The Blighted Cliffs (24 page)

'Deck
there.' The voice from the shrouds was thunderous in the night.
'Ship, near off the starboard bow.'

It
seemed there was not a man in the crew who did not rush to the rail
and stare. I had to duck myself under the boom to get there, for the
mainsail had been obscuring my view. I had just enough time to see
the silvered edges of a hull, some rigging and the corner of a sail,
barely two lengths away, before they melted into the night again. I
rubbed my eyes. Beside me I could hear at least one sailor swearing
it must be some ghoulish spectre. But I had something far more real
to worry about.

'Mr
Ducker,' I called urgently. 'Did you see her?'

'Aye,
sir.' His drawn face told me he had reached the same conclusion. 'And
her sail.' 'Precisely - a square sail.'

I
might not have been the consummate
sailor, but I knew enough to know that any ship carrying a square
sail would outsize us. 'Perhaps it was
Lancelot
.'

'Looked
too small for Lancelot,' said Ducker. 'More like a brig.'

A
brig was better than a frigate, and a frigate better than a
hundred-gun first-rate, but if she was an enemy and was armed then,
whatever her rating, we would have a devil of a job if we engaged
her. But for now there was no knowing: whatever she might be, she had
vanished into the night and fog leaving not a trace. Perhaps, I
thought irrationally, she had been a ghost.

'She
was on the opposite tack,' broke in Crawley. 'And she'll be moving
away from us now. Bring her about and give chase.'

'Aye,
sir,' said the helmsman.

The
crew began to pull again as our bow turned through the wind; the
sails flapped and luffed, and the boom hovered dangerously overhead,
lolling backward and forward. We had come directly into the wind, and
our motion was slowed to almost nothing.

‘
Sweet
Jesus
’
Ducker's shout stunned us all - not by its volume, though that was
jarring enough, but by the profound shock in a voice that was usually
so solid. I followed his gaze, and heard similar cries break out as
we all saw the sight that had seized him. The fog had parted again,
and sailing out of it, now no distance away at all, there thrust the
huge bow of a man-of-war. A frigate, I guessed, and though she would
have looked dinky enough next to a ship of the line, she towered over
us with an awesome, looming bulk, her timbers gleaming black and
evil. The thought of what her heavy cannon could do against our few
popguns froze me with terror. I could hear calls and shouting coming
from her deck, see shadowy figures moving about her side, but had not
the strength to move.

'Haul
in the mainsail!' Crawley bellowed, all stealth now forgotten.
'Tighter now, tighter! Grape shot in the guns!'

His
commands snapped the men from their horrified thrall, and they began
to haul in the sail, so close that it seemed impossible for it to
drive us forward at all. An ominous rumbling came from over the
water, and I saw a dozen snouts appear in the frigate's side; we were
close enough to hear her guns run out. The men looked anxiously
around, but Ducker and his mate moved ferociously among them, barking
and striking at any man who neglected his task.

The
edge of our sail, which had been flapping lifelessly, straightened
and went taut. Crawley had it so far in that it had caught the wind
at last and given us a little more headway. But the frigate was
crossing our bows; in seconds she would be able to rake us from stem
to stern while at once blocking our wind. And at this range, her
gunners would not be lost for targets.

'Give
way to starboard!' I shouted wildly. 'Try and sail behind her - it's
our only chance!' I could not shift my eyes from her guns, from the
knowledge that at any moment they would hurl fire and death at us.

'Silence!'
thundered Crawley. 'Keep your course, steersman!'

'But
that'll take us straight into her!' Our guns would be pointed at the
open sea, while our enemy would have all the leisure she needed to
pour shot after shot down our length. It was madness.

But
still she had not fired. Her cannon were implacably trained on us,
and I fancied I could see the glow of a match through at least one of
the open gunports, but those awful, gaping muzzles remained silent.

'Qui
va?'

A
metallic voice hailed us through a speaking trumpet, and I felt a
fresh surge of fear as my last doubts were dispelled: it was a
Frenchman. But clearly they were not so sure of us; perhaps Crawley's
peculiar tactics had indeed confused them. And with every second that
they hesitated, we were inching closer.

'Weapons,
Mr Ducker,' whispered Crawley. Then, putting his own trumpet to his
mouth, 'Ami, ami!'

He
made no endeavour to disguise his accent: he must have hoped they
would think us to be English smugglers and allow us alongside. I
looked to the sail, and then to the length of black water between our
two ships. We were in an impossible position, and moving horribly
slowly, but if there was to be a fight I would rather take it on to
her deck, outnumbered though we'd be, than sit under her guns and be
casually blasted to the seabed. Crawley had clearly made the same
calculation, dangerous gamble though it was. We were barely two
lengths from her now.

But
it was not to be. Whether they saw the facings on his coat or noticed
the pile of arms being pulled through the hatch, or whether they
simply realized that we showed no intention of deviating from our
course, they lost patience. I saw a figure on her quarterdeck raise
his sword and, without preamble, slice it down in the clean swoop of
an executioner.

We
were right under her guns, and they could not miss. Nothing on earth
can compare with having to face a broadside from so low and exposed a
position, and no cutter was ever built to take it. We had no
protection, no bulwarks to take the blow, to serve as a shield;
nothing but a short distance of cold air between us and
uncompromising death.

They
all fired at once, which,
even
in my terror, surprised me: they would have done better to take aim
at us gun by gun, for we were a narrow target coming in head on. Most
of that first broadside flew harmlessly wide. The sight it made,
though, was something indescribable: a wall of smoke and fire that
exploded before us, the roar hammering into our ears and the heat
scalding our faces red.

Bitter
smoke swamped the air; it was like being back in the fog, only with a
thicker, choking smell filling our lungs and mouths and clothes. Then
there was another crash: the topmast plunged to the deck, dragging a
great swathe of the mainsail and a tangle of rigging down with it,
while the larboard shrouds collapsed like a whip onto the men who
stood beneath.

But
amid all this carnage, our crew was surprisingly intact. A few were
trapped under fallen rigging, and one was screaming where a spar was
crushing his contorted back, but the majority seemed unhurt, as
surprised as I was that we had survived that lethal broadside. We
must have been too close, and too low, for the balls to have struck
properly, I thought jubilantly.

'Hard
about!'

Crawley
was coughing violently, but otherwise seemed safe.
Orestes
began to turn, putting her side towards the enemy, and I saw with a
start that we were so close that our long bowsprit scraped her hull.

An
uneven volley of musket fire crackled out from the frigate's deck,
and my relief at having survived the broadside vanished as I fell to
my knees. Frantically I patted my arms and chest, but I seemed
unharmed; then, just as I had reassured myself, a heavy weight
thumped into me and I was knocked sprawling backwards.

For
a second I thought a falling spar had pinned me, that I would now
suffer a slow, crushing death rather than the merciful swiftness of a
musket ball. But it was not timber on top of me, but a man, and I
remembered with horror as I saw the blood spreading over his shirt
that there was nothing the least merciful about musket fire. His face
hung slack from the neck, shock frozen into it. He was dead already,
I think, for there was no life in the body that flopped over me like
a blanket, and it took a terrible effort to roll him off into the
scupper. Shaking, I stumbled to my feet.

'Take
the men for'ard and prepare to board,' Crawley shouted at me. 'I
shall be with you directly. Go on, Lieutenant,' he added angrily,
seeing my witless look of shock. 'This may be our only chance!'

'Yes,
sir.'

I
was bewildered, dazed by the noise and smoke and chaos, by the dead
man's embrace. I might have stood there like a statue had Ducker not
pulled my sword from its scabbard and set it into my hand.

'Come
on, sir!' he bellowed in my ringing ear. 'No time for it!'

Nor
was there, for the French, seeing our desperate plan, were massing by
the rail, and I could hear the continuing crack of musket fire. If
they could pour too much of that down on us, we would be slaughtered
to a man.

Staggering
like a drunkard I tottered forward, picking my way over the wreckage
until I came amidships. The crew lay low against the deck, cowering
behind the gunwale, though that was little enough protection against
fire from above. But how could we mount the hull to get at them when
they were crammed in up there ready to resist us?

'Get
low, sir!'

Ducker's
hand reached around my neck and pulled me down. My legs buckled and I
fell hard on my knees.

'Fire!'

Crawley
roared the command, and more explosions rocked
Orestes
.
Somehow the gun captains had managed to get matches to all five of
our starboard cannon, though debris now covered half of them, and the
men cheered at the noise of our broadside ripping into the enemy. I
remembered how tiny those guns had seemed when I first saw them, but
in such close confines they gave a sound like something out of the
line of battle. How much damage they did I could not see, but a cloud
of splinters erupted into the air, and it was as well we were all
huddled behind our barricade.

'Through
the ports!' Ducker
was
shouting. 'Take 'em where they're not expecting it!' He helped me to
my feet. 'Come on, sir, give the lads a cheer.'

'At
'em, boys!' I yelled, or some such nonsense, for words become
instinctive and meaningless in such moments.

It
sufficed, though: the men surged forward, and grappling irons rattled
against the frigate's hull while desperate hands pulled themselves up
onto the gunports. I saw the ghastly sight of a head dissolving in
crimson spray as one of the enemy cannon fired point blank into him,
but then the man behind him got through the gap and I heard the
sounds of battle starting within. I was almost too terrified to move,
but Crawley was behind me, and I would not be left on our deck for
him to find me alone; moreover, several of the crew were still
hesitating, looking to me of all people for a lead, God help them.
And if I stayed behind, the marksmen above would not have to look too
hard for a target.

Grabbing
a pistol from the deck, I took hold of a rope and leaped into the
darkness. My fingers were numb with cold and fear, and I dreaded that
at any moment I might slip and fall into the icy water, or get
crushed between the two hulls, but I managed to claw my way up the
side. Then I had to countenance the possibility that, like the poor
seaman before me, I might be climbing through a gunport with a loaded
cannon to greet me. But hanging off the side of the ship was doing me
no good. My blood churning with panic, I heaved myself up and tumbled
over onto the hard wooden deck. To my left and right I could see
others of our crew slithering through the holes, but the bulk of our
men were battling near the companion ladder, knotted together in a
hard-pressed circle. With another shout of false courage I ran
towards them, discharging my pistol into the choking smoke beyond and
then laying in with my sword.