Almost a Scandal (37 page)

McAlden acknowledged the signal with a grim smile.

“Close action, lads. Back to your stations,” the captain ordered. But as he did so, across the bow the enemy fleet was falling into disarray. “Glass.”

Kent immediately handed him hers, and she was forced to wait, all but twitching with eager nerves to find out what was going on. Col’s own glass revealed to him that the whole strung-out line of the combined allied fleet was wearing ship, turning slowly away from the wind to change direction.

Even without a glass it soon became apparent the enemy was now, when it was too late, attempting to run back to the shelter of Cadiz. “What the devil does the French admiral think he’s doing?” Kent breathed in wonder.

“He’s sealing their fate, Mr. Kent,” Col answered. “He’s trying to run, and he will dishearten his men in doing so. And they are not sailors enough to make it work. Look, their line is already breaking as a result. Our admiral will know just how to take advantage of such confusion.”

Indeed, the fight began before the enemy had had time to reorganize themselves into their long line-of-battle formation. Under Admiral Nelson’s signaled commands, the two columns of the British fleet seemed to dive into the gaps that had opened up, aiming their ships into the midst of the enemy fleet without even bothering to answer their ranging shots.

But even without superior gunnery, the French and Spanish began to learn how to make their shots pay off. The enemy began pouring fire into Admiral Collingwood’s ship
Royal Sovereign,
as his lee column of ships was the first to breach the enemy line.

It was another full half hour before Admiral Nelson’s
Victory
did the same with the weather column. Captain McAlden was flinty with a rigid self-discipline Col was having difficulty emulating.

He felt each echo of cannon fire as if it pounded directly into his chest. It was hell—living, breathing hell—to watch and do nothing as his brother sailors in other ships were subjected to such withering fire. “I don’t know how to do it, sir. It kills me to watch and to think we could be doing something for those poor devils.”

“Patience, Mr. Colyear. We will. We will. But we are not yet commanded to fight. But as the other frigates all stand in attendance on Admiral Nelson’s weather column, let us advance so we can be more useful to the lee.”

Col was grimly glad of the employment and spread all canvas before the wind to cut
Audacious
across the divide between the advancing columns, to stand to Admiral Collingwood’s assistance. His
Royal Sovereign,
as well as
Belleisle
and
Tonnant,
had been the first ships to break the enemy line, and, in drawing the brunt of the enemy’s fire, were taking a savage beating.

Together, Col and Mr. Charlton did exactly as their captain had bid, and sailed
Audacious
directly into the teeth of the fight.

“Take me after that bloody Spaniard,” the captain growled as he pointed off the larboard bow, where the
Santa Ana
was locked with
Royal Sovereign.
The air around them filled with the deafening roar of cannon fire and the acrid stench of billowing gunsmoke.

“Cross her bow. Fire as you bear!”

“Fire!”

And the gunners were raking away, sending double- and treble-shotted broadsides slamming down the length of the
Santa Ana
’s deck, before the captain ordered the helm about, and set to doing the same to
Indomitable
’s stern, trying to draw the French frigate
Cornelle,
which hovered beyond the sulfuric cloud of the action, into the fight.

“Hard about!”

Col tried to close his mind to everything but the handling of the ship. “Hawkins, haul away. Get a line on that tack. Brace over hard.” He lifted his speaking trumpet and directed his men calmly.

But he could not rid his peripheral vision of Kent. And he could not keep himself from moving her to the lee side of the firing, to take her away from the hail of bullets from the musketry and grenades that rained down upon them from the damned frog ships’ mastheads. “Kent, see to that loose sheet. Look lively.”

He tried to shut his mind to everything but the yards, and ignore all thoughts of the topmen, scrambling and dodging above. He tried to focus only on sheets and tacks, and keeping the wind enough in his sails to do exactly what his captain ordered. He had to stop thinking, and let himself rely upon his experience, upon his years of work and his instincts, to see what needed to be done and to do it. He tried to close his ears to the deafening din and hear only Captain McAlden. Anything else would drive him utterly and completely mad.

*   *   *

Sally had never in her life heard, or felt, such a deafening roar. It was just as Col had said it would be—chaos. Sixty-odd ships, and hundreds and hundreds of cannon were blazing away, battering each other to pieces. She had told herself she had the heart of oak of every true British sailor, but at that moment, she wished she had a heart of stone.

Yet, the press of the noise and the confusion of the smoke in the fleet brought her a clarity that seemed impossibly wide. She was acutely aware of things before she understood them. The first heart-pounding rush of fire through her blood passed, but the opiate of battle, the state of heightened awareness, clung to her, throttling her to action.

The entire mizzenmast of one of the French ships—she could see by the painted markings that it wasn’t British—fell to tangle on
Audacious
’s larboard quarter. Sally’s heart was hammering double time at the top of her throat, but she could see what needed to be done, and without conscious thought or waiting for orders, she sprang up with the quarterdeck carronade gun crews, taking up a boarding axe and swinging into the chains to cut away the wreckage.

“Have a care there, Kent.”

She could barely hear Col’s warning over the deafening roar. She had just begun to hack away at the tangle of ropes holding the fallen spar to their rail, when
Audacious
heaved up beneath her with the recoil of the main barrage. Sally had to grapple onto the chains to keep her balance and hold on as the tremendous shock wave from the broadside concussed her, but still she managed to hang on with one hand. Blood began to seep from her nose, and she soon felt a trickle of warm blood drip from her deafened ears and slide down her neck. She spit the blood out of her mouth, and swiped away the rest with her forearm. The sleeve of her coat came away with a gory smear of grimy blood, sweat, and gunpowder.

In the heat of battle, it became more and more difficult to hear orders, or even see the disposition of the ships around them. Smoke obscured the deck, and the din from every corner was so loud, she could no longer hear Col, only twenty feet away from her, trying to keep a check on her and order her out of harm’s way. But she was never unaware of him, tall and straight, holding the deck, standing firm like a talisman.

On and on she worked, moving wherever she was needed—righting a dismounted gun, clearing a fouled line, keeping the deck clear for ammunition to be brought up to the carronades. She lost track of all sense of time, until slowly, she became aware that around them, the guns of the ships of the line had finally begun to fall silent, and the heat of battle began to ebb.

Sally was deaf and numb and exhausted and enervated all at the same time. At first, all she could do was look to Col. To simply look and know he was there was enough. She could think of nothing more.

But though the din and concussion of the guns ceased to assault her ringing ears, the battle was far from over for
Audacious
. Indeed, the fact that
Audacious
had only served as an ancillary to the larger ships during the heat of the battle left her intact and functioning where the ships of the line were not.

“Clew down that line, Hawkins.”

First Col’s voice and then the captain’s began to be discernible.

“Hoist out the boats, Mr. Robinson,” the captain was ordering. “Mr. Lawrence, sweep the water for men. Mr. Horner, get across to
Royal Sovereign
and see what assistance we may proffer. See if we need to take her in tow.”

Sally could now appreciate Col’s seemingly unexplainable decision to keep all the ship’s boats on board, for they had never had more need of them.

“Mr. Colyear, take control of that
Swiftsure
prize. That’ll teach the damn French to make over our boats. Mr. Charlton, as soon as the boats are away, move us on in support of
Collosus
.”

“Kent,” Col called.

Sally gave up trying to decide whether he called her because he could rely upon her, or because he wanted to keep trying to protect her. She simply jumped down into the boat and set about organizing the marines to board the two-decker.

“Swords at the ready. Take prisoners as you go.”

The strange numbness was gone. Her heart again began to thump against her chest, but she still felt that strange sense of tunnel vision, of the world narrowing to the next oar stroke, or the next step, the next move.

They went up the French two-decker’s side and over the rail, swarming as quickly as possible up the batten ladder and with grappled ropes. Sally was breathless from the climb and her strange inability to breathe and think all at the same time.

Only to be met with no resistance. The deck of
Swiftsure
was a messy welter of dismounted guns, fallen rigging, and the bodies of the dead.

She followed Col as he strode forward across the deck with his sword drawn, looking for resistance. He passed the abandoned helm and began scaling the quarterdeck. “Put a man on the wheel. See if the helm responds or if it’s been shot away.” On he went, across the quarterdeck, with her following, past a fallen French officer until he was at the taffrail and hauling down the French colors.

It happened so quickly and so nonsensically that Sally had little time to think, only to react.

The officer was only an ensign, and little more than a boy to her eyes—fourteen or fifteen at best. Richard’s age, her mind was telling her, as it filled with pity for the poor boy whose chest was a ghastly mess of blood.

And even as she was thinking the Frenchman had not much longer to live, the lad found the strength to raise up with one last surge of strength and sweep his sword in a mortal blow aimed at Col’s head.

She should have used her pistol—Col’s pistol that he had handed her as she joined the boarding party. She should have shouted to warn Col to mind his back, to take care, to bring up his sword arm as he turned. And perhaps she may have. She didn’t know.

It all happened so fast, and at the same time so shockingly slowly, that everything happened as if she were watching it from the end of her telescope. Time elongated even as her vision narrowed. She simply threw herself in the French boy’s way, reaching out the hand with the pistol and hoping to deflect the blade’s deadly arc away from Col. Of all things away from Col.

But she mistimed her lunge. The sword skipped off the barrel of the pistol and she felt the icy-hot sting as the edge of the blade sliced into the side of her face.

Chapter Twenty-two

And then Col was there, striking the dying man down with a vicious cuff from the butt of his pistol. As the Frenchman fell, Col addressed him from the long end of his sword.

“Give way!” he roared. “Haul your blasted colors.”

Blood was filling her eyes and pouring out of her face, but all she felt was the hot sting where the blade had struck her.

It was only a cut, not a mortal blow, and only bleeding so because that was what head wounds did. It was no worse than the gush from her nose had been earlier. Combined with the blood from her nose and ears, she must be an absolute mess.

Sally wiped the blood from her eye and winced at the stinging pain, but as it settled into a hot burning throb, she strove to think no more on it. It was a small injury after such a day. She was alive, where so many around her, especially on the deck of
Swiftsure,
were not.

Col was in front of her, offering her a miraculously white handkerchief from somewhere deep in his coat, and pressing it to her cheek. “Hold that there.” His face was grim and tight.

She held the cloth over her eye. Better. For a moment. The stinging heat intensified, but she strove to carry on. “It’s nothing. Just a superficial cut. I’m fine.”

God knew it was nothing compared to the poor French lad, or the rest of the carnage under her feet. The mutilated, torn carcasses of men littered the deck. The destruction on the deck of the
Swiftsure
had been terrible, and unlike the British, the French weren’t wont to toss their fallen comrades, or parts of comrades, overboard with the same grim fatalism and professional determination to keep the deck and guns clear, as were the English.

Col wasn’t nearly as sanguine about her injury as she was. “You need to go back to
Audacious
and have Mr. Stephens see to you.”

“When we’re through,” she insisted. “It’s only superficial. Mr. Stephens has better things to do at the moment aboard
Tonnant.
And I’ll not have my face sewn up by one of his loblolly boys.”

Even as she said it, she wobbled sideways. She felt light-headed, drunk almost, only the sensation wasn’t pleasant or euphoric. She felt as if the hot pain were pushing her off her feet.

Col seized her up, with one hand at her elbow and another taking her hand, steadying her. Just as he would have done for anyone. Any one of the midshipmen. But he might have let go of one of the other midshipmen. He held on to her.

Will Jellicoe came up across the deck to them, his trousers still impossibly white in the midst of such incredible destruction.

What a strange thing for her to notice. She must be losing quite a deal of blood to be so light-headed.

“Compliments of Captain McAlden, Mr. Colyear, sir,” Will was saying, “but you’re wanted to go aboard another prize. You’re to bring back the French captain, if he’s still alive, and Mr. Kent is to stay in command—God,” he exclaimed when he saw her. “What happened to you?” His eyes were wide and dark in his sooty face.