important spars; to be sure, it meant running straight into Marengo’s broadside, yet it might be done, particularly in such a sea. But if he did it, if he was not dismasted, how long could he hold her? How long would it take for the van to reach him? He dared not disrupt the line: the merchantmen’s safety depended entirely on its strength and unity and the mutual support of its combined fire in close order.
Poised at the break of the quarterdeck he checked the position once more: the Surprise prise had already passed three ships, the Addington, Bombay castle and Camden, moving up in the opposite direction towards their turning-?point; and they were making sail - the gap had closed. On the port bow, a long mile away to the north-? east, the Marengo with white water breaking against her bows. On the port quarter, still a mile away, the Alfred and the Coutts had made their turn and they were setting topgallantsails: the Wexford was in stays, and it looked as though the eager Lushington might fall foul of her. He nodded: it could be done - indeed, there was no choice.
He jumped down the ladder and hurried along the guncrews; and he spoke to them with a particular friendliness, a kind of intimacy: they were old shipmates now; he knew each man, and he liked the greater part of them. They were to be sure not to waste a shot - to fire high for this spell, on the upward roll - ball and then chain as soon as it would
fetch - the ship might get a bit of a drubbing as they ran down, but they were not to mind it: the Frenchman could not open his lower ports, and they should serve him out once they got snug athwart his bows - he knew they would fire steady - let them watch Old Reliable: he had never wasted a shot all this commission - and they were to mind their priming. Old Reliable winked his only eye and gave a chuckle.
The first ranging shot from the Marengo plunged into the sea a hundred yards out on the larboard beam, sending up a tall white plume, torn away by the wind. Another, closer and to starboard. A pause, and now the Marengo’s side disappeared behind a white cloud of smoke, spreading from her bows to her quarter: four shots of the thundering broadside struck home, three hitting the frigate’s bows and one her cathead.
He looked at his watch, told his clerk to note down the time, and kept it in his hand as he paced up and down with Stourton at his side until the next great rippling crash. Far more accurate: white water leapt all round her, topmast high, so many twenty-?four-?pound shot struck home that her hull rang again: way was momentarily checked: she staggered; holes appeared in her fore and mainsails, and a clutter of blocks fell on to the splinter-? netting over the waist. ‘Just under two minutes,’ he observed. ‘Indifferent brisk.’ The Surprise took no more than one minute twenty seconds between broadsides. ‘But thank God her lower ports are shut.’ Before Marengo fired the next the frigate would be quarter of a mile nearer.
The S?millante, Marengo’s next astern, opened fire with her forward guns. He saw one ball travelling from him, racing astern, as he reached the taffrail in his ritual to and fro, a distinct ball with a kind of slight halo about it.
‘Mr Stourton, the bow gun may fire.’ It would do no harm; it might do good, even at this range; and the din would relieve the silent men. The two minutes were gone:
some seconds past: and the Marengo’s careful, deliberate broadside came, hitting the Surprise like a hammer, barely a shot astray. And immediately after that six guns from the Semillante, all high and wide.
Stourton reported, ‘Spritsail yard gone in the slings, sir. The carpenter finds three foot in the well: he is plugging a couple of holes under the water-?line, not very low.’ As he spoke the bow gun roared out and the encouraging, heady smell of powder-?smoke came aft.
‘Warm work, Mr Stourton,’ said Jack, smiling. ‘But at least Semillante cannot reach us again. The angle is too narrow. When Marengo starts firing grape, let the men lie down at their guns.’
Fine on the port bow he could see the last of the Marengo’s guns running out. They were waiting for the roll, He glanced round his sparse quarterdeck before he turned in his walk. Bonden and Carlow at the wheel, Harrowby behind them, conning the ship; Stourton calling out an order at the hances - sail-?trimmers to the foretopsail bowline - over to leeward the signal midshipman, then Callow with his bandaged head to run messages, and young Nevin, the clerk, with his slate in his hand; Etherege watching the Indiamen through his little pocket-?glass. All the Marines, apart from the sentry at the hatchway, were scattered among the gun-?crews.
The crash of the broadside, and of the bow-?gun, and of the twenty shot hitting her, came in one breath - an extreme violence of noise. He saw the wheel disintegrate, Harrowby jerked backwards to the taffrail, cut in two; and forward there was a screaming. Instantly he bent to the speaking-?tube that led below, to the men posted at the relieving-?tackles that could take over from the wheel. ‘Below there. Does she steer?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Thus, very well thus. Keep her dyce, d’ye hear me?’
Three guns had been dismounted, and splinters, bits of carriage, bits of rail, booms, shattered boats littered the decks as far aft as the mainmast, together with scores
of hammocks torn from their netting: the jibboom lurched from side to side, its cap shot through: cannon-? balls, scattered from their racks and garlands, rumbled about the heaving deck: but far more dangerous were the loose guns running free - concentrated, lethal weight, gone mad. He plunged into the disorder forward - few officers, little co-?ordination - catching up a bloody hammock as he ran. Two tons of metal, once the cherished larboard chaser, poised motionless on the top of the roll, ready to rush back across the deck and smash its way through the starboard side: he clapped the hammock under it and whipped a line round the swell of its muzzle, calling for men to make it fast to a stanchion; and as he called a loose 36 lb shot ran crack against his ankle, bringing him down. Stourton was at the next, a carronade still in its carriage, trying to hold it with a handspike as it threatened to plunge down the fore hatchway and thence through the frigate’s bottom: the coamings round the hole yielded like cardboard: then the forward pitch took off the strain - the gun rolled towards the bows, and as it gathered speed they tripped it, throwing it over on to its side. But the same pitch, the same shift of slope, working upon the loose gun amidships, under the gangway, sent it faster and faster through the confused group of men, each with his own notion of how to stop it, so that it ran full tilt against the side abaft the fore-?chains, smashed through and plunged into the sea. Oh for his officers! - high discipline did away with the men’s initiative - but those he had left were hard at their duty: Rattray out on the perilous bowsprit already with two of his mates, gammoning the jibboom before it carried away; Etherege with half a dozen Marines tossing the balls over the side or securing them; Callow and his boat’s crew heaving the wreckage of the launch free of the guns.
He darted a look at the Marengo. All but two of her guns were run out again: ‘Lie flat,’ he roared, and for the space of the rising wave there was silence all along the deck, broken only by the wind, the racing water, and an odd ball grumbling down the gangway. The full broadside and the howl of grape tearing over the deck; but too high, a little hurried. Rattray and his mates were still there, working with concentrated fury and bawling for ten fathom of two-?inch rope and more handspikes. The Surprise was still on her headlong course, her way only slightly checked by the loss of her outer jib and the riddling of her sails: and now the rear Indiamen opened fire from half a mile. There were holes in the Marengo’s foretopsails. And he doubted she would get in another broadside before the Surprise was so close on her bow that the broadside guns would no longer bear - could not be trained far enough forward to reach her. If the Marengo yawed off her course to bring the Surprise into her
