A King's Cutter nd-2

by Richard Woodman

  Griffiths recalled him to the present. 'She'll be stuffed full of men, Nathaniel, you be damned careful, the French overman to the extent we sail shorthanded… What have you in mind to attempt?' Griffiths struggled on to one elbow. 'It had better convince me, otherwise I'll not allow you to carry it out.'

  Drinkwater swallowed. This was a damned inconvenient moment for a return of the old man's faculties. 'Well sir, Sir John has approved…'

  'Damn Sir John, Nathaniel. Don't prevaricate. The question is do I approve it?'

  Six paces forward, six paces aft. Up and down, up and down, Diamond's bell chiming the half hours until it was several minutes overdue. 'Light's out in Diamond's cabin, sir.' It was Nicholls, the poor lookout, sent aft to interrupt Drinkwater's train of thought.

  Smith was to signal which side of Diamond the Kestrel was to pass as soon as his officers, from the loftier height of her foremast, made out the enemy dispositions. 'Call all hands, there, all hands to general quarters!'

  Minutes passed, then: 'Two lights, sir!'

  So it was to larboard, to the eastward that they were to go. He gave his orders. Course was altered and the sheets trimmed. They began to diverge and pass the frigate, shaking out the reef that had held them back while Diamond shortened sail. Giving the men a few moments to make their preparations Drinkwater slipped below.

  'Enemy's in sight, sir…' Griffiths opened his eyes. His features were sunk, yellow in the lamplight, like old parchment. But the voice that came from him was still resonant. 'Be careful, boy-o,' he said with almost paternal affection, raising a wasted hand over the rim of the cot. Drinkwater shook it in an awkward, delicate way. 'Take my pistols there, on the settee…' Drinkwater checked the pans. 'They're all ready, Nathaniel, primed and ready,' the old man said behind him. He stuck them in his belt and left the cabin. On deck he buckled on his sword and went round the hands. The men were attentive, drawing aside as he approached, muttering 'good lucks' amongst themselves and assuring him they knew what to do. As he walked aft again a new mood swept over him. He no longer envied White. He was in a goodly company, knew these men well now, had been accepted by them as their leader. A tremendous feeling of exhilaration coursed through him so strongly that for a moment he remained staring aft, picking out the pale streak of their wake while he recovered himself. Then he thought of Elizabeth, her kiss and parting remark: 'Be careful, my love…' So like Griffiths's and tonight so enormously relevant. He was on the verge of breaking that old promise of circumspection and giving way to recklessness. Then, unhidden, a fragment of long past conversation rose like flotsam on the whirlpool of his brain. 'I have heard it said, 'Appleby had averred, 'that a man who fails to feel fear when going into action is usually wounded… as though some nervous defence is destroyed by reckless passion which in itself presages misfortune…'

  Drinkwater swallowed hard and walked forward. Mindful of his sword and the loaded pistols in his belt, he began to slowly ascend the rigging, staring ahead for a sight of the enemy.

  'Make ready! Make ready there!' The word was passed in sibilantly urgent whispers. 'Aft there, steer two points to larboard! Larboard guns train as far forrard as you can!'

  And then the need for silence was gone as, a mile west of them a ragged line of fire erupted into the night where one of the frigates loosed off her broadside. The rolling thunder of her discharge came downwind to them.

  Drinkwater could see the lugger clearly now. He stood on the rail, one hand round the huge running backstay. She was beating up to cover a barque, presumably one of the storeships. He ordered the course altered a little more and noted where the sheets were trimmed.

  At three hundred yards the lugger opened fire, revealing herself as a well-served chasse marée of about ten guns. Drinkwater held his fire.

  'When your guns bear, open fire.' Men tensed in the darkness as he said: 'Luff her!'

  Kestrel's sails shivered as she turned into the wind. The crash and recoiling rumble of the guns exploded down her larboard side. Forward a bosun's mate had the jib backed, forcing the cutter on to her former tack. As she closed the chasse marée Drinkwater studied his opponent for damage, wondering if the specially prepared broadside had done anything.

  It was impossible to say for certain but he heard shouts and screams and already his own gun captains were reporting themselves ready. He waited for Jessup commanding the battery. 'All ready Mr Drinkwater!'

  'Luff her!'

  A hundred yards range now and a flash and crash, a scream and a flurry of bodies where the Frenchman's broadside struck, then Kestrel fired back and steadied for the final assault on the enemy. As the last few yards were eaten up Drinkwater was aware of a furious exchange of fire where Arethusa and the brig-corvette engaged; then he snapped: 'Boarders!'

  The cutter was gathering way, heading straight for the lugger. The French commander was no sluggard and sought to rake her. A storm of shot swept Kestrel's deck. Grape and langridge forced Drinkwater's eyes tight shut as the whine and wind of its passing whistled about him. Thumps, shouts and screams forced his eyes open again. Soon they must run on board of the lugger… would the distance never lessen?

  He could hear shouts of alarm coming from the Frenchman then he felt the deck tremble under his feet as Kestrel's bowsprit went over the lugger's rail with a twanging of the bobstay. Then the deck heeled as a rending crash told where her stem bit into the enemy's chains and Kestrel slewed round. The guns fired again as they bore and the two hulls jarred together.

  'Boarders away!'

  The noise that came from forward was of a different tenor now as the Kestrels left their guns and swept over the rail. Forward and aft lashings were caught round the lugger's rufftree rail and the two ships ground together in the swell.

  Drinkwater leapt across the gap, stepped on the lugger's rail and landed on the deck. He was confronted by two men whose features were pale blurs. He remembered his own orders and screamed through clenched teeth. Behind him the two helmsmen came aboard, their faces blackened, like his own, by soot from the galley funnel.

  Drinkwater fired his pistol at the nearer Frenchman and jabbed his hanger at the other. They vanished and a man in front thrust at him with a boarding pike. He parried awkwardly, sliding on the deck, taking the thrust through his coat sleeve and driving the muzzle of the discharged pistol into the man's exposed stomach. His victim doubled over and Drinkwater savagely struck at the nape of his neck with the pommel of his sword. Something gave beneath the ferocity of the blow and like a discarded doll the man dropped into the anonymous darkness of the bloody deck.

  He moved on and three, then four men were in front of him. He slashed with the hanger, hurled the pistol at another then whipped the second from his belt. Pulling the trigger the priming flashed but it misfired and with a triumphant yell the man leapt forward. Drinkwater was through the red-rimmed barrier of fighting madness now. His brain worked with cool rapidity, emotionless. He began to crouch instinctively, to turn his head away in a foetal position, but his passive submission was deceptive; made terrible by the sword. Bringing the hilt down into his belly, the blade ran vertically upwards between his right ear and shoulder. He sensed the man slash at where he had been, felt him stumble on to the exposed sword-blade in the confusion. Drinkwater thrust with his legs, driving upwards with a cracking of back muscles. Supported by fists, belly and shoulder the disembowelling blade thrust deep into the man's guts, through his diaphragm and into his lungs. Half crouched, with the dying Frenchman collapsed about his shoulder, he felt the sword nick his own ear. The weight of the body sliding down his back dragged the hanger over his shoulder and he tore it clear with both hands as another man pointed a pistol at his exposed left flank. The blade came clear as the priming flashed. In a terrible swipe the steel scythed round as the pistol discharged.

  Drinkwater never knew where the ball went. Maybe in the confusion the fellow had forgotten to load it or it had been badly wadded and rolled out. Nevertheless his face bore tiny blue spots wher
e the grains of spent powder entered his flesh. His left eye was bruised from the shock wave and blinded by yellow light but he went on hacking at the man, desperately beating him to the deck.

  Drinkwater reeled from the discharge of the pistol, his head spinning. The other men had disappeared, melted away. The faces round him were vaguely familiar and he no longer had the strength to raise his arm and strike at them. It had fallen silent. Oddly silent. Then Jessup appeared and Drinkwater was falling. Arms caught him and he heard the words 'Congratulations, sir, congratulations…' But it was all a long way off and oddly irrelevant and Elizabeth was giving him such an odd, quizzical look.

  When he awoke he was aware that he was in the cabin of Kestrel and that pale daylight showed through the skylight. He was bruised in a score of places, stiff and with a raging headache. A pale shape fluttered round other men, prone like himself. One, on the cabin table all bloody and trembling, the pale form, ghostly in a dress of white bent over him. Drinkwater saw the body arch, heard a thin, high whimper which tailed to a gurgle and the body relaxed. For a second he expected Hortense Montholon to round on him, a grey-eyed Medusa, barbering in hell and he groaned in primaeval fear, but it was only Griffiths probing a wound who looked round, the front of his nightshirt stiff with blood. Drinkwater realised he could only see through one eye, that a crust of dried blood filled his right ear. He tried to sit up, feeling his head spin.

  'Ah, Mr Drinkwater, you are with us again…' Drinkwater got himself into a sitting position. Griffiths nodded to the biscuit barrel on the locker. 'Take some biscuits and a little cognac… you will mend in an hour or so.' Drinkwater complied, avoiding too protracted a look at the several wounded lying gasping about the cabin.

  'A big butcher's bill, Mr Drinkwater, Diamond's surgeon is coming over… Eight killed and fifteen wounded badly…' A hint of reproach lay in Griffiths's eyes.

  'But the lugger, sir?' Drinkwater found his voice a croak and remembered himself screaming like a male banshee.

  'Rest easy, you took the lugger.' Griffiths finished bandaging a leg and signalled the messman to drag the inert body clear of the table. 'When you've recovered yourself I want you to take charge of her, Jessup's fitting things up at the moment. I've my own reasons for not wanting a frigate's mate sent over.'

  On deck Drinkwater looked about him. It was quite light now and the wind was freshening. The squadron was hove to, the coast of France blue grey to the south of them. Arethusa and Diamond lay-to apparently unscathed, as were the two transports. But the French corvette, her tricolour fluttering beneath the British ensign, had lost a topmast, was festooned in loose rigging with a line of gunports opened into one enormous gash. Her bulwarks were cut up and she had about her an air of forlorn hopelessness.

  Kestrel's own deck showed signs of enemy fire. A row of stiffened hammocks lay amidships, eight of them. Her bulwarks were jagged with splinters while aloft her topmast was wounded and her topsail yard hung down in two pieces which banged against the mast as she rolled. A party of men were lowering the spar to the deck.

  Tregembo rolled up, a grin on his face. 'We did for 'em proper 'andsome, zur.' He nodded cheerfully to starboard where eighty yards distant the lugger lay a shambles. Her rails were almost entirely shot away. That first, double-shotted broadside had been well laid. With her rails had gone the chains and she had rolled her topmasts over the side. Tendrils of blood could still be seen running down her brown sides.

  'Oh, my God,' whispered Drinkwater to himself.

  'Ay, there'll be some widders in St Malo tonight I'm thinking, zur…'

  'How many were killed aboard her, Tregembo, d'you know?' Drinkwater asked, knowing the mutual comprehension of the Cornish and Bretons.

  'I heard she had ninety-four zouls on board, zur, an' we counted four dozen still on their legs. Mr Jezup's got his mate Short over there along of him, keeping order.' Tregembo smiled again. Short was the more ruthless of Kestrel's two bosun's mates and on a bigger ship would have become a brutal bully. 'Until you'm ready to take over, zur.' Tregembo concluded with relish. Mr Drinkwater had been a veritable fury in last night's fight. He had been just the same in the last war, Tregembo had told his cronies, a terrible man once he got his dander up.

  The boat bearing Diamond's surgeon arrived and Appleby climbed wearily aboard. He stared at Drinkwater unblinking, shaking his head in detached disapproval as he looked about the bloody deck.

  'Devil's work, Nathaniel, damned devil's work,' was all he said by way of greeting and Drinkwater was too tired to answer as Appleby had his bag passed up. He took passage in Diamond's boat across to the lugger.

  The shambles apparent from Kestrel's deck was ten times worse upon that of the lugger. In an exhausted state Drinkwater stumbled round securing loose gear, assessing the damage and putting the chasse marée in a fit state to make sail. He avoided the sullen eyes of her captive crew and found himself staring at a small bundle of bunting. It was made fast to the main flag halyards and stirred something in his brain but he was interrupted by a boat from Flora. Kestrel was to escort the prizes to Portsmouth, among them the lugger. At noon the British frigates stood westward, the prizes north-northeast.

  It was late afternoon before Drinkwater emerged from the brief but deep sleep of utter exhaustion. He was slumped in a chair and woke to surroundings unfamiliar enough to jar his brain into rapid recollection. As he emerged into full consciousness he was aware of a fact that needed urgent clarification. He rushed on deck, ignoring the startled look of the two helmsmen. He found what he was looking for amidships and pulled the black flag from where it had been shoved on lowering. He held it out and the wind caught it, fluttering the soft woollen material and arousing the attention of three of the Bretons exercising forward.

  It was a black swallowtail flag.

  'Mr Short!'

  'Sir?' Short hurried up.

  'What's the name of the lugger?'

  Short scratched his head. 'Er Cityee-en Jean, I think sir.'

  'Citoyenne Janine?'

  'Yeah, that's it, sir.' The man nodded his curly head.

  'Where's her commander? Who was in charge when we took her? Is Tregembo in the prize crew?'

  Short recoiled at the rapid questioning. 'Well, sir, that blackguard there, sir.' He pointed at a man standing by the forward gun. 'As to Tregembo, sir, he ain't in the crew, sir…'

  'Damn. Bring that man aft here…' Drinkwater unhitched the black flag as Short shoved the man aft. He wore a plain blue coat and while not very senior, was clearly an officer of sorts.

  'Ôu est vôtre capitaine?' he asked in his barbarous French. The Frenchman frowned in incomprehension and shrugged.

  'Vôtre capitaine?' Drinkwater almost shouted.

  Understanding woke in the man, and also perhaps a little cunning, Drinkwater thought. 'Mon capitaine?' he said with some dignity. 'M'sieur, je suis le capitaine.'

  Drinkwater held the flag under his nose. 'Qu'est-ce que c'est?' He met the Frenchman's eyes and they looked at each other long enough for Drinkwater to know he was right. Even as the Frenchman shrugged again Drinkwater had turned aft.

  He noticed the aftermost guns turned inboard, each with a seaman stationed with a lighted match ready to sweep the waist. Drinkwater did not remember turning any guns inboard but Short seemed in total control and relishing it. The presence of Kestrel on the weather beam was reassuring and Drinkwater called 'Carry on Mr Short,' over his shoulder as he slid down the companionway, leaving the startled Short gaping after him while the Frenchman turned forward, a worried frown on his face.

  Below, Drinkwater began to ransack the cabin. It had two cots one of which was in use. He flung open a locker door and found some justification for his curiosity. Why did the skipper of a small lugger have a bullion-laden naval uniform, along with several other coats cut with the fashionable high collar?

  With a sense of growing conviction Drinkwater pulled out drawers and ripped the mattress off the cot. His heart was beating with excitement and i
t was no surprise when he found the strong box, carefully hidden under canvas and spunyarn beneath the stern settee. Without hesitation he drew a pistol and shot off the lock. Before he could open it Short was in the doorway, panting and eager for a fight.

  To Drinkwater he looked ridiculous but his presence was reassuring.

  'Obliged to you Mr Short but there's nothing amiss. I'm just blowing locks off this fellow's cash box,' Short grinned. 'If there's anything in it, Mr Short, you'll get your just deserts.'

  'Aye, aye, sir.' Short closed the door and Drinkwater expelled his breath. At least with such a maniac on board there was little chance of being surprised by the enemy attempting to retake their ship. He dismissed the memory of similar circumstances aboard Algonquin. When one sailed close to the wind the occasional luff was easily dismissed. Provided one avoided a dismasting.

  He opened the box. There was money in it. English money. Sovereigns, guineas and coins of small denominations. There were also a number of charts rolled up and bound with tape. They were charts of the English coast, hand-done on linen-backed paper with the carefully inscribed legend of the French Ministry of Marine. A small signal book with a handwritten code was tied up with a bundle of letters. These Drinkwater gave only a cursory glance, for something else had caught his eye, something which he might almost have imagined himself to have been looking for had not the notion been so improbable.

  It was a single letter, written in a female hand on rice paper and bound with a thin plait of hair. Human hair.

  And the hair was an unmistakable auburn.

  Chapter Seven

  An Insignificant Cruiser

  December 1794-August 1795