The Continental Risque (43 page)

‘Come on then!' Ferguson shouted from across the deck, and he flung himself at the writhing men, half a dozen Yankees at his back.

The riot was fully joined. It swept like a gust of wind along the deck as every man threw himself into the fight, pounding and flailing at his shipmates, American against American.

Biddlecomb was dumbfounded. He stared down at the waist and was, for the first time in his memory, incapable of speech. This can't be happening, this can't be happening, was all the thought that he could muster. They had the
Glasgow
in the palm of their hand, and his men were fighting each other, beating each other senseless.

He turned to his officers, looking for some help, for some salvation from that quarter. Faircloth was screaming orders at his marines, directing them into the fight.

Rumstick threw off the main topsail clewline and pulled the empty belaying pin from the rail. He stepped up to the break of the quarterdeck and grabbed Tottenhill by the arm, twisting him around until they were face-to-face. He held the belaying pin under the lieutenant's chin.

‘This here's your fault,' Rumstick growled. ‘Just like before, you done this, because you didn't slap Hackett down when you should have, just let him run on. Too busy telling me to be a gentleman.'

And then he was gone, down the quarterdeck ladder and forward, pulling men apart, bellowing, trying to restore order. Sergeant Dawes was there as well, his face smeared with blood, and Weatherspoon, his mouth moving though his voice could not be heard over the din. Only Tottenhill remained, seemingly fixed to the quarterdeck.

Biddlecomb pulled his sword and turned to the first lieutenant. He was going to order Tottenhill to follow as he flung himself into the fight, a last-ditch attempt to restore order, but the sight of Tottenhill brought him up short.

The lieutenant was staring down at the waist, his mouth open in an expression of pure agony. Tears were streaming from his eyes, unchecked, and dripping off his jaw; they seemed to shine in the flashes of light from the
Glasgow
's guns.

‘Rumstick's right, God damn his eyes. This is my fault, God save me, this is my fault!' he shouted, though the words did not seem to be directed to anyone.

‘Come, Mr Tottenhill, pull yourself together,' Biddlecomb said, as kindly as the circumstances would allow. ‘Let's see if we can—'

‘No, sir, this is mine to fix,' Tottenhill said, looking at Biddlecomb for the first time, the tears still running down his cheeks. ‘God help me, I never thought it would come to this.'

Tottenhill pulled his sword from his scabbard and took a deep breath, his face fixed in a scowl, and then with a shriek – a horrible sound, like that of a soul damned to hell – he flung himself off the quarterdeck and down to the waist below.

‘Son of a bitch!' Biddlecomb shouted, racing down the steps after him. The lieutenant was cutting his way toward the place where Hackett, surrounded by a knot of his allies, was holding off Faircloth's marines. There were casualties now, men lying wounded on the deck, and dark patches of blood. Biddlecomb felt his heel go out from under him, slipping in the wetness, and he fell just as a cutlass swiped the air over his head.

Cutlass. Someone had broken open the arms chest, and now the fisticuffs had become something more deadly. He heard a gun go off, a pistol by the sound of it, and then another, but he was concentrating on the crazed man standing over him, cutlass raised like an ax.

Did he understand that it was his captain he was trying to cut down? Biddlecomb recognized the man: Johnson from the larboard watch, waister, North Carolina man. Biddlecomb had given him a new shift of clothing in Philadelphia, had personally set his broken hand after that first storm. Was he so crazed now as to be beyond reason? What did he hope to do here?

‘Johnson, you stupid bastard, drop that cutlass!' Biddlecomb shouted as Johnson hacked down at him. He twisted aside, felt the jar of the cutlass striking the deck inches from his head.

This was his man, a member of his own crew, trying to kill him. The thought flashed through Biddlecomb's mind, and with a desperate unhappiness, a sense of total failure, he twisted back and like a machine drove his sword through Johnson's chest. He saw the man's eyes bulge, the blood erupt, as he pulled the blade out, and his only thought was, ‘Such a waste of time, setting that man's hand,' as he pulled himself to his feet and plunged into the fight.

Huddled by the capstan, one of Hackett's messmates was spitting a ball down the barrel of a pistol. Biddlecomb slammed down hard on the man's hands with the flat of his sword. The man dropped the pistol, shouted, looked up, and Biddlecomb smashed the hilt of his sword into the startled face.

He could not shake the unreality of it, the nightmare of what was happening. Here was a desperate struggle, hand-to-hand, as horrible as the half dozen or so he had seen before. But this time it was his own men. It was a riot, a mutiny, and even in his desperation he could not help but see the irony in that, as if the ghosts of those against whom he had led a mutiny were visiting this horror on him. His breath was coming fast and shallow, and it was not from exertion.

The marines were loyal to a man, and with bayonets now fixed they were plunging into the fight. Faircloth, hat gone, hair matted with blood that screamed down the side of his face, was leading them on. The fight surged back and forth, pistols and cutlasses now much in evidence, and beneath the shouting, like a bass line, was the constant rumble of the great guns in the distant fight. The flashes of light in the dark only served to make the scene that much more unreal.

Hackett was standing on top of number five gun, well out of harm's way, urging his men on. Hackett. Now every concern was gone from Biddlecomb's mind, save for his desire to kill Hackett. But a mass of men stood between himself and that son of a bitch; it would be next to impossible to fight his way through.

He let his sword dangle from its lanyard and stepped up on number eleven gun and then up onto the bulwark, making his way forward, past the fight. He could think of nothing save running his sword through Hackett's chest.

He made his way past the main shrouds and stepped with careful balance, one foot on the bulwark, one on the pinrail, thankful for the calm seas, while beneath him the fight spilled over the deck. Weatherspoon lay in a heap against the main hatch. Biddlecomb paused, horrified, but to his relief the midshipman was still moving.

He looked forward to where Hackett stood on the gun, fifteen feet away, waving a cutlass. The man had not noticed his approach. He took another step along the rail. When he reached Hackett, he would get the bastard's attention and then run him through. He wanted to see the look in Hackett's eyes when he knew death was imminent, he wanted Hackett to know in that final instant who had killed him.

At Hackett's feet was a knot of men engaged in the wildest fighting on deck, a pile of men thrashing, struggling, cursing, and it took Biddlecomb a moment to realize that they were all fighting one man, the whole gang trying to suppress one man, and that man was Tottenhill.

At least Biddlecomb thought that it was Tottenhill. The lieutenant's once fine clothes were in rags, his coat shredded, his breeches torn half off, one shoe gone. But it was his face that was most horrible, most inhuman. His hair was jutting out in all directions, his eyes were battered, his lips swollen and bleeding, and his expression, what expression could be distinguished through the damage, was more animal than man.

‘Hold up!' Hackett shouted as the attackers once more fell on Tottenhill. ‘Hold up! Lieutenant!' The men grabbed Tottenhill and held him as Hackett spoke.

Biddlecomb stood, transfixed, and watched the scene.

‘Lieutenant, I thought you was with us, I thought you was a North Carolina man first and always! I just wanted you to be captain here, I just wanted to see an honorable gentleman in command, and not that Yankee bastard. This ain't no mutiny, sir, we're fighting for our rights, and once we gets ashore we can see it all made legal, and you appointed captain, but we have to get that Biddlecomb out of the way.'

Tottenhill was silent. He stared up at Hackett, unmoving. And then his entire body seemed to relax and the hatred in his face was gone, as if mind and body together gave in to the man's arguments. Biddlecomb wondered if Tottenhill was about to betray him, the final, complete betrayal. The men holding the lieutenant relaxed their grip as Tottenhill ceased to struggle against them.

And then Tottenhill flung himself at Hackett, launched himself off the deck as if shot from a gun, screaming, ‘I'll kill you!' louder than one would have thought him able. And Hackett in turn cringed and dropped his cutlass, which fell clanging against the barrel of the gun on which he stood.

He shrieked, a high, piercing scream, like a woman being stabbed to death, cutting through the din of the fight, the sound taking up where Tottenhill's voice left off. All motion on the deck stopped. Men paused in the act of beating one another, and heads jerked toward the horrific sounds of the two men.

Tottenhill snatched up the cutlass and like a flash in a priming pan he was up on the gun, slashing, but he was slashing at air. Hackett, just as fast, had turned and flung himself into the fore shrouds, scrambling aloft, shrieking continuously. Tottenhill flung the cutlass away and clambered after him, right at his heels. Fore and aft men straightened, disengaged from their fight and watched the two North Carolinians race aloft.

Hackett reached the futtock shrouds and scrambled over them, up and out, just as Tottenhill came up below him. The lieutenant grabbed Hackett's foot and pulled, jerking the seaman down as he clung to the futtocks in that awkward position, leaning backward under the foretop.

‘No! No!' Hackett shouted, again and again in his high-pitched, hysterical voice as he tried to free his foot from Tottenhill's grasp and Tottenhill in turn, tried to pull him from the rigging.

Then Hackett pulled his other foot from the shrouds and hanging just from his hands kicked Tottenhill hard in the face, again and again, then jammed the heel of his shoe into the hand that held his other foot. Tottenhill released his grasp and sagged against the shrouds, and only his arm, entangled in the rigging, prevented him from plunging to the deck. Hackett's feet found the ratlines once more, and he scrambled up over the edge of the foretop and into the topmast shrouds as Tottenhill, moving like a drunk, followed slowly behind.

The Charlemagnes were silent, motionless, watching as Tottenhill pursued Hackett through the rig, dark shadows moving against the gray background of the foresails, illuminated in flashes by the distant battle in which no one was taking an interest.

Hackett was halfway up the topmast shrouds when Tottenhill made his way over the edge of the foretop. Hackett's movements were quick, jerky, panicked, in contrast to Tottenhill's slow, deliberate, inexorable pursuit. It must have occurred to Hackett, Biddlecomb mused, that he would soon run out of mast. Soon there would be no place for him to go.

Hackett reached the topmast crosstrees and paused, looking down at Tottenhill. ‘Get away from me! Get away from me, you son of a bitch, or I'll kill you!' he shrieked, but any threat he hoped to carry was lost in the unadulterated fear in his voice. And Tottenhill did not respond. He just continued to climb.

The sound of Hackett's voice broke the spell, for Biddlecomb at least. ‘Damn me!' Biddlecomb said out loud. ‘Mr Faircloth! I want your marines to shoot that bastard Hackett! Shoot him down!' And then as an afterthought he added, ‘And shoot any son of a bitch that tries to interfere with you!' But it did not seem as if that would be a problem. No one on deck moved, no one took his eyes from the men aloft, save for the marines who were hastily loading their muskets.

Hackett had stepped from the shrouds onto the fore topsail yard. He was walking along the top of the spar, one hand against the topgallant sail for balance, with the ease of an experienced topman, when the first musket banged out. Biddlecomb could see the hole that the bullet punched in the topgallant sail, ten feet from Hackett's head. Another gun and then another fired, but none of the shots were any closer, and they did no more than hurry Hackett along to yardarm where he stopped and turned inboard. There was no place left to go.

‘Give me that, you cockeyed imbecile!' Faircloth jerked a musket from one of the marine's hands and brought the gun to his shoulder, training it aloft.

‘Hold your fire, Mr Faircloth!' Biddlecomb shouted. Tottenhill had reached the yard and was walking out along its length, closing with Hackett. Faircloth was good with a musket, Biddlecomb knew that, but he did not want to take the chance of Tottenhill's being hit or knocked from the yard by the impact of the bullet. Faircloth pointed the gun to the sky and eased the lock to half-cock.

‘Get away from me! Get the hell away from me!' Hackett screamed. Tottenhill said something in return, but his words could not be heard from the deck. The lieutenant was advancing on Hackett. He pulled his clasp knife from his coat pocket and held it before him, the blade flashing in the light of the guns.

Hackett had edged out to the end of the topsail yard, seventy feet above the water. His left foot was on the studdingsail boom, even beyond the extreme end of the yard, his right hand holding on to the leech of the topgallant sail for balance.

He plunged his left hand into his shirt and pulled out a small pistol, aiming it with a straight arm at the lieutenant. Even over the distant fire the men on deck could hear the distinctive click of a flintlock pulled back into the firing position.

‘Hackett! No! Get back on deck this instant!' Biddlecomb roared. Why had he just stood there, watching this happen? Because, he realized, he had assumed that Tottenhill would kill Hackett. It had not occurred to him that there would be any other outcome.

‘Hackett!' he shouted again, and then the whole topgallant sail was illuminated by the flash of Hackett's pistol, priming and powder. The two men seemed frozen like a painting, like an apparition: Hackett with gun held at arm's length, Tottenhill, doubled over, hands on his chest, falling slowly against the sail, mouth open, eyes wide in horror.