The Ionian Mission Part 15

'Lord, how glad I am we weighed directly,' he said to himself. He smiled at the thought of his mad frustration had they arrived too late, all for the sake of the cables and hawsers ash.o.r.e: he smiled and even chuckled aloud.

By now the quarterdeck had all its officers and young gentlemen, all its proper foremast hands, signalmen, messengers and timoneers, together with everyone else in the s.h.i.+p who had a right to walk upon it, and Stephen and Professor Graham were wedged against the hances, behind the Captain's clerk and the purser.

'It seems an uncouth long wait before anything happens,' said Graham in a low voice. 'I dare say you have seen many actions at sea?'

'I have seen the beginnings of several,' said Stephen, 'but as soon as it grows dangerous I retire to a place of safety below.'

'You are all very arch and jocose this morning,' said Graham discontentedly. Then, nodding towards the other side, where Jack and Pullings were discussing some point of their approach and laughing heartily as they did so, he said, 'Do you know the word fey, that we use in the north?'

'I do not," said Stephen. He was perfectly well acquainted with the word, but he did not wish to discuss his friend's dangerous high spirits with Graham.

'I am not a superst.i.tious man; but if those gentlemen are married and if their wives...'

'All hands aft,' said Jack, and the howling of the calls and the sound of hundreds of feet drowned Graham's words.

'I am not going to make a speech,' said Captain Aubrey to his men. 'We know one another too well to go on about duty. Very well. Now when we were in Medina I had to tell you not to fire into the enemy first, and since he would not begin we were obliged to come away without doing anything. Some of you were not quite pleased. This time it will be different. Those two Turkish men-of-war over there have rebelled against their Sultan.' The wrongs of the Sultan of Turkey left the Surprises quite unmoved: their expressions did not change in the slightest degree: they looked attentively at their Captain, who continued, 'And what is more they have taken our transports. So it stands to reason we must knock some sense into their heads, and get our prisoners and s.h.i.+ps and cannon back. As I dare say you know, they have a good many men in them, so we are not likely to board very soon, but rather hammer them from a distance. You must fire into their hulls, right into their hulls, mind: fire low and true, deliberate fire with post paid on every ball. Mr Pullings, we may clear for action, and beat to quarters.'

Very little required doing. All the warrant and petty officers had had plenty of warning and they had taken their measures: Mr Hollar, for example, had had his puddings and dolphins in the tops these hours past. Killick had already taken Jack's better clothes and possessions below, and Diana's dressing-case, horribly ringed and stained by Graham's cocoa, lay in its elaborate double case in the bread-room. All that remained was for the galley fires to be put out, for the carpenters to knock down the bulkheads of Jack's and the master's cabins, and for the gun-crews to take possession of the ma.s.sive brutes that had been Jack's stable-companions, and it was done.

The various officers reported to Pullings, and Pullings stepped up to Jack, saluted and said, 'A clean sweep fore and aft, sir, if you please.'

'Thank you, Mr Pullings,' said Jack, and they stood there side by side, smiling and looking forward, over the starboard bow, at the immediate future coming towards them.

The Surprise was silent, most of her men grave, as they usually were before action: grave, but not very much concerned, since there were few who had not run down on the enemy like this many times over. On the other hand, not many had run down to quite such odds, and some thought the skipper had bitten off more than he could chew. Most hands knew very well that Medina rankled at his heart, and the few stupid fellows were soon told. 'That is all wery fine and large,' said William Pole, on hearing the news. 'All wery fine and large, so long as I don't have to pay for it with my skin.'

'For shame, Bill Pole,' said the rest of the gun-team.

The Surprise bore down, therefore, under her fighting-sails, with her master at the con, her guns run out, powder-boys sitting well behind them on their leather cartridge-cases, shot-garlands full, splinter-netting rigged, scuttle-b.u.t.ts all along, decks damped and sanded, and wet fearnought screens over the hatches leading to the magazine far below, where the gunner sat among his little deadly kegs. Mowett had the forward division of guns on the maindeck, Honey, the senior master's mate, the after division, with mids.h.i.+pmen attending three aside each -the oldsters, that is to say, for Jack kept the boys who had breakfasted with him on the quarterdeck as aides-de-camp. Those Marines who were not quartered at the guns lined the gangway, looking particularly trim, their red coats strikingly brilliant against the white hammock-cloths and the now intense blue of the sea, in this powerful sunlight. Their lieutenant now stood amids.h.i.+ps, with the purser and the captain's clerk, none of them speaking but all looking steadily forward at the Turks.

In this silence Graham turned to Stephen, who had not yet gone below to his battle-station, and close to his ear said, 'What did Mr Aubrey mean by desiring the men to put post paid on every ball?'

'In English law it is a capital offence to stop His Majesty's mails: by extension the stopping of any object marked post paid is also mortal. And indeed the man who stops a cannon-ball is unlikely to survive.'

'So it was a joke?'

'Just so.'

'A joke at a time like this, good G.o.d forgive us! Such a man would be facetious at his father's burial.'

In the last few minutes the s.h.i.+ps had approached to within random shot, the Turks on Surprise's starboard bow holding their course without the slightest deviation, with the Kitabi abreast of the Torgud, a quarter of a mile to leeward. Bonden, the captain of the gun, kept the starboard chaser steadily trained on the Torgud's bows, perpetually s.h.i.+fting it with his handspike. They were drawing together at a combined speed of ten miles an hour, and just before they came to point-blank range the silence was ripped apart by a great screaming blast of Turkish trumpets, harsh and shrill.

'G.o.d, how it lifts your heart,' said Jack, and he gave the orders 'Colours at the fore and main.' With his gla.s.s he watched the crowded Turkish deck: saw the man at the halyards, followed the flags as they ran up in reply, and on seeing the regular Turkish ensign break out he reflected, 'He thinks we do not know yet: perhaps he hopes to slip by. But his guns are manned,' and aloud he called 'Professor Graham, pray come and stand by me. Mr Gill, wear round to the starboard tack and lay me within pistol-shot of his starboard side.'

Now high seamans.h.i.+p showed its splendid powers: the sail-trimmer sprang from their guns; forecourse, staysails and jibs flashed out; the frigate leapt forward like a spurred horse and made her quick tight turn, as Jack knew she would do, bringing her larboard guns to bear when the Turks were still expecting her on the other side.

's.h.i.+ver the foretopsail,' called Jack, with his eye on the Torgnd's quarterdeck and her burly captain right under his Ice. 'Mr Graham, call out to him that he must surrender directly. Larboard guns stand by.'

Graham shouted loud and clear. Jack saw Mustapha's red beard part in a white gleam as he roared back his answer, a long answer.

'In effect he refuses,' said Graham.

'Fire.'

The Surprise's entire broadside went off in a single explosion that shook both s.h.i.+ps from truck to keelson and for a moment deadened the air; and now in the thick smoke rolling to leeward over the Torgud began the great hammering, red flashes in the gloom, iron cras.h.i.+ng into the hulls on either side or howling overhead, an enormous all-pervading din, with ropes parting, blocks falling, jagged pieces of wood struck from the rails, the bulwark, the decks, and whistling across. After their hesitant start, they being caught on the wrong foot, the Turks fired hard and fast, though with no attempt at regularity, and the first shot of their starboard thirty-six-pounder tore a great gap in the hammocks, scored an eighteen-inch groove in the mainmast yet extraordinarily killed no men. But if the Torgud was firing pretty well or at least pretty fast, the Surprise was excelling herself: now that the broadsides were no longer simultaneous, the guns being out of step after the third or fourth discharge, it was hard to be sure, but judging by number seven, just under him, they were achieving something hke a round in seventy seconds, while the quarterdeck carronades were doing even better; and Jack was very sure that their aim was a great deal truer than the Turks'. Glancing to windward he saw a wide area of sea torn up by Turkish grape and round-shot that must have missed by as much as twenty or thirty yards, and then as he paced up and down he stared to leeward, trying to pierce the smoke: 'I wonder the Turk bears it so long,' he said, and as he spoke he saw the Torgud's topsails bracing round as she edged away to join the Kitabi to leeward. He caught the master's eye: Gill nodded - he was already following the movement.

After a few minutes of this gradual turn the smoke would blow away ahead and the sharpshooters would have a chance. He bent to his youngsters, and shouting loud through the uproar and the general deafness that affected all hands he said, 'Mr Calamy, jump up to the tops and tell them to annoy the Turk's thirty-six-pounder. Mr Williamson, tell Mr Mowett and Mr Honey we are reducing the charges up here by a third. Mr Pullings, make it so.'

At this furious rate of fire the guns heated excessively and they kicked with even greater force when they went off: indeed, as he moved towards the taffrail, trying to see through the smoke, one of the quarterdeck carronades did in fact break its breeching and overset.

As he bent to snub a trailing side-tackle the waft of the thirty-six-pound ball sweeping over the deck a foot from his head made him stagger; and now, as the iron hail beat furiously on and about the Surprise, ball, grape and bar flying through the continuous thunder, with the crackle of musketry above it, there was a new note. The Torgud, with the Surprise following her, had edged down much closer to the Kitabi, and now the Kitabi opened with her shrill twelve-pounders. Up until this point the Surprise had not suffered badly, except perhaps in her hull; but this present hail knocked one of the forward guns half across the deck, striking it on its own recoil and maiming three of its crew, and again the thirty-six-pounder roared out: its great crash was followed by a screaming below that for two minutes pierced even the united gunfire. And now a b.l.o.o.d.y trail on the deck showed where the wounded were carried down to the orlop.

Yet the frigate's fire scarcely slackened from its first tremendous pace: powder and shot ran smoothly up from the magazines, the gun-teams rattled their ma.s.sive pieces in and out with a magnificent zeal, sponging, loading, ramming, heaving up and firing with a racing coordination that it was a pleasure to watch. Although it was still impossible to sec at all clearly Jack was sure that they must already have mauled the Torgud very severely; she was certainly not firing so fast nor from so many guns, and he was expecting her to wear in the smoke, either to run or to present her undamaged larboard broadside, when he heard the fierce harsh trumpets bray out again. The Torgud was going to board.

'Grape,' he said to Pullings and his messengers, and very loud, 'Sail-trimmers stand by.' The Torgud's fire died away except for her bow guns; the smoke cleared, and there she was, turning into the wind, steering straight for the Surprise, her bowsprit and even her jibboom crowded with people, willing to take the risk of a raking fire for the sake of boarding. 'Wait for it,' cried Jack. To tack his s.h.i.+p before the Turk could run her aboard, to tack her in so short a s.p.a.ce of time and sea as though she were a cutter, was appallingly dangerous; but he knew her through and through, and as he calculated the wind's strength, the s.h.i.+p's impetus, and the living force of the water he called again, 'Wait for it. Wait. Fire.' And then the second his voice could be heard, 'Hands about s.h.i.+p.'

The Surprise came about, but only just: the Torgud did not. She lay there, taken aback; and as they pa.s.sed, the Surprises cheering like maniacs, Jack saw that the storm of grape had cleared her head of men, a most shocking butchery.

'Warm work, Professor,' he said to Graham in the momentary pause.

'Is it, indeed? This is my first naval battle of any consequence.'

'Quite warm, I a.s.sure you: but the Turks cannot keep it up. That is the disadvantage of your bra.s.s guns-If you keep on firing at this rate, they melt. They are pretty, to be sure; but they cannot keep it up. Mr Gill, we will lie on her larboard quarter, if you please, and rake her from there.'

The Torgud, falling off, had put before the wind, and now the Surprise bore up and made sail in pursuit; no guns but the bow-chaser could be trained round far enough to bear, and all up and down the s.h.i.+p men straightened and stood easy. Some went to the scuttle-b.u.t.ts to drink or dash the water in their faces; most were stripped to the waist, s.h.i.+ning with sweat; all were in tearing spirits. At one of the quarterdeck carronades a young fellow was showing his mates a lost finger. 'I never noticed it," he kept saying. 'Never noticed it go at all.'

But now here, against all expectation, was the Kitabi, coming up fast with the obvious intention of pa.s.sing between the Surprise and the Torgud and then presumably of hauling her wind to take the Surprise between two fires.

'That will not do, my friend,' said Jack, watching her approach. 'It is very gallant, but it really will not do. Round-shot,' he called, 'and fire steady from forward aft: fire at the word.' Some minutes later, when the relative positions of the three s.h.i.+ps were such that the Torgud was directly to leeward of her consort and unable to give her any support, Jack s.h.i.+vered the main and mizen topsails, slanting down towards the Kitabi, making no reply to her high, rapid, nervous, largely ineffectual fire until they were a cable's length apart, no more.

They gave her six deliberate rolling broadsides, beating five of her mids.h.i.+ps gun-ports into one and silencing her entirely. At the sixth there was a violent explosion aboard her, and the beginning of a fire: the Surprise pa.s.sed on, leaving her drifting before the wind, her people running with buckets and hose.

The breeze had faded, perhaps stunned by the cannonade, and the Surprise set her topgallantsails to pursue the Torgud: not that the Turk was evidently flying - he had no great speed of canvas - but he was steering steadily on his original course, perhaps in the hope of reaching Ali Pasha; and right ahead the mainland could now be seen, mountain-peaks nicking the horizon, while the low Morali islands must be nearer still. In this wonderfully silent pause, while the bosun and his mates sprang about the rigging, knotting and splicing, Jack stared at the Torgud for a moment, watching them throw their dead over the side - a trail of dead in her wake - and then made a quick tour of the s.h.i.+p. He found less damage than he had feared: one gun dismounted, the side pierced by three thirty-six-pounder b.a.l.l.s and some others, but none of the holes dangerously low, while in Stephen's hands there were no more than six badly wounded men and three sewn into their hammocks, remarkably few for such a furious bout.

On deck again he saw that the breeze had recovered, and that the Surprise was overhauling the Torgud fast. They were already within gunshot, but with land in sight it seemed to Jack that so long as he could avoid being boarded close action was called for, and it was not until they were drawing abreast, close enough to see men's faces clearly, that he reduced sail and the hammering began again. This was the Torgud's larboard broadside, hitherto unengaged and undamaged, and the Turks blazed away with as much spirit as before: again a thirty-six-pound ball pa.s.sed so close to Jack's head that it made him stagger - he actually saw the dark blur of its pa.s.sing - and he said to Driver of the Marines, 'Let your men amids.h.i.+ps concentrate on the loader of that d.a.m.ned heavy gun.' Graham, who was just at hand, said 'May I take a musket, sir? I might do some good, and I feel uneasy, useless and exposed standing here.'

He was indeed exposed. Now that both s.h.i.+ps had the wind aft the smoke blew clear away forward; the Torgud was shooting more accurately than before and as her shot hit the Surprise's bulwark or upper hull so showers of splinters flew across her deck, some trifling, some deadly. Graham had already been knocked over twice, and- most of those on deck had been more or less banged about.

The Torgud was still full of fight, and she still had a surprising number of men. After a particularly violent salvo she clapped her helm hard over, meaning to board again, and again her people crowded thick into her bows and along her bowsprit. This time the Surprise had no room to tack, but she had her forecourse in the brails for just such an emergency, and dropping it now she shot ahead: though none too fast, since the Torgud's jibboom caught in her mizen topgallant backstays. She shot ahead nevertheless, her stern-chasers blasting grape into the close-packed Turks, a red slaughter that checked even the gun-crew's cheers; and the moment she had way enough she crossed the Torgud's stern, raking her as she did so. The Surprise let fly her sheets, and the Torgud, ranging up, engaged again with her starboard broadside, shockingly ravaged from that first bout, with at least seven guns dismounted, ports blackened and battered in, the scuppers and even the bare sides thick with blood.

Ravaged, but still dangerous: now, when some opponents might have struck, she let fly with a dozen or thirteen guns and two of these did more damage than all she had fired hitherto. One struck the uppermost pintle and wedged the rudder, and another, the last of her huge round-shot, caught the Surprise just as she was on the lift, showing her copper, and made a shocking great hole under her waterline. And a third, fired as Jack was giving Williamson orders to carry forward, took the boy's arm off at the elbow. Jack saw his amazed face go paper-white - not pain but amazement and concern and disbelief - whipped a handkerchief round the stump, twisted it tight, staunched the jetting blood and pa.s.sed him to a quartermaster to carry below.

By the time the Surprise had dealt with the steering and the leak the Torgud was much nearer the land. Apart from a few shots from her stern-chasers as she drew ahead she had not tried to profit by her advantage, still less to board. It was possible that she was unaware of the damage she had inflicted: it was certain that the last encounter, the last raking, had killed a great number of her men. She sailed away, therefore, and in her wake there now sailed the Kitabi, she having pursued a course with no turnings since the Surprise left her; and both Turks were clearly steering for the same port.

'All sail she will bear, Mr Pullings,' said Jack, going forward to study the Torgud through a borrowed telescope - a musket-shot had broken his own as he held it: the tube shattered, his hand untouched. The Torgud had suffered terribly, there was no doubt of that; she was sailing low and heavy and although the Surprise was now gathering way fast as Pullings spread topgallantsails and even weather studdingsails in his pa.s.sionate eagerness, the Torgud seemed unwilling and unable to make any increase. And even now the bodies were still splas.h.i.+ng over the side.

'No,' said Jack to Bonden at the starboard bow-chaser as they came within easy range of the Turk's stern, moving faster every moment. 'Do not fire. We must not check her way. Boarding is the only thing for it, and the sooner the better.'

'Anyhow, sir,' said Bonden, 'that d.a.m.ned fool is in the way.' This was the Kitabi. Convinced that the Surprise was in pursuit of her, she had cracked on the most extraordinary amount of canvas to rejoin the Torgud and now she lay directly between the two.

Jack walked aft, and as he pa.s.sed the boarders in each gun-crew smiled at him, or nodded, or said 'Coming up now, sir," or cheerful words of that kind; and again he felt the rising of that enormous excitement of immediate battle, greater than any other he had ever known in the world.

He spoke to the Marines, who were now to come into their own, and after a few more turns he ran down the ladders to the lantern-lit orlop. 'Stephen,' he said privately, 'How is the boy?'

'He will do, I believe.'

'I hope so, indeed. As soon as we come up, we mean to board.'

They shook hands and he ran on deck again. Pullings was already taking in the studdingsails, not to overrun the Torgud: and there, still absurdly ahead, fled the Kitabi, between the two frigates. She fired not a gun: she seemed to have lost her head entirely. 'Forward, there,' called Jack to the bow-chaser guns, 'Send a ball over her deck.'

'By G.o.d,' cried the master, as the Kitabi jigged at the shot, 'She'll run the Torgud aboard if she don't take care - by G.o.d, she can't avoid her - by G.o.d, she's doing it.'

With a rending, cras.h.i.+ng sound that came clear to their ears at four hundred yards the Kitabi ground slanting into the Torgud's starboard side, her foremast falling over the frigate's waist.

'Lay me athwart her stern,' cried Jack, and then very loud, 'One broadside at the word, and board her in the smoke."

As the Surprise began her turn he stepped forward to the great gap in the starboard hammock-netting torn by the Turks, loosening his sword, easing his pistols. Pullings was at his right hand, his eyes sparkling, and from nowhere had appeared the grim man Davis, jostling against Bonden on the left, looking perfectly mad with a line of white spittle between his lips and a butcher's cleaver in his hand.

The last sweeping movement, the easy, yielding crunch of the s.h.i.+p's sides, and the roar of the great guns as Jack gave the word. Then calling 'Boarders away* he leapt through the smoke down to the Kitabi's deck. Perhaps forty Turks stood against them, an irresolute line almost instantly overwhelmed and beaten back, and there in the clearing eddies was an officer holding out his sword, hilt first, and crying, 'Rendre, rendre.'

'Mr Gill, take charge,' said Jack, and as the Torgud fired her remaining after-guns straight into the Kitabi he raced through the billowing smoke into the bows, roaring 'Come on, come on, come on with me.'

It was no great leap across, for the Torgud was low, low in the water, the sea was.h.i.+ng into her shattered mids.h.i.+p ports and flowing out red, and one flying stride took him on to her quarterdeck rail.

Here it was different. Here though her decks were b.l.o.o.d.y and ploughed with shot they were still full of men: most were facing aft into the smoke, but one whipped round and cut at him directly. Jack caught the blade on his sword and from his height on the rail gave the Turk a great thrust with his foot that sent him flying into the waist of the s.h.i.+p - into the water that swilled over the waist of the settling, almost sinking s.h.i.+p.

He leapt down on to the deck: he had never felt stronger or more lithe or more wholly in form and when a pike came piercing through the confusion, thrusting straight at his belly, he slashed it with such force and precision that he struck the point clean from its shaft. Almost at once the fight took on a pattern. Jack, Pullings and most of the boarders were crowding into the forward starboard corner of the Torgud's quarterdeck, trying to force their way aft from there and the gangway. Some others and all the Marines were doing their best to storm the stern-windows and the taffrail.

It was the usual furious melee, with a huge amount of shouting and striving, very little room to move because of both friends and enemies, little in the way of skill in swordsmans.h.i.+p - an enormous pus.h.i.+ng, thrusting, las.h.i.+ng out at a venture, quick stabs in the tumult, short-armed blows, kicking: the physical weight of both sides and the moral weight of both sides.

The ma.s.s heaved to and fro: turbans, skull-caps, yellow bloodshot eyes, swarthy bearded faces on the one hand, pale on the other, but both with the same extremity of naked murderous violence; a prodigiously strenuous, vehement ma.s.s, sometimes clearing between the two fronts for a short burst of individual, direct and often deadly fighting: then it closed again, the men face to face, even chest to chest, immediately touching. And hitherto neither had a clear advantage: Jack's hundred or so had won a few yards to fight in, but there they were blocked; and the people astern seemed to have lost their foothold. Jack had felt two or three wounds -the searing lash of a pistol-ball across his ribs, a sword-thrust, half-parried, on the other side, while once Davis had very nearly brought him down with the back-stroke of his cleaver that opened a blunt gash on his forehead -and he knew that he had given some very shrewd blows. And all the time he looked for Mustapha: never a glimpse of him, though his enormous voice could be heard.

Abruptly there was room in front of him, breathing-s.p.a.ce as some of the Turks eased back, still fighting. On Jack's right Pullings lunged into this s.p.a.ce, thrusting at his opponent, caught his foot on a ring-bolt and fell. For a fragment of time his ingenuous face was turned to Jack, then the Turk's sword flashed down and the fight closed in again. 'No, no, no,' roared Jack, driving forward with enormous strength. He had his heavy sabre in both hands and taking no guard he hacked and slashed, standing astride over Pullings' body. Now men scattered before his extreme fury; they fell back; the moral advantage was established. Shouting to Davis to stand by, to stand guard, to carry the body under the ladder, he charged aft, followed by all the rest. At the same time the Marines, repulsed from the stern and reformed farther forward, came thundering down both gangways with bayonets fixed.

The crowd of Turks thinned, some running, most retreating steadily towards the taffrail, and there abaft the tottering mizzen sat Mustapha at a table covered with pistols, most of them discharged. His leg had been broken early in the day and it rested on a blood-stained drum. Two of his officers were holding his hands down and a third called to Jack 'We surrender.' This was Ulusan, who had come aboard the Surprise with Mustapha: he stepped forward, hauled down the colours and slipped the ensign free. The others at last made Mustapha give up his sword: Ulusan, wrapping the flag about it, offered both to Jack in the unearthly silence. Mustapha rose up, grasping the table, and flung himself on the deck in a paroxysm of rage or grief, his head striking against the wood like a mallet. Jack glanced at him with frigid indifference. 'Give you joy, sir,' said Mowett at his side. 'You have come it the Nelson's bridge at last.'

Jack turned a pale, hard face on him. 'Have you seen Pullings?' he asked.

'Why, yes, sir,' said Mowett, looking surprised. 'They have fairly ruined his waistcoat and knocked his wits astray; but that don't depress his spirits, I find.'

'You had better get back to the barky, sir,' said Bonden in a low voice, tucking the ensign and the other officers' swords under his arm. 'This here is going to Kingdom Come.'

The End