Post captain by Patrick O'Brian

Author:Patrick O'Brian [O'Brian, Patrick]
Format: epub

manoeuvres, no crossing under her stern - just as he dared not hide his men below, these raw hands who had never seen an angry gun.

‘Ease her half a point, Mr Goodridge.’

Their courses were converging. How near would the Bellone let him come? Every hundred yards meant a minute less of enduring her long-​range fire. Nearer, nearer.

If he could dismast her, shoot away her wheel - and it was just abaft the mizen in the Bellone . . . Now he could see the white of the faces on her quarterdeck. And yet still they sailed, on and on, drawing together, closer, closer. When would she fire? ‘Another quarter, Mr Goodridge. Mr Rossall, you have the Papenburg. . . ?’

A puff of smoke from the Bellone’s bows, and a shot came skipping along the Polychrest’s side. The British colours appeared aboard the Frenchman. ‘She’s English!’ cried a voice in the waist, with such relief, poor fellow. A hail, just audible in a lull of wind: ‘Shorten sail and heave to, you infernal buggers.’ Jack smiled. ‘Slowly, Mr Rossall,’ he said. ‘Blunder around a little. Half up, down and up again.’ The Papenburg flag wavered up to the mizenpeak and appeared at last, streaming out towards the privateer.

‘That will puzzle him,’ said Jack. The moment’s doubt brought the two ships yet closer. Then another shot, one that hit the Polychrest square amidships: an ultimatum.

‘Up foretopsheet,’ cried Jack. He could afford to let the Bellone range up a little, and the confusion might gain another half minute.

But now the Bellone had had enough: the white ensign came down, the tricolour ran up: the frigate’s side vanished in a long cloud and a hundredweight of iron hurtled across the five hundred yards of sea. Three balls struck the Polychrest’s hull; the rest screamed overhead. ‘Clap on to that sheet there, for’ard,’ he cried: and as the sail filled, ‘Very well, Mr Goodridge, lay me alongside her at pistol-​shot. Our colours, Mr Rossall. Mr Pullings, off canvas, casks over the side.’

An odd gun or two from the Bellone, and for a hideous moment Jack thought she was going to tack, cross his stern, and try a luffing-​match to gain the wind, hitting him from a distance all the time. ‘God send her broadside,’ he muttered; and it came, a great rolling crash, but ragged - by no means in the Bellone’s finest style. Now the privateer was committed to a quick finish, out of hand. All that remained was to wait while the master took the Polychrest down into action, foiling every attempt at forereaching, keeping her just so in relation to the wind and the Bellone - to last out those minutes while the gap was narrowed.

‘Mr Macdonald, Marines away aloft,’ he said. ‘Drummer, are you ready?’

Across the water the guns were being run out and aimed again; as the last thrust out its muzzle he roared ‘Lie down. Flat down on deck.’ This was a mixed broadside, mostly grape: it tore through the lower rigging and across the deck.

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