Larcum Mudge (Alexander Clay Series Book 8)

by Philip K Allan

  Compared with the perfectly aligned ranks of Macpherson’s marines on the quarterdeck, the sailors appeared to be little more than a jostling crowd, but he could see the underlying organisation. Preston and Hutchinson stood on the forecastle at the head of their men. The lieutenant was pulling his sword part-way out from its scabbard, to check it was free, while a hefty axe dangled from the boatswain’s fist. Blake’s gun crews were arranged in their divisions, each gathered around their petty officers, armed and ready. He could see the huge figure of Evans, who had pulled himself up into the main chains and was flexing a cutlass in an arc of silver to test the blade. Beside him was Mudge, looking more like a pirate than a Royal Navy sailor with two pistols stuffed into his waistband and the gold hoop in his ear catching the sun as the last of the smoke rolled clear.

  With torn canvas flapping and a troubled bow wave gurgling and fretting around the trailing remains of her bowsprit, the Griffin eased across towards the Centaure. The French ship was in a dreadful state. The top of her foremast had been torn free, leaving only her long bowsprit untouched by the fight. The white strakes on her side were grey with powder stains, and punched full of holes. Several of her guns were missing from the open ports, others hung at drunken angles, but still she fought on. A giant tricolour flapped from the remains of her mizzen mast, the red fly torn in places but the colours bright in the sunshine.

  Fifty yards separated the two ships, the strip of sapphire-blue water shrinking all the time. Only the Daring continued to fire. She lay across the big ship’s stern, apparently undamaged by the battle, still raking her opponent from end to end. Beyond the hull of the French ship, Clay could see the clumped ruins of the Stirling rigging. Her main mast had vanished completely, as had much of her fore topmast.

  Forty yards to go. A figure appeared at Clay’s shoulder, and he felt cold metal pressed into his hand. ‘I just been an’ renewed the priming, sir,’ rumbled a low voice. ‘Got the other one for when you have need of it.’ Clay hefted the pistol in front of him, checked it was uncocked and then pushed it into the left-hand pocket of his coat.

  ‘Thank you, Sedgwick,’ he said, looking around at where his coxswain stood with the rest of Clay’s barge crew, massed at his back.

  Thirty yards now. The bang and crack of small arms drifted towards them from somewhere out of sight, together with a low grumbling roar, as of a distant crowd.

  ‘Where the devil are the French, sir?’ asked Taylor. ‘I can hear them, plainly enough.’

  ‘I dare say most will be aboard the Stirling,’ replied Clay. ‘We shall come at them presently.’

  ‘Corporal Edwards, have the men fix bayonets,’ ordered Macpherson, somewhere to his left. Edwards yelled the order with unnecessary violence, and the rasp of steel was followed by the double click as they were locked into place.

  Twenty yards, and faces appeared on board the enemy, looking down over the rail at them. Alarmed faces, their eyes wide and mouths round as they cried warnings. Scared faces, vanishing as quickly as they appeared. Determined faces, levelling muskets towards the approaching enemy. Several puffs of smoke blossomed, although where the hasty shots went, Clay couldn’t tell. The gun ports of the Centaure’s upper battery were just below him, and he found his gaze held by a scared-looking ship’s boy as he peered back at the approaching frigate.

  Ten yards, and a solitary gun bellowed out from low on the Centaure’s hull, followed immediately by the crash of the shot striking home.

  ‘Another wee dint for Mr Kennedy to attend to,’ muttered Macpherson to Taylor. The rail of the enemy ship was above them and the air filled with snaking lines as grappling hooks were hurled across and then drawn tight. Someone came clattering up the ladderway behind Clay, breathing heavily.

  ‘I trust you’re not proposing to board that monster without me, sir,’ said Armstrong. Clay looked around and grinned at the sailing master. He wore no coat, and his left arm was bound across his chest in a sling, but he had his sword by his side.

  ‘Make free to join us if you are able to scramble across, Jacob,’ said Clay, indicating the difference in height between the two ships. ‘Or you can stay here with Mr Taylor?'

  ‘If young Preston can do so with no arm, I daresay I shall manage, sir,’ growled the American. ‘Perhaps Tom will favour me with a brace of his stouter red coats to hurl me.’

  With a squealing judder the hulls came together. Clay grabbed his sword and swept it out. It was a magnificent weapon, given to him after the Battle of the Nile. The pommel was the shape of a snarling lion’s head, and the blue steel blade was razor sharp. Then he pulled himself into the mizzen chains, where he was visible to all his men. From that height he could see across to the Stirling. She too was close against the other side, locked to the Centaure by the tangled mass of her fallen main mast that lay across the two ships. On the British ship’s upper deck, a fierce fight raged. Puffs of gun smoke rose above the struggling melee, and steel flashed in the sunshine.

  ‘Away Griffins!’ he yelled. ‘Make her ours, lads!’ Then he flung himself across the gap between the ships and scrambled on board. With a roar, his men followed at his heels, in a wave of fury.

  *****

  Evans was one of the first to follow his captain across, but he had underestimated how tired he was. His leap only just reached the lip of the Centaure’s main chains, and he barked his shin painfully against one of the deadeyes. For an endless moment, he thought he would fall down into the trench between the hulls. Two French sailors were on the deck below him, one looking aghast, the other scrabbling to pull out his pistol. Evans felt his flailing left arm latch onto one of the shrouds, and he heaved his bodyweight forwards. Then he was on them. He led with his cutlass, holding it stiffly ahead, like a lance, aimed at the man with the pistol. He felt his arm jar as the tip struck deep, knocking the Frenchman backwards. Evans swept the blade out and rounded on the other sailor, but he was already down, with Mudge standing over the body, a smoking pistol in his hand. The rush of men following them swept past, quickly overwhelming the few opponents who remained on the abandoned gangway.

  ‘Give me a fecking hand there!’ demanded O’Malley’s voice from behind them. Evans peered over the rail, and saw the Irishman clinging to the outside of the ship. Evans and Mudge leant over, each grabbing a fistful of their shipmate’s trousers, and dragged him unceremoniously on board. ‘Cheers lads,’ he gasped, as Trevan helped him to his feet. ‘I was that bushed, I missed my fecking leap.’

  The jostling crowd of sailors dithered, wondering what to do next. They had been keyed up to a high pitch of ferocity as their frigate ground alongside the enemy, and they now sought for an outlet. Boarding an enemy ship normally meant a fierce battle, desperate resistance, and finally the surrender of the overwhelmed enemy. But this attack had been all too easy. The few dozen opponents manning the side had been swept away in an instant, leaving the victors milling in confusion.

  Evans stooped to peer down onto the upper gundeck, searching for the enemy, but could only see lines of abandoned guns, with fallen bodies lying among the debris.

  ‘Where has all the bleeding Frogs gone!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Some of the feckers are up in the bow,’ said O’Malley, pointing to where Preston’s men were driving the enemy back across the forecastle. The boatswain was leading, swinging his axe around him, endangering friends almost as readily as he was dispatching foes.

  ‘Nar!’ exclaimed Trevan. ‘That mill be all but over. The Frenchie hasn’t been born as can stand up to old Hutchinson in a passion.’

  ‘This way, Griffins,’ called the voice of Blake, pushing his way through the crowd. ‘Follow me!’

  The men surged along the gangway after him and fanned out onto the broad quarterdeck of the Centaure. Here the afterguard was battling a much larger crowd of French sailors gathered around the wheel. A young officer with a thin black moustache was locked in a fight with Clay, their swords clashing and flickering, while Armstrong laid about him in a str
ange, one-armed fashion. Farther back was Macpherson at the head of his marines, trying to force their way up the narrow ladderway to the elevated poop deck at the stern of the ship. A line of his men busily fired up at the mass of French marines who defended the top of the steps. Over the poop floated the enormous tricolour.

  ‘Here we bleeding go!’ exclaimed Evans, racing forward to loom over the nearest French sailor, a thin man with bright red hair who was holding his own against Midshipman Russell. Suddenly faced with two opponents, he tried to jump clear, but the Londoner’s reach was too long for him. He lunged across the deck, landing a savage cutlass blow, and the man went down with a cry of pain. More and more British sailors were pouring across the deck and falling on the group by the wheel. For an instant the French line held, but then the sheer weight of opponents overwhelmed them. Several were killed or wounded, and the rest fell back.

  Off to Evans’s right, the French officer fighting Clay sprang back from his opponent and placed his sword down on the planking.

  ‘Je me rends,’ he cried out, his voice choked, holding both hands out in token of surrender. Tears streamed down the youngster’s cheeks. The silence that followed was ended by a prolonged clatter as the French sailors around him dropped their weapons. Sedgwick darted past his captain to recover the sword and brought it back to him.

  ‘Do you surrender the ship, sir?’ demanded Clay.

  ‘Non, monsieur,’ said the young man, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. ‘I cannot. I only Enseigne.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Clay quietly. He held out a hand and touched the Frenchman’s sleeve, but the officer pulled away. ‘Where is your captain?’ he continued.

  ‘He dies,’ said the officer, sadly. ‘When first your big ship shoot at us. First Lieutenant Senard captain, now.’ The officer jerked a thumb towards the ongoing melee on the Stirling.

  ‘Mr Armstrong, take command, if you please. Kindly secure these prisoners,’ ordered Clay. ‘And send Macpherson and his marines after us once he has taken the poop. The rest of you, come with me.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ said the American.

  The tears of the young officer seemed to have calmed the men of the Griffin, as they followed their tall captain across to the far side of the deck. Here the damage to the French ship was colossal. The Stirling had hammered her opponent from very close range, and the men picked their way across planking strewn with splinters and fragments of oak, discarded equipment, fallen blocks and lines from above and the bodies of the slain. The main mast of the Stirling lay at an angle across the whole, festooned with shattered spars, torn sail and a spider’s web of cables. Evans hesitated as he found his way blocked by the enormous column, groaning and creaking as the two hulls rocked beneath it.

  ‘Move yer fecking arse, Sam,’ said O’Malley, as the men backed up behind the big Londoner.

  ‘Look lively there, Evans,’ ordered his petty officer.

  ‘It don’t seem quite safe, Mr Fletcher,’ said the sailor. He rested one hand on the mast, and felt a trembling as it shifted under his hand.

  ‘If it was safe you was after, you’ve chosen the wrong bleeding calling. Now shift yourself!’

  ‘It be fine, Sam, lad,’ said Trevan, pushing past him. ‘Just you follow close astern.’ The sailor ducked down beneath the massive pillar, and crawled away out of sight. After a hesitation, Evans followed him. For a long moment the mast was above him, and he could sense its colossal, crushing weight. Then he was through.

  ‘Bleeding hell, that were passing strange,’ he said, wiping the sweat from his brow. ‘A deck full of murderous Frogs don’t see to trouble me, but that piece of lumber gave me a proper turn.’

  One by one, the men filtered through the wreckage of the fallen mast to join their captain on the far side of the French ship. Here they found themselves staring across at a vicious fight that ebbed and flowed over the deck of the Stirling. The British flagship lay close alongside. Its hull was almost the same height as the Centaure, with only the curved tumblehome of the two vessels creating a gap the width of a modest ditch. Like the occupants of a neighbouring field, they looked over the rail at the packed crowd of struggling bodies. The first to arrive began to pull themselves up onto the thwarts, eager to press on, but Clay held them back.

  ‘Steady there, lads!’ he ordered. ‘Belay that! Wait until we have the numbers to answer.’ Just in front of them, a red-coated marine was stabbing at a French sailor with his bayonet, only for each thrust to be knocked aside by the man’s cutlass. Beside him another sailor turned to hack at the British soldier, but before he could land his blow a pistol cracked out from further back in the melee, and he fell to the deck. Then the nearest French sailors were starting to look around at the new arrivals. One shouted a warning, and another tried to disentangled himself from an opponent so he could turn and fire his pistol in their direction.

  More and more Griffins came streaming through, but their captain continued to hold them back. The fight ahead seemed finely poised. Black French soldiers struggled with marines, cutlasses flashed in the low shafts of light from the dropping sun that penetrated through the smoke and battered rigging. Just beside Clay two sailors broke out from the throng, one wrestling around the other, each with a hand locked about the wrist of their opponent’s sword arm. Up on the flagship’s lofty poop, Montague could be seen, surrounded by his staff, barking instructions to the men beneath him. The waiting sailors shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.

  ‘Steady, lads,’ repeated Clay, as more and more men joined them. ‘Ah, Mr Preston,’ he called. ‘You and Mr Hutchinson, take your men forward. But wait for my signal.’

  The sailors were spreading out along the rail, two and three deep, and still Clay held them back. More faces were turning towards them from on board the Stirling. A black corporal barked an instruction and a ragged line of soldiers began to form facing towards them. Close to the ship’s wheel, Clay could see Captain Thompson, sword aloft, leading a counterattack of sailors, all armed with boarding pikes. Pistols banged towards them, and a sailor near to Evans fell back.

  ‘Hold fast, Griffins,’ urged Clay, his voice firm.

  Then something changed, behind them. More light seemed to be falling on the deck, and many more of those on board the flagship were looking towards them. No, not at them, Evans decided, but above them. There was despair on some of the faces, and jubilation on others.

  ‘What the feck are we waiting for?’ protested O’Malley.

  ‘Look! Over there,’ said Evans, pointing.

  The Centaure’s enormous tricolour gave a last, languid flap as it came tumbling down the broken mizzen, and settled in huge folds across the poop deck. One third of it was as deep a blue as the sea around them, while the white and red parts were a match for the coats and cross belts of the line of marines who tailed on the halliard, hauling the flag down. The collective groan that arose from the French boarders on the Stirling was quickly drowned by the renewed cheers of the defenders. Macpherson stood on the high poop deck and swept his sword up in front of his face in a salute towards Clay, who turned back to his men.

  ‘Now is your time, Griffins! Boarders away!’ he yelled, and the men of the frigate swept across onto the flagship, driving the surviving crew of the Centaure before them.

  *****

  The following day, the great cabin of the Griffin had been reassembled around Clay, with all his familiar furniture back in the usual places. His desk was positioned just where he liked it, with the light from the cabin windows falling across the surface. From his chair he had only to glance up to see the full-length portrait of Lydia hanging once more on the bulkhead opposite.

  Much had also changed, however. The light flooding in was less than before, with three of the seven windows that ran across the stern of the frigate boarded up; and the paintwork around the cabin’s two eighteen-pounders was smudged grey from gun smoke. Crude squares of lead sheeting had been nailed to the far cabin wall to cover the jagged holes punched throug
h the ship’s side by French cannon. One of the shots had scored a path across the deck, ending close to a dark stain on the planking that must mark where one of his crew had died.

  Clay picked up the report of casualties supplied to him by the surgeon and ran a finger down the list, recalling to mind the face behind each name picked out in Corbett’s crabbed hand. He paused at one, David O’Brien, gun captain. He would have been standing in just that spot, manning the aftmost eighteen-pounder when they drew alongside the enemy.

  He rose from behind his desk, remembering the cheerful Irish sailor, and stared out on the frigate’s wake. It was a gentle stream, as the line of ships moved towards Antigua at the speed of the most battered. His vision was filled by the spreading bow of the Centaure once more, the one part that had survived relatively unscathed. The elegant sweep of the headrails curved towards him, meeting just behind the tall, rearing figurehead, all glaring eyes and curling beard. High up in the foremast, the ship’s big tricolour was back, this time streaming beneath a Royal Navy ensign. A long, shuddering pulse of silver splashed out from the side, where her pumps struggled to hold back the water flooding on board. From somewhere behind him he could hear the mournful clank of his own ship’s chain pump. Not long to go, he reminded himself. They should make English Harbour shortly after dawn tomorrow, even at this pace. Thoughts of Antigua reminded him of other matters he needed to resolve on board. He turned from the stern windows.

  ‘Harte!’ he called.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said his steward, coming through from the coach.

  ‘My compliments to Mr Taylor, and would he send Larcum Mudge to me.’

  ‘Mudge, sir?’ queried Harte. ‘What, that lanky bloke, in the larboard watch?’

  ‘I can’t believe we can possibly have more than one man of that name on the ship,’ said his captain.