At the foot of the stern-ladder Bonden lifted him out of the water, guided him up, and he sat on a match-tub while the capstan turned fast, then slower, slower, slower. And all the time they heaved the slow steady swell lifted the Polychrest’s stern and set it down with a thump on the hard sand; and all the French artillery played upon her. The carpenter hurried past with still another wad to stop a shot-hole; they had hulled the Polychrest perhaps a dozen times since he had been back aboard, but now he was utterly indifferent to their fire – a mere background, a nuisance, a hindrance to the one thing that really mattered. ‘Heave and rally, heave and rally,’ he cried. The full strain was on: not a click from the capstan-pawls. He staggered to an empty place on a bar and threw his weight forward, slipping in blood, finding his feet again. Click: and the whole capstan was groaning. Click. ‘She moves,’ whispered the man next to him. A slow, hesitant grind, and then as the swell came along from aft she lifted clear. ‘She swims! She swims!’ Wild cheering, and an answering cheer from over the water.
‘Heave, heave,” he said. She must be pulled full clear. Now the capstan turned, now it fairly span, faster than
the cable could be passed forward, and the Polychrest surged heavily right into the deep channel. “Vast heaving. All hands to make sail. Mr Parker, everything that can be set.’
‘What? I beg pardon, sir? I did not -, It did not matter. The seamen who had heard were aloft: the tattered mainsail dropped, the mainstaysail almost whole, and the Polychrest
had steering-way. She was alive under him, and the life rose into his heart, quite filling him again. ‘Mr Goodridge” he shouted with new strength, ‘cut your cables and lead me out by the Ras du Point. Veer out a towline as soon as you are under way.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
He took the wheel, moving her over to the windward side of the channel, so that her leeway should not run her aground again. Lord, how heavy she was, and how she wallowed on the swell! How low in the water, too. A little more sail appeared – mizen topmast staysail, a piece of driver, odd scraps; but they gave her two knots, and with the run of the tide, setting straight down the channel, he should carry her out of range in ten minutes. ‘Mr Rolfe.’
‘Mr Rolfe’s dead, sir.’
‘His mate, then: the guns back into their places.’ It was no good asking Parker; the man was only just holding himself upright. ‘Mr Pullings, take some lively hands forward and see if you can pick up the towline. What is it, Mr Gray?’
‘Six foot of water below, sir, if you please. And the Doctor says may he put the wounded into your cabin? He moved ’em from the cockpit to the gun-room, but now it’s all awash.’
‘Yes. Certainly. Can you come at any more of the holes? We’ll have the pumps going directly.’
‘I’ll do my best, sir; but I fear it’s not the shot-holes. She’s opening like a flower.’
A fury of shot drowned his words, some of it glowing red, for now they had the furnaces at work: mostly wide
and astern, but three went home, jarring the water-logged ship from stem to stern and cutting the last of her starboard mizen shrouds. Babbington came staggering aft, one sleeve hanging empty, to report the towline aboard and made fast to the knight-heads.
‘Very good, Mr Babbington. Allen, take some hands below and help Dr Maturin move the wounded into the cabin.’ He realized that he was shouting with great force, and that there was no need to be shouting. Everywhere, apart from one wicked long gun in the Convention battery, there was silence: silence and dimness, for the moon was dipping low. He felt the towline tighten, plucking at the Polychrest; and she gave a little spurt. The corvette just ahead had set her courses as well as main and fore top-sails, and they were busy clearing the wreck of her mizen topmast. What a pretty thing she was, taut and trim: great strength in her pull – she would be a fast one.
They were running along the landward edge of the East Anvil – the bank was above the surface now, with a gentle surf breaking over it – and ahead of them was the opening of the Ras du Point, full of the transports. They too seemed unaware of the Fanciulla’s changed character
– sitting ducks – the chance of a lifetime.
‘Mr Goodridge, there. How are your guns?’
‘Prime, sir, prime. Brass twelve-pounders: and four eights. Plenty of cartridge filled.’
‘Then lead right through those transports, will you?’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
‘Jenkins, how is our powder?’
‘Drowned, sir. The magazine is drowned. But we got three rounds a gun, and shot aplenty.’
‘Then double-shot ’em, Jenkins, and we’ll give them a salute as we pass by.’
It would be no stylish broadside; there were scarcely enough men even to fire both sides, let alone run the guns in and out, loading fast; but it would mark the point. And it was in his orders. He laughed aloud; and
he laughed too to find that he was holding himself up by the wheel.
The moonlight faded; the Ras du Point glided very slowly nearer. Pullings had set up some kind of a jury-rig forward, and another sail was drawing. Parslow was fast asleep under the shattered fife-rail.
Now there was movement, agitation, among the transports. He heard a hail, and a muffled response from the Fanciulla, followed by low laughter. Sails appeared, and with them confusion.
The Fanciulla was a hundred yards ahead. ‘Mr Goodridge,’ called Jack, ‘back your maintops’l a trifle.’ The Polychrest ploughed heavily on, closing the distance. The transports were moving in several directions: at least three had fallen foul of one another in the narrow channel. The moments passed in dreamlike procession, and then suddenly there it was, the immediate vivid action, vivid even after all this saturation of noise and violence. One transport on the port bow, two hundred yards away; three locked together, aground, to starboard. ‘Fire as they bear,’ said Jack, putting down the helm two points. At the same moment the Fanciulla burst into flame and smoke – a much shriller crash. Now they were in the middle of them, firing both sides. The grounded vessels waved lanterns, shouting something that could not be heard. Another, having missed stays, drifted down the Polychrest’s side after the last carronade had shot its final charge. Her yards caught in the Polychrest’s remaining shrouds; some bright spirit lashed her mainyard fast; and standing there right under the mouth of her empty guns her commander said he had struck.
‘Take possession, Mr Pullings,’ said Jack. ‘Keep close under my lee. You can only have five men. Mr Goodridge, Mr Goodridge! Stand on.’
In half an hour the channel was clear of floating transports. Three had grounded. Two had run themselves ashore. One had sunk – the twenty-four pound smashers at close range – and the rest had doubled into the outer road or back to Chaulieu, where one was set ablaze by red-hot shot from St Jacques. And in half an hour, the time to run the length of the channel and to wreak all this havoc, the Polychrest was moving so heavily, keeping such a strain on the towline, that Jack hailed the Fanciulla and the transport to come alongside.
He went below, Bonden holding him by the arm, confirmed the carpenter’s desperate report, gave orders for the wounded to be moved into the corvette, the prisoners to be secured, his papers brought, and sat there as the three vessels rocked on the gentle swell
of slack water, watching the tired men carry their shipmates, their belongings, all the necessaries out of the Polychrest.
‘It is time to go, sir,’ said Parker, with Pullings and Rossall standing by him, ready to lift their captain over.
‘Go,’ said Jack. ‘I shall follow you.’ They hesitated, caught the earnestness of his tone and look, crossed and stood hovering on the rail of the corvette. Now the veering breeze blew off the land; the eastern sky was lightening; they were out of the Ras du Point, beyond the shoals; and the water in the offing was a fine deep blue. He stood up, walked as straight as he could to a ruined gun-port, made a feeble spring that just carried him to the Fanciulla, staggered, and turned to look at his ship. She did not sink for a good ten minutes, and by then the blood – what little he had left – had made a pool at his feet. She went very gently, with a sigh of air rushing through the hatches, and settled on the bottom, the tips of her broken masts showing a foot above the surface.