Powder Monkey (2 page)

‘Don't worry, laddie,' said Langan McKenzie, new to the ship and intending to work his way back in stages to Aberdeen, ‘we'll speed up once this lot is gone.' But I suspected the Frenchman was light too, and her crew were obviously prepared for a fight.

As the hold emptied I did sense the
Franklyn
picking up speed. By midday I began to hope that we would outrun our pursuer. But by the mid-afternoon we could clearly see the ship was gaining on us. I began to realise we were not going to get away. Shortly before four o'clock Captain Rushford gathered us together and issued orders in an impressively workman-like manner.

‘We must prepare for the worst, although we may yet outrun our enemy.' Then he spoke directly to his second-in-command – the ship's master Jeremiah Clay. ‘Mr Clay, move the gun to the stern and man it with two men of your own choosing. The rest of you will arm yourselves and prepare to repel boarders.' He looked at George and me. ‘Mansell and Witchall, you will remain below deck, and assist any injured man who may come for your help.'

I was greatly relieved that I was not expected to fight, but tried not to appear too pleased about it. I could see
many of the crew looked quite sick with fear. Most of them were not trained fighters and obviously had no stomach for battle.

So George and I went below and waited. Neither said a word to the other, for we could scarcely believe what was happening. We had hoped to escape without a fight. Then, there was a loud bang off the starboard side of the ship, and an instant later the cabin wall in front of us disappeared in an explosion of splinters...

We were both blown off our feet by the force of the blast. When I recovered my senses I realised I was uninjured. The cannonball that had burst through the forecastle and then out the other side of the ship missed me by inches. George had not been so lucky. A jagged splinter of wood, the length and width of a man's hand, had embedded itself in his left arm. He immediately began to make a fearful wailing noise, yelping in agony, and went white with fear. His eyes, too, filled with tears. I had seen accidents with farm implements out in the fields around our village, so I knew a little of what to do. We were close to my bunk, and I ran to fetch a scarf of mine to tie tightly above the wound.

‘Keep your injured arm held high above your head,' I told George, ‘and come and sit down in this corner.' I was pleased to see that he was hardly bleeding. Then I ran to look for Captain Rushford, to ask for the key to the cupboard which held the ship's medicine chest. Out
on deck I could see the privateer was almost upon us.

I found Rushford easily enough, and hurried up to the starboard side of the quarterdeck where he was standing. As I approached I realised he was straining to hear something being shouted over to us with a loud hailer from the privateer. I knew no French, so I could not understand what was being said. Then Rushford turned to speak to Jeremiah Clay and the
Franklyn
's bosun, a Swede by the name of Filip Anders.

‘He says, “Heave to, and let us board you. Surrender now and I promise you will be properly looked after.”'

Anders and Clay were clearly not impressed by this information. All three of them began to argue heatedly. I began to feel very afraid and edged nearer to overhear. Rushford was speaking with commanding determination.

‘We must surrender. There's no sense in sacrificing the lives of the crew in a battle we have no chance of winning. We're outnumbered and outgunned, and the Frenchman is faster than us.'

But Clay and Anders stood together, determined to fight. Pointing insolently at the Captain's chest Clay shouted, ‘We can still have them if we put some guts into it. I'll be damned if I'm going to rot in some French prison for the next six years. I'd rather die now and be done with it.'

The conversation continued for a few moments, but
the wind snatched away the words. Mr Clay was known to the crew as a man of determined action and a regrettably short fuse. I had always tried to keep out of his way, as he showed little patience with novice sailors.

Now I watched in some trepidation as he returned to the gun which had been set up ready in the stern. By the way he walked I wondered if he had been drinking. Clay nodded to the seamen he had chosen to man the gun, and without a word they levered it round a few degrees with a handspike and then fired it.

The effect on the privateer – which we were now near enough to see was called the
Isabelle
– was spectacular. Our gun was loaded with chain shot – two heavy metal weights linked by a chain – which tumbled over almost too fast for the eye to see, breaking the mainsail yardarm from the foremast and tearing the canvas with an almighty rip.

I turned at once to Captain Rushford. He looked stunned. It had all happened in an instant, and now it was too late to do anything about it. The expression on his face quickly changed from surprise to open fury.

‘Enjoy your triumph, Mr Clay,' he said. ‘Now I doubt any of us shall live to see the evening.'

Yet when I turned my gaze to the
Isabelle
I could see Clay's shot had caused mayhem. The rigging around the foremast was torn and tangled, and men on deck were
running around hastily trying to correct the sails. Clay and his crew were working feverishly at their gun, reloading it with another chain shot as quickly as they could.

Clay glanced over to the Captain with a look of impertinent glee. Rushford, his brow creased, his mouth open in disbelief, was now torn in his reactions. Perhaps Clay had been right to fire after all?

Almost at once the
Isabelle
began to veer away and drop behind. At this moment I allowed myself to believe that perhaps the
Franklyn
would escape after all. All hands waited for the privateer's response, expecting at least another cannonball to smash into our sides. But instead, the French ship raised a large red flag. A seaman next to me on the deck had an expression of sheer horror on his face. I asked what it meant.

‘No quarter,' he said in disbelief. ‘They're going to fight us to the death.'

Captain Rushford was standing alone, staring dumbfounded over the quarterdeck. I took my chance and went over to ask him for the key to the medicine chest.

‘Yes, of course,' he muttered. ‘Should have given that to you earlier.' He was too preoccupied to ask why I needed it.

I ran to the chest, which was in his cabin, and returned with it to George. I had been gone from him barely five
minutes, but it seemed much longer. George was still white as a sheet, and had been sick right next to where he was slumped. He was still obediently holding his injured arm above his head, resting it on the side of the hull. He was more composed now, and looked quite bashful. Before, he had always acted the brave, big brother to me, but now I could see that he was ashamed of the way he had behaved.

He looked me in the eye, and said tersely, ‘You won't tell anyone about the whimpering, will you?'

Anybody hit by a large wooden splinter would have made such a noise. I laughed, ‘Of course not! Now let me get this splinter out.' I cut away the clothes around the wound, which were now quite bloody, but not soaked. I could see that George had been lucky with his injury – and it had not severed any major blood vessel. ‘I'm going to pull it out, so hold tight...'

I held the end of the splinter carefully, and pulled slowly and firmly, taking care that none of it break off inside George's arm. He shut his eyes, making muffled shrieks between tightly clenched jaws. The splinter came out and I washed his arm with water. In the chest was a jar of ‘Balm of Gideon' – a creamy ointment which I understood to be a healing lotion. It smelt so strongly it made my eyes water, and caught in the back of my throat. It stung the small cuts and abrasions on my fingers, just putting it on, so I could imagine how much
it burned an open flesh wound. George's muffled shrieks grew more intense. Then I bandaged up the wound, helped George to his bunk, and went back on deck.

The sky had grown darker. The wind picked up, and a chill drizzle began to fall. I could see at once that the
Isabelle
had recovered from our initial lucky shot. She was still following us determinedly, although gaining on us at a slightly slower pace.

I tried to put a brave face on it, and turned to Filip Anders. ‘At least she's not fired at us again,' I said.

He shook his head. ‘That's not good news at all. Her captain's so confident in catching us, he's probably ordered his men to fire no more gun shots. These pirates are determined to take us as a prize. They don't want to damage their booty.'

Before Anders could say any more, Rushford shouted for us all to gather around him. ‘The Frenchman is getting closer,' he said. ‘Soon she'll be peppering our decks with musket and pistol shot. It's time to take up our own small arms and prepare to repel boarders. And remember, those of you with cutlasses, never raise them above your head to cut down a man. Any skilled and nimble opponent knows that this is the best time to strike. Keep your defence up at all times.

‘Mr Clay. You and your gun crew are to load with
grapeshot, then move the gun to the starboard side of the quarterdeck. When the
Isabelle
comes alongside you are to fire across the length of the ship, just as her crew prepare to board us. The rest of you are to take up positions along the rail, and conceal yourself as well as you are able. Finally, I need two of you to go to the top of each mast, to fire down on the enemy.' He looked around the crew and his eyes alighted on me. ‘You go to the foremast, Sam,' said Rushford. ‘Keep yourself well hidden, lad, or they'll pick you off like a sparrow on a garden wall. And don't fire unless you're certain of hitting someone.'

The Captain had never called me by my first name before, and at first I was comforted by this unexpected show of affection. Then I realised he had spoken to me like that because he felt in his bones that we were minutes away from death.

We went at once to the ship's armoury. Two loaded pistols were placed in my hands, weapons which I had fired perhaps twice before in my life, and certainly never in anger. I was also presented with a cutlass, a weapon which I had never even held before. Then, with our sails between me and the Frenchman, I hurried to the top of the mast, doing my best to keep from view. Peeping out from between the sails I could see that the
Isabelle
was nearly upon us. On her deck I counted thirty men at least, crouching under cover from our occasional musket
shots, and with their grappling hooks at the ready. We were outnumbered at least two to one.

On our deck I could see Clay and his gun crew hiding by their gun, ready to unleash a lethal shot. This at least might even the odds a little. I was surprised that I did not feel more frightened – after all, our enemy had made it plain she would take no prisoners. But when fear rose in my chest I glanced over to the shore at St Alban's Head and told myself that we were only five miles away from land. If the ship were overrun I could leap down from the mast and into the sea, and swim to safety. When other, more doubtful, thoughts entered my head, I shooed them away. I had to believe I was going to survive this battle...

The
Isabelle
drew closer, and lead shot began to thud into the side of our ship with some regularity. As she placed herself alongside she fired a single shot at our own gun, which was poking out at an angle from the stern. The ball hit home with an ugly splintering. In an instant it knocked the heavy gun over, then bounced up to take Mr Clay's head clean off his shoulders. As his lifeless body fell on its knees, I shut my eyes tight with horror, and swallowed hard to rid my mouth of the bile that had risen to the back of my throat.

The direct hit brought a cheer from the French ship, and then a further volley of musket and pistol shots. When I looked again I could see the two other men in
our gun crew shrieking and writhing in agony, one crushed by the weight of the gun, the other peppered with splinters.

Just at that moment the sun came out. Almost immediately I heard a shot tear through the rigging of the mainmast behind me. I looked round and saw sunlight falling directly on the sails, silhouetting a shipmate named William Elliot, who was hidden behind the main topsail. Another shot rang out from the
Isabelle
. William screamed and fell. He hit the deck with a dull crump, dead twice over. Then a bullet punched a small hole in the sail next to my head, and I realised with skin-prickling horror that I must be just as conspicuous. Should I jump into the sea while I still had a chance? Or should I wait for the bullet that would surely knock me off my perch and have me fall to my death?

As stifling panic began to grip, I became aware of a voice shouting up to me. It was Captain Rushford.

‘Sam! Sam! Come down quickly before you are shot!'

I didn't need telling twice and leaped at once for the rigging that would take me down to the deck. As I climbed down, shots whistled through the canvas but were all wide of their mark. When I reached the deck I realised I would have to stand and fight here. The
Isabelle
was now so close, any of us who raised a head above the rail risked a bullet in the brain. I crouched
down on the deck behind the ship's cutter, next to the Captain, waiting to rush out at the oncoming boarders. I fumbled clumsily for my cutlass, but in my haste I brushed the sharp blade across the back of my hand, drawing blood.

The shadow of the French ship moved over us like a huge bird of prey. Shots were landing almost vertically on the planks close to our feet, as men high in the
Isabelle
's masts fired straight down on to the deck. ‘To the last, lad,' Rushford said to me, gripping my shoulder. Perhaps I should have been terrified, but now I was so fired up I felt like a coiled spring ready to tangle with anyone who came at me. There we waited, for the grinding jolt of ship crashing against ship, and the clang of grappling hooks curling over to embed themselves on our deck.