Patrick O'Brian: The fortune of war

The lane of water between them narrowed, and all the time the Shannon kept up this tremendous fire, flinging hundredweights of iron and lead at the closest range. And still the Chesapeake came backwards. An overheated quarterdeck carronade overset on its recoil, breaking its breechings, and Jack was too busy helping to check it as it plunged among a mess of hammocks blasted from the nettings and of blood to see what was happening forward until he heard-the crash as the Chesapeake's quarter came grinding against the Shannon's side, just amidships. But as he looked up he saw the Chesapeake, her sternway checked, beginning to forge ahead - she had dropped her forecourse. Yet scarcely had she made a few yards, still grinding along the Shannon's side, but her quarter-gallery hooked in the fluke of the Shannon's best bower anchor.

In an enormous voice for a man of his size, or of any size, Broke roared, 'Cease fire, the great guns. Maindeck boarders away. Mr Stevens, lash her fast. Jack, Mr Watt. Quarterdeck men forward to board.' Then, throwing down his speaking-trumpet, he cried, 'Follow me who can.'

He raced along the starboard gangway, drawing his sword as he ran and leaping over the bodies of his clerk, the purser, and several of their men. The moment the carronade was tripped, Jack followed him with the quarterdeck boarders through a violent plunging fire from the Chesapeake's tops: but there along the gangway, outside the ragged bulwark and the torn hammock-netting, hung the old bosun and his mates, lashing the Chesapeake fast by a stanchion, and from the Chesapeake's quarter-gallery and gunroom-port men were firing pistols at them, lunging with pikes, swabs, handspikes, and one, outboard himself, was slashing down at his arm with a cutlass. Jack checked his stride, tore his pistol free, and firing left-handed, missed his man. The bosun passed the turn - the knot was tied - the cutlass flashed down: Jack and Watt fired together and the man dropped between the ships. But too late: the arm was gone, severed, still clinging to the Chesapeake. They heaved the old man in. Jack shouted into a seaman's ear to clap his handkerchief tight round the stump and ease him down between the maindeck guns; the bosun said something with a ferocious grin, something like 'Damn the arm', but Jack did not catch it. He ran blundering on, awkward because of his bound arm, the quarterdeck boarders swarming past him on the gangway and below among the maindeck guns.

He reached the forecastle .- many dead and wounded there - and saw that Broke had already boarded the Chesapeake with a score of hands. Jack followed him, jumping perilously on to the muzzle of a run-out carronade and so over what was left of the hammocks on to the American quarterdeck. Not a living man was there, though many dead, several of them officers; but as Watt came after him with a prodigious leap clear over the taffrail, so the lieutenant fell, shot from the mizentop. He was up at once, holding his foot and bawling across to the Shannon to fire a nine-pounder into the Chesapeake's tops - 'Grape,' he shouted. 'Grape,' as more boarders, seamen and Marines made their way across by every point of contact and rushed past him, gathering at the mainmast.

'Forward, forward all,' cried Jack. He had his sword out - it felt good in his hand - and he drove at the men packed along the starboard gangway with a dozen boarders

behind him, many of them Irish, screaming as they came. Little resistance on the gangway - the officers were dead or gone, the men disorganized - most skipped down to the maindeck and thence below, a few were killed. And so to the forecastle, which Broke and his men had already cleared except for some who were plunging over the bows or trying to force their way down the fore hatchway or fighting still, cornered against the bulwark. Jack's party came pounding up: the few men fighting, now far outnumbered, threw down their cutlasses and pikes and muskets.

Now most of the Shannon's Marines were aboard, red coats along the decks, and while some of them helped the seamen as they fought to keep back the desperate rushes of the main hatchway, others returned the murderous fire from the main and mizentops.

But the ships were drifting apart, and there was no fresh stream of boarders. Broke stood for a moment. The whole issue was in the balance: if the Chesapeakes broke out from below, the Shannons on board were lost. Jack glanced at the men who had surrendered on the forecastle and who stood, glaring stupidly, bewildered, savage. Four of them he knew - seamen, perhaps British, perhaps impressed Americans, he had sailed with; and if British deserters, certain of an ignominious death. 'Craddock,' said Broke to one of the boarders, a man with a badly wounded leg and a bloody forearm, 'guard the prisoners.' And raising his voice, 'Smith, Cosnahan, silence their tops. Mainhatch, all hands to the mainhatch.'

The men rushed aft, Jack blundering after them, Broke coming last, and as they ran so young Smith, commanding the Shannon's foretop, made his way out on the yard, followed by his men, and thence to the Chesapeake's mainyard.

'Sir, sir!' roared Craddock through the continuing fire of musketry and the shouting of men.

Broke turned. Some of the prisoners had caught up their weapons and they were right on him.

'Sir,' roared Craddock again. Jack caught the sound, whipped about and saw Broke parry a wicked pike-thrust, wound his man, and then fall, clubbed down with a musket. A third man was astride him with his cutlass high, but Jack's left-handed blow, delivered with all his strength and all his weight, flung the man's arm and cutlass into the sea and his body into the waist of the ship, and a moment later Broke's party laid the remaining prisoners dead. And during this quick, horribly bloody affray the men out on the Shannon's yardarm stormed the Chesapeake's maintop, while the nine-pounder's grape silenced her mizentop; and now all the boarders were swarming round the silent main hatchway. They clapped a massive grating over it and lashed it down, and apart from one last desperate shot from below resistance ceased. With a rending crash the Chesapeake's quarter-gallery tore clear away, and she slewed round, lying helpless under the Shannon's guns. A hoarse voice below cried out that they had surrendered.

'Are you all right, Philip?' cried Jack, loud although the tumult had quite died away.

Broke nodded. His skull was bared - white bone through the blood and perhaps still worse, with more blood welling from his ears. His coxswain tied a handkerchief over the shocking wound, and they sat him on a carronade-slide.

'Look aft, Philip,' said Jack in his ear. 'Look aft - she's yours. I give you joy.' He pointed aft, where the American colours were coming down. Watt was striking them. But now they were rising again, the white ensign undermost as if in defiance. To those in the Chesapeake it was clear that Watt had twisted the halliards. They shouted to him but he did not hear and the last gun from the Shannon roared out, scattering the small party on the Chesapeake's quarterdeck and indeed killing Watt in his triumph and several of his men.

Broke stared from side to side, not fully comprehending: he fumbled for his watch, looked at it, and said, 'Fifteen minutes, start to finish. Drive them all down into the hold.' But now at last the colours rose again in their due order, soaring to the mizen-peak. Cheering, wild cheering fore and aft from the Shannon, and through the noise Jack cried again, 'Philip, look aft. She's yours - she's yours. I give you joy of your victory.'

This time Broke understood. He looked hard at the white ensign against the pure blue sky, the proof of his victory; he focused his dazed eyes; a sweet smile showed on his bloody face, and he said very quietly, 'Thank you, Jack.'

The End