‘Eight fathoms!’ came the leadsman’s call.
In this darkness, distances to the low-lying shores around the bay were difficult to gauge. There was, Hayden knew, a long shoal that reached out into the bay almost directly south of them. On this wind, they might just weather it, if their leeway was not great. He was tempted to enquire after a pilot among the prisoners but suspected any Frenchman who was not a fool might run the brig aground. They were going to have to find their way out of this bay by their own seamanship – and luck.
‘Seven fathoms!’
Hayden knew it was something like a mile and one half to the point of the shoal. Their speed could only be estimated at that moment, but he did not think it more than five knots, so a little more than a quarter of an hour. Jones would alter course then.
‘Six fathoms and one half!’
Taking out his nightglass, Hayden quizzed the bay to all points of the compass. They were going to sail rather near some of the anchored ships when they passed the tip of the shoal.
‘Six fathoms!’
The guns from the shore fell silent. Either the French gunners realized the brig was out of range, or they had lost sight of her in the murk. Hayden made his way aft along the deck, among the wounded being tended by their shipmates.
‘Five fathoms!’ the leadsman called from the chains.
As he made the quarterdeck, Hayden saw Jones consult a pocket watch. No doubt he was using it to estimate when he had passed the end of the shoal. The man’s seamanship was just shy of legendary, and he appeared almost shockingly calm, as though unaware of the gravity of their situation. They would, however, come very near the shoal on this tack, and could not afford the smallest error.
‘Four fathoms!’
Jones stared out into the darkness ahead, then back to Hayden. ‘We will alter our course to starboard once we have weathered the point of this little shoal,’ he said. ‘Will you arrange the crew to shift our yards and handle sail, Hayden?’
Hayden made a small bow. In a moment he found Ransome, who said quietly, ‘I have sail handlers at their stations, Captain.’
‘Then we will await Sir William’s order.’
‘I hope he knows where the end of this shoal lies, sir …’ Ransome all but whispered.
‘No one has ever faulted the man on his bravery or seamanship.’
‘Three fathoms and one half!’
The men on the deck had fallen silent, half watching Jones, the rest staring out into the dark at the invisible dangers that lay there.
‘Three fathoms!’
The ship continued to slip over the calm bay, heeling but a little to the warm trade.
‘I believe we may safely bear off,’ Jones said, as though commenting upon some rather fine weather.
‘Mr Ransome,’ Hayden said quietly, ‘I do not think we shall need to slack the main sheet.’
‘Aye, sir.’
Orders were given and, just as Jones began to turn his wheel, there was sudden shouting to larboard and then a flash so bright Hayden could see the face of every man aboard, then he heard a terrible report and all about them the horrifying sound of iron balls tearing apart the night. The deck shook beneath Hayden’s feet as at least two balls struck the topsides. A few more passed through the sails, but most, he realized, must have missed the mark.
‘Bearing off, Hayden,’ Jones informed him.
Ransome and Hayden went about the deck, sending men to their stations. The yards were braced around and sails quickly trimmed. Jones had altered course about six points, and their wind hauled aft accordingly.
The guns on the ship were reloaded, but not with the speed of British gunners, and another broadside was fired, most of the shot penetrating the night, but missing its mark.
‘I thought they would rake us, sir,’ Ransome whispered.
‘They traversed their guns as though we had held our course.’
Ransome peered into the darkness. ‘I can barely make them out, sir. They must have lost us against the land. Thank God.’
Jones leaned forward to consult his watch by the binnacle light. ‘Are we making five knots, Hayden?’
‘Barely so.’
‘The wind will freshen and haul back into the north-west as we go. It is only the land that has caused it to blow from this unnatural direction.’ He turned the wheel a spoke. ‘In seven minutes I will bring us back, almost to our original course. That should take us out through a narrow pass.’
A British gun crew would fire two broadsides in that time, Hayden thought, and looked up at the sky. Tattered cloud continued to sail over, bands of stars sprayed across the heavens between. Across the anchorage, the vague forms of ships could barely be seen, but in the areas of cloud-shadow, all remained dark. Tails of smoke drifted to them, down the wind, stinging eyes and nostrils.
Not a hundred yards distant, the night opened in a blossom of orange flame and roiling smoke. Hayden froze in place, holding his breath as the report reached them, sails suddenly thrashing about in their gear and balls passing to either side, only to skip off the surface a hundred yards beyond.
‘They have found us, Captain,’ Wickham whispered. He had loomed up out of the darkness to stand beside Hayden.
‘Yes, but they do not have our range. Much of their shot was too high.’
‘Let us hope they do not know it.’
Before the next broadside could be fired, Jones ordered the men to their stations again, and then spun his wheel, altering their course five points to larboard. Hayden expected another broadside, but none came.
‘They have lost us … at last,’ Jones announced. ‘Half of the hour and we will be in open waters.’
Ten minutes slipped by and Hayden began to hear the men around him breathing more easily; they worked their shoulders to loosen the muscles. In but a few moments they would be beyond the shoals and shallows and into deep water again. The cost in lives had been great but at least these lives had not been lost to no end.
Hayden himself began to feel a lessening of the fear and anxiety that had beset him all that night. He heard a low chuckle somewhere forward, followed of an instant by an officer warning the man to silence.
The wind felt to be making a little, Hayden thought, though it still showed no sign of swinging back into the north-west, where it properly belonged. The slap of wavelets against the sides as they pressed forward, the little sighing breeze and the tiller ropes running through their blocks below were the only sounds. And then without warning Hayden was thrown forward, staggered three or four steps but somehow kept his feet beneath him. The rending sound of timbers running up on rock or coral came to him, and immediately the stern of the brig swung to leeward and was instantly grinding up upon coral. All forward motion stopped and, as the ship swung, the sails luffed and beat the air like broken wings.
‘She’s hard aground,’ came the call from forward, as though every man aboard did not know it.
Men who had been thrown down on the deck got quickly to their feet. Wickham had the presence of mind to grab the lead and begin sounding all along the starboard side.
‘Hard bottom all along, Captain,’ he informed Hayden. ‘I can feel it.’
He made his way quickly aft. ‘Three fathoms here, sir. Soft bottom. Sand, I should think.’
Jones looked around the vessel once and then turned to Hayden, his mind clearly made up. ‘I will row out the small bower, and my boats will haul as well. I leave the ship in your charge, Hayden.’
He began calling out orders, and his men jumped to with a will. Jones’s boats, which had been streamed astern, were brought alongside. Cables were passed up from below and quickly coiled down in the boats. The small bower was lowered with much care, so that it hung under and astern of the barge and could be released of an instant.
Hayden sent men aloft to hand the sails, for the canvas was doing nothing but heeling the ship and pushing it further on to the reef. The capstan was manned. In the dark silence Hayden heard Jones order the anchor let go and Hayden o
rdered the men at the capstan to be ready for the cable to be returned to the ship. He took his place on the end of one capstan bar, for there were so few men aboard.
The crack of musket fire sounded, then, and Hayden jumped back from the capstan to see muzzle flashes coming from out in the dark bay. Upon the instant, Jones’s crew began to return fire.
‘Mr Hawthorne!’ Hayden shouted. ‘All your marines to the larboard quarter. Do not fire on Sir William’s boats!’
The marines, many of whom were at the capstan bars, took up their guns and hurried aft.
‘Mr Ransome! Bring our boats alongside to starboard. An armed boatman in each.’
‘Aye, sir.’
Hayden hurried aft, where he found Hawthorne, a musket to his shoulder, peering into the gloom, where musket fire came from several places.
‘How many boats are there?’ Hayden asked the marine.
‘I cannot be sure … Four … at the very least. And nearer than I had hoped.’
Hayden heard himself curse. A man was dropping the lead to starboard. ‘Are we drawing off?’ Hayden asked him.
‘Not that I can tell, sir,’ was the answer.
Without warning, fire blossomed from several points in the darkness, all very near, and shouting was heard in both French and English. Jones’s men returned fire, and splashed oars into the bay without concern for discovery.
‘He must come back to the ship!’ Hawthorne said in exasperation. ‘I do not know who to fire upon.’
Hayden could now make out what the French were shouting and, clearly, they had found the brig.
‘Mr Ransome!’ Hayden called out. ‘Every able-bodied man to repel boarders!’
Hayden could hear boats rowing directly at the brig, and then they appeared.
‘Captain Jones!’ Hayden shouted at the top of his lungs. ‘Call out, or we will fire.’
There was no response.
‘Those are your Frenchmen, Mr Hawthorne. Fire as you will.’
Hayden took out his own pistols, which he had failed to load after they had taken the brig, and began madly loading. Ransome ordered the men to the larboard rail, aft, and they lined it, brandishing pikes and tomahawks and shouting defiance at the French.
Hawthorne’s marines all fired at once, but there were suddenly many boats appearing. Six, Hayden, counted, and then more behind those.
‘Where is Sir William?’ Wickham asked. He stood beside Hayden with a pistol in one hand and a cutlass in the other.
‘Driven off, I fear,’ Hayden replied, as he finished loading his pistols.
‘Fix bayonets!’ Hawthorne ordered.
When the first boat was but two boat-lengths distant, Hayden stepped up to the rail, levelled a pistol and shot the man in the bow. Along the rail other guns went off and there was much carnage in the first French boat. But behind came many more.
British sailors were desperately loading their firearms when Hayden realized that the French boats were in such numbers that they were impeding each other in their rush to the brig. He did not need to think a moment more but called out, ‘Mr Ransome! All our wounded into the boats … upon this instant!’
‘Marines, stand in your places!’ Hawthorne shouted over the chaos. He looked over at Hayden. ‘We will hold them until the men are in the boats.’
‘I admire your resolve, Mr Hawthorne, but the French have numbers.’
The first French boat thumped alongside, and another immediately astern of that. For the second time that night a brutal battle began upon the deck of the little brig. The first wave of Frenchmen were held at the rail, murdered, and fell back into their boats, but soon more boats came alongside the first, and more after them, so that the hostile mass became too great. The English were pressed back across the decks, foot by foot. Hayden fought shoulder to shoulder with Hawthorne and another marine but soon they were hemmed in so tight that only a half-circle of deck was left to them.
‘Mr Ransome!’ Hayden called out. ‘Begin getting the men into the boats.’
He did not look back but trusted his men not to break and run. They must cling to their bit of deck until most of the crew was in the boats. The British sailors managed to hold their line so that the fighting did not break up into isolated engagements, which would have been of great advantage to the more numerous French. Pikes thrust out of the dark and Hayden struck them aside with his cutlass, thrusting at the mass of men before him. He held a discharged pistol in his left hand and used it as a small but effective club. The marine to his right was pulled back out of the line and Hayden and the next man closed ranks. A musket fired from among the French, and the man to his right tumbled back. The English were being driven back to the rail. Hayden could not look away to see how many of his men still stood but, finally, when the rail was but two feet behind him, he called out, ‘Englishmen! Into the boats!’
Eighteen
‘Two post captains going to cut out a little brig,’ Archer heard Barthe grumbling to the doctor. ‘Why do we have lieutenants, I ask you?’
‘We all knew Jones’s reputation,’ Griffiths replied quietly. ‘I have little doubt that our captain will come out of it unharmed. His judgement is very sound.’
Archer only heard Barthe growl in response. The young lieutenant walked aft, out of hearing, along the gangway. All around, the sea was inky black. To Archer, it seemed as if the boats had set off hours before, though it had not been nearly so long.
He went to the rail and examined the dark mass of Guadeloupe, the large open bay. From where his ship lay, hove-to, a few lights could be seen – likely on the shore, though it was difficult to be certain.
Archer realized that he felt both slighted and embarrassed. If anything were to happen to his captain while he remained safe aboard ship … well, he would look shy, even if he had been following orders.
‘Did I hear a musket, Mr Archer?’ the helmsman asked. Even hove-to, a man stood by the wheel ready to cast free the ropes that held it in place.
Archer strained to hear over the sound of wind and sea. For a long moment he thought the helmsman had imagined it but, then, faintly, came the crack of musket fire, dulled by distance. The fire was staccato, or perhaps it could be only intermittently heard, and then fell to silence. Aboard the Themis the hands and officers went utterly still, listening.
The silence, as much as the gunfire, created apprehensions in the mind. Had the brig been taken or did the gunfire mark the discovery of the cutting-out parties? What did this terrible quiet signify?
And then a flash of distant light and the deep boom of a gun. A regular, if slow, fire began.
‘Shore batteries,’ Archer heard someone mutter.
Barthe came waddling along the gangway and on to the quarterdeck, the doctor striding purposefully behind. This fire was kept up for some minutes, everyone aboard listening as though, somehow, the reports of the great guns would eventually sum to a comprehensible account of the action in the bay – the meaning of it would be revealed. But then the guns, too, went silent.
‘I will wager they have sailed the brig out of range of the shore batteries,’ Barthe announced.
That was the meaning of it.
‘Or the brig has been dismasted or disabled in some way,’ Griffiths suggested softly.
‘Perhaps the gunners lost sight of the brig in the darkness,’ Archer said, ‘or they were not firing at the brig at all.’
Some time, unknown and unmeasurable, passed, the night about them soft and silent, and then guns began to fire again, the flashes lighting up some small part of the bay. Archer called for his nightglass and fixed it on the point where the flashes originated.
‘Mr Barthe …’
‘Mr Archer?’
‘There would appear to be some goodly number of ships at anchor; I can make out their silhouettes when the guns flash.’
‘Are they ships, Mr Archer, or fishing boats and coasters?’
‘I believe they are ships, though I should not wager great sums upon it.’ He hand
ed the glass to the sailing master.
Another broadside was fired, the flashes appearing in the dark.
Barthe stared into the night for a long moment more and then returned the glass to Archer. ‘I cannot say if you are right or wrong. There is smoke lying upon the water, and a small cloud of smoke can appear to be a vessel at this distance on such a night.’
The gunfire fell silent again.
‘I wonder if they could be firing at the ships’ boats?’ Griffiths asked.
‘It would not be impossible, Doctor, though boats are very hard to hit at any distance, as you well know, especially by darkness.’ Archer did not believe the surgeon did know, which is why he had taken the trouble to inform him.
‘Have we not fired at boats at any time?’ Griffiths asked testily. ‘I believe we have.’
‘And you are quite correct,’ Barthe told him soothingly, ‘and particularly so if there are several boats close together. In such cases there is a very real chance of striking them. I have seen it done on more than one occasion.’
Again the guns fell silent, and the crew of the Themis drew breath and did not seem to let it out. A protracted silence, and then guns fired again.
‘That was a broadside, or I have never doubled a cape,’ Barthe pronounced.
They strained to hear a moment more, and then another ragged broadside – muffled, distant, the flashes half buried in lingering smoke. A long silence before the guns spoke, yet again. And then musket fire, carried to them over the breathing waters.
It was sparse to begin with, and then concentrated. Archer was quite certain he heard the clash of steel on steel, and men shouting and calling out, but the wind carried so much of this away. It went on sporadically for the next forty minutes and then died away.
Archer began to pace back and forth the length of the quarterdeck, stopping now and then to listen or to call up to the lookouts, who then reported nothing. He was about to conclude that he would never know what had happened inshore, when there was a hail, in English, out of the darkness.
Boats appeared and Sir William Jones drew near.
‘I fear the crews of your boats have been taken prisoner, Archer,’ he called across the few yards of dark water.
Until the Sea Shall Give Up Her Dead Page 20