Kydd

CHAPTER 10

The early morning sun was warming to the skin, and dappled the fo’c’sle with the bright crisscross shadows of the rigging. The bow crunched into the Atlantic rollers, sending spray outward in a rainbow, the long swell lazy and serene.

Kydd bent to his task: cross-legged he plied his needle skillfully, adding a fancy white edging to a seaman’s short blue jacket. He was good at his stitching, and sailors brought him work, which he would perform for favors. It was a Thursday make-and-mend afternoon and many were taking the opportunity to relax in the sun. Etiquette was scrupulously observed. In such restricted quarters each had his personal space as he sat on deck, and unless he wanted otherwise he was treated as though he was invisible.

A shadow fell across Kydd and he looked up. “Nicholas! What cheer, mate?” he said, in surprise. It was not Renzi’s way to seek out company, for he preferred a quiet conversation with Kydd alone.

Renzi smiled and struck a pose.

Is she not beautiful! her graceful bow

Triumphant rising o’er enamored tides,

That, glittering in the noonday sun, now

Just leap and die along her polished sides!

“Just so, shipmate!” Kydd replied happily. He was envious of Renzi’s easy familiarity with words but enjoyed their display.

“Do you take a tuck in my waistcoat, I would be infinitely obliged,” Renzi said, and squatted next to Kydd. He was struck by how much his friend had changed in just a few brief months. There was development and definition in his chest and arms, which sat well with his increasingly sea-darkened complexion, and his shining black hair was held back in a small queue. His experiences had toughened and shaped him, and his brown eyes now looked out with humor and self-assurance.

“Give you joy of your rating, sir,” Renzi said formally.

“Why, it’s to Ordinary Seaman, is all,” Kydd said.

Renzi perceived the evident pleasure. “In Guildford they would not recognize you, Tom,” he said, “what with the cut o’ the jib of a seaman.”

“Not that I’ve ever a chance of gettin’ to the old town,” Kydd replied, finishing the seam with a flourish of his capable brown fingers and biting off the thread.

Renzi hesitated, then pulled something from his pocket. Looking around, he pressed it on Kydd. “It’s only a book, my friend, but in my time I’ve taken great comfort from its pages.”

Kydd accepted it, flattered that Renzi thought he was a reading man. It was a slim volume printed with a tiny typeface – poetry by someone called Wordsworth.

“The man is a revolutionary – in the literary way, I mean,” Renzi said. “You will sense the freedom and vitality. His verses are a paean to the sublime assertion of the individual; he brings… But, then, you’ll see all this for yourself, Tom,” he concluded lamely.

Kydd looked at his friend, touched by his thought. He fiddled in his waistcoat. “And I have something f’r you,” he said, bringing out a screw of paper, which he handed over.

Carefully Renzi undid the paper. Inside was a good six ounces of small dark whorls, thin disks of the most fragrant tobacco he had ever encountered. “My friend, this is magnificent!”

Kydd was well pleased at the unfeigned delight. He had learned how to make a prick of tobacco from one of the gunner’s mates with whom he had shared a watch in one of the hanging magazines. A wad of good strong tobacco leaves was spread on flannel. Sprinkled with rum, it was rolled up and tied to a deckhead cleat with spun yarn, rotated tightly along its length and left for a week or so. The resulting hard plug was then cut with a razor-sharp knife into thin disks of shag.

Appreciatively, Renzi drew out his clay pipe and rubbed himself a fill. Soon a powerful fragrance was on the wind and Renzi settled back against the carronade slide with a comfortable sigh.

Kydd picked up the waistcoat. Renzi’s body had responded to seaboard life by becoming whipcord thin, and the garment would certainly need another tuck. He threaded the needle. “So much for the Mongseers!” Kydd grimaced. “Never a sign of ’em, and we trail our coats off their ports f’r weeks!”

Renzi’s eyes were closed. “I wonder what’s happening in Paris,” he mused. “The mob will be baying for blood – but whose? The Jacobins ride the tiger – Robespierre needs victories if he is to prevail.” It was not easy to live in this total isolation, without a newspaper, journal or even a rumor when to his certain knowledge the world was in flames.

Doud came up beaming with a tankard of small beer. “Well, Jack Tar, ahoy! I reckon we can’t ask Tom Kydd now to desire the sextant for to pray fer us!” He gave the beer to Kydd, looking at Renzi sideways as he did so.

“You want a wet, Renzi?” he enquired.

“That is most kind in you, Ned,” Renzi said, “and it’s Nicholas, by the way.”

“You are most welcome, Nick,” Doud said, in mocking tones.

“It’s Nicholas,” Kydd said.

Doud grinned and left.

It was glassy smooth, only a long swell moving under the glittering surface of the sea. The sails drew, but only just, Duke William inevitably falling away in the line of three ships as they exercised together.

A distant thud was heard. Another – it sounded like a far-off door slamming. On the quarterdeck, telescopes whipped up and trained on the distant land. Another gun thudded – and a flurry started among the officers.

“What’s that?” Kydd asked. He and Renzi were together now in the mizzen top as Kydd’s station had changed since his advancement to seaman. With a grandstand view of the quarterdeck, they saw the marine drummer boy hastily take position at the main hatch.

“Quarters!” Renzi exclaimed.

They looked at each other and descended hastily to the deck, moving past the raucous volleying of the drum at the main hatch to their respective stations.

“What cheer, mates?” said Salter. “What’s the alarum, then?” His eyes glittered in the lower-deck gloom as he cleared away the muzzle lashing of their gun.

“No idea, Will. Did see sail close inshore, but that’d be one of our frigates, I’ll wager.” Kydd had not been prepared to risk a rope’s end by hanging about to find out.

This was a call for a full sweep fore and aft – anything that could not immediately be struck down into the hold was dumped overboard, and the sea astern was studded by floating debris. The men worked fast – this was no drill.

Renzi’s action quarters was at one of the upper-deck twelve-pounders. There was perhaps a chance that Kydd would see him if he was called away to handle sails, which was his secondary battle station.

Down the fore hatch ladder clattered Midshipman Cantlow, still buckling on his dirk, his cocked hat askew. Kydd disliked him – the gangling man was older by far than the others, in his late twenties at least, not having the interest or ability to pass for lieutenant. He had once ordered a starting for Kydd over some trivial matter; it was not the colt whipping painfully across his shoulders that he remembered, it was the spite that had triggered it – Cantlow was embittered at his lot.

“What news – sir?” asked Stirk. He was ignored, Cantlow adjusting his cross-belt and scabbard over the threadbare uniform coat. He would take charge of the foremost six guns under a lieutenant of the gundeck. With a significant look, Stirk called over to Doggo loudly, “Looks like we got ourselves a right smashin’ match, mate. Yer’ve made yer arrangements, then?”

Kydd looked at him sharply.

“Why, o’ course – but it ain’t no use, there won’t be many of us left after the fightin’ really gets started, we bein’ down here in the slaughterhouse ’n’ all,” Doggo replied, his face blank.

“What are you yattering about, you useless swabs?” Cantlow said irritably, fiddling nervously with his dirk.

“Seen the doc sharpenin’ his saws,” Salter said gloomily. “Shoulda got the carpenter to do a better job – never could stand a blunt saw at me bones.”

“An’ where’s the priest?” Velasquez added mournfully. “’Ow we can die wi’out we ha’ a priest?”

“Silence! Do you think to bait me? You stinking, worthless scum!” Cantlow glared around.

“Why, sir,” Stirk said, with a saintly expression, “we’re cruel a-feared, ’n’ we need some words, some strong words, from an orficer to steady us in our time o’ need-sir!”

Cantlow’s venomous glare was interrupted by the arrival of Lieutenant Lockwood. “Report, Mr. Cantlow,” he ordered.

“Well, sir, I – ”

“You’re useless, and stupid,” Lockwood said, “so muster your men again and report.” Lockwood took position on the centerline. Although he was young, his voice already had the crack of authority. “Still!” All activity on the gundeck ceased. “We have just been alerted by Amphion frigate that the French have taken advantage of this easterly to put to sea. But not from Brest. Four ships-of-the-line and frigates have sailed from Douarnenez to the south of here, and we think they mean to proceed to the Caribbean and our valuable sugar islands. They did not reckon on our vigilance, and now we will make sure that they never arrive!”

A savage growl arose from the gun crews.

“The weather in this light blow is not in our favor – but they have formed line and are offering battle. We will oblige them!”

A deeper-throated sound swelled into cheers.

“Haaaands to make sail!”

The boatswain’s calls pierced into the excitement. Kydd ran topsides with the others of the gun crews assigned to sail trimming. The brilliant sun made him screw up his eyes, but he knew by instinct the position of the mizzen shrouds and his leap took him into the ratlines. He swarmed up to the mizzen top.

It was a chance to take in the scene of impending battle. Far ahead against the nondescript line of the coast were the enemy – four small clusters of ivory sails emerging from Douarnenez Bay and sailing large before the light easterly wind, four big vessels in line formation, taking advantage of the offshore winds of the morning. They were headed from right to left across Duke William’s bows, standing out for the Atlantic, but seemingly in no hurry to close and grapple.

On the starboard tack Duke William was heading toward a point of intersection ahead of them, clawing her way to windward in the frustrating light winds, doing her best to get within range. The ripple under her forefoot sounded like the contented chuckle of a country millstream at a sleepy knot or two.

“’Less we can get the old barky to lift up her skirts ’n’ run, we’re goin’ to lose ’em,” the captain of the top said bitterly. He looked over the flat seas to their fellow ships-of-the-line in staggered line abeam. Tiberius led Royal Albion by a short head, and both were significantly ahead of Duke William.

“Know what that is?” the man said sharply to Kydd, without turning his head. “That there’s gun money ’n’ head money ’n’ mebbe even a mort o’ prize money, that is. One chance we get in this bucket to lay ’ands on an honest guinea or two and we meets wi’ a dead calm.”

Others in the top rumbled their agreement.

A weather stuns’l was not a success, however, backwinding the main topsail, and it was struck. Swearing, they toiled at the sail, which had managed to wrap itself around the topmast stay when the halliards were let go.

As the day wore on, it became apparent that the enemy were equally affected by the lazy weather, straggling along in a slow, ragged line. At two, the wind failed altogether, and the ship hung lifeless in the water, sails barely stirring. She lost way and after ghosting along for a space she simply did not answer her helm and drifted, the slight swell causing an aimless clack of blocks aloft.

“Awaaaay all boats!”

Tumbling into the cutter, Kydd made room on the thwart for Renzi. The rowers would go double-banked in this attempt to tow Duke William into action, and together with the larger pinnace and launch they would do their utmost to close with the enemy. Even the Captain’s barge took a line from the fo’c’sle.

It was cruel, backbreaking work: the hard thwart and unyielding oar, the burning pain in the back and arms, the hands turning into claws. With the inertia of two thousand tons their oars threshed the water uselessly while the boat remained dead in the water.

It took all of ten minutes of toil at the oars by hundreds of men to see the tiniest move through the water of the great battleship. They were now half a mile behind Royal Albion, who also had all her boats out.

“Pull, you scurvy lubbers!” The tiny midshipman’s piping voice was almost comical as he tried to emulate the bull-roaring of Tewsley in the launch.

Although it was not strong, the sunlight glittered on the unbroken sea surface and reflected up into their faces. Kydd was grateful for his hat, but felt his face redden from the glare. They pulled on in silence, a steady long pull, leaning well back to get the straightest line from chest to feet against the stretchers athwartships.

A series of disjointed thuds sounded distantly, then cannonballs skipped and splashed audibly around them. Kydd glanced about him as he pulled, and was relieved to see that the shots were well scattered. One of the enemy ships was nearly hidden by clouds of slow-moving gunsmoke.

Nevertheless it was unnerving. The enemy had their broadside facing them while their own guns would not bear so far forward. They pulled on. More thuds, more balls. A long space, and then an avalanche of crumps. This time the sound was appreciably nearer and the balls skipped and smashed with venom among them. Some came between the boats and two struck the ship with a peculiar sound like a blunt axe smashing into rotten wood.

“Eyes in the boat!” piped the little midshipman, as some men missed their stroke looking over their shoulder.

There was a fierce muttering. It was one thing to be under fire with their own cannon roaring defiance from their wooden ramparts and another to be helpless in the open with no means of reply.

A catspaw of wind ruffled the water and subsided. Another came and went. Anxious faces looked toward the fo’c’sle but nothing changed.

A double rush of thumps and a storm of shot broke over them. One ball plowed into the bow of the pinnace and opened it like a banana, instantly cutting off the shrieks by plunging every occupant into the sea. Without waiting to be told, lines were slipped and the boats returned, the launch remaining to pick up survivors.

But the wind seemed to have returned. Sails were stirring, flapping desultorily, the huge battle ensign lifting momentarily and falling.

So weary were they that it was impossible to climb the Jacob’s ladder over the stern and they were waved around to the entry port. Aching and sore, they mounted the side steps and made their way back to their battle stations.

On the lower gundeck the gun crews waited. Kydd sat against the gun carriage, head in his hands, exhausted.

“Denison, you ’n’ Kydd change,” Stirk said, giving Kydd a break from his arduous gun-tackle duty. Kydd nodded his gratitude. Cullen brought the round shot to the gun with Denison.

It was hot and fetid, even with the gunports open, but a whisper of a breeze now wafted cool sea air over them. Kydd was stripped to the waist, a red bandanna around his head. He closed his eyes and let the talk eddy around him.

“No, I tell a lie. An able seaman’s share, that’d be over five poun’ we gets to take one o’ they Frenchies.”

“O’ course I’ll do that – ’n’ if it’s me, then I’d take it kindly if you could visit me sister, she’s all I got. I’ll ask Lofty ter write ’er name ’n’ lodgin’ out for you – she’s a widder, yer knows.”

“An’ we’ll hire a coach, Will, go to Winchester an’ kick up a Bob’s-adyin’ they’ll never ferget!”

Kydd forced himself to open his eyes. With both sides manned, the gundeck was crowded with men and equipment. The guns were already loaded, only awaiting the order to open fire. On the centerline were scuttled casks of water with vinegar, and long cases containing cutlasses and sea-service pistols lay open. It was the first time he had seen the vessel prepared in earnest for war. It was rare for a line-of-battle ship actually to fight: it did its work more by the threat of its existence, but now the greatest single weapon in history so far would have to justify its being.

He saw Cantlow in low conversation with Lockwood, and the gunner, Mr. Bethune, making his way slowly along in his plain black waistcoat, his bright eyes darting about in a last check before he went down into the magazine.

Painfully Kydd got to his feet and went to the gunport to lean out.

The enemy seemed to be holding their fire until the smoke cleared – it hung downwind of them in gigantic clouds above the sea, with little movement to disperse it. Royal Albion to larboard had some sort of signal hanging out and Tiberius was in the process of dowsing a staysail.

As he watched, the enemy man-o’-war last in line erupted in stabs of flame and was instantly enveloped in gunsmoke. Kydd flinched. In quick succession there were two loud crashes overhead somewhere, followed by a terrifying splintering smash as a round shot pierced the side near the foremost gun.

Through a jagged entry-hole it smashed diagonally across the gundeck, taking with it the head of the rammer of the number-one gun, together with the leg and thigh of one of the gun-tackle crew and the hand of his mate. It slammed across the main hatch gratings, pulping the golden-haired powder monkey in its path, and hit an opposite gun squarely, dismounting it.

The screaming started-and the tearing sobs of a ship’s boy unable to comprehend the bloody carcass of his friend.

Kydd was paralyzed with horror. His eyes followed the procession of moaning, hideously bloody men carried down to the orlop and the hands of the surgeon.

“Get forrard ’n’ give ’em a hand, lad,” Stirk said, in neutral tones.

Kydd stared at him, then started for the scene of carnage.

Human tissue was everywhere. It did not seem possible that a body could contain so much blood.

“Get ’is legs, mate,” a seaman said. Two others had a headless torso by the arms, quite untouched apart from its surreal shortening, ending in obscene white tendrils in a meaty matrix.

Kydd gingerly picked up the dead body’s feet, noting the heavy wear in the shoes that the man had put on that morning. He started pulling the body backwards.

“What the fuck are you doing?” flared a man at the other end.

Kydd stood dumbfounded, his mind no longer working.

“He goes overside, mate,” the other said kindly.

Numb, Kydd complied, and the body, slithering floppily, went out of the gunport to splash into the bright sea below. He resumed his place at the gun and tried to control his trembling. There would be another broadside soon. At the very next moment another cannonball might blast into the gundeck. This time it might be him.

Stirk stood with his arms folded across his hairy chest, slowly chewing a quid of tobacco, his face expressionless. His calm, his strength, reassured Kydd, whose trembling subsided.

“We’ll settle those sons of whores! Serve ’em out the double what they did t’ us!” Kydd said violently.

Stirk looked at him in amusement. “Yair – and when we get amongst ’em, we’ll give ’em such a mauling as will have ’em beg for quarter inside an hour – on their knees!”

“Blast me eyes if we don’t take all four!” Salter said, white teeth gleaming.

“A pity there ain’t others – could do wi’ the prize money,” Doggo croaked.

The next flurry of thuds produced a fluster of confused bangs and breaking sounds from above, but no rending crashes into the gundeck.

Kydd tried to still his thudding heart. It was the uncertainty, the knowledge that out there was an enemy who was doing his best to kill him. His remaining time on earth might well be measured in seconds. To his shame his knees began to tremble again.

He snatched a glance at Stirk – the same neutral passivity, the unconcern.

Impulsively, Kydd moved closer to him and said in a low voice, “Toby, how c’n you – I mean, why doesn’t it…” He tailed off, feeling his face burning.

Stirk frowned. “Yeah – I know what yer mean, mate.” Idly stroking the top of the massive gun, Stirk went on, “Fair time ago, when I was a nipper, I shipped in Terrier sloop, out east. There was a yellow bugger, name o’ Loola, in the fo’c’sle wi’ us.” He smiled briefly. “Weren’t much chop as a seaman, ’n’ he useta pray at this ’eathen god thing ’e ’ad, with a big belly and fool expression, but ’e ’ad his life squared away right pretty, answers fer everything. ’N’ he said somethin’ savvy that I never forget, ever. ’E said as ’ow it’s dead certain yer’ll get yours one day, but yer never gonna know what that day is when yer wakes up in the mornin’.” He coughed self-consciously. “But yer ’as to know that if it is the day, then yer faces what comes like a hero-and if it ain’t the day, then it’s a waste o’ yer life worryin’ about it.”

A few moments later the ragged strike of a broadside came, this time with no solid impacts sensed through the deck.

“Firin’ at the rigging, they do,” Stirk said derisively. “Thinks they’ll cripple us so’s they can skin out.”

Taking a deep breath, Kydd felt his fear recede. He straightened, and ventured a smile. “Shy bastards – can’t take a mill man to man!”

Stirk studied him and nodded.

Another spasm of cannon fire banged out. The noise was appreciably nearer now, and the sound of balls striking above had a vicious quality.

A boatswain’s mate appeared at the fore hatch. “Sail trimmers aloft!”

Kydd realized that this included him. He ran up the hatchways, aware that he would now be facing a hail of shot unprotected in the rigging.

He was shocked by the disorder on deck. In place of the neatly squared and precisely trimmed appearance of the decks, there was a wasteland of debris – blocks fallen from aloft, some with lines still reeved through them, unidentifiable fragments of splintered wood and unraveled rope. Long gouges in the decking told of the brutal impact of iron on wood.

Looking up, Kydd saw that with the angle of strike of the balls several sails could be pierced at once, and there seemed to be holes everywhere in the sails aloft.

“Get going, lads, fore tops’l yard’s taken a knock,” the boatswain said. Directly above, Kydd saw that the outer third of the spar was hanging at an angle where a shot had mutilated the yard, and the topsail flapped in disorder under it.

He swung into the foreshrouds, cringing at the threat of another broadside in the rigging – but remembering Stirk’s words, he thrust it brutally from his mind. As he climbed he looked to see where the French ships were. There they bore, strung out in a widely separated line passing across their bows. They were shockingly close, a bare mile away, while their own ships closed in roughly abreast of each other.

Royal Albion and Tiberius were ahead of Duke William and would soon fall upon the enemy, while the last French vessel, a large threedecker, would apparently be their opponent. The afternoon breeze had picked up and there was now no chance for the French to avoid action. Kydd reached the foretop and stood waiting for orders while others arrived next to him. A pair of capstan bars would be used in fishing the topsail yard, and he was one of the party assigned to perform the outboard lashing. A sullen bellow of guns rolled across the water. The third enemy battleship disappeared behind a wall of gunsmoke as she fired on the nearer Tiberius, but this time the smoke clouds dissipated, rolling slowly downwind.

On Duke William’s poop, fifes and drums began a jaunty, defiant tune – a thumpity thump, thumpity thump rhythm:

Hearts of oak are our ships!

Jolly tars are our men!

We al-always are ready!

Steadyy, boys, steadyyy!

The gunas of the last French ship in line broke out in a thunderous roar and almost immediately the assault struck.

Unseen missiles slapped through sails and parted ropes – the whirring of chain shot was unmistakable, the two links sliding apart and whirling around through the air in an unstoppable scythe of death. They caught one man climbing around the futtock shrouds, effortlessly cutting him in half. The torso fell silently. A ball slammed past the side of the foretop, its passage so violent that it sent a man staggering over the edge, his scream instantly cut off when his body broke over a carronade below, scattering the gun crew. A twang and thrum of impacts on taut ropes and the onslaught was over. Kydd stirred from his frozen position, heady with the realization that he was spared. This was not to be his day for eternity.

“Pass the bloody lashing, then!” the boatswain’s mate yelled from the top. His voice cracked falsetto with tension.

Kydd passed the seizing as fast as he could – the others tumbled into the shrouds and made the deck as he finished. He thought of Bowyer and made the lashing a good, tight, seaman-like one before he joined them. For no reason at all, a startlingly clear image of Guildford’s High Street overlaid his vision – the sun out, the street streaming with gentlemen and their ladies, beggars, and children with their whipping tops and hobbyhorses playing outside the red brick Holy Trinity church.

The noise and smoke increased. The French were near, very near. Kydd heard a smart tap on the foremast as he completed and reached the foretop. Looking down, he saw a musketball rolling spent across the top. On impulse he picked up the flattened disk and put it in his pocket before sliding dizzyingly down the backstay to the deck.

A last look showed the enemy only a few hundred yards away, and their own bows beginning their swing finally to place their ship side by side with the looming three-decker. With a thrill of excitement Kydd knew that the time for real battle had arrived, and he clattered down the ladders at a rush.

Just as he arrived on the lower gundeck there was a roar of cheering as the great thirty-two-pounders opened up with a mind-numbing slam of sound. The deck instantly choked with smoke blown back in the gunports, thick acrid wreaths that caught him in the throat. He stumbled into Lockwood, disoriented. The smoke began to clear with the strengthening breeze and he caught sight of his gun, the figures of the crew emerging, Doggo’s shapeless hat unmistakable.

Stirk’s eyes gleamed – his concentrated expression had a ferocious intensity. The gun crew moved fast and economically on the reload. Kydd and Cullen hurried the shot cradle to the muzzle, lifting the deadly iron sphere into the hot maw.

Through the gunport the enemy ship was clearly visible across the narrowing gap of water, and for a split second Kydd took in the black and yellow hull darkening the frame of the port. There was debris falling in the water alongside it from their own cannon strike and he was aware of countless gun muzzles staring at him.

Velasquez’s ramrod cut across his gaze as he plied it, his movements skilled and rapid, savage joy in his face.

Kydd went to the shot garland around the main hatch and rolled a ball on to the cradle. Standing on the grating was a ship’s boy, his ears bound and his eyes enormously big and bright. He clutched his cartridge box to him like a teddy bear, his strong little legs bare to the toes. Kydd smiled encouragingly at him, but there was no response in the solemn, wide-eyed face.

They faced about just as the enemy replied. The noise was fantastic, for their own guns spoke at the same time, the crashing thunder seeming to go on forever as the guns played up and down the sides of the two great vessels. No more than a hundred yards away now, they couldn’t miss, and Kydd knew that through the choking smoke their own ship-smashers would be doing deadly work.

Splintering crashes and screams somewhere in the gloom told of where the enemy shot had found its mark. As the smoke cleared he noticed a strange pattern of daylight two guns down, then saw that the ship’s side between the gunports was missing.

Behind it a seaman sat on the deck, staring at his right arm, which was now no more than a stick, the blood coursing steadily down from it. He watched it with a puzzled frown, then slowly pitched forward.

A rhythmic tearing gasp nearby made Kydd wheel round. A man was lying on his side, hands clutching a long jagged wound in his inner thigh, trying painfully to drag himself toward the hatchway. He left a bloody trail.

Cantlow appeared from aft. His white face stared sightlessly. Pushing past Kydd, he made his way forward aimlessly.

Shouts and cheers penetrated the general noise, clear through the sharp ringing in Kydd’s ears. Wildly thirsty, parched by the metallic-tasting powder smoke, he went to the scuttled butt of water amidships and ladled out a dipper of cool sweet nectar.

Again the gun crew rolled a shot into the muzzle and stepped back quickly. The French were now no more than a few dozen yards away, their harsh yells alien to the ear. They were answered with equal venom by the British seamen.

Velasquez spun like a dancer and sent the ramrod spinning in. But then he pirouetted and fell, the ugly tear of a musketball wound in his back.

Stirk bawled obscenely as he leaped forward and carried the writhing man tenderly to the rear.

“Double shotting!” Stirk roared. There would be two balls to one shot, the effect on accuracy greatly outweighed by the doubling of killing power. Their next ball was already on the cradle and they rushed it forward.

Stirk didn’t wait for firing orders – this was a smashing match and only the faster crews would win. There was no need to sight. He jerked on the gunlock lanyard. The gun bellowed and slammed to the rear with increased recoil, the breeching rope twanging dangerously.

Through a freak break in the smoke Kydd could see the enemy side. It shuddered visibly under the impact of their double shot and a massive hole appeared magically in the center of his vision. Before the smoke closed in he saw that the enemy guns were still not run out and there seemed to be some sort of jerky activity behind the ports.

The other ship was less than fifteen feet away and when they came together the massive grinding impact sent Kydd staggering. The smoke drifted away and there was the enemy side within touching distance – pockmarked, splintered and with blood running down the side in thin streams from a rent in her sides.

Raging shouts burst out. The enemy seamen were feet away only and with bull roars the British seamen attacked them even through the ports, with ramrods and anything that came to hand: battering, smashing, killing. Cooler hands raced to the arms chest and the flash and bang of pistols stabbed the smoky gloom.

“Awaaay, boarders!” Lockwood’s voice was hoarse. He stood with his sword out, his uniform grimed with powder smoke, eyes reddened.

Seamen nominated for the task ran for the hatchway, snatching pistols and cutlasses as they left.

Kydd turned back to the mêlée. Opposite, the enemy gunport framed a stout man with a mustache, who gestured violently with his ramrod.

Kydd remembered the cruelty of the French cavalry. Dropping the shot cradle, he ran over to the pistol chest and grabbed a weapon. It felt heavy and cold. Cocking it haphazardly, he aimed past the heads of the working gun crew at the man and banged off the pistol. It bucked viciously in his hand. Stirk and his men turned in surprise but, to his intense satisfaction, Kydd saw the man clutch at his face and drop out of sight.

Duke William had not quite come to a standstill, the enemy’s side slipping past at a walking pace. Stirk’s gun crashed out again, the crew working like madmen on the reload. Kydd’s back and arms felt a burning ache, his efforts at the oars still taking their toll.

Another crunching impact brought long sounds of splintering. The enemy guns began firing again – but they were many fewer.

Kydd felt a peculiar exultation, a rising of blood lust, a call from his Briton forebears. He shrieked defiance as he worked.

A man staggered in a circle, a jagged spear protruding from the side of his chest. He turned and fell and Kydd saw that it was an oaken splinter torn from the deck and driven into him. The man writhed and flopped, and almost in a trance Kydd turned back to the job in hand.

The Royal Billys ran out the gun but suddenly the enemy beakhead was passing from view, a figurehead of a virago with a conical hat and clasping a spear, then empty sea. They had gone past their opponent without coming to a stop.

“Stupid crazy bastard – the fucking lamebrain!” Stirk raved, spittle on his lips underlining his fury. “ ’E ’asn’t fuckin’ backed tops’ls!”

It was elementary: to keep the ship in position while the guns made their play, it was necessary to heave to by putting the topsails aback. Kydd wondered at the scene on deck. It could be that the Captain had fallen and could not give the order.

The firing died away. “Clear away this shit,” Stirk said dully.

Splinters and debris went out the port, the last wounded were taken below. Blood splashes were left-there were more important tasks at hand to ready the guns for the next bout.

Cautiously Jewkes leaned out of the gunport. “Wha – they’re running, the shy bastards!”

Kydd and others joined him at the port and eagerly took in the scene.

The enemy ships had hauled their wind and now shaped course for Brest, their high stern galleries prominent as they sailed away. The battered rigging of the British ships resulted in their falling farther behind, the changed angle again making their guns impotent.

Maddened shouts and cheering stormed from Duke William’s gunports until the chase brought them into range of the batteries ashore. Wearing around, the squadron made a dignified retreat, deeply satisfied that the battlefield was now theirs.