By the Mast Divided (46 page)

Rocking on the gentle swell, ropes creaking and timbers working, the
Lady Harrington
made enough noise to cover the movement of
twenty-odd
barefoot souls as they went forward, One Tooth explaining to Pearce that the drunks should be berthed in what had been the original crew’s accommodation. The snores told him the man was right long before they reached the door. There was no point in asking where the
Harrington
s had got the belaying pins – they had them and used them. A series of heavy thuds induced silence in an area so familiar that they could work by sound alone.

Then they went forward, using the companionway to the upper deck, where they found Martin Dent and the two men allotted to the wheel
lying just out of sight. Martin indicated to Pearce that he should have a look, and, raising his head above the level of the planking, he saw that the door of the cabin was ajar. There was light spilling out under the peak of the poop, though the bulkhead was in shadow, and the babble of conversation told him that there were a lot of people in there.

‘Martin, where’s Burns?’

‘Don’t know. He came aboard but that’s the last I saw of ’im.’

‘Damn that boy!’

‘Weapons were on the rack by the cabin door,’ hissed One Tooth.

Pearce thought of
Brilliant
and the pikes and weapons stored in various parts of the ship. ‘Locked?’

‘Course,’ One Tooth replied. ‘No master in his right mind would leave them undone.’

‘Keys?’

‘In the cabin, or they were. But we had ’em out to fight the Frogs.’

Michael came up beside Pearce and, nodding, aimed his loaded musket at the doorway. Crawling forward towards that yellow streak of light, Pearce realised he was trembling again – from fear or anticipation he did not know, but it was enough to make him stop for a moment, again assailed by the notion that he, who thought himself a talker rather than a doer, was not cut out for this.

Terror or desperation drove him on and he made the bulkhead in front of the cabin, then ran his hands along the wooden wall: too fast, for his hand dislodged a sword, not locked away as One Tooth supposed, but loose in its groove. The weapon clattered to the deck and the talk inside the cabin stopped abruptly. Pearce grabbed the sword by the blade – heavy and cold to the touch – and tried to scrabble away in silence towards the steps that led to the poop, just as a Frenchman came through the door, looking left and right and calling out enquiringly.

Pearce would never know if his attempt at concealment could have succeeded, because from below came a great thud, quickly followed by a second. He only found out later that the pair set to axe through the hawser, who had become impatient, had started on their task without an order to do so. It made no odds; to the men in that cabin the sound signalled danger, and a dozen of them, all armed, rushed on deck, one having the sense to let off a pistol into the air, the quickest way to give the general alarm.

Michael fired off his weapon inside the same second, and with a group to aim for he could not miss – a man groaned, spun away, and fell. Michael had the bayonet on the end of that weapon as well, but that still left One Tooth and his party unarmed against men with swords and pistols. Knife in one hand, heavy unwieldy cutlass in the other, Pearce had to attack them from the side, ghostly shapes illuminated by the moonlight, or standing in the streak of lantern light coming through the cabin door. Surprise won him a momentary advantage, and he managed to club more than slice at one fellow holding out and aiming a pistol. The hilt of the weapon served to chin another, and he could hear, as well as the continued thudding from below, a wild Irish yell as Michael O’Hagan came to his aid, musket out and blade aiming for the nearest body.

Pearce threw his knife to distract the man who wanted to shoot Michael, but not being a throwing weapon it hit him on the shoulder and clattered to the deck. It was sufficient to spoil his aim, though, and he missed with his shot, which went wide of Michael and lodged itself in one of the
Harrington
s, who fell back down the companionway. They were not coming on, One Tooth and his mates, which left both Pearce and Michael isolated. Martin Dent was made of better material – he had slid forward to catch hold of Pearce’s knife, and, back on his feet, staying low, was slicing away at any leg that came in range. The Irishman was jabbing away, the sheer fury of his action driving his opponents back. The sword Pearce was wielding was not one for elegance, nothing like the épées or light sabres he had learnt to use at his fencing lessons. This was more a bone-breaking club, heavy and damned difficult to use when the bearer was outnumbered. But he swung it above and around his head with gusto, trying at the same time to count the numbers he was fighting and the effect of that first warning pistol shot.

‘
Harrington
s, move,’ he yelled, ‘or we’re all done.’

There was a curious sensation of clarity. Even as he fought, Pearce seemed to be able to see in limited light where the next and most dangerous assault was coming from, to parry it or produce a blow that wounded the attacker; this at the same time as he was calling out for assistance – and that damned trembling sensation was gone now.
He could also observe that his foes had exhausted their combustible weapons. Could not One Tooth and his mates realise this – that it was sword against anything they could muster, and that these Frenchmen were sluggish? The only two who appeared were Charlie Taverner and Rufus, armed with nothing more than belaying pins, but coming up behind those fighting their messmates and using their weapons to good effect. They created a bit of space, so Pearce was able to back up to the sword rack and grab another weapon. This he slid as hard as he could down the deck so that it lay beyond the fight, and Charlie, who had seen it pass, was quick enough to go for it, then get up just in time to stop another enemy braining Rufus with his pistol butt.

Pearce was grabbing as many swords as he could, in between parrying blows, chucking them overhead or under feet, and slowly, armed, the
Harrington
s emerged to engage in the fight. Pearce was aware that the thudding below had ceased, which meant that either their labours had been interrupted or the ship was free of the shore.

‘Martin, below! Find out what’s happening.’

The boy slipped away, not without a jab to the groin of one Frenchman that produced a high pain-filled scream. Now the attackers outnumbered the defenders. None too soon, for wielding that heavy cutlass had exhausted Pearce, and Michael had taken several blows and was much slower in his responses than he had been at the outset. The speed with which the fighting stopped had Pearce on his knees for the first time; he had lunged at a Frenchman only to avert his blade quickly as the man dropped his weapon and put his hands up high. He lifted his head to see Charlie Taverner, Rufus and One Tooth pushing those who had surrendered against the cabin bulkhead.

‘Get the swords still in the rack,’ he shouted.

‘The hawsers are cut,’ yelled Martin Dent, only his head showing at deck level.

‘You two,’ shouted One Tooth, pointing, ‘get on that bloody wheel. Two more in the bows to give us a course, and the rest get capstan bars to fend us past that damned Frenchman.’

A ball took the
Harrington
standing next to One Tooth, hitting him on the shoulder so that he spun round and dropped to the deck. Pearce looked to Michael to load his piece, but the Irishman had already done so, and had his musket aimed over the side to return fire to the shore. Others had picked up dropped pistols and were looking for the means to reload them.

‘Charlie, get Dysart out of the cutter, but leave it lashed on just in
case.’ As Charlie moved he saw Rufus on his knees, head down, and ran to lift him. ‘Rufus, are you all right?’

‘Bugger booted me right in the balls,’ he said, lifting his head with a grimace of pain.

‘And there’s me thinkin’ you didn’t have any,’ Charlie hooted, as he moved away.

Following his gaze, Pearce found himself looking into a row of angry eyes. There were eight still on their feet, not all without wounds but too dangerous to leave to their own devices. Rope them! With what? Confine them! Where was secure? The solution flew in the face of everything his father had ever tried to teach him.

‘Get up, Rufus. Gather some men, and throw those bastards overboard.’

‘Axes?’ The shout came from the bows. ‘We’ve run foul of the French mainmast rigging.’

As men rushed forward, carrying swords rather than axes, Dysart appeared with Midshipman Burns in tow. They were just in time to see Rufus Dommet, with the aid of a
Harrington
, heaving the man who had kicked him over the side, his yell of alarm killed by the splash as he entered the water.

‘Anyone got a loaded pistol?’ Pearce called.

‘Me,’ a
Harrington
replied.

‘Give it here!’

Pearce took it, went to the Frenchman nearest the side, and in his own language with the pistol at his head, invited him to jump, the task made harder when a musket ball removed a piece of the bulwark right under his nose. Oddly enough that sped the men over, and splash followed splash until the deck was clear.

Michael got off an occasional shot. Forward, axes and swords were hacking at the point where the rigging had fouled. Free now to look, those on the quarterdeck could see the current was swinging the stern round to a point where it would run them ashore to a quayside crowded with yelling Frenchman, some bearing torches, others so drunk they were unable to shake their fist without falling over. It would be fatal to get near them, for enough of those numerous enemies were sufficiently sober to cause trouble – a pair with muskets and the powder to load them were already doing so.

‘Michael, I need those guns silenced.’

‘Then you’d best come and aim this thing yourself, John-boy, for it is of little use in my hands.’

‘Let me,’ said Martin Dent, putting a hand on the weapon.

‘It will blow you off your feet,’ Michael scoffed, but he did let the boy take it, and Martin laid it on the bulwark and took aim, slowly squeezing the trigger. Michael was right, the discharge threw Martin backwards, but there was an immediate scream from the nearby shore that meant he had found a target in the yelling crowd of drunks.

‘Look,’ said One Tooth, pointing forward. Pearce followed his finger, to see two things. That a fight was going on between the anchor watch of the
Mercedes
, and at the same time a party of the shore-side Frenchmen with torches was making its way down the quay to commandeer fishing boats. ‘We can’t fight them all if they get aboard.’

There was a hiatus, with no one doing much from the shore to impede their progress. Firing had stopped, the only activity taking place in the bows, where the Frenchmen were trying and failing to get lines on the
Lady Harrington
so that they could lash her off to their stationary ship. Those on shore must have been pinning their hopes on a number of men getting aboard, sufficient to take back the prize.

‘Then we must ensure they do not.’ Suddenly Pearce added, ‘What is your damned name, anyway?’

‘Twyman.’

‘Everyone forward to keep the crew of that ship off our deck,’ said Pearce, his mind going back to the chase that had started this whole affair. ‘Twyman, have you got a cannon we can aim forward on those boats?’

‘With the swing on the barky any one of the side armament will do.’

‘Powder, balls?’

‘Balls should still be by the guns, though they might have emptied the magazine.’

‘Send someone to look. Dysart, that barrel of powder?’

‘Still in the cutter.’

‘Burns, go with Martin and fetch it.’ The midshipman stood stock still, until Pearce shouted. ‘You must do something, boy!’

‘I’ll go,’ said Rufus. ‘Me and Charlie, it’s sort of ours like.’

‘Slowmatch, Dysart.’

‘Aye. Roond ma waist still.’

‘Well, get your flints on it and get it lit.’

‘We’re clear forrard,’ came the cry.

‘On the wheel, keep us that way,’ shouted Twyman.

Pearce went down the starboard gangway to look at the guns, aware that the ship was moving – slowly, but it was moving, running out on
the falling tide. On the opposite deck the
Harrington
s were fending off with their capstan bars. The Frenchmen opposing them could have used a cannon – not more than one for they were too few. Was it that they were stupid, or did they fear to damage their prize? What difference did it make?

Being an East Indiaman, the ship was well armed, with half a dozen long nines a side. Twyman was right, there were balls left in the garlands, and within a minute he had a flintlock to fire the piece, the ship’s own powder in cartridges, swab and rammers, linstock burning slowly in case the flint didn’t fire, two buckets of water and his own mates as gun crew.

‘Martin, you’re powder monkey. Let go of the breechings. Open the port. Michael, Rufus, Charlie, on the tackle. Mr Twyman we need more hands.’ Charlie didn’t wait – he was already swabbing the gun just in case it had been fired when the East Indiaman had been taken. Dysart showed Pearce how to attach the flintlock while a cartridge was picked, the touchhole covered and the rest rammed down the barrel with the ball.

‘Now all ye have to dae,’ instructed Dysart, handing Pearce the firing line, ‘is look doon the piece, point it where you want the ball tae go, and pull this hard.’

‘You know what you’re doing, Dysart.’

‘Aye. But I’m no up tae bein’ the gun captain, Pearce, especially no with this gammy arm. You are.’

It was an odd way for the Scot to say he was grateful, but that, judging by the look on his face, was what it amounted to. Pearce realised that he was, and had been, enjoying himself; his blood had been racing for an age now, a strange and compelling feeling that had first surfaced when he started fighting, and had still not diminished. Leaning down, picking out one of the bobbing torches as a target, he called for the gun carriage to be levered round as far forward as the cannon would bear. They had to take the quoin out and reverse it to depress the muzzle, but the time came when one torch was in sight right down the line of the cannon.

‘Stand clear,’ said Pearce, stepping back himself so that he was holding on to three feet of firing lanyard, his own arm fully stretched. He pulled, saw the spark, then jumped even further back as the cannon fired, sending out an orange tongue of flame that lit the night sky, and a solid ball that crunched into a berthed fishing boat and turned it to matchwood, as the gun shot back into its straining breechings.

‘Reload,’ Pearce shouted.

‘We’re clearing the
Mercedes
.’

That shout made Pearce look aft to where the privateer’s foredeck was slowly, for they were still drifting, but surely coming abreast of the
Lady Harrington
’s poop. Behind him, amidships and well away from the powder, he could see the slowmatch fizzing as it burnt into a tub of sand. Dysart was sitting on the small barrel of gunpowder they had fetched aboard, with his broken arm sticking straight out. The ropes which had carried the barrel were still there, loops of hemp that were too tempting to resist.

‘Dysart, can you make that barrel you’re sitting on live?’ The questioning look made Pearce continue. ‘I think a little bit of that slowmatch, inserted, might make it into a useful bomb. Only you can tell what would happen if that went off on an enemy deck.’

‘Why, it wid be terrible.’

‘Can I ask you to make it so?’

The cannon was reloaded, Pearce had it hauled up, adjusted his aim and elevation, them pulled the firing lanyard again. This time, with shortened range, the effect was even more devastating, as the ball sliced through the flimsy scantlings of the small fishing boats, sending slivers of wood in all directions and bringing in its wake the satisfying sound of men receiving wounds.

‘That cleared the buggers,’ shouted Charlie Taverner, looking over the bulwarks, ‘and some of them have taken splinters.’

Pearce moved forward to follow Charlie’s finger, and to see the privateersmen seeking cover, with the exception of those half dozen writhing on the ground.

‘Mr Burns, sir,’ called Dysart, ‘will you oblige me by turning this wee barrel on its side.’

Pearce turned to look at that. The boy did not respond, indeed he seemed to be getting ready to slink away again. Pearce’s harsh tone stopped him. ‘Move, Mr Burns! You wear an officer’s coat. It would benefit us all greatly if, just this once, you were to behave like one.’

Pearce’s censure brought compliance – slow, not enthusiastic, but forward movement nonetheless. With the barrel on its side, Dysart handed Burns a knife, with which the boy went to work on the bung, creating a hole down the side of the cork into which the Scotsman could feed his linstock, all the while talking the young midshipman through.

‘We want it cut short, Mr Burns, very short, an inch showing and nae mair.’

A cry came from the men on the wheel. ‘
Mercedes
has cut her cable.’