The French Prize

by James L. Nelson

  “Vive la France!” Barère repeated, quite missing the irony in Renaudin’s voice, which was probably just as well.

  * * *

  Abigail was cleared for action, her men at quarters. Such as it was. Those phrases Jack remembered well from his father’s stories, when he used to beg his father and Uncle Ezra to tell them, again and again. Cleared for action … quarters. He toyed with those words because they were so absurd, applied to the little handful of men he had, huddled around the guns or standing by the braces, Tucker at the helm, Frost prowling the quarterdeck.

  Jack looked astern. The Frenchman was three quarters of a mile behind, right in their wake, and at the rate he was closing Jack gauged there were perhaps thirty minutes before he would make his move, his one, desperate move.

  He had heard about this, it was a common theme in the old stories, how the waiting was far and away the worst part of it. And that seemed to be true enough, though he had yet to experience the other part, the part when the iron began to fly and the blood began to run over the deck. He did not think the few shots from the privateer during that business west of Montserrat qualified as a real sea fight. Though, to be sure, neither would this, if things went as he hoped.

  He turned back in time to see William Wentworth emerge from the scuttle. He wore plain wool stockings and breeches, a waistcoat, no overcoat, his head uncovered, a musket in his hand. His presence topside was something of a surprise. After the initial excitement that had curtailed their dinner and brought them all on deck, Wentworth had gone below and not reappeared. Jack imagined he would retire to his cabin, or the cable tier, until the shooting was done. But here he was with a long gun and a cartridge box over his shoulder.

  “Ah, Captain!” he said on seeing Biddlecomb. “If I am not mistaken, it is the custom in a sea fight to have men with long arms stationed in the platforms up there, inflicting what damage they can on the enemy. With your permission I thought I might fill that function today.”

  Here was even more of a surprise, and Jack tried and failed to hide it. “This is your own musket, I take it?” He thought there might be a musket on board, but he was not certain where it was located, and in any event, it was not so fine a weapon as Wentworth’s.

  “Musket? Oh my dear sir, no! This is a Jover and Belton .62 caliber rifle, the finest London has to offer. There aren’t half a dozen of its like in the United States, I assure you.”

  Jack’s eyes moved over the gun. The silver side plates blazed in the Caribbean sun, the barrel glinted, the lock was kept up such that it showed no sign of ever having been used. He could see there were fine engravings on all the metal parts, though what they were engravings of he could not tell.

  “Very nice,” said Jack. “And you know the use of it?”

  “I do,” Wentworth assured him. “One does not behave as outrageously as I and live to the venerable age of twenty-two without being an expert with gun and sword.”

  Jack nodded. That made sense to him. “Very well. You may take station in the maintop. There.” He pointed. “But under no circumstances are you to fire before I order the great guns fired, do you hear? Once I fire on the Frenchman you may assume we mean to kill as many as we can, but you are not to shoot before I do.”

  “I quite understand, Captain. ‘Aye, aye,’ I should say,” Wentworth replied, slinging his rifle by a strap over his back, then turning and heading for the main shrouds, which he had climbed for the first time that morning. He seemed once again to have that buoyant mood he had displayed earlier, a course change from his attitude at dinner. Jack wondered if he ever became dizzy, with his demeanor spinning so quickly.

  And then he had no more time to spare a thought for William Wentworth. He heard a dull, heavy noise astern, like a big hatch cover dropped in place, and then the scream of roundshot that he recognized from that earlier voyage, and before he could turn around he saw the spout of water as the ball plowed into the sea, well ahead of Abigail and well to larboard.

  The last wisps of smoke from the Frenchman’s bow chaser were still being pulled apart by the breeze when Jack turned and looked astern. The Frenchman was all but directly to windward and less than half a mile behind. The starboard chaser went next, the horizontal blast of smoke, the sound of the shot passing far wide of Abigail’s stern. That’s a warning, a signal to heave to, Jack thought. If they had been trying to score a hit they would have turned aside to bring the gun to bear, but they likely did not want to lose even an inch of distance.

  “That’s but a warning,” Charles Frost said, stepping up to Jack’s side. “They wish you to heave to, and good luck to them, I say!” Frost seemed to be enjoying this in the way that Jack had always imagined the truly fearless enjoyed such things. It was a pleasure he could not seem to muster.

  “Another ten minutes, Mr. Frost, I should think. All is ready with you?” Together they turned and looked at the small cluster of men at the guns, two guns, because that was all they could man and still have hands enough to haul the braces, with Tucker on the helm and Jack tending to the pin rails on the leeward side.

  “All is ready, Captain, and we’ll give them what for, let me tell you!” They looked astern again. Closer, closer, Jean Crapeau was coming up in their wake. Now why did I not move any guns to the stern? Jack thought. If they had been firing away with stern chasers they might have taken out one of the Frenchman’s topmast by now and he would not have to risk everything on this ridiculous plan of his.

  My plan? Or Frost’s? Whose damnable idea was this, anyway?

  And then he smiled. He could not help it. Because he had spent nearly all of the past decade trying to not be his father, trying to be Jack Biddlecomb, not the son of Isaac Biddlecomb. And now here he was, in command of a merchant vessel, about to try some bold but blockheaded move against an enemy far more powerful than he was.

  If he managed to pull it off, and lived to tell the yarn, what would they say? They would say the most obvious thing, the most trite, shallow, obvious, and irresistible thing. He could hear it already.

  And so he smiled because if he did not he would scream and he did not think his screaming would do much to bolster the courage of his men.

  19

  The Frenchman surged up in Abigail’s wake, and Jack Biddlecomb did not feel like screaming anymore. He did not want to open his mouth at all because he felt certain he would vomit if he did. The tension was unlike anything he had ever experienced, like the whole world was waiting on him. His word, spoken at the moment of his choosing, would unleash a nightmare of shrieking iron and choking smoke and spilled blood. Men might die—his men—because he spoke the word.

  The Frenchman was a few hundred yards astern now. From his quarterdeck Jack could see the gun crews at the forward guns, the occasional glimpse of a blue uniform aft. He felt the words of command rise in this throat and he swallowed them down. He had heard of men, sentenced to be hanged, who had been allowed to give the order themselves that would see them hauled up to the yardarm; those men had been unable to speak the words, “Haul away.” He understood that now. He could not give the command. Indecision had never been part of his makeup, if it had, he would not be in command of a ship. But this was different.

  He could feel the eyes on his back, thought he heard Frost make some small noise. The wind hummed in the rigging, the water made its rushing sound alongside, the tiller ropes squeaked a bit as Tucker made small adjustments to the wheel.

  Then the Frenchman turned, swung through two points of the compass and her larboard bow chaser went off, the dull boom of the gun, the smoke, the scream of the shot all mixed into one terrible sound and Jack spun around and shouted, “Now! Now!” He had no idea he was going to do that; he gave the order with no decision aforethought. It was as if the shot had released him, the way a fuse releases the innards of a hand grenado, all the tension blown out of him, his mind sharp and ready.

  Tucker spun the wheel and Jack leapt to the pin rail and took up the braces for the yards on the mainmast,
belayed to a single pin, and held them all in his hands. Abigail heeled hard to starboard as she slewed around, turning ninety degrees to the Frenchman, presenting her larboard battery. Forward, the ridiculously small number of men designated as sail trimmers braced the yards around.

  “Mr. Frost, quickly, if you please!” Jack called out. Frost was hunched over the aftermost gun, directing two of the men, who levered the carriage with handspikes, but there was not time enough to be so fastidious. Frost stepped back and brought his match down on the vent and the cannon roared out and flung back against the breeching, a familiar sound now, after so much gun drill. Jack was instantly engulfed in the smoke, the smell of the burned powder blotting out all other smells for the instant before it was gone to leeward.

  Jack turned back to the Frenchman. He saw the ship’s inner forestay part, the upper end swinging inboard, the sail that was hanked there collapsing in a heap over the bowsprit cap and the slings of the spritsail yard. A ragged hole appeared in the foresail behind it, and Jack shouted, “Well done, Mr. Frost!” But it would take more than a forestay and a jib. It would take a topmast, at least, to cripple this bastard enough to allow them to run off.

  Frost was on to the next gun as the crew of the first flung themselves into the reloading. The Frenchman was turning, following Abigail around in her wheel to larboard, and presenting more of a target as she did, so Frost did not have to spend so much time in aiming. He brought the match down, the gun roared, leapt clean from the deck, and slammed inboard. Another hole appeared in the Frenchman’s foresail.

  Two shots, some inconsequential damage, and then the Frenchman replied in kind. Her starboard bow chaser went off first, the ball punching a hole through the bulwark just forward of the caboose, ripping the longboat apart in its flight and leaving Tommy Willoughby of Philadelphia, new to the Abigail and rated able-bodied, struck dumb and staring at the ragged hole, but otherwise unhurt.

  The splinters from the longboat had not yet all fluttered to the deck when Frost’s third gun went off but Jack did not have the luxury of being able to watch the fall of the shot. “Stand by to wear ship! Stand by to wear ship!” he shouted. “Main lower stuns’ls in! Haul up the mainsail, now!”

  The lower studdingsails came flying in and eager hands hauled away, clewgarnets and leechlines and buntlines. The big mainsail rose up like a curtain in a theater and Jack ordered Tucker to put the helm over. As Abigail’s stern turned through the wind, the ship swinging from a larboard tack to starboard, the gun crews scrambled across the deck to what would now be the weather side, the engaged side, once they had come around. They left off the guns for the time and heaved away on the braces while Jack dashed across the deck and tended the lines to larboard as he had to starboard. It was a well-choreographed performance, falling out just as planned, the sort of evolution possible with a crew such as that which their ship boasted.

  Abigail swung off to starboard, turning through 180 degrees as she came around on the other tack and bringing the starboard guns, already loaded and ready, to bear on the Frenchman. Six shots, that was the plan. Three from larboard, wear around, three from starboard, and with any luck at all some part of the Frenchman’s rigging would go by the board and they could sail off in peace.

  The ship was still turning, her motion quick and nimble in the fifteen knots of steady breeze. Biddlecomb looked astern. He had expected the Frenchman to follow him around, to turn as he did, so they could continue to fire into Jean Crapeau’s bow, and the Frenchman with nothing but bow chasers with which to answer. But the Frenchman was holding his course, sailing perpendicular to Abigail, crossing her stern, which was now presented like an offering to their broadside.

  “Oh, damn you…” was all Jack had the chance to utter when the guns went off, one after another, a rolling broadside with less than a beat between each big gun. He had time enough to note the deep boom of the Frenchman’s ordnance, deeper than the bow chasers or Abigail’s own six pounders, and then his world became one of smashing wood and falling gear and the scream of roundshot and a dull, blank unreality.

  He saw the bulwark along the stern blow apart and watched, transfixed, as a great section of wood came spinning through the air. It seemed to move slow, and the sound seemed oddly muted, and then it struck his upraised arms and swept him clean off his feet, just as the gaff and mizzen sail collapsed onto the very spot he had been standing before the bulwark knocked him aside.

  He fell against the raised overhead of the great cabin and rolled off onto the deck. Five feet away Frost touched off the aftermost gun and it came charging inboard and ordinary seaman Ratford was staring at the place where his arm had been, which was now ragged bone and a great torrent of blood. It all seemed to be swirling around before Jack’s eyes and it made no sense and Jack thought he might just go to sleep.

  “Captain! Captain!” Here was Maguire, come aft, lifting Jack to his feet, massive hands on Jack’s collar. He set Jack down on the cabin top, said, “How are you, boyo? Did you get knocked galley west, then, by that great bit of bulwark?”

  Jack looked around. Frost was firing the second of the great guns, starboard side. The Frenchman’s aftermost gun went off, the shot passed overhead, and Jack and Maguire ducked as a section was ripped from the mizzenmast like a shark had bitten it clean away. But Jack’s head was beginning to clear, and he stood and looked around.

  The gaff was lying across the quarterdeck and the sail like a blanket of new snow covered the larboard side. But Tucker was still at the wheel, the helm appeared undamaged, and the guns were still upright. Ratford was down, dead or near to it, but Jack could not see anyone else wounded or killed.

  Abigail was on the starboard tack now, having worn around, and they were supposed to be taking their last shots at the Frenchman and running for safety, but the Frenchman was not cooperating. Jack, an avid fencer, a passion picked up from his father, had learned early on that it was not enough to think of what you were going to do to win a fight, you had to think about what your opponent was likely to do as well. The moment you started working out your indefatigable strategy was the moment your opponent would drive the point of his foil into your chest.

  And so it was with a sea battle. He could see that now. All the careful thought he and Frost had put into this was so much flotsam because the Frenchman was wearing in their wake, a move they had not anticipated, and would bring his other broadside to bear and there was nothing Jack could do. If he wore again back to a larboard tack then Jean Crapeau would have another go at his stern. If he bore up the French would bear up with him. If he ran the French would soon be alongside and beating them to matchwood.

  Then Frost was there, with an expression Jack had not seen him wear before, and he did not care for the look of it. It might be described as regret, resignation. Whatever it was called, it was not good. “Forgive me, Captain, if I had any influence on your decision to fight. It seemed the proper thing to do, but we are defeated. I don’t see how we can stand up longer.”

  Jack felt sick. With the action begun, the fear had gone, the uncertainty washed away, but now it was back, sparked by Frost’s plain statement. We are defeated … Indeed, how could they fight? If Frost, the most bellicose, eager, and experienced man aboard thought it hopeless, what more was there for it?

  The Frenchman was wearing around as Abigail had done, turning in the merchantman’s wake and bringing his fresh larboard battery to bear. The bow chaser went off and Jack felt a shudder underfoot as the ball hit the hull below. He wondered what horror had been inflicted on his great cabin. A few seconds more and the Frenchman’s broadside would bear and the great guns would be unleashed on them, and there was nothing meaningful they could do in return. The Abigail’s two gun crews were loading, the aftermost gun already running out, but those six pounders, which seemed so grand on the wharf in Philadelphia, seemed pathetic now.

  And then the Frenchman seemed to stop in the middle of his elegant, sweeping turn, as if he had changed his mind. The corvette�
�s bow sagged off, her sails, full in her turn, flogged as the ship seemed to slump to leeward. The lower studdingsails had been coming in in some reasonable order, but now they twisted and collapsed in confusion. Her larboard broadside would no longer bear and her starboard guns were not yet reloaded and in that unexpected bit of clumsy sailing, Jack saw a gift from God, and he saw salvation, all at once.

  * * *

  Maintop … William Wentworth thought, maintop … not a platform … must remember that … He did not really care about the jargon of ships, but even more he did not care to display ignorance on any subject. Under most circumstances he could just express disdain for anything he did not understand, and that covered him well, but now he was under the necessity of using the dialect of the tarpaulin, and he wished to get it right.

  Climbing up to the maintop was a bit more difficult with the gun over his shoulder, but not markedly so. The motion of the ship had changed from earlier, more pitching front to back and less rolling side to side, and that, too, made the climb a bit more difficult as the vessel was no longer leaning over in that convenient manner that made the rigging less steep.

  Still, it presented little problem. Wentworth was naturally athletic, an active person with virtually unlimited free time to indulge his pastimes. Riding, fencing, swimming, hunting, shooting, dancing, even boxing, he enjoyed them all and excelled in each, as he did in most things to which he sincerely put his hand.

  He even enjoyed the occasional duel, the odd affair of honor, a sport at which the stakes were much elevated and thus the thrill of the thing that much enhanced. He enjoyed it, in fact, a bit too much, one of the few aspects of his generally reprehensible behavior which he himself found troubling. He knew that men could get addicted to dueling, as they could to drink. And he could see why. It was not so easy for a young man in his circumstance to get his heart pounding, his blood flowing, to get that clarity that comes with the genuine possibility of losing one’s life.