When the ship next sank into the trough, the instant before she began to heave up again Wickham fired above the heads of the men and, without looking, passed his musket back to the loader behind. A loaded gun was placed in his hand at almost the same instant and he could hear the sounds of the first musket being reloaded.
Gould’s gun went off and Wickham raised his own to fire. The French cutter was a larger target which rose and fell more slowly, but Wickham and Gould were firing from a less stable platform. Wickham did not know who had the advantage. Behind him, parents shifted to shield their children. Small blossoms of smoke appeared at the bow as muskets were fired. The balls whistled by or plugged into the sea, but none struck home.
The swivel gun fired and the ball sank into the back of the very wave that raised the British cutter. Childers glanced at Wickham – the shots were getting nearer.
Gould and Wickham kept up a steady fire and were making the men on the forecastle of the enemy vessel pay. A man started up the rigging of the French ship, a musket over his back, and Gould shot him before he’d gone a dozen feet. He slid down the ratlines and shrouds and was caught by another before he could tumble into the sea.
Ransome’s boat had ranged ahead a little and was not the target Wickham’s boat remained. It was an unfortunate arrangement, Wickham thought, for most of the royalists were aboard his vessel, which was the object of the French gunners.
Dusk was rapidly turning to darkness, and it was harder to see the individual men on the bow of the enemy ship, but the flash of their muskets gave them away. Gould was just raising his musket to fire when Wickham reached out and put a hand on his arm. ‘Belay firing. Let us see how easily they can find us in the dark without our powder flash to alert them.’
‘They are overhauling us, Mr Wickham; surely, they will see us.’
‘Work us a little to larboard, if you can,’ Wickham said quietly. He turned to gaze forward a moment. Dominica was large now and he thought he could make out the sound of surf some distance off.
‘Manson? Have you room to heave a lead?’
‘Aye, sir. I will manage,’ came the reply.
The lead was broken out and the splash of it plunging into the sea heard: a moment of someone letting the rope run and then hauling, hand over hand.
‘Nine fathoms, Mr Wickham, sand bottom.’
Wickham looked back once at the enemy vessel, which had ranged up even nearer.
‘Mr Childers? No matter what occurs now, do not surrender. If Gould and I are shot, keep on for the island; the surf is nearer than it appears.’ Wickham glanced over at the other midshipman. ‘Mr Gould, if they make us out or draw alongside, we will keep up fire until we are felled. Everyone who has a musket or pistol, make ready. We will attempt to fight them off. The shore is very near.’
A shout was heard on the enemy vessel and volley of musket and swivel-gun fire was unleashed, but it was somewhere to starboard.
‘I think they have discovered the barge, sir,’ Childers observed quietly.
‘Yes. Poor Mr Ransome,’ Wickham replied softly. ‘He cannot even return fire.’
The skilled hand of Childers worked the boat to larboard, little by little, until the enemy ship, which had been dead astern, was on their starboard quarter – the sails dark and angular against the low-hanging stars.
‘They must give this up soon, mustn’t they?’ Gould asked, leaning toward Wickham and whispering. ‘It is a lee shore and no small wind.’
‘Perhaps they know these waters better than we,’ Childers offered.
‘Or do not know them at all …’
A shout was heard aboard the enemy ship, and then muskets began to fire, striking one of the young royalist women and hitting the topside strakes with sharp reports.
‘Return fire,’ Wickham ordered.
Every man aboard who held a gun began firing at once. Childers was thrown down, suddenly, and lay staring up at the sky, stunned.
Dropping his musket, Wickham grabbed the helm in time to prevent a broach. Seas were suddenly steeper.
‘Surf ahead, Mr Wickham!’ one of the hands forward called out.
There was shouting aboard the enemy vessel and, immediately her helm was put over, slowly she turned, her mainsail resisting the helm, and then she jibed, all standing with a great crash of breaking gear.
All musket fire aboard the French cutter ceased in that moment and, from Wickham’s boat, only a few more shots were managed.
‘Clap on, everyone. Clap on!’ Wickham called out.
The seas became precipitous and pressed together, crests toppling to either side. The cutter was picked up on the face of a wave, the stern tossed high, and then there was the sound of rushing water as she raced along the face. The wave passed beneath and the boat settled, stern first, into the trough. Again she was lifted, carried forward and settled, Gould and Wickham together struggling to keep her on course.
‘Childers?’ Wickham said, genuinely frightened. ‘Are you shot, sir?’
To his surprise, the coxswain sat up, putting a hand to the side of his head and taking the fingers away, stained dark. ‘I think I was, but grazed, though it seemed I had been shot through the brain for a moment.’ Without another word, he moved up on to the thwart and took Gould’s place on the helm, the midshipman giving it up gladly.
Gould then probed the coxswain’s wound. ‘You will have a hell of a lump, but I believe it was not a ball but a splinter from the gunwale that struck you. Or a ball that deflected off the rail, perhaps. God was looking out for you, I think.’
Wickham did not know how many waves passed beneath them, and he had lost sight of Ransome’s barge altogether when they were picked up by the steepest sea yet. A crest broke heavily over the transom and, of an instant, the stern was thrown to starboard, the boat turned beam on to the sea, and she rolled over so quickly that Wickham was thrown into the warm water before he could cry a warning to others. He surfaced to the night, feeling himself rising up the face of a wave. Arms flailed the waters nearby and instinctively he reached out and took hold of a thin wrist. Immediately, a hand clapped on to him so tightly it almost caused him pain. And then a panicked woman had an arm around his neck and he was being forced under. For a moment they wrestled, and then he broke the lock around his neck, ducked under her arm, took hold of her beneath her arms and began to kick to the surface. A sharp crack on his skull told him he’d surfaced into an oar. He took hold of this and slid it in front of the frightened woman.
‘Take hold of the oar,’ he ordered in French, and was relieved when she did as he instructed.
For a moment he was treading water, attempting to part the darkness and determine their situation. He could hear voices calling out, some not so near. A dozen feet away, the dim whaleback of the capsized boat lay half awash, heads bobbing around and men thrashing the waters to reach it.
‘Mr Wickham …?’ someone called.
‘Is that you, Childers?’
‘It is, sir.’
Before Wickham could reply, a wave lifted him, but as he settled again into the trough, his feet touched soft bottom.
‘There is bottom here, Childers. I felt it just now. We must make an effort to get everyone ashore. I should not be surprised to find an undertow in such a place.’
‘Aye, sir.’
Orders were given that were lost on the wind, and then Wickham realized that the men holding the boat were kicking and paddling, pushing the overturned boat toward the shore. He twisted his neck around, took a bearing on the beach and began to paddle toward the island, the sodden skirts of his royalist wafting about his legs as he swam.
On his back, as he was, Wickham could not see the island, nor could he judge their progress, but he could look out to sea, and little pinpoints of light could be descried some distance off. Calls and voices were carried down the wind.
‘Can you make out what they are saying?’ he asked the woman, who he could almost feel fighting her panic and fear.
‘They a
re launching boats,’ she whispered, hardly able to speak, she was breathing so rapidly.
Wickham let his legs sink again and this time there was sand beneath his feet. He began to stand, but a sea knocked him down, the woman landing atop him. and then they were both struggling up, water to their chests. They stumbled ashore, her dress like a sea anchor, resisting her progress so that Wickham had all but to drag her through the water.
Once she was in the shallows, he turned back into the waters, took a moment to find the overturned boat and then waded out into the breaking surf. A wave lifted him and he struck out toward the cutter. In a moment he found the painter and began swimming for shore with it wrapped about his shoulder and held firmly in one hand. For a time it seemed he made no progress at all, but then the beach seemed to appear before him, nearer than he had dared hope, and he was wading into the shallows, then putting his weight on to the rope, digging in his heels and pulling with all he had. A sailor came in along the painter, stood, and did as Wickham did. Finally, the boat was picked up and tossed ashore, where it rolled upright, three-quarters full.
Childers staggered up on to the beach and dropped down, gasping. He held something up in the dark.
‘I have your glass, Mr Wickham,’ he announced.
‘My glass! How in this world did you manage that?’
‘Just as the boat went over, it rolled almost into my hand and I kept hold of it the whole time, sir.’ He passed it to the midshipman rather proudly.
‘I cannot begin to express my gratitude. I thought it lost without a doubt, and knew I should never get another like it in Barbados.’
‘I knew it was a gift from the marquis, Mr Wickham, and you placed great value upon it.’
‘Childers, I shall give you a suitable reward for this kindness, I swear I shall.’ Wickham rose and walked among the castaways, counting heads. ‘Where is Cooper?’ he asked suddenly.
‘We could not find him, sir,’ Childers replied. ‘I fear he might have received a blow to the head as the boat went over, for he never broke the surface nor was seen by anyone. He is our only loss, Mr Wickham, though a great loss it is, for he was as good a marine and shipmate as any.’
‘Mr Wickham …?’ a voice called from the darkness.
‘Here!’ the midshipman answered, like a schoolboy.
The man appeared out of the dark, a sodden sailor, clothes clinging and hair plastered flat to his pate. ‘Mr Ransome sent me to find you, sir. Have you many lost or hurt?’
‘We lost Cooper, sadly. I am not certain of our hurt.’ Wickham turned around on the sand. ‘Mr Gould? Have we many hurt?’
He could just make out the other midshipman, crouched beside a dark form on the beach. ‘Many a bruise, I suspect, and one Frenchman with a broken arm – or so I believe. The doctor would know better.’
‘No one bleeding dangerously?’
‘Not a one, Mr Wickham. Except for Cooper, we have fared remarkably well.’
The hand dispatched from Ransome’s boat bent over, hands on knees. ‘Were you overturned in the surf as well?’ he asked.
‘We were, and there was little we could do about it. A crest broke over our transom and our stern was swung sideways against anything the rudder could do.’
‘It was the same with us, sir. We were overtaken by a sea and then all pitched into the water of an instant. We lost no one, though our boat was not so overburdened as yours … We had lost so many before.’
There was a call from out in the surf, Wickham thought, almost certainly in French.
‘We have almost no weapons and not a grain of dry powder,’ the hand from Ransome’s boat declared, staring out into the dark sea.
‘We are no better off.’ Wickham turned to the crew and passengers of his boat. ‘Everyone up; we must make our way into the forest or we will be captured.’
‘They may have no better luck landing than we,’ Gould observed.
‘Unless they know what to expect here … And they will not be racing along under sail, as were we, though there was bloody little we could do about that.’
The hands and the French were helping each other to their feet. Ransome and his people came along the beach at that moment, and they all made their way toward a gap in the trees. Just as they were about to proceed into the impenetrable darkness of the forest, without a single light to aid them, guns fired out at sea, and everyone brought up and turned to look.
The entire day they had been chasing this distant cutter, and had closed to within a few miles at sunset.
‘Ten 3-pounders, and as many half-pound swivels,’ Hayden guessed. He was answering Hawthorne’s question about the guns likely carried by the cutter.
‘Then she has a greater weight of metal than we?’ the marine lieutenant asked. Despite his time at sea, he would always be something of a landsman, Hayden thought.
‘I could carry our entire broadside in my pockets,’ Hayden told him, ‘and I do not exaggerate when I say this.’ Hayden looked up at the shadowy sails, full and drawing. ‘I even wonder if they believe this is the privateers’ schooner yet – news might not have reached them.’
The two men stood upon the forecastle of the schooner, gazing out over the briefly twilit sea, the mountains of Dominica rising up out of the waters, solid and unmoving in the ever-changing seascape.
Hayden called up to the lookout on the foremast. ‘Bradley? Can you make her out yet?’
‘I can, sir. Dead before us. Not half a league distant, Captain.’
There had been time, through the long afternoon, to train the royalists in the firing of guns and to take some basic orders. Hayden had paired most of the Frenchmen with an experienced sailor and given the French instructions to aid them in every way. The islanders were intelligent, practical people used to doing a variety of tasks and would quickly comprehend what was required, even without anyone telling them. It did not take much native wit to realize that they could jump to and aid men hauling ropes, and they did just that whenever needed. Some of the women had clapped on to ropes during the day and aided the men hauling, much to the amusement of the British sailors.
‘I don’t think you’d see my missus turning her delicate hands to such work,’ Hayden had heard one of the hands observe.
‘I’ve seen your missus, Huxley, and I don’t think “delicate” is the proper term for her claws.’
Of course, traducing the honour of one’s wife was not acceptable at any station, so threats were made, apologies offered, Mrs Huxley’s hands rated as delicate as a duchess’s, and they all laughed for they were a kindly and good-natured crew and Hayden held them in great affection for this as much as anything.
The firing aboard the French cutter ceased, and the musket fire from the British boats went silent as well. Hayden guessed the French had lost sight of the Themis’s boats, painted black as they were, and Ransome and Gould or Wickham had the good sense not to fire and alert the French to their position – or they had run out of powder, he could not say which.
A few moments passed and then the swivel and muskets were fired at once. Then silence again. Hayden had no desire to fight this French vessel, which was almost certainly better armed than his privateer and would have trained men aboard – not a crew that spoke two languages, half of whom were landsmen. He could not, however, stand by and allow the British boats to be taken. All the afternoon he had endeavoured to overhaul the Frenchman and force him into a running battle which would allow the British boats to make Dominica. Hayden’s hope had been that the schooner would prove swifter and he would keep enough distance between the two vessels that the French would not be able to batter his prize into submission. Once the boats were safely clear, Hayden would then crack on and race the French for the town of Portsmouth and the bay, which certainly would have British vessels at anchor and where the French would not venture.
But the French were so near his boats, and the north end of Dominica so close by, that this plan was no longer to be contemplated. Darkness might let the boats e
scape, he thought, and then he would do the same, keeping distance between himself and the French cutter, which would likely not wish to be discovered so near the British island at dawn.
Hayden did not like his position overly. The north shore of Dominica was a lee shore, and the winds, which commonly took off somewhat after the sunset, had been making for the last few hours and showed no signs of easing.
For a short time the schooner bore on, rising and falling with the quartering sea, the wind moaning softly in the rigging. And then there was an unholy crash and distant shouting.
‘On deck! Somewhat has happened aboard the Frenchman, sir! Perhaps she’s lost her topmast, Captain.’
‘Has she run aground?’ Hayden called up into the dark.
‘I don’t know, sir. She seems to have sheered to starboard, sir. Mayhap she jibed all standing.’
‘Mr Hardy! Sail handlers to their stations.’ Hayden began hurrying back toward the quarterdeck. ‘We shall tack ship!’
The moment the men were at their stations, he ordered the helm put over and the ship was brought around and through the wind. Immediately she was on the other tack, Hayden ran her down toward the position where the French cutter had last been seen, a leadsman calling the depths as they went.
‘Bradley?’ Hayden called to the lookout. ‘Can you see the Frenchman?’
‘I have kept my eye on her, sir,’ came the lookout’s voice from above. ‘Point off the larboard bow. Half a mile distant. I believe she’s come to anchor, sir.’
‘Well, let us thank the imprudence of French captains,’ Hayden muttered, and crossed to the larboard rail where he leaned out to see if he could make out the enemy. And there she was, some distance off, bow to wind, or so he thought, and riding up and over the waves.
‘On deck!’ the lookout cried again. ‘Captain? I believe she is anchored just outside the line of surf, sir.’
Hayden ordered the helmsman to shape their course to come across her bow. Sheets were eased accordingly.
Until the Sea Shall Give Up Her Dead Page 30