The Guineaman

  Looking astern again he could see the brig appeared larger as she closed the gap between them. He felt a desperate and sickening sensation rising in his throat. In Newport he had heard the French were beaten, on their damned knees and reduced to suing for terms, so what in the name of Almighty God was this bastard doing chasing him in British waters?

  Kite cast a wild look around the horizon, as if his desperation would conjure up the arrival of a British cruiser, but all he could see were the distant mountains of the Scottish islands, and they were too far off to offer the slightest hope of refuge. Night too was some hours away, even in late January, and as for fog, well they had had their quota, Kite felt sure; it was not going to oblige him by shrouding them at this juncture!

  ‘Bloody hell!’ he ranted as Jones hovered anxiously.

  ‘You’ll have to strike, sir,’ Jones said unhappily.

  ‘I will lose everything… No, damn it, I shall not! Not yet anyway!’

  ‘Our rig is cut down…’

  ‘But we’ve another jib below. Get it on deck…’

  The men seized the idea and went at the labour with a will. Even Jones cast aside his misgivings and was soon at the head of the crowd as another jib ran aloft. Some light-weather kites used in the West Indies appeared, straining at their bolt ropes in the breeze as Jones boomed them out like studding sails. The repaying of their hull at Newport meant they had a clean bottom and, with the extra sails their speed increased perceptibly. The schooner was racing through the water, the white bone in her teeth fanning out on either bow and although Kite hardly dared believe it, the brig seemed not to be gaining on them so fast.

  ‘Puella,’ he said, ‘be so kind as to bring me my quadrant.’

  When she returned with the mahogany box, Kite removed the instrument, braced himself against the taffrail, set the index bar to zero and carefully subtended the image of the brig, measuring the angle between her plunging waterline and her main truck. Compelled to wait for some minutes before checking it again, he looked forward. Jones was adjusting sheets, carefully gauging how best to set each sail. What else could they do?

  If only they could fight… But with little powder and shot, an ineffective and small crew, Kite had little hopes of little more than discharging the guns to defend the honour of their flag before being compelled to strike it. If only…

  The guns!

  He could dispense with half of them without seriously prejudicing his chances of defending himself if he had to. ‘Mr Jones! Jettison half the guns on each side. No, just keep three in each waist…. And, and run one aft… See if you can get it into the cabin as a stern chaser…’

  Kite saw Jones grin as he grasped the idea and waved his hand in acknowledgement. The excitement between the two men was almost palpable now as Kite turned back to his pursuer and raised the quadrant again. There was a change; he bent over the arc and saw that the angle had increased. The brig was still gaining, but she surely only had a very small advantage. Perhaps when the guns went overboard…

  Puella was beside him. He had almost forgotten her in his excitement. She was remarkably calm, he thought, looking at her.

  ‘Spitfire is a fast schooner, Kite,’ she said, her voice level.

  ‘I hope so, my darling.’

  ‘What do you do with the quadrant?’

  He explained. ‘I measure the angle…’ He realised she would not understand the simple geometrical principle, so held thumb and forefinger close together, with only a small gap. Widening the gap he moved his hand closer to her face. ‘If the French ship gets closer she seems to get bigger.’ Then he withdrew his hand, closing the gap between the fingers again. ‘If we go faster than her, she drops backwards and seems to be smaller. This,’ he tapped the quadrant, ‘can quickly tell me of a very, very small change, so that I can see…’

  A cheer followed by a splash told where the first gun had gone overboard.

  ‘So that I can see,’ Kite resumed, ‘whether we are going faster than she is, or she is going faster than we are.’

  Puella crooked thumb and forefinger of her right hand together and moved her hand towards and away from her eye, nodding. ‘I understand,’ she said.

  Kite looked at her and impulsively kissed her. Below them a widening ring of bubbling white dropped astern alongside the wake as the second gun sank to the bottom.

  ‘Has the other ship come nearer?’ she asked.

  Kite raised the quadrant again, then bent over the arc. The angle was still opening, but the difference was tiny, a minute at the most. Nevertheless, the enemy was undoubtedly overhauling them. An idea occurred to Kite. ‘Puella, I must teach you how to fire a pistol.’

  ‘I know how.’

  ‘You do?’ Kite was astonished.

  ‘Of course. Dorothea showed me.’

  ‘Would you fight and kill Frenchmen?’

  ‘Only if they are white,’ she replied, smiling.

  ‘Would you kill me, Puella?’ he asked, only half joking.

  ‘Only when you stop loving me,’ she said, adding, ‘and love Sarah Tyrell.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he stammered. ‘I will get you a pistol.’

  Puella put her hand out to restrain him. ‘No. I will get one myself, and Kite?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I will not let those men in that ship take me. I will kill myself first.’

  He stared at her for a moment and then said, shaking his head, ‘I hope it will not come to that.’

  She shrugged and went forward to the companionway. Kite watched her go: she had a damnably uncanny knack of divination, he thought uneasily. Then he picked up the quadrant. There was no doubt, the enemy brig was gaining on them, slowly but no less surely.

  As another gun went overboard, Kite went forward and spoke to Jones. Then he ordered the steward to issue a tot of rum and resumed his station aft, just abaft the helmsman straining at the tiller, while Jones made the preparations Kite had ordered. It was a damned long shot, but he had little left in his locker and he guessed the Frenchman would try winging them soon.

  It was another half an hour before the enemy commander felt confident enough of his greater speed to sacrifice a little of his ground, and to swing off course sufficiently to try a shot from his larboard bow chaser. The brig was slightly off on the Spitfire’s starboard quarter, so she swung away a few degrees. The shot plunged into their wake, but it was only ten yards astern, slightly off on the larboard quarter. Another shot followed, about the same distance short, but directly astern. The wind caught the spray and carried it forward over the taffrail of the fleeing Spitfire.

  Kite walked forward and ordered a slight alteration in course to starboard. It was just enough to bring the schooner more directly ahead of the pursuing brig and thus compel the corsair to swing even further off course for his next attempt. The enemy waited for a full twenty minutes, by which time Kite no longer required his quadrant to ascertain the sober fact that they were still slowly but remorselessly losing ground. He decided he could wait no longer and went below to arm himself. He had decided to fight.

  A party of seamen under Jones’ direction were in the cabin, gingerly easing a four-pounder into the centre of the stern window.

  ‘Captain Kite, I shall have to break down…’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course; do what you must, but hurry, the sooner we can respond to his fire the better.’

  A moment later an axe bit into the wooden sill across the window transom, breaking up the carpentry so recently installed at Newport after the storm-damage. The crude destruction would lower the level of the woodwork so that the gun could fire over it, while the angle of traverse would be wide. Jones was extemporising train tackles and a recoil line which, if the gun were much used, would probably bring down the central pillars in the structure, but it was a small price to pay if it saved the schooner.

  In a corner, Puella had wound a sash about her waist and had stuffed a brace of pistols into it. ‘Where did you get those?’ he asked, already guess
ing the answer.

  ‘From Dorothea,’ she said quietly, darting a glance at the seamen. ‘Mr Mulgrave let her keep a pair.’

  Kite hid his surprise. As he prepared his own weapons, he told her his plan, his voice soft. At first she stared open-mouthed and then she laughed. ‘If it happens, Puella,’ he said, ‘it will be a desperate gamble. You understand?’

  ‘Yes, I understand. It will be all right.’

  ‘I hope so. You must stay in the boat. I do not want you involved in the fighting.’

  ‘I want our baby son to be born in England,’ she said simply. Kite felt a wrench of remorse that he had not once considered the delicacy of Puella’s condition throughout the day, let alone in contemplating the desperate measure he was about to take. He could only nod dumbly before returning to the deck.

  Once Jones reported the gun in the cabin ready, Kite called the hands aft and addressed them. They had one chance, he told them, and he had explained his intentions to the mate. It would only work if they co-operated, to which they assented.

  ‘Very well then. The cabin gun’s crew had better be told off, Mr Jones, and we’ll get to work…’

  Kite never finished, for the French brig tried another shot. It passed through the starboard rail, not eight feet from where Kite was standing and splinters sliced across the deck, catching one of the seamen in the face so that he fell back with a startled cry, blood pouring down his face.

  Kite swung round. ‘Steady on the helm there.’

  ‘All steady, sir.’ It was the former clerk, Whisstock, and Kite walked up to him. ‘Now Whisstock, try not to look astern.’

  ‘Very well, Captain.’

  But Kite did, just as the brig, noticeably nearer now, let fly another shot. It flew over them, so that he felt the wind of its passing suck at the air he was breathing. The ball buried itself in the larboard bulwarks with a thud. Whisstock swore and Kite remarked to no-one in particular that the brig had their range. Fortunately the ball had missed the men working about the boat, set on chocks amidships between the masts.

  Then there came a roar and a cloud of smoke rose over the taffrail as the gun in the cabin below was fired. The powder-smoke wafted forward, carried by the following wind. Kite missed the fall of shot, but waited for the next. As he did so, the brig fired again, but either a yaw of her own, or Whisstock’s momentary inattention saved them and the shot plunged alongside, level with the mainmast, but ten yards to larboard of them.

  Jones fired the stern chaser a second time; again Kite missed the fall of shot but a cheer came from the window below. He doubted that they had achieved anything, beyond encouraging each other. He did not want to allow the brig to get too close before putting his madcap plan into operation, for the longer she had to wing them, the more chance she had of inflicting real damage. But he was conscious of having only the one chance and that everything depended on the hazardous plan he had put in place. He looked forward again. The cover was off the boat amidships and he saw Puella, helped into it by one of the men, the pistols at her waist.

  Nearby, the scratch gun crews had knocked the quoins out of the remaining trio of starboard guns and were retreating to hide under the boat. The rest of the crew had disappeared forward, crowded into the forecastle space, with only the boatswain visible, his head poking out of the forecastle companionway. He saw the man nod, his teeth bared and grinning madly.

  A ball from the brig tore overhead and passed through the mainsail. The enemy were getting damned close!

  Kite could wait no longer; he resolved to act the moment he next saw the tell-tale puff of smoke under the brig’s bow. He turned his head, and shouted, ‘Stand-by the main peak halliards!’ The two men posted at the mainmast threw the coiled ropes off their pins, and eased the turns belayed there.

  As he saw the enemy fire again, he yelled, ‘Let go the peak!’

  The able-seaman at the peak halliard already had the rope singled up to a turn on the belaying pin and now he threw that off. The rope snaked upwards from its carefully coiled fall, but at the same moment the enemy ball struck the stern and Kite heard from the cabin below a second wounded man scream in agony below. Everything was now happening at once and Kite fought to keep his concentration of the elements he must remain master of. Above him and winged out to larboard the main peak had dropped and the gaff swung wildly, the ensign half struck as its halliard ran slack. Beside him at the mainmast, the second seaman now let go the throat halliard and the whole mainsail came down, the boom end trailing in the water. This and the loss of driving power slowed the schooner, but at this critical moment, the continual screaming of the wounded man below cut into Kite consciousness like a knife. He swore as Whisstock fought the schooner’s desire to swing, the trailing main boom acting as a drag, but already the seaman who had let go the halliard was hauling on the sheet, hauling the heavy boom inboard.

  He hoped the ruse had worked and the enemy thought they had shot the main halliards through, causing confusion aboard their quarry. Suddenly the brig was looming up closer. Another cloud of smoke blew over the stern and this time Kite saw their own stern chaser score a hit close to the root of the brig’s bowsprit, near the gammoning. A cloud of splinters momentarily appeared and he thought he heard a shout, but he was standing close to Whisstock, his heart pumping, and he could almost sense the thundering of the helmsman’s own pulse.

  ‘Steady, my lad,’ Kite said in a low voice, quite oblivious to the inappropriate use of a term for a man at least two years older than himself.

  The brig was over-running them fast now, faster perhaps than her commander wished. Kite held his course as the stern chaser barked again below him, reloaded with creditable speed. He coughed as the powder smoke blew past them and waved the cloud aside, but then the brig discharged her own gun at point-blank range. This time there was no mistake. The ball thumped into the mainmast about five feet above the deck, almost severing it at a stroke. The weight of the gear to larboard was sufficient to cause it to crack. It swayed forward, the break working right through the spar with a rending split until it parted and dropped to the deck, to lean forward at a drunken angle, restrained by the shrouds.

  The brig’s bow was now ranging up on the starboard quarter. Kite could see several faces peering down at him. He glanced round. His own gun’s crews had hidden behind the boat amidships, the decks looked almost deserted, but for Kite himself, the helmsman and the two hands still at the main sheet. It appeared, or at least Kite hoped it appeared, as though the schooner was short-handed and had concentrated all her efforts at self-defence in the manning of her stern chaser.

  Kite turned again to stare up at the brig. He could distinguish an officer from several armed ratings, and saw the former turn and shout something aft, presumably to the brig’s commander. Then the man cupped his hands and shouted at Kite.

  ‘Capitaine, do… you….strike…your… colours?’

  Kite feigned incomprehension as the brig drew level, forty, thirty feet away. The larboard yardarms of her fore course and fore topsail almost overhung the starboard quarter of Spitfire.

  Then Jones defiantly fired the stern chaser again. He must have traversed the carriage, for the shot struck the brig amidships and Kite heard the cry of someone aboard the brig hit by a splinter. He could hear an oath, too, saw the grappling line thrown. The grapnel struck the Spitfire’s rail and held. He drew his cutlass and cut it adrift, but another flew through the air and then the brig was ranged alongside and Kite knew they were going to be boarded before they could do any more mischief.

  The sea running between the two vessels, slapped back and forth, the two wakes cresting and hissing in a roil of confused water as the gap closed. On the brig the topgallant halliards were let go, the course clew garnets were hauled up as the sheets were started and she slowed to match the speed of the disabled schooner alongside her. Kite swung round.

  ‘Gunners! Now!’ he shouted. The appointed gun crews leapt from hiding behind the boat and in an instant touched thei
r linstocks to the breeches of the three guns left in the starboard battery. At maximum elevation and double shotted, they discharged with a close sequence of booms so that Kite’s ears rang. He saw the ball and langridge, composed for the most parts of carpenter’s nails, rovings and scrap, tear upwards across the narrow gap. All along the brig’s waist this iron hail struck indiscriminately at men, guns, ropes and the fabric of the brig’s hull.

  Amid the screams and shouts of fury, an order was passed and then the brig’s helm went over, the yard arms loomed over the Spitfire’s deck and she dropped alongside with a jarring crash. The next instant the enemy boarding party were jumping and flinging themselves down into the schooner’s waist.

  ‘Whisstock!’ Kite bawled, discharging one pistol at an officer who had just landed and turned aft towards him. Amidships the handful of men at the three guns were driven back and Kite saw one run through. A second had got his hands on a boarding pike and parried a sword thrust, before a pistol shot blew out the side of his face. But the man still thrust, impaling an enemy boarder to the rail as he fell, mortally wounded.

  Kite hefted his clumsy cutlass as a French sailor struck at him. He longed for a hanger, light and handy, to fight off the assault, but he slashed wildly and yelled with all his might, ‘Puella!’

  Her screech was terrible; a hideous, high-pitched and attenuated shriek that tore through the air to rend the eardrums. Kite had never heard anything so dreadful as Puella rose from the boat amidships, the terrible cry ululating from her throat in a long exhalation. On her own initiative, Puella had removed the shirt she had had on and emerged naked to the waist, levelling her brace of pistols at the mêlée below her.