Book 3 - H.M.S. Surprise

by Patrick O'Brian

  'Mr Stourton, the bow gun may fire.' It would do no harm; it might do good, even at this range; and the din would relieve the silent men. The two minutes were gone: some seconds past: and the Marengo's careful, deliberate broadside came, hitting the Surprise like a hammer, barely a shot astray. And immediately after that six guns from the Sémillante, all high and wide.

  Stourton reported, 'Spritsail yard gone in the slings, sir. The carpenter finds three foot in the well: he is plugging a couple of holes under the water-line, not very low.' As he spoke the bow gun roared out and the encouraging, heady smell of powder-smoke came aft.

  'Warm work, Mr Stourton,' said Jack, smiling. 'But at least Sémillante cannot reach us again. The angle is too narrow. When Marengo starts firing grape, let the men lie down at their guns.'

  Fine on the port bow he could see the last of the Marengo's guns running out. They were waiting for the roll, He glanced round his sparse quarterdeck before he turned in his walk. Bonden and Carlow at the wheel, Harrowby behind them, conning the ship; Stourton calling out an order at the hances—sail-trimmers to the foretopsail bowline—over to leeward the signal midshipman, then Callow with his bandaged head to run messages, and young Nevin, the clerk, with his slate in his hand; Etherege watching the Indiamen through his little pocket-glass. All the Marines, apart from the sentry at the hatchway, were scattered among the gun-crews.

  The crash of the broadside, and of the bow-gun, and of the twenty shot hitting her, came in one breath—an extreme violence of noise. He saw the wheel disintegrate, Harrowby jerked backwards to the taffrail, cut in two; and forward there was a screaming. Instantly he bent to the speaking-tube that led below, to the men posted at the relieving-tackles that could take over from the wheel. 'Below there. Does she steer?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'Thus, very well thus. Keep her dyce, d'ye hear me?'

  Three guns had been dismounted, and splinters, bits of carriage, bits of rail, booms, shattered boats littered the decks as far aft as the mainmast, together with scores of hammocks torn from their netting: the jibboom lurched from side to side, its cap shot through: cannon-balls, scattered from their racks and garlands, rumbled about the heaving deck: but far more dangerous were the loose guns running free—concentrated, lethal weight, gone mad. He plunged into the disorder forward—few officers, little co-ordination—catching up a bloody hammock as he ran. Two tons of metal, once the cherished larboard chaser, poised motionless on the top of the roll, ready to rush back across the deck and smash its way through the starboard side: he clapped the hammock under it and whipped a line round the swell of its muzzle, calling for men to make it fast to a stanchion; and as he called a loose 36 lb shot ran crack against his ankle, bringing him down. Stourton was at the next, a carronade still in its carriage, trying to hold it with a handspike as it threatened to plunge down the fore hatchway and thence through the frigate's bottom: the coamings round the hole yielded like cardboard: then the forward pitch took off the strain—the gun rolled towards the bows, and as it gathered speed they tripped it, throwing it over on to its side. But the same pitch, the same shift of slope, working upon the loose gun amidships, under the gangway, sent it faster and faster through the confused group of men, each with his own notion of how to stop it, so that it ran full tilt against the side abaft the fore-chains, smashed through and plunged into the sea. Oh for his officers!—high discipline did away with the men's initiative—but those he had left were hard at their duty: Rattray out on the perilous bowsprit already with two of his mates, gammoning the jibboom before it carried away; Etherege with half a dozen Marines tossing the balls over the side or securing them; Callow and his boat's crew heaving the wreckage of the launch free of the guns.

  He darted a look at the Marengo. All but two of her guns were run out again: 'Lie flat,' he roared, and for the space of the rising wave there was silence all along the deck, broken only by the wind, the racing water, and an odd ball grumbling down the gangway. The full broadside and the howl of grape tearing over the deck; but too high, a little hurried. Rattray and his mates were still there, working with concentrated fury and bawling for ten fathom of two-inch rope and more handspikes. The Surprise was still on her headlong course, her way only slightly checked by the loss of her outer jib and the riddling of her sails: and now the rear Indiamen opened fire from half a mile. There were holes in the Marengo's foretopsails. And he doubted she would get in another broadside before the Surprise was so close on her bow that the broadside guns would no longer bear—could not be trained far enough forward to reach her. If the Marengo yawed off her course to bring the Surprise into her fire, then Linois's plan was defeated: at this speed a yaw would carry the two-decker cast of the unbroken line.

  He limped back to the quarterdeck, where young Nevin was on his hands and knees, being sick. 'All's well, Bonden?' he asked, kneeling to the tube. 'Below there. Ease her half a point. Another half. Belay.' She was steering heavy now.

  'Prime, sir,' said Bonden. 'Just my left arm sprung. Carlow copped it.'

  'Give me a hand with t'other, then,' said Jack, and they slid Harrowby over the taffrail. Away astern, beyond the splash of the body, six of the Indiamen were already round: they were coming down under a fine press of sail, but they were still a long way off. Wide on the port bow the Marengo was almost within his reach at last. 'Stand to your guns,' he cried. 'Hard for'ard. Do not waste a shot. Wait for it. Wait for it.'

  'Five foot water in the well, sir,' said Stourton.

  Jack nodded. 'Half a point,' he called down the pipe again, and again the ghostly voice answered 'Half a point it is, sir.' Heavy she might be, heavy she was; but unless she foundered in the next minute he would hit the Marengo, hit her very, very hard. For as the Surprise came closer to crossing the Marengo's bows, so her silent broadside would come into play at last, and at close range.

  Musketry crackling on the Marengo's forecastle: her Marines packed into her bows and foretop. Another hundred yards, and unless Marengo yawed he would rake her: and if she did yaw then there they would lie, broadside to broadside and fight it out.

  'Mr Stourton, some hands to clew up and to back the foretopsail. Callow, Lee, Church, jump along for'ard.' Closer, closer: the Marengo was still coming along with a splendid bow-wave; the Surprise was moving slower. She would cross the Marengo at something under two hundred yards, and already she was so near the two-decker that the Indiamen had stopped firing from fear of hitting her. Still closer, for the full force of the blow: the crews crouched tense over their pointed guns, shifting them a trifle for the aim with a total concentration, indifferent to the musket-balls.

  'Fire,' he said, as the upward roll began. The guns went off in a long roar: the smoke cleared, and there was the Marengo's head and forecastle swept clean—ropes dangling, a staysail flying wild.

  'Too low,' he cried. 'Pitch 'em up; pitch 'em up. Callow, Church—pitch 'em up.' There was no point in merely killing Frenchmen: it was rigging, spars, masts that counted, not the blood that now ran from the Marengo's bow scuppers, crimson against her streak of white. The grunting, furious work of running in, swabbing, loading, ramming, running out; and number three, the fastest gun, fired first.

  'Clew up,' he shouted above the thunder. 'Back foretop-sail.' The Surprise slowed, lost her way, and lay shrouded in her own smoke right athwart the Marengo's bows, hammering her as fast as ever the guns could fire. The third broadside merged into the fourth: the firing was continuous now, and Stourton and the midshipmen ran up and down the line, pointing, heaving, translating their captain's hoarse barks into directed fire—a tempest of chain. After their drubbing the men were a little out of hand, and now they could serve the Frenchmen out their fire was somewhat wild and often too low: but at this range not a shot flew wide. The powder-boys ran, the cartridges came up in a racing stream, the gun-crews cheered like maniacs, stripped to the waist, pouring with sweat, taking their sweet revenge; thumping it into her, cramming their guns to the muzzle. But it was too good to last. Th
rough the smoke it was clear that Linois meant to run the Surprise aboard—run the small frigate bodily down or board her.

  'Drop the forecourse. Fill foretopsail,' he cried with the full force of his lungs: and down the tube, 'Two points off.' He must at all costs keep on the Marengo's bows and keep hitting her—she was a slaughter-house forward, but nothing vital had yet carried away. The Surprise forged on in a sluggish, heavy turn, and the two-decker's side came into view. They were opening their lower ports, running out the great thirty-six-pounders in spite of the sea. One shift of her helm to bring them to bear and the Surprise would have the whole shattering broadside within pistol-shot. Then they could clap the lower ports to, for she would be sunk.

  Etherege, with four muskets and his servant to load them, was firing steadily at the Marengo's foretop, picking off any man who showed. Half a mile astern, the British van opened fire on the Sémillante and Belle Poule, who had been reaching them this last five minutes: smoke everywhere, and the thunder of the broadsides deadened the breeze.

  'Port, port, hard a-port,' he called down the tube; and straightening, 'Maincourse, there.' Where was her speed, poor dear Surprise? She could just keep ahead of the Marengo, but only by falling away from the wind so far that her guns could not bear and her stern was pointing at the Marengo's bows. Fire slackened, died away, and the men stared aft at the Marengo: two spokes of her wheel would bring the Frenchman's broadside round—already they could see the double line of muzzles projecting from their ports. Why did she not yaw? Why was she signalling?

  A great bellowing of guns to starboard told them why. The Royal George, followed by the two ships astern of her, had left the line, the holy line, and they were coming up fast to engage the Marengo on the other side while the van was closing in from the west, threatening to envelop him—the one manoeuvre that Linois dreaded.

  The Marengo hauled her wind, and her swing brought the frigate's guns into play again. They blazed out, and the two-decker instantly replied with a ragged burst from her upper starboard guns so close that her shot went high over the frigate's deck and the burning wads came aboard—so close that they could see the faces glaring from the ports, a biscuit-toss away. For a moment the two ships lay broadside to broadside. Through a gap torn in the Marengo's quarterdeck bulwark Jack saw the Admiral sitting on a chair; there was a grave expression on his face, and he was pointing at something aloft. Jack had often sat at his table and he instantly recognised the characteristic sideways lift of his head. Now the Marengo's turn carried her farther still. Another burst from her poop carronades and she was round, close-hauled, presenting her stern to a raking fire from the frigate's remaining guns—two more were dismounted and one had burst—a fire that smashed in her stern gallery. Another broadside as she moved away, gathering speed, and a prodigious cheer as her cross-jack yard came down, followed by her mizzen and topgallantmast. Then she was out of range, and the Surprise, though desperately willing, could not come round nor move fast enough through the sea to bring her into reach again.

  The whole French line had worn together: they hauled close to the wind, passed between the converging lines of Indiamen, and stood on.

  'Mr Lee,' said Jack. 'General chase.'

  It would not do. The Indiamen chased, cracking on until their skysails carried away, but still the French squadron had the heels of them; and when Linois tacked to the eastward, Jack recalled them.

  The Lushington was the first to reach him, and Captain Muffit came aboard. His red face, glorious with triumph, came up the side like a rising sun; but as he stepped on to the bloody quarterdeck his look changed to shocked astonishment. 'Oh my God,' he cried, looking at the wreckage fore and aft—seven guns dismantled, four ports beat into one, the boats on the booms utterly destroyed, shattered spars everywhere, water pouring from her lee-scuppers as the pumps brought it gushing up from below, tangled rope, splinters knee-deep in the waist, gaping holes in the bulwarks, fore and mainmast cut almost through in several places, 24 lb balls lodged deep. 'My God, you have suffered terribly. I give you the joy of victory,' he said, taking Jack's hand in both of his, 'but you have suffered most terribly. Your losses must be shocking, I am afraid.'

  Jack was worn now, and very tired: his foot hurt him abominably, swollen inside his boot. 'Thank you, Captain,' he said. 'He handled us roughly, and but for the George coming up so nobly, I believe he must have sunk us. But we lost very few men. Mr Harrowby, alas, and two others, with a long score of wounded: but a light bill for such warm work. And we paid him back. Yes, yes: we paid him back, by God.'

  'Eight foot three inches of water in the well, if you please, sir,' said the carpenter. 'And it gains on us.'

  'Can I be of any use, sir?' cried Muffit. 'Our carpenters, bosuns, hands to pump?'

  'I should take it kindly if I might have my officers and men back, and any help you can spare. She will not swim another hour.'

  'Instantly, sir, instantly,' cried Muffit, starting to the side, now very near the water. 'Lord, what a battering,' he said, pausing for a last look.

  'Ay,' said Jack. 'And where I shall replace all my gear this side of Bombay I do not know—not a spar in the ship. My comfort is, that Linois is even worse.'

  'Oh, as for masts, spars, boats, cordage, stores, the Company will be delighted—oh, they will think the world of you, sir, in Calcutta—nothing too much, I do assure you. Your splendid action has certainly preserved the fleet, as I shall tell 'em. Yardarm to yardarm with a seventy-four! May I give you a tow?'

  Jack's foot gave him a monstrous twinge. 'No, sir,' he said sharply. 'I will escort you to Calcutta, if you choose, since I presume you will not remain at sea with Linois abroad; but I will not be towed, not while I have a mast standing.'

  Chapter Ten

  The Company did think the world of him, indeed. Fireworks; prodigious banquets, treasures of naval stores poured out; such kind attentions to the crew while the Surprise was repairing that scarcely a man was sober or single from the day they dropped anchor to the day they weighed it, a sullen, brutal, debauched and dissipated band.

  This was gratitude expressed in food, in entertainment on the most lavish scale in oriental splendour, and in many, many speeches, all couched in terms of unmixed praise; and it brought Jack into immediate contact with Richard Canning. At the very first official dinner he found Canning at his right—a Canning filled with affectionate admiration, who eagerly claimed acquaintance. Jack was astonished: he had scarcely thought twice about Canning since Bombay, and since the engagement with Linois not at all. He had been perpetually busy, nursing the poor shattered fainting Surprise across the sea, even with a favourable wind and the devoted help of every Indiaman whose people could find footing aboard her; and Stephen, with a sick-bay full, and some delicate operations, including poor Bowes's head, had barely exchanged a dozen unofficial words with him that might have brought Diana or Canning to his mind.

  But here was the man at his side, friendly, unreserved and apparently unconscious of any call for reserve on either part, present to do him honour and indeed to propose his health in a well-turned, knowledgeable and really gratifying speech, a speech in which Sophia hovered, decently veiled, together with Captain Aubrey's imminent, lasting, and glorious happiness. After the first stiffness and embarrassment Jack found it impossible-to dislike him, and he made little effort to do so, particularly as Stephen and he seemed so well together. Besides, any distance, any coldness on a public occasion would have been so marked, so graceless and so churlish that he could not have brought himself to it, even if the offence had been even greater and far more recent. It occurred to him that in all probability Canning had not the least notion of having cut him out long ago—oh so long ago: in another world.

  Banquets, receptions, a ball that he had to decline, because that was the day they buried Bowes; and it was a week before he ever saw Canning in private, He was sitting at his desk in his cabin with his injured foot in a bucket of warm oil of sesame, writing to Sophie 'the sword of hono
ur they have presented me with is a very handsome thing, in the Indian taste, I believe, with a most flattering inscription; indeed, if kind words were ha'pence, I should he a nabob, and oh sweetheart a married nabob. The Company, the Parsee merchants and the insurers have made up a splendid purse for the men, that I am to distribute; but in their delicacy—' when Canning was announced.

  'Beg him to step below,' he said, placing a whale's tooth upon his letter, against the fetid Hooghly breeze. 'Mr Canning, a good morning to you, sir: pray sit down. Forgive me for receiving you in this informal way, but Maturin will flay me if I rise up from my oil without leave.'

  Civil inquiries for the foot—vastly better, I thank you—and Canning said, 'I have just pulled round the ship, and upon my word I do not know how you ever brought her in. I absolutely counted forty-seven great shot between what was left of your cutwater and the stump of the larboard cathead, and even more on the starboard bow. Just how did the Marengo lay?'

  Few landsmen would have had more than the briefest general account, but Canning had been to sea; he owned privateers and he had fought one of them in a spirited little action. Jack told him just how the Marengo lay; and led on by Canning's close, intelligent participation in every move, every shift of wind, he also told him how the Sémillante and Belle Poule had lain, and how the gallant Berceau had tried to lay, drawing diagrams in oil of sesame on the table-top.

  'Well,' said Canning with a sigh, 'I honour you, I am sure: it was the completest thing. I would have given my right hand to be there . . . but then I have never been a lucky man, except perhaps in trade. Lord, lord, how I wish I were a sailor, and a great way from land.' He looked down-spirited and old; but reviving he said, 'It was the completest thing—the Nelson touch.'