For several days they followed the privateer convoy, into the Old Channel of Bahama and along the coast of Cuba. The fickleness of the trade, highly uncommon at that time of year, continued to plague them, making an already difficult feat of pilotage even more dangerous.
Whether the privateers would pass through the Windward Channel or continue on became a question hotly debated. For his part, Hayden did not know what they would do. Clearly, they would want to get their prizes as far away from the Spanish islands as quickly as they could manage, but the Windward Channel saw a great deal of Spanish traffic and might be more dangerous even than the course they were on now.
Hayden went aloft often and watched the ships they followed. A privateer went first, then the frigate Hayden believed bore both the bullion and the passengers, Mrs Hayden among them. In the rear came the second Spanish frigate, so a powerful vessel always separated Hayden from the main prize. This arrangement never seemed to vary, no matter how often he went aloft to quiz the convoy.
Two nights before the Windward Channel was reached, the winds fell so light that the schooner lost steerage and Hayden was forced to anchor lest the current sweep his vessel onto a reef. It was a particularly dark night with ragged cloud passing over—high up where the wind had retreated. Hayden took his night glass and climbed to the topsail yard. It required a moment, but he found the privateers and their prizes—nearer than he expected.
He leaned over and called quietly down to the men below. “Pass the word for Mr Wickham.”
A moment later the midshipman climbed onto the topmast yard, and Hayden immediately passed the young man his night glass.
“There away,” he said, pointing. “Do you see?”
Wickham gazed a moment. “Yes, sir. I can make them out clearly.”
“Which ship is in the rear?”
Wickham continued to hold the brass tube to his eye. “I cannot be certain, Captain. It has ever been the frigate with the missing topmast, sir.”
“But you cannot be certain . . . ?”
“I am sorry to say that I am not, sir.”
Hayden considered only a moment. “Have Mr Ransome call all hands, if you please, silent as can be managed.”
Wickham did not ask a single question but merely touched his hat and began to climb back down to the deck. Hayden took one last look through the glass towards the distant ships, and then followed the midshipman down.
Acreages of moonlight moved slowly over the surface of the flat, calm sea, shifted here and there by passing cloud. Hayden watched them for a moment while the men streamed up from below. There was no pattern to it, he was certain of that.
Ransome, Gould, Hawthorne, and Wickham gathered about him on the quarterdeck. Hayden motioned them near and spoke to them quietly.
“We will launch the Themis’ boats, and man them for cutting-out. Arm the men, Mr Ransome, and have everyone wear their blue jackets. Let no light colour show. We will all darken our faces with burnt cork. With all haste, Mr Ransome. The moonlight wanders here and there over the sea, and we want to manage all of this by darkness.”
Hawthorne remained by his captain as the others hastened off to execute their orders.
“Are you sure of this, sir?” he asked, with some difficulty, Hayden could tell. “There are half a dozen enemy ships not too distant. I should think these are odds Sir William would relish, but Charles Hayden . . .”
“I hope only to take one of them, and in this I believe we shall have aid. I have a special task for you, Mr Hawthorne. You will need half a dozen strong men you can rely upon . . .”
The boats were quickly readied and swung out, the men careful not to let them knock against the topsides or splash into the sea—these vessels might have been made of china, so carefully were they treated.
Ransome chose the steadiest men, leaving most who had come recently from their sick-beds to man the schooner, which Gould would command in the captain’s absence—much to the young gentleman’s chagrin.
Down into the boats the men climbed. The darkly painted sweeps were manned, and the boats set out for the convoy that lay at anchor ahead. The men, with their blackened faces, would almost have appeared comical if their looks and manner had not been so grim.
Ransome had the cutter, with Wickham there to take his place should the lieutenant be wounded. Hayden took command of the barge. He had only two dozen men in the boats, all well armed and seasoned in such endeavours, but even so, very small numbers. Hayden and Wickham had been observing the aft-most frigate in the convoy for several days and were both convinced the prize did not have forty privateers aboard. All the frigate’s evolutions had been executed terribly slowly, and there were never enough men aloft to take in or loose sail efficiently. Prize crews were often small, and this one, he hoped, was no exception.
Clearly, the privateers did not believe the schooner sailing in their wake could be a threat to them. Hayden’s few three-pounders did not compare to a gun-deck of eighteen-pounders and an upper deck with carronades and chase guns. Whatever the purpose of the little schooner that dogged them, it was not to take any of the ships but likely only to follow and report where they had made port.
Oars had been carefully muffled between thole-pins, and the rowers took up a cadence that allowed them to keep near-silence, oars entering the water cleanly and staying low to the surface on the return.
Hayden kept gazing around at the patches of moonlight that swept across the darkened sea, trying to gauge their speed and direction. As they moved, these patches changed shape and size, some growing, others shrinking, and some even disappearing altogether. Areas of light would suddenly appear, as though a lens were uncovered in the heavens, allowing the moonlight through.
“Avast rowing,” Hayden ordered quietly, and a moment later Ransome’s boat followed suit.
For a long while they lay upon their oars, as Hayden watched the progress of a small lawn of moonlight that came rippling over the sea. It changed shape and size as it flowed, as though some monstrous, glowing jellyfish slipped along just beneath the surface. All the while, he glanced up at the cloud, attempting in vain to find where the cloud might send this illumination, but to no avail. The cloud would send it where it would.
Just when Hayden thought it should pass over them, revealing two boats of British sailors, it shrank a little and passed a hundred yards to the west, leaving them yet hidden by darkness. Every man aboard breathed a deep sigh, and Hayden set the oarsmen to work again, bearing them on towards the anchored ships.
How far apart the privateers had anchored was a concern to Hayden, as he knew the other ships would send boats or even train their guns upon the aft-most frigate if they believed it was attacked or in danger of being taken. With no wind, all the ships streamed to a small current that ran more or less towards the west, lining up the ships bow to stern. This meant that the privateer lying ahead could train only her stern chase pieces on the Spanish frigate, unless they could clap a spring onto their anchor cable or row out an anchor.
There had been no sign of wind for some time, but Hayden knew full well it could return without the least warning. In such a case, the undermanned frigate would require all hands to make sail. Hayden was counting on there being lookouts awake, a watch sleeping below, and the watch on deck largely asleep at their stations. The discipline of the British Navy—or even the French Navy, for that matter—would not be found among privateers . . . or so he hoped.
The only real advantage the English sailors had in this matter was surprise. No sane officer would expect the captain of so small a schooner to attempt to board a powerful frigate with five other ships anchored only a few cable lengths distant. Hayden had taken advantage of this kind of thing before. In Corsica the French had not believed it possible to carry guns to the hilltops, and so had made no defence against this—Hayden had proven them wrong. He hoped he was about to catch his enemy unawares again.
Wickham had been ordered to keep his keen eye fixed upon the aft-most frigate and warn Hayden of any untoward movement of men upon the deck. At this distance Hayden could make out the mass of the ship and lamps upon the transom, but nothing more. The posted lookouts and the guards were invisible to him.
If the British boats were spotted, Hayden hoped the lookout would cry out, thus warning the British. A smart lookout and an astute master might keep it all silent, man guns, and blast the boats as they came near. Although he thought the latter unlikely, it was still in Hayden’s mind, and he continued to approach the frigate from astern, where only the chase pieces might be brought to bear.
Hayden’s thoughts were drawn back to Corsica again, where he and his men had cut out the French frigate Minerve by painting their boats black and doing exactly as they did now, slipping up on the ship from astern as silently as they could manage.
The men rowed on and the frigate came more and more into focus. Hayden felt his own stomach and muscles begin to tighten. He checked that he had a pair of pistols in his belt yet and that his cutlass would not hang up as he rose to climb onto the frigate’s deck. His mouth was utterly dry, and he would have given almost anything for a drink of water—anything that his orders would not sound as though they were formed in a mouth stuck together by fear.
Upon the frigate’s deck he saw a man pass through the illumination of a stern-lamp, but he could see nothing more than that. Hayden expected the cry to go up at any moment, but none did, and the rowers continued in their slow, steady cadence.
Ten yards distant, Hayden began to believe they would not be detected until they mounted the deck, when a voice cried out, “Bateaux! Bateaux! Les Anglais sont ici!”
At an order from Hayden, the oarsmen dug in and shot the boats forward so that they were alongside just as men appeared at the rail with muskets. Hayden had pistol in hand and fired immediately, but did not know if he hit anyone at all. Of an instant he was climbing over the rail, pressed upwards by the men behind.
He shot a man at two yards, clubbed another with his pistol before he cast it down, and drew his sword. Privateers were rushing up the companionway and spewing out onto the deck, some shirtless and without a weapon.
The British were on the deck in numbers and flew at the French, screaming like madmen. Hayden saw the red coats of Hawthorne and his marines crouching and jumping down to the gun-deck.
The combat was now general all across the deck, the British fighting in small knots and attempting never to allow one man to become isolated from the others. It was a melee in which neither side appeared to be winning. Hayden stepped over fallen British sailors as often as privateers.
There was, in the darkness, no way to be certain which side was winning and which losing. Men fell, with the thud of bones and flesh on wood, but Hayden had no idea if they were British or French. He thrust his sword at a man, struck his sternum direct, and immediately drew back and put the blade into the man’s stomach, crumpling him to the deck.
There was shouting at the head of the companionway, and voices crying out in Spanish. Hayden could see Hawthorne at the head of this column, and in a moment privateers were casting down their weapons and crying for quarter.
There was a great “Huzzah!” from the British, and Hayden stood a moment, gathering his wits and trying to catch his breath, for he was gasping for air, heart racing. The sound of more distant voices shouting came to him, and he realised it came from across the water—the other privateers were launching boats.
“Where is Mr Ransome?” Hayden called out.
In a moment the lieutenant came staggering out of the mass of men, his hat gone, coat torn across the front.
“Are you hurt, Mr Ransome?”
“Man ran into my chest with his head, sir. Knocked the wind from me.”
“Have Mr Hawthorne take charge of these prisoners, if you please. We must clap a spring onto the anchor cable on the starboard side and run it out the aft-most gunport.”
“I do not know the explanation, but she is anchored by her small bower, sir.”
“Then we shall run it out the larboard side, Mr Ransome. Have Wickham make up gun crews for both batteries and make ready to fire. We shall require the aid of the Spaniards, for we have not enough men ourselves.” Hayden did not have to be any more explicit. Ransome would know what he meant and what he planned.
The lieutenant went running off, calling the names of men.
Hawthorne came forward then, a Spanish officer beside him.
“Captain Hayden, this gentleman claims to be the former captain of this frigate.”
The man made a courtly bow. “Agapito Serrano,” he said in good English. “At your service, Captain Hayden.”
Hayden made a quick leg; there was no time for courtly formalities. “I will need your aid and the aid of your men to sail this ship, Captain Serrano,” he said. “We are about to be attacked by boarders.”
“I shall resume my command,” Serrano said, “and dispose my men to defend the ship. When that is done, Captain Hayden, I shall have the time to express my gratitude properly.”
“I believe you have mistaken the situation, Captain Serrano,” Hayden informed the man. “This ship was taken from French privateers and I consider her a British prize of war. She is no longer yours to command; she is mine.”
Hawthorne took a step away, pulled a pistol from his belt, and began immediately to load it.
The Spaniard was so taken aback that he was unable to form words for a moment. “Captain Hayden, this ship is the property of the Spanish Crown! You have liberated us from the French, for which we are grateful, but I demand this ship be returned to Spanish control . . . this instant.”
Hawthorne pulled back the cock on the now loaded pistol and handed it to Hayden, who held it, finger on the trigger, pointed at the deck. Around him British sailors began picking up discarded pistols and muskets and loading them. The Spanish had them outnumbered, and Hawthorne had clearly found the arms room and given their “allies” weapons, so Hayden hoped this Spanish captain would realise that he would not hesitate to shoot him if he attempted to take back the ship.
“When we reach Barbados, sir,” Hayden said evenly, “you may plead your case to my admiral. Until then, you must give me your entire support or we will all be the prisoners of privateers within the hour.”
“Sir,” the Spaniard said evenly, “this will be considered an act of war against Spain. Are you certain you are willing to create a rift between our nations . . . you, a mere post captain?”
“If there were no Spanish prisoners aboard this ship,” Hayden said, “she would be considered a British prize without question. It would then be up to our two governments to decide what should be done with her. I am only a mere post captain; it is not my place to return this ship to Spain. We have no time to argue the finer points of the laws of the sea. You will either submit to my command or we will lose this ship to the French. I must have your answer this instant.”
The Spaniard looked around, glancing towards the not-so-distant privateer, where boats were now in the water.
Ransome appeared at that moment. “Sir, we have rigged the spring.”
Hayden looked at the Spanish officer, who hesitated yet.
“Until we reach Barbados,” the man stated evenly.
“Thank you, Captain Serrano,” Hayden ceded, making a small bow. “Mr Wickham is forming crews to man the guns. Will you aid him? And we must be prepared to repel boarders.” He glanced up at the rigging. “There is not a breath of wind upon which we might escape.”
“Where is Mr Wickham?” the Spaniard asked.
“Mr Hawthorne will take you to him.”
Captain Serrano made a small bow and immediately attached himself to Hawthorne, calling out orders in Spanish as the two retreated towards the companionway.
“Veer the bower cable, Mr Ransome. Bring us beam-on to the other ships.”
“Aye, sir.” Ransome went off at a run. Hayden had no doubt that he had men standing ready to veer cable. He was becoming a surprisingly competent officer.
The deck guns were manned by Spaniards, and Hayden was surprised to find they were all long guns—there were no carronades.
“Shall we fire grape at the approaching boats, Captain?” one of Serrano’s officers enquired of Hayden.
Hayden assented to this suggestion.
The bower cable was veered and the head of the ship payed off so that the ship would have wind on the larboard quarter—assuming the wind, when it returned, would come from the north or north-west. The small current moved the bow of the ship at an almost languid pace, causing Hayden to worry that they would not bring their guns to bear before the first boats reached them.
He raised his night glass and realised, though boats appeared to be manned and away from the ship, that they were backing oars and hovering in place. Waiting for reinforcements, Hayden realised, knowing that the retaken frigate would now be, with all the prisoners moved aboard her, very-well-manned indeed.
Hayden estimated that the nearest privateer was just out of range of the Spanish guns, but he went to the waist and called down to the gun-deck. He was very happy to find the Spaniards at their guns, silent and purposeful.
“Mr Wickham . . . ?”
“Sir?”
“Elevate a gun to its greatest degree and fire a shot at that ship. I believe she is out of range, but let us be certain.”
“Aye, sir.”
Orders were given to one of the British gun crews, the gun elevated and, at a word from the midshipman, fired.
Hayden had walked away a few paces to be clear of the smoke, raised his glass to his eye, and watched with some anticipation. There was a sudden fountain of water, not just short of the ship but shy of the gathering boats as well.
Wickham’s head appeared at the top of the companionway ladder. “We could remove the aft wheels, sir . . . ?”
“Let us keep the wheels in place. Rate of fire might be our advantage yet. Reload with grape, Mr Wickham. Some of these boats might reach us, but we will make them pay for it.”
Hayden returned to the rail and gazed off towards the privateers through his night glass. A wandering patch of moonlight illuminated them a moment, and though it was difficult to be certain, Hayden thought there were at least eight boats gathered there and perhaps as many as ten. There could be two hundred privateers in those boats. He hoped the Spanish gunners knew their business.
Without any order that carried across the water, the boats all set off at once, their bows aimed directly at the Spanish frigate so recently taken. Hayden was more than a little surprised at this, as he would have divided his force in two, circled round, and approached the ship from both bow and stern, where only chase pieces could be brought to bear.
Hawthorne appeared at his side at that moment.
“Do they row directly for us, Captain?” the marine officer asked quietly, as though the privateers might overhear.
“It appears they do, Mr Hawthorne.”
“Is that not the height of folly? Do they not realise we have brought our ship around?”
“I cannot say. A moving boat is a difficult target to hit, especially by night, as you well know. They may simply believe our gunnery is not up to the task . . . but at a hundred yards grape will cause great slaughter.”
“Perhaps they are admirers of Nelson, Captain, and believe you must always ‘go straight at her.’”
“Which will catch up with even Nelson one day.”
“Luck to you, Captain,” Hawthorne said, touching his hat.
“And you, Mr Hawthorne.”
The marine retreated to take command of his men and whomever else Ransome had assigned him. Men began to climb aloft with muskets at that moment, many of them Spaniards. Hayden raised his glass again and gazed a moment at the flotilla approaching. Privateers often favoured boarding as a tactic—their ships seldom bore enough guns to offer an advantage—but men could be had at small cost. A privateer usually sailed with a surprisingly large crew. And it appeared the privateers intended to use that advantage here.
A gun fired on the deck below, catching Hayden entirely by surprise. He stormed over to the opening to the gun-deck, where he could hear shouting in both English and Spanish.
“Mr Wickham?” Hayden cried over the voices. “What goes on down there? Where is Captain Serrano?”
Wickham appeared directly below Hayden, his face a shadow surrounded by a halo of pale gold hair. “It was a Spanish gun crew, sir. Captain Serrano has disrated the gun captain and replaced him with another. I believe the man fired the gun as a protest against the British taking his ship, sir.”
Hayden turned immediately away. “Pass the word for Mr Hawthorne!” he called. He had no time for this now and felt his anger boil up.
The marine appeared on the run, having no doubt registered the tone of his captain’s voice.
“Take your marines to the gun-deck, Mr Hawthorne. If there are signs of insubordination or mutiny among the Spaniards, you may deal with it as harshly as you see fit.”
“Aye, Captain,” Hawthorne replied quickly. He began calling for his men, and in a moment they were thumping down the companionway.
Hayden returned to the rail, only to find the flotilla of ship’s boats dividing into two. He let out a string of frustrated curses. Ransome appeared just then.
“Do you see the boats, Captain?”
“Yes. These privateers are not so foolish as we hoped. Is the spring rigged so we can let it run?”
“Indeed it is, sir, though it would be quicker and easier to cut it.”
“We might have need of it again. Clear everything the cable might foul and be prepared to let it run on my command.”
“Aye, sir!” Ransome touched his hat and went off at a run.
Hayden went immediately partway down the steps to the gun-deck. “Pass the word for Captain Serrano!” he called out, and the Spanish officer appeared a moment later, very grim-faced and appearing to suppress anger.
Wickham stood a few paces distant, a pistol in hand, and Hawthorne and his marines claimed the centre of the gun-deck with their muskets ready.
Hayden had no time to mollify an angry Spaniard. “We shall have the privateer’s boats approaching from bow and stern. Both batteries must be ready. Once the boats are too near to be fired upon, gunports must be closed tight. All men will then be needed to repel boarders.” Hayden turned to Wickham. “Mr Wickham? Have you heard?”
“Then let us be about our business. Good luck, Captain,” Hayden offered to the sullen Spaniard.
He mounted the ladder and returned to the rail with his night glass. The privateer’s boats had split into two small flotillas, each of which carried somewhere near a hundred men. Hayden dearly wished he’d had more time to prepare his defence, assign the men to stations, and create a plan with his officers. The truth was, though, that every experienced man aboard—both officers and hands—comprehended exactly what must be done. Fire upon the boats with the great guns until they drew too near, then take up arms and prepare to defend the ship. As his former captain, Bourne, often said, “War at sea is not a complicated business.”
The two flotillas were giving the frigate a wide berth, but Hayden needed to keep them as distant as possible for as long as possible. “Mr Gould,” he called out to the midshipman who was commanding the forward deck guns. “Jump down to Mr Wickham. Have him traverse a pair of guns, one fore and one aft, and fire on the boats. Let them not become too bold.”
Gould touched his hat and disappeared to the gun-deck.
When Hayden anchored his schooner he had been pleased to find the current was not strong—now he wished it were running a great deal faster. He was about to employ it in defence of his ship.
A forward gun fired at that moment, and he turned to see if there was any possibility that he might make out where the shot struck water . . . but he could not. A second gun fired aft, and that ball landed somewhere in the dark ocean as well. Hayden fixed his glass on the forward flotilla and was quite certain it had altered course to keep out of range of the great guns.
“Mr Gould! We will use the chase pieces fore and aft to keep these boats honest.”
Hayden wanted both flotillas to approach from directly fore and aft, and to be as distant as possible when they began that approach. He turned his head from side to side—the faintest zephyr caressed his cheeks.
Hayden crossed the deck and again called for Mr Wickham.
“Sir?” The midshipman spoke from the darkened deck.
“Inform Captain Serrano that I intend to fire both batteries at once.”
“I will, Captain.”
Even as Hayden gave this order he wondered if it might be a mistake. He would hide his ship in the smoke so that the enemy could not see what he did, but the smoke would also obscure their view of the enemy, making it difficult to aim their guns. He held his hand up again. Was it enough of a breeze to carry the smoke away in time? Once they began firing guns at the enemy boats the smoke would obscure all anyway . . . but the first clear shot is what would allow the gunners to get the enemies’ range and to gauge their speed.
Perhaps war at sea was more complicated than Captain Bourne had suggested.
Hayden drew a lungful of air. His course was set and there was no changing it now. It was all a matter of timing. He gazed up at the lookout.
“Aloft there! We shall fire both batteries to hide the ship. Climb as high up as you can to get above the smoke. I will rely on you to tell me what the boats do.”
“Aye, Captain,” came the cry from above, and the man, who was among the musketeers on the main-top, went crawling up.
Hayden turned his attention back to the boats, quizzing both flotillas with his night glass. They were only a few moments distant, but he needed them closer yet. He cursed the privateers who had not replaced the frigate’s lost topmast . . . he could have used the mizzen topsail with this little zephyr appearing.
The boats finally drew almost in line with the frigate and Hayden called for Ransome, who appeared at the ladder head.
“Fire both batteries, Mr Ransome, and then let the spring cable run. Be certain the guns are reloaded with grape. We will hold our fire until the boats are within range.”
Ransome repeated Hayden’s orders and disappeared below. There was a mighty blast as all the guns on the gun-deck were fired as one, and a cloud of smoke utterly enveloped the ship and seared Hayden’s nostrils and throat.
The spring was let run at the same instant and the ship began a slow turn, her stern swinging with the current, aided to the smallest degree by the faint breeze. The movement of the ship, however, appeared to be so slow that she would never swing to the current in time.
The privateer’s boats were obscured by the cloud and the night, and Hayden began to wonder if he’d misjudged the distance in the dark and that they would be upon them before the ship swung around and the guns brought to bear. It would then be a battle against boarders, and Hayden did not have his steady British crew around him. He did not know if the Spanish were more determined fighters than the French. He was, however, about to find out.
He could hear, in the distance, the coxswains crying out the beat in French, exhorting their oarsmen to row faster. The ship continued her turn; Hayden believed he had seen seasons turn more quickly. The smoke swirled around the masts and rigging, caught in eddies and backdraughts. It clung to the ship like a skein of silk entangled in thorns. The faint-hearted breeze could not collect it all and carry it off in one single direction. Hayden had the horrifying feeling that he had made a terrible misjudgement: The French would be upon them before the smoke cleared and guns brought to bear.
Hayden felt himself leaning out over the rail, trying to catch a glimpse of the boats he could hear approaching, but the smoke appeared to mass before him.
“On deck!” came the cry of the helmsman, who was himself lost in the smoke. “Boats to starboard, three hundred to three hundred fifty yards, sir! To larboard . . . a little less, Captain.”
Even if the lookout were correct in his distances, the frigate had not yet turned far enough that guns could be brought to bear. The only good thing Hayden could think of was that it would be very unlikely the privateers could see the frigate was being turned.
“Captain Hayden!” Gould’s voice reached him from somewhere forward. “I can just make them out, sir.”
Hayden all but ran down the deck to the forecastle, where he found Gould standing on the rail, gazing out to larboard.
“Can we traverse guns and bring them to bear, Mr Gould?”
“Not yet, sir. Not quite.”
Hayden climbed up onto a gun carriage and stared in the same direction as the midshipman. Smoke yet whirled languidly about him, but then, off in the dark . . . movement.
“I see them!”
Very quickly, Hayden gauged the position of his ship, how quickly she turned, and then the speed of the enemy’s boats.
“Shall we prepare to repel boarders, Captain?” Gould asked softly.
“It will be very close, Mr Gould. Keep the men at the guns a little longer.” Hayden jumped down off the carriage and crossed the deck, climbing onto another carriage there. The vague little breeze did not hold its course for a moment together but came most of the time from the north-west, so the smoke was eddying behind the starboard topsides. Hayden could see nothing here.
“On deck! Two hundred and fifty yards, Captain.”
Hayden cursed almost silently. He realised then that if the smoke cleared, they would only be given a single clear shot, and then new-made smoke would obscure the sea again. As it was, the boats would soon be too near to be fired upon, as the guns could be lowered only a small degree more before they would come up against the sills.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the smoke began to clear, as though someone drew back a curtain, but an inch at a time. Gould ordered a gun traversed to its furthest degree. The gun captain sighted along it and shook his head.
“Not yet, sir,” he reported, then aimed his gun a little lower.
As the curtain of smoke drew back, the flotilla to either side came into clear focus, the men sending the boats on with long, powerful strokes. A small star of flame appeared on one of the boats and the report reached the frigate a moment later, but the boats were not yet within musket range.
Gould turned from his position at the rail and raised an eyebrow towards the gun captain, who dutifully sighted along his gun again.
“Almost there, sir.”
Hayden suspected the privateers were saying the same.
The captain of the starboard chase gun stood tall suddenly. “We have a shot, Captain.”
“I wish to keep the ship free of smoke until all the guns can be fired at once. Do not fire until I give you the order.”
The man made a knuckle but was clearly disappointed. Left to their own devices, the hands would ever waste shot and powder.
The small current pushed the ship, little by little, even as the boats drew nearer, a few feet to each thrust of the oars. Hayden envied the men in the boats, who drove towards the frigate under their own power while he was forced to wait upon the whims of a dilatory current.
“Sir?” the captain of the first gun said. “I believe we can risk a shot . . .”
Hayden walked back to the next gun aft and sighted along it. Quickly, he went and called down to the gun-deck. “Mr Wickham? Can your guns be brought to bear?”
“Very nearly, sir.”
“Inform me the moment they can.”
Hayden could feel the tension on the ship, the men urgently wishing to fire their guns, the captain holding them in check. The silence on both decks was so complete that Hayden thought he could hear the ticking of his watch, even within its pocket. How slowly it measured time!
“Captain Hayden . . .” came the voice of Wickham out of the darkness. “We have a shot, sir.”
Hayden raised his voice only the smallest degree. “On my order . . . fire!”
Both batteries exploded in flame and smoke, the blast assaulting the ears, disturbing the very air. It was not uncommon for gun crews to need more than one shot to find the range—powder was ever varied in its strength—so Hayden wondered if there was any chance they might get their shot near.
The crews set to work immediately, reloading and running out the guns.
He gazed up and called to the lookout, “Aloft, there! Did we hit a single boat?”
“One to larboard, sir. Most of our shot went fifty yards long.”
Hayden looked down onto the gun-deck. “Did you hear, Mr Wickham? Fifty yards long and the boats draw nearer by the moment. Lower your guns and fire again.” He gave the same order to the captains of the upper deck guns, and in a moment the heat of a second volley swept up and over the ship, smoke so dense that Hayden could not see thirty yards.
“On deck!” the lookout sang out. “We struck two boats to starboard, Captain Hayden. One appears to be going down.”
“Do they stop to aid that boat?” Hayden called back.
“They don’t ’ppear to be, sir.”
“What is the range?”
“Hundred yards, sir . . . a little less.”
Guns were being run out at that instant.
“A hundred yards, Mr Wickham . . . one last shot and then close gunports—let us fight them on one deck only.”
Guns were lowered one last time, fired, and Hayden heard the creak and slam of gunports being shut and sealed. Men came streaming up the companionway, armed with cutlasses, tomahawks, and short pikes. Some of the older hands were given pistols, and marines and seamen bore muskets with bayonets fixed. Captain Serrano and Ransome soon had the men organised into larboard and starboard watches and spread along the rail.
“There they are, sir!” one of the hands shouted. He pointed out through the slowly clearing smoke.
And so they were, not fifty yards distant and coming straight at them.
The privateers began firing muskets, and Hayden ordered the musketeers in the rigging to return fire. Lead balls began to hiss by and bury themselves in the bulwarks. Hayden had been blessed with an active and vivid imagination, and at such times it was best to keep it well in check. To imagine being struck by one of these invisible balls was enough to give any man pause, and officers were expected and obliged to stand resolutely on the quarterdeck under the most concentrated fire and show not a sign of trepidation.
A man not ten feet distant was struck in the eye by a ball and fell to the deck like a dropped doll, never to move again. Hayden tried to swallow, but there was no moisture in his mouth.
Pulling back the cock on his pistol, Hayden raised it so that it pointed at the sky. The smoke was wafting away, finally, and the boats, loaded with armed men, could be made out clearly. They shouted and screamed threats as they came, but the Spaniards held their peace, standing in their places with what Hayden hoped was resolution. Their ship had been taken once by privateers, and that was not a comforting thought. His twenty-some steady British sailors would not be enough to fight off such numbers.
Judging the boats near enough that even the worst marksmen could not miss, he ordered muskets fired from the deck, and all around him the crack of musket fire was followed by rapid reloading. He intended to wait until the boats were alongside before employing his pistol so that there was almost no chance of wasting a shot. His second pistol he would hold in reserve; it might save his life or the life of one of his crew.
The first boat came neatly alongside amidships, and, with a cry, the men began scrambling for the upper deck, where Hayden’s mixed crew of Spaniards and British sailors fired upon them and then set to work with pikes and cutlasses, attempting to throw them back.
A boat came alongside the quarterdeck, and Hayden chose the largest man he could see and shot him in the chest. He tossed the pistol down and drew his cutlass with one hand and his second pistol with the other. For a moment it seemed that the French would not gain the deck, but then they broke the Spanish line amidships and came pouring over the side. Instinctively fearing the enemy would get behind them, men turned away from the rail, and the French then broke the line in several places.
Hayden was forced back, and it was parry and thrust and hot work all around. Having been schooled by a marine captain as a midshipman, Hayden never drew back his blade to slash, for whenever a man did, Hayden would put the tip of his blade into his chest. With the blade always pointed before him, he could parry as needed and thrust when opportunity presented itself.
Hayden threw himself to the side to avoid a pike, tripped on a body, and went down hard on his back. Immediately, a man was upon him with a dagger and would have done for him, but Hayden managed to deflect his first blow and then shoot him through the chest. Pushing the man aside, he found his sword, which he had dropped to fend off the attacker, swept up the man’s dagger, and staggered up, bleeding from his right arm somewhere.
“Captain! Captain!” a cry came from aloft. “The privateer . . . she is bearing down on us, sir.”
For a few seconds, Hayden did not comprehend what the man meant, and then he saw it. The ship anchored nearest them had slipped her anchor and was bearing down on them on the current, broadside to the flow with all her gunports open.
Hayden was along the deck and down the companionway in an instant. Here he found a few Spaniards, bearing wounded to their surgeon. “Leave them!” he ordered in Spanish. “We must cut our bower cable—this very instant!”
The men hesitated only a second and then gently set the men on the deck and hastened with Hayden. They were hewing the cable with axes in a moment, and then it let go with a sudden snap.
Hayden gathered them all to him. “When the ship is broadside to the current, cut the spring. Do not take the chance of its fouling. Cut it right at the gunport.”
The men hurried aft.
Hayden went up the ladder to the deck, two steps at a time.
He was allowed only a second to assess the battle, which was yet being contested all along the deck, and then two men were upon him with cutlasses. They had been properly tutored in the weapon’s use and neither drew back to slash, which might have given Hayden an opening. Instead, they trapped him against the break to the gun-deck, one feinting while the other attempted to make the killing thrust. Twice, Hayden avoided being run through with a quick sidestep.
“Again,” one of them said in Breton. “But feint and then kill him.”
Hayden had no time to bless his Breton family: The first man feinted again, and as Hayden parried he threw the dagger, left-handed, at the man’s face, parried the second man’s thrust and ran his blade three inches into his chest, then drew it out in time to parry a thrust from the first. It was now one-on-one and Hayden began to force the man back, parrying and retreating. He ran the edge of his blade up the man’s forearm, cutting arteries and tendons. The man dropped his sword and went down on one knee, clutching his wounded arm.
Hayden hovered the point of his blade at the man’s neck. “Ask for quarter,” he said in Breton, surprising the man overly, and, without hesitation, the man did.
Snatching up the man’s blade, Hayden turned back to the fighting, which, he realised, was over everywhere but on the quarterdeck. Spanish and British sailors corralled the privateers, while all around, the silent lay still upon the deck, and the wounded moaned and cried out. Wickham passed, leading a company of English and Spanish to the quarterdeck. Hayden went to the rail and leaned out. The spring had been cut and the frigate was drifting with the current. At that instant, guns fired from the nearby privateer, shot hissing through the rigging.
Hayden climbed up onto the rail and turned back to the deck. “Where is Captain Serrano?” he shouted in the brief silence after the guns fired.
There was muttering and whispering, and then Serrano appeared, his coat gone and his right arm bound in a bloody dressing.
Hopping down from the rail, Hayden went to him. “You are injured, Captain . . .”
“It is nothing,” Serrano insisted. “Shall we man the larboard guns, Captain Hayden?”
“Immediately, if you please.”
Serrano began calling out orders in Spanish. Men hastened to the guns in an orderly manner, which Hayden approved heartily. Gunports creaked open and the rumble of wooden wheels rolling over the deck planks came to him. Ransome appeared, looking rather done in, but intact, as far as his captain could tell.
“Are you hurt, Mr Ransome?”
“No, sir. I seemed to be in the thick of it, though, and if the French had not surrendered I might have fallen to the deck from exhaustion.”
“It was bravely fought, all around. I want you to take charge of the gun-deck. This is our ship, and I don’t want the Spanish losing sight of that.”
“Aye, sir.” Ransome reached up to touch the hat that he had not, until that moment, realised was gone. He crossed to the ladder, his gait a little wandering, as though he had received a blow to the head and was not quite recovered.
Hayden sent a man below to carry up his night glass, but before it arrived, the privateer fired a second broadside and this one did considerable damage to their rig and sent four or five men plummeting to the deck.
“Give me a whisper of wind,” Hayden muttered to no one in particular.
Hawthorne and a Spanish lieutenant had taken charge of rounding up prisoners, and the wounded Spanish and English were being borne down to the surgeon before the wounded privateers had their turn.
The frigate’s guns all fired at an order from Ransome, which was repeated by Gould on the upper deck. Whether they did any damage to the privateer, Hayden could not tell through the darkness and smoke. With no wind, the cloud of smoke remained stationary, hanging over the water in a thick mass as the current carried the ship slowly away. The cloud obscured the enemy vessel, which, carried on the same current, was travelling at precisely the same speed, the distance between the two ships neither growing nor becoming less.
Hayden’s night glass arrived and he quizzed the darkness with it, but the mass of smoke hanging over the water hid her quite effectively.
“Aloft there . . .” he called out. “Did we do any damage to that privateer?”
A second of silence, and then an English voice: “Sir . . . Much of our shot fell short.”
“By what distance?” Hayden called up.
“A cable length, sir.”
Hayden went to the waist and called down into the darkness of the gun-deck.
“Did you hear, Mr Ransome?”
“A cable length shy, sir. We are elevating guns, Captain.”
“Fire when you are ready, Mr Ransome.” Hayden stared up into the rigging. “Aloft . . . have you a night glass?”
“We do not, Captain.”
“I will have mine carried up.”
Gould sent a man scurrying Hayden’s way, and he swiftly bore the valuable glass up to the lookout. Hayden wished to go aloft himself, so he could assess what the enemy was doing, but did not want to cede the deck to Serrano.
Ransome called out again, and the larboard battery hurled fire and smoke into the night. The smoke hung so thick about the deck that Hayden could hear men coughing from all points. For a moment an unnatural silence overspread the ship and then the lookout called down.
“On deck! Our fire struck home, Captain.”
Hayden called down to the gun-deck. “Well done, Mr Ransome. Let us pour in as many broadsides as we can.”
He stood at the rail while the gunners plied their trade. It was soon obvious that the Spanish gun crews were not nearly so efficient as the British, whose rate of fire was almost double that of the Spanish and never less than three for two.
It was a strange battle, the two ships drifting down-current, firing, through dense clouds of smoke that hung in the air, at an enemy who could barely be glimpsed.
With direction from aloft, Hayden was able to concentrate his fire so that much, if not most, of it found its mark, while the fire from the privateer was far less effective, much of it passing overhead, some landing in the water, short.
Using numerous eighteen-pound balls, Hayden made up two “anchors” and deployed them, one at the stern and one at the bow. When the frigate exhibited a tendency for either her head or her stern to get a little ahead, the “anchor” was deployed long enough to slow that part of the ship and keep the frigate square to her enemy. All the while, Hayden glanced aloft and watched for the smallest signs of wind.
Scrivener appeared with a Spaniard bearing a rolled chart.
“You appear terribly grave, Mr Scrivener,” Hayden observed, beckoning the two men forward.
“I have been consulting with the frigate’s master, sir.” He nodded to the man and introduced him. “My Spanish is less than perfect and his English is not up to my Spanish, but the charts and a pointing finger are the same in all languages. The sailing master believes we might very well be swept up onto shoals within the hour, sir.”
Hayden had ordered all deck lamps extinguished, so the three repaired below, where they unrolled the chart in the dim light of a lamp.
The Spanish sailing master tapped the chart. “We anchored here, Captain Hayden. The current in this channel can vary from one to as many as four knots, though at this time of year I would estimate it to be two knots.” He put his finger on a conspicuous reef. “Therefore, we must not be too distant from the reefs that lie off this island.”
Hayden gazed at the chart only a moment. “We cannot go aground. Given a little wind, the enemy would be upon us of an instant.”
He looked quickly along the gun-deck, where the crews went about their business. The guns had been traversed a little aft at the directions of the lookouts.
“How certain are you of our position?” Hayden asked.
The two men glanced at each other. “Quite certain.”
“How near to the reef do you dare to take us?”
The Spaniard blew air through his lips in a small explosion. “Well, Captain, I should not like to risk going too near. It is dark, the speed of the current not precisely known . . .”
“I understand,” Hayden said. He looked around. “Find Captain Serrano and bring him to me, if you please.”
Hayden went back up onto the deck, where the gun crews were also hard at work. Again he looked for signs of wind, but found none.
A moment later, the sailing master appeared with Captain Serrano, the two deep in conversation. Before Hayden could speak, Serrano began.
“I do not think it wise to risk going near these reefs, Captain Hayden.”
“It is not my intention to go any nearer, Captain Serrano. But here is what I intend to do. I will fire every gun on the ship at once and create an impenetrable cloud of smoke. Immediately thereafter, we will drop anchor and swing head to wind.”
“But they will rake us, Captain, three times, perhaps.”
“Only if they see us. Either they will pass close by to starboard, whereupon we will rake them, or they will tangle in our bowsprit, swing alongside, and we will board. How many men do you think this privateer carries?”
“Not so many as we, I should think,” Serrano replied, “but I am not even certain which ship it might be, nor was I ever aboard her.”
“But do you believe their numbers greater?”
“I very much doubt it.”
“Then we will board if we have the chance. If not, we will weigh and drift down on them. If they strike the shoals, we will anchor and fire on them until they strike or we inflict so much damage to their ship it can never float free.”
Serrano shook his head, his face drawn tight as if in pain. “With all respect, Captain Hayden, it is a very risky plan. So many things could go wrong. We might be raked from bow to stern, they might drop their own anchor and be only a pistol shot distant. They might carry away our bowsprit and jib-boom—”
“But there are spars aboard to replace these,” Hayden interrupted the man.
“Yes, in time, that is true, but we could lose our foremast . . .”
“I do not think there is much chance of that—with so little sea running and no wind at all.”
“I simply think it is too great a risk, Captain Hayden. I say this with all respect; I have been at sea twenty years longer than you and I should never attempt such a thing.”
“And I say this with equal respect, Captain Serrano: I think the risks are smaller than you imagine. It is a dark night, we will be hidden by a dense cloud, if they penetrate our intentions and anchor, then we must have the advantage in weight of broadside; if they tangle in our rig and swing alongside, then we will have the advantage in men. If they pass us by, we will rake them and drift down until they either anchor or are swept onto the reefs. It is not without risks, I realise, but we cannot continue onto the reefs and must anchor sooner or later at any rate.”
This last argument even Serrano could not counter, though he appeared to be desperately searching for a rebuttal. The man might have been at sea twenty years longer, but Hayden wondered how many battles the man had fought, for he seemed to be the type who could envision only the disasters and never the successes.
“Station men to drop anchor, Captain,” he said, no longer able to tolerate the man’s indecision, “and to fire both batteries at once on my order. We will prepare to fight the starboard battery or board, as the situation requires.” He made a small bow—a respectful dismissal, he hoped—and turned back to Scrivener. “Pass the word for my officers, if you please, Mr Scrivener.”
The Spaniards went off and, within a few yards, were whispering to each other. Hayden watched them retreat, thinking as they went that boldness in battle was ever more preferable than caution, for the enemy almost always expected what they would do themselves. Serrano would never expect what Hayden was about to do, and he hoped the privateers were of the same mind.
Hayden lurked about the deck, listening to the orders given to the Spanish sailors. It appeared that Serrano’s lieutenants approved the plan more than their captain, for they passed the orders along with barely concealed enthusiasm, which revealed more about Serrano than the man would have liked, Hayden guessed.
Ransome, Gould, Hawthorne, and Wickham were quickly informed of Hayden’s plan and approved it most heartily. Guns were run out on both sides, and at an order from Hayden, all fired at once. The cloud this created roiled for a second from the violence of the explosion and then settled into a languid mass. For a long moment it clung to the ship, and then the ship appeared to drift away from it. Hayden attempted to calm his racing heart and counted to sixty slowly. He then gave the order to let the anchor go, which was managed with only the smallest splash, the cable running out ever so slowly. Immediately upon being snubbed, the ship began to swing.
The deck guns were then reloaded with grape—an order Hayden almost hated to give.
Shot from the privateer continued to land near, but in only a few moments Hayden noticed that most passed overhead and none struck the hull. As the ship turned, she presented a smaller target and even more shot hissed by to either side. The dense storm of black smoke continued to hang over the water, hardly dissipating, only a few tendrils reaching out towards the Spanish frigate, as though reluctant to let it go.
The boats, which lay alongside, were moved aft and streamed with the current.
“Aloft there!” Hayden called to the lookout. “Can you see our privateer?”
“I cannot make her out, Captain.”
“Inform me the moment you can.”
“Aye, sir.”
“If we cannot see them,” Hawthorne said quietly, “does it mean they cannot perceive us?”
“So we might hope.” Hayden looked up at the clouds sailing over and the moonlight knifing down through the channels between the clouds. The sea was still illuminated here and there by shafts of moonlight, but none of these drew near.
The men at the deck guns on the quarterdeck were silent and unnaturally still, as though they listened for their pursuers’ footsteps. No one knew when the privateer would appear and whether she would come through the cloud dead ahead with raking fire or if she would pass to starboard, as Hayden had predicted.
“Which do you expect, Captain,” Hawthorne whispered, “that we will rake her as she passes or that she will tangle with us and we will board?”
“I do wish I knew, Mr Hawthorne. Certainly, she appeared to be ever so slightly south of us, nearer the coast, but precisely where the current will bear her . . . Anyone’s guess would be as accurate as mine.”
“I rather doubt that, Captain. Your ‘guess’ is the one I should take most seriously.”
The two stood at the rail—“friends,” as much as their respective ranks and positions allowed, and Hayden found comfort in the marine lieutenant’s presence. He wished he felt less like he was proceeding to his own hanging, but thus were the trials of command—the captain was the individual who would be held accountable for decisions such as the one he had just made; the captains of the court-martial would be told of Serrano’s expressed reservations. Hayden hoped his youth and inexperience would not lead to a disaster here, costing many lives from both his and Serrano’s crew—there would almost certainly be a Spanish mutiny at that point.
He could not allow the Spanish to regain control of their ship. Somewhere, beyond the cloud of smoke, he imagined his bride, lying awake, hoping with all her heart that Hayden would not fail her. The marine officer standing beside him had once warned him of this propensity in men—to attempt the rescue of maidens in distress—but they had then been discussing the doctor and the maid of all work whom he had rescued. Hayden, however, seemed as prone to this as any man—as his recent history proved.
“On deck! She is coming through the cloud, Captain.”
A shaft of pale moonlight fell upon the cloud at that instant, illuminating it and, if anything, making it more impenetrable. And then the masts and yards of a ship appeared, high up, and then the ship itself, beam-on and a little to starboard. Her stern was to them and she fired a broadside, none of which struck Hayden’s Spanish frigate.
It was so silent aboard the ship that Hayden could hear the shouting in French as the privateers realised their situation.
He pushed off the rail and called down to the gun-deck. “Mr Ransome, we will rake her as she passes. Fire each gun as she bears.”
Before the lieutenant could answer, Hayden heard the splash of the privateer’s anchor being let go in panic. The captain is certainly no fool, Hayden thought, as he must have had his cable faked upon the gun-deck and ready to veer. The privateer was not seventy-five yards up-current from them and would certainly pass just beyond pistol shot, stern-on if the anchor did not hold immediately.
Hawthorne ordered his men to open fire, and the crack of musket fire sounded from both ships. A ball struck a gun on the quarterdeck, ricocheted, and came so near Hayden’s ear that he swore he felt the wind of its passing. He touched his ear to be certain it was intact.
The bottom of the channel was, as Hayden knew, uncertain. Much of it was sand, but there were numerous coral heads as well. The Frenchman’s anchor might snag one of these and they would be able to snub her up on very little cable. They might also try to snub her to lay her alongside the Spanish frigate, only to find their anchor ploughing ineffectually through soft sand. If the Frenchman’s anchor held as it should, the two ships would be less than pistol shot distant and Hayden would not have the usual advantage provided by his British crew—a higher rate of fire. If this was one of the privateers Jones had told him about, she would likely carry only twelve-pounders, and Hayden’s ship bore the Spanish equivalent of the British eighteen-pounder.
With one eye on the enemy ship, Hayden ordered guns traversed as far forward as possible. He then positioned himself a few yards behind one of the deck guns so that he might sight along it. There was no shot.
The forward chase piece fired at that moment—but it was a small gun and Hayden could not see if it caused any damage at all.
If he had been the French captain, Hayden knew he would not snub his cable until the last possible instant, which would allow the most cable to be veered, increasing the chances of the anchor holding. Hayden thought he would snub it just where he thought it would bring the ship to before it came under the Spanish frigate’s guns. If he had the men, he would attempt to board and carry the frigate by main force.
What the master of the privateer would do, Hayden could not say. The man was formidable and not the least shy, he believed. To have slipped his anchor and ridden the current down to the frigate as it was being attacked by boarders was enterprising in the extreme. Hayden was not certain he would have thought of it himself—nor dared it if he had.
The privateer continued to be carried down-current at the pace of an old man out for a stroll. So close were the ships to one another that Hayden heard the master order the cable snubbed. All eyes were fixed upon the enemy ship as she drifted . . . and then, almost imperceptibly, her bow began to lag behind, and then it was clearly so. Where the ship would fetch up or whether her anchor would hold once the entire mass of the ship came upon it, no one knew.
“Pass the word for my officers, if you please,” Hayden said to a British sailor at one of the guns. “And Captain Serrano, as well.”
In a moment, Ransome, Wickham, Gould, and Hawthorne appeared, followed almost immediately by the Spanish captain.
“Are we to board, her, Captain?” Ransome asked, clearly both excited by the prospect and anxious as well—as any sane man would be.
“It would appear to be the most logical course, Mr Ransome,” Hayden replied. “Mr Wickham, I will leave you in command of the ship.”
Before Hayden could say more, one of the Spanish lieutenants came onto the quarterdeck; Hayden had seen the man hurrying along the gangway.
“Captain,” the man said, but he addressed Hayden, not Serrano, much to the Spanish captain’s surprise, “the privateers are rigging a spring. We could hear their orders from the forecastle.”
Hayden needed only a second to comprehend what that meant.
“Then we must do the same,” he ordered, “in all haste.”
The privateer was going to swing his ship to bring his broadside to bear on the frigate, and from the angle his ship would achieve, he would be firing diagonally across the deck—not a raking fire, but damned close.
The Spanish lieutenant and Ransome went running off, calling out orders as they went. No doubt the French would hear—just as they had overheard the French—but it did not matter. They must swing their ship to bring their own guns to bear, or they would be at the mercy of the privateer’s cannon. If one of the frigate’s masts could be brought down . . . the ship would be lost.
Hayden found himself standing at the rail with Serrano and Hawthorne. “Have you ever seen what can be done with a ship in a tideway or a river when a spring is employed, Mr Hawthorne?”
“I do not believe I have, Captain.”
“When a ship is set at an angle to the flow so the current strikes one side of the vessel, she can be shifted to one side or the other—and quite substantially.”
Hawthorne contemplated this but a moment. “Could they swing their ship down upon us?” he wondered.
“It is a weak current,” Serrano answered, in Hayden’s stead, “but then, the ships are not distant one from the other. I should say it is just possible.”
“This privateer . . .” Hawthorne observed with something like admiration, “he is a cunning dastard, is he not, Captain?”
“Indeed he is, Mr Hawthorne. I do wonder how large his crew might be.” Although he had asked this question of Serrano once already, he glanced at the Spaniard again. The man shrugged.
“I wish I had an answer for you, Captain Hayden,” he offered softly. “When they boarded our ships, they did so in overwhelming numbers.”
At that moment, Hayden wished above all things that he had his own crew about him, for they would have a spring rigged in a trice. As it was, Hayden did not know if he should allow the French to come alongside. If they had superior numbers he might lose his frigate—for which he had paid dearly already. Better to use his greater weight of broadside—the very thing this privateer was attempting to nullify—damn his eyes.
Hayden felt himself leaning out over the rail, attempting to part the darkness. He could barely make out the ship, but the tops of her masts could just be distinguished against the star-scattered sky. Her chase piece had ceased firing, and Hayden wondered if it could no longer be brought to bear because the ship was turning. He suspected that the French would fire bar or chain into the frigate’s rigging. At such close range a great deal of damage could be inflicted—even by twelve-pounders.
A flash and simultaneous report left no doubt about the privateer’s position. The sound of iron tearing through the rigging could not be mistaken. A foremast yard came swinging down but did not strike the deck. A man tumbled out of the rigging and struck the planks just before the mainmast. He lay utterly still and was quite certainly dead.
Everyone aboard held their breath while the privateers reloaded their guns.
Wickham appeared at the head of the companionway. “We have a spring rigged, sir.”
“Veer the bower cable, if you please, Mr Wickham.” Hayden spoke the order as clearly and calmly as he was able.
“Aye, sir.” The midshipman thumped down the ladder, leaping the last three steps, Hayden could tell, and went running forward, shouting Hayden’s order as he went.
The privateer’s guns fired again, tearing through the rigging, doing untold damage. Hayden held his breath, but the masts stood. The head of his ship was paying off quickly to larboard and would move more quickly once the current caught it.
The men stood at the guns, which had been traversed as far forward as was possible. Gun captains positioned themselves to sight along the barrels, but it seemed to take forever for the guns to be brought to bear.
Hayden thought the privateers would fire a third broadside before his own guns could be fired, and he felt himself bracing for it, as did all the men around him, hunching up their shoulders and stiffening. None, however, shied or tried to hide.
Ransome appeared at the ladder head to the gun-deck, his body facing Hayden but his head turned back so that he could hear what was being said on the deck below. His head snapped around suddenly.
“Guns are bearing, Captain,” he called out.
“You may fire the battery, Mr Ransome.”
Ransome’s order and the firing of the frigate’s broadside occurred simultaneous with the firing of the privateer’s guns. Flame erupted from both ships and then a dense pall of smoke hid even the stars. British and Spanish crews went about reloading, and Hayden believed the Spaniards were trying not to be outdone by the English, crack gunners whose rate of fire had never yet been equalled by the enemy.
Hayden’s greatest worry was that the privateers would sever his spring line, but their guns were aimed into the frigate’s rigging, attempting to disable her, and nowhere near low enough to find the spring.
For a quarter of an hour, the two ships fired broadside after broadside at each other, but with each explosion of guns, the French rebuttal was reduced, as her gun crews were decimated and guns dismounted.
“On deck!” the lookout cried. “The privateer is moving, Captain . . . down-current.”
Hayden hastened to the ladder head. “Veer the spring, Mr Ransome! With all haste!”
Out of the smoke, the privateer drifted. Between the darkness and the smoke lying on the water, Hayden was not certain of the ship’s attitude, but it appeared she had slipped her anchor again and was drifting free, attempting to get clear of the frigate’s guns.
As Hayden’s spring was veered and the ship turned slowly head to wind, she shifted to starboard, nearer the enemy vessel. Guns were hurriedly traversed, and after the briefest interruption, began again to fire. At such close range, the eighteen-pounders were devastating.
The privateer was borne along the current until the two ships were almost abreast.
“She is very near, Captain, is she not?” the gun captain beside Hayden asked quietly.
“Distances are ever deceiving by darkness,” Hayden replied. But then he began to wonder if the man was not correct, if the French ship was not swinging nearer. For a moment he stood, trying to measure the water between the ships.
“Prepare to repel boarders!” he cried suddenly. He ran to the ladderhead and called down to the gun-deck. “Fire a last broadside, Mr Ransome, and then close and secure gunports. All men to the upper deck. They are swinging their ship alongside!”
Hayden pulled a pistol from his belt, thumbed back the cock, and then drew his sword. As guns were fired aboard his ship—at less than pistol shot—he went to the rail. A curtain of grey wafted before him, the enemy ship ghostly, glimpsed and then lost. Men came crowding up from behind, bearing arms and swearing oaths. A few jumped up on the guns or onto the rail, waving cutlasses and shouting threats and defiance. Musket and pistol fire began in earnest, and this first group of the foolishly brave paid the price for it, being taken down from their perches and tumbling into the mass of men behind.
The cloud thinned and out of it the rail of a ship appeared. Hayden lowered his pistol and shot a man not ten feet distant. The two ships were moving so slowly that they came almost gently together, even as violence spread over their decks. For a long moment the two crews fought at the rail, neither able to press forward onto the other ship’s deck. One of the Spanish lieutenants then led a charge, up onto a quarterdeck gun and over the rail, leaping down into the mass of Frenchmen and breaking the line. Hayden followed immediately after, jumping from rail to rail and then down onto the deck and into the melee.
Two British topmen and Lord Arthur Wickham came to his side, and the four of them pressed forward, a deadly little squadron of fighters, taking a foot of deck and then another. Hayden felt a point penetrate his left arm above the elbow and realised it had been a thrust aimed at Wickham that the midshipman had parried. There was no time to stop and assess damage; they were beset on all sides.
It was a long battle, and when finally it appeared that his side had carried the day, Hayden had to use his cutlass as a cane to hold himself up. All his reserves were spent, and he heaved and gasped like a man who had been too long beneath the water.
Although he could still hear the sounds of battle forward, the Frenchmen around him were surrounded in little knots and began throwing down their arms and suing for quarter. Wickham went off into the dark, as though on some urgent errand, and returned a moment later with Midshipman Gould in tow.
Immediately, Gould approached his captain and Hayden realised that he and Wickham were removing his jacket and that his forearm and hand dripped with blood. He felt suddenly a little light-headed.
“It was my doing,” Wickham explained to Gould. “I parried a thrust and it went off my blade and caught the captain unaware . . . and I am heartily sorry for it.”
Hayden wanted to tell Wickham that it was not his fault in any way at all, but could not, somehow. The two midshipmen sat him down on a gun carriage while Gould tore away his sleeve and used it for a dressing.
“Have I ever told you, Mr Gould,” Hayden said, carefully forming his words, as though he were a few drinks drunk, “how pleased I am that your brothers studied medicine?”
Gould managed a smile. “Never have you, sir.”
“Well, now I have. How have we fared, Mr Wickham?”
“Ransome and Hawthorne are gathering up the prisoners. I do not know how the other Themises have done, but Captain Serrano shall have a butcher’s bill such as he has never seen, I suspect.”
“And has our good Spanish captain survived?”
“I saw him but a moment ago,” Gould replied, “going below . . . looking for prisoners, I should imagine.”
“Let us hope there are some . . . we need to make up a prize crew . . . and Serrano needs a command, I think.”
Gould finished tying Hayden’s dressing. “No major arteries were severed, sir, so I should hope it would stop bleeding soon.” He did not say a word about the possibility of the wound going septic.
“Thank you, Gould.” Hayden’s moment of light-headedness had passed, and he rose to his feet. He turned back to the rail and called up to the men in the rigging, “Aloft there! Can you yet see the other ships?”
“I can just make them out, Captain. They haven’t moved, sir.”
“And I am more than glad to hear it,” Hayden muttered. “How much damage is there aloft?” he then called.
“A good deal, sir,” came the reply from the heavens. “It shall be a job of work to put it aright.”
Ransome came striding out of the dark, cutlass still in hand. “She swims, Captain,” he declared. “We managed not to hole her below the water line.”
“Are there prisoners, Mr Ransome?”
“Not so many as on the frigate. Appeared to be fifty or sixty, sir. Captain Serrano is seeing to them.”
French prisoners were being herded onto the forecastle and made to sit down on the deck. Hayden glanced up at the stars, wondering how distant dawn might be. Wind remained in absence—not enough to stir a lock of a maiden’s hair—and even in the darkness the heat was oppressive, the air close.
There was a flurry at the ladder head. Out of the gaggle of men rushing onto the deck appeared Serrano, holding a square of linen over his mouth and nose.
“Fever,” he blurted from behind his hand. “They have fever aboard this ship.”