Argent looked up at the feverish activity above him, at the surreal picture of another ship’s bowsprit piercing his own rigging. He had no fear of being boarded, his Marines were maintaining an incessant fire onto the Frenchman’s forecastle and the quarterdeck carronade was being rapidly reloaded. His fear was of the second French frigate, now chasing up, having made her turn. His ship was held fast. Some grapnels were coming over, but these were quickly severed; however, if the bowsprit was not freed, the second frigate would be up on their starboard side and they would certainly be lost; it would be merely a matter of time. His own guns roared again, they had beaten the French to the second broadside, but that was of no matter if they could not cut themselves free. He looked up, the job was not done; he looked astern, the second frigate was but minutes away. He seized a speaking trumpet and leaned over to see Sanders anxiously peering down the gundeck.
“Mr. Sanders. Starboard battery to train full aft. Fire as they bear. Larboard battery, double shot; wait for my order.”
The Frenchman fired again and he felt the shot hit his ship, but the broadside seemed ragged and less potent, his guncrews’ two broadsides had inflicted significant damage on their French opponent. He looked up again, but the righting of the ship’s deck confirmed what he could now see. The bowsprit was free and was moving astern, Fraser and Ball, in destructive farewell, axing apart much of the French rigging on the departing bowsprit. All other ropes in its path had been severed, including the vital larboard mizzen backstays, but no matter for now. He leaned over the rail.
“Mr. Sanders. Ladboard battery. As a broadside, fire!”
Obedient to Sanders orders, the guns crashed out as one. Such was the weight of shot hitting the Frenchman that it physically moved him sideways and the gap grew between the hulls. The Marines continued to maintain their fire, calmly encouraged by Breakspeare, although, Argent noted, with a torrent of the vilest language, but Argent had to get his ship moving. Fraser, Ball and a collection of seamen were lashing several splints onto the severed ends of the backstays, holding them together was a vital task if they were to use the sails on the mizzen mast, especially the driver. If it didn’t hold, in the strong wind the mast would be over the side and they would be lost. The wind worked on the sails, now more in number, as the topmen, without orders, set everything they could. Ariadne slowly gained way, some sails remaining slack as those of the Frenchman robbed them of their wind, but in succession each slack sail gained the wind as they moved forward of their immediate opponent, and then each began to draw. The French fired again, but this time reduced further. His men had won their duel but now Ariadne had a duel with time, could she gain enough speed quickly enough to remain ahead of the second French frigate? This ship was now up and within cannonshot range if her Captain chose to turn downwind and bring around his larboard broadside, rather than stand on his current course to overtake.
Ariadne was accelerating. Fraser and Ball looked anxiously at their splints as the mizzen sails took the wind. Mizzen topmen were attaching extra ropes from the stays to any fixed point on the quarterdeck. The splints creaked and stretched but they held. Fraser and Ball added more, from further up the stays, and the mizzen topmen were rushing up replacements from the cable locker, but it would take some time to fix in place such heavy cables and then release the old. The French frigate was still gaining, but not so quickly and the exchange began between Ariadne’s two sternchasers and the two bowchasers on the Frenchman. Shot hit home from both vessels and Argent drew satisfaction from a shower of splinters flying up from the Frenchman’s forecastle rail. She was 50 yards back, almost in line astern, but Ariadne was beginning to match her speed. However, the Frenchman had one more trick which he could play and it seemed that he was going to play it. The frigate suddenly surged off downwind to starboard causing the range to grow rapidly. Ariadne’s starboard guns, trained right back, at last got a sight and fired, not as one, but each carefully aimed. The distance was far and the angle difficult, but with the guns remaining double shotted, Argent saw many strike home on the Frenchman’s forecastle, but he knew what the Frenchman was about.
“Mr. Short. Up helm, hard! Come due South.”
He seized a speaking trumpet and pointed it upwards to his men manning the yardarms.
“Down on deck. Everyman. Now!”
Every topman seized or jumped onto a convenient rope and slid down as Short spun the wheel. The French frigate was bringing around her larboard broadside to fire at Ariadne’s masts and sails. If they could bring enough down, they could sail up and fight at an advantage and so, in response, Argent was turning his ship stern on to narrow the target. The Frenchman fired and all heard the buzz and hum of the shot overhead. Many holes appeared in the sails, some rigging jerked apart and the starboard maintopsail yardarm parted in the middle, but Ariadne sailed on. The Frenchman had loaded his guns with ball, anticipating a close exchange. Standing beside McArdle, Argent spoke a short prayer at the French Captain’s decision not to load chainshot. McArdle listened and spoke Amen.
The topmen swarmed back aloft to repair the damage, and those on the gangways adjusted the sheets and braces for the new course. Argent now looked further ahead to examine the problem of their next opponent, although this was an over description. La Pomone was a lumbering hulk, barely making way with just four sails making use of her short foremast; nevertheless, her Captain had hauled his wind, realising that continuing on Westward would expose his stern to Ariadne. La Pomone was now steering North, she had no choice but to turn to meet Ariadne and try to regain the protection of her two escorts. Argent immediately realised that, if Ariadne was to do La Pomone any damage it had to be on her bows, eighteen shot into the waterline of her bows should be fatal, but they would have to avoid La Pomone’s own very potent broadside.
Ariadne’s present course of South was upwind of La Pomone, if both held their courses, they would pass at a cable distance, but soon Argent would have all the weather gauge he needed. Argent looked back at the chasing frigate, she had resumed the chase, but it was hopeless. Ariadne would be onto La Pomone far in advance of her, even more so in the case of Ariadne’s first opponent which had to turn to join the chase. Argent looked at La Pomone, again judging speed and distance. Soon he would turn Ariadne to starboard in order to cross La Pomone’s course, using a curving course that would take her onto her bows, then curve away, away from her larboard guns. The turn must take them close enough to hit La Pomone hard, yet not be so close as to come into the line of fire of her waiting starboard broadside, even if trained fully forward. Argent assumed that, soon, to give his ship a chance, La Pomone’s Captain would turn downwind to at least try to present his starboard broadside to the threatening English frigate. He calculated in his mind where that would place La Pomone, she was already turning to do this but at barely any speed, she had no chance of avoiding a swooping Ariadne. Time to turn.
“Mr. Short. Down helm. West Sou’west.”
Ariadne’s larboard battery would be needed again. He leaned over the quarterdeck rail to see Lieutenant Sanders.
“Mr. Sanders. Soon we will cross La Pomone’s bows. Larboard battery, load single ball with extra half charge. Train forward. Assume tilt to larboard and fire at her waterline. Tell the men, they have one shot at her, just one. Four minutes, probably less!”
Sanders ran forward to his three Midshipmen, through a gundeck that resembled a madhouse, full of feverish and chaotic activity after their duel with the French frigate. Bloodstained sand discoloured the deck in many places, but the dead had been pulled back to the masts and the last of the wounded were disappearing below. On the larboard side, three guns had been damaged; one had lost a wheel but another, more seriously had had the fixing of her left breeching rope next to the gunport shot out. If it were fired with just one breeching, the recoil would slew it dangerously across the deck. However, more seriously still, another had had its carriage shattered and the barrel lay totally dismounted on the deck. The three were the c
entre of manic activity, the first was having its axle replaced from a gun in the starboard battery, the crew of the second were improvising a breech fixing by dropping a length of timber through the shothole and lashing the severed breeching rope onto it, but the third gun, number three, had to be completely replaced. They had practiced it many times and the dismounted barrel was being hauled clear and number three starboard was being hauled over. Orders were unnecessary, such that Bright, feeling wholly superfluous, simply put his shoulder to the guncarriage and pushed alongside the men, with Sam Morris shouting the “two, six, heave!” They felt the deck heel to larboard as Ariadne made her turn, but few heard the shouted orders and the running feet and even less saw the men on the gangways or in the rigging. Sanders stood watching, helpless; he could shout himself hoarse, but to what end? It was now up to the men. He heard Argent call from behind and above.
“Mr. Sanders.
Sanders ran back and looked up.
“Sir?”
“30 yards range, off the larboard side. Two minutes.”
Sanders walked forward five paces and shouted at the top of his lungs down the still dishevelled gundeck.
“Load! Extra half charge, single ball. Train forward. Down one mark.”
The guncrews immediately began to obey his order. He waited, hoping, then he began, as he knew he must.
“Ready?”
The response came and Sanders swallowed hard, his chin clenched with emotion. Sixteen hands were raised in the air.
“30 yards off. At her bows, on her waterline. As you bear.”
Then the moment got the better of him.
“Hit her right, boys, you’ve one shot, but bloody sink her!”
Each Gun Captain called for the quoin to be adjusted to the elevation for thirty yards range, on La Pomone’s waterline. The deck was steady; Argent had set royaltopgallants, whose maximum leverage held the masts steadier at a constant angle. Sam Morris was the stand-in Gun Captain of Number Three, him having been killed when the gun was dismounted, but all the crew stood intent, waiting for orders. Morris looked at the tackleman nearest the gunport on the left.
“Look out through the port. Give me warning when you see him.”
Master Gunner Tucker had come up from his magazine, his role now finished, to patrol the gundeck and add his calming presence to the tense gundeck.
“Steady now, lads, steady. Lay it right and fire only when ‘tis true.”
Morris checked the elevation again. Ariadne, now almost running before the wind, had righted herself slightly, lifting the gunmuzzle.
“Quoin in. Half mark.”
Two tacklemen thrust the handles of the handspikes into the spaces either side between the barrel and the carriage and levered up the cascabel just enough for the quoin to be thrust in and lower the muzzle. Morris crouched and tightened the lanyard. The tackleman spoke.
“Coming up, Sam.”
A cannonball came in high up, just below the gangway between numbers five and six and three men were felled by splinters, but the waiting guncrews ignored it all. They heard the carronade fire above on the forecastle, then number one fired, then two, then Morris saw the dark, soaked wood of La Pomone’s bows, seeming huge in the frame of the gunport. The gunmuzzle was a little high, but Ariadne dipped a little to larboard. The barrel came onto the dark hull at the waterline and Morris jerked the lanyard. Half a second and the gun roared and sprang back, a plume of smoke rising up from the touchhole. Exactly at the moment of firing, Morris had seen his gun trained perfectly on the bowstem. The remaining guns each added their own roar back towards the stern, then there were just the cries of the wounded and the familiar noises from the hull and rigging, whilst the crews stood still and silent, waiting for orders.
Argent had watched the strike of his shot. The extra half charge was needed to penetrate the thick and reinforced timber of La Pomone’s bows, but with each discharge he saw a hole appear, on or just above the waterline, or spray rise up as the ball hit water before hitting wood. His own ship had taken two further hits from La Pomone’s bowchasers, but he left that to Fentiman. Wentworth should now be there to help and Argent looked around, but he wasn’t. He brought his mind back to the next problem, to escape the two frigates. Ariadne had continued her curve around; soon she would be taking the wind over the starboard quarter, for the first time since leaving Falmouth.
“Mr. Fraser. Starboard tack. Wind three points on the quarter!”
He drew back from the rail to speak to the helmsman.
“Steer Nor’west.”
The repeat came and Argent went to the taffrail to find the whereabouts of the nearest chasing frigate. She was less than two cables off and her Captain had ordered a turn to chase Ariadne, but Argent paid it little heed, Ariadne had all the speed they now needed to make good their escape, the wind was on her best point of sailing. He trained his glass on La Pomone and noted immediately that she was significantly down at the bows; her crew had taken in her sails, but the pressure of water as she pushed forward through the sea must be surging unstoppably through all eighteen shot holes. She was doomed. Argent saw the chasing frigate suddenly come up into the wind and give up the chase, her priority now was to rescue the crew of the sinking frigate. Argent saw the change and made his own response.
“Mr. Fraser. Take in royals, topgallants, and all staysails. Take in fore and mainsail.”
With the large drop in her spread of canvas, Ariadne’s speed fell, Argent wanted to keep her within sight; they had to be certain that La Pomone was gone, therefore they would slow down and wait. Argent trained his telescope over the taffrail and he was soon joined by several others. Through their telescopes they saw that La Pomone’s forecastle was awash and her crew were launching their boats. The “chasing” frigate, chasing no more, was launching her own boats and the second frigate was soon to arrive. McArdle lowered his own glass.
“Pray God they get them all off.”
Several Amen’s were heard across the quarterdeck, including that from Argent. All continued to watch as Ariadne continued on under easy sail and many of her crew were in the rigging, watching the end of their opponent from months back in St. Malo. The weight of her 42 guns and the ballast stones deep in La Pomone’s hull, which kept her upright and stiff in a side on wind, were taking her to the bottom. Now there was little to see but her quarterdeck and the stump of her foremast. Suddenly she slid under, leaving just black shapes, some human, some flotsam, bobbing in the water. Ariadne’s crew cheered, Argent let them, but somehow he felt no glory for himself nor for his ship, they had done no more than deliver the coup de grace to a helpless enemy, unable to manoeuvre and defend herself. He turned to McArdle.
“A course for Falmouth, please, Sailing Master.”
He consulted the windgauge on the quarterdeck.
“Wind now South East.”
He saw Fentiman along the Larboard gangway, examining shot damage.
“Mr. Fentiman. House the guns and stand down. Get some food to the men.”
Then Wentworth came up on deck, his head and chin swathed in new bandage, his lower face badly discoloured and swollen, but he did manage an odd shaped grin in Argent’s direction.
oOo
Budgen was looking disconcertingly cheerful. Rolls and coffee were being offered, even pushed, across the wide desk, Argent wasn’t sure why, but perhaps it was part of Budgen’s plan to keep Argent occupied whilst he devoured the pages in Ariadne’s Logbook that described the sinking of La Pomone. Argent sipped his coffee and waited, distracting himself by looking through the window at his ship, now back alongside the Navy mole, with carpenters all over her hull and lumber carts arriving down from the main quayside, but mostly he watched his own men in the rigging, some making repairs, some, quite frankly, skylarking.
Budgen had finished reading. He closed the book and placed his pudgy hand on top, and stared at the embossed title on the cover, his face a round picture of contentment, whilst his round head nodded his satisfacti
on and he self indulgently spoke, mouthing carefully and repeating several words.
“Hmmm. La Pomone, La Pomone, no less, sunk. Sunk and on down with Davey!”
The last three words, the seaman’s term for the ocean floor, were spoken slowly and carefully, and Argent grinned at Budgen’s use of common seaman’s language, from a man usually so punctilious over his representation of himself as a Commanding Officer. Budgen scratched his ear and rested his head in the palm of his left hand, whilst rubbing his right cheek with the other. Suddenly he became decisive.
“A “42” taken out of the French Channel fleet. Who can argue with that?”
He paused.
“And two more damaged! One badly?”
He looked questioningly at Argent.
“Yes, Sir. I’d say so. We wrecked her gundeck.”
Budgen nodded some more, his mouth pursed; however, his next words seemed to come reluctantly.
“That was good work, Argent. Good work. Fair’s fair and congratulations are due.”
Argent sat up at the unexpectedly pleasant tone and replied in like manner.
“Thank you, Sir, but I owe a great deal to my crew. Their seamanship and fighting ability was what turned………..”
Budgen held up his hand, dismissively.
“Yes, yes, Argent, yes. Quite so.”
Argent fell quiet but so did Budgen. The silence lasted until Budgen changed the subject.
“Now, what of your damage? You gave some numbers in your Log, but I forget.”
“To the hull, Sir. 33 hits from shot and two guns disabled, one completely. Ummm …..”
Argent worked his head from side to side.
“……. you can see through the window that the carpenters are working on the damage now. I must say that was quick work to get them mobilised, Sir, and thank you.”
Budgen became almost pleasant.
A Question of Duty Page 62