H.M.S. COCKEREL

'Manned!' Porter screeched at last. Lewrie looked down to see de Grillait give him an assuring fist in the air.

'Helm alee! Rise, tacks and sheets!'

Slow, a bit 'crank,' indifferently balanced with all the civilian stores put aboard catch-as-catch-can, Radical swung up to the eyes of the wind, luffing and clattering, groaning and complaining. British men for the most part served the ship, men he'd drilled and trained, aided by raw landsmen who were terribly confused by sail-handling, much less the use of a foreign language. But she came about-crossed the wind. Reluctantly, she was about, on the starboard tack.

'Haul taut! Now, haul! Mains'l haul! Meet her, quartermaster. Nothing to leeward for now! Mister Porter, we'll haul our wind soon! Remain at stations!'

North by east she stood, running almost a reciprocal course to the transports, getting everything flaked down and sorted out, sailors still ready at the braces and jib sheets, driving for a moment within six points of the apparent wind. Rushing back towards the transports, their combined speeds hauling them near rapidly.

'New course, nor'east, quartermaster, helm up! Let her fall off four points, no more. Trim for a reach, Mister Porter! Then prepare to take in the main course.'

Suddenly, after what had felt like hours of snail's pace, things were overlapping each other, almost too fast to be dealt with. Leading transport on the larboard bows, now, dashing to abeam in the blink of an eye, trailing transport coming up rapidly. French corvettes beyond, and still not near enough to ease off their beats to open fire, just beyond the range-of-random-shot. Radical slowing, as she lost the drive of the main course. The transports weren't half a mile alee. People cheering, waving coats and hats.

Haven't a bloody clue, he sneered. But thankee, anyway. Second transport, huge two-decker, working alive like a crowded anthill, awash in people, coming up fast, her bowsprit framed in the foremast chains, just over the larboard anchor's cat-head.

'Helm up, quartermaster, shave her arse! Ease her, Porter! Man for a gybe! Mister de Crillart, once we've gybed round the transport… be ready to open fire on the nearest corvette with the starboard battery!'

Radical pointed herself at the transport's sides, changing the cheers to cries of consternation for a moment. Abeam of her, passing close, jib boom aimed at her quarter-galleries and stern, the helmsmen judging it to a nicety of perfection to dash almost under her counter and transom… using them as a shield, a fence between Radical and the corvettes.

'Ready to wear ship!' he called. 'Main clew garnets, bunt-lines, spanker brails, weather main, lee cro'jack braces… haul taut!'

The transport's stern was a pistol-shot away, before the mizzen chains. A second's more separation, then…

'Up, mains'l and spanker, clear away after bowlines, brace in on the afteryards! Up helm!' Lewrie yelled, on tiptoes with excitement.

Around Radical came again, balky and truculent, even slower than she'd been to tack, without the main course's power, yet trimming about, her crew throwing themselves upon the proper rigging from long training.

Round she came, until she lay with her bows due west, gun-ports coming open, gunners hopping about to remove quoins below the breeches for maximum elevation, shimming them up again as they aimed, a touch at a time, preparing to concentrate their fire on the leading corvette, the one nearest them, about a mile away, still close-hauled.

'Prйparez… tirez?' de Crillart shouted, waiting for the uproll.

Radical's starboard broadside went off as one; twelve-pounders firing solid-shot, the eighteen-pounders spewing disabling-shot. Gigantic gushes of powder-smoke wreathed her, to be whisked away to leeward, thinning out as her shot neared the target, shrieking and wailing as they flailed in the air, tumbling and spinning.

They threw themselves on the guns, to swab out, clear the vents, directing gawping civilians to keep their eyes inboard, on their work, for their very lives. Only the senior gunners knelt to peer out empty gunports to see the results, linstocks at their sides, jammed in the deck by the sharp ends like ancient spearmen. Powder-monkeys scampered up with fresh charges. Loaders hefted more disabling-shot.

'Well, damme!' Lewrie gloated as the corvette was struck; struck for fair! She seemed to quiver from mast- trucks to keel as that flailing, slashing ironmongery amputated her fore-royal mast, tore away her fore-t'gallant yard, sliced through fore stays and jib halliards, spilling everything forward of the mast into a sagging ruin! And tore gaping holes in her fore-tops'1 and course, spilling their wind, those ravaged sails ripping open, tearing across as far as the bolt-rope edges!

'You see, mon ami?' de Crillart crowed. 'Now, encore!'

Guns charged and shotted, run out through the ports, cartridges punctured and vents primed. Slowly, clumsily, guns squealing and complaining on their low trucks, tacklemen taking forever-one side of a piece hauled too forcefully, the other too weakly, jibbering them about before the ports as if they were iron mastiffs hunting for a scent.

The corvette had fallen off the wind-had to fall off, with her windward-driving jibs gone, all unbalanced. She showed her profile, but also began to display a line of open gunports, parallel to Radical.

Quoins inserted deeper this time, lowering the aim of the barrels, gunners shouting and babbling, waving their hands to instruct their raw assistants to shift the lay of the guns with crow levers and handspikes to right or left. Then the excess crewmen were hustling away to avoid the recoil, the roar and the stink, after overhauling the tackles. A last once-over, then matches were blown on, lowered near the vents…

On the uproll. 'Tirez!'

Another brutal clap of sound, another howling broadside! Guns rolled backwards to snub on the breeching ropes, making the stout bulwarks cry, rope groan, iron ring-bolts squeal. They juddered and they reeked, some slewed off-line, gushing thin trails of spent smoke. And their frigate, shaken to her heart by the force of the run- back.

A moaning in the air, a shrill shrieking, as round-shot returned towards them. Dull thuds, splashes alongside towering over the bulwarks, iron ball flying across the ship, sizzling sibilantly. Crisp bangs up above, where the furled main-course yard was struck, one end turning to a shattered stub as the ball glanced off.

The corvette twitched anew, her main-mast struck this time. More destruction rained down from aloft onto her decks, to dangle in her overhead boarding nettings. There was a hole in her spanker where bar-shot pierced it, a handful of men in her main-mast fighting-top spilled out by a whirling multiple bar-shot. Her main t'gallant mast above shook, then slowly leaned forward under the press of the wind, as upper shroud lines parted, the cross-tree braces shattered.

More fire was returned, raggedly. As if in retribution, a shot screamed over Radical's quarterdeck, slapping a hole in her spanker… just over Lewrie's head. Forward, the starboard gangway bulwark caved in as an eight-pounder round-shot pierced it, making a rent about two feet across, and the air was awhirl with jagged oak splinters. Three French infantrymen standing behind the rent were ripped away, tossed over the rope railings into the waist, onto the gun deck, riddled with wood and iron shards. Another ball struck lower down, below the gunwale, with a dull thonk, creating wails of sudden terror among the noncombatants on the orlop deck. A third hit a closed gunport, behind which tacklemen were sheltering, waiting for orders to throw themselves on the guns once more. There were screams of pain and disbelief as two volunteers were cut down, cries from a dozen more throats as they beheld the ruins of men, twitching and thrashing bloody at their feet. Lieutenant de Crillart and his senior gunners were there in an instant, to shout them down, shove them back to their duties, urging them to be brave… no longer gently tutorial. The time was past for that.

'Loblolly boys!' Lewrie shouted, directing the pasty whey-faces framed in the midships companionway hatch. 'Help 'em, damn yer eyes!' The dentist appeared, seized the one at die top of the companionway ladder and dragged him out. They skittered fearful, as low as hounds to the decks, following him with a mess table turned into a stretcher. Three men were dead, abandoned round the base of the main-mast, while two who screamed and wept were carried below to whatever further horrors awaited them at the surgeons' hands.

The range had closed to about three-quarters of a mile. Alan took a quick look astern for the second corvette.