In half an hour the channel was clear of floating transports. Three had grounded. Two had run themselves ashore. One had sunk - the twenty-?four pound smashers at close range - and the rest had doubled into the outer road or back to Chaulieu, where one was set ablaze by red-?hot shot from St Jacques. And in half an hour, the time to run the length of the channel and to wreak all this havoc, the Polychrest was moving so heavily, keeping such a strain on the towline, that Jack hailed the Fanciulla and the transport to come alongside.
He went below, Bonden holding him by the arm, confirmed the carpenter’s desperate report, gave orders for the wounded to be moved into the corvette, the prisoners to be secured, his papers brought, and sat there as the three vessels rocked on the gentle swell of slack water, watching the tired men carry their shipmates, their belongings, all the necessaries out of the Polychrest.
‘It is time to go, sir,’ said Parker, with Pullings and Rossall standing by him, ready to lift their captain over.
‘Go,’ said Jack. ‘I shall follow you.’ They hesitated, caught the earnestness of his tone and look, crossed and stood hovering on the rail of the corvette. Now the veering breeze blew off the land; the eastern sky was lightening; they were out of the Ras du Point, beyond the shoals; and the water in the offing was a fine deep blue. He stood up, walked as straight as he could to a ruined gun-?port, made a feeble spring that just carried him to the Fanciulla, staggered, and turned to look at his ship. She did not sink for a good ten minutes, and by then the blood - what little he had left - had made a pool at his feet. She went very gently, with a sigh of air rushing through the hatches, and settled on the bottom, the tips of her broken masts showing a foot above the surface.
‘Come, brother,’ said Stephen in his ear, very like a dream. ‘Come below. You must come below - here is too much blood altogether. Below, below. Here, Bonden, carry him with me.’
Fanciulla
The Downs
20 September 04
My dear Sir,
By desire of your son William, my brave and respectable midshipman, I write a hasty line to inform you of our brush with the French last week. The claim of distinction which has been bestowed on the ship I commanded, I must entirely, after God, attribute to the zeal and fidelity of my officers, amongst whom your son stands conspicuous. He is very well, and I hope will continue so. He had the misfortune of being wounded a few minutes after boarding the Fanciulla, and his arm is so badly broken, that I fear it must suffer amputation. But as it is his left arm, and likely to do well under the great skill of Dr Maturin, I hope you will think it an honourable mark instead of a misfortune.
We ran into Chaulieu road on the 14th instant and had the annoyance of grounding in a fog under the cross-? fire of their batteries, when it became necessary to cut out a vessel to heave us off. We chose a ship moored under one of the batteries and proceeded with all dispatch in the boats. It was in taking her that your son received his wound: and she proved to be the Ligurian corvetto Fanciulla of 20 guns, with some French officers. We then proceeded to attack the transports, your son exerting himself all this time with the utmost gallantry, of which we took one, sank one, and drove five ashore. At this point the Polychrest unfortunately sank, having been hulled by upwards of 200 shot and having beaten five hours on the bank. We therefore proceeded in the prizes to the Downs, where the court-?martial, sitting yesterday afternoon in the Monarch, most honourably acquitted the Polychrest’s officers for the loss of their ship, not without some very obliging remarks. You will find a fuller account of this little action in my Gazette letter, which appears in tomorrow’s newspaper, and in which I have the pleasure of naming your son; and since I am this moment bound for the Admiralty, I shall have the pleasure of mentioning him to the First Lord.
My best compliments wait on Mrs Babbington, and I am, my dear Sir,
With great truth, sincerely yours,
Jno. Aubrey
PS. Dr Maturin desires his compliments, and wishes me to say, that the arm may very well be saved. But, I may add, he is the best hand in the Fleet with a saw, if it comes to that; which I am sure will be a comfort to you and Mrs Babbington.
‘Killick,’ he cried, folding and sealing it. ‘That’s for the post. Is the Doctor ready?’
‘Ready and waiting these fourteen minutes,’ said Stephen in a loud, sour voice. ‘What a wretched tedious slow hand you are with a pen, upon my soul. Scratch-?scratch, gasp-?gasp. You might have written the Iliad in half the time, and a commentary upon it, too.’
‘I am truly sorry, my dear fellow - I hate writing letters: it don’t seem to come natural, somehow.’
‘Non omnia possumus omnes,’ said Stephen, ‘but at least we can step into a boat at a stated time, can we not? Now here is your physic, and here is your bolus; and remember, a quart of porter with your breakfast, a quart at midday. . .
They reached the deck, a scene of very great activity: swabs, squeegees, holystones, prayer-?books, bears grinding in all directions; her twenty brass guns hot with polishing; the smell of paint; for the Fanciullas, late Polychrests, had heard that their prize was to be bought
into the service, and they felt that a pretty ship would fetch a higher price than a slattern - a price that concerned them intimately, since three-?eighths of it would be theirs
‘You will bear my recommendations in mind, Mr Parker,’ said Jack, preparing to go down the side.
‘Oh yes, sir,’ cried Parker. ‘All this is voluntary.’ He looked at Jack with great earnestness; apart from any other reason, the lieutenant’s entire future hung on what his captain would say of him at the Admiralty that evening.
Jack nodded, took the side-?ropes with a careful grasp and lowered himself slowly into the boat: a ragged, good-?natured, but very brief cheer as it pushed off, and the Fanciullas hurried back to their scouring, currying and polishing, the surveyor was due at nine o’clock.
‘A little to the left - to the larboard,’ said Stephen. ‘Where was I? A quart of porter with your dinner: no wine, though you may take a glass or two of cold negus before retiring; no beef or mutton - fish, I say, chicken, a pair of rabbits; and, of course, Venerem omitte.’
