Patrick O'Brian - The fortune of war

'Sir, sir,' cried the midshipman from number eleven, the gun to which poor Broughton had been running, 'what shall we do? The shot is jammed.'

Jack had taken three strides aft when he fell - it was nothing, he found, scrambling up and slipping again in Broughton's blood - a musket-ball had grazed his head. But now the Java was beginning her turn: in less than a minute she would cross the Constitution's wake right under her stern - a beautifully calculated move - yet most of these poor brave willing silly fools were milling about to port, unaware that the starboard guns would be engaged.

'T'other side, t'other side,' he roared, on his feet at last. They raced across the deck, willing and eager in spite of the hail of small-arms fire; but to his utter horror he realized that on quitting them they had not reloaded their starboard guns. The turn continued: the Constitution's tall, unprotected, naked, infinitely vulnerable stern was right before the Java's broadside, the Java so beautifully steered that her main yardarm crossed the Constitution's very taffrail: and only a single gun went off.

Cursing did no good; blasphemy brought bad luck. Jack split his remaining crew - Mr Byron had copped it with a nasty splinter in his chest, Bates the Flitch had lost the number of his mess - divided them among the other forward guns, and helped load two or three. There was no time for cursing, either: the Java was running alongside the Constitution, and now the fire resumed its utmost fury, firing, reloading, firing again as fast as the powder could run up from the magazine. And all the time he had to try to stop the Javas from madly overcharging, from ramming two cartridges into their guns, and any bits of metal they could find.

The Americans' aim was better now, and they were firing low; the twenty-four-pound balls sent splinters racing across the deck in clouds, great jagged lumps of sharp-edged wood, and one of these struck Bonden down. Jack heaved him out of the way of the recoiling gun, and when it had fired knelt by him on the deck and shouted into his deafened ear, 'Only a handsbreadth of scalp; your pigtail's all right. Get you below for a stitch.'

'Bowsprit's gone, sir,' said Bonden, peering through his blood, and following his gaze Jack saw the jib and forestaysail blowing free.

'Give the Doctor my regards,' said he, and ran along the deck, checking each gun, helping to point, cheering the men. Not that they needed much cheering: they were firing much better, much faster, now they had the hang of it, and they roared like devils as their shot went home. No sign of flinching from the guns, though three ports were battered into one, and amidships the dead and wounded lay by the score, blood oozing thick.

'Heave, heave,' bawled Jack at number three, and as the gun ran up he stared into the smoke to place his shot, waiting for the roll with his mates poised over the scorching barrel; but this time there was no shifting hint of the enemy's side. The roll came: again: and still the thick smoke lay. Nothing beyond it as it cleared - the American had worn again.

'Hands about ship,' came the cry; and then, 'Ready, oh!'

The sail-trimmers ran to their stations and in the silence Jack moved back to the forward scuttle-butt and took a long, long-needed drink. Lambert was going to tack rather than wear, so as to cut the Constitution on her turn - to cut across her stern. A fine move, if only the Java could make it quick enough; there was little way on her, and her headsails were gone.

Here was Bonden, a reddening bandage all round his head. 'All right, sir?' he asked.

Jack nodded, and said, 'Warm work, Bonden. How are things below? How is Mr Byron?'

'Mr Byron looks a bit old-fashioned, sir, as far as I could see. Powerful lot of work down there - Doctor's as busy as a bee. Sends his love, though. Their premier, Mr Chads, he got a nasty swipe.'

The Leopards had no stations for tacking ship: they gathered round their Captain and drank deep from the scuttle-butt as the Java swung up into the wind. Slowly, slowly.

'I have no notion of all this wearing,' said Babbington.

'He may do it once too often,' said Jack. 'The most dangerous movement I have -,

'Christ, we're going to miss stays,' whispered Babbington. And indeed, with neither jib nor forestaysail it looked as though the Java could not cross the wind's eye, but must fall off, stern to the enemy, now a quarter of a mile to leeward. Jack glanced aft, and there she was, luffing up to show her starboard broadside. In another minute the Java would be raked.

'Lie down,' he said, pressing on Forshaw's shoulder: and the broadside came, striking the Java's stern and tearing the whole length of her deck. But in the same moment her backed foretopsail filled, and slowly she began to pay off - she was round.

'Larboard guns,' cried Jack, springing up, and now the Javas scarcely needed any teaching. They flew to their guns and as the ship turned a little further they returned the fire, a hearty though ragged volley that went right home; and once again the Constitution wore.

The Java came straight down for her, ranged alongside, received her fire, returned it, the guns so hot that they leapt clear of the deck at each discharge. Rough work, rough work: the difference between twenty-four and eighteen pounds was telling now, and the Java could not stand much more of it. In the short seconds between guns, between making the cheering men reduce their charge, fire low and steady, and swab clean, Jack saw the enormous wreckage amidships, the shattered boats, the grim wounds in the mainmast and above all in the unstayed foremast. 'We must board,' he said to himself. 'We still have about three hundred men'; and as the words formed he heard Lambert roar, 'Boarders away.'

The Java bore up, heading straight at the Constitution's side. The boarders swarmed on to the forecastle, cutlasses, pistols, axes ready. Chads was there again, pale at his Captain's side; both of them caught Jack's eye - a savage, eager grin. A few yards more and there would be the crash of impact, the spring aboard, the hot work hand to hand. The Americans were firing from their tops as fast as they could load: it made no odds to the furious impatience of the crowd of men poised for their leap.

But then over all the din, cutting clear through, the high shrieking hail from the Java's foretop, 'Stand from under', and the mast, the towering great edifice of the foremast with all its spreading yards, its fighting-top, its sails, its countless ropes and blocks, came crashing down, the lower part kicking aft to cover the maindeck, the upper covering the forecastle.

There was an immense amount of rigging, of spars over them and over the forward guns; there were some men pinned, others wounded; and for the next few minutes, in the fury of clearing so that the guns could fire, Jack lost all track of the relative position of the ships. When at last the forward battery was to some extent restored he saw the Constitution well ahead, in the act of wearing across the Java's bows. Not a gun could the Java fire in this position, and the Constitution raked her deliberately from stem to stern, killing a score of men and bringing down her maintopmast.

Once again the wild labour of clearing, slashing at the wreckage with axes, anything that came to hand; and now the Constitution lay on their starboard quarter, pouring in a diagonal fire; lay there a moment before bearing up and giving the Java her full larboard broadside.

'Captain's down,' said a Java, having carried a wounded mate below. 'But Mr Chads is back.'

'Never say die,' cried the captain of his gun, and firing he knocked away the Constitution's maintopsail yard to a frenzy of cheering all along the deck.

Yet at the same time the Java's gaff and spanker-boom went by the board, and a little after the mizenmast followed them. The Javas, undismayed, fired like demons, streaming with sweat under the smoky sun, often with blood; and the stabbing flames from almost every shot they fired set light to the tarred wreckage hanging over the side: fire-buckets, powder, fire-buckets, powder, the remaining officers had them running in a continual stream. At one point the ships were side by side again, and the Java's great guns gave as good as they got; or at least did all they could to do so; and she being low in the water now, some of her round-shot made cruel wounds. But the Java lacked her fighting-tops - fore and mizen were gone and the maintop was a wreck - whereas the American did not. Her tops were filled with marksmen, and it was one of these that brought Jack down. The blow knocked him flat, but he thought nothing of it until on getting up he found that his right arm would not obey him, that it was hanging at an unnatural angle. He stood, swaying, for with two masts and all but one sail gone the Java was rolling very heavily; and as he stood amidst the din, still shouting at the crew of number nine to depress their gun, an oak splinter knocked him down again.