Chapter 6
Fire! Seamen could brave gales to go aloft or stand fearless against the deadliest cannonade but the elemental terror of fire aboard ship could turn the hardest man to craven panic. And Kydd had a personal dread of it. In the Caribbean, in Seaflower, he had seen a ship ablaze: they had tried to claw against the wind to save the sailors but, helpless, had been forced to watch their end – a choice of being burned alive or throwing themselves into the water to sharks in a feeding frenzy.
‘Seems t’ be aft, around the mizzen chains, the poop…’ Kydd forced his voice steady as he trained his signal telescope on the intermittent flaring on the big ship’s after-end, where her signal crew would be gathered. His imagination supplied the details. There would be frantic scrambling to extinguish the flames before they took hold; fire-buckets dashed at them by men held with feral dread as if charged by a wild bull. Sailors would be taken from the guns, from below – everyone who could be spared would be put to work for a bucket chain before the engine and hose were brought into play.
‘Mr Pringle!’ Houghton wheeled on the captain of marines. ‘Take six of your best men to the foredeck. They are to kill any man aboard the Frenchman who attempts to douse the flames. Am I understood?’
‘Yes, sir – clear the deck of any enemy approaching the fire.’
Kydd froze with horror – but he understood. If the huge enemy ship was destroyed by fire it was as satisfactory as if she had been reduced by hours of bombardment. It was unlikely that the French would abandon their proud flagship to the flames while it was possible to save her. Soon there would be so much death and pain, men who would find it in themselves to defy the bullets for the sake of their ship and be struck down, others who would know the bitter taste of self-loathing when they discovered they could not.
The conflagration lessened and wavered, then returned as their murderous fusillade achieved its object. Shots came, too, from Swiftsure. Unchecked, the flames mounted, licking dangerously along the edge of the driver boom, little wisps flickering upward and along. It would not be long before the fire took strong hold and then there would be no turning back – timbered, and with tarred rigging, the man-o’-war would become an inferno.
Kydd watched as one figure, black against the light of the blaze, raced along with a bucket, then was cut down. The figure toppled into the flames where it thrashed for a little, then was still. More figures darted and fell, and Kydd tore his eyes away. ‘A terrible sight, sir,’ he said to Houghton, who was watching with Bryant. Houghton cast him a curious look. ‘Even if they are Frenchies,’ Kydd finished lamely.
The blaze was spreading about the poop and its light now tinged the faces of the officers in Tenacious as they stared at the awful sight. They resumed pacing: there was no need to make the job of any vengeful French sharpshooter the easier. The master pulled out a large kerchief and wiped his forehead. ‘Does strike me, sir, that such a monster must have a mort o’ powder aboard. The blaze reaches the grand magazine, why, it would put a volcano to shame!’
‘There is that, of course, Mr Hambly. Do you wish me to allow them to extinguish the fire?’ A grim smile belied Houghton’s words. ‘Yet a reasonable course for her captain would be to strike now to save life – but I doubt he will do that.’
‘Then, sir, do you not feel it prudent t’ shift berth? If she explodes it will put every ship to hazard.’ Bryant came in.
Houghton took three paces more before replying. ‘Consider, Mr Bryant. Our people have been fighting for long this night. They’re exhausted and can’t in all mercy be expected to stand at a capstan. But should we cut our cable in the darkness we cannot easily range another through the stern-port and therefore we lose our advantage. And in any event I am obliged to point out that while our immediate opponent remains at her anchor, so must we.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
As always in the sea service, duty would stand well before consideration of personal safety. But the fearful logic of war dictated that the enemy could not be allowed to save themselves or their ship. The end, therefore, would probably be cataclysmic.
The pitch darkness was now rolling back with the light of the burning ship; as the blaze strengthened and leaped, the entire bay was illuminated and Kydd imagined a fearfully fascinated audience of thousands watching from the lines of ships – and they themselves were at its very centre, the massive three-decker the next after their own adversary.
Houghton turned to Kydd. ‘I want to know the moment she shows any sign of yielding.’ But even with her after deck uncontrollably on fire her lower guns continued to crash out against her tormentors: there would be no easy end for this proud ship.