Patrick O'Brian - Post captain

She had to be got off. A bower anchor carried out, dropped in deep water and heaved upon would bring her off: but even the barge could not bear the weight of such an anchor. A larger vessel must be cut out. A ball passed within a few feet of him, and its wind made him stagger. A cheer from forward, as the starboard carronade hit one of the gun-​brigs square on the figurehead. Something had to be cut out. The transports were all crowding sail for the Ras du Point; they could not be caught in time. There were some small luggers in the harbour mouth; the corvette alone under Convention’s guns. Absurdly close under Convention’s guns, moored fore and aft, fifty yards from the shore, broad-​side and headed towards St Jacques. Why not the corvette herself? He dismissed the question as absurd. But why not? The risk would be enormous, but ‘no greater than lying here under the cross-​fire, once the batteries had the range. It was very near to wild mad recklessness; but it was not quite there. And with the corvette in his possession there would be no need to carry out an anchor - a time-​consuming job.

‘Mr Rossall,’ he said, ‘take the barge. Draw off the fire of those brigs. Plenty of cartridge, a dozen muskets. Make all the noise you can - shout - sing out.’ The barge-​crew dropped over the side. Drawing a deep breath he shouted above the guns, ‘Volunteers, volunteers to come along with me and cut out that corvette. Richards, serve out cutlasses, pistols, axes. Mr Parker, you will stay in the ship.’ - The men would not follow Parker: how many would follow him? ‘Mr Smithers, the red cutter: you and your Marines board over her starboard bow. Mr Pullings, blue cutter to her larboard quarter, and the moment you are aboard cut her cables. Take axes. Then lay aloft and let fall her tops’ls. Attend to nothing else at all. Pick your men: quick. The rest come along with me and look alive, now. There’s not a moment to be lost.’ Killick handed him his pistols and he dropped into his gig, never looking behind him. The Polychrests poured over the side, thump thump thump down into the boats. The clash of arms, a voice bawling in his ear ‘Squeeze up, George. Make room, can’t you?’ How many men in the boats? Seventy? Eighty? Even more. A magnificent rise in his heart, all the blackness falling clear away.

‘Give way,’ he said. ‘Silence, all boats. Bonden, right over the bank. Go straight for her.’ A crash behind him as a salvo from Convention took away the Polychrest’s foretopmast.

‘No great loss,’ he said, settling in the stern-​sheets with his sword between his knees. They touched once, a bare scrape, on the top of the sand-​bank, then they were beyond it, in the inner road, going straight for the corvette half a mile away. The risk was enormous - she might have two hundred men aboard - but here again there was the chance of surprise. They would scarcely expect to be boarded from a grounded ship, not right under their own guns. Too far under their own guns - what a simple place to moor - for the Convention battery was high-​perched up on the headland: its guns could never be depressed so far as to sweep the sea two or three hundred yards in front of the fort. Only five hundred yards to go. The men were pulling like maniacs, grunt, grunt, grunt, but the boat was crammed, heavy and encumbered - no room to stretch to their oars. Bonden wedged next to him, little Parslow - that child should never have come - the purser, deathly pale in the moonlight, the villainous face of Davis; Lakey, Plaice, all the Sophies.

Four hundred yards, and at last the corvette had woken to her danger. A hail. An uneven broadside, musketry. And now musketry crackling all along the shore. A deluge of water from Convention’s great guns, no longer firing at the Polychrest but at her boats, and missing only by a very little. And all the time the barge, banging away behind them at the gun-​brigs with its little six-​pounder carronade, roaring, firing muskets, wonderfully diverting attention from this silent rush across the inner road. Convention again, at extreme depression, but firing over them.

Two hundred yards, one. The other boats drawing ahead, Smithers to the right, Pullings turning left-​handed to go round her stern.

‘Mizen chains, Bonden,’ he said, loosening his sword in its scabbard.

A shattering burst of fire, a great roaring - the Marines were boarding her over the bows.

‘Mizen chains it is, sir,’ said Bonden, heaving on the tiller. A last broadside overhead, and the boat came kissing against the side.

Up. He leapt on the high roll, his hands catching the dead-​eyes. Up. No boarding-​netting, by God! Men thrusting, grasping all round him, one holding his hair. Up and over the rail, through the thin fringe of defenders

- a few pikes, swabs, a musket banging in his ear - on to the quarterdeck, his sharp sword out, pistol in his left hand. Straight for the group of officers, shouting ‘Polychrest! Polychrest!’ a swarm of men behind him, a swirling scuffle by the mizenmast, an open maul, men grappling silently, open extreme brutal violence. Fired his pistol, flinging it straight at the next man’s face. Babbington on his left running full into the flash and smoke of a musket - he was down. Jack checked his rush and stood over him; lunging hard he deflected the plunging bayonet into the deck. His heavy sword carried on, and now with all his weight and strength he whipped it up in a wicked backhanded stroke that took the soldier’s head half off his body.

A little officer in the clear space in front of him, sword-​point darting at his breast. Swerve and parry, and there they were dancing towards the taffrail, their swords flashing in the moonlight. A burning stab in his shoulder, and before the officer could recover his point Jack had closed, crashing the pommel into his chest and kicking his legs from under him. ‘Rendez-​vous,’ he said.

‘Jé me rendre,’ said the officer on the deck, dropping his sword. ‘Parola.’

Firing, crashing, shouting in the bows, in the waist. And now Pullings was over the side, hacking at the cables. Red coats, dark in the moonlight, clearing the starboard gangway, and everywhere, everywhere the shout of Polychrest. Jack raced forward at the tight group by the mainmast, mostly officers; they were backing, firing their pistols, pointing swords and pikes, and behind them, on the landward side, their men were dropping into the boats and into the water by the score. Haines ran past him, dodging through the fight, and hurled himself aloft, followed by a string of other men.

Here was Smithers, shouting, sweating, a dozen other Marines - they had reached the quarterdeck from the bows. Now Pullings, with a bloody axe in his hand, and the top-​sails were letting fall, mizen main and fore - men already at the sheets.

‘Capitaine,’ cried Jack, ‘Capitaine, cessez effusion sang. Rendez-​vous. Hommes desertés. Rendez-​vous.’

‘Jamais, monsieur,’ said the Frenchman, and came for him with a furious lunge.

‘Bonden, trip up his heels,’ said Jack, parrying the thrust and cutting high. The French captain’s sword flashed up. Bonden ran beneath it, collared him, and it was over.

Goodridge was at the wheel - where had he come from? - calling like thunder for the foretopsail to be sheeted home; already the land was gently receding, gliding, sliding backwards and away.

‘Capitaine, en bas, dessous, s’il vous plait. Toutes officiera dessous.’ Officers giving up their swords; Jack taking them, passing them to Bonden. Incomprehensible words

- Italian? ‘Mr Smithers, put ‘em in the cable-​tier.’

An isolated scuffle and a single shot on the forecastle, to join the firing from the shore. Bodies on deck: the wounded crawling.

She was heading westward, and the blessed wind was just before her beam. She must go round the tail of the West Anvil before she could tack to reach the Polychrest, and all the way she would be sailing straight into the fire of St Jacques: half a mile’s creep, always closer to that deadly raking battery.