The Continental Risque (44 page)

In the next instant the vision was gone, and before the report of the pistol had died, Faircloth's musket banged out. Hackett was lifted off the yard like a crumpled paper in the wind. He fell slowly, twisting and shrieking, surrounded by a fine mist of his own blood.

He hit the water flat on his stomach, sending up a great spray; not a neat jet of water like falling round shot, but something bigger and uglier than that. Biddlecomb, still perched on the bulwark, watched the churning, rippling spot on the still ocean to see if Hackett would surface.

And then, ten feet from the spot, there was another splash, another great spray of water as Tottenhill plunged from the high yard. Biddlecomb gasped in surprise, nearly toppling backward to the deck. No one had seen the lieutenant fall.

From behind him Biddlecomb heard Rumstick shout, ‘Hands to the boat falls! Come on, move it, you lazy bastards!' and then the familiar, comforting sound of bare feet moving quickly to obey. Biddlecomb stared at the twin circles of water spreading out across the glassy surface of the sea, overlapping, pushing each other aside, reflecting the flash of gunfire in broken patterns.

‘Mr Rumstick!' he shouted. ‘Belay that.' There was no need for a boat. The two men in the water had not yet returned to the surface, and Biddlecomb knew that they never would.

He looked up suddenly, some alarm in his head ringing out a signal of danger.

The circumstances of the battle, still raging half a cable away, were much altered now. The
Alfred
seemed to have regained some control; she was broadside to the
Glasgow
, just beyond the frigate's larboard quarter, and both ships were still blazing away. The
Cabot
, crippled though she was, was off the
Glasgow
's larboard quarter, giving back as best she could and getting the worst of the exchange. The
Columbus
had managed to find a breath of wind, had drawn up under the
Glasgow
's stern, and was pouring fire into the frigate's transom.

And this Tyringham Howe, captain of the
Glasgow
, apparently had had enough. The frigate's mainsail tumbled from the yard and was once more set, bellying slightly in the light air. The sheets were hauled aft and the frigate began to pull away from the Americans, all of whom were already astern of her. The
Glasgow
was fast, Biddlecomb well knew that, and the clumsy Americans would never be able to overhaul her.

She was heading north, and that meant Newport and the rest of James Wallace's fleet. And the only thing standing between the great victory of capturing a British frigate and the humiliation of her escape was the
Charlemagne
, and her small, bloodied, and mutinous crew.

‘Listen here, you sons of bitches!' Biddlecomb roared out at the men on the deck below where he stood. Battered and bloody faces turned from staring at that spot on the ocean where Tottenhill and Hackett had disappeared and looked up at him. He could see no anger, no rage, no bitterness, just forlorn resignation. They looked like galley slaves who had long ago stopped caring whether they lived or not.

‘The
Glasgow
is making for Newport, and she's leaving the others in her wake. But she's hurt bad, and we have a chance to stop her. If you hope to salvage any dignity for yourselves and this ship, and if you don't want to hang for mutiny, you get to the guns now, man 'em and run 'em out.'

He reached over to a marine who had positioned himself between the captain and the rioting men, grabbed the man's musket, and took it from his hands. With great drama he opened the frizzen and checked the priming in the flashpan. There was none – the gun was not loaded – but Biddlecomb did not allow his expression to betray that fact. He clicked the frizzen back in place and cocked the lock. ‘And I'll shoot the first bastard that even hesitates to obey my orders, is that clear? Now go!'

And they went. And Biddlecomb was not surprised, not entirely. He had reckoned the odds were about even that his orders would be obeyed after the sobering sight of the chief mutineer plummeting, screaming and bleeding, from the topsail yard to be swallowed up by the pitiless ocean.

‘Mr Rumstick, you are first officer once more, I believe,' he called out, his voice grim. A week before he would have been happy to see Rumstick back in that office no matter what the price, even one as high as that which had just been paid, but he no longer felt that way.

‘Aye, sir,' Rumstick replied.

‘How's Weatherspoon?'

‘He'll live.'

‘Good. Send him aft.' Biddlecomb made his way around the smattering of bloody patches and wounded men back to the quarterdeck. The helmsmen still stood at the tiller where they had remained beyond the fray, unmoving, save for slight adjustments to the helm, exactly as they had been an hour before. They seemed as unreal as all of the other events that had taken place.

He could not think on that now. He turned and looked past the bow. The
Glasgow
had already pulled away from the Americans, and being a fast ship and not loaded to the gunnels with pilfered military stores, she was quickly building her lead.

The
Cabot
had taken an awful beating, and she lay motionless on the sea, her tattered and useless sails hanging from her yards. The
Alfred
, the
Columbus
, and the
Andrew Doria
, badly shot up as well, had fallen into the
Glasgow
's wake and were doing their best to chase, an unimpressive best in that light air. But the
Charlemagne
was largely intact, save for her battered company, and as the helmsmen had obeyed Biddlecomb's last order and kept her head northeast by north, she was in a good position to intercept the frigate.

The
Charlmagne
could not stop the
Glasgow
by herself, but she could slow the frigate's escape long enough for the big Americans to come up with her again. And if that meant running the brig right into the frigate's bow, then Biddlecomb was determined that that was what he would do.

And as far as he could see, that was what he would have to do.

‘Fall off,' he said to the men at the tiller. ‘We'll cross her bow.'

The
Glasgow
was one hundred yards away when the
Charlemagne
turned across her path, sailing at a right angle to the oncoming frigate. From that position she could rake the big ship while the
Glasgow
in turn could hit back only with bow chasers, and those only sporadically.

‘Starboard battery, fire as you bear!' Biddlecomb shouted. The men did not have to think now, indeed that was the last thing that he wanted. They just had to move like mechanized things, go through the motions that they had been drilled to perform. Rumstick was prowling the waist, walking from gun to gun to make certain they did just that.

Number one gun went off with a brilliant flash, then number three and number five, down the line, blinding, deafening, as the
Charlemagne
sailed past the bow of the
Glasgow
, eighty yards away. The noise hurt Biddlecomb's ears, and the pain felt good, as if his ship were alive again, a single fighting unity.

The men at those guns that had fired were flinging themselves into the reloading. There was nothing sullen in their movements now; their training was taking over and pushing their anger and their despondency aside. He wondered if the gunfire was as cathartic for them as it was for him.

Number seven gun, number nine gun. Biddlecomb could see the shots striking home, tearing sections of the frigate's headrail away, leaving great gaps in her foresail and the fore topsail. He would come up again, close-hauled, and rake them once more, and then if need be, he would crash the
Charlemagne
into the
Glasgow
's bow and hope he and his men could hold off the boarders until the
Alfred
and
Columbus
came up with them.

Number eleven gun, number thirteen gun, and the starboard battery was finished. The forwardmost guns were already firing their second round, but in a moment they would be past the frigate and out of range. ‘Sail trimmers to stations, ready to brace for a larboard tack! Gunners to the larboard battery!' Biddlecomb shouted, and the men ran – they ran, they did not shuffle – to obey. ‘Helmsman, full and bye!'

The
Charlemagne
turned up into the light wind, turning her stern to the oncoming frigate. For a moment the two vessels were on the same course, as if the
Charlemagne
were leading the
Glasgow
north, but the brig continued to turn and slowly the larboard battery came to bear.

Number two gun went off and a part of the
Glasgow
's headrail plunged into the sea. Number four gun fired. Biddlecomb wondered how long the frigate would take this punishment before she fired back. And just as that thought came to him, the
Glasgow
's starboard bow chaser went off. He heard the shot whistle overhead, passing through the
Charlemagne
's rigging and apparently missing it all.

Biddlecomb tore his eyes from the frigate and looked for the American fleet. They were already sagging farther behind, robbed of their air and held back by their own clumsy qualities and the damage the
Glasgow
had inflicted. There was no question about it now; he would have to run the
Charlemagne
into the frigate. There was no other way to stop her.

‘Steady up,' Biddlecomb barked at the helmsmen, and the brig turned toward the frigate. ‘Good, steady as she goes.' They were on a heading now that would still allow the
Charlemagne
's guns to bear on the enemy. At the last moment he would put the helm hard over and run them aboard. It was foolhardy, bordering on suicidal, but it had to be done. One British frigate could not be allowed to defeat the entire American navy.

He would not tell the Charlemagnes about this plan.

‘Frigate's luffing up, sir,' mumbled Weatherspoon, who, a moment before, had limped up to the quarterdeck to take his customary place beside and behind his captain. He made that report at the same instant that Biddlecomb noticed the movement. The
Charlemagne
and the
Glasgow
had been closing on each other at nearly a right angle, but now the
Glasgow
was turning away from the brig, turning up into the wind. There was only one reason for it. She was bringing her broadside to bear.

Biddlecomb turned to the helmsmen. ‘Luff up!' If he held the course he was on, then the
Charlemagne
would be nearly bow-on to the frigate and the frigate's great guns would sweep down the entire length of her deck. He had seen once before the carnage that that could create, he did not wish to see it again.

The
Charlemagne
turned into the wind, matching the frigate's course, broadside to broadside and fifty yards apart. Overhead the sails slatted and banged as the wind came forward of the beam. The remaining guns on the
Charlemagne
's larboard side fired at once, four in all, while number two gun was running out again.

‘Wait for it—' Biddlecomb muttered, staring at the frigate's side and squeezing the hilt of his sword as he braced for the broadside.

And then it came, twelve big guns at once, the long columns of flame reaching out through the night, the all too familiar sound of iron screaming through the air and the deck jarring underfoot with the impact of round shot.

The
Charlemagne
's number two gun barked out again, then number four. Biddlecomb stared at the
Glasgow
, trying to see if she was turning, if she was running out her guns or setting more sail, but he could see nothing beyond a vague shape behind the twelve yellow dots that swam in his vision.

He blinked hard and looked down into the waist. As far as he could see, his men were working the guns like things possessed, loading and running out. But those puny six-pounders would not stop the frigate. He had to run the
Charlemagne
aboard her. It was the only way.

‘Sail trimmers, stand ready!' he shouted, more to fill the seconds than anything. A minute more and it would be time to turn, to drive his ship into the enemy's.

The
Glasgow
began to fall off onto her old course, her jibs backed and her guns firing, one gun, then another and another, each gun captain apparently taking his time, taking his aim.

‘Foredeck, back the jibs there!' Biddlecomb shouted, and then to the helmsmen, ‘Fall off!'

Shot after shot slammed into the
Charlemagne
's side, and the sound of iron flying overhead was conspicuously absent. They're shooting low, Biddlecomb thought. He paced back and forth, trying not to look at the frigate, trying to see through the spots in his eyes if any great damage was being inflicted on his command. He could see a section of bulwark gone, and perhaps a wound in the mast, though he was less certain of that.

Ten, eleven, Biddlecomb counted off the frigate's guns. The
Charlemagne
was falling off as well. Twelve. Fifty yards and he could slam into the frigate.

Then the
Charlemagne
turned, swinging back up into the wind. ‘Fall off, damn your eyes!' Biddlecomb shouted to the helmsmen, his eyes fixed on the frigate. But the
Charlemagne
was luffing again, as if the helmsmen aft had done the opposite of what he had ordered. ‘I said fall off, put your helm to larboard, damn you, come right!' He turned to the men behind him, but the stolid helmsmen who had maintained their office during the riot were no more.

One was lying on the deck, thrashing and moaning and clutching at bloody clothes. The other was still on his feet, still holding the tiller, which was no longer attached to anything, and staring at it with eyes wide. The tiller had been shot in two, and the shattered end lay on the deck, having little effect on the
Charlemagne
's course, despite the efforts of the stunned helmsman, who was thrusting it resolutely to larboard.