1805 (8 page)

Well it was too late now, he concluded as he glared round the tiny quarterdeck. Rogers was left behind aboard
Antigone
with a sheet of written orders while Drinkwater took over the prize and went in pursuit of the invasion craft.

‘Tregembo!'

‘Zur?'

‘I want those prisoners to work, Tregembo, work. You understand my meaning, eh? Get those damned sweeps going and keep them going.'

‘Aye, aye, zur.' Tregembo set half a dozen men with ropes' ends over the prisoners at the huge oars.

It was already noon and still there was not a breath of wind. The fog had held off, but left a haze that blurred the horizon and kept the circle of their visibility under four miles. Somewhere in the haze ahead lay the
chaloupes
and the
péniches
that Drinkwater was more than ever determined to destroy. He had taken the precaution of removing the brig's officers as prisoners on board
Antigone
and issuing small arms to most of his own volunteers. In addition he had a party of marines under a contrite Lieutenant Mount (who was eager to make amends for his former lack of obedience). Drinkwater had little fear that the brig's men would rise, particularly if he worked them to exhaustion at the heavy sweeps.

He crossed the deck to where Tyrrell stood at the wheel.

‘Course south-east by east, sir,' offered the master's mate.

Drinkwater nodded. ‘Very well. Let me know the instant the wind begins to get up.'

‘Aye, aye, sir.'

He turned below, wondering if he would find anything of interest among the brig's papers and certain that Rogers had not thought of looking.

The wind came an hour after sunset. It was light for about half an hour and finally settled in the north and blew steadily. Drinkwater ordered the sweeps in and the prisoners below.

‘Mr Frey.'

‘Sir?' The midshipman came forward eagerly, pleased to have been specially detailed for this mission and aware that something of disgrace hung over the events of the morning.

‘I want you to station yourself in the foretop and keep a close watch ahead for those invasion craft. From that elevation you may see the light from a binnacle, d'you understand?'

‘Perfectly sir.'

‘Very well. And pass word for Mr Q.'

Quilhampton approached and touched his hat. ‘Sir?'

‘I intend snatching an hour or two's sleep, Mr Q. You have the deck. I want absolute silence and no lights to be shown. Moonrise ain't until two in the mornin'. You may tell Mount's sentries that one squeak out of those prisoners and I'll hold 'em personally responsible. We may be lucky and catch those invasion
bateaux
before they get into Havre.'

‘Let's hope so, sir.'

‘Yes.' Drinkwater turned away and made for the cabin of the brig where, rolling himself in his cloak and laying his cocked pistols beside him, he lay down to rest.

He was woken from an uneasy sleep by Mr Frey and rose, stiff and uncertain of the time.

‘Eight bells in the first watch, sir,' said Frey.

Drinkwater emerged on deck to find the brig racing along, leaning to a steady breeze from the north, the sky clear and the stars glinting like crystals. Quilhampton loomed out of the darkness.

‘I believe we have 'em, sir,' he pointed ahead, ‘there, two points to starboard.'

At first Drinkwater could see nothing; then he made out a cluster of darker rectangles, rectangles with high peaks: lugsails.

‘Straight in amongst 'em, Mr Q. Get the men to their quarters in silence. Orders to each gun-captain to choose a target carefully and, once the order is given, fire at will.' Fatigue, worry and the fuzziness of unquiet sleep left him in an instant.

‘ 'Ere's some coffee, sir.'

‘Thank you, Franklin.' He took the pot gratefully. Night vision showed him the dark shadow of Franklin's naevus, visible even in the dark.

‘ 'S all right, sir.'

Drinkwater swallowed the coffee as the men went silently to their places. The brig's armament was of French 8-pounders; light guns but heavy enough to sink the
chaloupes
and
péniches
.

‘Haul up the fore-course, Mr Q. T'gallants to the caps, if you please.'

‘Rise fore-tacks and sheets there! Clew-garnets haul!' The orders passed quietly and the fore-course rose in festoons below its yard.

‘T'gallants halliards . . .'

The topgallant sails fluttered, flogged and kicked impotently as
their yards were lowered. The brig's speed eased so as to avoid over-running the enemy.

Drinkwater hauled himself up on the rail and held onto the forward main shroud on the starboard side.
Bonaparte
had eased her heel and he could clearly see the enemy under her lee bow.

‘Make ready there! Mr Frey, stand by to haul the fore-yards aback.'

The sudden flash of a musket ahead was followed by a crackle of fire from small arms. The enemy had seen them but were unable to fire cannon astern.

‘Steady as you go . . .'

‘Steady as she goes, sir.'

He saw the dark blob of a
chaloupe
lengthen as it swung round to fire a broadside, saw its lugsails enlarge with the changing aspect, saw them flutter as she luffed.

‘Starboard two points! Gun-captains, fire when you bear.'

There was a long silence, broken only by shouts and the popping of musketry. A dull thud near Drinkwater's feet indicated where at least one musket ball struck the
Bonaparte
. The
chaloupe
fired its broadside, the row of muzzles spitting orange, and a series of thuds, cracks and splintering sounded from forward. Then they were running the
chaloupe
down. He could see men diving overboard to avoid the looming stem of the brig as it rode over the heavy boat, split her asunder and sank her in passing over the broken hull. Along the deck the brig's guns fired, short barking coughs accompanied by the tremble of recoil and the reek of powder. Another boat passed close alongside and Drinkwater felt the hat torn from his head as musket balls buzzed round him.

‘Mind zur.' Like some dark Greek Olympic hero Tregembo hefted a shot through the air and it dropped vertically into the boat. Next to him Quilhampton's face was lit by the flash of the priming in a scatter gun and the bell-muzzle delivered its deadly charge amongst the boat's crew as they drew astern, screaming in the brig's wake.

‘Down helm!'

‘Fore-yards, Mr Frey!'

The
Bonaparte
came up into the wind and then began to make a stern board as Drinkwater had the helm put smartly over the other way. Amidships the men were frantically spiking their guns round to find new targets. Individual guns fired, reloaded and fired again with hardly a shot coming in return from the invasion craft that lay in a shattered circle around them. Mount's marines were up on the rails and leaning against the stays, levelling their muskets on any dark spot
that moved above the rails of the low hulls, so that only the cry of the wounded and dying answered the British attack.

‘Cease fire! Cease fire!'

The reports of muskets and cannon died away. Drinkwater counted the remains of the now silent boats around them. He could see nine, with one, possibly two, sunk.

‘I fear one has escaped us,' he said to no one is particular.

‘There she is, sir!' Frey was pointing to the southwards where the dark shape of a sail was just visible.

‘Haul the fore-yards there, put the ship before the wind, Mr Q.'

Bonaparte
came round slowly, then gathered speed as they laid a course to catch the departing
bateau
. From her size Drinkwater judged her to be one of the larger
chaloupes canonnières
, rigged as a three-masted lugger. For a little while she stood south and Drinkwater ordered the fore-course reset in order to overhaul her. But it was soon obvious that the French would not run, and a shot was put across her bow. She came into the wind at once and the
Bonaparte
was hove to again, a short distance to windward.

‘What the devil is French for “alongside”?' snapped Drinkwater.

‘Try
accoster
, sir.'

‘Hey,
accoster, m'sieur, accoster
!' They saw oar blades appear and slowly the two vessels crabbed together. ‘Mr Mount, your men to cover them.'

‘Very well, sir . . .' The marines presented their muskets, starlight glinting dully off the fixed bayonets. There was a grinding bump as the
chaloupe
came alongside. The curious, Drinkwater among them, stared down and instantly regretted it. Drinkwater felt a stinging blow to his head and jerked backwards as it seemed the deck of the vessel erupted in points of fire.

He staggered, his head spinning, suddenly aware of forty or fifty Frenchmen clambering over the rail from which the complacent defenders had fallen back in their surprise.

‘God's bones!' roared Drinkwater suddenly uncontrollably angry. He lugged out his new hanger and charged forward. ‘Follow me who can!' He slashed right and left as fast as his arm would react, his head still dizzy from the glancing ball that had scored his forehead. Blood ran thickly down into one eye but his anger kept him hacking madly. With his left hand he wiped his eye and saw two marines lunging forward with their bayonets. He felt a sudden anxiety for Frey and saw the boy dart beneath a boarding pike and drive his dirk into a man already parrying the thrust of a bayonet.

‘ 'Old on, sir, we're coming!' That was Franklin's voice and there was Tregembo's bellow and then he was slithering in what remained of someone, though he did not know whether it was friend or foe. His sword bit deep into something and he found he had struck the rail. He felt a violent blow in his left side and he gasped with the pain and swung round. A man's face, centred on a dark void of an open mouth, appeared before him and he smashed his fist forward, dashing the pommel of his hanger into the teeth of the lower jaw. The discharge of his enemy's pistol burnt his leg, but did no further damage and Drinkwater again wiped blood from his eyes. He caught his breath and looked round. Something seemed to have stopped his hearing and the strange absence of noise baffled him. Around him amid the dark shapes of dead or dying men, the fighting was furious. Quilhampton felled a man with his iron hook. Two marines, their scarlet tunics a dull brown in the gloom, their white cross-belts and breeches grey, were bayonetting a French officer who stood like some blasphemous crucifix, a broken sword dangling from his wrist by its martingale. A seaman was wrestling for his life under a huge brute of a Frenchman with a great black beard while all along the deck similar struggles were in progress. Drinkwater recognised the struggling seaman as Franklin from the dark, distinctive strawberry birthmark. Catching up his sword he took three paces across the deck and drove the point into the flank of the giant.

The man turned in surprise and rose slowly. Drinkwater recovered his blade as the giant staggered towards him, ignoring Franklin who lay gasping on the deck. The giant was unarmed and grappled forward, a forbidding and terrifying sight. There was something so utterly overpowering about the appearance of the man that Drinkwater felt fear for the first time since they had gone into action. It was the same fear a small boy feels when menaced by a physical superior. Drinkwater's sword seemed inadequate to the task and he had no pistols. He felt ignominious defeat and death were inevitable. His legs were sagging under him and then his hearing came back to him. The man's mouth was open but it was himself that was shouting, a loud, courage-provoking bellow that stiffened his own resolve and sent him lunging forward, slashing at the man's face with his sword blade. The giant fell on his knees and Drinkwater hacked again, unaware that the man was bleeding to death through the first wound he had inflicted. The giant crashed forward and Drinkwater heard a cheer. What was left of his crew of volunteers encircled the fallen man, like the Israelites round Goliath.

The deck of the
Bonaparte
remained in British hands.

Antigone
leaned over to the wind and creaked as her lee scuppers drove under water. Along her gun-deck tiny squirts of water found their way inboard through the cracks round the gun-ports. In his cabin Drinkwater swallowed his third glass of wine and finally addressed himself to his journal.

It is not
, he wrote at last,
the business of a sea-officer to enjoy his duty, but I have often derived a satisfaction from achievement, quite lacking in the events of today. We have this day taken a French National brig-corvette of sixteen 8-pounder long guns named the
Bonaparte.
We have also destroyed twelve invasion bateaux, two of the large class mounting a broadside of light guns, taken upwards of sixty prisoners and thereby satisfied those objectives set in launching the attack at dawn. Yet the cost has been fearful. Lieutenant Gorton's wound is mortal and nineteen other men have died, or are likely to die, as a result of the various actions that are, in the eyes of the public, virtually un-noteworthy. Had we let the enemy slip away, the newspapers would not have understood why a frigate of
Antigone
's force could not have destroyed a handful of boats and a little brig. It was clear the enemy had prepared for the possibility of attack, that the brig was to bear its brunt while the bateaux escaped, and, that, at the end, we were nearly overwhelmed by a ruse de guerre that might have made prisoners of the best elements aboard this ship, to say nothing of extinguishing forever the career of myself. Even now I shudder at the possible consequences of their counter-attack succeeding
.

He laid his pen down and stared at the page where the wet gleam of the ink slowly faded. But all he could see was the apparition of the French giant and remember again how hollow his legs had felt.