He went to the starboard rail, slung the big gun on his shoulder and pulled himself up the foremast shrouds. He could see a marine lying on the Pucelle’s quarterdeck with a rivulet of blood seeping from his body along the planks. Another marine was being carried to the rails. He could not see Chase, but then a bullet struck the shroud above him, making the tarred rope tremble like a harp string and he climbed desperately, his ears buffeted by the sound of the big guns. Another bullet whipped close by, a second struck the mast and, bereft of force, thumped against the volley gun’s stock. He reached the futtock shrouds and, without thinking, hurled himself upward and outward, the quickest way to the maintop. There was no time to be frightened; instead he scrambled up the ratlines as nimbly as any sailor and then rolled onto the grating to find that he was now level with the Frenchmen in their maintop. There were a dozen men there, most reloading, but one fired and Sharpe felt the wind of the ball whipping past his cheek. He unslung the volley gun, cocked and aimed it.
“Bastards,” he said, and pulled the trigger. The recoil of the gun hurled him back against the topmast shrouds. The volley gun’s smoke filled the sky, but no shots came from the Frenchman’s maintop. Sharpe slung the empty gun on his shoulder and lowered himself off the grating. His feet flailed for a heartbeat, then found the inward-sloping futtock shrouds and he went back down to the Pucelle’s deck and, when he looked back up, all he could see at the Redoutable’s maintop was a body hanging off the edge. He threw the volley gun down, picked up a musket and walked to the larboard rail.
A dozen marines were left. The others were dead or wounded. Sergeant Armstrong, his face bleeding from three cuts and his trousers a deep red from a bullet wound, was sitting with his back against the foremast. He had a musket at his shoulder and, though his right eye was closed by blood, he did his best to aim the musket, then fired. “You should go below, Sergeant!” Sharpe shouted.
Armstrong gave a monosyllabic opinion of that advice and pulled a cartridge from his pouch. A bullet had grazed Clouter’s back leaving a bloody welt like the stroke of a lash, but the big man was paying it no heed. He was stuffing another cask of musket balls into the carronade, though by now the Pucelle had gone beyond the Redoutable and the Frenchman was out of Clouter’s range.
Captain Chase still lived. Connors, the signal lieutenant, had lost his right forearm to a cannon ball and was down in the cockpit, while Pearson, a midshipman who had twice failed his lieutenant’s examination, had been killed by the musketry. The marine lieutenant was wounded in the belly and had been taken below to die. A dozen gunners were dead and two marines had been thrown overboard, but Chase reckoned the Pucelle had still been lucky. She had destroyed the Redoutable just as that ship had been on the point of boarding the Victory, and Chase felt an exultation as he looked back to see the terrible damage his guns had done. They had filleted her, by God! Chase had half considered laying alongside the Redoutable and boarding her, but she was already lashed to the Victory and doubtless the flagship’s crew would take her surrender, then he saw the French Neptune ahead and he shouted at the helmsman to steer for her. “She’s ours!” he told Haskell.
The first lieutenant was bleeding from a bullet wound in his left arm, though he refused to have it treated. The arm hung useless, but Haskell claimed it did not hurt and, besides, he said, he was right-handed. Blood dripped from his fingers. “At least get the arm bandaged,” Chase suggested, staring at the Neptune, which was making surprising speed despite the loss of her mizzenmast. She must have sailed clean around the western edge of the melee while the Pucelle passed to its east, and now the Frenchman was heading landward as though trying to escape the battle.