leaning well back to get the straightest line from chest to feet against the stretchers athwartships.
A series of disjointed thuds sounded distantly, then cannonballs skipped and splashed audibly around them. Kydd glanced about him as he pulled, and was relieved to see that the shots were well scattered. One of the enemy ships was nearly hidden by clouds of slow-moving gunsmoke.
Nevertheless it was unnerving. The enemy had their broadside facing them while their own guns would not bear so far forward. They pulled on. More thuds, more balls. A long space, and then an avalanche of crumps. This time the sound was appreciably nearer and the balls skipped and smashed with venom among them. Some came between the boats and two struck the ship with a peculiar sound like a blunt axe smashing into rotten wood.
“Eyes in the boat!” piped the little midshipman, as some men missed their stroke looking over their shoulder.
There was a fierce muttering. It was one thing to be under fire with their own cannon roaring defiance from their wooden ramparts and another to be helpless in the open with no means of reply.
A catspaw of wind ruffled the water and subsided. Another came and went. Anxious faces looked toward the fo’c’sle but nothing changed.
A double rush of thumps and a storm of shot broke over them. One ball plowed into the bow of the pinnace and opened it like a banana, instantly cutting off the shrieks by plunging every occupant into the sea. Without waiting to be told, lines were slipped and the boats returned, the launch remaining to pick up survivors.
But the wind seemed to have returned. Sails were stirring, flapping desultorily, the huge battle ensign lifting momentarily and falling.
So weary were they that it was impossible to climb the Jacob’s ladder over the stern and they were waved around to the entry port. Aching and sore, they mounted the side steps and made their way back to their battle stations.
On the lower gundeck the gun crews waited. Kydd sat against the gun carriage, head in his hands, exhausted.
“Denison, you ’n’ Kydd change,” Stirk said, giving Kydd a break from his arduous gun-tackle duty. Kydd nodded his gratitude. Cullen brought the round shot to the gun with Denison.
It was hot and fetid, even with the gunports open, but a whisper of a breeze now wafted cool sea air over them. Kydd was stripped to the waist, a red bandanna around his head. He closed his eyes and let the talk eddy around him.
“No, I tell a lie. An able seaman’s share, that’d be over five poun’ we gets to take one o’ they Frenchies.”
“O’ course I’ll do that – ’n’ if it’s me, then I’d take it kindly if you could visit me sister, she’s all I got. I’ll ask Lofty ter write ’er name ’n’ lodgin’ out for you – she’s a widder, yer knows.”
“An’ we’ll hire a coach, Will, go to Winchester an’ kick up a Bob’s-adyin’ they’ll never ferget!”
Kydd forced himself to open his eyes. With both sides manned, the gundeck was crowded with men and equipment. The guns were already loaded, only awaiting the order to open fire. On the centerline were scuttled casks of water with vinegar, and long cases containing cutlasses and sea-service pistols lay open. It was the first time he had seen the vessel prepared in earnest for war. It was rare for a line-of-battle ship actually to fight: it did its work more by the threat of its existence, but now the greatest single weapon in history so far would have to justify its being.
He saw Cantlow in low conversation with Lockwood, and the gunner, Mr. Bethune, making his way slowly along in his plain black waistcoat, his bright eyes darting about in a last check before he went down into the magazine.
Painfully Kydd got to his feet and went to the gunport to lean out.
The enemy seemed to be holding their fire until the smoke cleared – it hung downwind of them in gigantic clouds above the sea, with little movement to disperse it.
As he watched, the enemy man-o’-war last in line erupted in stabs of flame and was instantly enveloped in gunsmoke. Kydd flinched. In quick succession there were two loud crashes overhead somewhere, followed by a terrifying splintering smash as a round shot pierced the side near the foremost gun.
Through a jagged entry-hole it smashed diagonally across the gundeck, taking with it the head of the rammer of the number-one gun, together with the leg and thigh of one of the gun-tackle crew and the hand of his mate. It slammed across the main hatch gratings, pulping the golden-haired powder monkey in its path, and hit an opposite gun squarely, dismounting it.
The screaming started-and the tearing sobs of a ship’s boy unable to comprehend the bloody carcass of his friend.
Kydd was paralyzed with horror. His eyes followed the procession of moaning, hideously bloody men carried down to the orlop and the hands of the surgeon.
“Get forrard ’n’ give ’em a hand, lad,” Stirk said, in neutral tones.
Kydd stared at him, then started for the scene of carnage.
Human tissue was everywhere. It did not seem possible that a body could contain so much blood.
“Get ’is legs, mate,” a seaman said. Two others had a headless torso by the arms, quite untouched apart from its surreal shortening, ending in obscene white tendrils in a meaty matrix.
Kydd gingerly picked up the dead body’s feet, noting the heavy wear in the shoes that the man had put on that morning. He started pulling the body backwards.
“What the fuck are you doing?” flared a man at the other end.
Kydd stood dumbfounded, his mind no longer working.
“He goes overside, mate,” the other said kindly.
Numb, Kydd complied, and the body, slithering floppily, went out of the gunport to splash into the bright sea below. He resumed his place at the gun and tried to control his trembling. There would be another broadside soon. At the very next moment another cannonball might blast into the gundeck. This time it might be him.
Stirk stood with his arms folded across his hairy chest, slowly chewing a quid of tobacco, his face expressionless. His calm, his strength, reassured Kydd, whose trembling subsided.
“We’ll settle those sons of whores! Serve ’em out the double what they did t’ us!” Kydd said violently.
Stirk looked at him in amusement. “Yair – and when we get amongst ’em, we’ll give ’em such a mauling as will have ’em beg for quarter inside an hour – on their knees!”
“Blast me eyes if we don’t take all four!” Salter said, white teeth gleaming.
“A pity there ain’t others – could do wi’ the prize money,” Doggo croaked.
The next flurry of thuds produced a fluster of confused bangs and breaking sounds from above, but no rending crashes into the gundeck.
Kydd tried to still his thudding heart. It was the uncertainty, the knowledge that out there was an enemy who was doing his best to kill him. His remaining time on earth might well be measured in seconds. To his shame his knees began to tremble again.
He snatched a glance at Stirk – the same neutral passivity, the unconcern.
Impulsively, Kydd moved closer to him and said in a low voice, “Toby, how c’n you – I mean, why doesn’t it…” He tailed off, feeling his face burning.
Stirk frowned. “Yeah – I know what yer mean, mate.” Idly stroking the top of the massive gun, Stirk went on, “Fair time ago, when I was a nipper, I shipped in
A few moments later the ragged strike of a broadside came, this time with no solid impacts sensed through the deck.
“Firin’ at the rigging, they do,” Stirk said derisively. “Thinks they’ll cripple us so’s they can skin out.”
Taking a deep breath, Kydd felt his fear recede. He straightened, and ventured a smile. “Shy bastards – can’t take a mill man to man!”
