting. Before he heard the words, Raven knew the truth.
‘Free another anchor!’ he screamed. ‘Or veer more cable if we ha’not lost the first! By Christ, sir,’ he shouted as Swift burst onto the deck, ‘we are adrift! The swine have slipped the hook!’
He already felt the frigate moving, turning languidly in the waters of the bay. No longer quite still waters, though, the eddies of the breeze had sneaked around the headlands from the open Channel. The tide had turned as well, he guessed, and hoped with all his soul it would pull them out, not gently drop them on the rocky shore.
There were screams, and one last pistol-flash. The light was rising fast, revealing a dying struggle as the French were punished brutally for their ruse.
‘Cowards!’ screamed Swift. ‘The bloody cowards! They have put us on the shore! They have stole my lawful prize. They are cowards, bloody treacherous bloody scum!’
Aye, thought Raven. That I should prove so cowardly! And watched in horror as a sailor in nothing but a shirt was slashed across the neck and tossed into the water off the bow.
He looked shoreward in growing fear. It was amazing close, half a cable’s length, maybe less. As far as he could see in the half-light there was no beach or sand to land on, just jumbled boulders which might have been a collapsed cliff. The waters, though still calm, were starting to break among the rocks.
So where were the Frenchmen going? Where were they rowing to, and did they have a fort, or guns, on shore? They had decided to destroy the ship rather than have her in British hands, that was their duty, and good sense. With Swift shouting in fury at the men emerging on the deck, Raven ran forward to the capstan and the cable.
‘The bower’s gone, sir,’ Simpson said, as he arrived. ‘They had it on a slip hitch or summat like, it took ’em half a jiffy. We’ve found another big ’un but we’ll not lift him up in time.’
‘Can we get some headsails on her? Give us half a chance?’
Simpson did not mock, but he stated the obvious.
‘Half a chance to run her on the rocks, you mean? It ain’t an order I would give, your honour.’
‘Can we roll a gun across? Slip a noose on it, belay it to the cable, chuck it by the board to be a mud-weight?’
‘Checked that out, sir. Turner’s aloft to rig a gantline, but we’d need a tackle. We ain’t got the hands or time to lift one clear.’
Shockingly, the lieutenant was among them. His fac
e was white with anger, though smeared with someone’s blood. He was beside himself.
‘I told you not to come on board!’ he shouted. ‘I forbade it, Raven, from the very off! Now we have lost the ship and Captain Maxwell will rightly slaughter us! You disobeyed my orders from the first! You jumped into your gig like on a Sunday outing, and you—’
‘Yes!’ whooped Simpson. ‘Sir! The gigs!’
Raven caught on instantly, and left Swift gaping there with anger as he rushed into the bow. He shouted back across the deck.
‘Still there! Both of them! Oh, Sawdust Simpson you are—’
No time to finish that, no idea in any way what he was going to say. The big man, on a signal, had three or four more crewmen up on the bulwarks by the forward chains. Mr Robinson, catching on like the seaman that he was, hustled his own crew towards Swift’s boat.
‘We can tow her, sir,’ he said. ‘Two boats will see her safe. Leave men to clear an anchor from below, sir. Rig up a davit tackle!’
More men poured up from the ’tween decks, took in the situation, let out varied cries. Something to do! It was what all sailors craved for! Action! Two French prisoners began to join the rush, as if it was their own ship they were saving. Christ, thought Charlie Raven – good Christ, and so it is!
They were not allowed, though, and Swift swept his sword at them until they cowered.
‘Watch them!’ he barked. ‘Wrong move, and cut the buggers’ throats!’
The Pointer men were wondrous quick, and filled the boats like summer lightning. Oars were shipped, a towing warp lashed to the mast of each and led up to the Frenchman’s foredeck, where other men belayed them to the bitts.
‘All fast!’ cried one and then another. ‘Take her away boys! Handsomely!’
Midshipman Raven had command, and took the yoke lines of the leading tug.
‘Lay to it, men!’ he cried. ‘Mr Robinson veer out to starboard more! We can hold her! We can hold her easy! Lay to!’
While Lieutenant Swift, as a captain had to, skipped aft and took position at the con.
‘When they take the strain, we’ll go a half to starboard,’ he sang out to the helmsmen. ‘I want your bowsprit between the two transoms, and follow like a bitch on heat, you dogs. A bloody bitch on heat!’
The two men at the spokes responded. They felt the keel shift and follow, they felt the rudder do its faithful work.
There was a flurry of musket and smaller fire from over to larboard, by the shore, but no one paid it mind. The ship was moving, they were under way. Unless the wind blew into the bay like thunder, they could hold her off the shore. Until they got another anchor down, at least.
And then a cannon roared, and a man up on the beak-head shouted: ‘A ship! A ship! We’re under fire, sir! It is a ship of war!’
Past the windward headland a long bowsprit appeared. Just abaft of it, underneath the foredeck, a second bow gun boomed and flashed. The noise of the explosions rolled round and round inside the landlocked bay like morning thunder.
Swift’s prize was lost once more.
Chapter Eighteen
He had two alternatives, it seemed to Daniel Swift. He could bow to the inevitable, throw off the tow ropes, let the frigate go ashore – or he could fight. He chose the latter.
‘Who is our gunner? Clear the bow chasers to be fired! Aft here, check the swivel guns! Can they be lifted, shifted forward? He must sail across our bow! We can likely cripple him!’
It was a wild claim, but went down wonderful with the Pointer men. They even ignored the unlikely hope there was a man on board with a mastery of guns, let alone with French ones. They let out a rousing cheer, then dashed about the deck as if they had a purpose. Sadly, they did not.
‘Chain shot!’ Swift shouted. ‘Load them up with chain and fire high! Mow down men or rigging, both will do. Sharp there! Move it! Sharp!’
Two things brought this to an end. The French boats to larboard, now quite close to shore and some way ahead, opened a sustained display of musketry. The shots crackled out across the water, the flashes masked by the rising daylight.
But they were firing ahead! They were not aiming at the quarterdeck, nor at Raven and the other towing boat.
‘Sir!’ a cry came from the bow. ‘They are shooting at the new man, sir!’
And the new man spoke back. Not with small arms, but with a double gun-blast from his bow. One ball hit the water beyond the boats, the second hit the rocky shore with a metallic clang that rang around the harbour like a bell.
‘It is the Pointer! Sir! It’s Captain Maxwell! Hold fire, sir! Hold fire!’
There was, indeed, no firing in prospect. Nor any more from the attacking boats. The madness of their resistance was glaringly apparent, and they rested on their oars and lived in hope.
The Pointer began to go about. She might have left it late, in Raven’s view, but as always the master, Mr Collins, had it all in hand. The overnight wind had backed a little south of westerly, and she went round very handsome.
‘She’s making signals! I think she’s heaving to!’
She was, to both those things. A man on her quarterdeck was making rapid semaphore:
‘Drop anchor. We board you.’
‘Find flags!’ Swift shouted. ‘Make: I have no anchor. Holding off the land by oars. Await you.’
Finding flags did not prove easy, though. The locker was empty. A search below was fruitless. Swift was beginning to get angry. And Maxwell, on the Pointer, impatient.
‘She’s sending boats, sir! Two, sir. Nay, three.’
And from the foredeck: ‘We have a kedge rigged, sir! Ready to anchor if you give the word.’
And on the biggest of the French escaper boats, a white shirt was visible, lashed to an oar and raised on high. An end to all the threats.
‘Let go the kedge!’ Swift shouted. ‘Sing out to Raven in the boats. We’re anchoring. Come alongside immediate. It seems the race is won!’
Raven, however, when the anchor went down, had another thought. Shouting his intention, not waiting for spoken confirmation from Lieutenant Swift, he dropped his towline to the Frenchman, and set out at speed to take the three boats captive.
One of them, when they worked out his intention, decided to run, but the other two, including the biggest, with the white flag on display, came quietly. Simpson bade men to check their weapons, confirming to Raven that they’d hold their own if it should come to double-crossing.
It did not. As the one boat raised a mast and sail and headed north along the coast of France, the other two lay tranquil and submissive. As Raven ranged alongside of them, Simpson gestured that they must sacrifice their weapons, and counted sixteen guns and swords thrown overboard. Then he made another signal, and the Frenchmen followed them like lambs.
‘They can help us with a jury rig,’ he told the midshipman, with satisfaction. ‘They know their dead old tub much better nor we do.’
When they reached the prize, the Pointer’s second lieutenant, Bullen, was there to greet them. He had arrived with twenty men, a gunner’s mate, a rigger, and a cook. He smiled at Raven as he swarmed up from the gig, but there was a tightness to his face that gave the mid a sinking feeling.
‘I have give Mr Bullen a full account of you,’ said Lieutenant Swift, and his voice struck grim. Raven glanced at Simpson and got a black look back. Some lies had clearly gone abroad.
‘The captain needs you on the Pointer,’ Swift said. ‘He will speak to you post haste.’ He smiled, briefly. ‘It is in the matter of orders disobeyed. I have told Bullen here the half of it, and he has signalled Mr Maxwell. I fear you are in mortal trouble, sir.’
‘You must return immediately,’ Lieutenant Bullen added.
‘I will come also, sir,’ said Simpson, boldly. ‘I fear sir—’
‘How dare you!’ Swift’s face was dark with rage. ‘You will be clapped in irons, man! Not another word!’
Raven swallowed.
‘But—’
�
�No buts,’ snapped Swift. ‘Mr Bullen is our superior, and he has spoken. I will come, however, Raven to speak your part. If any representations might be necessary to the captain, then I shall make them for you. I will speak on your behalf.’
But surely, Charlie Raven thought, any denigration of my role, any suggestion of disorder on my part – can only have come from Swift to start with? If Bullen has signalled to the Pointer, his words can only be those of the man I thought my friend. He caught that thought, and his conclusion hit him. The man I thought my friend…
As they neared the Pointer’s side ten minutes later, and he saw Captain Maxwell glaring down at him, he feared he would be clapped in irons soon.
For delivering a prize? What had he done?
Chapter Nineteen
They were directed to the captain’s cabin, where Lieutenant Swift was asked for his report. Midshipman Raven stood stiffly beside him, saying not a word. He could not speak until invited. That was an end to it.
‘The position now, sir,’ Swift began, ‘is this. Thanks to quick action and neat seamanship, your prize is anchored in six fathoms. The bottom is sandy, the holding good. She can lie there indefinite, I believe, unless and until we can make her fit to sail.’
‘How long?’ Maxwell was terse, but not unfriendly. Swift nodded.
‘I have already set the rigger on, I have a number of good men, and there are prisoners who know the vessel well to aid us.’
‘Under strict observation, I assume?
‘Indeed, sir, the strictest. One false move and they will be shot. Which would at least save their lordships the expense of feeding them.’
The two men shared a laugh. Raven was unsure if it had been a joke.
‘Good,’ said the captain. ‘And how went the capture of this ship? Why, sir, successful though it has turned out, did you go against my expressly stated orders? Men who break my orders, sir, must normally expect a flogging. What do you say to that?’
Raven could scarce believe what he was hearing. The ship was taken, and surprise had been their master card. Who knew what might have happened had they waited or held back?