Artemis Page 3

  The ships drew closer. “Damn me that he doesn’t risk a raking broadside,” muttered Merrydew.

  As Artemis turned for the final run in to place herself parallel to the Citoyenne she would necessarily expose her bow to her opponent. Even one round-shot passing down the length of the vessel could do terrible damage, smashing through the guns one after another, maiming and killing in an unstoppable swath of destruction.

  But there was no cannon fire. In silence Artemis glided toward the enemy frigate, her own broadside held to a hair trigger. Parry glanced at Powlett, who stood foursquare on the quarterdeck, facing the Citoyenne as the two ships converged. “On my signal,” snarled Powlett.

  At a walking pace Citoyenne slipped forward, enough way on for the rudder to answer. Men crowded on her decks, the knot of officers on her quarterdeck clearly distinguishable. From her open gunports the muzzles of cannon menaced, each one ready to deliver a crushing blow. But still they rested silent.

  “Their captain,” Parry whispered.

  The blue and gold figure opposite stood erect and proud. His arm swept up and he removed his hat with a courtly bow.

  “My God!” Parry blurted.

  “Shut up!” Powlett snapped. He removed his own hat, sweeping it down in an elegant leg, then stood tall and imperious. “Long live His Majesty King George,” he roared. “Huzzah for the King!” Dumbfounded, the group of officers removed their hats at the wild cheering that erupted from all parts of their vessel.

  Opposite, the French Captain waited patiently for the sound to die. Now the ships ran parallel at an easy pace some two hundred yards apart. The Captain turned to one of a nearby gun crew and seized his cap, holding it aloft. It was a Phrygian cap of liberty.“Vive la République!” The emotion in his voice was evident even across the distance. A storm of hoarse cheering broke out. The Captain clutched the cap once to his bosom, then thrust it at a seaman. Followed by cheering acclamation the man swarmed up the main shrouds, and at the masthead nailed the cap in place.

  Powlett straightened. “Enough of this nonsense,” he snorted, and clapped his hat back on his head. It was the signal. After the briefest of pauses Artemis’s broadside smashed out in a brutal, thunderous roar, instantly filling the space between the two ships with acrid rolling gunsmoke.

  The first broadside was an ear-splitting, mind-blasting slam of sound, choking the gundeck with writhing masses of smoke. Immediately Citoyenne’s broadside answered. It arrived in a storm of violence, iron round-shot beating into Artemis’s sides and deck—smashing, splintering, killing.

  “Load, yer buggers!” yelled Stirk. The gun crew threw themselves at the task.

  There was no time for Kydd to look around, to discover the source of the terrible shrieking nearby. No time to ponder the origin of the heavy clattering overhead, or the strange quiet of the gun next to them. It was impossible to see anything of the enemy through the gunport. They remained unseen under the double volume of gunsmoke.

  He wielded his dripping sponge-rammer with a nervous fury, plunging it into the still smoking maw of the twelve-pounder, deep inside with a couple of twists to the left, and out again with twists to the right. Doggo was there in an instant, with the lethal gray cartridge and then a wad into the muzzle. Kydd had the stave reversed and savagely stabbed the rammer down. He caught Stirk’s eyes as he looked down the gun from the breech end, his thumb over the vent hole to detect when the cartridge was truly seated, but there was no hint of recognition.

  Then the ball, clapped in by Doggo and followed by a final wad. Kydd’s movements on the rammer were fierce and positive. If they could get away another broadside before the enemy, it was the same as doubling their firepower.

  “Run out!” Stirk shouted hoarsely. The gun bellowed and slammed in.

  Kydd leapt into action again, the same motions. The work, the need to intermesh his movements with the others, meant there was no time for fear.

  The second broadside from Citoyenne came smashing in, a long roll of terrible crashes instead of the massed simultaneity of the first. Kydd froze as they beat in on his senses. To his left, next to him, Kydd saw Gully drop to his knees with a muffled cry. In the smoky darkness it was difficult to see the cause, but the spreading dark stain under him was plain enough. He fell to his side, and scrabbled at the fat of his upper thigh. Kydd stared at the foot-long splinter, which had been driven up by a rampaging ball and transfixed him. Gully wept with pain and crawled away in a trail of blood. Stirk’s eyes searched wildly for a replacement.

  Kydd glanced across the gun and saw Renzi, his face grave, and thought how easy it would have been for his friend to be a victim instead. He crushed the thought, and shoved the side tackle rope into the hand of the unknown seaman who was taking Gully’s place.

  The enemy were pacing them; there would not be any doubling of firepower—it would be a fight to the death among equals.

  Powlett strolled slowly and grimly on the quarterdeck as debris rained down from above. Only the sails of the enemy were visible, but in her fighting tops above the smoke, moving figures could be seen leveling muskets at Artemis’s quarterdeck.

  Neville clasped his hands firmly behind him and paced slowly on the other side of the deck.

  Parry had his sword out and was gripping the mizzen shrouds as he glared across at the enemy. Merrydew had disappeared into the hell forward with his mates, and the young midshipman attending on the Captain was visibly trembling.

  A second broadside from Citoyenne crashed out into the thinning smoke between them. As the awful onslaught struck, Powlett was enveloped for a moment by the powder smoke. Then a sudden shock was transmitted through the deck planking. A thin scream came from out of nowhere and Neville was struck violently, sent sprawling by the flailing limbs of a man falling from aloft. Neville picked himself up; the man now lay untidily, dead.

  A round-shot had nearly severed the driver gaff between the throat and peak halliards. The long spar began to sag. Then, in a slow rending, it fell apart. Without support the big sail first crumpled then ripped from top to bottom, the heavy boom and rigging crushing and entangling the larboard six-pounder crews.

  “Can’t hold ’er!” the helmsman shouted, spinning the wheel fast to prevent the ship sagging to leeward and the enemy.

  Powlett turned to the midshipman. “Tell ’em to get in the head-sails!” he snapped. Artemis slowed, her fine sailing qualities useless. Without a driver sail aft if she showed canvas forward they would pivot around in a helpless spiral.

  They could neither maneuver nor run away. The smoke drifted over the bright sea, revealing Citoyenne pulling triumphantly ahead. The sun caught a quick flash of glass on her quarterdeck as her officers eagerly inspected the damage to Artemis.

  It was obvious that there was no way they could effect a battle repair on the driver quickly—it was a unique fore-and-aft sail that needed special gear to set it out from the mast. And without maneuverability they could only take what was coming …

  After a few hundred yards Citoyenne began her turn into the wind. This would take her across the bows of Artemis, and would let her rake her adversary as she tacked around. This nightmare of a full broadside smashing headlong into her bows and down the length of the vessel was now upon them.

  Forward the experienced fo’c’slemen saw the danger and frantically re-set the headsails—jib, staysails, anything. Artemis responded, falling away off the wind; but in so doing she kept her broadside to bear, turning in time with Citoyenne. With all the fury of helplessness Artemis thundered out her broadside again, strikes on Citoyenne visible now from her quarterdeck. The reply was thin and ragged, but this was only because most of the experienced French seamen would be at work putting the ship about.

  Citoyenne completed her tack and was now ready to pass back in the opposite direction, poised to deliver her next broadside with full crews. Her tactics had also given her the weather gauge, an upwind position, which would allow her now to dictate the conditions of the battle. The
French frigate began her pass, but there was one advantage that had been left Artemis—Citoyenne’s battered side faced them once more, but it was their own undamaged opposite side that awaited the clash.

  As the two vessels passed, guns crashed out as they bore, no pretense at disciplined broadsides. Like the potshots of a crazy drunk, the cruel iron shot pounded into Artemis as the ships slipped past.

  At one point, Spershott, emerging from below, was flung across the deck like a child’s discarded rag doll. He did not move where he sprawled. Two sailors took him by the arms and legs and dragged him below.

  Powlett did not pause in his calm pacing.

  Citoyenne ceased fire as she reached beyond Artemis. The enemy frigate wore around, so sure of her victim that she eschewed the faster tacking in going about for the more deliberate but less taxing wear. In wearing ship, Citoyenne would now pass much closer. This was the act of a supremely confident commander, who wanted to finish things quickly.

  “Mr. Neville!” roared Powlett, from the other side of the deck. “Repel boarders!” He was grimed in smoke but stood stiff as a ramrod. The French frigate was pressing close because she was coming in to board. With her superior weight of numbers she was going to end it all with a final broadside before boarding Artemis in the gunsmoke. “Aye aye, sir!” Neville yelled back.

  Powlett cracked a grim smile. “Go to it!”

  The gundeck was a pit of horror. With the space wreathed in thick choking powder smoke, shot through with screams and cries, Kydd knew only the unvarying cycle of load and fire. The wet sheepskin of his sponge met the blistering iron each time with a mad sizzle.

  At each pass of the enemy there was a monotonous crashing and thudding of round-shot strikes.

  The guns fell silent. It seemed on the gundeck that Citoyenne was taking time wearing around instead of tacking. The smoke gradually cleared, and those who could peered from the gunports. The enemy was returning, closing, with the clear intention of finishing Artemis.

  “Repel boarders Awaaaay, first division of boarders!”

  Kydd hesitated.

  “Off yer go, cock,” Stirk said, in a hoarse voice. “An’—best o’ luck, mate.”

  With his heart pounding with dread, Kydd rushed up the fore-hatch. On deck the ship was in ruinous condition—shot-through sails, ragged and unraveled rigging hanging down and swinging in the breeze, and scored and splintered decks littered with blocks and debris. The last act had begun.

  He stumbled across to the foremast and yanked away a boarding pike from its stand. A boatswain’s mate directed him aft where he joined the little group on the quarterdeck. Lieutenant Neville was there with drawn sword. He had thrown off his coat and now stood dramatically in front of them. “We shall meet the French like heroes and we will drive them back into the sea.”

  There was a prickling in his right leg that distracted Kydd. Below the knee a splinter had torn his trouser and had penetrated his flesh before ripping its way out again. It was the coagulated blood sticking and pulling at his leg hairs that annoyed him. He allowed a twisted smile to acknowledge his first wound in battle, then cut away his duck trousers above the wound.

  Astern, Citoyenne took in sail preparatory to coming in. On her fo’c’sle her boarders were massed, a menacing, shouting crowd.

  “Pikemen at the ready!” Neville called loudly. “To the bulwarks, advance!”

  “Belay that.” It was Powlett. “Madness—on the deck, get down! They’ll be using grape, you fool.”

  They fell to the deck, behind the low bulwarks. The forward guns of Citoyenne were charged with grapeshot and they unleashed their hail of deadly small balls. The shot battered and tore at the nettings and side, but did not find flesh to tear.

  It was a different matter for the carronades on Artemis. These ugly little weapons, short and stubby cannon on a slide, could bear aft, and when they replied it was with canister, a sleeting cloud of musket balls, which found targets aplenty in the bodies of the boarders. Shouts and jeers turned instantly to shrieks and cries, and to Kydd’s horrified fascination, runnels of blood began coursing down the bow of the ship as it passed by their quarterdeck.

  “Silly buggers,” grunted the carronade gun captain.

  The other carronade had held its fire and its captain was fiercely concentrating on the changing angle. Citoyenne’s bow swept by, but still he did not fire.

  “Men, he will attempt to board in the smoke of his broadside,” Neville called loudly. His voice broke with the intensity of his warning.

  Kydd understood and rose with the others to the ready. Grounding the butt end of the boarding pike he thrust it forward and outward and tried to remember all he had been told. Soon there would be a final broadside and somewhere from the powder smoke would come a screaming pack of Frenchmen. He had to be ready to meet them.

  The enemy boat-space passed with still no firing, but Citoyenne was slowing for the kill. Kydd held his breath. Suddenly the remaining carronade blasted off. It caught Kydd unawares, but its shot, a twenty-four-pounder round-shot, was well aimed. It smashed squarely into the base of the enemy’s mizzen mast, which slowly fell toward them, bringing down the entire mass of sails, spars and rigging—and the hapless men in the mizzen top—over the side.

  But there was an additional and crucial injury. The shot that had chewed a fatal bite from the mizzen mast had first smashed the ship’s wheel. Without helm Citoyenne was out of control. She surged away for a short time but then swung toward Artemis. The angle opened but they were so close that the result was inevitable—the long bowsprit of the French ship speared across the decks of Artemis between the foremast and mainmast and the frigate thumped heavily to a stop, her bow hard up against the midships of her prey.

  Kydd watched, appalled. Inertia drove at the French frigate, but her locked fore-end prevented her completing the move: hundreds of tons forced the big bowsprit against Artemis’s mainmast. It stopped dead, then strained and creaked noisily under the pressure.

  Something had to give—either Artemis’s mainmast or Citoyenne’s entire bowsprit and forward gear. Both ships seemed to hold their breath. There was a series of thunderclap cracking noises. Then French fir gave best to British oak, and in a deafening, splintering surge the bowsprit broke and the whole fore assembly of Citoyenne gave way. Her bow dissolved into a tangle of spars, rigging and sails, most of which lay draped on Artemis’s midships. Relieved of the frenzy of forces, Citoyenne swung into Artemis and came to rest alongside.

  “Stand to!” yelled Neville.

  This was now the decisive time—no more maneuvering, no more waiting. The battle had reached its climax. Seamen spread out along the bulwarks, pikes resolutely outward, but they were so pitifully few.

  Powlett stood stock still, staring at the Citoyenne.

  “Sir?” said Neville.

  “There’s something wrong aboard the Frenchy,” Powlett muttered. There seemed to be confusion, a turmoil of directionless men. A number had begun swarming up the rigging on some desperate mission, but angry shouts indicated that the order had been countermanded or misunderstood. Some milled about the decks but nowhere were boarders massing for the attack.

  “Her captain has fallen,” Powlett said in a low voice. Then louder, savagely, he said, “And we have our chance, Mr. Neville.” He drew his sword. “Awaaaay, boarders!”

  Neville looked thunderstruck—then grinned. “Aye aye, sir! Boarders away!”

  A full-throated cheer roared up from the men. This was better than waiting tamely for the enemy. Pikes were thrown to the deck; men raced to the arms chest and snatched their weapons—a brace of pistols, a cutlass, some took a tomahawk. Kydd stuffed a pair of pistols into his wide belt and also grabbed a cutlass, which he held as naked steel. Tensing nervously, he turned back to Neville. The man seemed strangely serene. His eyes flashed then he turned to his men. “Boarders to the fore—advance! God save the King!” With his sword stabbing ahead, he plunged forward. The first division of boarders follow
ed him.

  Men scrambled on and up to the remains of the bowsprit. It lay across the battered-down bulwarks of Artemis amidships, a perfect bridge into the heart of the enemy. With mad cheering and wild waving of cutlasses they were soon on the broad top of the big spar. Slashing at the entangled rigging, Neville forced his way across to the fo’c’sle of the other ship, to the rapidly gathering band of enraged French. Kydd stumbled and charged with the others, his thoughts a mad whirl of the imperative for victory—and survival.

  The gundeck cleared of smoke, revealing the wreckage of battle. The occasional cannon crashed out from their foe, but with the ruin of Citoyenne’s fore-rigging there was a pause in the fighting. The after end of Citoyenne completed its swing, and the shot-scarred side of the frigate filled the frame of the gunport. Above them on the upper deck came a roar of British cheering.

  Renzi looked at the smoke-begrimed Stirk, who met his gaze with a tired smile. “Looks like we got ourselves a tartar by th’ tail,” he said. The slight relative motion of the vessels brought their gunports into line. With men away repelling boarders the British guns could not be served: they had to stand silent until the tide of battle had turned.

  Through the port Renzi could see erratic movements in the other ship. Then he understood. The thumping of feet on the deck above was toward the ship’s side—it was they who were boarding! With a breaking wave of emotion he screamed, “We’re boarding! By God, it’s us!”

  Stirk glared at him—realization struck and he threw himself at the midships arms chest, and brought out a cutlass. “Move, you bastards!”

  Renzi hurled himself to the chest and snatched up a cutlass for himself, jostled impatiently by others.

  With a bull-like roar Stirk lunged into the gaping gunport, through and on to the enemy gundeck. Renzi followed close behind, and jumped into the hostile deck, fetching up next to a dismounted gun. The scene was a crazy impression of bodies, live and dead. The low deckhead left no room for subtleties—the swordsman in Renzi sank to butchery, the robust greased steel of the Sea Service cutlass cleaving and plunging.