Niagara Squadron by Chris Durbin

Author:Chris Durbin [Durbin, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-10-12T23:00:00+00:00

‘Put me alongside the schooner, Mister Jackson.’

‘Aye-aye sir,’ Jackson grinned fiercely in the gathering light.

They’d be at grips with the enemy in a minute and still they hadn’t been seen. Was Haldimand aware of the approaching threat? A bugle sounded from the shore. Not the measured notes of the reveille, but the strident blare of the alert.

And still they hadn’t been seen.

Pop, pop. Now they’d been spotted, and muskets were firing at them from the schooner.

‘Pull for all you’re worth, men!’

The troop ship had no cannon that Lynton could see, so if he could take the schooner, those hundreds of men would have to land without any support.

There was a regular crackle of musket fire from Fort Ontario now. They couldn’t be wasting their powder and shot on the ships from that range! Then he saw the answering flashes from the shore to the east of the fort. The French must be attacking from the sea and the land.

‘Steady, men!’ Lynton shouted.

There were only yards to go now. One of the cannons in the schooner fired, but it couldn’t depress low enough and the round shot hummed harmlessly overhead. They must have been loaded with ball to support the landing and they hadn’t had time to change to grape or canister. So much the better.

Crash! The whaleboat’s larboard bow smashed into the side of the schooner. They had no grapnel, but the boat’s anchor was thrown by a mighty bateau-man and it caught in the capping of the gunwale.

‘Follow me!’ shouted Lynton, only to be trampled underfoot as the soldiers and bateau-men charged over the side.

They knew this schooner, it was identical to their old one, and they felt as though they deserved ownership. A hundred men in a sloop could hardly have resisted that rush of fierce fighting men, and the forty in the schooner had no chance at all. It was easier than the last time but now Frenchmen were leaping over the side rather than face these wild men who had appeared out of the dark, as though they were spewed forth from the nether regions of hell. Lynton was willing enough, but he found his enemies scattered before him, and it was with a clean sword that he reached the quarterdeck. He slashed at the ensign halyard, with a feeling of déjà vu and down floated the white flag of Bourbon.

‘Herd them below, men, get the hatches on them!’

There was still some sporadic resistance, but only from Frenchmen who couldn’t see their fellows throwing down their weapons. Lynton grabbed the abandoned tiller; the schooner had only yawed a little off its course.

‘Mister Jackson! Man the larboard battery, it’s probably loaded.’

This was too easy. The layout was identical to Mohawk, even down to the stowage for the rammers and worms. The men knew just where to lay their hands on all the implements.

‘Larboard battery ready, sir,’ he shouted back after a quick look at the priming, ‘but I can’t say what it’s loaded with.’

‘Never mind.’ Ball probably, but grape or canister would do for the first broadside.

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