Until the Sea Shall Give Up Her Dead

by S. thomas Russell

  He could not allow the Spanish to regain control of their ship. Somewhere, beyond the cloud of smoke, he imagined his bride, lying awake, hoping with all her heart that Hayden would not fail her. The marine officer standing beside him had once warned him of this propensity in men—to attempt the rescue of maidens in distress—but they had then been discussing the doctor and the maid of all work whom he had rescued. Hayden, however, seemed as prone to this as any man—as his recent history proved.

  “On deck! She is coming through the cloud, Captain.”

  A shaft of pale moonlight fell upon the cloud at that instant, illuminating it and, if anything, making it more impenetrable. And then the masts and yards of a ship appeared, high up, and then the ship itself, beam-on and a little to starboard. Her stern was to them and she fired a broadside, none of which struck Hayden’s Spanish frigate.

  It was so silent aboard the ship that Hayden could hear the shouting in French as the privateers realised their situation.

  He pushed off the rail and called down to the gun-deck. “Mr Ransome, we will rake her as she passes. Fire each gun as she bears.”

  Before the lieutenant could answer, Hayden heard the splash of the privateer’s anchor being let go in panic. The captain is certainly no fool, Hayden thought, as he must have had his cable faked upon the gun-deck and ready to veer. The privateer was not seventy-five yards up-current from them and would certainly pass just beyond pistol shot, stern-on if the anchor did not hold immediately.

  Hawthorne ordered his men to open fire, and the crack of musket fire sounded from both ships. A ball struck a gun on the quarterdeck, ricocheted, and came so near Hayden’s ear that he swore he felt the wind of its passing. He touched his ear to be certain it was intact.

  The bottom of the channel was, as Hayden knew, uncertain. Much of it was sand, but there were numerous coral heads as well. The Frenchman’s anchor might snag one of these and they would be able to snub her up on very little cable. They might also try to snub her to lay her alongside the Spanish frigate, only to find their anchor ploughing ineffectually through soft sand. If the Frenchman’s anchor held as it should, the two ships would be less than pistol shot distant and Hayden would not have the usual advantage provided by his British crew—a higher rate of fire. If this was one of the privateers Jones had told him about, she would likely carry only twelve-pounders, and Hayden’s ship bore the Spanish equivalent of the British eighteen-pounder.

  With one eye on the enemy ship, Hayden ordered guns traversed as far forward as possible. He then positioned himself a few yards behind one of the deck guns so that he might sight along it. There was no shot.

  The forward chase piece fired at that moment—but it was a small gun and Hayden could not see if it caused any damage at all.

  If he had been the French captain, Hayden knew he would not snub his cable until the last possible instant, which would allow the most cable to be veered, increasing the chances of the anchor holding. Hayden thought he would snub it just where he thought it would bring the ship to before it came under the Spanish frigate’s guns. If he had the men, he would attempt to board and carry the frigate by main force.

  What the master of the privateer would do, Hayden could not say. The man was formidable and not the least shy, he believed. To have slipped his anchor and ridden the current down to the frigate as it was being attacked by boarders was enterprising in the extreme. Hayden was not certain he would have thought of it himself—nor dared it if he had.

  The privateer continued to be carried down-current at the pace of an old man out for a stroll. So close were the ships to one another that Hayden heard the master order the cable snubbed. All eyes were fixed upon the enemy ship as she drifted . . . and then, almost imperceptibly, her bow began to lag behind, and then it was clearly so. Where the ship would fetch up or whether her anchor would hold once the entire mass of the ship came upon it, no one knew.

  “Pass the word for my officers, if you please,” Hayden said to a British sailor at one of the guns. “And Captain Serrano, as well.”

  In a moment, Ransome, Wickham, Gould, and Hawthorne appeared, followed almost immediately by the Spanish captain.

  “Are we to board, her, Captain?” Ransome asked, clearly both excited by the prospect and anxious as well—as any sane man would be.

  “It would appear to be the most logical course, Mr Ransome,” Hayden replied. “Mr Wickham, I will leave you in command of the ship.”

  Before Hayden could say more, one of the Spanish lieutenants came onto the quarterdeck; Hayden had seen the man hurrying along the gangway.

  “Captain,” the man said, but he addressed Hayden, not Serrano, much to the Spanish captain’s surprise, “the privateers are rigging a spring. We could hear their orders from the forecastle.”

  Hayden needed only a second to comprehend what that meant.

  “Then we must do the same,” he ordered, “in all haste.”

  The privateer was going to swing his ship to bring his broadside to bear on the frigate, and from the angle his ship would achieve, he would be firing diagonally across the deck—not a raking fire, but damned close.

  The Spanish lieutenant and Ransome went running off, calling out orders as they went. No doubt the French would hear—just as they had overheard the French—but it did not matter. They must swing their ship to bring their own guns to bear, or they would be at the mercy of the privateer’s cannon. If one of the frigate’s masts could be brought down . . . the ship would be lost.

  Hayden found himself standing at the rail with Serrano and Hawthorne. “Have you ever seen what can be done with a ship in a tideway or a river when a spring is employed, Mr Hawthorne?”

  “I do not believe I have, Captain.”

  “When a ship is set at an angle to the flow so the current strikes one side of the vessel, she can be shifted to one side or the other—and quite substantially.”

  Hawthorne contemplated this but a moment. “Could they swing their ship down upon us?” he wondered.

  “It is a weak current,” Serrano answered, in Hayden’s stead, “but then, the ships are not distant one from the other. I should say it is just possible.”

  “This privateer . . .” Hawthorne observed with something like admiration, “he is a cunning dastard, is he not, Captain?”

  “Indeed he is, Mr Hawthorne. I do wonder how large his crew might be.” Although he had asked this question of Serrano once already, he glanced at the Spaniard again. The man shrugged.

  “I wish I had an answer for you, Captain Hayden,” he offered softly. “When they boarded our ships, they did so in overwhelming numbers.”

  At that moment, Hayden wished above all things that he had his own crew about him, for they would have a spring rigged in a trice. As it was, Hayden did not know if he should allow the French to come alongside. If they had superior numbers he might lose his frigate—for which he had paid dearly already. Better to use his greater weight of broadside—the very thing this privateer was attempting to nullify—damn his eyes.

  Hayden felt himself leaning out over the rail, attempting to part the darkness. He could barely make out the ship, but the tops of her masts could just be distinguished against the star-scattered sky. Her chase piece had ceased firing, and Hayden wondered if it could no longer be brought to bear because the ship was turning. He suspected that the French would fire bar or chain into the frigate’s rigging. At such close range a great deal of damage could be inflicted—even by twelve-pounders.

  A flash and simultaneous report left no doubt about the privateer’s position. The sound of iron tearing through the rigging could not be mistaken. A foremast yard came swinging down but did not strike the deck. A man tumbled out of the rigging and struck the planks just before the mainmast. He lay utterly still and was quite certainly dead.

  Everyone aboard held their breath while the privateers reloaded their guns.

/>   Wickham appeared at the head of the companionway. “We have a spring rigged, sir.”

  “Veer the bower cable, if you please, Mr Wickham.” Hayden spoke the order as clearly and calmly as he was able.

  “Aye, sir.” The midshipman thumped down the ladder, leaping the last three steps, Hayden could tell, and went running forward, shouting Hayden’s order as he went.

  The privateer’s guns fired again, tearing through the rigging, doing untold damage. Hayden held his breath, but the masts stood. The head of his ship was paying off quickly to larboard and would move more quickly once the current caught it.

  The men stood at the guns, which had been traversed as far forward as was possible. Gun captains positioned themselves to sight along the barrels, but it seemed to take forever for the guns to be brought to bear.

  Hayden thought the privateers would fire a third broadside before his own guns could be fired, and he felt himself bracing for it, as did all the men around him, hunching up their shoulders and stiffening. None, however, shied or tried to hide.

  Ransome appeared at the ladder head to the gun-deck, his body facing Hayden but his head turned back so that he could hear what was being said on the deck below. His head snapped around suddenly.

  “Guns are bearing, Captain,” he called out.

  “You may fire the battery, Mr Ransome.”

  Ransome’s order and the firing of the frigate’s broadside occurred simultaneous with the firing of the privateer’s guns. Flame erupted from both ships and then a dense pall of smoke hid even the stars. British and Spanish crews went about reloading, and Hayden believed the Spaniards were trying not to be outdone by the English, crack gunners whose rate of fire had never yet been equalled by the enemy.

  Hayden’s greatest worry was that the privateers would sever his spring line, but their guns were aimed into the frigate’s rigging, attempting to disable her, and nowhere near low enough to find the spring.

  For a quarter of an hour, the two ships fired broadside after broadside at each other, but with each explosion of guns, the French rebuttal was reduced, as her gun crews were decimated and guns dismounted.

  “On deck!” the lookout cried. “The privateer is moving, Captain . . . down-current.”

  Hayden hastened to the ladder head. “Veer the spring, Mr Ransome! With all haste!”

  Out of the smoke, the privateer drifted. Between the darkness and the smoke lying on the water, Hayden was not certain of the ship’s attitude, but it appeared she had slipped her anchor again and was drifting free, attempting to get clear of the frigate’s guns.

  As Hayden’s spring was veered and the ship turned slowly head to wind, she shifted to starboard, nearer the enemy vessel. Guns were hurriedly traversed, and after the briefest interruption, began again to fire. At such close range, the eighteen-pounders were devastating.

  The privateer was borne along the current until the two ships were almost abreast.

  “She is very near, Captain, is she not?” the gun captain beside Hayden asked quietly.

  “Distances are ever deceiving by darkness,” Hayden replied. But then he began to wonder if the man was not correct, if the French ship was not swinging nearer. For a moment he stood, trying to measure the water between the ships.

  “Prepare to repel boarders!” he cried suddenly. He ran to the ladderhead and called down to the gun-deck. “Fire a last broadside, Mr Ransome, and then close and secure gunports. All men to the upper deck. They are swinging their ship alongside!”

  Hayden pulled a pistol from his belt, thumbed back the cock, and then drew his sword. As guns were fired aboard his ship—at less than pistol shot—he went to the rail. A curtain of grey wafted before him, the enemy ship ghostly, glimpsed and then lost. Men came crowding up from behind, bearing arms and swearing oaths. A few jumped up on the guns or onto the rail, waving cutlasses and shouting threats and defiance. Musket and pistol fire began in earnest, and this first group of the foolishly brave paid the price for it, being taken down from their perches and tumbling into the mass of men behind.

  The cloud thinned and out of it the rail of a ship appeared. Hayden lowered his pistol and shot a man not ten feet distant. The two ships were moving so slowly that they came almost gently together, even as violence spread over their decks. For a long moment the two crews fought at the rail, neither able to press forward onto the other ship’s deck. One of the Spanish lieutenants then led a charge, up onto a quarterdeck gun and over the rail, leaping down into the mass of Frenchmen and breaking the line. Hayden followed immediately after, jumping from rail to rail and then down onto the deck and into the melee.

  Two British topmen and Lord Arthur Wickham came to his side, and the four of them pressed forward, a deadly little squadron of fighters, taking a foot of deck and then another. Hayden felt a point penetrate his left arm above the elbow and realised it had been a thrust aimed at Wickham that the midshipman had parried. There was no time to stop and assess damage; they were beset on all sides.

  It was a long battle, and when finally it appeared that his side had carried the day, Hayden had to use his cutlass as a cane to hold himself up. All his reserves were spent, and he heaved and gasped like a man who had been too long beneath the water.

  Although he could still hear the sounds of battle forward, the Frenchmen around him were surrounded in little knots and began throwing down their arms and suing for quarter. Wickham went off into the dark, as though on some urgent errand, and returned a moment later with Midshipman Gould in tow.

  Immediately, Gould approached his captain and Hayden realised that he and Wickham were removing his jacket and that his forearm and hand dripped with blood. He felt suddenly a little light-headed.

  “It was my doing,” Wickham explained to Gould. “I parried a thrust and it went off my blade and caught the captain unaware . . . and I am heartily sorry for it.”

  Hayden wanted to tell Wickham that it was not his fault in any way at all, but could not, somehow. The two midshipmen sat him down on a gun carriage while Gould tore away his sleeve and used it for a dressing.

  “Have I ever told you, Mr Gould,” Hayden said, carefully forming his words, as though he were a few drinks drunk, “how pleased I am that your brothers studied medicine?”

  Gould managed a smile. “Never have you, sir.”

  “Well, now I have. How have we fared, Mr Wickham?”

  “Ransome and Hawthorne are gathering up the prisoners. I do not know how the other Themises have done, but Captain Serrano shall have a butcher’s bill such as he has never seen, I suspect.”

  “And has our good Spanish captain survived?”

  “I saw him but a moment ago,” Gould replied, “going below . . . looking for prisoners, I should imagine.”

  “Let us hope there are some . . . we need to make up a prize crew . . . and Serrano needs a command, I think.”

  Gould finished tying Hayden’s dressing. “No major arteries were severed, sir, so I should hope it would stop bleeding soon.” He did not say a word about the possibility of the wound going septic.

  “Thank you, Gould.” Hayden’s moment of light-headedness had passed, and he rose to his feet. He turned back to the rail and called up to the men in the rigging, “Aloft there! Can you yet see the other ships?”

  “I can just make them out, Captain. They haven’t moved, sir.”

  “And I am more than glad to hear it,” Hayden muttered. “How much damage is there aloft?” he then called.

  “A good deal, sir,” came the reply from the heavens. “It shall be a job of work to put it aright.”

  Ransome came striding out of the dark, cutlass still in hand. “She swims, Captain,” he declared. “We managed not to hole her below the water line.”

  “Are there prisoners, Mr Ransome?”

  “Not so many as on the frigate. Appeared to be fifty or sixty, sir. Captain Serrano
is seeing to them.”

  French prisoners were being herded onto the forecastle and made to sit down on the deck. Hayden glanced up at the stars, wondering how distant dawn might be. Wind remained in absence—not enough to stir a lock of a maiden’s hair—and even in the darkness the heat was oppressive, the air close.

  There was a flurry at the ladder head. Out of the gaggle of men rushing onto the deck appeared Serrano, holding a square of linen over his mouth and nose.

  “Fever,” he blurted from behind his hand. “They have fever aboard this ship.”

  Thirty-one

  Every man who heard retreated from Serrano and his small entourage. The word passed along the deck like a hissing little breeze. Fever! They have the fever!

  Hayden fought an impulse to retreat over the rail back onto the frigate.

  “How many?” he asked quietly, displaying composure he did not feel.

  “I did not count,” Serrano replied. “The sick-berth is overflowing.”

  “Has it spread among the Spanish prisoners?”

  “I—I do not know.”

  “Send a man below to find out. I shall not release them if there is fever among them.”

  “But I have released them already.”

  “They might have to go into quarantine. Have a lieutenant find out if they have the Yellow Jack.”

  Serrano nodded. He spoke a moment to one of his officers and then retreated to the rail. Certainly, he would have gone back to the frigate but could not while Hayden and his officers remained aboard the infected ship. His pride was not yet overruled by his terror of the fever, though this was clearly substantial.

  Hayden felt for a moment that the decisions he had to make were too complicated for his brain to encompass. He had a Spanish frigate bearing too many French prisoners. A privateer’s ship with likely one hundred and fifty more. He had fever among the French on this ship, and perhaps among their Spanish prisoners as well. He had hoped to use this ship in his pursuit of the privateers and his bride, but now he had other difficulties.