Read Online 1805 by Richard Woodman - Free Book Online Page A

helm put smartly
over the other way. Amidships the men were frantically spiking their
guns round to find new targets. Individual guns fired, reloaded and
fired again with hardly a shot coming in return from the invasion craft
that lay in a shattered circle around them. Mount's marines were up on
the rails and leaning against the stays, levelling their muskets on any
dark spot that moved above the rails of the low hulls, so that only the
cry of the wounded and dying answered the British attack.
    'Cease fire! Cease fire!'
    The reports of muskets and cannon died away. Drinkwater
counted the remains of the now silent boats around them. He could see
nine, with one, possibly two, sunk.
    'I fear one has escaped us,' he said to no one in particular.
    'There she is, sir!' Frey was pointing to the southwards where
the dark shape of a sail was just visible.
    'Haul the fore-yards there, put the ship before the wind, Mr
Q.'
    Bonaparte
came round slowly, then
gathered speed as they laid a course to catch the departing
bateau
.
From her size Drinkwater judged her to be one of the larger
chaloupes
canonnières
, rigged as a three-masted lugger. For a
little
while she stood south and Drinkwater ordered the fore-course reset in
order to overhaul her. But it was soon obvious that the French would
not run, and a shot was put across her bow. She came into the wind at
once and the
Bonaparte
was hove to again, a short
distance to windward.
    'What the devil is French for "alongside"?' snapped Drinkwater.
    'Try
accoster
, sir.'
    'Hey,
accoster, m'sieur, accoster
!' They
saw oar blades appear and slowly the two vessels crabbed together. 'Mr
Mount, your men to cover them.'
    'Very well, sir…' The marines presented their
muskets, starlight glinting dully off the fixed bayonets. There was a
grinding bump as the
chaloupe
came alongside. The
curious, Drinkwater among them, stared down and instantly regretted it.
Drinkwater felt a stinging blow to his head and jerked backwards as it
seemed the deck of the vessel erupted in points of fire.
    He staggered, his head spinning, suddenly aware of forty or
fifty Frenchmen clambering over the rail from which the complacent
defenders had fallen back in their surprise.
    'God's bones!' roared Drinkwater suddenly uncontrollably
angry. He lugged out his new hanger and charged forward. 'Follow me who
can!' He slashed right and left as fast as his arm would react, his
head still dizzy from the glancing ball that had scored his forehead.
Blood ran thickly down into one eye but his anger kept him hacking
madly. With his left hand he wiped his eye and saw two marines lunging
forward with their bayonets. He felt a sudden anxiety for Frey and saw
the boy dart beneath a boarding pike and drive his dirk into a man
already parrying the thrust of a bayonet.
    ''Old on, sir, we're coming!' That was Franklin's voice and
there was Tregembo's bellow and then he was slithering in what remained
of someone, though he did not know whether it was friend or foe. His
sword bit deep into something and he found he had struck the rail. He
felt a violent blow in his left side and he gasped with the pain and
swung round. A man's face, centred on a dark void of an open mouth,
appeared before him and he smashed his fist forward, dashing the pommel
of his hanger into the teeth of the lower jaw. The discharge of his
enemy's pistol burnt his leg, but did no further damage and Drinkwater
again wiped blood from his eyes. He caught his breath and looked round.
Something seemed to have stopped his hearing and the strange absence of
noise baffled him. Around him amid the dark shapes of dead or dying
men, the fighting was furious. Quilhampton felled a man with his iron
hook. Two marines, their scarlet tunics a dull brown in the gloom,
their white cross-belts and breeches grey, were bayo-netting a French
officer who stood like some blasphemous crucifix, a broken sword
dangling from his wrist by its martingale. A seaman was wrestling for
his life under a huge