Man Of War

He felt the roundshot tear the air just above his head, saw it graze the flag lockers and carry away the stern lantern before plunging into the sea, aft. He raised an eyebrow: as well he had not taken the ladder a moment earlier. But it was the way of a fight at sea, and he did not dwell on near misses. ‘Stand up, Mr Hart,’ he said briskly to one of the midshipmen, flat on his back and with an expression of astonishment.

‘I’m sorry, sir. I—’

‘Nothing from the flag, Mr Pelham?’

‘No, sir,’ replied the signal midshipman, surveying the wreckage of his flag locker in dismay.

Peto took up his telescope to observe for himself. There was so much smoke it was a while before he could find the flagship. ‘Codrington has hot work of it, I see.’Asia was engaged at close quarters with one, perhaps two, of the Turkish Line. Peto shook his head: that decided it (their lordships did not send a three-decker to the Mediterranean to pound at shore batteries on the edge of a general action).

He slid back down the ladder without a word (he had no time for signals now), before thinking better of leaving Pelham with nothing but carpentry. He turned and hailed him in a voice that would carry above the gunfire yet conveyed indifference to it. ‘Mr Pelham. I may have need of you on the quarterdeck!’

He was surprised by how agreeable he found the young man’s ‘ay-ay, sir!’.

‘Make straight for the flagship, Mr Durcan!’ The third lieutenant had resumed the watch as soon as the captain had turned for the ladder.

‘Straight for her, sir!’

The last of Admiral de Rigny’s frigates was nearing. Peto took Lambe’s speaking-trumpet to the starboard side. ‘Ahoy, monsieur!’ It ought to have felt strange: the only time he had ever hailed a Frenchman was to invite him to strike his colours.

The reply came at once, and heartily. ‘Je suis l ’Armide, capitaine! C’est une vraie battaille, n’est-ce pas? ’

‘Oui, capitaine, c’est ca.’ Peto was confident of his French, though he knew his accent to be that of an Englishman: ‘I have put ashore a party of marines to take the fort. They will have need of support but I must join the action. Will you take my place here?’ He prayed the Frenchman would not choose la gloire rather than the course of military reason.

He need have had no concern. ‘Oui, capitaine, bien sur . . .’

The detail was dealt with briskly, so that Peto could thank his (to his mind still) unlikely allie with true gratitude, and assurance, before turning back to the helm.

A ball crashed into the main mast just above the netting, and ricocheted into the waist. He closed his ears to the screaming of the wounded, as he had too often before.

‘More sail, Mr Lambe!’

Another ball from Sphacteria crashed into Rupert’s hull – impenetrable save by one path. It struck the edge of a gunport aft on the middle deck just as its huge thirty-two-pounder fired, carrying away the retarder tackle, sending splinters the width of the ship. The gun itself reared up and over, killing outright a midshipman and two hands, and rendering eleven more for the orlop.

An arching, heated shot from New Navarin plunged to the quarterdeck, taking off the head of a corporal of marines, which followed the hissy ball into the sea. Several men threw up as two older hands heaved what remained of the NCO over the side.

Another ball from Sphacteria carried away the main-topmast cap, which flew half-way to Armide. A man fell headlong from the yard into the sauve-tete. Blood trickled to the quarterdeck like water from a faulty tap as hands tried to get the lifeless body to the side, and thence to its watery grave.

Meanwhile the afterguard and marines were straining every muscle to extend the mainsail (all they wanted to do was get back to the contest of broadsides), while the topmen calmly overhauled the clewlines along the yard – those not trying to cut loose the now useless topgallant.

But the fire from Sphacteria had slackened, even if its accuracy had increased. A three-decker might be an easy mark, but there was no doubting that three decks wrought heavy damage on the fort, and faster than any 74 could have done it. Peto reckoned that Armide with her single deck of eighteen-pounders would keep the Turks occupied until Captain Antrobus and his party decided the matter with the bayonet. As for New Navarin, the battery there was already under cannonade from the French Magicienne, who had found herself with otherwise little to do, since the fireships masked her allotted station at the eastern point of the horseshoe.

He checked his instinct to see for himself the damage in the waist. Rupert was not a frigate: if the entire upper deck were out of action, there were two more. He fixed his gaze instead – as best he could in all the smoke – on Asia.

Rupert made good headway. Peto thought to steer between Asia and the Turkish two-decker to her starboard, firing as they bore. If that did not silence her he would at least have bought Asia’s starboard battery a little respite. He would then turn hard across her bow to rake the other Turk from astern with the larboard battery. ‘Damage report, if you please, Mr Lambe,’ he barked as they left the traverse of Sphacteria’s remaining guns.

A boy was swilling the quarterdeck, but no one spoke. They had been blooded, just as had the deck, and it was a powerful concoction, at once sobering and yet invigorating. The antidote was rum or more blood.

Not long and he had his damage report: the main-topsail was gone, but sail and rigging were otherwise intact; two guns of the middle-deck batteries, one each side, were disabled. And – it had never been the practice in the French wars to report the human damage – one midshipman and six seamen dead, seventeen taken below.

Peto nodded – no damage to trouble them, though a considerable surgeon’s bill for the opening of an action. ‘Thank you, Mr Lambe. Guns double-shotted again, if you please.’ He looked at his watch: a little after three o’clock. He had not thought it so late.

Rupert bore down silently on Asia’s besiegers like some giant predator. She might use her bowchasers to some effect, but Peto reckoned on the greater shock of the broadsides. Whether the Turks saw or not, they made no move. It was the mark of the novice to be mesmerized by the fight at hand, when the mortal danger lay often in what threatened. Peto intended teaching a lesson that those who survived it would never forget.

‘Larboard batteries to hold their fire, Mr Lambe. Remind them that it is the flagship they see. Starboard batteries will fire as they bear.’

Lambe had his midshipmen-repeaters relay the order to the larboard lower deck, and then back up again to be sure, before giving the discretionary order for the starboard guns to fire as they bore.

‘Mr Shand, we shall go about across Asia’s bows. Be ready if you please.’

‘Ay-ay, sir.’

There was resolution in the master’s voice: tacking with so little sail would be the very devil;Rupert might be pushed a good way astern before gathering headway.

Peto looked at his watch again: a quarter after three, and a hundred yards to run. Asia’s fire was slackening. He prayed she had not been too severely mauled.

He clasped his hands behind his back. It was time for kind words. ‘An admirable course, Mr Veitch.’

‘Thankee, sir.’

‘Capital trim, Mr Lambe.’

‘Sir.’

The smoke thinned a little. Peto peered disbelievingly, then raised his telescope. ‘That deuced cutter is alongside the flagship!’

‘Sir?’

‘Robb – the deuced fool has put his boat between the flag and yon Turk. I do believe he’s firing! He must be sorely in want of promotion!’

Lambe lifted his own glass. ‘He’ll be raised up one way or another,’ he said drily.

Peto growled. Hind would likely catch a good deal of metal when they began raking the Turk. But it could not be helped.

Rupert’s marines fired first as they ran in – sharpshooters and the fore carronade,