Examination of the capture’s papers revealed that, oddly enough, this one, too, was bound for the Port of Gijan.
Another French coaster, this one sailing out of Seine-mouth laden with sailcloth and cheap wine—and bearing for none other than Gijan-port—was easily overhauled and taken by two smaller escort vessels in waters too shallow for the draft of the Revenge.
But a three-masted galleon running in from the Atlantic before a stern wind first essayed to outrun the squadron, then, as the fickle winds shifted and slacked off abruptly, turned and fought furiously and tenaciously.
It was the first real toe-to-toe, broadside-for-broadside sea battle between equal or near-equal ships in which Bass had ever taken part, and after that one he never sought a part in any other.
Walid Pasha, clinging like an ape high in the standing rigging, studied the enemy galleon as the Revenge bore down on her, driving bows-under at a speed of at least eight knots and wetting every man forward of the mainmast on the upper decks with flung spray. Finally closing and casing his long-glass, the captain slid rapidly down to the rail and leaped lightly to the deck, where he disclosed the fruits of his reconnaissance to Bass, Fahrooq, Sir Ali, and the rest of the officers.
“Yon galleon was probably built nigh to a century agone, but she has been refurbished and refitted often and is generally well-found, to judge by her appearance and sailing qualities. She means to fight; the gunports were being opened even as 1 spied. And it will be a fight, if your grace choose to engage her. Her port side is pierced for fifteen guns, her stern for four chasers, which last were already run out and looked to be long fifteens or eighteens, bronze or brass. She has soldiers, or at least many men in armor, on board, too. Well, Sebastian Bey, do we accept or decline?”
“What would Walid Pasha advise?” Bass questioned. “My experience lies on land, on horseback, mostly.”
Walid signaled his boatswain to slow the galleon’s speed, lest they overhaul the pugnacious stranger before any decision or preparations had been made to fight, then turned back to Bass Foster.
“Your grace, were it this galleon alone, understrength as we are from losses to the prize crews, facing so strong-looking a ship, I would say to decline the offer of battle. But backed as we are by the caravel Krystal and the three sloops of Paul Pasha, I must say to accept, fight, and conquer her. She will make a splendid addition to the squadron of Sebastian Bey.”
“Besides, y’r grace,” added Sir Calum, “we must attack her, now she’s seen us so close for so long, else we’ll have every bateau de guerre from Brittany to Navarre out looking for us. And that right speedily.”
Bass sighed and nodded. “And the squadron would be of scant value to his majesty on the bottom of the sea, and that’s where we soon would be if we had to fight full-armed warships every day, for our every prize. Very well, Walid Pasha, engage them. Yours will be the overall command; you’ve done this before.”
At a distance just beyond the range of smoothbore broadside cannon, Revenge and Krystal, one behind the other, sailed slowly in a great circle around the galleon, which now had run up a French battle ensign along with several other, unfamiliar colors.
Using the three new rifled cannon developed by Pete Fairley, which each of these larger ships now mounted on swivels at bow and stern, they pounded the target mercilessly, while return fire dropped into the sea or went skipping over the waves before sinking.
As Bass watched, Nugai and a Fairley-trained guncrew opened the breech, swabbed the bore from the chamber end, slipped a long, pointed, fused shell into the rifling grooves, following it with a waxed-linen cartridge, slammed the breech and gave the handle the half-turn that locked it, then pricked open the powder cartridge, filled the vent with priming, and carefully sighted the gun. Balancing easily on his short, bowed legs, the self-appointed Kalmyk guncaptain stood like a yellow-brown statue, awaiting the precise moment that the Revenge began her upswing before laying his smoking slow-match directly atop the filled vent.
Following the shot with his binoculars, Bass saw it crash through the upper level of the sterncastle, and a split second later, he saw what looked like a door blasted down into the crowded waist, while a sheet of fire and a hail of small debris burst out of the sterncastle’s rear windows.
After a single broadside from each of their full batteries, the French wisely ceased use of the outranged guns, only essaying shots whenever the Revenge or the Krystal lay athwart bow or stern, where the longer-ranged chasers could be brought into play. And the French gunners quickly proved their expertise, scoring a total of five hits on the two ships, none of which, however, did any real damage or inflicted any injuries.
The same, unfortunately for the French, could not be said of what was being done by Pete Fairley’s fearsome breech-loading rifled cannon. Binoculars and long-glasses showed not a few still or thrashing bodies on her decks, along with a couple of spars and a decent-sized jumble of rigging, tackle, and shredded sailcloth. There was at least one fire on her gundecks to judge by the amounts of smoke billowing out of the still-open gunports. Occasionally, the wind bore down to the attackers the rattle of a drum or a thin wail that might have been a scream of agony. Like so many ants at this distance, tiny figures scurried about, fighting the fires blazing in both fore- and sterncastles, apparently oblivious to the shells still bursting among them, up in the rigging or in the fabric of the ship herself.
Had there been sufficient supply of the cylindrical shells, they well might have continued to bleed the French galleon at a safe range until the ship was so crippled or her crew so reduced as to ensure a quick, easy victory on closing, but the numbers of the explosive shells had been limited at the very inception of the voyage and several had been used as chaser shots in earlier actions. So when the bottommost layer of the shell boxes was reached, Walid Pasha ordered the long-range shelling halted and the second, more normal and far more dangerous phase of his plan of battle commenced.
CHAPTER
THE THIRD
Abbot Fergus had been journeying back from Edinburgh when the great, fearsome thunderbolt had set the thatch roof of the abbey barn afire. The monks and the lay brothers, the few hale guests, as well as folk of all ages who’d run up from the village at sight of the flames, and even some of the patients—for this was a nursing order—had done all that was humanly possible to save the contents of the ancient stone buildings, while the whipping winds of the tempest had imparted murderous life to the flames.
The all-devouring conflagration had leapt from one building to another and another and yet another, while terrified kine bawled, while men and women shouted and howled and shrieked and screamed. Tonsured cleric and hairy smith risked their lives side by side to rip loose and throw down great armsful of the heavy, stinking, smoldering thatch. Others ran into buildings already afire to bear out the few poor treasures, furnishings, stores, and sufferers too ill to help themselves.
In the cold, misty forenoon that followed that hellish night, Abbot Fergus arrived at his journey’s end and, in company with Brother P£ruig, his longtime secretary, walked the grounds and, amongst the still-smoking ruins, compiled mental evaluations of the losses and began to frame in his own mind the letter and detailed report of the calamity which he soon must dictate and send off to the parent house in the Western Isles. Such damages as he saw before him would cost far more to make right than he thought he could obtain locally.
“. . . three cows, one of them big with calf, alas. The roof of the byre collapsed, flaming, ere the last two could be led out. As for the other, she was found dead where she had been tethered, and no burn or other mark upon her.
“The oxen all were saved, God be praised, likewise the asses and the small mule that was willed to the monastery last year. The fires never got to the cellars, so we’ll not lack for food and drink, at least, nor the beasts for grain, though every one of the nearer haystacks burned and—”
“But the folk,” broke in Abbot Fergus. “What of the folk, brother?”
Brother Paming sighed and signed himself, piously. “Two of our brothers we know are dead—Brothers Gilleasbuig and Donnochadh-ogh—one of a broken skull when he fell off a roof, the other burnt with the last brace of cows he had run in to lead out to safety. Father Mark the Sassenach is missing; so also are two of the lay brothers who were sharing the nightwatch in the main hospital.”