Mutiny(114)

He pulled in and took post, conscious that his duty was to make sure Lieutenant Monckton's orders were carried out — whatever the circumstances.

'Point your guns!' The enemy were very near now. Gun-captains scrambled to sight down their pieces, signalling for handspikes to muscle the heavy guns round to train on target, then tracking it, waiting with gun lanyard extended for the word to fire.

So close. Smashing strikes and cries of injured men were general now, the moments seeming to last for ever. But then it died away and the sea outside shadowed suddenly. It was the enemy line.

'Fire!' came the order. In a rippled broadside from forward the twenty-four-pounders crashed out in a vengeful smash straight at the unprotected stern of the unknown Dutch ship — thirty-seven heavy iron balls at point-blank velocity in a merciless splintering path of destruction right down the length of the ship. The noise was overwhelming, going on and on as they passed through.

Kydd bent his knees to see. Through the smoke he caught sight of an ornate stern gallery riven into gap-toothed ugliness. Wreckage rained down and turned the sea white with splashes. He wheeled round, still bent, and briefly glimpsed, through the opposite side, the tangled bowsprit of another ship.

Crews flung themselves at their guns: sponging, the lethal grey cartridge and wad, then the deadly iron ball. Kydd felt the deck sway over to starboard and realised they must be coming round to lock into their opponent. He yelled hoarsely at the crews: doubling the rate of fire was as good as doubling the number of guns, and once around they would be facing an equal broadside from their opponent.

It came early, before they were fully round — and at ten-yards range the effect was lethal. The iron shot tore through the sides of Triumph, the balls rampaging the whole width of the gundeck before smashing through the far side, tearing and shattering. The deck trembled as more balls struck below.

Monckton raised his speaking trumpet and was thrown violendy along the deck. He did not move. Kydd ran to his body: there was no mark on it, but a red rash was spreading on the side of his face. He put his hand inside the officer's coat and felt for the heart it still beat.

'Bear a hand!' he roared at the men hovering around. They dragged Monckton to the centreline gratings and laid him out on his back. He had been knocked unconscious by the close passage of a round-shot. If he recovered he would want to be at his post, but for now Kydd must perform his duty.

A midshipman arrived from forward, wide-eyed, his hand convulsively gripping the hilt of his dirk. 'Get back to y'r post,' Kydd told him. 'Orders are th' same.'

Kydd turned to the gun-crews. There was no need for interference: the men worked like demons, their gun-captains throwing a glance his way, then getting on with it.

A messenger raced down from the quarterdeck and skidded to a stop at the sight of Monckton's body. Kydd stepped up. 'I'm in charge. What's y'r message?' The order was clear: each gun was to fire alternately at maximum depression or elevation. This would send their shot down to the enemy's keel or up through her unprotected decks, a terrifying ordeal for an opponent. Kydd ran along the guns, tasking off the gun-captains.

The hull of the enemy ship loomed through the gunports in the thinning smoke; dull black, with signs of cannon strike everywhere and jerking activity at her gunports. Their own guns crashed out Triumph's gun-crews worked savagely, needing no goading. Smoke swirled thickly back into the gundeck, obscuring everything. A mounting warrior's bloodlust set Kydd's heart aflame for victory.

There was no pretence at aiming: fire was general. 'Double shotting!' Kydd bellowed. As the two balls diverged at the muzzle, aim would be affected but the damage would be broadened and doubled. 'Smash it in 'em, lads!' he bawled. Yet in the wildness of the battle Kydd felt a serenity, the calm of a dedicated ferocity that he knew would take him through anything.

High screams close by — a young powder monkey with his lower body soaked in blood, pulling himself helplessly away on his elbows. Kydd motioned to an opposite gun-crew to carry the lad below.

A wrecked gun, its barrel askew and carriage in pieces, its crew in a moaning, bloody heap, was being cleared of its dead, tumbled out of the gunport to the sea below.

Then, unbelievably, a messenger appeared, shrilling urgently, 'Cease firing!' The crews, working like automatons, checked their fire and subsided into a trembling stillness. Kydd ran to the side and looked out. Roiling gunsmoke still hid much of the enemy, but there was an unnatural quiet aboard their adversary. Confused shouting from behind caused Kydd to turn round — but then came cheering, and maniac roars of jubilation. The enemy had struck!



It was ironic, thought Renzi, that when he had been reassigned to another ship at the last minute it had been this one, Tenacious, and within weeks of his final retirement from the sea he was headed into his second major fleet action in a year.