With some effort he got Colbourne to his feet, and watched as the man, holding his shattered arm with his good hand, pulled himself upright, his voice strained by pain as he spoke, and hard to hear over the continuing gunfire that consumed the two larger vessels. ‘Report the damage, Mr Pearce.’
‘I wouldn’t know where to begin.’
The head came up, with a defiant look in the eye, which also managed to convey the fact that he was useless. ‘Send the carpenter into the hold to see if we are taking in water. Make sure that any wounded on the gun crews are replaced. We must get men aloft to secure what needs it, and to run lines so that we can reset our sails and come about to re-engage.’
Most of that, short of checking for leaks, was happening without his bidding; the men on the ship knew what to do without orders, but the idea of re-entering the fray, after the damage Griffin had suffered, seemed mad. ‘The wheel is shattered.’
‘The rudder?’ Pearce looked round, observing that the stern post looked to be undamaged, and he said so. ‘Then we can still, thank God, steer and as long as we can do that we can fight. Get a party below to my cabin and work the rudder from the ropes. You’ll need a relay of messengers.’ Colbourne tried to turn round, but a stab of deep pain stopped him and his head bowed again, the cracked voice evidence of how much he was suffering. ‘How does Centurion fare?’
A glance was enough. She seemed to be drifting. The rigging was a mess, broken masts, tattered canvas, ropes hanging loose, the bulwarks too were full of gaps and it was a fair bet that some of the maindeck guns had been dismounted. What it was like below he shuddered to think.
‘Badly.’
‘Has Captain Marchand got across her stern?’
‘No.’
‘And the enemy?’
The Frenchman had swung side on to Griffin, and for a moment Pearce had a vision of a full broadside coming their way, but he realised that she was coming round on her undamaged side to engage again with her larboard battery. As a ship of war she looked more complete, with most of the rigging that supported her topsail intact, the most obvious advantage she had that she could still manoeuvre, though ten seconds watching showed that she did not have to do much, since the leeway was slowly taking her towards the Centurion’s side.
‘We must get back into the action,’ Colbourne hissed as he heard what was happening.
‘Lift your head, sir, and look along your deck, then tell me we should get back into the action.’
Colbourne did so, and had he been looking with as much attention as John Pearce he would have seen the carnage. Men still not moving, probably dead. Streaks of blood all across the planking, which was covered with a mass of ropes and blocks. Short against a bulwark with two sailors kneeling beside him, the mid quite clearly having passed out. Pearce could feel blood trickling down his cheek, and then he tasted it as it reached the edge of his lips. There was a dull pain in his head, but nothing he could not bear. That was the moment when the man he was holding upright became a dead weight as the lieutenant, too, passed out.
Then two of the Frenchman’s cannon took Griffin low on the larboard side of her stern. There were no flying timbers this time, just the sound of shattering wood, and Pearce knew that the ship had taken a heavy blow. The question was, where?
‘Michael,’ Pearce called. ‘Help me get him below. He needs a tourniquet on that arm. I think he has passed out from loss of blood.’
Wiping the blood from his own face, his eyes searched for Charlie and Rufus as he and the Irishman carried Colbourne towards the hatch, and he was relieved to see that though both men looked shocked and confused, they were whole. That was when he spotted Gherson cowering right in the bows, and he yelled at him like the most stentorian bosun in creation.
‘Move, you scum, or as God is my witness I’ll strap you to the muzzle of a carronade and fire you at the enemy.’
‘Now which God would that be John boy?’ asked Michael, as he took the weight of the lieutenant, and eased both him and his charge down the companionway ladder. Pearce followed him and passed by, heading for the stern, shouting down the hatch to the carpenter to get aft and assess the damage if he could. Standing in what had been Colbourne’s cabin he was sure he could hear running water below his feet, but he could also see that the rudder ropes and the tackle that they ran through were intact.
Michael was beside him again, whipping off the bandana he had had on to protect his eardrums, wrapping it round Pearce’s head, just as another sailor appeared.
‘Carpenter says to tell you he can’t get to the stern, with too much in the way of stores to shift.’
‘So how do I find out if we are taking in water?’
The sailor looked shocked to be asked, either that or the shock was at Pearce’s ignorance. ‘You’se got to check the level in the well, to see if it’s getting deeper.’
‘Make it so,’ Pearce replied, thinking that at least sounded like a correct form of words. Looking up, he saw above his head Colbourne’s sword, as well as a ceremonial sort of dagger. He grabbed both and, Michael at his heels, he made his way back to the deck, past the men laid out in what had been their living quarters. Midshipman Short had been fetched below as well. He was still in that sitting position, though the wad had been strapped on tight. There was a couple of hands aboard who knew a smattering of how to aid the wounded and they, like so many of the crew, had gone to work without instructions. Not that they were doing much in the way of pain relief, their only medicine being the residue of that rum cask that Short had passed round before the engagement started. They were dulling their patients, not curing them.
‘Jesus, it’s enough to tempt you to a wound,’ said O’Hagan, eyeing the cask.
Pearce grinned, though it was a weary jest that followed. ‘Don’t get drunk Michael, you might get into a fight.’
‘Sure if I’m not in one already, pinch me.’
‘Orders, sir?’ demanded Latimer, as Pearce’s head came through the hatchway.
Orders? He was in charge, and once he had got fully on deck the unpleasant shock of the fact hit home, with any number of men looking at him silently demanding to be told what to do, his Pelicans included. To give himself a moment to think he looked aloft, to where the topmen were still working, securing what they could not repair. Then he realised that the firing had ceased and given the near silence he looked aft and asked the most obvious question, ‘Those cannon?’
‘Think they have seen to us,’ the old man replied. ‘Ain’t shown since that last salvo.’
It had only been a temporary respite, and the two major vessels, with the Frenchman now stern on to Griffin, resumed their battle, with guns blazing and great swathes of smoke billowing up between them. It was obvious that Centurion was not giving as good as she was getting, obvious that in the contest, in which her captain had been a fool to engage, she was losing, drifting away from Griffin, with the Frenchman doing likewise, though at a barely perceptible, faster rate.
Another head popped up though the companionway, that of the sailor who had checked the level in the ship’s well. ‘We’re taking water in fast, sir, round an inch a minute. Carpenter’s asked for extra hands to get some of the stores shifted so’es he can get a look see, but I reckon the time he will take he might be too late.’
‘There’s no time for that. Get some axes and stove in the planking astern on the lower deck, see if you can get to it that way.’
‘Still need help.’
‘Latimer, you know the men, you detail them.’
The old sailor laughed out loud, though Pearce could only wonder at how anyone could see humour in the situation in which they found themselves. ‘Rank at last, happen your old Papa was right.’
Mention of his father suddenly brought back to Pearce that whole scene in Paris, that stinking, yelling mob salivating for blood, not just his father’s blood, but that of anyone that their damned tribunal condemned. Ever since that day he had harboured a desire to retaliate, to do something to th
ose vipers that would redress the pain and guilt he felt. From indifference he had moved over the intervening weeks to a visceral hatred of the French Revolution and what it had produced, the rule of the mob, the death of the innocent, the traducing of everything his father had worked all his life to promote, and ever since that day he had felt his own life to be worthless, something of no account, his self respect so damaged that he had no care for his fate. Here he was in a sea fight with that same idea; perhaps not the same people, but the dogma they represented. He had felt useless since that day, impotent. Now he had a chance to do something, one that might never recur again.
‘Will she answer to the sails?’
‘She will,’ Latimer replied, ‘but not with anything like grace.’
‘She never had that, Latimer, but let’s try and bring her round.’
‘Top hampers gone, so’es you’ll need to let fall the maincourse and set a jib to keep her head steady.’
Pearce smiled at the old man. ‘Make it so, Mr Latimer. I will be back on deck before we are round.’
‘Mr Latimer,’ crowed Michael, ‘did you hear that lads. We’ll be tipping our caps to him now.’
Blubber could not be kept out of a jest. ‘One of those Frenchies gets your friend, Paddy, and he’ll be captain.’
Pearce went below again, to kneel by Lieutenant Colbourne, who, still unconscious, lay flat out on the deck. Looking at the arm, with a tight tourniquet on the upper part having stopped the flow of blood, Pearce reckoned it so damaged, with the two ends of bone poking out and trails of sinew, that it would probably have to come off. There was no one aboard with the competence to undertake that; he needed a proper surgeon and casting his eyes about Pearce knew he was one of any number, these thoughts running through his mind as around him the shouts reverberated as instructions were called down from the deck to be relayed to the men working the rudder.
The thought that Centurion would have a surgeon was followed by one less welcome; so would the French 74. He could surrender the ship and quite possibly save some lives. That the idea was anathema to him was of little consideration; there were a lot of men aboard this ship which might well be in danger of sinking, and it was, as had already been proved, certainly not of a size to engage the enemy. Really, despite his earlier thoughts of personal revenge, the decision was one for the whole crew, not a notion that the man he was looking at would approve of.
Latimer had got Griffin round by the time he came on deck again, though with nothing sheeted home the ship was wallowing on the swell, so it was by looking over the bows he saw the deteriorating situation of Centurion. You did not have to be a sailor to see that she was in deep trouble and that was getting worse by the minute. Little now existed above her lower masts, the bulwarks were totally stove in along their whole length and the firing for her remaining guns seemed uncoordinated.
That sailor’s head came up again. ‘Four foot of water in the well, sir, and still making fast.’
‘He should strike,’ Pearce said, nodding towards Centurion.
‘He won’t, Latimer replied, ‘he’ll force them to board.’
‘Why!’
There was a wry look on the old man’s face as he replied. ‘Happen you don’t know much about the navy you’re in, Mr Pearce, but we’s not much given to packin’ it in until we’re sure we’s beat.’
‘And our own crew?’
‘Same.’
While Latimer had been speaking, Pearce had been examining the situation, his mind strangely clear of all distractions. He felt a slight tremor run through his body, the same kind he had always experienced just before a fist fight. It had happened to him as a boy and as a man, being something seen by him as a frisson of fear, a sensation to be ashamed of. Yet as always it had produced a heightened sense of awareness, the ability to not only see danger but to anticipate it, and with it this time came a half notion of a plan.
‘Centurion will be taken, will she not?’
‘Be a miracle if’n she ain’t.’
‘How long?’
Latimer thought before replying. ‘Half a glass, a whole one at the most.’
‘And so will we.’
‘Right after, fer certain, if we don’t sink afore.’
‘Can we get away?’
‘Hard to see how, the way we’re taking in water. Sinking won’t be quick, but she’ll sail even slower.’
Surrender? Thoughts of the Conciergerie surfaced again, that and the Bridewell with a similar stench and sewage running through the straw if the River Thames rose. They would imprison him and the crew and that was something he was determined to avoid. Added to that desire to revenge himself it was a heady brew.
‘Will the crew fight?’
Latimer looked at him then, in a strange way, as if he had a notion of what Pearce was thinking. ‘That’s what they’re here for.’
‘What would make that bastard draw off?’
‘A hundred gun ship, which I take leave to doubt will suddenly appear.’
Pearce’s eyes were on the eighteen pounder carronades, that and the line of nine pounders, and then he looked towards the stern of the French 74, close enough now to pick out the name, Valmy, and some of the words Colbourne had used earlier came back to him. Could it be done, to get the crew of this ship aboard their consort and so disable the enemy as to allow them to get clear? If it was possible it was unlikely, but to Pearce it represented the only hope they had, so it had to be worth a try.
‘Let’s get under way. I want all starboard guns loaded and run out.’ An expression he had heard, one in common usage ashore, came back to him and he added, without really being sure it was the right thing to say, ‘Double shotted!’
‘It’d be better if you give the orders, not me.’
‘Stay here, I will need you.’
Pearce stepped up to the small space that had once been the quarterdeck, now scarred, without a wheel or a binnacle, searching his mind for the words to use. ‘Michael, a party on the falls to sheet home. Let’s get some way on the ship. Blubber, sort out gun crews for the starboard battery and make sure each has a good captain.’
He looked at Latimer then who said quietly, ‘We need a party on the pumps.’
He gave the orders, then added, as he saw the man he so disliked. ‘Gherson, you lazy sod, get pumping.’
There was a pause while he thought through what else had to be done, things for which he did not need Latimer. ‘I want the carpenter and all his mates on deck with as much of their spare planking as they can get out of the holds. Michael, once the sails are set and drawing take your men below and fetch the wounded on deck. Lay them behind the bulwarks on the starboard side. Stand by with grappling irons and every man who can use a musket and is not otherwise engaged to get one ready for use.’
‘Christ, Pearce,’ exclaimed Latimer, ‘you planning to board the Frenchie?’ ‘
Wait and see.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The creaks and groans of protesting timber, as HMS Griffin got under way, yards braced round to take the now helpful wind, were familiar and somehow strangely reassuring, so that Pearce felt a twinge of something approaching gratification as, with orders shouted below and with the men pulling hard, she answered to her rudder. It was not smooth, there was a certain amount of unwelcome yawing to and fro, but once he had got the course he wanted set, the bowsprit aimed right for Centurion’s side amidships, he told them to lash it off to hold it steady. Looking over the bows he could see the smoke-filled and narrowing gap into which he was heading. The high-pitched whistling sound was mystifying, until he recalled that he had already heard it twice that day. The Centurion’s deck was being swept with grape, designed to kill anyone who sought to oppose the act of boarding.
To the front of Pearce the carpenter and his mates were hammering and lashing together their spare planking to make stretchers. One or two completed, the comatose wounded, Colbourne and Short included, were being strapped on before being laid between the starb
oard guns, others who could walk were shepherded to a place of relative safety, sat back to the bulwarks. Muskets were being primed and loaded, swords, clubs and pikes laid ready, while aloft, on the stump of the mainmast yard, the topmen were rigging blocks with slings to lift those stretchers, so that once alongside Centurion, they could try to get them aboard. Pearce had no doubt that few of them would make it unscathed; that applied to every man in the crew if what he planned to do came to pass, but at least it gave them a chance, for there was no doubt in his mind that the last place they would be safe once he had completed the task he had set himself was on this deck. If it worked they might just live. If not? Well that was not a helpful thing to dwell on.
‘They’s spotted what we’re about,’ said Latimer, still by Pearce’s side, pointing to someone on the Valmy’s taffrail gesticulating at them. ‘Reckon we’ll take a salvo from their stern chasers afore we get under them.’
‘Under them?’
‘We’s low and those cannon are maindeck. Once we’s close they won’t be able to tip them enough to hit us.’
‘That’s good to know.’
‘By that time,’ Latimer said, with wry amusement, ‘we should be close enough to the lower deck thirty-two pounders to look like a right sweet target.’
‘I was hoping they would think us too puny to care about.’
‘Then you was hoping wrong, mate.’
‘What do you reckon?’
Latimer’s hand went to hold his chin, a sign that what he was about to say was speculation, which reassured Pearce since it matched his own lack of certainty. ‘Our deck is about level with their lower guns and they will want the hull if they can get her.’
‘We’re sinking, you said so yourself.’
‘Pity is, they don’t know that, and with what they’ve got, they can take out the bulwarks both sides quick as kiss my hand. But them stern chasers are first to worry about, and I reckon they will pepper us with grapeshot.’
A head came up the hatch and a voice called out, ‘Eight feet of water in the well.’
A Shot Rolling Ship Page 29