An Eye of the Fleet

There was something odd about the ship they were approaching.

'Tregembo… clap your eyes on yon ship… do you notice anything peculiar…?'

The Cornishman left his swivel and peered to where the enemy vessel lay to, seemingly awaiting the British frigate.

'No zur… but wait there's siller at her rail no… it's gone now…' He straightened up scratching his head.

'Did you see flashes of silver?'

'Aye, zur, leastways I thought I did…'

Drinkwater looked aft. Cranston in the main-top waved at him and he waved back suddenly making his mind up. He swung himself over into the futtock shrouds.

On the quarterdeck he bumped into Morris who was now signal midshipman.

'What the hell are you doing aft?' hissed Morris, 'Get forrard to your station pig!' Drinkwater dodged round him and hovered at Hope's coat tails.

'Sir! Sir!'

'What the devil?' Hope and Devaux turned at the intrusion of their vigilant watch on the closing American.

'Sir, I believe I saw the sun on bayonets from the fore-top…'

'Bayonets, by God…' Wheeler too whirled at the military word. Then he turned again and clapped his glass to his eye. Briefly visible the sun caught the flash of steel again.

'Aye bayonets by God, sir! He's a company or two there sir, damned if he hasn't…' exclaimed the marine officer.

'You'll be damned if he has, sir,' retorted Hope, 'so he wants to grapple and board with infantry… Mr Devaux, lay her off a little and aim for his top hamper.'

'Aye, aye, sir.' Devaux went off roaring orders.

'Thank you, Mr Drinkwater, you may return to your station.'

'Aye, aye, sir…'

'Lickspittle!' hissed Morris as he passed.

Hope's assessment had been correct. The enemy ship had indeed been a French Indiaman but was then operating under a commission signed by George Washington himself. Despite her American authority she was commanded by a Frenchman of great daring who had been cruising under the rebel flag since the Americans first appealed for help from the adventurous youth of Europe.

This officer had on board a part battalion of American militia who, though recently driven out of Georgia by their Loyalist countrymen, had recovered their bravado after receiving a stirring harangue from their ally and were now eager to fire their muskets again.

Although Hope had correctly assessed his opponent's tactics he was too late to avoid them. As the two vessels opened fire on one another the enemy freed off a little and bore down towards the British ship. As they closed her name was visible across her transom: La Creole.

La Creole's main yard fouled Cyclops's cro'jack yard and the two vessels came together with a jarring crash. The pounding match already started continued unabated, despite the fact that the gun muzzles almost touched. Already the adjacent bulwarks of the two ships were reduced to a shambles and the deadly splinters were lancing through the smoke laden air. Cyclops's shot had destroyed the enemy's two boats on the gratings and the stray balls and resultant splinters were unnerving the militia. The French commander, knowing delay was fatal, leapt on to the rail and waved the Americans on. His own polyglot crew followed him.

The tide of boarders swirled downwards over the upper deck gunners and Wheeler brought his after guard of marines forward in a line.

'Forward! Present! Fire!' They let off a volley and reloaded with the ease of practice, spitting the balls into their muzzles and banging the musket stocks on the deck to avoid the time consuming ritual of the ramrod.

Back in the foretop Drinkwater discharged the swivel into the throng as it poured aboard. He reloaded then turned to find Tregembo wrestling with a sallow desperado who had appeared from nowhere. Looking up Drinkwater saw more men running like monkeys along the enemy's yards and into Cyclops's rigging. In the main top Cranston was coolly picking off any who attempted to lash the yards of the two ships, but men were coming aboard via the topsail yards and sliding down the forestays in a kind of hellish circus act.

On the maindeck the gun crews continued to serve their pieces. Occasionally the rammer working at the exposed muzzle would receive a jab from an enemy boarding pike until Devaux ordered the ports closed when reloading. It slowed the rate of fire but made the men attentive and reduced the risk of premature explosions through skimpy sponging. Small arms fire crackled above their heads and a small face appeared at Lieutenant Keene's elbow. It was little White.

'Sir! Sir! Please allow the starboard gun crews on deck, sir, we are hard pressed…'

Keene turned. 'Starbowlines!' he roared, 'Boarding pikes and cutlasses!' The order was picked up by the bosun's mates and the men, assisting their mates at the larboard guns, ran for the small arms racks around the masts.

'Skelton, do you take command here!'

Keene adjusted the martingale of his hanger on his wrist. Turning to White he managed a lopsided smile, 'Come on young shaver…'

White pulled out his toy dirk.

'Starbowlines! Forrard Companionway! Follow me!'

A ragged cheer broke out, barely audible amid the thunder of the adjacent guns. But it broke into a furious yell as the men emerged onto the sunlit deck where the melee was now desperate. Although the attempts of the rebels to enter Cyclops through the main deck ports had been repulsed, on the upper deck it was a different story. The initial shock of the boarding party had carried them well on to the British frigate's quarterdeck. At the extreme after end Wheeler and his marines were drawn into a line loading and firing behind a precise hedge of bayonets. After a few sallies the boarders drew back and turned their attention to the forward end where the resistance, led by Lieutenant Devaux, was fierce but piecemeal, the seamen and officers defending themselves as best they might.

Although the American militia were unsteady troops they fought well enough against the seamen and gradually began to overwhelm the defenders. Once the Americans reached the waist in force they could drop down into the gun-deck and their possession of the British frigate was only a matter of time. The fighting was fierce, a confusion of musketry, pistol flashes and slashing blades. Men screamed with rage or pain, officers shouted orders, their voices hoarse with exhaustion or shrill with fear and all the while the two ships discharged their main batteries at each other at point blank range in a continuous cacophony of rumbling concussions, the smoke of which rolled over the frightful business above.

Poor Bennett, forced over a gun, died of a bayonet wound.

Stewart, the master's mate, weakened by the consequences of his amorous adventure at Falmouth, parried the French commander's sword but failed to riposte. The Frenchman was quicker and Stewart too fell in his own gore on the bloody deck.

From the fore-top Drinkwater was uncertain of the progress of the fight below since it was obscured by powder smoke. Between the fore- and main-tops the threat of aerial invasion via the rigging seemed to have been stemmed when Drinkwater heard the yells of Keene's counter attack. He saw them on the American ship where more men were assembling to attack. They sent a case of langridge into the Rebel waist: men fell, dispersed and reassembled. Drinkwater's gun fired again.

'Two rounds left, zur!' Tregembo shouted in his ear.

'Blast it!' he shouted back. 'What the hell do we do then?'

'Dunno zur.' The man looked below. 'Join in down there, zur?' Drinkwater looked down. The gunfire seemed to have eased and the wind cleared some of the smoke. He saw White, his dirk flashing, shoved aside by an American who lunged at a British warrant officer. The master's mate took the thrust on the thigh and the American grimaced as the spurned White stabbed him in the side. Devaux, with his hanger whirling in one hand and a clubbed pistol in the other, was laying about himself like a maniac urging on Keene's men and the remnants of the upper deck gun crews.