The Roots of Betrayal c-2

by James Forrester

  “Up here. Asleep. Best not to wake him.”

  “He sleeps? How can he?”

  “Ask him-when he wakes up. We are sure that the ships have come closer.”

  Clarenceux shivered and looked at the eastern sky. It would soon be dawn. “Where can I find a blade? I need something to defend myself with if they come aboard.”

  “They are probably all taken,” replied the man guarding the ladder to the sterncastle. “Besides, Captain Carew said you’re not expected to fight. You’re not one of us.”

  “What does he expect me to do?”

  “Tend to the wounded, I suppose, or look out for boarders. That’s what the women do.”

  “I am not one of the women.”

  “Lucky you,” said the man grimly.

  The wait for dawn was a long, cold one. Clarenceux sat with his back to the gunwale, wishing he was on land. He clasped his arms around him and considered going back down into the warmer heart of the ship and reclaiming his blanket, but he did not want to leave the fresh sea air. It was reassuring to him: it was a reminder of Creation and the company of God-the essence that meant to him that, although solitary, he was not alone. He watched others going about their business, and he listened in case anyone took news to Carew. Otherwise he shielded himself in his corner of holy reflection.

  Carew. He was the one person to whom Clarenceux wanted to speak at that moment. Not that he had anything to say; he just wanted to know what the man was thinking. He trusted him; he did not understand why, but he did. Even though the man had caused a knife to be plunged through his hand, Clarenceux had confidence that Carew would see them through any and all adversity. He was like an irreligious miracle worker. Does one have to believe in God to work miracles? But how could he work this particular miracle? God would surely not favor a man who cared nothing for Him against the threat of the approaching ships, led by a pious captain.

  He was startled out of his reverie by a shout from the masthead. A moment later, a figure leaped down from the sterncastle, not bothering to climb down the ladder, and started pulling himself into the rigging by his arms. Clarenceux struggled to his feet and went across to the other side of the boat. Four ships-not three-were dimly to be seen to the south and southwest, in a line, several miles away. He could not make out from this distance whether their sails were unfurled, but there was no doubt that they were the cause for alarm.

  “Prime the guns, all others to the deck,” shouted Carew from aloft, tugging at the ropes fastening one of the sails to the main yard.

  People started running. Men emerged rapidly through the hatch from the deck below. Clarenceux looked again at the ships. For a moment he could not make out what was going on. The wind had changed direction, coming from the south, and the Davy was trapped between the vessels and the coast, five miles away. One of the ships already had its sails unfurled and full; two others were unfurling theirs. And there was the fourth ship on the horizon, further south-west, where they had first seen the fleet, ready to cut off their escape.

  The air was filled with shouts of shipmen’s jargon that Clarenceux did not understand. Kahlu leaped up the ladder onto the sterncastle and started untying the rope that fastened the lateen sail. Clarenceux was surprised to see it turn so that it was sending them toward the ship waiting for them to the southwest. He climbed up the ladder to the sterncastle himself and was about to speak to Kahlu when he saw the man look hurriedly to the east. He turned around-and understood. There had not been four ships, there had been five. During the night one galleon had sailed up the Channel and around to the east. It was now between three and four miles away and approaching fast. They were hemmed in, with ships coming at them from the east, south and southwest.

  It was a hopeless situation-one in which any normal commander would have counseled surrender. But these men could not surrender, for they would simply be hanged. They had to fight to the death. In that instant, seeing the prow of the ship to the east bearing down on them, Clarenceux realized what he had to do. God’s will was that he should fight, that he should survive. It was not a decision that he could have made in the silence of the night. It was not a question that could have been decided by looking at the silent doubt of a candle flame. It was an understanding that could only have been reached in sight of the cannon’s mouth.

  Carew was still aloft, shouting. The Davy was heading northwest, heaving up and down on the waves, trying to outrun the surprise ship from the east and at the same time avoid the three ships coming from the south. They were moving fast, with the wind fully behind them. Men bustled around him, but this, Clarenceux realized, was merely the calm before the killing started. Discreetly crossing himself, he shut his eyes and said a prayer.

  A fizz in the air and the simultaneous boom of a cannon made him open his eyes. There was a splash in the sea not far away, to the west of the ship. He looked at the vessels to the south; these were still out of range. The galleon in the east, however, was less than a mile away. He saw a flash from its port side as a second gun fired. This too missed, splashing into the sea just short of the Davy. He heard Carew shouting and looked aloft, not understanding the jargon and wishing there was something he could do to help. He did not even have a weapon. He could not sail a ship-he did not know anything about managing sails. He heard the third report of a cannon and the fizzing sound in the air, then screams as two men fell from the foremast and part of the rigging snapped and recoiled.

  He did know a little about guns.

  Below in the dimness of the main deck, Dunbar, the master gunner, was measuring out charges of gunpowder into pots. Clarenceux said, “I’ve come to assist.”

  Dunbar continued measuring out the gunpowder. “You’ve been watching the demonstrations?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ever fired anything bigger than your arm?”

  “No.”

  “Main thing is to swab the barrel after every use. Put a charge of gunpowder down the barrel when it’s still hot and fiery inside, and it’ll ignite and blow the ramrod straight through your guts. The demicannon need six men to run them out, but you”-he looked Clarenceux up and down-“take that falconet.” He turned and pointed. “Nick will show you what to do. Aim for the sails and the rigging-we need to slow them down.”

  Clarenceux went across to the gun that Nick Laver was heaving out beyond the gunport.

  “Loaded?” asked Clarenceux, seeing Nick attach the ropes to stop the recoil.

  “Aye, though I’m not sure about hitting anything. We wallow and rise too much.”

  Clarenceux bent down and forced down the rear of the gun, bringing back the wedge beneath the front of the barrel. Nick was right; the rolling of the ship from side to side made it difficult to aim. He looked along the four-foot barrel and searched around for the linstock. It was as yet unlit, lying alongside the cannon. He picked it up in his right hand, determined that the wound would not disable him, and turned to the lantern attached to the base of the foremast.

  “Wait, I haven’t primed the fuse yet,” shouted Nick, clutching a flask of the fine gunpowder used for the firing. But at that moment there was an almighty burst of air and sound and the whole ship shook. Clarenceux was thrown against the base of the foremast. Splinters of oak lay all around, and there was a gash in the side of the boat where a heavy cannonball had struck. On the far side there was another hole where it had departed, splitting the strakes of the vessel and allowing a jagged brightness into the main deck. The ship in the east was almost on them. He knelt down and looked through the falconet’s gunport. It was at forty-five degrees to their direction of sail, less than a hundred yards away.

  There was shouting and more cannon fire. Men were running and stooping, yelling and cursing. Clarenceux looked around for where he had dropped the linstock and found it on the deck. The lantern was extinguished, its glass broken by the blast. There were flames flickering here and there, so his first reaction was to relight the lantern from the flames. His next thought was that the gunpowd
er was scattered. He shook his head, not thinking clearly. Two more loud booms came from the ships to the south.

  A scream of pain rose from the far side of the deck. A man had been knocked out by the blast, had come to his senses, and felt the agony of the splinters of oak that had shredded his arm and the side of his face. There was a shout of warning nearby; a cannon fired and recoiled. Clarenceux looked at the wounded figure and saw it was the apprentice shipwright whom he had seen once or twice in the dark of the orlop deck with Alice. He turned to see where Nick had gone. The lad was on his back, lying over a crate, with half his head blown away, the brain exposed and a lifeless eye hanging by a nerve. Clarenceux crossed himself and turned away.

  Dunbar was pouring gunpowder from the pots into linen pouches as steadily as he could, with the movement of the ship. Eight others were pushing out two of the long-barreled demicannon on the starboard side, and ten or eleven men were firing those on the port side. The man firing the other falconet on this deck was loading his gun with grapeshot and aiming high, to tear down the sails off the chasing ships.

  Turning back to his own falconet, Clarenceux grabbed the flask of fine gunpowder from the next gunport and filled the priming hole. He refastened the flask and hung it on a hook above his own gunport and took up the linstock. The wounded man was still screaming on the far side of the ship; other men were yelling all around him. Clarenceux lit the linstock from that of another gunner nearby, and, having looked once more along the barrel, he stood to one side, waited till they were at the low point of the ship’s wallowing, and applied the linstock to the priming hole.

  The falconet burst with life, shooting back against the limit of the thick rope. Quickly Clarenceux looked through the gunport to see where the cannonball had gone. There was smoke all around the other ship; a moment or so later, he saw that the lateen sail had fallen. Whether it was his shot or that of another cannon he did not know, but the ability of the other ship to change direction was severely limited. Encouraged, Clarenceux shouted to Dunbar for another charge of gunpowder for the falconet and started the process of loading it again.

  For the next hour and a half, Clarenceux lost himself in a frantic ritual of loading and firing this one small gun, putting a half-pound charge of gunpowder into the barrel, ramming it home with wadding, inserting the cannonball, and ramming that home with more wadding. Smoke filled the deck; shots that tore apart the oak sides of the hull sent splinters flying dangerously across the confined space. The smell of burning gunpowder filled the air. Shot by shot he mastered the technique of aiming and firing the weapon. A falconet might be a small gun, he realized, but as it was light enough for him to run out singlehandedly, he could take charge of the whole process and thus find his own rhythm. His third shot tore through the mainsail of the ship; his fifth smashed into the sterncastle. A two-inch piece of red-hot metal passing through did untold amounts of damage: that was obvious enough from those that hit the Davy. He fired fifteen shots, sweating and grimy with the effort, deafened from the explosions, wounded from the splinters and scorched from the burning of the hull.

  With the swab in his hand, washing out the barrel of his falconet for the sixteenth time, he felt as if someone had suddenly placed their hands over his ears and tried to pull his head off. Thrown suddenly against the hull, he could see nothing. His head hurt, much more than his hand. A man was crying somewhere nearby, another howling. The ship was rolling from side to side even more than before. Clarenceux struggled to his feet and looked at where his gun had been. There was a gash in the side of the ship and the falconet was rammed into the wood. The wood had splintered outward, however. The cannonball had come through the ship from the other side and hit his falconet. He looked at the gaping hole in the opposite side of the ship. He turned back to his gun. It was now useless.

  He walked through the smoke-filled deck, his head reeling, a singing noise between his ears. Only eight men were still firing-five attending to a demicannon on the starboard side and three firing one on the port. The body of Nick Laver had been blown from the position in which he had fallen and smashed like a doll against the mainmast. His cutlass, still tucked in his belt, had caught on the body of another man, who had also suffered from the massive splinters of smashed oak strakes. At the foot of the ladder was the naked upper body and head of a woman, Charity Pool. Clarenceux had been dimly aware of Charity and the other women going among them, trying to staunch the bleeding of the wounded. Her long hair had been burnt away and her skin scorched black. Her legs had gone entirely, torn off by a cannonball.

  Clarenceux crossed himself, pushed the woman’s remains to one side and went up the ladder. Everything was changed. The galleon that had surprised them, coming from the east, was still a hundred yards away but now it had only one of its three masts and no sails-partly due to his own work. The three ships that had been sailing at them from the south, however, were all close at hand. One had lost all but its topmost and lateen sails and was about three hundred yards to the south, but the other two were both within a hundred yards, and one of those had all three masts still intact-albeit with one sail ripped. The fifth vessel too had moved closer and now was about a mile away.

  None of this surprised Clarenceux so much as the scene on the deck of the Davy. Bodies were lying everywhere, men groaning with broken limbs where they had fallen from the yards onto the deck. Some were screaming in agony. There were splashes of blood across the wood. Even those who were not wounded were lying down or crouched in corners as occasional gunshots hit the deck. One of the sakers stationed on the upper deck was surrounded by corpses; the other was still being manned by John Devenish, despite the blood across his shoulder and back. The mainmast had been split in two about ten feet above the upper deck and, restrained by the rigging, the top half had fallen down, hanging across the yard. The foremast was similarly broken, its jagged edges pointing into the blue sky. All the sails were down except one, and that was ragged.

  The almost unscathed ship was moving fast toward the Davy on the port side, looking as though she was going to ram her. Musketeers were stationed on her deck, firing at anything that moved on the Davy, and men with bows were shooting arrows with incendiary pitch-covered heads at the ship. As these hit, the Davy’s crew rushed to throw them over the side. When they did so, the enemy opened fire with their muskets. Although their aim was wayward because of the pitching of the two ships, five or six guns being trained on the target made the task of clearing the deck a dangerous one.

  Clarenceux ducked back down through the hatch and looked across the wrecked main deck, wondering how to stop the fast-approaching ship. Through the smoke he could see men and boys scurrying around, carrying powder and shot and buckets of water for the swabs and to put out the fires. Only one of the demicannon was now in operation-the one on the starboard side. The other had been abandoned, with broken timber, blankets, eating vessels, and a mass of broken rubbish piled up behind it, preventing it from being drawn in to be reloaded. But the men firing the starboard gun were shooting at a ship that posed no immediate threat. Clarenceux needed to have these men fire the gun that was out of use. “The other gun!” he roared in his loudest, most commanding heraldic voice. He stepped down the ladder. “Take the other cannon. We are about to be rammed from the portside-fire the other cannon!”

  One of the men grasped what Clarenceux was saying; the other four followed, bringing the linstock and gunpowder between them. Clarenceux helped them clear a path to pull in the gun. There was no time to swab it-and no need, as it had not been fired for some time. One man packed in the four-pound charge of gunpowder and the other lifted the cannonball and rammed it home. A fourth man saw to the priming and Clarenceux looked along the barrel, taking the linstock. “Run her out,” he commanded, looking over at the fast-approaching ship. When the gun was ready, he still waited, picturing the nine or ten feet of ship below the waterline. It was a careful balance, between a shot that was too deep, which would barely damage the vessel, and one that was
only just below the waterline. The ship heaved, the muzzle wavering between the waterline and the forecastle. “Muzzle down,” he yelled, watching the prow of the ship close in on them. Then “Stop!” he shouted, realizing that just below the waterline would be enough-the water pouring in would do the rest itself. He waited a moment, gauged the timing of the waves, and applied the linstock to the gunpowder.

  He only just managed to dive out of the way in time. In concentrating on aiming the gun, he had forgotten about the recoil. In the second or so that it took the priming gunpowder to burn through, he remembered. The cannon shot back-more than two tons of bronze and iron-bound oak-restrained by the ropes with an impact as sudden as the initial deafening explosion.

  Clarenceux got to his feet quickly and grabbed the swab from the neighboring gun as the other men hauled in the cannon. He glanced through the gun port as he cleaned the barrel, hearing the hiss of the water on the hot metal. There seemed to be no difference to the enemy ship. He gestured for the next charge to be inserted and picked up the linstock, as the thirty-two-pound cannonball was rammed home. Wiping the sweat from his face, he gave the order to run her out. Again he looked down the barrel, and aimed to hit the ship two feet below the waterline. Another deafening roar burst from the gun. Immediately Clarenceux picked up the swab and gave orders for the next shot to be prepared. When the smoke cleared and he could see the approaching ship, her prow was lower in the water. She was sinking.

  Clarenceux ordered the men to continue firing the smaller guns and went back up through the smoke to the ladder. He crouched on the upper deck, shouting at Luke, who was loading a number of pistols arranged in a row in front of him. The body of Hugh Dean was nearby, his stomach a mass of blood and bone, ripped open by a cannonball. His mouth was open and his eyes too, still staring up through the smoke at the sky.

  “Where’s Carew?” shouted Clarenceux, moving over to Luke.