A Different Sort of Perfect

by Vivian Roycroft

  No more distant, impersonal hammering. Movement beyond the gunports, rolling from opening to opening, from bow to stern, and Armide ranged alongside, a pistol-shot away. Too close to see all of her, but her row of cannons, larger than Topaze's, showed sharp and clear for a split heartbeat. They vanished behind a sudden cloud of exploding smoke, red flashes buried within—

  And no more bell-ringing slams. Hard crashing thunder, overhead, for'ard, all around, shatteringly loud. A voice shouted; another screamed. The gun crews ignored it all. They clapped onto the lines, just as they'd been trained to do, hauled the beasts back to the gunports, Staunton checked their aim, and the gun captains again jerked the lanyards—

  It couldn't go on, couldn't get louder. But it did. The repeater proved Captain Fleming's promise true: the crews fired faster, straighter, more accurately, when given an enemy target, no matter that the enemy was firing back. The smoke blew forward and there was a hole, several holes, smashed into Armide's side, two of her gunports battered into one larger, gaping mouth. At twenty-seven minutes past—

  What felt like a massive hand punched Topaze's hull, punched through it. Number fourteen recoiled unchecked and slammed backward through its ringbolts. In slow motion, too slow to be real, the monstrous long gun tumbled sideways off its truck and down, smashing to the deckboards and cartwheeling into the mainmast and starboard pump. Chunks of splintered wood flew. More voices cried out. The smoke blew away and far too much light lit the gun deck. The hull yawned open, solid oak shattered and torn, and beyond the opening Armide's equally battered side loomed—

  Abbot leaped over a match tub, snatched up a handspike, and thrust it under the loose cannon's barrel, pinning its wanton ton against the mainmast. He shouted words she couldn't hear; her ears were ringing, the din too loud. Two sailors whipped ropes around the brass monster and fastened it in place; another grabbed the enemy cannonball that rumbled about the deck and threw it overboard. Abbot shouted again, mouth moving but words inaudible as the for'ard and after batteries fired together. Willing hands lifted still forms off the deck, one writhing form, carried them past the bowsed monster and down the main ladder. The last one, visible in the unwonted sunlight, had dark sandy hair—

  Chandler. Difficult, touchy, irritating Chandler, who wanted to be made lieutenant more than he wanted to continue breathing, who yearned to blear Staunton's eye and who'd showed her little but contempt. Who couldn't conceal how hard he tried to be the best, and whose constant striving helped make all of them better.

  Awkward lout. But as Staunton had said, he was their awkward lout, a part of their little community, one of them. And the French had just done their utmost to kill him. To kill them all.

  They could not succeed. They wouldn't be allowed to succeed.

  The world seemed to whirl around her for a breathless, smoky moment, then settled back into place. Time resumed its normal course. Everything was as it should be. Clara shoved her pen, book, and inkhorn beneath the ladder. Without a word, she pushed through the gun crews to the thinned-out team surrounding number twelve, Biting Bruiser, and grabbed the abandoned rammer.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Powder smoke poured over the quarterdeck and Fleming sucked it in hard as he directed the battle. The crisp, clustered broadsides had shattered into individual guns firing at will. When he glanced down through the open hold's maw, the gun deck looked like a shadowy inferno, cascades of dark smoke shot through with stabbing scarlet flames and half-glimpsed figures laboring without pause. Overhead in the fighting tops, the tiny swivels barked, interspersed with the sharp flat cracks of rifled muskets as the Marines peppered Armide's upper deck. Hot, heavy, constant, a pounding that went on and on, illustrating the crew's bottled-up fury and sweeping any remaining compassion aside. Armide had hammered the Flirt beyond helplessness and probably murdered half her crew; the Topazes would not be content until they'd accomplished as much in return. During a brief, wind-swept moment of clarity, the powder smoke whipped aside and in the little clearing, Abbot coolly pistoled a French gunner through the hole punched in Armide's side, forcing a break in the enemy's fire.

  Armide fell away, as if staggering back from the rain of hammer blows. The master spun the wheel and Topaze chased her down. Flirt had fallen off the battle's starboard side, sagging across Armide's stern as if beyond control, and still not a breath of motion showed on her deck or masts. She was out of it, no longer a combatant. Fleming called for the sail-trimmers, thinning the gunners' ranks; it slowed Topaze's rate of fire, but if he could lay his frigate across the enemy's bow, he could rake Armide's upper deck, rake it as empty as Flirt's. Despite the Topazes' withering cannonade, whenever the smoke blew clear he still spied the French captain standing on his quarterdeck, directing his ship and crew, maddeningly hale and hearty.

  With t'gallants sheeted home Topaze surged ahead. Her firing thinned out, from the for'ard battery aft, as the guns no longer bore on their target, and the shattering din eased from fortissimo to forte. But across the water the French captain yelled a command, alien words in a powerful baritone shout, and before Topaze could gain enough searoom to turn Armide dropped her maincourse and matched her speed, cutting off the maneuver. The gunfire thundered again.

  Fleming countered with spilling the wind from Topaze's sails, jolting her to a standstill and rocking her masts like vertical whips; she accelerated into sternway, the quartermaster again spun the wheel, and Topaze backed around in a sweeping turn, aiming to cross Armide's stern instead and protect Flirt from further fire. Another incomprehensible French shout. But although Armide lost steerage and drifted backward, this time the French captain didn't try to match Topaze's turn. He let his frigate ease into Topaze's path, almost ramming the drifting Flirt with his stern, and a mass of sailors gathered on Armide's upper deck, too many for the swivel guns and sharpshooters to handle. Across the rapidly diminishing distance between the two ships, marlinspikes and boarding axes glinted, metallic and bright, in the crowd's hands.

  Despite the broiling tropical sun now beating down, despite the burning slow match and overheated guns, ice numbed Fleming from the inside out. He'd been too clever by half. Instead of crossing Armide's stern, she was crossing his. Topaze should be where the Flirt drifted, but instead she'd bump up against Armide's hull, that crowd would hook on with grapnels and fasten the two ships together, boarding over the taffrail, and instead of paying out Armide, his crew would have to fight for their lives and their ship. And he had one chance to stop it.

  "Grape!" he shouted at the stern chasers' gun crews. The starboard six pounder fired, recoiling to the ring bolts; the shot passed over the clustered Frenchmen and harmlessly vanished. Fleming grabbed the line and threw his weight against it, helping the crew hold the gun in. "Reload with grape! Sweep her deck before they can board us!"

  The gun captains nodded, eyeing the fast-closing gap between the ships as the swabbers cleaned the six pounders' gullets with wet mops. Instead of cannonballs, the crews loaded with grapeshot, clusters of smaller shot wrapped with canvas into tight packages. When the stern chasers were fired, the grapeshot would act as massive shotguns, spraying that crowd of boarders with dozens of two-inch iron balls. But the gap narrowed faster than the gun crews could scramble, faster than the rudder and wheel could turn her. Before the guns were ready, Fleming could hear the growl of French voices as the Armides worked themselves up for the charge. Panting and choking on the acrid smoke, he hauled on the line, putting his shoulders and back into the pull. The six pounders rolled toward the gunports. But mere feet now separated the ships. They'd never make it. His crew would be butchered and it was his fault. He gritted his teeth and pulled harder.

  Movement caught the corner of his eye. He tried to ignore it, tried to concentrate on running out the grape-shotted six pounders, their last hopeless hope. But the movement was wrong, in the wrong place. It wasn't aboard Topaze. Nor Armide. Unbelievably, it was the Flirt. Fleming straightened, the rope falling from his hands.

/>   An officer stood on the Flirt's devastated quarterdeck. Short; narrow shoulders; round head. Untidy, uncovered brown hair billowed in the still-strengthening breeze and a single golden epaulette glowed on his left shoulder through the smoke. A wet smear darkened the side of his face. But he stood, clear and proud, glaring at the Armide's taffrail. And impossibly, the muzzles of five cannons, run out and ready, stared with him.

  The pounding, yelling, roaring din of battle faded away. Fleming stared, a fiery joy welling up from his middle and flooding through him. Perhaps he could no longer hear; it felt as if the gun smoke cocooned him, rather like cotton wool. And perhaps the Armides noticed his fascination, for they swung aside, away from the helpless Topaze and toward this new, unexpected threat. The strange silence dragged on and the three ships seemed to stand still, defying wind and wave — Topaze frozen in place, the forgotten Flirt athwart Armide's hawse, double-shotted and itching for the stroke.

  Then Lamble yelled, "Fire!" The five cannons thundered as one. Heavy smoke billowed, covering Topaze's quarterdeck. Fleming choked, coughing on his next breath and stumbling, grabbing the taffrail, as Topaze crunched against Armide's beam. The boarders were coming. His cavalry saber was somehow in his hand. He braced, ready to swing. But the smoke cleared, blowing to leeward, and Armide's upper deck was shockingly empty.

  "On deck!" yelled the mainmast lookout. "She's struck! The Armide's striking her colors!"

  Indeed, the tricolor crept down Armide's mizzen shrouds. The French captain had surrendered. No boarders were coming; his crew was safe. The last of the smoke blew clear, revealing Lamble on his quarterdeck, the French captain on his, a strange, surreal gathering of ships and men.

  And he, Alexander Fleming, still stood astride Topaze. The battle was over and they had won. It was time to recover, rebuild, return to port.

  And serve out that bloody-minded French captain.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Cheering rolled for'ard from battery to battery, strangely muted after the thundering gunfire. On her knees in front of the tub, Clara breathed on the slow match, just enough to ensure it kept burning, and only when the red glow brightened did she glance up. The gun crews had left the guns and clustered around the scuttlebutts, filling the ladles and passing water from hand to cheerful hand. Smiles lit their soot-blackened faces, even the ones whose grime was shot through with horrible red streaks.

  "What is it?" she called. Staunton turned, a grin plastered across his face, and cupped one hand to his ear. Of course, he'd been deafened by the din, too. She took a deep breath and bellowed. "What's happening?"

  "She's struck!" Clearly he was yelling, too, but through her ears' numbness, he seemed to be whispering on the gun deck's far side, not standing feet from her. "The Frenchie's struck her colors!"

  His words were simple, but more than her ears were numb. Clara knelt, motionless. Staunton's meaning refused to penetrate her stunned senses, her suspended thoughts. She'd worked, moved, kept going during the battle, willingly inhibiting her self and responding to the demands of the job she'd undertaken. Now, even though it was quieter, the guns no longer firing, her mind hesitated to resume its primary role.

  But the gun crews' satisfied glee carried more weight than any mere words. They stood casually, finished with one job, preparing to begin another. The battle was over. They had won.

  She sat back on her heels and thumped onto the deckboards. They'd won. She'd fought, side by side with the members of her crew, and they'd won. She'd protected her little floating village, and they'd protected her, too. Mr. Abbot had drawn a pistol from his belt and shot a French gunner who'd aimed a cannon at her after meeting her glance through Biting Bruiser's shattered gunport. And the entire for'ard battery had centered their next few rounds on that gunner's location. She'd helped them, and they'd helped her. The Topazes really, truly considered her part of the crew.

  "How 'bout a nice drink, m'lady?" Wake knelt next to her, offering a ladle. A drop of water trickled down the side, rolled across his gnarled, blackened knuckles, and dripped to her skirt. It looked like heaven.

  She reached for the ladle, but he helped guide it to her mouth and tilted it for her. The water had warmed during the battle, but it glided across her parched throat like last night's red wine or even champagne. She drank swallow after swallow. Beyond Wake, the waiting sailors grinned at her and nodded, welcoming and satisfied. She grinned back, swiping at the water that dribbled down her chin. Black, blacker than mud. Of course; she'd fought with them and now she looked the same — covered in gunpowder soot and filthy. Even her sweet blue sailor dress was foul, and her hairpins had refused their duty, letting her locks fall across her shoulders. Well, no one seemed to mind.

  Least of all her. She'd wash. So would the dress, and hang to dry with the rest of the crew's laundry during make and mend.

  Mr. Abbot leaned over, his hand extended. "My lady, the captain's clerk will soon be needed on the quarterdeck. The French captain is coming aboard with his sword to surrender formally, and you'll need to take notes and enter it into the log. May I give you a hand?"

  Captain's clerk — the captain. Remembrance came flooding back, and with it a tremor of that raw, elemental fear. Captain Fleming, who'd stood on the quarterdeck with cannonballs flying past. Surely past; surely not…

  Mr. Abbot's fingers curled slightly, then straightened. "The captain's waiting, my lady."

  No lonely breakfast table; she sagged in place. But she still had her job to do. Clara accepted Mr. Abbot's hand and assistance; her knees for some inexplicable reason began trembling as her hearing returned, as if only now did they realize she'd been in the middle of the gun deck slaughterhouse, wielding a rammer and helping load a cannon while an enemy ship did its best to murder her.

  She had. Honestly, truly, she had. Harmony would never believe her and Diana would faint dead away. And it might be best if Uncle David and Aunt Helen never heard this particular tale. Leaning on the first lieutenant's arm, Clara giggled. Even he smiled at her. Even Mr. Abbot. The giggles threatened to take over and she bit her lip to stop them. She still had her job to do and couldn't break down yet.

  Book and inkhorn in hand, she danced up the aft ladder to the quarterdeck, into the brilliant, blissful sunshine. The storm had blustered well ahead and the steady, regular Atlantic rollers had returned. Boats plied between the three vessels, Topaze, Armide, and Flirt, the prize crews rowing over to take possession and the French officers and warrant officers coming aboard for their glum journey to England. Captains Fleming and Lamble bellowed at each across the yards separating the ships, rather like cheery bulls, discussing repairs and supplies. And wonder of wonders, Chandler dashed up the for'ard hatchway, bandages wrapped about his head and left arm slung to his side, glancing desperately about as if afraid he'd missed all the fun.

  Setting her book and inkhorn on the capstan, Clara yanked out the offending hairpins and combed fingers through her hair. Oh, but these snarls would never come out without a brush. A bump and accompanying growl from Mr. Abbot announced the arrival of a boat alongside, hooking on. She giggled and rolled another topknot, pegging it into position. Half the rigging shot away, a chunk blasted from the mizzen topmast, holes in the hull above the waterline, and he was worrying about the paintwork?

  Hard feelings still possessed the Topazes, despite their victory. Side ropes weren't shipped for the French captain, nor did the officers assemble for his reception. Mr. Abbot stood handy, hand on his reloaded pistol, calling orders to the crew already knotting and splicing the torn rigging, but Captain Fleming turned his back on the accommodation ladder and climbed to the quarterdeck. She shoved in the last hairpin, grabbed the book and inkhorn, and hurried to join him.

  He froze, staring at her with eyes wide and face slack. For a long, agreeable moment he seemed too stunned to speak. His glance over her poor little sailor dress couldn't help but notice the gunpowder stains, the tears and scorched burn holes from flying sparks. He knew where she'd bee
n, what she'd been doing. And his speechless astonishment, his mounting respect, crowned an already delightful morning.

  Finally he cleared his throat. "Captain's clerk, good to see you entire."

  Captain's clerk. Not Lady Clara. Something in her chest swelled until she couldn't possibly contain it, and she smiled. "You as well, Captain Fleming." Although his skin and Guernsey frock, too, were blackened with soot, he didn't appear to be so much as scratched.

  "Well, then, we're ready to work, are we?" He rubbed his hands down his thighs, bumping his sheathed saber. "Even if we aren't, let's put up a bold front for our good and dear friend, the ruddy grass-combing dishonorable villain."

  Meaning the French captain who'd ordered the Flirt's pounding. She'd be ready to receive him, all right. With hasty fingers she opened the inkhorn and book, loaded her pen, and noted down the time. Only then did she turn.

  A dark bicorne hat, crumpled at the brim and worn in the modern fore-and-aft fashion, rose above the railing, followed by a shaggy headful of short auburn curls, the face turned aside and lowered as if watching the boats plying between the ships. Gold epaulettes and orange stand-up collar, midnight blue velvet dress coat with a double row of gold buttons and gold lace — the dratted man, he'd clearly grabbed a few minutes and dressed for the occasion, and now he had a social advantage over their battlefield shoddiness. Spotless white breeches, black Hessian boots with little tassels bouncing in front. A curved saber sheathed at his side. The French captain ducked his head as he climbed over the railing, then stood straight on the gangway and turned to face the quarterdeck.