Alexander Kent - Man of War

Adam stared at the land again and felt the silence like something physical.

"On the uprolir There was no sense in calling a target. At this range they could not miss.

He felt the deck tilt as the wind refilled the sails and pictured Athena'?, double line of teeth lifting to maximum elevation.

"Fire! "

The effect was devastating as every gun along the ship's starboard side roared out as one, each hurling itself inboard on its tackles, the crews yelling and gasping as smoke funnelled through the open ports. Dazed by the tremendous broadside, men were already sponging out and preparing to reload even before the combined thunder had died, and still the echo thrown from the land lingered above and around them. Adam held his hand across his mouth, his mind blurred by the power of the guns. It was as if Athena lay side by side with an enemy in some invisible line of battle, while below decks in the gloom and whirling smoke it must have felt as if the ship had run aground.

He peered up at the sails and to the masthead pendant, still whipping out toward the larboard bow, when all else was partly hidden by smoke.

He saw gun captains standing by their crews, one fist and then another raised and ready. It was as if everything else was moving, while Athena remained as before.

The big barque which had been the first one to make sail lay across the larboard bow, on a converging tack, desperate now to clear the headland and reach open water.

He held up his arm and saw Stirling acknowledge him. Men, their bodies shining with sweat, were running across to await the next command.

"Open the ports! "

Stirling swung round as the forgotten leadsman shouted, "By th' mark five! " Just thirty feet under the keel. Adam found a second to wonder how the seaman could think and concentrate on the line snaking through his fingers while the ship, his world, reeled about him.

"Run out! " Easier for the depleted crews as the deck heeled in their favour to another flurry of wind.

Adam took a telescope from a master's mate and trained it abeam. One of the long buildings and a crude-looking pier had taken most of the broadside, and one entire wall had collapsed in the old fortifications, leaving a gap like missing teeth.

He saw Fitzroy, the fourth lieutenant, walking unhurriedly along the eighteen pounders under his charge. He might have been alone in a country lane.

"As you bear! Lay for the foremast! On the up roll

Just seconds. To some an eternity; then, "Fire! "

The water was hidden by smoke, the air cringing to the irregular crash of shot as each gun captain gauged the moment before jerking his firing lanyard.

The barque had been badly hit, and her fore and main topmasts seemed to bow to each other as the double-shot ted broadside smashed through them.

Some one yelled out, "Not just slaves this time, you bastard! "

As if he saw only a single enemy. Perhaps he was right.

Adam gripped the rail as he felt the deck jerk under his feet.

And then another, deep in the lower hull. Heated shot or not; they would soon know.

He tried to keep his mind clear of everything but the shifting panorama across and beyond Athena's beak head with Bethune's flag casting a shadow above the taut jib.

The pumps were going, and there was water in every kind of cask if the worst happened.

A flurry of shots, from the barque or one of the drifting boats nearby. A seaman running to join the boatswain's men at the braces seemed to falter, and look around as if something had caught his attention. Then he fell, his face shot away.

Another figure ran toward him but stopped when a petty officer shouted to him.

Clough, Athena's carpenter, was hurrying forward with his own crew, his face intent, the true professional. Few ever considered that when a King's ship left port, her carpenter had to be ready for anything from repairing, even building some kind of boat, to dealing with every seam and plank above or below deck.

A hand seized his arm, and for an instant Adam believed he had been hit by some invisible marksman.

But it was Bethune, staring through the drifting smoke, his eyes reddened by strain and something more. Desperation.

"Yonder, Adam is that the schooner?"

Adam heard some one cry out, and saw two marines dragging a limp figure clear of the starboard gangway.

He saw the little schooner, some boats apparently trying to grapple alongside. Two other boats were moving toward her, the oars rising and falling like wings, the best Jago could get at such short notice. Adam licked his lips, recalling his curt order.

Boat action. All Jago would need. And for what?

"Aye, sir. She's out of command." He stared at the land again, measuring it. Watching the changing colours in the bay, very aware of Fraser and his mates, and Stirling 's motionless figure by the guns.

And all the others he could not see, who obeyed because they had no choice. Because there was none.

"I intend to come about directly, Sir Graham, and rake their defenses as we leave. Without those guns to support them they'll crack, and Commander Pointer will get his chance. Until then…" He winced as a seaman fell from the mainyard and hit the deck, his face staring at the copper sky.

"Sir! " It was Kirkland, the lieutenant of Royal Marines; surprised, shocked, it was beyond either.

Adam strode to the nettings and climbed on to them. He felt cordage cutting his knee where his breeches had been torn open. It was madness. There was more blood by a stanchion, where another man had been cut down. Yet all he could hold in his reeling mind was a picture of Bowles, and his horror when he had seen his captain donning his best uniform before beating to quarters.

The smoke was thinner down on the low foreshore, and he could see some upended boats near the water close to a rough road or track. No fifes or drums, no commands to bark out the pace or the dressing, but the scarlet coats and white crossbelts of Athena'?" Royal Marines marched in perfect order, Captain Souter in the lead, hatless and with a bandage around his head, but with all the style of a barracks parade.

There were flames at the top of the bay: a ship ablaze, or Pointer's own signal of success.

"Stand by to come about! "

He heard the leadsman's cry. "Deep four! " No doubt wondering if any one heard or cared with iron beating into the hull, and men dying.

The sailing master had heard well enough.

"Christ, she'll be sailing on wet grass in a minute! "

Athena drew eighteen feet.

Men were running to the braces, while somewhere high overhead axes were slashing away broken cordage and sails torn apart by haphazard shots from the land and from the barque, which had taken the full brunt of Athena'?" vengeful broadside. For revenge it was. Adam looked at Bethune's face. There was no deception now. If anything, it was despair.

He looked at the marching figures on the land, joined now by others, sailors from other ships of English Harbour, redcoats from the garrison. He had heard Bethune's servant speak of them, an English county regiment. Not what they had been expecting when they had left home.

He measured the distance again, and gauged the wind. It had to be now.

He heard more shots hammering into the hull, men shouting, saw the tell-tale smoke seeping from one of the hatch gratings. The gun crews were poised with handspikes ready, slow matches in their tubs in case the flintlocks should fail at the moment of action.

Small scenes stood out and gripped his attention, even though every fibre was screaming for him to begin what might be his last moments in this, the only world he truly understood. A midshipman writing busily on his slate, as if it was all that mattered. Bethune shaking his head as Troubridge tried to offer him the heavy coat again, perhaps because of a tall splinter which had been levered from the deck like a quill a few yards from where he was standing.