fire, then Linois’s plan was defeated: at this speed a yaw would carry the two-?decker east of the unbroken line.
He limped back to the quarterdeck, where young Nevin was on his hands and knees, being sick. ‘All’s well, Bonden?’ he asked, kneeling to the tube. ‘Below there. Ease her half a point. Another half. Belay.’ She was steering heavy now.
‘Prime, sir,’ said Bonden. ‘Just my left arm sprung. Carlow copped it.’
‘Give me a hand with t’other, then,’ said Jack, and they slid Harrowby over the taffrail. Away astern, beyond the splash of the body, six of the Indiamen were already round: they were coming down under a fine press of sail, but they were still a long way off. Wide on the port bow the Marengo was almost within his reach at last. ‘Stand to your guns,’ he cried. ‘Hard for’ard. Do not waste a shot. Wait for it. Wait for it.’
‘Five foot water in the well, sir,’ said Stourton.
Jack nodded. ‘Half a point,’ he called down the pipe again, and again the ghostly voice answered ‘Half a point it is, sir.’ Heavy she might be, heavy she was; but unless she foundered in the next minute he would hit the Marengo, hit her very, very hard. For as the Surprise came closer to crossing the Marengo’s bows, so her silent broadside would come into play at last, and at close range.
Musketry crackling on the Marengo’s forecastle: her Marines packed into her bows and foretop. Another hundred yards, and unless Marengo yawed he would rake her:
and if she did yaw then there they would lie, broadside to broadside and fight it out.
‘Mr Stourton, some hands to clew up and to back the foretopsail. Callow, Lee, Church, jump along for’ard.’ Closer, closer: the Marengo was still coming along with a splendid bow-?wave; the Surprise was moving slower. She would cross the Marengo at something under two hundred yards, and already she was so near the two-? decker that the Indiamen had stopped firing from fear of hitting her. Still closer, for the full force of the blow: the crews crouched tense over their pointed guns, shifting them a trifle for the aim with a total concentration, indifferent to the musket-?balls.
‘Fire,’ he said, as the upward roll began. The guns went off in a long roar: the smoke cleared, and there was the Marengo’s head and forecastle swept clean - ropes dangling, a staysail flying wild.
‘Too low,’ he cried. ‘Pitch ‘em up; pitch ‘em up. Callow, Church - pitch ‘em up.’ There was no point in merely killing Frenchmen: it was rigging, spars, masts that counted, not the blood that now ran from the Marengo’s bow scuppers, crimson against her streak of white. The grunting, furious work of running in, swabbing, loading, ramming, running out; and number three, the fastest gun, fired first.
‘Clew up,’ he shouted above the thunder. ‘Back foretop-?sail.’ The Surprise slowed, lost her way, and lay shrouded in her own smoke right athwart the Marengo’s bows, hammering her as fast as ever the guns could fire. The third broadside merged into the fourth: the firing was continuous now, and Stourton and the midshipmen ran up and down the line, pointing, heaving, translating their captain’s hoarse barks into directed fire - a tempest of chain. After their drubbing the men were a little out of hand, and now they could serve the Frenchmen out their fire was somewhat wild and often too low: but at this range not a shot flew wide. The powder-?boys ran, the cartridges came up in a racing stream, the gun-?crews cheered like maniacs, stripped to the waist, pouring with sweat, taking their sweet revenge; thumping it into her, cramming their guns to the muzzle. But it was too good to last. Through the smoke it was clear that Linois meant to run the Surprise aboard - run the small frigate bodily down or board her.
‘Drop the forecourse. Fill foretopsail,’ he cried with the full force of his lungs: and down the tube, ‘Two points off.’ He must at all costs keep on the Marengo’s bows and keep hitting her - she was a slaughter-?house forward, but nothing vital had yet carried away. The Surprise forged on in a sluggish, heavy turn, and the two-?decker’s side came into view. They were opening their lower ports, running out the great thirty-?six-?pounders in spite of the sea. One shift of her helm to bring them to bear and the Surprise would have the whole shattering broadside within pistol-?shot. Then they could clap the lower ports to, for she would be sunk.
Etherege, with four muskets and his servant to load them, was firing steadily at the Marengo’s foretop, picking off any man who showed. Half a mile astern, the British van opened fire on the S?millante and Belle Poule, who had been reaching them this last five minutes: smoke everywhere, and the thunder of the broadsides deadened the breeze.
‘Port, port, hard a-?port,’ he called down the tube; and straightening, ‘Maincourse, there.’ Where was her speed, poor dear Surprise? She could just keep ahead of the Marengo, but only by falling away from the wind so far that her guns could not bear and her stern was pointing at the Marengo’s bows. Fire slackened, died away, and the men stared aft at the Marengo: two spokes of her wheel would bring the Frenchman’s broadside round - already they could see the double line of muzzles projecting from their ports. Why did she not yaw? Why was she signalling?
A great bellowing of guns to starboard told them why. The Royal George, followed by the two ships astern of her, had left the line, the holy line, and they were coming up fast to engage the Marengo on the other side while the van was closing in from the west, threatening to envelop him -the one manoeuvre that Linois dreaded.
The Marengo hauled her wind, and her swing brought the frigate’s guns into play again. They blazed out, and the two-?decker instantly replied with a ragged burst from her upper starboard guns so close that her shot went high over the frigate’s deck and the burning wads came aboard - so close that they could see the faces glaring from the ports, a biscuit-?toss away. For a moment the two ships lay broadside to broadside. Through a gap torn in the Marengo’s quarterdeck bulwark Jack saw the Admiral sitting on a chair; there was a grave expression on his face, and he was pointing at something aloft. Jack had often sat at his table and he instantly recognised the characteristic sideways lift of his head. Now the Marengo’s turn carried her farther still. Another burst from her poop carronades and she was round, close-?hauled, presenting her stern to a raking fire from the frigate’s remaining guns - two more were dismounted and one had burst - a fire that smashed in her stern gallery. Another broadside as she moved away, gathering speed, and a prodigious cheer as her cross-?jack yard came down, followed by her mizen and topgallantmast. Then she was out of range, and the Surprise, though desperately willing, could not come round nor move fast enough through the sea to bring her into reach again.
The whole French line had worn together: they hauled close to the wind, passed between the converging lines of Indiamen, and stood on.
‘Mr Lee,’ said Jack. ‘General chase.’
It would not do. The Indiamen chased, cracking on until their skysails carried away, but still the French squadron had the heels of them; and when Linois tacked to the eastward, Jack recalled them.
The Lushington was the first to reach him, and Captain Muffit came aboard. His red face, glorious with triumph, came up the side like a rising sun; but as he stepped on to the bloody quarterdeck his look changed to shocked astonishment. ‘Oh my God,’ he cried, looking at the wreckage fore and aft - seven guns dismantled, four
