Book 4 - The Mauritius Command

by Patrick O'Brian

  'I am at a loss,' said McAdam. 'I have never seen him like this, at all. He may know what he is about, but he may be bent on wiping your friend's eye, and damn the whole world, so he does it. Have you ever seen a man look so beautiful?'

  Dawn, and still the French had not moved. For once no holy-stone was heard aboard the Sirius or the Néréide; no swabs beat the decks, littered as they were with cables, hawsers, heavy tackles, all the resources of the bosun's art. The tide rose, the capstans turned, slower and slower as the full strain came on and as all hands who could find a place at the bars heaved her grinding off into deep water, where she anchored by the Néréide and all the carpenters crowded about her bows, cut deep by the sharp and lagged coral. The exhausted hands were piped to their late breakfast, and they were beginning to set the still-encumbered deck into some kind of fighting-trim when the Iphigenia and Magicienne were seen in the offing.

  Clonfert sent his master to bring them in, for Mr Satterly, though harassed and ashamed, now certainly knew the channel up to this point very well; but he had grown so cautious that it was not until after dinner that they dropped anchor and all captains gathered aboard the Sirius to hear Pym's plan of attack. It was clear: it made good plain sense. Néréide, with her black pilot, was to lead in and anchor between the Victor and the Bellone at the northern end of the French line; Sirius with her eighteen-pounders was to anchor abreast of the Bellone; Magicienne between the Ceylon and the powerful Minerve; and Iphigenia, who also carried eighteen-pounders, abreast of the Minerve, closing the line on the south.

  The captains turned to their ships. Clonfert, who did in fact look extraordinarily gay, young, and lighthearted, as though possessed by some happy spirit, went below to put on a new coat and fresh white breeches; coming on deck again he said to Stephen, with a particularly sweet and affectionate smile, 'Dr Maturin, I believe we may show you something to be compared to what you have seen with Commodore Aubrey.'

  The Sirius made her signal, and the Néréide, slipping her cable, led in under staysails, her pilot conning the ship from the foretopmast yard. The Sirius followed her, then the Magicienne, then the Iphigenia, each falling into line at intervals of a cable's length. On through the winding channel with the steady breeze, the shore coming closer and closer: with successive turns in the channel the intervals grew wider, and the Sirius, hurrying to close the gap and misjudging her swing, struck hard and grounded on the rocky edge. At the same moment the French frigates and the shore-batteries opened fire.

  Pym hailed his ships to carry on. In five minutes the Néréide was out of the narrow pass. The Magicienne and the Iphigenia, judging the channel by the stranded Sirius, pressed on after her but now at a somewhat greater distance; and in the last wind, four hundred yards from the French line, the Magicienne took the ground. By now the French broadsides were sweeping high over the Néréide's deck from stem to stern to disable her as she ran down, making for the Victors bow. 'Warm work, Dr Maturin,' said Clonfert, and then, glancing over the taffrail, 'Sirius has not backed off; she is hard and fast,' he said. 'We must tackle the Bellone for her. Mr Satterly, lay me alongside the Bellone. Lay me alongside the Bellone,' he said louder, to be heard above the din; for now the bow guns were answering the French. 'Aye, aye, sir,' said the master. For another cable's length she held on, straight through the French fire: another fifty yards, and the master, waving his hand to the watchful bosun, ordered the helm put up.

  The Néréide swung round, dropped her anchor, and lay there broadside to broadside, abeam of the big Frenchman, and her twelve-pounders roared out at point-blank range. She was firing fast: the Marines and soldiers packed tight on the quarterdeck and forecastle were blazing away over the hammocks with steady pertinacity: stray ropes and blocks fell on to the splinternetting overhead: smoke hung thick between the ships, continually renewed as it blew away, and through the smoke the Bellone's guns flashed orange—flashes from the Victor too, on the Néréide's starboard quarter.

  Stephen walked across to the other side: the Magicienne, hard aground on her sharp piercing reef with her figurehead pointing at the French line, could nevertheless bring her forward guns to bear and she was hitting the enemy as hard as she could, while her boats worked furiously to get her off: the Iphigenia was close alongside the Minerve; they were separated by a long narrow shoal but they were not a stone's throw apart and they were hammering one another with appalling ferocity. The volume of noise was greater than anything Stephen had ever experienced: yet through it all there was a sound familiar to him—the cry of the wounded. The Bellone's heavy guns were mauling the Néréide most terribly, tearing gaps in her hammocks, dismounting guns: presently she would use grape. He was a little uncertain of his position. In all previous engagements his place as a surgeon had been below, in the orlop; here it was perhaps his duty to stand and be shot at, to stand with nothing to do, like the army officers: it did not move him unduly, he found, though by now grape was screeching overhead. Yet at the same time men were carrying below in increasing numbers, and there at least he could be of some use. 'I shall stay for the present, however,' he reflected. 'It is something, after all, to view an action from such a vantage-point.' The glass turned, the bell rang: again and again. 'Six bells,' he said, counting. 'Is it possible we have been at it so long?' And it seemed to him that the Bellone was now firing with far less conviction, far less accuracy—that her ragged broadsides had far longer intervals between them.

  A confused cheering forward, and from the Iphigenia too: a gap in the cloud of smoke showed him the weakly manned and weakly armed Ceylon, battered by the grounded Magicienne and by the Iphigenia's quarter-guns, in the act of striking her colours; and in one of those strange momentary pauses without a gun he heard the captain of the Iphigenia hail the Magicienne in a voice of thunder, desiring her to take possession of the Indiaman. But as the Magicienne's boat neared her, pulling fast through water whipped white with small shot and great, the Ceylon dropped her topsails and ran for the shore behind the Bellone. The boat was still pursuing her and roaring out when the Minerve, either cutting her cable or having it cut for her by the Iphigenia's murderous and continual fire, swung round, got under way, and ran straight before the wind, following the Ceylon. She steered better than the Ceylon however, for the Indianian blundered right into the Bellone, forcing her too to cut. They all three drifted on shore—a heap of ships ashore, with the Minerve lying directly behind the Bellone and so near that she could not fire. But the Bellone's broadside still lay square to the Néréide, and now men were pouring into her from the land and from the Minerve and the Ceylon: her fire, which had slackened, now redoubled and grew more furious still, the broadsides now coming fast and true. The Iphigenia, directly to the windward of her shoal and only a pistol-shot from it, could not stir, and it was clear that in these last few minutes the face of the battle had totally changed. There was no more cheering aboard the Néréide. The gun crews, for all their spirit, were growing very tired, and the rate of fire fell off. By now the sun had almost gone: and the shore-batteries, which had hitherto played on the Iphigenia and the Magicienne, now concentrated their fire on the Néréide.

  'Why do we swing so?' wondered Stephen, and then he realized that a shot had cut the spring on the Néréide's cable, the spring that held her broadside on to the Bellone. Round she came, and farther yet, until her stern took the ground, thumping gently with the swell and pointing towards the enemy, who poured in a steady raking fire. She still fired her quarter-guns and her stern-chaser, but now men were falling fast. The first lieutenant and three of the army officers were dead: blood ran over her quarterdeck not in streams but in a sheet. Clonfert was giving the bosun orders about a warp when a messenger from below, a little terrified boy, ran up to him, pointing at Dr Maturin as he spoke: Clonfert crossed the deck and said, 'Dr Maturin, may I beg you to give a hand in the orlop? McAdam has had an accident. I should be most infinitely obliged.'

  McAdam's accident was an alcoholic coma, and his assistant, who ha
d never been in action before, was completely overwhelmed. Stephen threw off his coat, and in the darkness, weakly lit by a lantern, he set to work: tourniquet, saw, knife, sutures, forceps, probe, retractor, dressings, case after case, with the sometimes perilously delicate operations continually interrupted by the huge, all-pervading, sonorous jar of heavy shot smashing into the frigate's hull. And still the wounded came, until it seemed that half and even more than half of the Néréide's company had passed through his bloody hands as she lay there, quite unsupported, her fire reduced to half a dozen guns.

  'Make a lane there, make a lane for the Captain,' he heard, and here was Clonfert on the chest before him, under the lantern. One eye was torn out and dangling: maxilla shattered: neck ripped open and the carotid artery laid bare, pulsing in the dim light, its wall shaved almost to the bursting-point. A typical splinter-wound. And the frightful gash across his face was grape. He was conscious, perfectly clear in his mind, and at present he felt no pain, a far from uncommon phenomenon in wounds of this kind and at such a time. He was not even aware of the scalpel, probe and needle, except to say that they were oddly cold; and as Stephen worked over him he spoke, sensibly though in a voice altered by his shattered teeth, he told Stephen that he had sent to ask Pym whether he judged the ship could be towed out or whether the wounded should be put into the squadron's boats and the Néréide set on fire. 'She might wreck the Bellone, when she blows up,' he added.

  His wounds were still being dressed when Webber came back from the Sirius with one of her officers and a message from Pym, a message that had to be shouted above the crash of the Bellone's guns. Pym suggested that Clonfert should come aboard the Sirius. The Iphigenia could not possibly warp off from behind her shoal until daylight and in the meantime the Néréide lay between her and the French ships; she could not fire upon them; Lord Clonfert might certainly come aboard the Sirius.

  'Abandon my men?' cried Clonfert in that strange new voice. 'I'll see him damned first. Tell him I have struck.' And when the officer had gone and the dressing was finished he said to Stephen, 'Is it done, Doctor? I am most truly grateful to you,' and made as though to rise.

  'You will never get up?' asked Stephen.

  'Yes,' he said. 'My legs are sound enough. I am going on deck. I must do this properly, not like a scrub.'

  He stood up and Stephen said, 'Take care of the bandage on your neck. Do not pluck at it, or you may die within the minute.'

  Shortly afterwards most of the remaining men came below, sent by the Captain: the routine of the ship was gone—there had been no bells this hour and more—and her life was going. Some clustered in the orlop, and from their low, muted talk and from those who came and went their shipmates learnt what was going on: a boat had come from the Iphigenia to ask why the Néréide was no longer firing, and would the Captain come aboard of her—told, had struck, and the Captain would not stir—Captain had sent to Bellone to tell her to stop firing, because why? Because he had struck; but the boat could not reach her nor make her hear. Then there was the cry of fire on deck and several men ran up to put it out: and shortly after the mainmast went by the board.

  Lord Clonfert came below again, and sat for a while in the orlop. Although Stephen was still working hard he took a look at him between patients and formed the impression that he was in a state of walking unconsciousness; but after some time Clonfert got up and began moving about among the wounded, calling them by name.

  It was long past midnight. The French fire was slackening; the British fire had stopped long since; and now after a few random shots the night fell silent. Men slept where they had chanced to sit or throw themselves down. Stephen took Clonfert by the arm, guided him to the dead purser's cot, well under the water-line, directed him how to rest his head so that he should not endanger his wound, and returned to his patients. There were more than a hundred and fifty of them: twenty-seven had already died below, but he had hopes for about a hundred of the rest: the Dear knew how many had been killed outright on deck and thrown overboard. Seventy or so, he thought. He roused Mr Fenton, who was sleeping with his head on his arms, leaning on the chest that formed their operating-table, and together they looked to their dressings.

  They were still busy when the sun rose and the Bellone began to fire at the Néréide again: on and on, in spite of repeated hails. The gunner came below with a gushing splinter-wound in his forearm, and while Stephen applied the tourniquet and tied the artery the gunner told him that the Néréide colours had not in fact been struck: they were flying still, and they could not be hauled down. There was a rumour that they had been nailed to the mast, but the gunner knew nothing of it, and the bosun, who would have had the true word, he was dead. 'And not a scrap of rigging to come at them, 'he said. 'So his lordship's told the carpenter to cut the mizzen away. Thank you kindly, sir: that's a right tidy job. I'm much obliged. And, Doctor,' he said in a low rumble behind his hand, 'if you don't much care for a French prison, there's some of us topping our boom in the cutter, going aboard of Sirius.'

  Stephen nodded, looked over his worst cases, and made his way through the wreckage to the cabin. Clonfert was not there. He found him on the quarterdeck, sitting on an upturned match-tub and watching the carpenters ply their axes. The mizzenmast fell, carrying the colours with it, and the Bellone's fire ceased. 'There, I have done it properly,' said Clonfert in a barely intelligible murmur, out of the side of his ruined, bandaged face. Stephen looked at his most dangerous wound, found him sensible, though by now at a far remove, and said, 'I wish to go to the Sirius, my lord: the remaining boat is fit to leave, and I beg you will give an order to that effect.'

  'Make it so, Doctor Maturin,' said Clonfert. 'I wish you may get away. Thank you again. 'They shook hands. Stephen took some papers from his cabin, destroyed others, and made his way to the boat. It was no great climb down, for the Néréide had settled on the sea-bed.

  Although Pym received him kindly aboard the stranded Sirius, his conduct did not raise Stephen's opinion of him as a commander or as a man of sense. The Iphigenia, having at last warped herself free of the long shoal that had stood between her and the Minerve, sent to ask permission to stand in, to attack the immobilized French ships, boarding them with extra hands from Sirius and Magicienne, and not only taking them but rescuing the Néréide too. No, said Pym, who needed her help to heave his own ship off, she must go on warping towards the Sirius. Twice he sent back this categorical reply, each time as a direct order. With the Iphigenia warping out, the French fire concentrated on the Magicienne, hard and fast on her reef, badly holed, with nine foot of water in her hold and only a few guns that could be brought to bear. The French shot poured in upon her, and sometimes upon the other ships, and upon the frantically busy, exhausted hands in the remaining boats all that long, appalling, bloody day. It was impossible to get her off; it was impossible that she should swim if she were got off. Her men were ordered into the Iphigenia, and after sunset she was set on fire, blowing up in doleful splendour about midnight.

  The next day the French had a new battery ready on shore, closer to, and the battery and the ships began to fire on the Iphigenia and the Sirius as they strove to heave Pym's frigate off her reef. At last, after incessant labour all in vain, and after some ugly scenes with the captain of the Iphigenia, who was utterly convinced (and Stephen, together with many better-qualified observers, agreed with him) that his plan would have meant a total victory and who could barely bring himself to speak civilly to the man who had forbidden it, Pym realized that the Sirius could not be saved. Her ship's company were taken into the Iphigenia and the Sirius too was set on fire, Pym thereby relinquishing his command, twenty-four hours too late; and the now solitary Iphigenia returned to her warping.

  She was obliged to warp—to carry out an anchor on the end of a cable, drop it, and wind herself up to it by the capstan—because never in the daylight did the wind cease blowing dead on shore. She could make no progress whatsoever in any other way, for when the land-breeze got up b
efore dawn she dared not attempt the dark and unseen channel, and it always died with the rising of the sun. So hour after hour her boats, carrying the ponderous great anchors, dragged out the sodden nine-inch hawsers; and if the anchors held, if the ground was not foul, she then crept a very little way, rarely more than fifty yards, because of the turns. But often the ground was foul, and sometimes the anchors came home or were broken or were lost altogether; and all this exhausting labour had to be carried out in the blazing sun by a dispirited crew. Meanwhile the French ships in Port South-East had been heaved off, and a French brig was sighted beyond the Ile de la Passe, probably the forerunner of Hamelin's squadron from Port-Louis.

  However, there was nothing for it, and the Iphigenia warped on and on towards the fort, fifty yards by fifty yards with long pauses for the recovery of fouled anchors, the whole length of that vast lagoon. It was two full days before she reached a point about three quarters of a mile from the island, and here she anchored for the night. The next day, when the Bellone and Minerve had profited by the land-breeze to advance fair into the lagoon whose channels they knew so well, and had there anchored, she set to again; and by eight o'clock, when she was within a thousand feet of the fort, of the open sea and the infinite delight of sailing free, she saw three ships join the French brig outside the reef: the Vénus, Manche and Astrée. They were exchanging signals with the Bellone and Minerve; and the wind, still right in the Iphigenia's teeth, was bearing them fast towards the Ile de la Passe, where they would lie to, just out of range.

  The Iphigenia at once sent the soldiers and many of the seamen to the fort and cleared for action. She had little ammunition, however: even before the end of the Port South-East battle she had had to send to the Sirius for more, and since then she had fired away so much that half an hour's engagement would see her locker bare. The clearing was therefore largely symbolic, and it was carried out, as her captain told Stephen privately, to let the French see that he would not surrender unconditionally, that he still had teeth, an that if he could not get decent terms he would use them.