The French Admiral

He had already tamped down powder, ball, and wad into the barrels but had left the pans empty and the hammers full down. Fumbling for powder flask around his neck, he snapped open the frizzens of first one gun and then the next to prime his pistols, dribbling powder into the pans. He could not see what he was doing, but hoped that he was being accidentally liberal. He shut the frizzens, drew the hammers back to half-cock, and stuffed them into his jacket pockets once more. He drew his cutlass, looped the short lanyard around his wrist and touched the man with him on the shoulder to let him know that he was ready.

They advanced to the outer doors to the bulkhead roundhouses where petty officers took their ease when called by nature. There was no one there. Passing through the bulkhead, they emerged on the fo'c's'le. In the faint light of the fo'c's'le belfry lantern, they could see that their men had preceded them and had slit the throats of several Frenchmen sleeping on deck in preference to the close air below decks. Their blood gleamed wet and black in the gloom.

'We've got her,' the man said in triumph, baring his teeth in a wide grin and turning to beam at Lewrie, who wasn't sure of anything at that moment.

Then they heard a shout from aft, where Forrester's people should be ascending to the poop deck to take charge of the stream anchor cable and the officers' sleeping quarters, where the small arms would be kept.

'Qui va la?' the shout came.

'Pont de la gard!' a voice called back full of confidence.

'Oh, you unspeakable, ignorant ass!' Alan hissed.

'Merde, alors, c'est I'Anglais!' someone in command screamed. 'Aux armes!'

A pistol discharged and somewhere in the dark a man who had been the target—French or English, it was impossible to tell—yelped in agony as he was hit, followed by a large splash.

'At 'em, Desperates!' Railsford bellowed over the sudden alarm and bustle.

'Get that anchor cable cut and set one of their jibs,' Alan told the man with him. 'Bow party to me. Head aft by the starboard gangway.' He knew that Railsford would be on the larboard side, Avery aft by the main-chains to starboard and trying to take the wheel from the awakened French watch party, and most in need of assistance. There were Frenchmen everywhere, as though they had stirred up a hornet's nest, as men who had been asleep on deck in hammocks or bedding on deck rose up and took in hand what weapons they could.

There was a hammock slung before Lewrie, and a man trying to exit the cocoonlike sack. Before he could get one foot on deck, Alan swung his cutlass with all his force and took the man across the neck and chest, bringing forth a howl of Pain as the man tumbled out of his hammock to the deck to twitch and thrash in his death throes.

Several sparks gleamed in the night, then came the ragged crash of muskets or pistols and more cries of anguish. A marine loomed up in front of Lewrie, bayonet lowered and blood in his eyes, howling some wordless shout as he drove for his ribs.

'English, dammit!' Alan cried, forced to step aside from the glittering bayonet point, and the musket shoved between his arm and his side as he ended up close enough to count the marine's remaining teeth. 'Stop that!'

'Oh, 'scuse me, Mister Lewrie, sir!' the marine said, once more in possession of his faculties, spinning about on his heel and plunging aft into the fight once more without a backward glance, leaving Alan shaking with the closeness and stupidity of his near-death.

'Alan,' Avery called, coming out of the night with his uniform facings flashing. 'Are you hurt?'

'Scared so bad I wouldn't trust mine own arse with a fart,' Alan said. 'That damned bullock almost knackered me.'

'Well, this is turning into a bloody shambles!' Avery spat, wiping his cutlass blade on the swinging hammock that had lately contained a man.

There was a deep boom off in the night, a cannon fired as an alarm to wake the other ships to the raiders in their midst. Lights began to appear on the distant decks as crews came up on deck to peer into the night to see where the danger was.

For the moment, anyway, the fighting was over, for the small French civilian merchant crew had surrendered, and those few who had been below were being chivvied on deck at sword point. Very few people really had been killed or hurt. They were not paid to take the risks of naval seamen and had caved in almost before they had rubbed the sleep out of their eyes, the only resistance being the anchor watch around the wheel and binnacle and those mates that had gotten on deck from the officers' cabins aft.

'She's empty,' Railsford told them as he came up on the gangways. 'They've already unloaded her. Looks like she was carrying troops. Nothing of value. Who was that idiot who said pont of the guard?'

'Somebody aft, sir,' Avery said.

'Forrester, I'll be bound,' Railsford said. 'Only a perfect little Latin student could cling to pontis instead of bateau.'

'Ship or boat was classis, sir,' Avery advised. 'Pontis was bridge.'

'And fuck you too, Avery,' Railsford growled, going aft to the men by the wheel.

'If the truth be known, Avery,' Alan drawled, wiping and sheathing his own cutlass, 'classis was fleet; navis was ship, and boat would be a linter, cymba, scapha or, in rare usages, navicula.'

'Do tell,' Avery snapped.

'And to compound the error, pons was the singular, pontis the plural…' Alan went on, as though nothing had happened of any consequence to their chances for prize-money, and escape.

'Yes, Mr. Dorne,' Avery cried, with great exasperation. He walked away.

'Cables're free!' The shout came from the fo'c's'le.

'Avery, Lewrie,' Railsford called. 'Attend to getting the ship under way!'

The foredeck party had already gotten a jib hoisted and had let fly the spritsail under the jib-boom to get a forward way on their prize so the rudder could get a bite and allow them steerage-way. Alan led three men aloft onto the foremast to cut loose the harbor gaskets from the foretops'l for more speed. Before they could even gain the foretop, however, the hull drummed to several cannon balls fired from the ships to their lee.

'Warship off the starboard bow, sir!' the foredeck party called.

There was something out there, something not too big—another of those damned cutters, perhaps, or a sloop of war.

'We're in the quag now, sir,' one of the hands told Lewrie as they gathered in the foretop ready to scuttle out the tops'l footropes.

Small as the enemy might be, they would have artillery which could punch through the frail scantlings of a merchantman, and a crew of trained men ready to board and retake the ship from them.

By God, I'm beginning to wonder if we can do anything right any more, Alan cursed to himself.

'Burn her!' Railsford announced. 'Lash the wheel and set her alight. By God, they'll not have her!'

'Back to the deck,' Alan ordered. 'Daniels, secure our jolly boat!'

'Aye, sir!' the man replied. 'We're gonna be needin' it.'

They scrambled back down to the deck and began to gather up anything they could find that was flammable, which on a ship was considerable. Within minutes they had a fine little fire going below decks in the waist, made from the straw bedding the soldiers had used before being disembarked.

'Lash the wheel!' Railsford yelled. 'Make sure we leave no one behind, now. Into the boats and abandon ship!'

'Anyone hurt from our party?' Lewrie asked his most senior hand by the larboard foremast chains.

'All here, sir,' the petty officer informed him. 'Even the marines is here!'

'Into the boat, then, hurry,' Alan said, looking over his shoulder at how the fire had spread already and was beginning to leap above the gangways to gnaw at the rigging and the base of the masts. He was last to leave the deck after looking around for anyone he recognized still standing or left wounded and discarded in a dark corner. Before he spun away, the French warship had already opened fire with her bow-chasers, and one iron ball slammed hard into the merchantman's hull and flung broken wood everywhere, making him duck and scramble over the side.