Under Fire! by Anthony Barton

Author:Anthony Barton [Barton, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bulmer Press
Published: 2018-12-13T05:00:00+00:00

SOMEBODY in the Tonnerre fired a musket.

The helmsman Green collapsed on the deck.

The wheel spun madly. The Swift fell away from the wind. She headed back for the reef.

Corrie threw herself at the wheel, grabbed at the spokes and then spun them in the opposite direction to bring the Swift back on course. She hung on to the wheel for dear life as sky and sea revolved around her.

My chest.

The pain.

I can hardly breathe.

‘Jim!’ she called out, desperately.

Her brother Jim ran to her side. ‘You’re hurt, Corrie,’ he said, staring open-mouthed at her reddening shirt. He hadn’t realized until this moment that his sister had been wounded, so busy had he been supervising the working of the guns.

‘Don’t worry about me,’ she said. ‘Green’s been shot. Move him out of the way. Help me steer. We must pass inside the island.’

‘Inside the island? Are you crazy? The tide’s falling. There won’t be enough water under our keel.’

‘It’s our best chance. By taking the inner passage, we shall have the island between us and the fort.’

‘You’re the captain,’ said Jim, and helped her spin the spokes to counter a breaking wave.

Spray hit, blinding them both.

A mighty crash of smashing timbers resounded around the bay.

For a moment Corrie thought she had run the Swift aground.

But no, it was not her ship that was in trouble.

It was the Tonnerre.

Corrie and Jim looked back in time to watch in horror as the Tonnerre struck the reef and rode up high on the barnacled rocks.

They gazed spellbound as the French battleship tipped slowly and ponderously over onto her side.

Hundreds of her sailors were thrown into the seething waves. Some were tossed upon the rocks while others swam for the shore. Some who could not swim thrashed about in the sea, and crying out for help.

Corrie and Jim looked at one another.

Corrie recalled how awful she had felt when the water had rushed into the bilge hole. ‘I wish we could help them,’ she said in a small voice, and felt a desperate sadness.

We can’t help them, but that does not make it any easier to sail away like this, listening to their despairing cries. I feel sorry for them.

Corrie was right. There could be no going back to assist the drowning, not this close to the fort. She sighed.

War was a grim business.

‘The wheel, Jim,’ said Corrie.

‘Sorry,’ said her brother, and dragged his eyes from the capsized French ship, and focused instead on what lay ahead: the narrow channel between the island and the shore, boiling with angry, choppy waves.

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