The Midshipman Prince (42 page)

      
Smith turned to him and snapped. “Lucas, how many times do I have to tell you,
I can’t swim!
”

      
“You won’t have to. Here.” Walker went over to a large hatch cover that was secured to the deck. It was a six foot square piece of wood that was used to keep water from flooding below decks in rough weather. “Help me with this.

      
“It won’t be much but it’s big enough for the two of us and it’ll float. We'll toss it over the side and then go in after it.”

      
“And then what? Walker, do you ever think about...” Smith continued to grouse, but he helped Walker to get the hatch cover on top of a rail and drop it down into the sea.

      
The two got up on the rail. “My God, do you see how far it is down?”

      
Walker said nothing. He grabbed Smith so he couldn’t back out and jumped.

* * *

      
Bill Hanover was in a happy place. He was lying on something hard, but it was not uncomfortable. Lying beside him was one of the scullery maids. He wasn’t even sure of her name, but she was soft and warm. He rolled slightly to one side and started sliding his hand up along the inside of one leg. When it could move up no further he began ministrations with his fingers. He had experienced the dampness of a female before, but this girl was monumental in her lubrication, which bode well for future activity, he thought. Slowly the scene started to de-materialize and within moments, he found himself on the planking of the gun deck. The body of a dead seaman was partially draped over him and his hand was almost inside the bloody stump where the man’s right leg had once joined his hip.

      
A gurgled shriek escaped his lips as he violently pushed the dead man off him and shakily tried to get up.

      
“There yer are, Mister ‘anover. We fought yer were dead.” One of the older men was kneeling next to him and several others had gathered around.

      
“Thank God yor awright, sor. Mister DeWitt and Mister Padgett was taken in that last broadside along wiv ‘alf the bloody gun crews. Yor the only officer left on this deck, is ta truth of it sor. Yer’ve got ter get up!! Wotcher want us ter do, sir? Wotcher want us ter
do
?”

      
Hanover’s head was spinning and not all of his senses had returned as he struggled to sit up. He looked down at his blood soaked clothing and all he knew for sure was that he wanted to be away from this horror. But his parched lips and raw, gun-smoke ravaged throat would not allow him to do anything but make incoherent sounds.

      
One of the few remaining gun captains bent over the two. “Wossat ‘e’s sayin’, Frankie? I can’t ‘ear ‘im.”

      
The old seaman leaned closer to Hanover’s lips and ran the disjointed sounds through the only mental filter he had—30 years experience as a seaman.

      
The old man stood up, relieved that the responsibility of decision had been removed from all of them, for an officer had spoken. “Well, right then, have yer lubbers gone deaf, eh? Come on... load them guns and run ‘em out, for God’s sake. Didn’t yer ‘ear ‘im? He said, ‘RUN EM OUT!!’”
 

      
Hanover staggered to his feet and could see the men in various stages of clearing away wreckage and re-loading their guns. As they worked, they would periodically glance over to make sure he was still there. Their world had been rocked, but it had not been destroyed—not as long as
he
was there, not as long as
he
still functioned. The full meaning of combat leadership suddenly exploded in Hanover’s brain, and right behind it he found a strange calm confidence that he was equal to its demands. Years of training now kicked in as he assessed what needed to be done.

      
“That’s it! Let’s go, you men! You there, help them get that wreckage cleared off that gun. That’s it. You and you, go help them serve gun number 3, they’re shorthanded. You over to gun 6. You and you over to 8. I WANT A BROADSIDE OUT OF THIS DECK IN THREE MINUTES. DO YA HEAR? THREE MINUTES!!”

      
Captain Saumarez knew his ship had been stung, but he didn’t know how badly. One of the powder monkeys had emerged from the lower deck shrieking that everyone was dead, so Saumarez sent one of his junior lieutenants to investigate. He did know this much. The French were starting to untangle and unless he could get some shot into them quickly, they would soon have enough separation to possibly get away. Just then, he felt the deck tremble under his feet and heard the blast of a larboard broadside. It wasn’t a full volley but it was enough to set the French back on their heels again. “I don’t know who’s in charge down there,” he thought, “but when this is over I am personally offering him a toast.”

* * *

      
It was hot, dirty, and deadly work. Before the battle even started, the men had stripped off their shirts and tied their bandanas around their heads. This not only kept the sweat out of their eyes but also, by wearing it low across their ears, muffled the worst of the thunder emanating from the guns.

      
Hanover could not do those things, of course. He was an officer. His face was blackened by gun smoke and his clothes were torn, bloody, and disheveled, but he had to maintain his dignity. He wasn’t a real officer yet, of course; he was only a midshipman; but that’s almost an officer, and today he had certainly earned the right to consider himself such.

      
The one thing he wasn’t was “Prince William.” Somewhere in the crash of the guns, the smoke, the screams, the confusion and the carnage, he had learned to fight. He had learned to get men to put aside their fears and do things that no sane person would ever do. Sometimes it was with a curse, sometimes with a pat on the back; but it worked. He was leading men in battle and, in so doing; he had himself become a man.
 

* * *

      
To the shark, each day was like every other day and each night was like every other night. After all, his agenda was not a complicated one. He was swimming, constantly swimming, constantly looking for something to eat.

      
There. Just there,
his brain dimly thought.
Did you smell that? That little bit of copper in the water?
He started circling.

      
Again, just there. There was some more.
He headed off in that direction. As he swam, the odor of blood became stronger and he sped up.

      
The faster he swam the more intense became the odor until it reached proportions that obliterated what little rational thought he had in his tiny brain. He was being driven literally mad by the intensity of the odor. “Swim! Cut! Slash! Tear! Bite! Swim! Bite! Tear! Swim! Get there before the others! Faster!”

      
By the time he reached the source of the blood, he found a scene that was hard for him to comprehend. Food was
everywhere
! Strange creatures with four tentacles lay floating in the water, some inert, some still moving and almost all
bleeding
!

      
The final switch in his brain flipped closed and he became what 100 million years of evolution had trained him to be—a mindless, soulless, pitiless killer.

      
He picked out one of the creatures and decided to go for a tentacle. His powerful jaws bit through a soft part, met some resistance, and snapped through it. He was dimly aware of a shrieking sound penetrating the water; but he had the middle third of a tentacle in his mouth and it was of no concern to him.

      
And, above the surface, the battle raged on.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

      
THE first shriek came from the starboard side and, at first, Susan had no idea what it was. She looked over the side and saw a man screaming and waving his arms. She then saw a bloody froth bubble up next to him, accompanied by a sharply angled fin. She knew now that to go into the water for any reason meant death. The sharks were here.

      
The reality of her situation finally struck home and she found herself falling back on the innate strength that seemed to always be there when times got tough. It was not something she had learned. It was not even something she desired. It simply had always been there, and it told her now what she had to do. She could not be aboard ship to tend to the wounded, but she could do something that the ship couldn’t. She could do something about the men who were in the water.

      
Next to her, neatly coiled, was the rope and buoy device that she had planned to use with Walker and Smith. Slinging the buoy around by the attached rope she flung it out to the closest man she could see. He was brown haired and clinging to a broken spar, that’s all she knew. She didn’t know which ship he was from or, for that matter, which country. It didn’t matter.

      
At first, the man was too startled to act. He knew he was a dead man. It was only a matter of time before the fleet sailed on without him; and, after that, only a matter of time before he could no longer hold on to the spar. It was with a sense of unreality that, out of nowhere, a buoy and a line appeared and dropped only a few yards away. He followed the line back with his eyes and saw a woman in a boat, being towed by a warship, frantically waving for him to grab on.
 

      
Imagine that. A tart in a boat’s callin’ me over ter her. So, that’s the way of it, is it? That’s wot ya spot just afore ya die? Strange, though. She don’t ‘ave a look like me Chris, and I would ‘ave thought it’s yor own luvd ones yer’d spot before ya go out.

      
Susan called again and waved. There was something in her voice that decided it for him.
Alright then. If this were the way ter the next world, I spect I can go brave as any man.
With that thought, he slipped off the spar and thrashed his way over to the buoy. Susan pulled with all her might and slowly dragged him over to the gunnel. Pulling himself on board, he flopped onto the bottom of the boat and stared up at his rescuer.

      
“Who are you?” the vision asked.

      
“I am,” he started. “Well, I was Cecil Durbin, able seaman ‘board the
Marlborough
.”

      
The apparition said nothing as she looked for the next person to whom to throw a line.

      
“Beggin’ yor Grace’s pardon, but...” He was at a loss for the right words. “I mean, I know ah’m dead; but woss gonna ‘appen ter me now?”

      
Susan spun around, not quite believing what she heard. “To begin with you are
not
dead; and, second, you’re going to get your carcass up, go to the bow and start throwing the damn line to people like I am doing.”

* * *

      
Rodney felt the crushing apprehension of the past few weeks, lifting from him like a morning fog. It was going well, better than he could possibly have hoped.

      
The
Formidable
had broken the French line, his middle squadron had followed him and they were demolishing French ships in all directions. Adding to this was a freak occurrence further back in the line.

      
The wind had made a sudden shift, which opened up a second gap just after the French ships
Caesar
and
Hector
. Captain Affleck of the
Bedford
saw the gap; saw what Rodney had done a few minutes earlier and plunged his ship through. Behind the
Bedford
came the entire rear squadron under Admiral Hood who frantically signaled to all ships to follow
Bedford’s
lead.

      
The French were now in serious trouble. In effect, their fleet was split into three disjointed segments, each incapable of acting in concert with the other two. Almost as bad, many of the British ships now had the weather gage and could dictate the terms of the battle.

      
On the other side of the battle line, Rodney knew he now had his middle and rear squadrons engaged. It only remained for his van, which had continued sailing on, to double back and join the fray. Rodney knew he could recall them, but recall them to attack where? He could throw his van at any one of the three French segments, but which one?