– Italian? ‘Mr Smithers, put ’em in the cable-tier.’
An isolated scuffle and a single shot on the forecastle, to join the firing from the shore.
Bodies on deck: the wounded crawling.
She was heading westward, and the blessed wind was just before her beam. She must go round the tail of the West Anvil before she could tack to reach the Polychrest, and all the way she would be sailing straight into the fire of St Jacques: half a mile’s creep, always closer to that deadly raking battery.
‘Foresail and driver,’ cried Jack. The quicker the better, and above all she must not miss stays. She seemed to be handling beautifully, but if she missed stays she would be cut to pieces.
Convention was firing behind them: wildly at present, though one great ball passed through all three topsails. He hurried forward to help sort out the foresail tack. The deck was swarming with Polychrests – they called out to him: tearing high spirits, some quite beside themselves. ‘Wilkins,’ he said, putting his hand on the man’s shoulder, ‘you and Shaddock start getting the corpses over the side.’
She was a trim little vessel. Eighteen, no, twenty guns. Broader than the Polychrest.
Fanciulla was her name – she was indeed the Fanciulla. Why did St Jacques not fire? ‘Mr Malloch, clear away the small bower and get a cable out of a stern-port.’ Why did they not fire? A triple crash abaft the mainmast – Convention hulling the corvette – but nothing from St Jacques. St Jacques had not yet realized that the Fanciulla had been carried – they thought she was standing out to attack the grounded Polychrest. ‘Long may it last,’ he said. The tack was hard down, the corvette moving faster through the water –
slack water now. He looked at his watch, holding it up to the moon: and a flash from St Jacques showed him just eleven. They had smoked him at last. But the tail of the sandbank was no great way off.
‘I killed one, sir,’ cried Parslow, running across the deck to tell him. ‘I shot him into the body just as he was going for Barker with a half-pike.’
‘Very good, Mr Parslow. Now cut along to the cable-tier and give Mr Malloch a hand, will you? Mr Goodridge, I
believe we may go about very soon.’
‘Another hundred yards, sir,’ said the master, his eyes fixed on St Jacques. ‘I must just get those two turrets
in a line.’
Nearer, nearer. The towers were converging. ‘All hands,
all hands,’ shouted Jack. ‘Ready about ship. Mr Pullings,
are you ready, there?’ The towers blazed out, vanished in their own smoke, the corvette’s mizen topmast went by the board, sheets of spray flew over the quarterdeck. ‘Ready oh!
Helm’s a-lee. Up tacks and sheets. Haul mains’l, haul.’ Round she came, paying off all the faster for the loss of her after sails. ‘Haul of all, haul with a will.’ She was round, had spun like a cutter, and now with the wind three points free she was running for the Polychrest –
the Polychrest with no foremast, no maintopgallant and only the stump of her bowsprit, but still firing her forward carronades and cheering thinly as the Fanciulla ran alongside, came up into the wind on the far side of the channel and dropped anchor.
‘All well, Mr Parker?’ hailed Jack.
‘All’s well, sir. We are a little knocked about, and the barge sank alongside; but all’s well.’
‘Rig the capstan, Mr Parker, and make a lane for the cable.’ The roar of guns, the din of shot hitting both ships, tearing up the water, and passing overhead, drowned his voice. He repeated the order and went on, ‘Mr Pullings, veer the cutter under the’ stern to take the line.
‘Red cutter was stove by that old topmast, sir, and I’m afraid the Marine’s painter came adrift like, somehow. Only your gig left, sir. The Frenchmen went ashore in all theirn.’
‘The gig, then. Mr Goodridge, as soon as the cable is to, start heaving ahead. Pullings, come with me.’ He dropped into the gig, took the line in his hand – their life-line – and said,
‘We shall need at least twenty more men for the capstan. Ply to and from as quick as ever you can, Pullings.’
The Polychrest again, and hands reaching eagerly from the stern-port for the line. A mortar-shell burst, brilliant orange, closer to the gun-brigs than to its target.
‘Hot work, sir,’ said Parker. ‘I wish you joy of your prize.’ He spoke with an odd hesitation, forcing the words:
in the light of the flashes he looked an old, old man, bent and old.
‘Thankee, Parker. Pretty warm. Clap on to the line, there. Heave hearty.’ The line came in hand over hand, followed briskly by a small hawser, and then far more slowly by a great heavy snake of cable. Pullings’ men kept coming aboard, and at last the cable was to the capstan. While the bars were being swifted, Jack looked at his watch again: just past midnight: the tide had been ebbing for half an hour.
‘Heave away,’ he called to the Fanciulla. ‘Now, Polychrests, step out. Heave hearty.
Heave and rally.’ The capstan span, the pawls going click-click-click; the cable began to rise from the sea, to tighten, squirting water.
And now, with the gun-brigs sheering off, frightened by the shell, St Jacques let fly – heavy mortars, all the guns they possessed. A shot killed four men at the bars; the maintopmast toppled over the forecastle; the gig was knocked to pieces alongside just as its last man left it. ‘Heave. Heave and rally,’ cried Jack, slipping in the blood and kicking a body out of his way as he forced the bar round. ‘Heave. Heave.’ The cable rose right from the sea, almost straight. The men saved from the gig flung themselves on the bars. ‘Heave, heave. She moves!’ Clear through the roar of guns they could hear, or rather feel, the grind of the ship’s bottom shifting over the sand. A kind of gasping cheer: the pawls clicked once more, twice, and then they were flat on their faces, no resistance in the bars at all, the capstan turning free. A ball had cut the cable.
Jack fell with the rest. He was trampled upon. Clearing himself from the limbs and bodies he leapt to the rail. ‘Goodridge’ Goodridge ahoy! Can you bring her alongside?’
‘I dare not, sir. Not on the ebb. I’ve only got a couple of fathoms here. No boat?’
‘No boat. Heave in quick and bend on another line. D’ye hear me, now?’ He could scarcely hear himself. The gun-brigs had worked round and were firing over the bank from near the harbour. He stripped off his coat, laid down his sword and went straight in; and as he dived a jagged piece of iron caught him on the head, sending him deep under. But dazed or not his body swam on, and he found his hands scrabbling at the Fanciulla’s side. ‘Haul me aboard,’ he cried.
He sat, gasping and streaming, on deck. ‘Is there anyone here can swim?’ Not a word, no answer. ‘I’ll try on a grating,’ said an anxious voice.
‘Give me the line,’ he said, walking to the stern-ladder.
‘Won’t you sit down, sir, and take a dram? You’re all bloody, sir,’ said Goodridge, with a beseeching look into his face. Jack shook his head impatiently, and the blood spattered the deck. Every second counted, on the ebb. Even now there was six inches less of water round the Polychrest. He went down the ladder, let himself into the water and pushed off, swimming on his back. The sky was in a state of almost continual coruscation: between the flashes the moon shone out, her face bent like a shield. Abruptly he realized that there were two moons, floating apart, turning; and Cassiopeia was the wrong way about.
Water filled his throat. ‘By God, I’m tiring. Wits going,’ he said, and slid round in the water, straining his head up and taking his bearings. The Polychrest was far over on his left: not ahead. And hailing; yes, they were hailing. He took a turn with the line round his shoulder and concentrated his whole spirit on swimming, fixing the ship, plunging with every stroke, fixing it again: but such feeble strokes. Of course, it was against the tide: and how the line dragged.
‘Thus, very well thus,’ he said, changing his direction to allow for the current. In the last twenty yards his strength seemed to revive, but he could only cling there under her stern –
no force in his arms to get aboard. They were fussing about, trying to haul him in. ‘Take the line, God damn you all,’ he cried in a voice that he heard from a distance. ‘Carry it for’ard and heave, heave. .