Julian Stockwin - Tenacious

In their path was an English ship lit almost continuously by her guns, smashing low into her antagonist, whose vicious return fire was in turn causing visible ruin to her timbers. But settling in place on her inshore side was another English ship, beginning her cannonade from the opposite side. The noise was hellish, scores of the biggest guns in the fleet contending furiously with even bigger French ones in a ceaseless thunderous drumming.

Ahead at the centre of the line the huge flagship L'Orient was now in action with two English ships and beyond her another French two-decker was smashing out her broadsides at a smaller ship. It could not be long before they themselves must join in the action, and Kydd had no illusions about their chances: they were the smallest vessel in the English fleet and a fraction of the size of the French flagship—or any of the enemy for that matter.

As they came to pass the three vessels Kydd looked down from the poop at Tenacious 's little quarterdeck command group. Suddenly Bryant pointed energetically to the French ship. Her foremast was already down, and as her mainmast majestically crashed to the deck in a tangled ruin, Kydd could see what had excited Bryant. The massive sides were no longer unmoving: she had either cut her cables to escape the terrible punishment or they had been simply shot away, and now she was slowly dropping out of the line.

And leaving an opening! Houghton's roared orders could be heard clear above the din. Seamen scrambled up the shrouds to take in sail, and forward, others rushed to clear away the anchor. Tenacious slowed, waiting as the French vessel slipped away, trailing wreckage and the stink of defeat.

It was a shrewd move: instead of lying alongside a heavier enemy to be pounded by bigger guns Houghton was taking the opportunity to slip between the stern of one and the bow of the other and, while he took position, fire with impunity into both. The stern anchor went down in a rush, the cable slipping away rapidly. But the move had been seen by the big ship next down and while her guns could bear they opened up on Tenacious.

Kydd stood in the darkness on the exposed poop-deck feeling the slam of unseen shot and debris. At this moment he felt more for the old ship than for himself: she had endured at Camperdown in an earlier age, and she was his first ship as an officer so he had a tender feeling for her that made any hurts the more grievous to bear.

A missile whistled past, the eerie sound fading as it passed into the blackness beyond. Kydd noticed Rawson, pacing determinedly at his side, his youth touchingly apparent: the youngster would be a different person before the night was over. It was all he could offer, but Kydd said conversationally to him, "O' course, th' musketeers aboard the Frenchy can't see us in the dark."

"Secure the flag lockers, if y' please, sir?" Rawson replied, with an effort. His face was pale but composed in the flickering light.

"Why, yes. We'll not be seeing flags again this day." Now there would be signal lanthorns in the flagship's rigging to watch for and all the detail of night signalling to worry about.

Tenacious sailed inside the arc of fire of the enemy, whose guns stopped one by one as they approached the bow of their target; on her foredeck dark figures were running from the light upper-deck guns. The sudden crash and blast from their own guns took Kydd by surprise. So close, their iron balls could not miss and when the smoke cleared the beautifully ornamented bow was scarred and pitted with blotches of ugly blackness.

Then their stern cable told and Tenacious slewed heavily round the quarter of the enemy ship-of-the-line. Yet again, Nelson's prescience was confirmed: springs on the cable, controlled from the capstan, meant that the ship as a whole, with its lines of guns, could be aimed by slackening and tightening on the appropriate spring.

Their guns resumed with a crashing broadside, but the enemy replied with venom—they would be made to pay for their boldness. The French guns were heaved round by handspike to bear aft as far as possible, then opened up on them savagely. Kydd felt the deep concussion in the pit of his stomach, and the heavy balls took Tenacious in her hull, sending splinters sheeting and skittering about. Twisting chain shot, langridge and other ugly, man-killing evil whirled through the night air.

Kydd's skin tightened. Being at idleness in the open was so different from action on a gundeck. Here, he could only sense countless muzzles seeking their target before they exploded into violence; below, there was furious activity, the means and duty to hit back.

The guns of Tenacious smashed out again in an ear-splitting crash. At such close range the strike of their shot was visible on the enemy side and pieces of wreckage tumbled into the short space of ruddy water between the vessels. The stench of powder and ruin was overpowering. A shriek from forward ended in a bubbling death-cry—three marines ran to the poop and set up a firing party aiming far up at the mizzen fighting top of the enemy from where the muzzle flash of muskets stabbed downwards.

Again the space between the ships was enveloped in powder-smoke, but Kydd detected a different pattern. Beyond the end of the length of their target glided the shadowy bulk of another ship coming into position at her stern. Before she had anchored, her guns on the far side exploded into action—the powder-smoke alive with gun-flash like summer lightning, quickly followed by her near side, a savage broadside into the French ship's stern quarters. With four lanthorns in a line at her mizzen peak she had to be an English 74—the Swiftsure, Kydd thought. She had slipped into place between their own adversary and the flagship, firing at both from each side of guns. He tried to make out the mighty man-o'-war just past their opponent and saw that she was now set upon by three English ships in a mind-numbing cannonade.

The battle was now reaching a peak of ferocity. The shattering slam of guns made it difficult to think; back along the line their own flagship was impossible to see in the darkness. Kydd felt the frustration of helplessness. "Stay here. I'm going t' the quarterdeck," he said suddenly, to his men. Anything was better than the aimless, nervous pacing, and he had a duty to advise the captain of his inability to sight more than the most elementary signals.

Houghton and the first lieutenant were pacing slowly together in grim conversation, followed by several midshipman messengers. Kydd touched his hat and delivered his report. "Thank you, Mr Kydd," Houghton acknowledged, barely noticing him. "Do you hold yourself in readiness here for the time being."

Kydd joined the master near the helm watching the captain's clerk attempting to scribble into a notebook by the light of a feeble lanthorn. His duty was to minute events as they happened but Kydd wondered how accurate his jottings could be, given that they were made in near darkness, their author half blinded by the flash of guns and probably petrified with fear.

A sudden iron crash and ringing tone, like a struck anvil, sounded forward as an upper-deck gun took a square hit from a round shot. There would be carnage as it dismounted and Kydd felt pity for the casualties.

Ahead, the hulking enemy man-o'-war was showing every sign of fight—but Kydd's attention was taken by a petty officer running aft and touching his forelock to the captain.

"What is it?" Houghton said.

"Sorry, sir, don't know what t' do, like."

Kydd stared at him. What would take a hardened seaman like that away from his post in battle?

"It's like this, sir. Number three larb'd nine-pounder took a hit an' it did fer its crew." He hesitated, as if to spare the details.