The Baltic War(218)

Just going to have to hope none of them do, John, he thought.



The corner of his brain told him he was being insane, given what he and his ships planned to do when they got to Luebeck. But they weren't at Luebeck yet. There was only one enemy warship in sight at this particular moment, and the smoke pouring out of its stern in steadily thickening clouds suggested that it might not be around a great deal longer.



"Stand by for assistance!" he heard his own amplified voice bellowing.



Here and there, someone aboard the French ship actually seemed to have noticed someone was talking to them. Some of them looked up with sudden hope; most of them simply looked blank, as if they couldn't conceive of what he might be talking about.



He looked back over his shoulder to find Halberstat standing right behind him.



"Get the hoses up on top of the casement, Captain. Then lay us across her stern."



From his expression, Halberstat would have liked nothing better than to have argued with Simpson's decision. Whatever he would have liked, however, what he actually did was to salute.



"Yes, sir," he said.





Grosclaud was vaguely aware of the same thunderous voice he'd heard earlier. He had other things on his mind at the moment, though, and he concentrated on the effort to coordinate the battle against the flames.



It was one he was losing.



There'd been no time for Railleuse to clear for action properly. The canvas screens and flimsy partitions, the bedding and clothing, the spirit stores, the lamps hanging from the overhead—and their oil . . . All those highly flammable items that should have been struck safely below crackled and fumed and smoked, and the ship's seasoned, painted timbers were already well alight, as well.



And then, suddenly, something loomed across the ship's stern like an iron-plated cliff, cutting off the smoky daylight. He turned, eyes widening, just in time to see the seamen standing on top of Constitution's armored casement with the canvas hoses open the valves on the bronze nozzles wide.



The pumps driving the fire mains Simpson had thoughtfully provided were powerful enough to empty the ironclad's trim tanks completely in less than fifteen minutes. The pressure they could generate was sufficient to require at least two men, and preferably three, to control one of the hoses. Jean-Marie Grosclaud—and over a dozen of his men—went down, bowled head over heels, in a torrent of icy cold saltwater. Railleuse's captain could scarcely believe the tidal bore force of that freezing cataract, but he didn't really care. All he cared about was the instantly quenching effect it had on the flames threatening to consume his ship.





"Well, that was certainly exciting," John Simpson said mildly a couple of hours later. Captain Halberstat gave him a rather speaking glance, and the admiral chuckled.



"I don't blame you, Franz," he said, speaking with unusual informality.



"Blame me, sir?" Halberstat inquired politely.



"Blame you for wondering if I'd lost my mind," Simpson amplified. Halberstat started to shake his head, but Simpson snorted.



"Of course you did. Oh, the risk might not have been all that great, but we didn't know—I didn't know—how close all that smoke was to their powder store. Railleuse could have gone up any moment."



"I suppose she could have," Halberstat agreed. "On the other hand, the force of the explosion would mostly have gone straight up. I doubt it could have done significant damage to Constitution, even if it had gone off, sir. Not right up to the last minute, when we went hard alongside, at least."



"Well, there would have been that little matter of the exposed firefighting party," Simpson said dryly. "And, now that I think about it, that other little matter of the flag officer and captain standing out there on the bridge wing with their asses hanging out. That could have been rather . . . unpleasant."



"Perhaps, sir." Halberstat smiled. "On the other hand, if it had been, we wouldn't be the ones having to worry about explaining it to the emperor or Prime Minister Stearns, now would we?"



"That thought did cross my mind," Simpson admitted, and it was Halberstat's turn to chuckle. Then his expression sobered.



"Excuse me, Admiral, but I've come to know you, to some extent, at least. I don't think you would have broached the subject if you hadn't intended me to ask you exactly why we did it."



"No, I don't suppose I would have."



Simpson looked toward the north, where Railleuse had been left behind, limping steadily farther north under her mizzenmast and what remained of her mainmast. There'd really been no particular point in keeping her, and he'd needed somewhere to put her surrendered personnel, anyway, so he'd accepted Captain Grosclaud's parole with the proviso that he sail his ship directly to Copenhagen and agree to take no part in any naval actions until he and all his men had been properly exchanged for Swedish prisoners. It got them safely out of the way, and if they happened to get there before he did (unlikely, actually, in light of the ship's damages), he had absolutely no objection to their spreading all the terrifying rumors they could among Copenhagen's defenders.