Any Approaching Enemy: A Novel of the Napoleonic Wars (29 page)

A rippling explosion came from across the water, and Charles looked up in time to see the smoke blowing clear of the distant Frenchman’s decks. Shot churned the water forward and along both sides of
Louisa
’s stem. One ball crashed into the head at the bow of the ship. He took his watch from his pocket and looked at it.

“Lieutenant Talmage,” Charles said carefully, “I am in hopes that you will lead the retaking of
Pylades.
You will have the foretopmen under your command. It will mean forcing your way across the French quarterdeck to get there. I will accompany you.”

“It will be my honor, sir,” Talmage replied.

“Are there any questions?” Charles asked. “None? Collect your men and make sure they know what they are about. I suggest you keep as many as possible belowdecks until needed.”

The quarterdeck soon cleared except for Samuel Eliot, two quartermasters at the wheel, Midshipman Sykes, and Charles. He turned his mind to Penny and what she must be enduring.

“Begging your pardon, sir,” the master said, approaching him.

“Yes, Mr. Eliot?” He noticed the sword hanging from Eliot’s hip, which he seldom wore.

“I couldn’t help overhearing your plan to go aboard
Pylades,
” the master said. “I would like to accompany you, if I may, out of consideration for Mrs. Edgemont, sir.”

“Thank you,” Charles said. “That would be welcome.”

“My two mates, Mr. Cleaves and Mr. Withers, are of a similar sentiment,” Eliot added.

Charles nodded his agreement, thinking that if he wasn’t careful, the entire crew would rush straight across the frigate’s deck to save Penny, leaving the French to do as they pleased.

He saw Attwater making his way up to the quarterdeck just as the Frenchman’s broadside roared out, closer now. Round shot screamed through the lower rigging and close alongside, punching holes through the sails and striking a port side carronade on the forecastle.
They’re not
firing at our masts this time,
he thought. Charles looked again at his watch: two and a half minutes from one firing of the frigate’s cannon to the next. He noticed almost as if it were an abstraction that his hands were shaking violently. He dropped the watch back into his pocket and clenched them behind his back. The French warship loomed larger in his vision, a cable or a cable and a half’s length forward of the bow.

“Here’s your pistols, sir,” Attwater said, holding one out in each hand. “They’re charged and primed.”

Charles had forgotten to ask for the weapons but took them without speaking and stuck them into his belt. His mind turned again to Penny. Was she safe? Was she alarmed by the cannon fire? Did she know that it signaled his approach? Had the French mistreated her? Would they when he came aboard? What about little Claudette, and Molly, and Bevan? Charles felt his heart hammering in his chest, his breath rapid and shallow. God, he hoped nothing had happened to them.

A cable’s length, less now. The passage of time seemed to have slowed to a crawl. He saw a line of redcoats starting toward the forward rail with their muskets held in front. He noted the heads of his crew just inside the hatchways to the deck below. The marines reached their place and raised their weapons to their shoulders as the French frigate clouded itself in smoke at a hundred yards. Shot ripped along the decks, one into the rail by the marines, throwing several backward onto the deck like broken furniture. Two balls screeched past Charles, taking his breath away completely. He forced himself to gasp in a lungful of air.

The marines’ volley popped along the forward rail, an insubstantial sound compared to the frigate’s broadside.
Louisa
angled to port at the last minute, her bowsprit aiming at the Frenchman’s mizzen shrouds. Charles could see the mass of packed men on her deck waiting for the impact, and the rush of his own crew pouring up out of the hatchways and running forward. He started down from his quarterdeck toward the bow, followed closely by Eliot and his mates.

A grinding crash sounded as
Louisa
’s bow came harshly aboard the frigate, sending a shock through the ship that almost caused Charles to fall. The maindeck cannon exploded inward, unattended now by any crew. He heard the deep bark of the forecastle carronades a heartbeat after. He did not pause to observe their effect.

“HUZZAH!” An insanely loud shout went up as
Louisa
’s crew rushed over the bow and along the bowsprit onto the French deck; the clash of steel, screams, cries, and the bangs of pistols and muskets accompanied the seething mass of struggling men. Charles saw the marines stand back from the rail, fix their bayonets, and start across behind Sergeant Cooley, whose sword was drawn and held before him.

“There you are,” Talmage said as Charles approached. Twenty young, fit foremast topmen clustered around him, armed with cutlasses and pikes. “As soon as the marines are across, we’ll go.”

“Remember to look out for Mrs. Edgemont and Mrs. Bevan,” Charles said.

“They all know about the women,” Talmage said. “I think they’re as anxious about them as you are.”

Beechum arrived, slightly breathless, from the forecastle. “I’ll come with you sirs, if I may.”

“Of course,” Charles said.

“Remember, lads,” Talmage declared, drawing his sword, “straight along the deck and over the rail as fast as we can. No dawdling to kill Frenchies just for the fun of it.” He grinned wildly, his teeth showing white, and started forward.

Charles followed, sliding out his own blade and feeling its weight surprisingly light in his hand. The men came next, Beechum bringing up the rear. They were at the forecastle, then the beak and over, dropping onto the French deck. All around was a wild tumult of struggling, cursing, brawling men hacking and stabbing with their weapons at the chaotic mass around them. Almost at once Charles was confronted by a young officer, his sword slashing down. Charles raised his own in time to block the strike, and steel clashed loudly against steel with a force that sent a shock through his shoulder. The man raised his weapon to strike again, then, with a shocked look, slipped toward the deck as Talmage yanked his blade back from the man’s belly. Frantic confusion followed as more men poured across, several slipping on fallen bodies and the blood-soaked deck. The odors of spent powder, sweat, fear, and death filled the air. Pistols banged, swords rang on steel, wild screams, grunts, cheers, and curses overwhelmed every other sensation.

“This way,” Talmage shouted and threw himself against a wall of men, lunging and jabbing with his hanger. Charles focused on the urgency of getting to Penny and pressed forward, slashing desperately to break through the enemy in front. He barely dodged a boarding pike thrust viciously at his middle; it sliced along his ribs and caught momentarily in his coat. As the man pulled back to free his weapon, Charles swung his sword wildly at the face, opening a spurting gash from ear to shoulder. The French seaman fell backward and disappeared beneath him. Charles found himself pushed forward from behind, chest to chest with a Frenchman whose breath stank and whose eyes were wide with panic or bloodlust. With hardly room to move his arms, Charles heaved the man back a crack, pulled one of his pistols from his belt, cocked, and fired, the muzzle hard against his opponent’s abdomen. The mortally wounded man had no space to fall.

From somewhere came two loud explosions that tore through the massed French with terrible effect. The wall of humanity before him wavered and, step by step, gave way. Charles found space to raise his sword and swung it in a wide arc before him.

“Lunge, sir, don’t slash,” a voice close beside him said.

“What?” Charles glanced to see Talmage.

“Stick ’em, don’t hack ’em,” the lieutenant said, intense concentration on his face as he jabbed his blade forward. “Parry and lunge, it’s more efficient.”

Charles lunged at a man with a thick black mustache over white teeth and an ax held high, stabbing the blade into his throat. The man toppled backward. Through the gap, Charles glimpsed the far rail of the frigate’s deck, no more than ten feet distant.

“Here!” he yelled, desperate to get across. “To me! This way!”

The men following pushed forward, by sheer weight forcing the thinning line of defenders back and apart. Charles heard another pair of piercing explosions behind him and turned in time to see a cloud of spent powder drifting from
Louisa
’s forecastle. He decided that Sykes must be directing the few men left on board in the reloading of the carronades to fire them into the frigate’s defenders.

Charles had little time to admire Sykes’s initiative. He ran for the railing and looked over. Six feet below lay
Pylades,
tied up alongside, bow to stern, her foremast shrouds opposite him. Without hesitation, he mounted the rail cap, balanced himself, and jumped, landing with a harsh jolt against the cables. The impact knocked the sword from his hand and took the air out of him. He scrabbled frantically for purchase, to keep from sliding down over the side into the narrow line of sea between the two hulls. A foot found a ratline and then his fingers. He hung, secure for the moment, to catch his breath.

Scarcely had he inhaled than he saw a man running toward him with a pike held out, intent on stabbing him with its iron point. Charles pivoted sideways toward the far edge of the shrouds and jumped, landing heavily on the deck. The Frenchman hesitated a fraction, then lunged wildly, swinging his weapon sideways. Charles stepped inside the arc of the sweep and took the blow on his ribs, pinning the shank against his side, then clutching it with his hands. As he wrestled for control, he glimpsed Beechum and Eliot climbing down the shrouds, then several of his crew leaping from the frigate’s rail to the deck. One, whom Charles recognized as the foretopman Baker, cleaved his cutlass down on the Frenchman’s skull with horrible effect.

Charles threw the pike down and knelt to retrieve his sword while a bloodied Talmage and a half-dozen more men made their way across. Charles counted fourteen seamen, Beechum, Eliot, and Talmage, who had suffered a gash to the side of his forehead and had blood running over one eye and down his face.

“Are you fit?” Charles asked.

“A scratch,” Talmage replied, wiping an already saturated sleeve across the eye to clear his vision.

Charles paused for a moment and bent from the waist with his hands on his knees to collect his last reserves. His breathing came in ragged gasps, and he became aware for the first time of a burning pain along his left side. As he straightened, his sword arm hung limp, almost too much used to raise the heavy blade. It seemed the fingers of his right hand could neither tighten around the grip to wield it nor open to let it drop. He dimly heard the noise of the battle still raging on the frigate as he looked aft along the brig’s deck. Clustered around the main hatchway, he saw a dozen or more French seamen with swords and axes. Beyond them he made out a smaller group near the wheel including two women, a child, a pair of French soldiers with muskets, and an English officer lying on his back on the deck. Irritated by the hurt along his side, Charles searched with his fingers along his wet and sticky waist until they bumped against the butt of a pistol. It was enough. He couldn’t remember what had happened to the other of the pair he had brought with him.

“Let’s go,” he rasped to the men around him, and started toward the French at the hatch. He saw that they were standing on top of the grating that confined
Pylades
’s crew below. Charles launched himself toward the first person in his way, a middle-aged seaman with a kerchief around his head and an ax in his hands. Charles thrust at the man’s middle to force him to lower the ax handle for protection, then drove his sword deep into his chest, where it wedged firmly between the ribs and stuck fast. Charles heaved to withdraw the blade, succeeding only in wrenching the dying seaman’s body off the grating and partway across the deck. Disgusted with himself at losing his sword, he released his grip and looked for Penny.

He found her immediately, standing in front of the wheel next to Molly and holding Claudette tightly in her arms. He saw Bevan next, lying on the deck a few yards away, his thigh heavily wrapped and two soldiers standing over him with their muskets. His and Bevan’s eyes met, and despite Charles’s shake of his head, his friend reached out to grab the legs of the nearest soldier. Charles moved forward, scratching for his pistol. The first soldier struggled to free himself from Bevan’s grip, lowering his musket for balance. The second reversed his weapon so that its bayonet poised in the air, pointing downward. He moved to thrust it into the struggling Welshman.

Before he could act, Charles saw Molly dart forward with a shrill scream, pulling the knife she had used to sharpen her pencils out from inside her sleeve. She stabbed her blade up into the soft underarm of the soldier moving to strike her husband. The other soldier wrenched one boot free from Bevan’s grasp and stumbled sideways, clutching tightly to his musket, one of his fingers within the guard for its trigger. The pan flashed, and a ball of gray-black smoke exploded from the barrel. Molly jerked backward as if she had been kicked by a horse and fell to the deck. She lay unmoving, her arms spread, her legs casually crossed, the hem of her dress around her white-stockinged calves.

From twenty feet away, Charles cocked his pistol and raised it. The soldier with his still-smoking musket stared at him wide-eyed, resigned.

Charles’s finger tightened on the trigger, but he couldn’t fire on the defenseless man. “Surrender, you son of a bitch,” he snarled. “Surrender or I’ll blow your fucking head off.”

“Rendez-vous, s’il vous plaît,”
Penny said, moving forward and taking the heavy weapon from the soldier’s hands.
“Merci, monsieur,”
she said, then slid the thing over the rail, where it fell into the sea with a splash. Still holding Claudette, she returned and dropped to her knees beside Molly. She took one look at the wound over her companion’s heart and gave a small cry. Penny pushed the little girl’s face against her breast so that she would not see and held her tightly. After a moment she closed Molly’s eyes one at a time with her fingers, then straightened her skirt.