‘Tell him to bugger himself, Absolute,’ Link called.
Though Jack knew many degrading words in French, that term wasn’t one. ‘Non, monsieur. Ce n’est pas possible.’
There came another shrug. ‘Quel dommage. Eh bien, I see you momently.’ He sneezed again.
‘Santé,’ said Jack but the Frenchman didn’t thank him this time. He’d turned and lightly run down the bowsprit to his forecastle.
‘I’ve a bullet that will cure that cold, Froggie,’ Jack muttered, turning quickly yet obviously not quickly enough, for Red Hugh seized his arm and yanked him down behind the elm boards that had been brought from the hold and lined the railings. These were better able to withstand the bullet that smashed into them than Jack’s Dragoon coat would have been.
‘I suppose that means the parlez is over,’ said Jack with a shaky grin, but the Irishman’s reply was lost in the roar of French shot that followed the musket’s fire. Jack had always assumed that a broadside would be just that, a single thing. But what came from the enemy was not one explosion but a short, irregularly staggered series of them, blasts of cannon interspersed with the results of the shot; again, not the thudding of ball against timber he’d expected but the whistle and shriek of many objects flying through the air.
He looked up. Rents and gashes had appeared in several of the Eliza’s sails, stays and shrouds had been severed, rigging flapped or fell. ‘What’s that?’ he shouted, as items began to fall onto the deck, then had his answer in the two balls joined by a length of chain that landed not three foot from him. Elsewhere, iron bars dropped, metal tumbled from the sky.
‘They try to cripple us but look how she still flies,’ Engledue cried. ‘Let’s give ’em three huzzahs, boys, and their scrap back with interest.’
Jack had heard how the British were tighter at their guns than the French, and here it was proved. Peering through the gap between two elm boards, he saw that the crews had waited till the ship was rolling down the wave, their muzzles thus pointing slightly down. The explosions began with the first of the three cheers and ended not much beyond the last, and in those brief seconds he saw most of the British ball strike between wind and water. Several stove in at the gundeck, cannon ports torn wider. He could hear the yelps of fear and agony.
‘Load with langrage,’ he heard Link cry, and knew they were thus close enough for the ball and metal fragments, similar to what the army called grapeshot. As the crews tended their guns, as they heard the French doing the same, each preparing a last surprise before collision. Red Hugh, head low, began scuttling down to the quarterdeck. ‘Will you join me, Jack? I’ve me own little gift for our guests.’
‘A moment.’ Cannon may have been halted but muskets kept up a steady smash into board, deck and railing. Jack had noted the marksman who first shot at him perched in the top of the foremast. It was time he became more than a target.
He had already loaded his rifle before laying it carefully down. The priming was in the pan. Lifting it carefully, he raised himself above the boards. The sharpshooter who had aimed at him before was pointing towards him again. Grinding butt into shoulder, Jack swiftly cocked, aimed and shot. His opponent reeled back and then tumbled, screaming, to the deck.
‘Will you come, Jack?’
Jack laid his rifle back down. His one glimpse had told him that the Robuste was gliding into them fast. Single bullets were not going to make much difference now. It was time to try and remember exactly what Red Hugh had said about grenades.
As he slid down the stairs and ducked inside the door, Jack saw that not all his ship’s company were engaged in fighting – at least, not directly. Despite the fire being poured onto them, men were swarming in the foremast’s rigging, some already splicing together what had been torn. Engledue was standing at the base of the foremast. ‘Now, Captain,’ he called to Link, who stood beside his conman, his great meaty hands paralleling Williams’ on the wheel.
‘Now!’ Link screamed.
‘Now!’ echoed Engledue up the mast. ‘Brace abox!’ His crew braced the three yards there, the foremast sails all suddenly backed against the wind, slowing the ship on the instant. A moment later, Link gave a roar and both he and McRae began to pull hard on the helm to larboard. The ship slewed sharp across, denying the enemy the advantage of laying her whole length alongside. Instead, their prow drove straight at the Eliza’s quarterdeek.
‘Fire!’ The gun captains’ cries came, and the cannons blasted their langrage shot just before the Robuste’s bowsprit, a good ten foot above the quarterdeck, came over, followed by the prow smashing into the bulwarks.
‘Good sailing, by God,’ cried Red Hugh. ‘He’ll only be able to board us forward and his numbers will count for less.’ He bent to the rack they’d positioned earlier beneath the poop deck and lifted two balls from the rack. ‘There’s these for you, Jack,’ he said, handing them over. ‘This,’ he dropped two extra fuses into Jack’s bullet satchel, ‘in case one splutters out. Unlikely, but if it does just twist the auld one out, shove this one in, forget the count and hurl the thing.’ He smiled. ‘And this,’ he added as he shoved a glowing cord into Jack’s cross belt, ‘will set ’em off nicely, so it will. Just remember, once it’s sparking, to point it downwards. Nothing annoys a Grenadier more than being burnt by the fella next to him.’
‘Remind me again,’ said Jack, weighing the balls as if measuring two bags of manure, ‘what’s the bloody animal I count to? Is it a hippopotamus?’
The Irishman laughed, ‘You’d lose more than One-Handed Tom did with two extra syllables. It’s elephant, nice and steady, like the beast itself. One elephant, two elephant …’ He nodded towards the deck. ‘And aren’t you going to start moving through the herd any minute?’
Jack looked. After the smash of ships, their own crew had scattered, partly to avoid the swivel guns the French would direct at them, partly because Red Hugh had advised them to keep well clear. Half were still aloft, scrambling like Barbary apes on the rigging, moving marks for muskets. The rest were crouched back beneath the forecastle, forming a shelter with boards dragged across the doorway, clutching an assortment of spears, axes, swords and pistols. Ducking under the lintel, Jack took a swift glimpse up to the Robuste. Similar weapons were brandished there. He saw ropes swinging, heard the whirr of grappling hooks, the thud as they reached the quarterdeck.
‘Ready, lad?’
What could he do save nod?
‘Match.’ Red Hugh lifted the fuse, Jack did the same, and both pressed the glowing cord to the small tuft of quick match that stood proud of the powder.
‘One hippopot—’
‘ELEPHANT!’ yelled the Irishman.
‘Two elephant,’ they said together.
A great cheer rose from the French ship. In a rush they came, bare feet sliding down ropes, thumping onto the quarterdeck. Directly above, Jack heard the cock of muskets, the command of ‘Fire!’ from Captain Link, the cry of victims.
‘Four elephant, five—’
‘Now elephant!’ Red Hugh led the way out of the door, Jack at his shoulder. He’d lost the count but it didn’t matter; he just paralleled the Irishman’s movements, bent at the knee, brought the sputtering ball back, lobbed it forward. It shot from his sweaty hand, flew high where Red Hugh’s went low. Both arrived at the same time, Jack saw in the swiftest of glances before he was hurling himself the other way, sliding to the bulwark, his head buried under his arms.
The explosions came hard upon each other, like a heartbeat, preceded by a cry, followed by many. Jack had twisted as soon as he heard them, was already making to rise. But the sight through the clearing smoke stopped him.
Red Hugh had told him they would begin with hard shot grenades, not ball and scrap. Stun them, he’d said. It had done much more than that. Of the dozen or so men who had landed on the deck, only one was standing, and that only because he’d been flung against the rail and somehow twisted an arm around a shroud there. The rest were thrown, separately and in p
iles, limbs bent grotesquely – if they were still joined to the body at all.
‘By God!’ murmured Jack. ‘By God!’
They were beaten already, he thought. And even as he thought it, he looked up and saw another group of Frenchmen massing at the Robuste’s prow. Immediately he touched the fuse of his second grenade to the cord. ‘One elephant,’ he yelled.
‘Not yet, Jack! Not—’
He was moving forward, muttering the count. He had to get closer, despite the shot now pinging around him. Plant a grenade on top of that mass of men and the fight would be over, surely.
‘Jack!’
He ignored the call. He knew what he had to do. Wasn’t he an Irish Grenadier now, to be sure, to be sure? Laughing, he lobbed on the fourth elephant, judging the ball had further to go. He laughed again as he heard the thud of it landing on the enemy’s forecastle.
‘Have that, bastards!’ he shouted.
He only realized what he’d done when the first Frenchman landed beside him. They were close enough to shake hands, if the Frenchman’s hadn’t been occupied by a sword.
He didn’t even have time to curse. He’d been quite alone, now there were twenty men beside him, and more were sliding down ropes to join them. The explosion came, some men shrieked above – the few of the enemy who hadn’t vacated their forecastle in time. Only a few though as the majority had undoubtedly saved themselves by joining Jack on the quarterdeck of the Sweet Eliza. For a moment they all seemed as stunned as he was. Then that first Frenchman yelled, ‘Con!’, raising a wide-bladed cutlass high above his head.
There could be no hesitation. Jack stepped close, caught the man’s wrist in both hands before the weapon could descend, then dropped, using his weight to pull man and weapon to the side and down. His back met another, hard, while the man he gripped yelled more obscenities and tried to jerk his arm free. The one behind was turning, undoubtedly also with steel in his hand, so Jack spun out, twirling his mercifully lighter opponent, smashing the two of them together. As they met, he released his grip, rolled away on his haunches. The cutlass banged into the deck where he’d been but now he was to the edge of the enemy group, with two other men turning to him. His hand reached for his sabre …
‘Now!’ came the cry. ‘For England and the Eliza.’
The crew ran from the forecastle led by Engledue, Link bringing his men down from the poop. As Jack’s opponents turned to face the threat, he scrambled away, reached the railing, at last had time to draw his sword there. The deck filled with swirling, yelling men. Pistols flashed, blades clashed and spears were thrust, some driving into flesh, some turned aside by axe or sword. He had no time to watch the scene, though, for the man whose blow he’d dodged before came for him again, the cutlass raised high; yet it was the other hand that concerned Jack first. It held a pistol and at five paces the Frenchman screamed, raised and fired. Jack could do no more than duck, felt heat and a sting in his left ear. There was no time to check any injury, not with the man running at him, and Jack’s attention switched to the sword, his own rising before him. Strangely, it was the pistol that was thrust at him first and Jack, swinging his right leg back, his sword paralleling it, brought his left hand across to push the now harmless pistol aside.
Except it wasn’t harmless, Jack realized as the bayonet blade on the pistol’s muzzle sliced across the palm of his thrusting hand. ‘Ayee,’ he yelled, agonized, his opponent now bringing the cutlass over in a sweep to finish what his boarding pistol had started. But thrusting with such a short weapon had brought him close to Jack, closer than he should have been. Despite the sudden pain, he smashed the guard of his sword into the Frenchman’s mouth.
The man staggered back, into the heart of the fray, stumbling, falling, causing one of his comrades to trip, and allowing McRae to finish him with a cutlass. Jack looked down at his palm. It was gouting blood, the cut deep and wide. Cursing, checking that no one was leaving the mêlée to seek him out, he whipped off the stock that tamed his hair, wrapped it around the hand and drew his tomahawk to hold it in place. With both weapons before him, he turned back to battle.
‘Come on, then!’ he screamed, charging in.
No doubt it was the number of French bodies upon the deck, and the relatively few British among them, but no sooner had he re-joined the fight than it suddenly ceased, the enemy seeming to give up as one, those who could running for their own ship’s prow where it overhung the Sweet Eliza.
‘They flee!’ cried Captain Link. ‘By God, we’ve won, boys.’
As the cheer faded, an Irish voice rose above it. ‘They flee to fight again. We must follow or they’ll stand off and blow us from the water. Look, lads!’ Red Hugh was waving at the deck of the Robuste. All could see that those few who were helping their comrades back aboard were outnumbered by those backing their sails, trying to catch the wind and haul their ship clear while others were hacking at the grapplings that bound the two vessels together. More had picked up muskets, gone to the swivel guns that had yet to come into play. Instantly, Jack could see what was going to happen. Greed had lured the Frenchmen in, but once clear they would be able to do what they should have done in the beginning: reduce the ship and its crew to skeletons before boarding again to pick clean the bones.
Looking down, Jack saw that the Eliza’s first broadside had blasted a hole in the Robuste’s gundeck two portholes wide, and that some of the fleeing Frenchmen were scrambling through it three abreast.
‘There, Red Hugh,’ Jack yelled, seizing the man’s arm, turning him. ‘There lies our way.’
‘You are in the right, lad. Are you sure you’ve not fought on a ship before?’ A brief smile then the Irishman turned. ‘Can you keep us snug to her, Captain?’
‘I can.’ Link’s florid face was further coloured with powder and blood. ‘I will.’
‘Then,’ he turned to the crew, ‘Larbollians! You’ve fought for the Sweet Eliza, now fight for the prize. With me!’ And thus leaving the starboard watch aboard to shoot and handle the ship, Red Hugh led twenty drinking companions and one Jack Absolute to board the enemy frigate.
The coat-tail of the last of the enemy had only just vanished but already someone had noticed the pursuit. Pistols cracked as Red Hugh stepped onto the Robuste. He drew back, turned to Jack. ‘Lieutenant Absolute, would you be so good as to fetch us two grenades?’
‘Certainly, Captain McClune. Which rack?’
‘The bottom. Now it’s us that don’t want to damage our profits. So let’s stink these Frenchies out.’
Jack crossed to the poop between shot being given by both sides. He returned in moments, an iron globe in each hand. ‘Wrap your scarf around your mouth.’ Red Hugh’s voice was muffled beneath his own. Each man there wore one, Jack making do with the black stock from his neck. The Irishman, who’d taken the bombs while Jack masked himself, now handed one back. ‘And will you wait till I throw this time?’
‘I will.’
Fuses were lit, elephants counted and, on eight, grenades lobbed into the splintered hole. Shrieks came from within, sounds of men scattering. Then two dull crumps were heard and the world instantly filled with yellow, reeking smoke.
‘We’ll wait just a moment, lads,’ announced Red Hugh, as two Frenchmen fell out of the hole, cursing, one slipping between the ships with a wail, the other dragged onboard the British ship and cudgelled into quietness.
‘Now, I think,’ came the soft voice, drowned by the yell as the crew of the Sweet Eliza stormed into the enemy’s vessel.
At first, Jack could see nothing, partly due to the foul-smelling cloud that lingered, partly because his eyes were clogged with tears. Wiping them at least cleared the latter and he could see such Frenchmen that had survived the blast now running between the guns for the front and rear stairs.
‘Stick close to them, lads,’ cried Red Hugh, leading as he spoke.
The enemy were choking more than their masked pursuit, and blocked the stairs in blinded panic. Several were easily cut d
own and the rest chased up and onto the quarterdeck.
Jack, who’d engaged swords with one of the few Frenchmen fighting until he too took to the stairs, paused to cough and catch breath. Most of the Larbollians had surged upwards and, for a moment, he was alone; yet not, it seemed, entirely so.
‘Sir! Sir! For God’s sake, help us.’
Jack couldn’t for the life of him find where the voice was coming from. He looked up to the deck where the action sounded fierce, then along the gundeck to where he’d been. Nothing. Then he glanced down and stepped back, startled.
A grating covered the stairs that led from the gundeck to the main deck below. And there were at least half a dozen faces pressed to it.
‘Sir!’ That same voice came from a face in the middle of the grating. The one word led to a series of coughs before the gentleman – his accent showed him to be one – spoke again. ‘Are you English, sir?’
‘I am,’ said Jack, crouching.
‘Thank God. And you wear a uniform. So it is a ship of His Majesty’s Navy that attacks?’
‘Alas, no. We are a merchantman alone. But we are doing well enough.’ He tipped his head to the sounds from above. ‘And if you’ll excuse me … I will return when the ship is ours.’
‘Sir!’ The coughs came again, then the voice, holding him. ‘We are Englishmen here, too. Free us from this hell-hole and we will help you take the ship.’
‘How many of you are there?’
‘Forty. From the Constantine out of Liverpool, taken a month ago.’
His inclination was to rush up and continue the fight. But forty! Forty could swing it. He looked at the grating. A giant padlock held it.
‘Is there a key?’
‘They bring it when they feed us.’
Damn! Jack looked around the deck. There were a few gun tools lying around, a hammer. But the lock and its mounting were undoubtedly strong; it would take too long and even his absence could cost the fight. He was about to abandon them when he remembered something. Bending to the lock, he scrabbled in his bullet pouch. ‘Have you room to retire there, sir?’