The Ionian Mission. Patrick O’Brian

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СКАЧАТЬ lacked experience. With a sudden stab at his heart he remembered that he had forgotten to order fighting cartridge instead of practice-powder at the last recharging of the guns: this was dead against his principles, but in fact it did not signify – he had carefully observed the fall of the shot, and the coloured powder threw its ball as well as the King’s best Red L. G. In any case, as soon as the stranger was another mile to leeward, too far to fetch Lorient, he must close. He had the immense advantage of being ready, cleared for action, all hands on deck, guns run out, and already Pullings had the studding-sail booms and royals laid along. It would be strange if after the surprise and hurry and confusion aboard the Frenchman during the seven or eight minutes needed to gain that mile – it would be strange if he did not manage to lay her alongside, above all with the island and its shoals lying so awkwardly in her path.

      ‘Mr Whiting,’ he said, ‘prepare the French colours, the number seventy-seven, and some kind of an answer to their private signal. Let it jam in the halyards.’

      The near haze lifted and there she lay, a seventy-four, high, taut and handsome. Probably the Jemmapes: at all events no ship to decline battle. Yet they were strangely inactive aboard her: the Worcester was coming up on them fast, steering for their starboard quarter, running off that precious distance south of Lorient; but they never stirred. Suddenly he realized that every man-jack aboard her was staring for the Groix light. It came sharp and clear, a double flash. She dropped her topgallantsails, and while they were sheeting home someone caught sight of the Worcester –he distinctly heard trumpets aboard the Frenchman, trumpets and the urgent thunder of a drum. His eyes were so used to the half-light that even without a glass he could see people hurrying about on her decks. After a few moments her colours ran up and she changed helm to cut the Worcester’s course. ‘Edge off two points,’ said Jack to the master at the con. This would bring them still farther south. ‘Mr Whiting, French colours if you please. Mr Pullings, battle-lanterns.’

      Battle-lanterns aboard the Frenchman too, lights showing in every port, guns running out. The French number and private signal: the Worcester’s slow and evasive reply, which did not deceive the enemy for more than a few moments. Yet even those few moments carried the two ships a furlong farther south, and in a very short while now the Jemmapes – for the Jemmapes she was – would no longer be able to haul up for Lorient. Not that she showed the least sign of wishing to do so: far from it. Her commander was bringing her out in the most handsome manner, evidently determined to join issue as soon as possible, as though he had heard Lord Nelson’s maxim ‘Never mind manoeuvres: always go straight at ’em.’

      In earlier years Jack would have lain to for the Jemmapes in much the same generous spirit, but now he wanted to make doubly sure of her; he wanted her to try for the weather-gage, and he kept the Worcester away another point and a half, watching the enemy intently as the two ships ran, each abreasting the sea with a fine bow-wave. Hammocks were racing up on deck aboard the Jemmapes: her waist and forecastle was a pretty scene of confusion, and in that man’s place, with such a clean-bottomed swift-sailing ship, Jack would have held off until his people were more nearly settled: but not at all, out she came as fast as she could pelt, and Jack saw that his estimate of her speed had been short of the mark. She was indeed a flyer, and once the vital mile was run off he would have to close as fast as ever he could, while he still had the advantage of wind and readiness – close and board. He had never known it fail. All along the Worcester’s decks the arms-chests lay open: pistols, cutlasses, wicked boarding-axes.

      He saw the flash of the Frenchman’s chaser, the cloud of smoke torn away ahead, and a white plume rose from the grey sea well beyond the Worcester’s starboard bow. ‘Our colours, Mr Whiting,’ he said, fixing the enemy quarterdeck in his telescope. And much louder, ‘Maintop there: hoist the short pennant.’

      He saw the shift of helm that would bring the Jemmapes broadside on: she turned, turned and vanished in a cloud of smoke billowing to her topsails, the single timber-shattering discharge that only a stout new ship could afford. The line was good, but they had fired a trifle past the height of the roll and their well-grouped shot tore up a broad patch of sea a hundred yards short. A dozen ricochets came aboard, one smashing the blue cutter; a hole appeared in the mainsail and some blocks fell to the deck behind him – there had been no time to rig netting. A subdued cheer from the forecastle and waist and many an eye looked aft for the order to fire. On the edge of his field of vision he saw Stephen standing by the break of the poop in his nightshirt and breeches: Dr Maturin rarely went to his action-station in the cockpit until there were casualties for him to deal with. But Jack Aubrey’s mind was too taken up with the delicate calculations of the coming battle for conversation: he stood there, wholly engrossed, working out the converging courses, the possible variants, the innumerable fine points that must precede the plain hard hammering, when everyone would be much happier. On these occasions, and Stephen had known many of them, Jack was as it were removed, a stranger, quite unlike the cheerful, not over-wise companion he knew so well: a hard, strong face, calm but intensely alive, efficient, decided, a stern face, but one that in some way expressed a fierce and vivid happiness.

      A full minute passed. The second French broadside must be rammed home by now. He would have to suffer two or three of them, and at shortening range, before he could carry out his plan: but a fresh crew hated being fired at without making a reply. ‘One more,’ he said in his strong voice. ‘One more, and then you shall serve them out. Then wait for the word and fire at her tops. Fire steady. Do not waste a shot.’ A fierce growl all along, then the Frenchman’s roaring fire and almost at the same moment the great hammer-crash of round-shot hitting the Worcester’s hull, splinters flying across the deck, wreckage falling from aloft. ‘Do not do that, youngster,’ said Jack to little Calamy, who had bent double when a shot crossed the quarterdeck. ‘You might put your head in the way of a ball.’ He glanced fore and aft. No great harm, and he was about to give the order to bear up fire when the wounded maintack tore free. ‘Clew up, clew up,’ he said, and the wild flapping stopped. ‘Starboard three points.’

      ‘Three points a-starboard it is, sir,’ said the quartermaster at the wheel, and in a long smooth glide the Worcester brought her guns to bear. She was head-on to the swell, a fair pitch but no roll. ‘Wait for it,’ he called. ‘At her tops. Waste not a shot. At the word from forward aft.’ The wind sang through the rigging. The Frenchmen would be almost running out their guns again: that was the moment to catch them. He must get his broadside in first, fluster them, and hide his ship in smoke. ‘Bow guns stand by. Fire.’

      From forward aft the long rolling fire, an enormous all-pervading roar; and a freak of the wind brought the dense smoke eddying back – red smoke, green, blue, crimson and orange, with unearthly tongues of intensely brilliant coloured flame in the greyness. He leapt on to the hammock-cloths to pierce the cloud, the unnatural cloud, yet still it lingered: and no reply from the Jemmapes: ‘God love me, what’s amiss?’ he said aloud, while below him the gun-crews sponged, loaded, rammed and heaved like fury, fresh powder running up from the magazines.

      The smoke cleared at last, and there was the Jemmapes stern-on, running fast, apparently unhurt apart from a small green fire blazing on her poop, running close-hauled for Lorient, shocked and appalled by these new secret weapons – she was already packing on more sail.

      The guns were run out again. At three degrees of elevation he gave her another broadside, a raking broadside at her defenceless stern, a broadside delivered with a fierce, savage cheer. But though several shots struck her hull they did not check her speed; nor did the now-normal flash of the Worcester’s fire induce her to lie to; and by the time Jack called ‘Hard a-starboard’ to go in chase she had gained a quarter of a mile, while fools were capering on the forecastle, cheering, bawling out, ‘She runs, she runs! We’ve beat her!’

      The Worcester hauled her wind, the sail-trimmers leapt to the braces and flew aloft to set the upper staysails, but she could not lie as close to her quarry by nearly a СКАЧАТЬ