Alexander Kent - THE INSHORE SQUADRON
Herrick remarked, 'Waste of good powder and shot.'
Several others nodded, and Wolfe said, `They're shortening sail, sir.'
Herrick nodded. 'Do likewise, Mr Wolfe.'
Bolitho walked away. It was the usual practice, once enemies had been committed to a course of action. Enough canvas to give steerage-way and to manoeuvre, but not enough to encourage an outburst of fire. A flaming wad from a gun, a lantern knocked over by a stray ball, anything could change these fine pyramids of sail into a roaring inferno.
Bolitho watched the maincourse being gathered up to its yard, the sudden activity along the deck as the order was obeyed. Along the slow-moving British line the others followed suit, stripping for combat.
And still the two columns continued remorselessly towards one another. The second French ship, with Ropars' flag at the fore, fired some ranging shots from each deck. Much nearer than the first impressive broadside. Bolitho followed a ball's progress as it tore low across the wavecrests, cutting a path of spurting spray, until it struck hard into the sea and vanished. It fell less than a cable from Benbow's larboard bow.
Bolitho said, `When we engage, Mr Browne, make to Relentless, attack and harass enemy's rear. I will keep Lookout with us to give the French something to ponder on.'
Somebody laughed. A short, nervous sound. One of the new hands probably. The sudden burst of cannon fire, the overwhelming weight of iron as it had scythed into the sea had been less dangerous than the carefully pointed shots from Ropars' flagship. But to an inexperienced eye it would seem awesome.
Lieutenant Speke had left the quarterdeck and was walking between the lines of eighteen-pounders, hands behind his back until he joined Pascoe by the foremast bitts.
Gun captains watched them apprehensively, while here, and
there a handspike moved to point a cannon more accurately, while another seaman made a small adjustment with a quoin. It was as if the whole ship was on the edge of tension, and even the braced fore-topsail gave two sharp, impatient flaps, making one of the ship's boys peer round in alarm.
Bolitho turned as the leading Frenchman fired again. Much closer, some of the spray falling so near they could hear it, like tropical rain.
Bolitho trained a glass on the French line. Along the five vessels, all seventy-fours, he could see the sails changing, being reefed or filling again to the wind as their captains did everything to hold the distances and yet be ready to react to their enemy.
He said, `Alter course two points starboard, Captain Herrick. The squadron will follow.'
Men hurried to the braces, and he heard the wheel being hauled over rapidly as if the quartermaster and helmsmen had been expecting the order.
Grubb said, 'Steady as she goes, sir. East by north.'
The British line had edged slightly away from the other squadron, so that for a moment it appeared as if the French were falling astern. The yards squeaked to the pull of blocks and braces, and at the masthead Bolitho saw the pendant flapping almost directly forward.
He could feel the ship responding, as with the wind under her coat-tails she forged eagerly ahead.
`French have made more sail, sir.' Herrick looked at him. 'Do I set the courses on her again?'
`No.' Bolitho walked three paces to the nearest gun and back again. 'I want them to believe we're more interested in delaying their progress than closing to point-blank range.'
He watched the French topgallant yards changing shape and direction as the ships spread more sail and increased speed accordingly. Less than a mile separated them now.
'Be ready, Mr Browne.'
He pictured the captains following in Benbow's wake. He had explained this very tactic to them when he had first met them as a- squadron. The minimum of signals. The maximum of initiative. He could see them now. Keverne, Keen and good old Inch. Waiting for the solitary flag which was already bent on and ready. As he had said at the time, `The French can read our signals, too, so why share our knowledge with them?'
'I think we may open fire, Captain Herrick.'
Bolitho saw his words being passed forward along the gundeck by whisper and gesture with the speed of light.
'No broadside. Tell your gun captains to shoot on the uproll and to fire at will.'
Herrick nodded. `Aye, sir. That will get the Frogs moving. They'll not want to be dismasted or crippled by a random shot at this stage of the game. They've a fair way to go in either direction!'
A midshipman ran down the main hatch with the message, and seconds later a whistle shrilled out from the forecastle.
It was hard to see who fired first, and to what effect. Down the engaged side the guns came crashing inboard on their tackles, the crews jumping instantly to sponge out the steaming muzzles and reload. Gun captains, stooped like old men, peered through their ports, watching the sails of the leading French ship jerk wildly as if in a whirlwind.
From the lower gundeck the recoiling thirty-two-pounders made the timbers quiver, while streaming past her beakhead the drifting smoke fanned out on either bow like a fog.
'We've hit her, by God!'
Another voice yelled, 'That was our gun, lads! Run out now an' we'll make 'em dance another jig!'
The rest of Bolitho's line were firing now, the shots cutting through the waves, some falling short and others hitting sails and hulls in a confusion of bursting spray and smoke.
'The French have altered course again, sir.' Herrick could barely control his excitement. 'Here they come.'
He winced as the second ship vanished in a wall of smoke and the long orange tongues flashed through it with the sound of thunder.
Water deluged across the forecastle, and beneath his feet Bolitho felt the massive hull stagger to the enemy's iron. Five, maybe six hits, but not a stay or shroud had been parted.
'Sponge out, that man!' A gun captain had to punch one of his men in the shoulder to bring him back to his senses. 'Now load, you bugger!'
Crash… crash… crash. All along Benbow's painted tumblehome the guns came roaring inboard on their tackles. Alone, in pairs or whole sections their captains aimed and pulled their trigger lines, unhampered by the restricting demands of a fixed broadside.
Men were cheering from up forward as the leading Frenchman's main-topgallant mast vanished into the smoke. There were black dots drifting past the ships; wreckage, burned hammocks from the nettings or perhaps corpses thrown overboard to keep the guns firing.
'Again, lads! Hit them!' Herrick was yelling through his cupped hands, a far cry from the quiet-faced man who had stood at the altar in Kent.
The French line were all firing now, and each British ship was being damaged, or so deluged in falling spray she appeared to be.
A ball punched through the main-topsail and other holes appeared in the fore.
A few severed lines swung lazily above the guns, like dead weed, while Swale, the boatswain, Big Tom, matched his voice to the din as he urged his men aloft to splice and effect repairs before something vital carried away.
Bolitho flinched as metal clanged against a gun on the starboard side and the broken splinters cracked around him like musket fire. A seaman fell headlong to the deck, and Bolitho saw that beneath his pigtail his vertebrae had been laid bare. Nearby a petty officer had dropped to his knees and was trying to hold his entrails in his hands, his mouth wide in a soundless scream.
'Steady, lads! Point! Ready! Fire!'
The quarterdeck nine-pounders fired together, their sharper, note making some of the men gasp with pain.
'And again!'
Bolitho swallowed hard as more enemy shots beat into the hull. He heard one smash through an open port on the lower gundeck, pictured the horror as it ploughed through men already blinded by smoke and half-mad from the deafening explosions.
'Fire!'
The leading French ship was overreaching Benbow, in spite of her missing topgallant mast. She was firing wildly, but some of the shots were hitting the hull. Bolitho looked along the upper gundeck at the men moving back and forth, jumping clear as each gun came squealing and crashing inboard.
Some lay where they had been dragged to await treatment. Others would not move again. Pascoe was walking behind his men, shouting something, then waving his hat. One of his gun captains turned to grin at him and fell dead as a ball whipped past his stomach without even touching him. On the opposite side it thundered into the bulwark and killed another seaman even as he ducked away.
'Fire!'
Bolitho cleared, his throat. 'We are rightly placed, I think.' He peered up at the flapping pendant, his eyes smarting with smoke. 'Be ready, Mr Browne!'
He heard Herrick yelling, 'Stand by to come about, Mr Grubb! Mr Speke!' He had to borrow Wolfe's trumpet to make the lieutenant hear through the noise. 'We will engage with both batteries! Prepare to raise the starboard port lids!' He watched to ensure that his message had been carried to the lower gundeck and then turned to add, 'By God, our people are doing well today, sir!'
Bolitho took him by the arm. 'Walk about, Thomas. When we break the enemy's line they will try to mark us down from the tops!'
Somewhere in the smoke a man gave a shrill scream, and blood ran along the larboard scuppers in an unbroken thread.
He measured the distance. It was time. Later and the French might cripple them, or might try to separate them from each other.
'Make your signal, Mr Browne!'
The solitary flag broke from the yard, to be acknowledged all along the line.
Browne wiped his mouth with his hand. His hat was awry and there was blood on his white breeches.
`Close up, sir!'
Bolitho looked at the men ready at the braces, the ones at the big double-wheel taking the strain on the spokes while they tried to concentrate on Grubb, on everything but the crash and roar of cannon fire.
A marine fell from the maintop, hit a net and rolled over the side into the sea.
A powder-monkey, running towards the larboard guns, turned on his toes like a dancer then fell kicking to the deck. Before he looked away Bolitho-saw that his eyes had been blasted from his head.
'Now!'
The yards came round like great, straining bows, and as the helm went over Bolitho saw the French ships suddenly loom above the larboard bow. Then they stood before the bowsprit as Benbow continued to turn until her yards were all but braced fore and aft.
With canvas thundering and flapping in protest, Benbow held on her new tack, her tapering jib-boom pointing directly at the gilded gallery of the French flagship. He could see the sudden consternation on her poop and quarterdeck, the flags appearing frantically above the drifting smoke as she endeavoured to rally support.
'Make your other signal to Relentless.'
Bolitho watched narrowly as the deck heeled to starboard under the tightly braced sails. Would they manage it? Break astern of the flagship and smash her poop to fragments, or would Benbow ram her instead and impale her on the bowsprit like a lance?
He heard more cheering, rising from the fog of battle to drown the cries and groans of the wounded. Indomitable was following close astern and, seeming much further away now, Nicator, with Inch's smaller sixty-four, Odin, in her wake, was heading to break the enemy's line. With luck, Captain Keen would pass between the fourth and the rearmost ship in the French squadron. If he could cut out the last ship and cripple her, the big transport would be at his mercy.
`Open your ports! Run out the starboard battery!'
The guns squealed to the ports as one, as if eager to discard their previous roles of spectators.
Herrick said between his teeth, 'Easy, Mr Grubb. You can let her fall off a point now.' He slammed one hand into the other. 'Got him!'
They were so close to the other flagship that Benbow's jibboom and tattered staysails threw faint shadows across her counter and stern windows.
Bolitho heard Speke yell, 'As you bear! Ready!'
Right up forward Bolitho saw the two carronades poking their ugly snouts outboard. The starboard one at least could hardly miss.
Muskets cracked through the din, and Bolitho saw the hammocks jump in the nettings as the French marksmen tested their aim. In Benbow's tops the marines were also firing, pointing out their opposite numbers to each other as they tried to mark down anyone in authority.
The blast and thunder of gunfire from the scattered ships was mounting to a terrible crescendo. Bolitho saw the starboard carronade fire, but the effect of its devastating charge of tightly packed grape was lost in smoke and thrown spray. Through it all Benbow's men were yelling and cheering like demented beings. Their figures were blurred in smoke, their eyes staring and white as they threw themselves to their guns or ran to trim the yards in response to Wolfe's trumpeting voice from the quarterdeck.
Bolitho wiped his stinging eyes and peered at the Frenchman's stern as it loomed over the starboard bow. He could vaguely see her name, La Loire, the fine gilt lettering splintered by grape-shot and canister, while above it the stern windows were smashed to a shambles.
He heard Browne yelling at him and saw him pointing wildly to the opposite beam.
The third ship in the French line, the one which Bolitho had intended to isolate from La Loire, had suddenly hoisted an admiral's command flag to the fore, and even as the signal broke from her yards she began to tack round, following Benbow's slow turn as if they were linked together.
Browne shouted incredulously, ' La Loire has hauled down her flag, sir!'
Bolitho pushed past him, feeling the sudden despair drop across the wildness of battle like a blanket. The French admiral had planned it perfectly, the lure of his false flag breaking the British and not his own squadron into pieces.
Herrick was waving his sword. 'At 'em, lads! Engage to larboard again, Mr Speke!'
Thwarted by the enemy's unexpected change of direction, the Nicator and Odin were almost in irons, their reduced sails flapping in wild confusion as they tried to re-form into line.
Ropars' ship was surging level with Benbow s quarter, her forward guns firing rapidly across a narrowing strip of water. To the dazed seamen around Bolitho it must seem as if each ball was finding a target.
There was not even a cheer as the foremast of the false French flagship staggered overboard in one great mass of canvas, broken spars and rigging. La Loire had been badly mauled, but her sacrifice looked like changing a battle into a total defeat for Bolitho's squadron.
In poor light, made worse by the billowing smoke, the ships lurched drunkenly against one another, guns pounding mercilessly at point-blank range. It was like being surrounded by a forest of masts and whipping flags, like being in hell itself.
Herrick seemed to be everywhere. Directing and rallying, shouting encouragement here, demanding greater effort there.
The young sixth lieutenant, Courtenay, the one Allday had ousted from his barge, was sprawled on his face, his shoes drumming on the deck as some of the marines dragged him towards the quarterdeck ladder. He had been hit by a French sharpshooter and his lower jaw had been completely shot away.
Browne shouted, `Relentless is attacking the transport, sir!' He lowered his glass. The two French frigates are after him, and Lookout requests permission to engage!'
