She looked around for a means of damaging them, a knife, one of her scalpels, perhaps, and almost immediately realized the futility of anything so puny. Even a strong man with a double-headed axe would be hard pressed to hack his way through those cables, and there was no room in which to swing an axe in that narrow tunnel. Even if a man had succeeded in severing one of them, he would have been cut to b.l.o.o.d.y tatters as the cable whiplashed.
There was only one means, one sure means, and she quailed at the thought of what would happen if it got out of control, and if Black Joke was not very swiftly alongside to render a.s.sistance with her steam-driven pumps and hoses. She had once already rejected the idea of using fire, but now with help so close astern, with the last chance rapidly fading, she was ready to accept any risk.
She reached across and pulled off the wooden bunk one of her grey woollen blankets and wadded it into a bundle, then she stood up and lifted the oil lamp from its gimbals in the deck above her. Her fingers were clumsy with haste as she unscrewed the cap of the oil reservoir in the base of the lamp.
She soaked the blanket, and then looked round for anything else that was inflammable, her journals? No, not them, but she pulled her medical manuals out of the chest and ripped the pages out of them, crumpling them so they would burn more readily, and she made a sack of the oil-soaked blanket and wadded the paper into it.
She stuffed it down the hatch and it fell across the straining rudder lines, and entangled itself in the iron pulleys.
The mattress on the bunk was filled with coir, the dry coconut fibre would burn fiercely; she dragged it off the bunk and pushed it into the hatch. Then the wooden slats off the bunk followed it, then the navigational books from the narrow bookshelf behind the door. She looked about her swiftly, but there was nothing else in the cabin that would burn.
The first Swan Vesta that she dropped burning down the hatchway flickered once and then went out. She tore the end sheet out of her journal and twisted it into a spill, when it was blazing strongly she let it fall into the dark square opening, and as it floated down it illuminated the gloomy recesses of Huron"s bilges, and the rough planking of her underbelly.
The burning spill landed on the oil-soaked blanket, and pale blue flames fluttered over it as the evaporating gases flashed off, then a crumpled ball of paper caught and little orange flames peaked up and danced merrily over the blanket and the linen covering of the mattress.
A rush of heat came up through the hatchway, scorching Robyn"s cheeks, and the sound of the flames was higher than that of the rushing seas along the outside of the hull.
Using all her strength, Robyn swung the hatch cover over and let it drop back on to its seating with a thump that alarmed her anew, but immediately the sound of the flames was cut off.
Panting with the effort and a savage excitement, Robyn backed away and leaned against the bulkhead to rest. Her heart was pounding so fiercely that the blood in her ears nearly deafened her, and suddenly she was afraid.
What if Black joke had abandoned the unequal contest, and there was n.o.body to rescue the eight hundred miserable souls chained below Huron"s decks before the flames reached them?
That first wild a.s.sault of the wind, as it came boiling down off the mountains, had settled to a steady blast, not so furious, but constant and reliable.
There will be no flukes or holes in this gale of wind, Mungo thought with satisfaction, pausing in his pacing to look up at the small scudding wind-torn shreds of cloud that seemed to sc.r.a.pe the tops of his masts, and then turning to survey an indigo Atlantic that stretched to every corner of the horizon, dark with the wind rush and dappled with the prancing white horses that curled from every wave crest.
His leisurely survey ended over Huron"s stern rail. The land was already out of sight, so swiftly had Huron run the great flat-topped mountain below the horizon, and Black joke was hull down. Only her topsails showed, not a trace of furnace smoke.
The absence of smoke puzzled Mungo a little and he frowned, considering it, and finding no plausible answer, he shrugged and resumed his pacing. Black Joke would be out of sight, even from Huron"s towering masthead, before sunset, and Mungo was planning the evolutions he would make during the night to confuse thoroughly any pursuit, before settling on to his final course to run through the doldrums and cross the equator. Deck, masthead. " A faint hail reached him, breaking his line of thought, and he stopped again, threwback his head and with both hands on his hips stared up at the masthead as it dipped and swung across the sky.
Tippoo answered the hail with a bull bellow, and the look-out"s voice was strained, his anxiety evident even against the wind and at that remove. Smoke! "Where away? " Tippoo"s voice was angry, the reply should have given both distance and bearing from Huron already every man on Huron"s deck was twisting his head to sweep the horizon. Dead astern. "That will be the gunboat, Mungo thought comfortably. "She"s got her boiler going again, and much good may it do her. " He dropped his fists from his hips and took one more pace before the look-out"s voice rang out again. Smoke dead astern, we are trailing smoke! " Mungo stopped dead in his tracks, his foot still an inch from the deck. He felt the icy spray of fear chill his guts.
Fire! " bellowed Tippoo.
It was the one most dreaded word to men who lived their lives in the tinder hulls of wooden ships, whose seams were caulked with tar and pitch, and whose sails and rigging would burn like straw. Mungo completed that suspended pace, spinning on the ball of his foot as it struck the deck, and the next pace carried him to Huron"s rail. He leaned far out, peering back over the stern , and the smoke was a pale wisp, thin as sea fret, lying low against the dark blue sea, drifting away behind them, and dissipating even as he watched it.
Dry oak planks burn with a fine clean flame and little smoke, Mungo knew that, he knew also that the first thing he must do was starve the flames of air, heave the ship to, to reduce the wind of her pa.s.sage while the extent of the flames could be explored and the ship"s pumpsHe turned again, his mouth opening to begin shouting his commands. The quartermaster and his mate stood directly ahead of him, both of them balancing easily before the ma.s.sive mahogany and bra.s.s wheel. Larger than the driving-wheel on a steam locomotive, it required the strength of two men to hold Huron"s head in this wind and on this point of sailing, for the huge spread of her canvas was opposed by the ma.s.sive oak and copper rudder under her stern .
Down in the steering tunnel, the flames were being fed by the strong breeze that the canvas scoops on Huron"s foredeck were directing down into her own slave-decks in an attempt to keep them sweet.
The draught forced its way through the companionways and ladderways, through the ports and cracks in Huron"s bulkheads, and this steady breeze at last found its way into the long narrow tunnel that housed her steering-gear.
The bright rustling flames were almost smokeless, but intensely hot. They frizzled the loose fibres of hemp off the thick hairy rudder lines, and then swiftly blackened the golden brown cords, began to eat through them so that here a strand parted with a snap that was lost in the rising crackle of burning timbers and the strand unravelled, spinning upon itself and bursting in another tiny new explosion of light.
The two quartermasters were ten feet from where Mungo, stood, poised to give his commands, composing the orders in his head, when suddenly the ma.s.sive wheel no longer resisted the thrust of the brawny men who held it over.
Deep down in Huron"s hull, in the long wooden tunnel that had been turned into a raging blast furnace, the rudder lines had burned through, and as they snapped, they snaked and whipped viciously, smashing through the burning deck timbers, scattering flaming brands into the hold below, and letting in a fresh whistling gush of air that forced the flames higher.
Under the helmsman"s hands the wheel dissolved in a spinning blur of glittering bra.s.s and the quartermaster was hurled the length of the deck, striking the bulwark with jarring force that dropped him to the planking wriggling feebly as a crushed insect. his mate was less fortunate, his right arm was caught in the polished mahogany spokes of the wheel and it twisted like a strip of rubber, the bone of his forearm breaking up into long sharp splinters whose points thrust out whitely through the tanned skin, and the head of the long humerus bone was plucked from its socket in the scapula and the whole upper arm screwed up in a twist of rubbery flesh.
With the press of the rudder under the stern no longer controlling the rush of Huron"s hull through the water, the tremendous pressure of the wind in her sails took over unopposed, and Huron became a giant"s weatherc.o.c.k. She spun in almost her own length, her bows flying up into the wind and every man on her deck was hurled to the planking with stunning force.
The yards came crashing about, tackle snapping like cotton, one of the upper yards tearing itself loose, falling in a twisted web of its own canvas and rigging, and Huron was taken full aback, the neat geometrical pyramids of her sails disintegrating into flapping, fluttering chaos, wrapping around the stays and halyards, flogging against their own yards and masts.
With the gale of wind flying fully into the front of the sails, from the diametrically opposite direction to that for which they had been designed, the tall masts flexed and arched dangerously backwards, the backstays; drooping slackly, adding to the confusion of sail and rigging, while all the forestays were humming with unbearable tension, and one of them parted with an ear-laming crack and the foremast shifted a few degrees and then hung askew.
Mungo St. John dragged himself to his feet and clung to the rail. The screams of the maimed helmsman dinning in his ears, he looked, about him, and disbelief turned to bitter despair, as he found his beautiful ship transformed to an ungainly shambles. Wallowing drunkenly, Huron was beginning to make sternway, as the wind pushed her backwards and the waves came tumbling aboard her.
For long seconds Mungo stared about him numbly.
There was so much damage, so much confusion, and so much mortal danger, that he did not know where to begin, what his first order must be. Then over Huron"s heaving bows, in the opposite direction to which he had last seen it, the distant but suddenly dreadfully threatening speck that was Black fake"s topsails showed in a pale flash above the horizon, and it galvanized Mungo. Mr. Tippoo, Mungo called. We"ll reef the mains and send down all her top hamper."
The logical sequence of orders began to arrange themselves in his mind, and his voice was calm and clear, without the strained and panicky timbre they had expected. Mr. O"Brien, go below and give me a fire report, quick as you like. "Bosun, rig port and starboard pumps, and stand by to hose down the fire. "Mr. Tippoo, send a party to batten all her hatches and strike the air scoops. " They must try to prevent air reaching the flames, he was sealing the hull. c.o.xswain, have the whaler off her davits and launch her. " He would attempt to tow the heavy boat astern, to act as a drogue, a sea-anchor. He was not sure that it would provide a solution, but he intended to work Huron"s bows around with the delicate use of her forward sails, and with the drogue holding her tail in place of the rudder, he might be able to run directly before the wind. It was not his optimum course, and it would be fine and dangerous work with the deadly risk of gibing and broaching, but at the least it would give him respite while he rigged the emergency steering tackle to her useless rudder, and get Huron under control once more.
He paused for breath, but once more glanced forward.
Huron was moving rapidly astern, dipping and staggering into the swells so they came flurrying aboard her in spray and solid green gouts of water, while over her bows the British gunboat was closer, so close that Mungo glimpsed a little sliver of her painted hull, and it seemed that her action through the water was more boisterous and c.o.c.ky, like a game rooster erecting its c.o.xcomb and ruffling its feathers as it bounces across the sandy floor of the c.o.c.kpit.
Unable to endure the company of his junior officers a moment longer, stifled and filled with a sense of helplessness by his inability to prevent the tall American clipper from romping away from him, desperate for some activity to help his nerves from fraying further, Clinton Codrington had taken his telescope and gone forward into Black joke"s bows.
Oblivious to the spray that splattered over him, soaking the thin linen shirt and chilling him so that his teeth chattered even in the brilliant sunlight, Clinton clutched for a hand hold in the ratlines, balancing on the narrow bulwark and staring ahead through eyes that swam not only with the stinging spray and wind, but as much with humiliation and frustration.
Just perceptibly, Huron"s tower of canvas was sinking below the irregular watery horizon, by sunset she would be gone. She and Robyn Ballantyne. His chance had come and he had missed it. His spirits could sink no lower.
To add to his suffering, his streaming eyes were playing him false, and what he could still make out of the clipper became distorted, changing shape as he still stared after her. Then the hail from the look-out high above him broke the grip of his despair, Chase is altering! " Clinton could not yet believe the high-pitched shriek from the masthead. "She"s coming about! The hail was almost incoherent with excitement and surprise.
Clinton whipped the telescope to his eye, and once again doubted his eyesight. Huron"s masts had been almost dead in line, but now they showed individually She was coming about, already Huron was almost broadside, and Clinton stared. For a few moments more the orderly ma.s.s of sails retained their perfect snowy shape, and then the pattern began to break up. The ponderous belly of the mainsail wobbled and trembled, then began to flutter and shake like a pennant in the gale, it spilled its wind and collapsed like a bursting paper bag and lashed itself in a petulant fury around its own mast.
Huron was a shambles. Through the gla.s.s Clinton could see her beginning to tear herself to pieces, sails ripping, yards tumbling, her foremast sagging out of true, and he still could not believe it was happening.
She"s taken full aback. " He heard Denham"s triyell, and of ier voices took up the cry. She fast in irons! "We"ve got her, by G.o.d, we"ve got her now! " Though his vision blurred and the wetness running down his cheeks was not all splattered spray, Clinton went on staring incredulously through the telescope. There is smoke, she"s on fire! Denham again, and Clinton picked up the fine pale mist of smoke spreading away from her; and at that moment a fresh burst of spray over the bows drenched the lens of his telescope, and he lowered it.
He took a silk bandanna from his hip pocket, and wiped his face and eyes of spray and the other wetness, then he blew his nose noisily, stuffed the handkerchief back into his pocket, jumped on to his deck and strode back to his quarterdeck. Mr. Ferris, he said crisply, "please send up a flag hoist under Huron"s nAme and make the following "I am sending a boarding party to you. "" The pale sapphire eyes shone with a zealot"s intensity. ""If you resist I shall fight you."
It was a long message, and while Ferris called for the pennants from the flag locker, Clinton turned to Denham. His voice shook with pa.s.sion. Please clear the ship for action, Mr. Denham, and we"ll run out our guns now."
Above the gale Clinton heard the clatter of the opening gunports, the rumble of the gun carriages, but all his attention was concentrated ahead upon the crippled slave ship.
He saw and understood the desperate attempts that her Captain was making to get her before the wind. He knew what a feat it had been to take down that tangled mast of canvas and rope in such a short time, yet he felt no admiration, only cold fighting fury.
Huron was showing only a storm jib.
St. John was clearly trying to break the grip of the gale upon her for she was fast "in irons", her bows to the wind, and he was attempting to bring her round, but the tall ship that was usually so compliant and obedient was baulking, resisting him, and every minute Black Joke was swarming down upon her, closer and still closer. She"s got serious structural damage, Denham gloated aloud. "I"d hazard a guess that she"s lost her rudder."
Clinton did not answer him, he strained ahead, half exultant, half fearful that St. John"s efforts would succeed and he would watch helplessly as Huron turned her stern to him once more, and went plunging away at the speed which Black Joke could never hope to match.
Then, as he watched, it happened. Huron swung her long, low length nearly broadside to him, beam on to the wind once again, and hung there for infinite seconds, then she shuddered and shook herself free of the gale"s grip and went through the eye of the wind. Instantly the sc.r.a.ps of sail on her foremast snapped open, she came around presenting her stern to Black fake and was sailing again.
Even in his bitter chagrin, Clinton could at last feel admiration for that barely credible feat of seamanship, but beside him his officers were struck dumb, paralysed with disappointment to see their prey slipping away from them once more.
More sails bloomed upon her tall bare masts, and the gap between the two ships was no longer narrowing; instead, it began to widen once more; slowly, infinitely slowly, Huron was forging away, and the night was coming. She"s streaming a warp behind her, Denham lamented quietly. It"s a small ship"s boat, Ferris corrected him.
They were already close enough to make out such details, Huron was only three or four nautical miles ahead of them, all her bull was in plain sight and they could even make out the tiny human figures on her decks with the naked eye. "d.a.m.ned clever, what! Ferris went on with professional interest. "Who would have believed it would work. Like as not the d.a.m.ned Yankee has the legs of us still Clinton"s chagrin turned to anger at his junior"s unnecessary commentary. Mr. Ferris, instead of chattering like a washerwoman, will you not read the signal Huron is flying? " Huron"s signal flags were blowing almost directly away from the watchers on Black Joke"s deck, making them difficult to spot and interpret, and Ferris, who had been fixing all his attention on the towing whaler, started guiltily, and then dived for his signal book and began busily scribbling on his slate. Huron sends under our name, "Stay clear of me, or I will fire upon you. ""Good. " Clinton nodded and drew an inch of bare steel from the scabbard of his cutla.s.s to make sure the weapon was free before thrusting it back to the hilt. "Now we all know where we stand! " But, slowly, inexorably, Huron even partially crippled, and steering only by the sails on her foremast, was drawing away from them, and she was still far out of random cannon shot. The fire has taken hold in the steering-gear under the doctor"s cabin. " The third mate came hurrying back on deck to make his damage report. "I got her out of there."
He jerked a thumb as Robyn came up on deck clutching her black leather valise into which she had hastily crammed her journals and other small valuables. It"s got through into the cable her and the lazaretto, it will be into the stern quarters in a minute. " The mate"s arms and face streamed with oily sweat, and the soot had blackened them like a chimney sweep. Put the hoses in through the p.o.o.p companionway Mungo, told him calmly. "And flood the stern section abaft the main hold."
The mate hurried away and within seconds there was the tolling clangour of the pumps as a dozen men threw their combined weight on the handles and the canvas hoses filled and stiffened, e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.n.g. solid jets of seawater down the stifling ladderways where already the air was trembling with heat like a desert mirage. Almost immediately hissing clouds of white steam began to boil from the ports and stern lights.
Satisfied, Mungo turned away, shot one glance over the stern to make sure that the gunboat was still falling away behind the limping clipper, then let his gaze linger a moment longer on the thick hawser that was secured to the port stern stanchions and ran through the fairlead to the bobbing whaler that Huron was dragging half a cable"s length astern. The whole complex arrangement of the wind and sails and drogue was critical and unstable, the slightest change might upset it. He decided he could not risk hoisting another square inch of canvas, nor could he send a party below to rig a jury tackle on the useless rudder until the fire was brought under control.
He lit a cheroot, frowning with concentration over the simple and familiar task, and then he raised his eyes to look directly at Robyn for the first time since she had come up on deck.
For a second they stared at each other, and then Robyn looked astern at the ugly little gunboat that was still plugging along after them. I keep making the mistake of trusting you, " Mungo said beside her. I only made that mistake once, with you, she replied, and he inclined his head slightly, accepting the riposte. How did you get into the steering gear, he began to enquire, then snapped his fingers irritably at his own oversight. "Of course, the inspection hatch. Yet, your ingenuity, Doctor, has been of no avail. Your friends still cannot hold us and as soon as it is dark, I will have the rudder cables repaired."
For the last minute Muago had been studying her face, oblivious to the sea and the ship and the gale. He did not see the fresh squall racing down upon Huron. When it struck, there was no helmsman to hold her. She saw the flash of alarm in his eyes, the realization of danger.
His voice, as he yelled an order down the length of the deck, had for the first time the crack of fear in it. Get the sails off her, Mr. Tippoo. Quick as you can! " For the squall had upset the nice balance of Huron"s drogue and sail. The ship lunged forward sharply, the long bellied length of cable trailing astern. lifted itself above the broken surface of the sea, straightening and coming under such strain that the seawater spurted from the hemp cords in tiny feathery jets.
The empty whaler, with her tarpaulin cover still lashed down over her in an attempt to keep her dry, was at that instant canted steeply over the crest of a breaking swell. The shattering impact transmitted by the taut cable to her bows pitched her forward and heaved her clear of the crest, so that for a moment she was airborne, like a leaping porpoise and then she struck bows first and was s.n.a.t.c.hed below the surface.
For an instant Huron staggered to the enormous increase in drag upon the trailing cable, and then the whaler disintegrated in a boiling flurry of white disturbed water. Her broken planking popped to the surface and the cable freed of its wearying weight flicked high in the air like the tail of an angry lioness. Without restraint, Huron gibed fiercely, spinning once more across the wind, and this time being blown flat, her tall bare masts swinging over almost parallel to the sea"s surface.
The lee rail dug deeply into the sea, and the water came aboard her in a sweeping torrent, like a bursting dam wall.
It caught Robyn and hurled her against Mungo St. John"s chest; if it had not done so, she would have been carried overboard, but he caught her to him and held her as they were tumbled down the steeply canted deck and then Huron was righting herself again, the water cascading off her in silver spouts.
She wallowed helplessly, taking the gale-driven seas on her beam, her desperate rolling accentuated by the pendulum of her high bare masts, but at least that drenching wall of sea water had poured into her hull through every opening and had extinguished her fires on the instant.
Mungo St. John dragged Robyn by the wrist across the flooded deck, sloshing and slipping knee deep with loose tackle slithering and floating around them.
At the break of the p.o.o.p he stopped, both of them panting for breath, their clothing and hair streaming sea water, the deck heaving and dropping crazily under them so he had to cling to the weather rail for support. He stared across at Black Joke.
The race was run. The gunboat was crowding down upon them exultantly, so close that he could see the cannon protruding from her open ports and the heads of the gunners above the bulwarks. Her challenging flag hoist still flew in her riggin& gaudy and gay as Christmas decorations.
She would be up to the wallowing clipper in minutes, long before Mungo could ever hope to get his ship sailing again.
Mungo shook the water from his sodden dark locks like a spaniel coming ash.o.r.e, and he filled his lungs. Mr. O"Brien, a pair of slave cuffs here, he bellowed, and Robyn, who had never heard him raise his voice, was stunned by the volume of sound that came up out of that muscular chest. She was still dazed and confused as she felt the cold kiss of iron on her wrists.
Mungo snapped the cuff on her left wrist, took two swift turns of chain around Huron"s rail and then snapped the second cuff on her right wrist. I have no doubt your friends will be delighted to see you, in the cannon"s mouth, he told her, his face still set with anger, the rims of his nostrils white as bone china. He turned from her, running his fingers through his dark curls, throwing the hair back from his forehead and eyes. Mr. O"Brien, muskets and pistols to every hand. Run out the guns and load with ball, we"ll change to grape as the range closes. " The mate shouted his orders as he ran, and the crew scattered from the futile task of attempting to bring the clipper under control. They stumbled across the wave-swept deck, dodging fallen and broken tackle, hurrying to arm themselves and to man Huron"s guns.
Mr. Tippoo! Mungo"s voice cut through the cacophony of gale and shouted orders. Captain MungoVBring up the first deck of slaves. "We deep-sixing them? " Tippoo asked, for he had served before under slave captains, who, when capture by a naval vessel was imminent, would deep-six their cargo of blackbirds, drop them overboard, chains and all, and rid themselves of the most d.a.m.ning evidence against them. We"ll chain "em to the weather rail, Mr. Tippoo, with the woman. " Mungo used neither Robyn"s t.i.tle nor her name. "Make the limejuicer think a spell before he opens fire. " And Tippoo let an explosive chuckle of laughter come bouncing up his throat as he bounded away on those thick bowed legs, to get the gratings off the main hatch. Sir! " Denham"s voice was incredulous, shocked. "Sir! "Yes, Mr. Denharn, Clinton answered him quietly, without lowering his telescope. "I have seen it-"But, sir, that"s Doctor Ballantyne-"And black slaves. " Ferris could hold his tongue no longer. "They"re chaining them to the rail. "What manner of man is that Yankee! "Denham burst out again.
A d.a.m.ned clever one, " Clinton answered him quietly.
He was watching the woman he had come to rescue through the gla.s.s. He could already recognize her features. Her eyes seemed too large for her deathly white face, her sodden and rumpled clothing stuck to her body.
Through a rent in her blouse he could see the pale skin of her shoulder and upper arm gleaming with a pearl-like l.u.s.tre in the sunlight. Mr. Denham, Clinton went on speaking. "Warn the crew that we will be receiving fire in about five minutes, and we will be unable to return it."
He watched the ranks of naked black slaves still coming up on to the clipper"s main deck and taking their place along the rail, their gaolers fussing about them, chivvying them into place and securing their chains. We are fortunate in having a gale of wind, so we will be exposed to fire for a short period, but warn the men to lie flat upon the deck below the bulwark."
Black joke"s fragile eggsh.e.l.l plating would give some protection at extreme range, but as they closed with the slave ship, he could expect even grape shot to penetrate their sides. One blessing, they would be spared the lethal flying splinters that were so much dreaded in wooden ships. I am going to lay her alongside the Yankee"s stern , Clinton went on. That way she would be exposed to the clipper"s broadsides while the two ships were bound to each other. "But she stands taller than we do. I want your best men with the grappling irons, Mr. Denham. " Huron"s maindeck was ten feet higher than the gunboat"s. There would be nice work ahead when they leapt the gap, and scrambled up Huron"s stern with its p.r.o.nounced tumble home. By G.o.d! She"s running out her guns. She means to fight us after all, Denham cut in, and then, penitently, I beg your pardon, sir. " He excused himself for the interruption and the blasphemy.
Clinton lowered the telescope. They were so close now that he no longer needed it.
The clipper had six light cannons on each side of her, mounted on the maindeck. The barrels were almost twice as long as Black joke"s own heavy carronades. However, the bore of the muzzles was much smaller in diameter, and as Clinton watched, they began to train around towards him, one at a time beginning at the stern .
Even without the gla.s.s, Clinton could make out the tall lean figure in the plain jacket moving at a deceptivly leisurely pace one gun to the next, laying each of them personally gestuning at the gun crews to strain on the tackles and traverse the long cannonon to their target.
Clinton saw St. John reach the bow kgun and make a careful adjustment, working over it A few seconds longer than he had the others, and then he leapt to the clipper"s bulwark and balanced there with, the a.s.surance of an acrobat against the rudderless hull"s unpredictable movements.
The scene engraved itself upon Clinton"s mind, it it seemed so theatrical, like the cast of a stage production lined up at the end of the performance to receive the applause of the spectators. The file of naked black bodies, standing almost shoulder to shoulder with their arms extended in unison, like the trained *. chorus, their wrists locked to the teak rail by the slave cuffss. Then the princ.i.p.al, the figure of the woman, slim AM somehow delicate and tiny in their midst. The bodice of her dress, a b.u.t.tercup yellow, was a gay spot ofcolour that drew Clinton"s eye irresistibly. It was & distraction that he could not afford at this moment.
The American seemed to be watching Clinton, seemed to have singled him out from the group of officers, and even across the wide stretch of water that still separated them, Clinton was aware of the mesmeric pull of those golden-flecked eyes, the eyes of a predator, a leopard perhaps, poised with a lithe and patient gram upon the bough above the waterhole, awaiting the moment when the prey moved beneath him.
At the level of Mungo St. John"s knees were the heads of his gun crews, little knots of pale tense faces, contrasting starkly with the quiescent rank of black slaves. They crouched over their weapons, - and the long slim barrels were reduced to small dark circles as Clinton stared directly down the bores.
at a deceplaying crews to on to There were men also in Huron"s rigging, roosting in the cross-trees of the yards and masts, and the long barrels of their muskets were clear to see against the backdrop of the wind-driven sky.
They would be picked marksmen, Huron"s best, and their preferred and special target would be the small group of officers on the gunboat"s quarterdeck. Clinton hoped that the clipper"s wild action in the gale would throw out their aim. Gentlemen, I advise you to take cover until we can bring the ship into action, he told Denham and Ferris quietly, and felt a little p.r.i.c.k of pride when neither of them moved. It was the tradition of Drake and Nelson not to flinch from the coming storm of fire, and Clinton himself went on standing at his ease, hands clasped at the small of his back, calling a small adjustment to the helm as Black joke drove in eagerly, the terrier going for the hold on the bull"s nose.
He saw the American move his head, a final judgement of range, considered against the clipper"s rolling and beside him Ferris murmured the age-old blasphemy which Clinton this time could not find it in him to resent, for it was also a part of the great tradition. For what we are about to receive-" said Ferris, and as if he had heard the words, the American drew the sword from the scabbard on his belt, and raised it above his head. Involuntarily all three naval officers drew breath together and held it. Huron was at the bottom of her roll, her cannon pointing down into the sea close alongside, then she was coming up, the barrels rising levelled, and the sword arm fell.
The six cannon leaped together, in perfect concert, and the startling white gusts of smoke shot fifty feet from her sides, completely silent, for the sound had not reached them, and for a fleeting part of a second they could believe that Huron had not loosed her broadside.
Then the very air beat in upon them, shocking the eardrums, seeming for a moment to suck their eyeb.a.l.l.s from the sockets with the vast disruption of air caused by pa.s.sing shot, and close above Clinton"s head a stay parted with a whiplash crack.
That was one ball high, but under Clinton"s feet, the deck jumped with the multiple impact of ball into her, and the bull rang like the strokes of a gigantic bra.s.s gong.
A single ball came through at deck level. it struck a burst of sparks from the steel hull, like Brocks fireworks at Crystal Palace, brilliant orange even in the strong sunlight, and the hole it tore through Black Joke"s plating was fringed with bare jagged tongues of metal like the petals of a silver sunflower.
A seaman in striped vest and baggy canvas breeches, who was kneeling behind the bulwark, took the ball full in his chest.
his severed limbs were strewn untidily across the gunboat"s spotless deck and the ball went on to strike the foot of Black Joke"s mast, shivering it like a tall tree struck by lightning, and tearing a long white splinter from the seasoned Norwegian pine. Then, with its force mainly spent the ball rolled the length of the deck, smoking and stinking of scorched metal until it thumped into the scuppers and rolled idly back and forth. Only then, seconds after the broadside struck, did the crash of the discharge reach their ears across the turbulent waters that separated the two vessels. Not bad shooting for a Yankee, " Ferris grudged them, raising his voice above the gun thunder, and Denham had his watch out and was timing how long it took for the clipper"s gun crews to reload. Forty-five seconds, Denham intoned, "and not a single gun run out again. A bunch of fairground tinkers could do better."
Clinton found himself wondering if it was ely brainer vado, or complete indifference to danger and violent death which allowed the two younger officers to chat so casually, while the seaman"s severed arms still twitched on the deck, not twenty feet away.
Clinton was afraid, afraid of death and afraid of failing in his duty and afraid of being seen to be afraid, but then he was older than they, for despite their manly airs Ferris was a boy and Denham barely twenty, so perhaps it was not courage but ignorance and lack of imagination. Fifty-five seconds! "Denham grunted scornfully, as the next ragged broadside crashed into Black joke"s iron hull, and somebody started to scream below decks, a high mindless keening like steam from a kettle. Send somebody to stop that fellow, " Ferris murmured to the seaman who crouched nearby, and doubled over still the man hurried away. Seconds later the screaming stopped abruptly. Good work, Ferris told the seaman as he took his place at the bulwark again. Dead, sir, he is, poor devil."
Ferris nodded without change of expression, and moved closer to listen to his Captain.
Mr. Denham, I am going to lead the boarding-party.
You are to be ready to sheer off and leave us to it, should there be any danger to the ship-" There was a sharp fluting sound, like the flight of a giant insect past their heads, and Clinton glanced up irritably. The marksmen in Huron"s rigging had opened fire, the pop of their muskets seemed muted and without menace. Studiedly Clinton ignored them and went on issuing his final orders, raising his voice to compete with the crash and roar of shot and the strike of it into the gunboat"s hull.
As Clinton finished speaking, Denham blurted abruptly, "It"s h.e.l.l not being able to reply. " He was staring across at the clipper whose silhouette was blurred with a bank of pale gunsmoke that even the gale could not disperse rapidly enough. "It"s bad for the men, he corrected himself swiftly, and Clinton had his answer.
Denham was afraid as he was, and the knowledge gave him no comfort at all. If only they could do something, anythin& instead of having to stand here in the open and make studied conversation, while Black lake tore across the last few hundred yards of white crested sea that still separated them.