by Tom Grundner
“All right, you go on deck. I’ll be right behind you.”
Smith climbed up to the gun deck and was about to climb the stairway to the main deck through the aft hatch when something caught his eye.
It was an elaborate collection of thick ropes running from the wheel on the main deck to what amounted to nothing more than an oversize tiller. The whole device, blocks, ropes and braces, had only one purpose—to move the rudder and thereby steer the ship. As he climbed the stairway Smith glanced at the apparatus, but its implications didn’t immediately register.
Smith went to the rail where Walker was trying to look over the side and at the same time keep his head down in case a British sharpshooter should think it a tempting target.
“Ah, there you are,” Walker said. I can’t see Susan; but, then again, we’re not quite up to the Russell yet, either.”
Walker turned to Smith, “Are you ready to...” His sentence died as he saw Smith’s eyes grow wide, then saw him turn and race down the hatch he had just come through.
A minute later, he came back.
“Lucas, did you see that collection of ropes in the stern one deck below us?”
“Yes. I assumed it was the cable run for the rudder.”
“That’s exactly what it is. And what would happen if that cable was cut?”
Understanding now dawned in Walker’s eyes. “It would be a catastrophe. They would loose control of the ship. The ship would swing into the wind and stop, and, unless they acted very quickly, the ships behind would pile into us.”
“Precisely. We’ve got to cut that cable.”
“Sidney, if we do that we’ll miss our pick-up.”
“I know, Lucas. I know.” Smith was quiet for a moment while Walker looked over the side in the general direction of Susan’s arrival.
“I am not going to ask you to join me, but I am going to stay and try to cut that rudder cable. When Susan comes up, I want you to get over the side and grab that line. I am going below.”
“And I am supposed to leave you here? Just like that?”
Smith smiled at his friend and said, “Look, Lucas, you don’t belong here—not really. This is my world. I joined it of my own free will, and I am quite prepared to die in it and for it.”
Walker continued to look over the side and said quietly, almost wistfully, “There she is, Sidney. There’s Susan, just like she planned it, coming up between the lines of ships.”
Walker paused for a moment, and then a cold resolution flooded him. It was the kind of decision that does not come from your brain; it comes from your heart and your soul.
“If you’re staying, I am staying. You get below and start work. I’ll wave Susan off then join you.”
“Lucas, if we ever get out of this, I am going to... I am going to...”
“You’re going to do what?”
“I am going to send your ass to medical school.”
* * *
What was it Walker had said? Susan thought. No battle plan ever survives the first five minutes of a battle.
She had forgotten about the smoke—the horrible, acrid, blinding, smoke.
She saw the Diadem coming up, eased the tiller over, and swung her boat into the lane between the two lines of ships. Then the ship ahead of the Diadem, the Glorieux, let loose with a ragged volley of fire, followed by the Russell opening up and the Diadem launching her own broadside. The lane was now choked with a thick gray, swirling cloud of gun smoke that caused her to gasp and cough and her eyes to water.
She looked up again and a puff of wind had cleared a gap in the smoke. There was the Diadem coming up.
She tied off the tiller, moved to the bow of the boat, picked up the line and buoy and was about to swing it; when she looked up and saw Lucas Walker at the rail of the Diadem waving her off.
He was yelling something. She couldn’t make out what it was but the intent was clear. He was calling off the rescue.
Why? she thought. It had worked. She was here. The lines were ready to be tossed. All they had to do was...
And she stopped. All “they” had to do? There was no “they.” There was only Walker standing at the rail. Smith wasn’t there.
She could only conclude the obvious. Smith was seriously hurt or dead. Her eyes began to water. “This damn smoke,” she said to herself. “It’s killing my eyes.”
* * *
Smith was convinced that he had found the dullest ax in the history of the French Navy. He whacked away, again and again, at the rudder cable, making some progress, but not nearly fast enough.
Walker came bounding down the stairwell and found Smith at his labor.
“What can I do to help?” he asked.
“Unless you’ve got another ax—nothing. Just stand guard. Someone is bound to come down here sooner or later and find us. And we’ve got to get this thing cut no matter what.”
“That’s crazy. What am I supposed to do if someone does come? Here give me that ax.”
Smith turned over the questionable blade, carefully slid his sword out, and looked nervously around.
No sooner had Walker started work than three French seamen came running down the stairs. The first two swung around a stanchion and headed forward. The third caught Smith and Walker out of the corner of his eye.
When it dawned on him what was happening, he let out a scream and rushed at the two with a seven-foot boarding pike in his hands.
He thrust the razor sharp head at Walker’s exposed back. Smith’s sword flashed down quick as a cobra strike cutting the pike in half just as the head was only inches away from ramming home.
The man looked at Smith, then at the shattered remains of his pike, and ran.
Walker kept hacking away and the first of three cables separated. He began on the next.
By this time, the other two seamen had doubled back. They were both armed with cutlasses.
The first man eyed Smith warily as he hefted his sword. Smith circled and suddenly flicked out his sword in a point. The Frenchman clumsily parried it. Again, the sword flashed, again it was parried. Smith circled some more and tried another point, this time cutting the man badly on his left arm.
This enraged him. He swore and mounted a furious attack, hacking away at Smith like a wild man, spraying spittle out of his mouth with each stroke. Smith coolly dodged or parried each attack.
Circling again, Smith tried another point. The man parried with an inside guard which he then awkwardly tried to shift into a point. It was a bad idea. Smith anticipated his move, stepped quickly to one side, and brought his sword down on the man’s head.
There was a sound like a ripe watermelon being split as Smith’s sea service cutlass tore through skin, bone, and brain tissue. The man dropped to his knees, and then wordlessly fell over on his side. Smith extracted his sword from the man’s skull with a yank and readied himself for the next fight.
This would be much more of a contest, for the third man was clearly a swordsman.
Walker kept hacking away and the second of three cables separated. He began on the third.
Smith had his hands full. There were no wild rushes from this opponent. He was content to thrust and parry, always watching Smith with cold steady eyes.
This was a fight to the death and both men knew it. Their sword play covered the whole aft end of the deck, each man attacking, then retreating, then attacking again. Neither wanted to quit, yet each man was growing painfully tired. The Frenchman finally broke.
He knew that if he didn’t finish off the Anglais soon he would be too tired to continue, and that could be fatal. The man decided to mount a frenzied attack.
In a burst of activity, he made a sudden lunge forward. Smith, with a beautiful half hanger, deflected the blade; but the man had put too much force into it and he found himself off balance. Smith stepped to one side like a matador, changed his guard to a point, and ran his sword through the Frenchman’s throat.
The third and final cable parted and Walker dropped to his kn
ees, exhausted.
* * *
It was 10:00 in the morning. The evening chill was gone, the sun was hot, the sky clear and the sea a profound blue.
The Formidable had finally passed the Ville de Paris and was now alongside the next ship in line, the Glorieux. To say the Glorieux was in bad shape was an understatement. She had already been quite battered and torn by both the Hercules and the Resolution when she came upon the Duke. Captain Gardner, who had a reputation for viciousness in battle, simply tore her apart. By the time the Formidable got to her, she looked like a broken child’s toy. Every upright stick on her was in ruin. Her bowsprit was gone along with all three masts: fore, main and mizzen. Even the ensign-staff, which flew the French flag, was broken in half and dangled off the stern.
She might have looked like a total wreck, but she still had some fight in her. As the Formidable came up, carpenters could be seen frantically trying to nail a French flag to the broken stump of a main mast. While they were at work, another man held the flag up on a long pole. Sharpshooters on the Formidable shot the man that was holding the pole through the hand; whereupon he simply shifted the pole to his other hand and kept on waving.
The response of the Formidable to this act of heroism was to pour a full 50-gun broadside into the Glorieux. The combined weight of that much iron slamming into her at one time literally moved the Glorieux sideways through the water. If your opponent is injured, you move in for the kill. Always. Always. Always. For that is the way of war whether it's between armies, between ships, or between individuals.
There was a pause as the next ship in the French line, the Diadem, came up. The Formidable made ready to give her a taste of what they had just given the Glorieux. There was time, however. There was no rush. There was just simple brutal efficiency. On both sides of the battle men re-loaded their guns, while others tried to make temporary repairs, and still others began throwing bodies over the side, mostly dead but sometimes, by mistake, even those that were seriously wounded but still alive.
Admiral Rodney was pacing the quarterdeck with his flag captain, the gunnery expert, Sir Charles Douglas. Both were extremely pleased with how well Douglas’ gunnery reforms had worked out—especially with the performance of a new gun he had installed called the “carronade.” By the end of the day, the British seamen would christen it the “Smasher,” and the French the “Devil Gun.”
“Dashwood? Dashwood? Where the devil is that bloody midshipman,” Rodney groused. “I told him to go to my cabin and mix-up a lemon-squash for me and you’d think he went back to Barbados for it.”
Just then, Dashwood appeared on deck nervously stirring the Admiral’s drink with his midshipman’s dagger.
“Oh, for God’s sake Dashwood,” Rodney said with disgust. “That kind of thing is all very well for the midshipmen’s mess but... look here, drink that yourself, and just go get me a lemon to suck on.”
Rodney cringed thinking about all the places that knife has probably been as Dashwood fled from the quarterdeck. “Sir Douglas, I swear, the midshipmen we are producing today are...”
“Sir, what’s that? What the devil is she doing?” Douglas was pointing at the Diadem with his mouth literally hanging open.
For no apparent reason, the Diadem had gone out of control. She slewed first one way, than another, then went into a severe roll as her helm went over all the way to the stops and jammed there. This placed her into a turn to windward that should never have been made at that speed. With her bow now suddenly pointing into the wind, the sails slammed back against their respective masts and brought the ship to an immediate and unplanned halt.
The effect was predictable. The ships behind the Diadem scrambled to take emergency evasive action. Some were able to do it, and others were not; but the main effect was that a gaping hole now appeared in the French line as the Glorieux continued on her course and away from the Diadem. Douglas was the first to spot it and realize its implications. He turned to the Admiral.
“ Sir George, I give you joy of the victory!”
“Posh,” Rodney replied. “The day is not half won yet.”
“Sir, we have them. All we need to do is to take our ships through that gap and break their line! If we can cross over to the other side, we will then have them under fire from two directions.
“No,” said the admiral, “I will not break up my line to do that.”
Douglas could not believe what he was hearing. It was all so obvious to him. “Sir, I beg you, break the line!”
“I said no, captain.”
Douglas was beside himself. He looked at the French line, looked at Rodney, and then looked at the French line again.
“Sir, as captain of this vessel, I must protest. My duty is to fight her as effectively as I can and that duty tells me we MUST cut through their line.
“Helm, hard a’starboard!”
The helmsman started to comply when the Admiral shouted. “Helmsman, place your helm amidship.” And he complied.
“No, sir,” Douglas countered. “Helm to starboard.”
“Helm amidship, helmsman and may I remind you captain that I am commander-in-chief of this fleet.”
“And I, sir, am the captain of this ship.”
The helmsman, now in a state of terrified, frozen, immobility, kept the helm amidships.
The admiral and captain then separated; the former going aft, and the latter going forward. In the course of a couple of minutes or so, each turned and again met nearly on the same spot, when Sir Charles quietly and coolly again addressed the chief.
“Please, admiral, I beg you again. Just break the line, Sir George, and the day is yours.”
Rodney had cooled off somewhat by now. He hadn’t slept in two nights, and he was feeling every one of his 63 years. The admiral then said in a quick and hurried way, “Oh, very well, do as you like,” and immediately turned round, and walked into the after-cabin.
Douglas wasted no time. “Helm, hard to starboard!”
“Dash,” he said waiving at the midshipman. “Go below and warn each gun deck officer that we will soon be engaging on the larboard side.”
* * *
The word “chaos” doesn’t begin to describe the pandemonium that reigned on the Diadem. She had just taken a pasting from the Hercules and the Resolution, and the worst was yet to come in the form of the Duke, the Formidable, and the Namur. She had tremendous shot holes in her side, several below the waterline. The fore and mizzen masts were barely holding themselves upright because of snapped stays. The human carnage on the main and gun decks was unspeakable, and smoke filled the air making it nearly impossible to breathe, let alone see the enemy. This was not the time for the ship to loose steering.
Walker and Smith were slammed against the starboard bulkhead, and fell on top of each other in a heap. The Diadem had violently swayed first one way than another, when they heard the screech of complaining wood and metal as the rudder slammed all the way over to the larboard stops. This threw the ship into a violent roll as the bow turned sharply to the left.
The two scrambled up the orlop and then the gun deck stairwells as best they could, given the crazy angle of the ship. They emerged on deck just in time to hear the crack of sails snapping back against their respective masts. Anyone who hadn’t been knocked off their feet by the sudden starboard roll was now on the deck due to the ship’s sudden halt.
The helmsman was screaming, “The helm is not answering, sir! It’s not answering. It’s not me. The helm...” His voice was becoming higher pitched with each iteration of his defense.
The captain and several officers were trying to get men aloft to take in sails. A dozen commands were being screamed and, by the confused look of the men, not all were consistent with each other.
Suddenly, the captain stopped giving orders. He just stood there, open mouthed, looking aft. Walker and Smith followed his gaze; and it was like watching a slow motion train wreck.
The next ship in line behind the Diadem could do nothing.
There was no force on heaven or earth that could have stopped her forward momentum. Slowly, almost gracefully, 25 feet of her bowsprit crashed through the windows of the captain’s cabin and lanced upward through the aft end of the quarterdeck. This kicked the Diadem’s stern around at the same time as the second ship’s foremast came down, draping the Diadem’s stern with heavy, but now useless, sails.
It was only a matter of minutes before the third ship piled into the second, and the fourth into the third. Four French ships of the line, in a massive wreck, all stuck together as if they were one ship, utterly unable to fight.
This was the target that presented itself to the Formidable as she altered course to position herself directly in front of the ruined ships.