Artemis - Kydd 02 (3 page)

Renzi shrugged.

'Haaands
to make sail!' Powlett wanted royals loosed.
Cito
yenne
was shaping a course that took the breeze on her quarter, but
Artemis
was not accounted a flyer for nothing. Taut and trim, she sped along.

Kydd joined the others on the foredeck, watching the chase. Foam-flecks spattered up from the slicing stem, streaming air thrumming gaily in the rigging. The weather was perfect for
Artemis,
and she drew closer;
Citoyenne
was now some small miles ahead and downwind.

Without warning
Citoyenne
angled over, to come as close to the wind as she could lie.
Artemis
followed suit immediately to keep to her weather position, and the two sped over the lifting seas. Powlett rapidly had bowlines fast to their bridles, stretching the forward edges of the sails to their utmost in a hard straining of every stitch of canvas.

'Haaands
to quarters!'

Kydd clattered down the fore-hatch and closed up at his gun, heart thudding. He pulled down the rammer stave from its beckets at the deckhead and stood clear while Stirk checked gear.

Renzi looked calm and flexed his shoulders. Others finished folding and tying their kerchiefs over their ears. Most stripped to the waist, while some tested the wet sanded deck to decide whether bare feet would give the better
grip.

Stirk made a fuss of securing Luke's ear pads. The boy stood wide-eyed on the hatch gratings and from the tone of Stirk's murmuring Kydd guessed that he was doing his best to ease the lad's fears. He wondered what he could think of to say in like circumstances. The
gundeck settl
ed, the guns long since run out ready for the first broadside. Stirk waited patiently at the breech with the lanyard from the gunlock coiled in his hand.

Kydd, now perfectl
y competent at his task after long hours of practice, was icily aware that this was not an exercise. He remembered his previous brush with the enemy, but that had been in a powerful ship-of-the-line; he had seen blood and death but it had ended brutally and quickly. Now, he wondered how he would perform in a much smaller ship, at closer quarters. He shuddered and looked about him. Doggo, his station at the muzzle, was leaning out of the gunport, gazing steadily ahead. Renzi stood with his arms folded, a half-smile playing on his lips. On the centre-line, Luke waited with his cartridge box in his hands, anxiously watching Stirk. Kydd knew that he was more worried about letting down his hero than possible death or mutilation.

The gundeck was strangely quiet, odd shipboard noises sounding over-loud, the cordage tension in working so close-hauled producing a finely tuned high frequency in the wind. Suddenly dry in the mouth, Kydd crossed to the centre of the gundeck, and scooped at the scuttled butt of vinegar and water.

Relatively short-handed, they had crews to fight the guns on one side only, but with a single opponent this was no disadvantage. Rowley paced at the forward end of the gundeck with a London dandy's nonchalance. His action clothing was plainer than usual, but Kydd noticed just a peep of lace at the sleeves, and his buttons gleamed with the glitter of gold. His sword, however, held an air of uncompromising martial serviceability.

'What'n hell?' Doggo shouted.

They crowded to the gunport.

Citoyenne
was shortening sail and slowing. As they watched, she relaxed her hard beat to windward into a more comfortable full and bye, and soon lay quietly under topsails. She was ready to turn on her tormentor.

'No — you will await my order!' Powlett's roar was directed at Parry, who had drawn his sword and was pacing about like a wild animal.
Artemis
surged on, the distance rapidly closing. 'Shorten sail to topsails, Mr Prewse. Lay me within pistol shot to windward of her, if you please,' Powlett ordered.

The big courses were brought to the yards and furled, seamen working frantically as if determined not to miss the excitement to come.
Artemis
slowed to a glide.

The ships drew closer. 'Damn me that he doesn't risk a raking broadside,' muttered Merrydew.

As
Artemis
turned for the final run in to place herself parallel to the
Citoyenne
she would necessarily expose her bow to her opponent. Even one round-shot passing down the length of the vessel could do terrible damage, smashing through the guns one after another, maiming and killing in an unstoppable swathe of destruction.

But there was no cannon fire. In silence
Artemis
glided towards the enemy friga
te, her own broadside held to a
hair trigger. Parry glanced at Powlett, who stood four-square on the quarterdeck, facing the
Citoyenne
as the two ships converged. 'On my signal,' snarled Powlett.

At a walking pace
Citoyenne
slipped forward, enough way on for the rudder to answer. Men crowded on her decks, the knot of officers on her quarterdeck clearly distinguishable. From her open gunports the muzzles of cannon menaced, each one ready to deliver a crushing blow. But still they rested silent.

'Their captain,' Party whispered.

The blue and gold figure opposite stood erect and proud. His arm swept up and he removed his hat with a courtly bow.

'My God!' Parry blurted.

'Shut up!' Powlett snapped. He removed his own hat, sweeping it down in an elegant leg, then stood tall and imperious. 'Long live His Majesty King George,' he roared. 'Huzzah for the King!' Dumbfounded, the group of officers removed their hats at the wild cheering that erupted from all parts of their vessel.

Opposite, the French Captain waited pati
ently
for the sound to die. Now the ships ran parallel at an easy pace some two hundred yards apart. The Captain turned to one of a nearby gun crew and seized his cap, holding it aloft. It was a Phrygian cap of liberty. '
Vive la Republique!’
The emotion in his voice was evident even across the distance. A storm of hoarse cheering broke out. The Captain clutched the cap once to his bosom, then thrust it at a seaman. Followed by cheering acclamation the man swarmed up the main shrouds, and at the masthead nailed the cap in place.

Powlett straightened. 'Enough of this nonsense,' he snorted, and clapped his hat back on his head. It was the signal. After the briefest of pauses
Artemis’s
broadside smashed out in a brutal, thunderous roar, instantly filling the space between the two ships with acrid rolling gunsmoke.

The first broadside was an ear-splitting, mind-blasting slam of sound, choking the gundeck with writhing masses of smoke. Immediately
Citoyenne's
broadside answered. It arrived in a storm of violence, iron round-shot beating into
Artemis's
sides and deck - smashing, splintering, killing.

'Load, yer buggers!' yelled Stirk. The gun crew threw themselves at the task.

There was no time for Kydd to look around, to discover the source of the terrible shrieking nearby. No time to ponder the origin of the heavy clattering overhead, or the strange quiet of the gun next to them. It was impossible to see anything of the enemy through the gunport. They remained unseen under the double volume of gunsmoke.

He wielded his dripping sponge-rammer with a nervous fury, plunging it into the still smoking maw of the twelve-pounder, deep inside with a couple of twists to the left, and out again with twists to the right. Doggo was there in an instant, with the lethal grey cartridge and then a wad into the muzzle. Kydd had the stave reversed and savagely stabbed the rammer down. He caught Stirk's eyes as he looked down the gun from the breech end, his thumb over the vent hole to detect when the cartridge was truly seated, but there was no hint of recognition.

Then the ball, clapped in by Doggo and followed by a final wad. Kydd's movements on the rammer were fierce and positive. If they could get away another broadside before the enemy, it was the same as doubling their firepower.

'Run out!' Stirk shouted hoarsely. The gun bellowed and slammed in.

Kydd leapt into action again, the same motions. The work, the need to intermesh his movements with the others, meant there was no time for fear.

The second broadside from
Citoyenne
came smashing in, a long roll of terrible crashes instead of the massed simultaneity of the first. Kydd froze as they beat in on his senses. To his left, next to him, Kydd saw Gully drop to his knees with a muffled cry. In the smoky darkness it was difficult to see the cause, but the spreading dark stain under him was plain enough. He fell to his side, and scrabbled at the fat of his upper thigh. Kydd stared at the foot-long splinter, which had been driven up by a rampaging ball and transfixed him. Gully wept with pain and crawled away in a trail of blood. Stirk's eyes searched wildly for a replacement.

Kydd glanced across the gun and saw Renzi, his face grave, and thought how easy it would have been for his friend to be a victim instead. He crushed the thought, and shoved the side tackle rope into the hand of the unknown seaman who was taking Gully's place.

The enemy were pacing them; there would not be any doubling of firepower — it would be a fight to the death among equals.

Powlett strolled slowly and grimly on the quarterdeck as debris rained down from above. Only the sails of the enemy were visible, but in her fighting tops above the smoke, moving figures could be seen levelling muskets at
Artemis
's quarterdeck.

Neville clasped his hands firmly behind him and paced slowly on the other side of the deck.

Parry had his sword out and was gripping the mizzen shrouds as he glared across at the enemy. Merrydew had disappeared into the hell forward with his mates, and the young midshipman attending on the Captain was visibly trembling.

A second broadside from
Citoyenne
crashed out into the thinning smoke between them. As the awful onslaught struck, Powlett was enveloped for a moment by the powder smoke. Then a sudden shock was transmitted through the deck planking. A thin scream came from out of nowhere and Neville was struck viol
ently
, sent sprawling by the flailing limbs of a man falling from aloft. Neville picked himself up; the man now lay untidily, dead.

A round-shot had nearly severed the driver gaff between the throat and peak halliards. The long spar began to sag. Then, in a slow rending, it fell apart. Without support the big sail first crumpled then ripped from top to bottom, the heavy boom and rigging crushing and entangling the larboard six-pounder crews.

'Can't hold 'er!' the helmsman shouted, spinning the wheel fast to prevent the ship sagging to leeward and the enemy.

Powlett turned to the midshipman. 'Tell 'em to get in the headsails!' he snapped.
Artemis
slowed, her fine sailing qualities useless. Without a driver sail aft if she showed canvas forward they would pivot around in a helpless spiral.

They could neither manoeuvre nor run away. The smoke drifted over the bright sea, revealing
Citoyenne
pulling triumphantly ahead. The sun caught a quick flash of glass on her quarterdeck as her officers eagerly inspected the damage to
Artemis.

It was obvious that there was no way they could effect a battle repair on the driver quickly — it was a unique fore-and-aft sail that needed special gear to set it out from the mast. And without manoeuvrability they could only take what was coming . . .

After a few hundred yards
Citoyenne
began her turn into the wind. This would take her across the bows of
Artemis,
and would let her rake her adversary as she tacked around. This nightmare of a full broadside smashing headlong into her bows and down the length of the vessel was now upon them.

Forward the experienced fo'c'slemen saw the danger and frantically re-set the headsails — jib, staysails, anything.
Artemis
responded, falling away off the wind; but in so doing she kept her broadside to bear, turning in time with
Citoyenne.
With all the fury of helplessness
Artemis
thundered out her broadside again, strikes on
Citoyenne
visible now from her quarterdeck. The reply was thin and ragged, but this was only because most of the experienced French seamen would be at work putting the ship about.

Citoyenne
completed her tack and was now ready to pass back in the opposite direction, poised to deliver her next broadside with full crews. Her tactics had also given her the weather gauge, an upwind position, which would allow her now to dictate the conditions of the battle. The French frigate began her pass, but there was one advantage that had been left
Artemis — Citoyenne
's battered side faced them once more, but it was their own undamaged opposite side that awaited the clash.

As the two vessels passed, guns crashed out as they bore, no pretence at disciplined broadsides. Like the pot shots of a crazy drunk, the cruel iron shot pounded into
Artemis
as the ships slipped past.