The Price of War - Chapter Twenty-Four

[morethanhonour]

More Than Honour
Book One: The Price of War
Chapter Twenty-Four

“Bellerophone,” a voice bellowed to answer the call of Swiftsure’s captain, Benjamin Hallowell, “going out of action disabled.”

Alexander was near enough now to see Swiftsure find a position and open fire. Edward realised their objective and smiled despite the danger. Their ship was bound for the heart of the French line, their objective the Orient. For all their time behind the fleet, the Alexander was to engage the French flagship.

The taut cable that was the morale of the ship had been touched. Now, it hummed with activity. The guns glittered as they were prepared for the coming assault, but the men themselves worked silently. Captain Ball shouted his orders, and his men obeyed as if God on high were issuing new commandments. Lieutenant Smith surveyed the quarterdeck and main deck, calling orders to the crews handling the sails. Below, Lieutenant Carson’s voice echoed through half the gun deck, answered by Lieutenant Doyle. To hear him shout, Edward thought as he took the musket a marine offered, one would never know how he had acted an hour ago. He was grateful the man’s dark mood had passed.

As Alexander unleashed her first broadside against Orient, Edward hauled himself out onto the larboard shroud of the mainmast. A bow chaser shot from the French ship behind him, Tonnant, flew past him. He paused for only a moment, shaken by the nearness of the ball, but his mind would not allow him to be still. He pushed his body up, hand over hand until he reached the fighting top. He joined four other men on the starboard side and pulled the hammer back to bring his musket to full cock.

Hands rushed about the deck of the Orient, and a few of the red-dressed marines picked them off or tried to do so. They fired out of sequence, each man taking the shots afforded him. Edward waited. He was not as able as the other men to quickly reload, so he was keen not to waste his shots. He watched the uniformed men on the quarterdeck.

Those were the important men. The hands controlled the sails, fired the guns, and repaired the damage, but it was the officers who told them what to do. With them removed, the hands would be lost. Edward watched one particular officer. He was a young man with long, light hair. For a moment, Edward felt a sort of kinship with him. The man wore the uniform of a French lieutenant, and Edward was too aware of their similar colouring. His finger quivered on the trigger of his musket. He took in a breath as every second took an hour. Finally, the lieutenant passed into his line of sight and fire.

He heard the shot and felt the recoil, but his eyes remained on the quarterdeck. He watched the young officer stagger and clutch at his chest. Edward felt his hand shake as the French lieutenant fell. One of the marines clapped him on the shoulder with a hearty word and took the musket before placing a loaded one in his hands. A third of Edward’s mind surveyed the deck for his next target. Another piece could not let go of the dead or injured man. For all he knew, the man might have been a friend of Martineau’s. The next man he or a Royal Marine picked off might be Martineau himself, no matter how Edward tried to convince himself that the man was safe in France. The final part of his mind cursed Nymphe, Martineau, and himself. Before that damned ship and that damned man, Frenchmen were simply the enemy. He could kill them without thought and force himself to tolerate them as prisoners. It had simply been his duty. After that man, though, they were human. They had friends and lives. Edward swallowed hard and shot at another officer, clipping the man’s shoulder.

“Good job, sir,” one of the marines said, laughing as he changed guns with Edward to quickly reload the musket. Edward did his best to smile in reply. Rather than wait and try to respond, he immediately turned to aim his gun at the deck to seek out another target.

“Oh God,” Edward whispered. Below him, some British soul struck two bells. From his elevated and angled position, Edward could see through a lower gun port of the Orient. Beneath that, flickering lights told him a story that the rush of her crew could only confirm. A fire had started. The broadsides against her from Alexander and Swiftsure were ceaseless. It anything, the efforts doubled.

Edward heard the flames, saw them clearly in the gun deck after only a moment. They spread to the main deck, leaping higher and high. The dry timber, heavily coated in layer upon layer of oil-based paint, caught fire readily and crackled as it burn. The dancing slivers of red grasped the tables of the rigging and ran up them quickly than any able seaman could boast. The fire spread the sails, and they were soon engulfed, and the light blazed against the darkness of the late night. The heat was unbearable, and Edward felt the sweat streaking his face. He coughed against the smoke and pulled at his neckcloth enough to loosen it so he could pull it over his nose and mouth.

Alexander had ceased to fire, and Edward felt the ship moving beneath him. Captain Ball knew, as did Swiftsure and another vessel that had drawn up close to assist the action, that the uncontrolled fire could spread only so long before it found the magazine, where the powder and other ammunition was stored. Once the blaze reached there, the whole ship would explode.

As a piece of yardarm broke off Orient and fell onto the deck of Alexander, Edward called the order for his group of marines to quit the fighting top. Sailors with water buckets swarmed the burning wreckage and extinguished it as Edward followed his party down the starboard shroud. He stopped on the woven rope and clutched at it as he felt a sharp sting in his back. He forced himself to breathe again and continue down.

The same marine who had handed him muskets on the fighting top took his arm and guided him from the bottom of the shroud to the main deck. As the Alexander hurried to relative safety, men came from below, dousing every bit of wood, rope, and canvas they could see with salt water. Edward winced as the marine touched his back. He saw blood on the man’s hand when it withdrew. “Hurt, sir?”

Edward met the man’s eyes. He could be honest. He could tell the marine that something was digging into him and that it felt like his blood had caught fire from the Orient. Around the wound there was a steady ache, and certain movements made a pain shoot down his spine and up through his shoulder. To say that, though, was to banish himself below to the surgeon’s cockpit for the rest of the battle. No man would blame him for quitting the field when shot, just as Edward would not blame any of his fellows for the same. He felt sure it was a bullet, too, for shrapnel would have torn his coat more, and it still fit properly without the feel of having ripped. Some Frenchman had decided to repay the men in Alexander’s fighting top even as their ship burned around them. “I’m fine, man.” As the marine turned to leave, Edward remembered himself. “Thank you.”

“Mind yourself now, sir,” the man said, saluting before he went to report to Smith.

Four bells chimed. It seemed as if the Orient had only been waiting for a signal and thought that would do nicely. All at once, the flames erupted anew and blew apart the ship. The sound shook the deck of the Alexander, and debris scattered, burning as it fell onto French and English ships alike. Some pieces soared over the ships and struck the sea well beyond them. Edward’s voice joined Captain Ball’s in calling for water buckets, and Edward forgot the pain in his back as he hurried to assist in putting out the small fires. Swiftsure was fighting flames as well, and the crew of the next French ship in the line was struggling to keep their deck from becoming engulfed as well. Something was found by the sparks, though, and a minor explosion shook the French ship. Her crew, miraculously, got the fire put out.

Silence fell. Men on ships hurried to put out remaining flames or stared about them in wonder at the destruction of the French flagship. No one fired their guns, and every soul waited for some indication as to what the next course of action was to be. Shouts in French reached Edward’s ear, and he realised the cause almost at once. The survivors from the Orient were in the water.

“Flagship signalling, sir,” a midshipman called up to the quarterdeck.

“I need a volunteer to man a board to pick up survivors,” Captain Ball shouted after reading the flags Vanguard had hoisted.

“Sir,” Edward responded, raising an arm to further attract the man’s attention. When the captain’s gaze was on him, he gave a salute. “I would be honoured to go, sir.”

“Good man, Burr. Good man.”

Edward joined the boat crew, forcing himself to ignore the renewed shooting pain in his shoulder. He climbed down the side of the Alexander and called the order for the boat to push away and row for the wreckage of the Orient. As the crew pushed their oars through the water, Edward called out to the survivors in French. Other calls came in English from other directions. “Keep shouting,” Edward tried to make himself heart. “We will find you.”

“Monsieur,” a man’s voice came from the side of the boat, and Edward lashed out a hand to grab the man’s arm. With the help of two men near him, he hauled the Frenchman into the small craft.

“Sit, Monsieur,” Edward replied, ushering the man down. He looked out at the water. The blond lieutenant Edward had shot floated by. If the gunshot had not killed him, the destruction of the Orient had. Edward swallowed hard, caught by an uncertainty he could not name.

“Thank you, Monsieur. Thank you. My God.” The Frenchman settled into the bottom of the boat, unconcerned about being in English custody so long as the threat of drowning was removed and his considerably minor injuries could soon be seen to.

With the help of his men, Edward fished four more men from the sea. As he pulled a fifth out, a sound made every soul jump. Cannon fire. Another and another sounded. The French ship just down the way had opened fire upon Swiftsure, and Edward heard her captain ordering preparations to return fire. An English ship up the way near a surrendered French ship set sail to assist her attacked comrade.

“Pull for Alexander,” Edward shouted. There were still men in the water, but enemy survivors had to be sacrificed in favour of saving the English ships, which might come under fire next. Edward took his place at the boat’s tiller and guided the rowed vessel back to the ship of war. His head ached, but he told himself it was only because of the late hour. The burning in his shoulder had nothing to do with it.

Two men were waiting by the entry port of the Alexander when the boat arrived. The prisoners were conveyed up first, given to the care of the nearby surgeon’s mate if they were in need of medical attention, as four were, and to the custody of the Royal Marines if they were not. Edward saw his men onto the ship before he mounted. A wave of dizziness struck him, and it was only by the grace of God and two strong sets of hands seizing him that Edward did not fall backwards into the sea.

“Burr.” Doyle was at his side, offering an arm. Edward tried to protest, but he could not quite manage to keep steady. “How bad is it?” When Edward did not answer, Doyle sighed. “Come below.”

There was no arguing. Before Edward could find words, Doyle was talking and all but dragging him along. The steps of the companionway felt strangely steep as the two lieutenants made their way down toward the cockpit. Doyle’s steps were sure, and his arm was strong. In his haze, which reminded Edward of being half asleep, the fourth lieutenant wondered about his superior and his curious changes in temperament. A coward would not be so steady, nor would he have been waiting at the side as Doyle obviously had.

“Doyle,” he began.

“Hush, Burr. Let’s get you down to King. He’ll fix you right up,” Doyle replied. He paused during the walk when Edward lurched uncertainly.

For a moment, Edward tried to remember if they were facing forward or aft. Had he come up the starboard or larboard side? He couldn’t remember, and that bothered him. He had not been turned around on a ship since he was a boy. His hand clasped Doyle’s arm tight as it felt like the Orient exploded again and shook the deck beneath his feet. Doyle, though, seemed to stand firm, did not even stagger. Edward tried to straighten, and Doyle braced a hand under the other’s arm to try and help him.

“There,” Edward said, ignoring the dark edges around his line of vision. He shook off Doyle’s hold. “Just a small spell. Nothing to worry about.”

“Burr.” Doyle’s green eyes fixed on him, and Edward became distracted by the way the flames of the lanterns lit below reflected in them. He heard a whisper but could not be sure whether Doyle had spoken or whether his own mind unknowingly conjured an echo of the man’s earlier words. “Only flesh and blood.”

Edward tried to stride forward, determined to return to the deck. His vision blurred, and he felt himself sink down.