NOLAN CREPT INTO HIS CABIN AFTER THE MID-WATCH, PITCHED OFF HIS uniform, and crawled into his cot; he remained under the blanket, watching the slow turn of the lanterns in their gimbals and sensing the easy motion of the ship. Nolan thought of the Portuguese captain, that sad, wizened little man; shame had wafted from him like the reek of his ship. Nolan thought on the nature of guilt; of crimes committed and sins inherited, and eventually the pain returned, quite as fresh as ever.
Nolan hoped he might be forgiven in the next world, but he had accepted that he would never be set free in this one. Christian virtues he retained (charity and forgiveness, the ones chiefly denied to him), but over the years of his sentence the practice of Christianity slipped away from him. Given away were his scapula, rosary, and missal, and put out of mind were the memorized prayers, paternosters, Ave Marias, and the Act of Contrition. Nolan took up Stoicism as his armor, and it had proven its worth for daily living. As a substitute for faith, he found that it kept him from anger and fatal self-pity. Though he was no longer an optimistic man, he started each day as if it were a gift, and the only thing he knew to be eternal was the sea. Nolan did not blame his keepers and did not hate them, not even the brutal tyrants who starved him aboard Hornet. He no longer felt animosity toward the military tribunal that had judged him or the nation whose retribution had made him a stateless person. Was this not what he had asked for? The world was his prison, the wind and sea the fortress that kept him. The vastness that daily surrounded Nolan, sometimes the very empty vastness, made the passage of time seem utterly abstract.
Stoicism inoculated Nolan against grief, disappointment, frustration, and jealousy during his waking hours. But there was still one place he was vulnerable—a place where sorrow and anger still taunted him. Nolan’s dreams were like an unending train of squalls, haunting and reproachful. Sometimes he had nightmares of lost things, things that could hardly be named, an unending career of suffocating guilt, shameful recriminations, nights of twitchy, sweaty sleep shot through with fearful shadows. In these dreams Nolan’s armor melted off him like wax and the arrows of misfortune pierced him. He could see the people and places he loved, but they did not see him. He was a phantom, a shadow that could not speak or touch or love. But these dreams, too, Nolan learned to endure.
He surfaced to the trill of pipes and the roar of the bo’suns down the ladder-ways: “Up and at ’em! Out or down! Hit the deck, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.” For a long moment Nolan did not know where he was, or on what ship. The noises of a nautical reveille were universal, the same throughout the fleet. Slowly he shook off the dull coils of sleep and remembered. He was aboard Enterprise. On the mess decks above he could hear the clatter of plates and the sound of someone singing in the bread room. Nolan blinked himself awake; it would have taken a more abstemious soul to ignore the aroma of coffee, bacon, and oatmeal streaming back from the galley stack.
Nolan dressed and went quickly on deck. As dawn brightened, a purple sky gave birth at once to blazing sun. All of the officers and most of the crew were about, and many were aloft, crowding the tops to look sharply about the edge of the horizon, east and especially north. But the sea was empty.
Soon after reveille everything was made ready for the command that would bring Enterprise to bear down on an enemy. The gun crews had minutely examined the vent aprons, locks, and touchholes of their pieces. The cartridge boxes that would serve the long guns and carronades were stacked and ready to be filled with powder. Pikes and boarding axes had been ground to razor edges, and Marines had filled bandoleers and grenadoes. But the hours passed without a shout from the masthead. The sea stretched empty in all directions.
Noon came, and as the hands were piped to dinner it was difficult not to feel that an appointment had been missed. The long day passed. Lookouts spent the afternoon scanning with shielded, half-closed eyes; the blazing, sunlit water showed nothing. Beazee sought out the shade of a carronade slide and sat against it, her tongue lolling. Nolan took up his papers and pencils and sketched her halfheartedly, bracing his pad on his knee against the long, even swell. The watch changed, the log was heaved, and when Wainwright piped “Six knots, sir” in his uneven quaver there were smiles on the quarterdeck.
The sun was slanting in the sky when a call came from the mizzen top, “Sail ho, two points on the starboard bow. Topgallants, just on the rise.”
It was echoed almost at once by the foremast lookout, repeated and amplified, “On deck, there, two sail. Belay that. Three of sail. Two close and another astern, lateen rigged.”
“Where away?” said Pelles, bouncing up the ladder in trousers and round coat.
“Starboard bow, sir, two points and three points off. Four leagues, maybe more. They are all just coming hull up.”
Pelles lifted his glass and the other officers did the same. A dozen keen and learned eyes studied the three white specks on the northwest horizon. One was ship rigged, carrying on under plain sail and courses. She was painted black over red, a large ship, perhaps 800 tons burthen. Next to her, close by, was a snow, two-thirds her size with a broad spanker aft. The third vessel, the farthest away, showed herself only on the rolls. As lateen sails made themselves visible, some took her for a felucca, though no one had ever heard of so frail a rig so far from the coast. She was struggling behind her companions, making heavy weather of it, and as she clapped on more sail she revealed a square-rigged mainmast, a genoa forward, and a vast, patched lateen aft—a shabby xebec, her hull streaked brown, with ochre painted gun ports.
The others had reduced sail, allowing the lateen to catch up. The larger ship was handled creditably, almost man o’war fashion, but on close inspection she did not appear to be a frigate. Eight ports pierced her sides, but she seemed broad of beam, and her stern was a bit pompous for naval tastes, flashily painted like a Company ship.
“What do you make of them, gentlemen?”
“They aren’t likely to outrun us,” Erskine grunted.
Enterprise not only had the sun at her back, she had the all important weather gauge. The wind was on her larboard quarter and her chases were to leeward, allowing Enterprise to initiate contact or break and run as she chose. Pelles gave orders to put the helm down and strip Enterprise to her fighting sails.
The three vessels continued to stand north. Enterprise could be seen now, even to a lazy, casual lookout, and Curran watched the trio of vessels, expecting them to signal. If they were men o’war or sailing in convoy, it would have been the first thing to be done upon spotting a strange sail. But no flags ran aloft. No signal guns puffed. That they did not communicate spoke of an informal association—and that itself was suspicious. When Curran lowered his glass he saw Nolan come up the ladder. He was dressed for his turn on deck in his plain blue coat and canvas trousers. He went to the leeward side of the quarterdeck, standing away from the other officers and allowing them to do their duty.
“I gather we have company,” he said when Curran came closer.
“We have. Would you like to look?”
Nolan took Curran’s glass and studied the horizon. “They are a bit shabby.”
“So are we.”
Enterprise still wore the canvas over her gun ports, and Pelles had ordered at dawn that the yards again be set haphazardly. From this distance Enterprise looked as disreputable as art could make her. Nolan’s brow lowered behind the eyepiece. He studied each of the hulls and their sails then handed back the glass. The farthest vessel had revealed herself to be a xebec, somewhat curiously rigged but almost certainly a corsair’s ship.
“Am I wrong to think that none of them is a whalerman?”
“The snow is too small and the ship-rigged vessel is too large,” Curran said. “And I know of no xebecs in the fishery. I believe it is more of a Mediterranean sort of conveyance.”
Nolan had sensed the eagerness in the crew, heard their whispers, and during breakfast he had listened as two of the older forecastle men, both Rhode Islanders, swore that the Old Mogul would find the pirates that dished out the whaleboat, and that payback was right as rain.
Lieutenant Leslie came onto the quarterdeck followed by one of the starbolines. “Beg your pardon, Captain, but there is a man in my division who thinks he knows one of the ships.”
A red-faced Dutchman, Schwimmerhorn, came up the ladder. “I know them, your honor,” the man said, taking off his cap. “The ship rig is a Dutch East India-man name of Ameland. Used to be, anyhow. A Company vessel, latterly was just a-tradin’ in the Med. She was captured by the Arabs last year off Tripoli.”
“Captured by pirates? Are you sure?”
“Damn sure . . . er, sir.”
“That would make her a lawful prize.” Pelles scanned the horizon. None of the vessels yet showed an open gun port, though on the xebec there was an unseemly amount of running about.
“A former Company ship would have carried two dozen 18-pound cannon. Plus carronades,” said Pelles distractedly. Aboard Enterprise every creature with a pair of eyes squinted hard at the black-hulled ship. Her sides were steep and her gunwales solid, but no weapons were visible on the decks.
Erskine considered for a moment and said, “If the Sallees took a Company ship, sir, they might have put her long guns into the fortress at Tripoli.”
Curran stared at the long row of closed gun ports. “She rides low for a ship not bearing arms.”
“She does indeed, Mister Curran.” The ship and her consorts stood on with no change in sail.
“He would have come about if he thought we were one to be plucked,” Pelles grunted. Despite her clever gun covers and the canting of her spars, Enterprise had not been mistaken for a harmless merchant. “Off the gun canvases, Mister Erskine, and fire a gun to leeward,” the captain said.
Number fifteen went off with a deep thump, and a veil of powder smoke roiled across the sea. In response, the ship that had been the Ameland hoisted a red ensign quartered with white stripes.
“Danish colors, sir,” said Erskine.
“Dane, my ass. Now the dance is a masquerade.” Pelles lifted his chin and boomed out onto the spar deck. “Number two, put a round across her bow. On the roll . . . fire!”
From below, one of the long 24s went off, a deep resonating bang. There was the hiss of the outgoing shot and a splash three quarters of the way toward Ameland. The ball slapped into a rolling swell and tore up a furrow before disappearing to the north. Heedless, the three ships went on for a minute, and then the xebec fired a gun to leeward, the bulge of smoke rolling away from Enterprise.
Such a display might have been an acknowledgment—a leeward gun was also a sign of surrender. This was neither; it was a signal, and as the smoke shredded away, the brig and then the xebec put their helms down and wore downwind away from Enterprise, spreading as much canvas as they could.
Pelles had all the confirmation he needed. “Beat to quarters, Mister Erskine.”
The Marine drummer snapped into a long roll, the génerale, but none were alerted and no one had far to move. All hands had been at general quarters for the last half hour, and the ship had been ready since dawn. Enterprise was a mile from the black-hulled ship and a mile and a quarter from the xebec and the snow. Though they were sailing off, it was plain to all hands that the smaller ships had no hope of running away.
Aboard Ameland, the Danish colors were hauled down and topgallants were set neatly. From her bowsprit a flying jib was sheeted, brilliant red on its top half and saffron colored below, the colors set off by a startling zigzag. She had yet to show an ensign or pennant, but the dazzling red-and-yellow foresail marked her as an Algerine.
Enterprise went about in a smooth, slow turn to starboard as the snow and the xebec scrambled off. As Nolan watched, a pair of stern ports fell open on the Algerian ship. No guns were run out, but the message, like the jib, was unmistakable. The black ship that had been Ameland was a man o’war, and willing to fight.
Pelles looped his telescope around his neck and walked to the quarterdeck rail. “Shipmates,” his voice rumbled, “you see that Indiaman. She is a lawful prize, a Dutchman taken by pirates, and even if she shows a national ensign we are bound and in our rights to take her. The other two flying from us are either her prizes or likewise they are pirates and we will have them, too. As for the big Algerine, you can be sure he will fight, and I can be sure you will fight harder.”
Around the guns there were growls of assent, and someone belowdecks said, “Damn right, Skipper.”
Pelles went on, “This is likely the villain who did our whale ship. So, first we will dish him out, as that is our simple duty, and then we will snap up his prizes, because the money will jingle sweeter in your pockets than in his nasty petticoats.” A cheer went up and there were a few hoots; Pelles’ speech had strummed the crew admirably. “Now, stand by your guns, lads, and when you are told, ply them briskly. Knock off these three and then I’ll pipe you to supper.”
There was another cheer, and Pelles motioned his officers to join him at the windward rail. As they converged, Nolan stood off to the side, his hands clasped behind his back. “Mister Erskine,” Pelles said in a conversational voice, “I don’t care very much for piratical sons of bitches, and I do not care to spill our own blood for no reason. The corsair will likely have sent men away to man their prizes. The ship will be short of hands even if it is long on brass. I doubt that they can man their guns and make sail at the same time. It is my intention to outmaneuver this scoundrel and engage him, both sides, under sail.”
“Yes, sir.”
“See that the larboard guns are also made ready, and the sail trimmers stand by to go aloft. If a sheet or tackle goes adrift, no man will go wrong clapping on or helping to heave and trim.
“Captain MacQuarrie, we’ll launch the red cutter and the gig. They will be veered to larboard as we approach. A platoon of Marines and a few howitzers in the boats should put you right. Would you like to take a carronade or two?”
“One, sir, if you could spare it. In the gig.”
“You’ll have it. And plenty of canister. Mister Leslie will accompany you. Stay outboard of Enterprise and out of sight until I give the signal, then go for the xebec and the snow.”
MacQuarrie’s delight was transcendent. The only thing he liked better than handling a boat under sail was combat on an enemy’s deck. Of the other officers and midshipmen, some wore careful looks, some were slightly pale, but all of them listened intently. Curran had been in action several times, but he did not pretend to be habituated to combat. He could not help but wonder what the afternoon held for him.
“Division officers. See that your guns are elevated fully. I want the corsair crippled, not shot through the hull. Be ready to reload with bar and grape when ordered, and put your shot where it will do them the most evil. If we should come to a general engagement, make certain no broadside is wasted. There is no ship afloat that can stand up to our guns if they are well laid. To your stations now, and Mister Curran, I will have a word with you.”
The officers dispersed. Erskine went forward to command the gun deck and chasers, Kerr to the waist, the others and Lieutenant Varney below to the gun deck and their divisions. Fine in their best green jackets and pipe-clayed flawlessly, a quartet of handpicked Marine sharpshooters slung their Kentucky long rifles and took up stations in the mizzen top.
Enterprise was on a larboard tack, with the wind just aft of her beam. Mister Pybus himself was at the helm, steering carefully to pass astern of the Algerine, who also kept a larboard tack, still the best part of a mile to the north.
“Mister Curran, from what you can see of her transom, does that ship have a name?”
Curran lifted his glass and squinted at the gaudy work on her stern galleries. He was finally able to pick out a rivulet of Arabic script carved around the nymphs and tritons that had been the pride of the former owners. “Ar R’ad, sir,” Curran said. “She calls herself ‘The Thunder.’ ”
Pelles allowed himself a small smile. “A snappy name. Most martial.”
“It is also religious, sir. Ar R’ad is a sura of the Holy Koran.”
“I am delighted for them. I wonder if they carry a parson?”
Steadying himself against the belfry, Pelles pulled his sword belt around on his waist. “Mister Pybus, one point to larboard. I intend to approach on their quarter and cross their wake at three cable’s lengths.”
“Aye, aye sir, larboard a point, and cross at three cables.”
The barge and cutter were made out to the boat boom, and the first platoon went down into them, Marines and sailors packed together, guns and bayonets bristling.
“Guns are run out of her stern ports, sir.” This from Mister Hall, on the quarterdeck. He was the signal midshipman.
At the starboard rail, Nolan watched as Ar R’ad glided to the top of a low swell, two long guns jutting from her stern galleries. The guns fired just before the top of the roll—white clouds shot through with orange and black. Two seconds later came the noise of the cannon, a double bang, and then the whirr of the incoming rounds: 12-pounders from their high-pitched hum. The first ball came down a hundred yards to starboard, a shot fired wide but with some correctness as to range. The second ball whizzed overhead, higher than the topgallants. It went past with a crackling hiss and threw up a column of spray far, far astern.
With an artillerist’s eye Nolan watched the fall of both shots, one only halfway of use to fix the target, the other thrown away, and he attended to the manner Ar R’ad ran in her guns to reload them. The test would be how soon again she ran them out, and how well the fire would be adjusted.
Pelles lifted his speaking trumpet, though his deep bass hardly needed it. “Forward on deck . . . Mister Kerr, you may try a ranging shot with the starboard chaser.”
This order had been anticipated; the gun had been pried round and minutely kept on target for the last ten minutes. As Mister Kerr made final adjustments, Pelles turned to Hall. “Midshipman Hall, the national ensign, if you please.”
The Stars and Stripes was broken out and lifted high into the mizzen. Curran could not help but notice that Nolan took his eyes from the horizon and watched the flag sputter and snap up to the top of the halyard.
In the bow, number two went off with a gratifying thump, a report that sent a slight twitch through the deck. As the smoke went away to leeward, a keen eye could just make out the speck of the 24-pound ball flying flat and true. It disappeared as it approached the gaudily painted stern of Ar R’ad, and there was a gray-blue puff from the starboard quarter galley as the frigate’s ranging shot tore into it. The damage to Ar R’ad was trifling, a glancing hit that shattered a stern light and took off one of the mermaids, but the first shot had gone home true at over 1,300 yards.
There were yeehaws and cheering forward and looks of envy from the gun captains along the spar deck. Ar R’ad’s stern guns answered within the span of three or four seconds. The first ball struck fifty yards off Enterprise’s bow, and a pillar of water dumped down onto the forecastle. The second ball came diagonally across the deck, passing ten feet above the main chains. As the ball grazed the mizzenmast, a bayonet-sized splinter ricocheted over the taffrail. Everyone on the quarterdeck flinched, everyone except Pelles and Nolan—a fearless pair.
Curran’s hand went instinctively to his face—a blur had gone right past his nose. He turned to see his best scraper rolling across the deck, a gaping hole blown through the cockade.
“Mister Curran, are you all right?” Pelles asked.
“I am, sir,” Curran answered, “but my hat is ruined.”
Pelles smiled brightly—wit under fire was his favorite sort of humor. He turned to Nolan, who alone among the officers on the quarterdeck seemed to know that trying to dodge a cannonball was a pointless impulse. “This will soon turn brisk, Mister Nolan. For your own safety, you might wish to go below.”
“I wouldn’t mind a little air, Captain.”
Pelles bowed slightly and walked to the larboard rail. Nolan plucked up Curran’s tattered hat from the deck and put his finger through the hole; the prospect of standing before an enemy’s guns seemed to delight him. Nolan was smiling, grinning actually, and seemed suddenly ten years younger. “It seems they have aired out your hat,” Nolan said, handing it back.
“See that they don’t do the same to you, Mister Nolan.” Curran managed to smile, but the hat gave him the impression that he had used up his luck for today.
At the larboard rail, Pelles looked down and called down to cutter and gig. “Away the boats!” MacQuarrie saluted from the gig and called back, “Good luck to you, sir.”
The gig and cutter tacked away and quickly crossed Enterprise’s wake. A lookout aboard the snow caught sight of the Marines and gestured wildly at the masthead. Until now, the snow and the xebec had stayed as much as possible under the lee of their protector, narrowly balancing escape and cover. As the Marines closed, it was obvious that they would now have to fight or fly, and they were prepared to do neither. Aboard the xebec there was a fracas as her crew tried to set a flying jib, only to blow out a boltrope and yaw away far to starboard. The gig and the cutter both came about, moving to cut off any chance of escape.
From the conn Pelles said, “Corporal Gerrity, you may send the others aloft.” A dozen green jackets climbed upon the gunwales and over the chains fore, main, and mizzen, carrying with them grenadoes and kegs of powder for their swivel guns. Like spiders they went quickly up the shrouds and into the tops, joining the sharpshooters.
Pelles kept his glass trained on the enemy’s quarterdeck. Closer study revealed that the Algerine was spilling his wind. Neither main nor fore courses were carefully set, and it was preposterous that he had not manned his fighting tops. The mystery was doubly perplexing as it was the Algerine who had opened the engagement. To every other appearance the corsair seemed prepared and even eager to fight. “Mister Curran, you may join your division. We’ll soon have need of your fancy shooting.”
Curran went down the ladder to the spar deck and his guns at Bastard’s Alley. As he ducked under the splinter netting, Padeen lifted his knuckle to his forehead. “All primed and ready, sir.” The guns were trained forward; loaders, rammers, and swabbers ready; the slow match smoldering in the tubs in case the double-flinted gunlocks should fail in their duty.
Ar R’ad now seemed to be changing course, falling off the wind a point or two. Curran watched over the top of number fourteen as Ar R’ad began a languid turn. It was not a tack, not even half of one, and for a moment it appeared that she had missed stays, intending to wear ship and fire a broadside but failing, putting her helm over in time.
At the wheel, Pelles murmured to Pybus, “Ease your head, Master. Steady as she goes.”
The master let the helm down gently, and Enterprise almost instantly began to slow. Ar R’ad remained in her apathetic turn and the distance between the ships continued to close slowly. Pelles leaned on the starboard rail, eyes fixed on the strangers. Why would Ar R’ad’s commander now dawdle away his advantage? There was nothing to do but let the seconds pass. On the quarterdeck, Nolan stood with the other officers at the leeward rail, listening to the hum of water down the ship’s side.
Forward of the quarterdeck break, Curran’s division comprised carronades—shorter-range guns—and he knew that he would not be called on to fire until the ships were fully engaged, perhaps even yardarm to yardarm. The sun was now lower in the left-hand part of the sky. He fixed his telescope on the three ships across the darkening water.
The snow and xebec had showed their heels but soon began a series of ineffective, random shots at the gig and cutter. From the snow there was a clumsy popping of musketry, answered at once by a compact, well-fired volley from MacQuarrie. In the gig, the carronade fired, skipping a ball through the xebec’s mainsail.
Ar R’ad continued her unhurried turn, and finally her yards bent round as she came beam-on to the wind. For a moment she hung, poised either to come to the aid of her consorts or turn to fight Enterprise. As Curran watched through his long glass, Ar R’ad wavered then sheeted home, settling on a course that would pass Enterprise within eight hundred yards—a long go for carronades, if she intended to use them.
But she did not.
Curran watched through his telescope as the master on Ar R’ad’s quarterdeck began rapidly spinning the wheel. Drawing a neat arc, the big ship tacked to starboard, making her turn briskly. Four long sections of gunwale toppled down, revealing the decks forward and aft of the corsair’s mainmast. The segments fell like trapdoors, exposing several thinly manned carronades of various types, all more or less pointing at Enterprise, but what grabbed the attention of all hands was a pair of rectangular objects placed between the hatches.
Standing next to Captain Pelles, Nolan stared at Ar R’ad but could not believe his eyes. On either side of the mainmast a long, tapering cylinder projected from a three-sided iron box, like a furnace with its smokestack set horizontally. Each was the size of the tryworks of a whale ship, rectangular, impossibly huge things. Nolan slowly realized that they were guns, grossly out of scale and borne on equally unlikely pivots—long-tailed, wheeled Gribeauval carriages. Slabs of iron riveted together shielded the guns. Nolan had only seen this arrangement on casemate guns in coastal defense artillery.
As Ar R’ad went over a swell, Pelles could look onto her decks. Each of the guns’ trails was heaved round by the brute strength of almost sixty men.
“I believe that those are siege guns, Captain,” Nolan said quietly. “Forty-two pounders.”
Pelles narrowed his eye behind his telescope and grunted. Aboard Ar R’ad the splinter nets were triced up and the loaders were scrambling away from the guns. Pelles had seen pivot guns before, but he had never seen weapons this large; nor ever in his time at sea had he seen guns shielded by metal plates. This was heavy artillery, ordnance that had no right to be afloat. Through his glass Pelles could see a tall, black-turbaned figure atop each of the rectangles, persons he took to be the gun captains, shouting and urging their crews on with blows from a rattan.
A gigantic cloud of smoke jetted from the space between Ar R’ad’s masts. A pear-shaped tongue of fire belched from the gun; this happened in silence. Whitewater splashed along the Algerine’s quarter, and then came a mighty, gut-churning thud. The discharge of the weapon set a concussive shock through sea and air that twitched Enterprise’s jib and main.
At the quarterdeck rail, Pelles called out: “All hands! Flat on your faces!”
Before the first round could arrive, a second thunder-crack broke over the corsair ship. Peering over the hammock netting, Curran saw the flashes and a massive roil of white-gray powder smoke. “Down!” he yelled, taking Padeen by the elbow and pulling him into cover behind number fourteen.
There was a sputtering, a nasty hiss, like a sail tearing aloft, and a whirling shadow crashed into the bow. For an instant Curran’s brain tried to apprehend the staggering shock and gust of darkness. The deck beneath his feet pitched up violently, as though Enterprise’s keel had run up on a reef.
The first ball smashed into the starboard anchor, tearing the flukes with the noise of a shattering bell. The clangor merged with the hoarse, choking scream of a dozen men as the forward guns were enveloped in a cloud of murder. Hot shards of iron hissed across the deck and cracked through the rigging. The loader of number twenty-one tumbled headlong down the companionway; his leather powder bucket tore open and a ruptured bag of fine best cylinder rolled across the deck. Curran scrambled forward and kicked the deadly charge overboard as a second salvo smashed into Enterprise.
There was a two-note sound, almost like a cathedral’s organ, and then a horrifying double explosion. The bow of the frigate twitched like a shying horse; a massive, soul-churning jerk went through the deck, and Curran was driven to his knees. A swarm of red sparks skittered across the forecastle and the crew of number one was felled as though a scythe had been swept under their knees. Lieutenant Kerr was blasted over the side in pieces. Badly mangled, two Marines were thrown into the foot of the mainmast. Behind the conn, both Pelles and Nolan had been staggered by the impacts. Pybus remained upright only by managing to hang on to the wheel. Others, including the captain’s clerk and the signalmen, were knocked flat. Nolan helped Pelles to his feet. Both men did what they could to conceal expressions of bewilderment and awe. Enterprise had been knocked back on her heels.
Nolan knew precisely what a 42-pounder could do to a block of houses, and now had an idea what it could do to a floating wooden object. In a lifetime at sea, Pelles had never seen such damage done by a single salvo. Forward, the smoke was clearing to reveal a chaos of twisted wreckage. The heads were smashed, two gun carriages were overset, and a dozen men were down. In the bow, the beakhead had been blown to bits and what was left of the best bower anchor pendulumed from the smoking stump of the cathead.
Pelles shouted, “Steady now, lads. Steady and hold your fire. We will pass astern, and give him a raking! Stand by your pieces!” Along the spar deck the officers readied their crews, and on the gun deck below, muzzles inched back, trained on the enemy. In a more conversational but still firm voice Pelles said to Mister Nordhoff, “Lead a party forward—cut the cable and cast off the anchor. Quickly, boy!”
Enterprise continued to close, and Ar R’ad rolled out her 9-pound chasers. The noise came quickly after the white clouds: thunder and flash closer together. Both shots were clean misses. The first ball fell wide and the second wobbled harmlessly overhead. Compared with the deafening noise of the 42-pounders, the long 9s seemed subdued, even harmless.
The wounded were carried below, and the dismounted cannon were griped down on deck. At his station, Curran balanced his glass on the hammock netting. On the deck of Ar R’ad he saw the big guns rotated to centerline. The jostling crowds working the carriages heaved, and the dark muzzles again trained upon Enterprise. The crowds surrounding the huge weapons performed the evolutions familiar to any naval gunner—swabbing, loading, ramming home—but on a gigantic scale. And they were slower. As the guns dwarfed the men, the work dwarfed the crews. Especially laborious was the loading of shot into the muzzle—it took four men to lift the massive ball in a stretcher, and six men to serve the rammer that put it home. Three minutes had passed since the first rounds had struck Enterprise, and Curran guessed it would be at least three more minutes before the second salvo would be ready to fly.
Every eye on the starboard side watched the two ships close. Every brain considered the positions and calculated the distances. Aboard Ar R’ad the loaders were moving away from the guns. Curran glanced over at Wainwright, who stood behind his midship division. The boy’s mouth was open.
“A fine day, Mister Wainwright,” Curran said. “You are about to see us put a full broadside to use.”
“I am looking forward to it, sir,” the boy said. He cleared his throat. “I only hope we will do it soon.”
A bullet spanged into the gunwale six inches from Curran’s head. A splinter of wood went sailing into the air and the bullet twittered off, punching through a leather bucket behind number twelve. Curran jerked around and his eyes fell on the enemy’s quarterdeck—Ar R’ad’s captain was lowering a miquelet rifle. Even at four hundred yards Curran could see that the shooter was a large man dressed in a heavily embroidered jacket and vast purple trousers. As Curran watched, he handed the flintlock to a sailor in a red skullcap, who quickly set about reloading.
“He is taking potshots, the creature,” Curran scowled. He then said in a louder, firmer voice, “Sargent Lachat, you may send their captain my compliments.” Lachat walked over to the hammock netting and laid his Kentucky rifle across. He licked his lips, let out a long breath, and squeezed the trigger. A second later, a bullet spanged off Ar R’ad’s binnacle and Curran watched the red skullcap skip and caper and fall.
“On deck,” Pelles boomed. “Starboard batteries, stand by. When we put about, fire on my command. Pour it into him, then we will round to and give him the other side.”
“Ready your locks,” Curran said. Along his division, the gun captains snicked back the flintlocks and cupped their hands over the vent holes. Pry bars heaved the carriages around, making small corrections. They were now within two cable’s lengths, and the ship beat with a single heart. Finally, Enterprise could give instead of get.
“Port hard, Mister Pybus.”
The frigate’s bow went around more quickly than Nolan could have imagined, and the starboard battery came across Ar R’ad’s quarter, ranging it exactly. Aboard Ar R’ad there was confusion, then dread.
The Algerine had expected Enterprise to wear, not tack, and Pelles knew he had caught them on the wrong foot. Enterprise had bought herself another precious ninety seconds as the great guns were trundled around to face the opposite direction. The frigate went quickly under the stern of Ar R’ad, passing close enough to count the mermaids and tritons carved onto her brightly painted galleries.
“Fire as they bear!” Enterprise’s starboard guns went off in a rippling paean of thunder. Midway through the broadside, Ar R’ad’s gunners brought their muzzles to larboard, aimed to meet Enterprise as she emerged from her turn.
The great guns went off one after another; at close range the concussion was astounding. As Ar R’ad’s aftermost gun fired, a shock twitched through the frigate, wrenching her from tuck to keelson. The concussion seemed to have temporarily stunned the wind. Muzzle blast merged with the howl of the incoming shot, putting the sails back and ringing the frigate’s bell.
Nolan saw a deadly shape tear across the forepeak, and the blue cutter, all thirty feet of it, leapt from its cradle and disintegrated into a maelstrom of splinters. The huge shot continued aft, trailing death behind it. Creasing the mainmast, the ball ploughed though the crew of number seventeen. Smashed from its carriage, the carronade was blown up and end over end, its lugs and trunions gone to pieces. Men fell in gory, twitching heaps—rammers, swabs, and pry bars still clamped in dead hands.
Through the appalling mayhem came Pelles’ voice, strong and calm. “Sail trimmers, away! Hands to the lee head braces and jib! Stretch out! Stretch along the weather braces!”
In chaos, training replaces thought. Aboard Enterprise, in battle, the crew functioned like a creature of a single instinct and being. On deck the crews went about their duties impervious to the slaughter around them. They cleared away wreckage where they needed to work, every man finding his place and performing a task. Anticipating that the larboard guns would now be brought to bear, Enterprise’s gun captains scrambled across the wreckage in the waist. Working in fine, concise movements they primed the guns and prepared the locks. Marines slung their rifles and helped heave and tally.
Enterprise went round again, the smoke drifting to leeward. From the quarterdeck, Nolan was the first to see the damage done to Ar R’ad. Maneuvered onto the corsair’s quarter, Enterprise had hit Ar R’ad with a murderous, raking fire. Every gun had sent home a round, and each shot had traveled the length of the corsair, killing, maiming, and destroying. The frigate had taken six rounds; Ar R’ad had absorbed two entire broadsides. Both times, Pelles had slapped the corsair as she started to rise. Ar R’ad’s stern galleries were utterly destroyed, a shambles of smashed wood and shattered glass. Her mizzen boom was shot through, and a dozen holes were gouged diagonally along her copper. Blood ran down her sides and dribbled from her scuppers, but she still showed a long line of teeth.
Pelles was aware that the great guns could fire through a wide arc to port and starboard, but could not be trained less than three points off the bow or stern. Ar R’ad’s after guns thundered, and a volley of grapeshot swept the quarterdeck, killing a Marine and smashing the signal locker. Pelles kept Enterprise in a position to pour a raking fire into the enemy’s quarter—exposing the frigate to the return fire of the stern chasers and carronades but trying desperately to avoid the deadly guns perched amidships.
Enterprise discharged two more unanswered broadsides into Ar R’ad. Now within biscuit toss, Curran saw the helmsman on Ar R’ad’s quarterdeck frantically turning the wheel to starboard, but it was Captain Pelles who comprehended the danger. Ar R’ad was preparing to fire her after great gun directly through her own stern.
Pelles joined Pybus at the helm. “Ready about!” he barked.
Together they put the frigate’s rudder over. As the frigate paid off, Pelles’ voice rang across the spar deck: “Lay down!”
Close aboard, Ar R’ad came about like a cutter and the corsair’s midship guns were inched around Enterprise. There was a pair of closely spaced thunderclaps as the big cannon gushed two improbably symmetrical cones of fire: one firing across the beam, one through the stern gallery. But the huge guns had been fired a second late.
The first round passed astern of Enterprise, howling past with a noise like a tolling bell. The second struck the water immediately behind the rudder, cleaving the surface with a deafening crack. The impact drove up a fifty-foot column of water and lifted the frigate by the stern. As Enterprise came down there was a heaving jolt; the ship’s stern settled, and the geyser fell back for ten seconds with the snarl of a waterfall. Had the rounds struck the ship they would have swept away the quarterdeck and unshipped the rudder—a mortal blow.
Both of Ar R’ad’s principal guns had been fired, and it would be six minutes at least until they could bite again. In six minutes, Pelles intended to lay his enemy to waste. “Larboard guns, fire!” A dozen 28-pounders went off in a rippling broadside, a nearly simultaneous blast that ripped Ar R’ad from stem to stern. The smoke coiled to windward, stalling in an opaque bank on the corsair’s deck. Pelles called again for sail trimmers, who backed the yards as musket fire snapped among the rigging. Enterprise wore again, bringing the fresh starboard batteries into action, and Curran led his gun crews to the leeward side. As he laid hold of number thirteen, Curran glanced forward at Wainwright.
On the boy’s shoulder was a pry bar, and he was heaving with all his hundred pounds, marshaling his crews in a shrill pipe. “As they bear . . . smartly now,” he yelled. “Prime as she comes around!” Incredibly, Wainwright still had his hat placed squarely on his head.
Again from Ar R’ad came the deafening eruption of one of the big guns. It had been loaded, trained, and fired quicker than any could have imagined. The ball struck the hull directly below Bastard’s Alley, sending foot-long splinters in every direction. Curran had time to lift his arm in front of his eyes as the explosion swept over him. The back of his head was splashed with something scalding, and from belowdecks he could hear a long, inhuman wail. The ball had been fired diagonally, passed under the guns of his division, and swept destruction the width of the gun deck. Two port lids were beaten onto one, a dozen feet of bulwark was shattered, and a storm of splinters and iron and fire struck down Varney and the Marine crew of number nine. On the spar deck, a bo’sun’s mate named Jones was cut in half and thrown overboard; a rag doll spinning in circles.
Curran slammed into the deck, and Wainwright and his crew were felled by a whirlwind of fire. After a numb, incoherent gulp of breath, Curran lifted his face. Padeen knelt next to him, frozen with a rammer in hand. Curran shouted at him to reload; the command was automatic, but the big man did not move. He pointed and blinked. The crew of number nine was gone, the bulwark aft of the gun was hung in a crimson curtain of gore. The crew of number ten was ripped into pieces, but their gun, incredibly, was upright and still primed. Tumbled under a fife rail, Wainwright had been blown mostly out of his uniform and was bleeding from his nose and ears. As Curran watched, the midshipman rolled onto his knees and took up the lanyard of the gun. Around him smoke and some sort of flesh-colored vapor seemed to hang like a halo. Wainwright jerked the dowel as he toppled forward and the carronade fired. The recoiling gun bucked up and jerked against its breeching, the skeet missing Wainwright’s forehead by a fraction of an inch.
A second after the report, a hard, rending crack issued from the haze of smoke engulfing Ar R’ad. Cleaved by a 32-pound ball, the foot of the corsair’s foremast swayed forward and went by the bitts. A tangle of sails, spars, and blocks crashed down on the forward gun, smothering it and its crew in a tumult of debris.
Wainwright collapsed onto his side, his eyes open, his pale face streaked with powder. Curran willed himself toward the boy, but his limbs would not answer. He seemed to be moving underwater. Finally, his fingers closed around the blasted collar of Wainwright’s jacket and he pulled him closer. Curran was aware of a shadow moving behind him. Oddly, he could hear the crunch of splinters against the deck. The footsteps were plain, but the rest of the world moved in a kind of painful, throbbing silence. Curran saw the smoke part and watched as Nolan and Padeen strained to lift a section of shattered gun carriage and push it aside.
“Surgeon! Surgeon!” Nolan bellowed.
Wainwright looked up, astounded. “By Jesus,” the boy said, “I have lost my hand.”
Curran saw the boy’s arm laying on the deck, cut off below the elbow, the wool sleeve without a smudge and even the linen cuff about the wrist still white. Nolan removed the belt from a dead Marine and cinched it around the stump of Wainwright’s arm. The boy’s eyes wandered back in his head and he gently slumped over.
Nolan shook him by the collar, “Kevin! Kevin!” Wainwright snorted, exactly like a child falling asleep, and Padeen took the child from Nolan’s arms, bundled him up, and turned for the hatchway. Curran lurched over to Nolan, still kneeling in the youngster’s blood. A bullet smashed though the rail and whined away somewhere aft.
At the sound Nolan lifted his face. His eyes narrowed, as though he did not know where he was, and he came unsteadily to his feet. Aboard the corsair a trumpet was blaring and kettledrums throbbed. There was a fire burning on her foredeck, but her carronades were still firing briskly. Nolan staggered blankly past Curran and bent at one of the shot racks. Curran saw that Nolan’s hands were trembling as he lifted one of the deadly soldered tin cylinders and hefted it to his shoulder.
“Now, lads,” Nolan said, “let’s have a go at them. Now as they’re loading.” Nolan’s voice was calm, but its deep tenor carried to the men around him. He waved to the powder boy. “Here, Mulherrin, give us that cartridge. Handsome does it, handsome now.” He took the powder charge from Mulherrin and shoved it with his own hands into the mouth of the gun. One by one the survivors of Wainwright’s division gathered around him.
“Help me ram home, Vanhall. You too, Parnin. Double-shotted now, a double whiff of canister for these nasty sons of bitches.” Nolan took up a round of case shot from the rack and tossed it to Guild. “Reload handsomely, boys. Load and run them out!”
Along the larboard side, the gun crews came together, shoving away fallen tackles and prying around the carriages to bring their muzzles to bear.
Nolan laid number eleven and shouted, “From forward, as you bear . . . fire!”
A staggering barrage slashed into Ar R’ad, pelting her sides and sweeping her decks. There was a great, reverberating clang, and the aftmost of the two swivel guns was shaken by a fiery explosion. The loaders around it were consumed in a crackling like a lightning strike, and a gunpowder fire started to burn under the carriage.
Nolan could see the captains of the corsair’s big guns scramble for cover behind their plate armor. Out of the din came a new sound, the sharp report of Marine howitzers firing down from the frigate’s tops. A swarm of grape scythed through the crew of Ar R’ad’s forward gun, leaving not a soul standing. A dozen of the corsairs scuttled away from the aft gun and tried to run belowdecks. A second howitzer banged from the frigate’s maintop, and a puff of canister tore them to pieces.
Ar R’ad’s starboard guns fired by pairs; their reports were followed a half second later by a huge crash forward and a long, grunting scream. The wind had shifted and now was driving the smoke of Ar R’ad’s guns across Enterprise’s deck. Bleeding heavily, Ward was carried past. Through the haze, Curran caught sight of Nolan pulling Fentress from beneath an overturned carronade. Forward of the quarterdeck break, three gun ports were smashed together; dead and wounded lay on the deck, and the upright crews were functioning on instinct alone. The engagement was general now, each gun fighting on its own hook, firing nearly point-blank into the corsair’s starboard side. Assisted by the quarter-gunners, Nolan supervised the reloading of his division. Sword in hand, Captain Pelles was on the spar deck, pointing guns, pulling men together, standing like a monument in a maelstrom.
Carrying a round shot, Nolan looked over his shoulder at Pelles. “I am showing them how we do this in the artillery, sir.”
“I see that you are, and I thank you, Mister Nolan,” said the captain. “I shall never forget this day, sir. And you never will.”
Pelles bellowed back to the conn, “Lay us alongside!” The master put down the helm, and the frigate made a slow turn to starboard.
Pelles came forward through the drifting smoke. “Mister Curran, you look spry enough.”
“I am in one piece, sir.”
“And I commend you for it. Serve out cutlass and pistols. Your division will board.”
“Aye, sir.” Curran hitched on his scabbard and barked over his shoulder, “First Division, arm up!” He moved to the center of the boarding party, wedged now between carronades loading with double case shot. They were ordered compactly: Marines first, then those sailors armed with pistols and cutlasses; behind them, in a pressing throng, came the Bowie knife and hatchet men. Fiercest among the boarders were Kanoa and his tattooed cousins, armed with pāhoa war clubs, shaped like spades and lined with jagged spirals of snow white shark’s teeth.
Enterprise sailed into the bank of powder smoke and closed on Ar R’ad. Grapnels sailed through the air and the spar deck carronades erupted, overlapping the corsair with a point-blank skein of hissing canister. In the tops, Lachat’s Marines gave wing to a flock of grenadoes. Trailing arcs of smoke, they tumbled onto the enemy’s decks and went off like a series of hammer blows. The noise deafened, and the stuttering explosions blinded. Rifles fired from the tops, and the boarders were shouting—this was the chaos in which Curran drew his sword and pulled himself up onto the hammock nets. “Marines and boarders! Prime your pieces!”
Curran considered the distance between the ships: two cliffs coming together over a heaving, debris-strewn blackness. Sword held in his right fist, Curran drew his pistol with his left. He felt the hammock nets dip as Marines and sailors pulled themselves up behind him. Below, the water closed into a narrow band, the ships crashed together, and Curran shouted: “Enterprises! Follow me!”