For the Honor of the Flag: A John Phillips Novel (War at Sea Book 2) (16 page)

The trailing corvette, seeing her sister about to engage a nearly unarmed frigate, backed her tops’ls, and hung back to give the leader room to maneuver. The leading corvette fired a gun, as if to give her opponent fair warning. With the two ships about to come together, Phillips gave the order to open the remaining ports. As the corvette closed, she saw her opponent transformed from an almost unarmed transport into a well drilled thirty-two gunned fifth rate frigate. Her twelve pounder guns protruding from her ports ready to wreak havoc upon the corvette.

As the ships came together, the guns began their work. The corvette’s guns fired simultaneously with the frigate’s, although the broadside from Blanche far outweighed that from the French ship. Almost immediately, the superior firepower from the British frigate began to tell as guns and men aboard the corvette were negated. The ships closing rapidly, Phillips ordered the guns to fire off their present loads then recharge with grape or case shot.

The guns fired their deadly charges in an almost instantaneous, deafening crash, just before the ships came together. Crews on both ship tried to board the other, but the frigate deck was higher than that of the corvette. Men from the Blanche merely had to jump down to their enemy’s deck. The men of the French corvette Indomptable had to climb to the frigate’s deck in the face of cutlasses and pikes wielded by the Britons. One more broadside from Blanche, almost unanswered by Indomptable, and the British gun crews were freed to join the boarders.

The fighting was over in a moment as the halyard for the colors on the corvette was severed and the tricolor came fluttering down.

At that very moment, Phillips was in deadly combat with a burly French petty officer wielding a heavy cutlass. Phillips was concerned about his old sword, an ancient blade purchased in a pawn shop years ago. Hanlon, his servant, armed with a half pike some distance away, hurled the pike, which beyond all odds, pierced the opponent’s leg and brought him to the deck.

The fighting gradually ended as the crews of both ships became aware of the surrender. The second corvette, standing off from the fighting, went about and sailed for the coast. Phillips dismissed any plans to pursue the ship. It was important to secure the Indomptable before haring off after the other ship. By the time the enemy crew and been secured and the prize corvette was under control, the remaining corvette would be in coastal waters, probably safe from pursuit.

Dismissing thoughts of further pursuit, Phillips boarded their prize. The blasts of grape and case shot had created horrible carnage on the decks of the corvette. After the remaining healthy enemy crewmen were struck below, the wounded had to be collected and cared for. The corvette had a surgeon and a few assistants. When Blanche’s surgeon could leave his own patients to the care of his own assistants, he went to help on the corvette. The hopeless patients needed to be segregated. Those that were capable were given as much rum as they could drink. Those with a chance of recovery were given the best care as possible, whether they were British or French. The dead were unceremoniously given to the sea.

Tomorrow, with more time, those men succumbing to their wounds would have a proper funeral. Now, there was not the time.

The men set to, making the necessary repairs on both ships. There was little important damage on Blanche. Indomptable did have some bad damage to her hull, as well as much of her standing and running rigging to repair, but the bosun reported she could be ready to sail before dark, earlier if necessary.

There was the question of manning the corvette. Hands sufficient to sail the ship were sent aboard, under command of Lieutenant Harrison. Although nearly half of the corvettes crew were casualties, either dead or wounded, there were still nearly a hundred fairly healthy captives that could cause trouble if given a chance. All of the surviving officers and petty officers were brought aboard Blanche, as were any other members of her crew that looked troublesome. Those remaining were secured in the corvette’s foc’s’le, after anything that could possibly be used as a weapon was removed.

Half of the Marines under their lieutenant were sent aboard her while the remainder were left aboard Blanche to control the prisoners there.

As predicted, the ships set sail near dusk, the prize in trail behind Blanch, both on a course that would take them back to Gibraltar. With time to see to his ship and crew, Phillips had Mister Peabody, now acting as first officer, call the hands. Peabody, followed by some petty officers went down the lines of men, speaking to most individually, trying to give each man some indication of his satisfaction. At length, he came to the gaggle of ship’s boys, under the control of Able Seaman Atkins, excused from heavy work because of his rupture. Atkins had children of his own back home and Phillips thought his selection to mentor the lads was apt. The new lad, Pedro, was probably the elder of them, but was also the smallest. Nevertheless, as he became able to communicate better, he gradually assumed authority over the other boys.

Phillips spoke to each boy as he had the seamen. When he came to Pedro, he complemented him on his appearance, not expecting him to understand a word he was saying. The boy surprised him by thanking him in English, although the thanks was followed by ‘Señor’ instead of ‘Sir’.

The boy had been seen doing yeoman work delivering charges to his assigned gun as well as a neighboring weapon whose own powder monkey had been wounded. Harrison said he was considering offering the lad employment as wardroom servant. In the few weeks the lad had been aboard ship, he has learned an impressive vocabulary of ‘Seaman’s English’.

Phillips was about to ask where the dog was, until he heard its muffled barking down below, up forward. Despite its small size, the dog had shown a remarkable affinity for killing rats, although the larger ones had inflicted some painful appearing wounds on the animal. Some of the officers attempted to keep the dog away from the rodents, but he would actively seek them out. The first officer had announced him to be the rat control petty officer. By now both Pedro and the dog Killer had become accepted members of the crew.

The ships were having difficulty finding a slant of wind that would take them to the entrance to the Med. At one time, they found themselves almost on the African coast before they were able to beat to the westward. They found themselves back out in the Med before the wind began to die. Fitful most of the day, it stopped during the night, during which a thick fog blanketed the sea around them and the stars overhead. As the morning came, a very slight breeze came along, just enough to put some wind in their topsails and ghost them along. Sometimes the fog would clear for a bit, blown away by the slight breeze, but it soon closed in again. Sailing blind as they were, much of the time, the Indomptable was often hidden in fog so Phillips ordered the firing of a swivel gun every few minutes, so the ships might keep from running afoul of each other.

The Indomptable was also firing a gun so it was possible to have an idea of her position regardless of the fog. After an hour or so though, another gun was heard in the distance. It seemed to be a larger gun than the one the prize was firing, so Blanche’s gun was ordered to cease fire. Soon, Indomptable did the same, but now there was a steady chorus of guns firing, some near, and some far away. Ships bells also were sounding. It seemed the pair of ships was in the middle of a fleet, with many of the ships making noise so others would not close them.

From the sounds, it appeared the bulk of the fleet might be to their east, so when Indomptable came in view again when a patch of fog opened, she was signaled to sail west. With the very light airs the ships were in, neither was making much way and it was a shock when the fog opened and revealed a two-decker line-of-battle ship off to port a cable’s distance away.

Phillips had seen no British ship to meet her description, but Mister Peabody recalled seeing a very similar ship flying French colors named the Révolution earlier in the war. The French warship seemed to pay them no attention. As the frigate and her consort attempted to ease their way clear of the French fleet, the wind began to rise, blowing the fog away.

By putting that breeze on their quarters, where they could get the most use from it, Blanche and Indomptable had begun to draw away, when Révolution ran up some undecipherable signal flags, then fired a gun when they were ignored. More signaling caused a pair of frigates to leave their stations and come about to pursue the Britons.

It was soon evident there was to be a race. The closest enemy frigate was smaller than Blanche, of about twenty eight guns. A larger frigate of about Blanche’s size mounting thirty two guns was behind the smaller by nearly a mile, but was gaining. Phillips knew well if both of these ships could come to grips with him, he would likely lose both Blanche and Indomptable. With all the canvas he could possibly fly, the pair had no trouble outrunning the smaller enemy but the other appeared to be keeping their pace.

As the day wore on, it became evident that Blanche was the fastest of the four ships, while the big French frigate in the rear was secondary. The smaller French frigate was the slowest and was falling back. The fog having been cleared away by now, and the sails of the French fleet sinking behind the horizon, the big frigate had overtaken the small one while Blanche had to shorten sail to remain with Indomptable.

That French thirty-two was going to be a problem. He could turn and fight her with a good chance of victory, but he must accept the probability of receiving severe damage. Indomptable did not have enough people aboard to man her own guns, and the small frigate coming from behind, if she could catch up with a damaged Blanche, could well take her and Indomptable both.

Phillips toyed with the idea of taking off Indomptable’s prize crew and firing the corvette, but he regretfully saw there would be no time for that before the large frigate closed them.

Sailing alongside Indomptable, he saw her limited crew was doing all they could to continue repairs on her damaged sails and rigging. As she watched, Indomptable was sending up a strange looking mizzen topmast staysail. The prize was faster now than earlier in the chase, but her pursuer was still very slowly overtaking her.

When Phillips saw the enemy frigate was about to come up on Indomitable’s beam, he decided it was now time to go on the offensive.  The trailing ship, still hull up, was a long way to the rear and he might just possibly defeat this immediate enemy and make necessary repairs to either escape or fight the smaller frigate later in the day.

Turning the ships conn over to his acting sailing master so he could devote his time to fighting the ship, he gave Mister Landry his immediate plans. Blanche would come about, hoping to turn across the enemy’s bow for a raking shot. Probably, she would turn also, so they would end up broadside to broadside where they would do as much damage as they could. After that, they would have to decide later.

Signaling Indomptable to proceed independently, Blanch came about, bows on to her pursuer. Both broadsides crashed out as the ships passed each other at long musket shot.

There was a flurry up forward as a ball smashed through a port, maiming three of the gun crew. Other crashes around the ship indicated other solid hits, although the ship seemed still to be responding correctly. Interestingly, he could see no splashes rising around their opponent, indicating their own shot were striking the ship rather than the sea. They were firing faster also, as he saw several guns run out and fired long before the enemy guns emerged from their ports.

Their own main topmast had been clipped and topmen were scrambling to take off sail before the spar failed. After another broadside, the enemy foremast was struck close to the deck, and that ship was also trying to reduce sail. With the wind pushing the ships together, Phillips ordered the guns to change to grape and case shot as they closed and the firing intensified.

Fire from the enemy was still intense, but had noticeably slowed as the enemy gunners tired. Phillips had drilled his own gun crews to function in various positions on the guns, so men could replace each other easily if necessary. Now, Mister Peabody was going around the guns switching men around as they tired and the guns kept up their rapid fire.

On his quarterdeck, with shot and musketry fire coming at him, Phillips had all of his attention on the enemy frigate, when he saw Mister Avery, his midshipman messenger also beside him pointing. Here was the Indomptable sailing down the leeward side of the enemy ship. As he watched, he saw first one, then another gun emerge from her ports. He knew the prize did not have the crew to sail her and man her guns also so he had no idea of what she was up to. Passing by the disengaged side of the enemy ship without receiving a shot, she came by her quarter and put her tops’ls aback. Halted in the water, her guns began firing, on gun at a time.

From his post on Blanche’s higher quarterdeck, Phillips could see a crew going from one gun to another, pointing it and firing the already loaded weapon. Every port fired. Apparently before the action, the prize crew had gone about the ship, removing the damaged guns from the ports and moving guns from the opposite battery over to take their places. They had also loaded the guns before going into their attack.

Now, having fired all their weapons, they would have to slow to firing single shots from one of the guns. The fire from Blanche still intense, apparently the opponent did not realize the corvette’s limitations and felt it necessary to give up the fight. Her flag came down and the guns stopped.

A musket ball had shattered his own glass, so Phillips took another from the binnacle. Focusing it on the approaching smaller frigate, he saw that ship wear and come about. Apparently, she had seen two ships firing on and taking her consort and felt it unwise to risk a similar fate. She sailed back toward the French fleet and Blanche was left on the sea with her two prizes.