The French Admiral by Dewey Lambdin

Author:Dewey Lambdin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781590133279
Publisher: McBooks Press

CHAPTER 10

The brutal cannonading went on for days, and the French and American batteries were prodigal with shot and shell. During the day their guns began to strike directly on the ramparts from a range of only six hundred to eight hundred yards, pounding the earthworks into ruin, smashing the fascines and gabions that reinforced them and dismounting guns that attempted to return fire. At night, high-angle shells burst with regularity in a firestorm horrendously loud and unceasing, shattering the night and everyone’s nerves, flinging men about like straws if they happened to be too close to an explosion, sheltered in a trench or not.

Alan had been into town along with the marine officer he had once shared quarters with to search for fresh horsemeat for their men. They had located two once-magnificent saddle horses, now reduced to skin and bones, their heads hanging low in utter exhaustion. Hard as it was going to be, they would lead these once-proud blooded steeds back near their positions to be slaughtered for food. The corn and oats were almost gone, so dinners would be mostly fresh meat and biscuit, what little of that was left. What they had gathered and foraged had been eaten days before.

They had barely taken charge of the animals when there had been a manic howl as a huge sixteen-inch mortar shell came whistling down nearby, and Alan had dived to the ground in mortal terror. There had been a huge and deafening blast of sound, giving him the feeling that he was swimming in air and being pelted with rocks, and then he had found himself several yards away from where he had lain, covered with damp earth and blood, his uniform in tatters. The horses were splattered about the street like fresh paint and his companion had been shredded into offal as well, only his lower legs remaining whole. His smallsword was turned into a corkscrew that smoked with heat.

Badly shattered by the experience, Alan had almost crawled all the way back to his battery to find what comfort he could in others of his own kind, no matter how menial they were. Cony tended him, fetched out fresh togs, and put him to bed to sleep it off, which he did, in the middle of the deafening roar of bombardment.

It was the ships burning that finally broke his spirit.

After two days and nights of steady terror, Charon and Guadeloupe took advantage of the fact that they had been ignored so far and tried to maneuver further out into the river to make a stab at escaping, hoping that Charon, minus her artillery and stores, would be shallow enough in draft to make it between the shoals.

With twenty-four-pounder guns and heated shot, the big French battery on the enemy left on the York River had opened fire. Charon had been hit and turned into a heartbreaking torch, burned to the waterline. Guadeloupe had gotten under the town bluffs into safety, but several outlying small warships and transports had also been set on fire and abandoned.

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