 | CHAPTER VII. The two admirals |  |
7. CHAPTER VII.
And laughed, and shouted, as she darted on,
And plunged amid the foam, and tossed it high,
Over the deck, as when a strong, curbed steed
Flings the froth from him in his eager race.”
Percival.
The long twilight of a high latitude had now ended, and
the sun, though concealed behind clouds, had risen. The
additional light contributed to lessen the gloomy look of the
ocean, though the fury of the winds and waves still lent to
it a dark and menacing aspect. To windward there were
no signs of an abatement of the gale, while the heavens continued
to abstain from letting down their floods, on the
raging waters beneath. By this time, the fleet was materially
to the southward of Cape la Hogue, though far to the
westward, where the channel received the winds and waves
from the whole rake of the Atlantic, and the seas were setting
in, in the long, regular swells of the ocean, a little disturbed
by the influence of the tides. Ships as heavy as the
two-deckers moved along with groaning efforts, their bulk-heads
and timbers “complaining,” to use the language of
the sea, as the huge masses, loaded with their iron artillery,
rose and sunk on the coming and receding billows. But
their movements were stately and full of majesty; whereas,
the cutter, sloop, and even the frigates, seemed to be tossed
like foam, very much at the mercy of the elements. The
Chloe was passing the admiral, on the opposite tack, quite a
mile to leeward, and yet, as she mounted to the summit of
a wave, her cut-water was often visible nearly to the keel.
These are the trials of a vessel's strength; for, were a ship
always water-borne equally on all her lines, there would not
be the necessity which now exists to make her the well-knit
mass of wood and iron she is.
The progress of the two fleets was very much the same,
both squadrons struggling along through the billows, at the
rate of about a marine league in the hour. As no lofty sail
was carried, and the vessels were first made in the haze of a
other until nearer than common; and, by the time at which
we have now arrived in our tale, the leading vessels were separated
by a space that did not exceed two miles, estimating
the distance only on their respective lines of sailing; though
there would be about the same space between them when
abreast, the English being so much to windward of their enemies.
Any one in the least familiar with nautical manœuvres
will understand that these circumstances would bring
the van of the French and the rear of their foes much nearer
together in passing, both fleets being close-hauled.
Sir Gervaise Oakes, as a matter of course, watched the
progress of the two lines with close and intelligent attention.
Mons. de Vervillin did the same from the poop of le Foudroyant,
a noble eighty-gun ship in which his flag of vice-amiral
was flying, as it might be, in defiance. By the
side of the former stood Greenly, Bunting, and Bury, the
Plantagenet's first lieutenant; by the side of the latter his
capitaine de vaisseau, a man as little like the caricatures of
such officers, as a hostile feeling has laid before the readers
of English literature, as Washington was like the man held
up to odium in the London journals, at the commencement
of the great American war. M. de Vervillin himself was
a man of respectable birth, of a scientific education, and of
great familiarity with ships, so far as a knowledge of their
general powers and principles was concerned; but here his
professional excellence ceased, all that infinity of detail
which composes the distinctive merit of the practical seaman
being, in a great degree, unknown to him, rendering it necessary
for him to think in moments of emergency; periods
when the really prime mariner seems more to act by a sort
of instinct than by any very intelligible process of ratiocination.
With his fleet drawn out before him, however, and
with no unusual demands on his resources, this gallant officer
was an exceedingly formidable foe to contend with in
squadron.
Sir Gervaise Oakes lost all his constitutional and feverish
impatience while the fleets drew nigher and nigher. As is
not unusual with brave men, who are naturally excitable,
as the crisis approached he grew calmer, and obtained a
more perfect command over himself; seeing all things in
them. He continued to walk the poop, but it was with a
slower step; and, though his hands were still closed behind
his back, the fingers were passive, while his countenance
became grave and his eye thoughtful. Greenly knew that
his interference would now be hazardous; for whenever the
vice-admiral assumed that air, he literally became commander-in-chief;
and any attempt to control or influence him,
unless sustained by the communication of new facts, could
only draw down resentment on his own head. Bunting, too,
was aware that the “admiral was aboard,” as the officers,
among themselves, used to describe this state of their superior's
mind, and was prepared to discharge his own duty in
the most silent and rapid manner in his power. All the
others present felt more or less of this same influence of an
established character.
“Mr. Bunting,” said Sir Gervaise, when the distance
between the Plantagenet and le Téméraire, the leading
French vessel, might have been about a league, allowing for
the difference in the respective lines of sailing—“Mr. Bunting,
bend on the signal for the ships to go to quarters. We
may as well be ready for any turn of the dice.”
No one dared to comment on this order: it was obeyed in
readiness and silence.
“Signal ready, Sir Gervaise,” said Bunting, the instant
the last flag was in its place.
“Run it up at once, sir, and have a bright look-out for
the answers. Captain Greenly, go to quarters, and see all
clear on the main-deck, to use the batteries if wanted. The
people can stand fast below, as I think it might be dangerous
to open the ports.”
Captain Greenly passed off the poop to the quarter-deck,
and in a minute the drum and fife struck up the air which
is known all over the civilized world as the call to arms.
In most services this summons is made by the drum alone,
which emits sounds to which the fancy has attached peculiar
words; those of the soldiers of France being “prend
ton sac—prend ton sac—prend ton sac,” no bad representatives
of the meaning; but in English and American ships,
this appeal is usually made in company with the notes of the
otherwise be wanting.
“Signal answered throughout the fleet, Sir Gervaise,”
said Bunting.
No answer was given to this report beyond a quiet inclination
of the head. After a moment's pause, however, the
vice-admiral turned to his signal officer and said—
“I should think, Bunting, no captain can need an order
to tell him not to open his lee-lower-deck ports in such a sea
as this?”
“I rather fancy not, Sir Gervaise,” answered Bunting,
looking drolly at the boiling element that gushed up each
minute from beneath the bottom of the ship, in a way to
appear as high as the hammock-cloths. “The people at
the main-deck guns would have rather a wet time of it.”
“Bend on the signal, sir, for the ships astern to keep in
the vice-admiral's wake. Young gentleman,” to the midshipman
who always acted as his aid in battle, “tell Captain
Greenly I desire to see him as soon as he has received all
the reports.”
Down to the moment when the first tap of the drum was
heard, the Plantagenet had presented a scene of singular
quiet and unconcern, considering the circumstances in which
she was placed. A landsman would scarcely credit that
men could be so near their enemies, and display so much
indifference to their vicinity; but this was the result of long
habit, and a certain marine instinct that tells the sailor when
anything serious is in the wind, and when not. The difference
in the force of the two fleets, the heavy gale, and
the weatherly position of the English, all conspired to assure
the crew that nothing decisive could yet occur. Here and
there an officer or an old seaman might be seen glancing
through a port, to ascertain the force and position of the
French; but, on the whole, their fleet excited little more attention
than if lying at anchor in Cherbourg. The breakfast
hour was approaching, and that important event monopolized
the principal interest of the moment. The officers'
boys, in particular, began to make their appearance around
the galley, provided, as usual, with their pots and dishes,
and, now and then, one cast a careless glance through the
nearest opening to see how the strangers looked; but as to
the protectors of the rights of the different messes, than between
the two great belligerent navies themselves.
Nor was the state of things materially different in the
gun-room, or cock-pit, or on the orlops. Most of the people
of a two-decked ship are berthed on the lower gun-deck, and
the order to “clear ship” is more necessary to a vessel of
that construction, before going to quarters seriously, than to
smaller craft; though it is usual in all. So long as the
bags, mess-chests, and other similar appliances were left in
their ordinary positions, Jack saw little reason to derange
himself; and as reports were brought below, from time to
time, respecting the approach of the enemy, and more especially
of his being well to leeward, few of those whose duty
did not call them on deck troubled themselves about the matter
at all. This habit of considering his fortune as attached
to that of his ship, and of regarding himself as a point on
her mass, as we all look on ourselves as particles of the orb
we accompany in its revolutions, is sufficiently general
among mariners; but it was particularly so as respects the
sailors of a fleet, who were kept so much at sea, and who
had been so often, with all sorts of results, in the presence
of the enemy. The scene that was passing in the gun-room
at the precise moment at which our tale has arrived, was
so characteristic, in particular, as to merit a brief description.
All the idlers by this time were out of their berths and
cotts; the signs of those who “slept in the country,” as it
is termed, or who were obliged, for want of state-rooms, to
sling in the common apartment, having disappeared. Magrath
was reading a treatise on medicine, in good Leyden
Latin, by a lamp. The purser was endeavouring to decipher
his steward's hieroglyphics, favoured by the same light, and
the captain of marines was examining the lock of an aged
musket. The third and fourth lieutenants were helping each
other to untangle one of their Bay-of-Biscay reckonings,
which had set both plane and spherical trigonometry at defiance,
by a lamp of their own; and the chaplain was hurrying
the steward and the boys along with the breakfast—his
usual occupation at that “witching time” in the morning.
While things were in this state, the first lieutenant, Mr.
or two of the mess to glance upward at him, though no one
spoke but the junior lieutenant, who, being an honourable,
was at his ease with every one on board, short of the captain.
“What's the news from deck, Bury?” asked this officer,
a youth of twenty, his senior being a man ten years older.
“Is Mr. de Vervillin thinking of running away yet?”
“Not he, sir; there's too much of the game-cock about
him for that.”
“I 'll warrant you, he can crow! But what is the news,
Bury?”
“The news is that the old Planter is as wet as a washtub,
forward, and I must have a dry jacket—do you hear,
there, Tom? Soundings,” turning to the master, who just
then came in from forward, “have you taken a look out of
doors this morning?”
“You know I seldom forget that, Mr. Bury. A pretty
pickle the ship would soon be in, if I forgot to look about
me!”
“He swallowed the deep-sea, down in the bay,” cried the
honourable, laughing, “and goes every morning at day-light
to look for it out at the bridle-ports.”
“Well, then, Soundings, what do you think of the third
ship in the French line?” continued Bury, disregarding the
levity of the youth: “did you ever see such top-masts, as
she carries, before?”
“I scarce ever saw a Frenchman without them, Mr.
Bury. You 'd have just such sticks in this fleet, if Sir
Jarvy would stand them.”
“Ay, but Sir Jarvy won't stand them. The captain who
sent such a stick up in his ship, would have to throw it over-board
before night. I never saw such a pole in the air in
my life!”
“What's the matter with the mast, Mr. Bury?” put in
Magrath, who kept up what he called constant scientific
skirmishes with the elder sea-officers; the junior being too
inexperienced in his view to be worthy of a contest. “I 'll
engage the spar is moulded and fashioned agreeably to the
most approved pheelosphical principles; for in that the
French certainly excel us.”
“Who ever heard of moulding a spar?” interrupted
Soundings, laughing loudly, “we mould a ship's frame,
Doctor, but we lengthen and shorten, and scrape and fid
her masts.”
“I'm answered as usual, gentlemen, and voted down, I
suppose, by acclamation, as they call it in other learned bodies.
I would advise no creature that has a reason to go to
sea; an instinct being all that is needed to make a Lord
High Admiral of twenty tails.”
“I should like Sir Jarvy to hear that, my man of books,”
cried the fourth, who had just satisfied himself that a book
was not his own forte—“I fancy your instinct, doctor, will
prevent you from whispering this in the vice-admiral's ear!”
Although Magrath had a profound respect for the commander-in-chief,
he was averse to giving in, in a gun-room
discussion. His answer, therefore, partook of the
feeling of the moment.
“Sir Gervaise,” (he pronounced this word Jairvis) “Sir
Gervaise Oakes, honourable sir,” he said, with a sneer,
“may be a good seaman, but he's no linguist. Now, there
he was, ashore among the dead and dying, just as ignorant
of the meaning of filius nullius, which is boy's Latin, as if
he had never seen a horn-book! Nevertheless, gentlemen,
it is science, and not even the classics, that makes the man;
as for a creature's getting the sciences by instinct, I shall
contend it is against the possibilities, whereas the attainment
of what you call seamanship, is among even the lesser probabilities.”
“This is the most marine-ish talk I ever heard from your
mouth, doctor,” interrupted Soundings. “How the devil
can a man tell how to ware ship by instinct, as you call it,
if one may ask the question?”
“Simply, Soundings, because the process of ratiocination
is dispensed with. Do you have to think in waring ship,
now?—I 'll put it to your own honour, for the answer.”
“Think!—I should be a poor creature for a master, indeed,
if much thinking were wanting in so simple a matter
as tacking or veering. No—no—your real sea-dog has no
occasion for thinking, when he has his work before him.”
“That 'll just be it, gentlemen!—that 'll be just what I 'm
telling ye,” cried the doctor, exulting in the success of his
he has his ordinary duties to perform, but he holds the process
itself in merited contempt, ye 'll obsairve; and so my
theory is established, by evidence of a pairty concerned;
which is more than a postulate logically requires.”
Here Magrath dropped his book, and laughed with that
sort of hissing sound that seems peculiar to the genus of
which he formed a part. He was still indulging in his
triumph, when the first tap of the drum was heard. All
listened; every ear pricking like that of a deer that hears
the hound, when there followed—“r-r-r-ap tap—r-r-r-ap
tap—r-r-r-ap tap a-tap-tap—rap-a-tap—a-rap-a-tap a-rap-a
tap—a-tap-tap.”
“Instinct or reason, Sir Jarvy is going to quarters!”
exclaimed the honourable. “I 'd no notion we were near
enough to the Monsieurs, for that!”
“Now,” said Magrath, with a grinning sneer, as he rose
to descend to the cock-pit, “there 'll may be arise an occasion
for a little learning, when I 'll promise ye all the science
that can be mustered in my unworthy knowledge. Soundings,
I may have to heave the lead in the depths of your
physical formation, in which case I 'll just endeevour to
avoid the breakers of ignorance.”
“Go to the devil, or to the cock-pit, whichever you
please, sir,” answered the master; “I 've served in six
general actions, already, and have never been obliged to one
of your kidney for so much as a bit of court-plaster or lint.
With me, oakum answers for one, and canvass for the
other.”
While this was saying, all hands were in motion. The
sea and marine officers looking for their side-arms, the surgeon
carefully collecting his books, and the chaplain seizing
a dish of cold beef, that was hurriedly set upon a table, carrying
it down with him to his quarters, by way of taking it
out of harm's way. In a minute, the gun-room was cleared
of all who usually dwelt there, and their places were supplied
by the seamen who manned the three or four thirty-two's
that were mounted in the apartment, together with
their opposites. As the sea-officers, in particular, appeared
among the men, their faces assumed an air of authority, and
up,” as they hastened themselves to their several stations.
All this time, Sir Gervaise Oakes paced the poop. Bunting
and the quarter-master were in readiness to hoist the
new signal, and Greenly merely waited for the reports, to
join the commander-in-chief. In about five minutes after
the drum had given its first tap, these were completed, and
the captain ascended to the poop.
“By standing on, on our present course, Captain Greenly,”
observed Sir Gervaise, anxious to justify to himself the evolution
he contemplated, “the rear of our line and the van
of the French will be brought within fair range of shot from
each other, and, by an accident, we might lose a ship; since
any vessel that was crippled, would necessarily sag directly
down upon the enemy. Now, I propose to keep away in
the Plantagenet, and just brush past the leading French
ships, at about the distance the Warspite will have to pass,
and so alter the face of matters a little. What do you think
would be the consequence of such a manœuvre?”
“That the van of our line and the van of the French will
be brought as near together, as you have just said must
happen to the rear, Sir Gervaise, in any case.”
“It does not require a mathematician to tell that much,
sir. You will keep away, as soon as Bunting shows the
signal, and bring the wind a-beam. Never mind the braces;
let them stand fast; as soon as we have passed the French
admiral, I shall luff, again. This will cause us to lose a
little of our weatherly position, but about that I am very indifferent.
Give the order, sir—Bunting, run up the signal.”
These commands were silently obeyed, and presently the
Plantagenet was running directly in the troughs of the seas,
with quite double her former velocity. The other ships answered
promptly, each keeping away as her second ahead
came down to the proper line of sailing, and all complying
to the letter with an order that was very easy of execution.
The effect, besides giving every prospect of a distant engagement,
was to straighten the line to nearly mathematical
precision.
“Is it your wish, Sir Gervaise, that we should endeavour
to open our lee lower ports?” asked Greenly. “Unless we
attempt something of the sort, we shall have nothing heavier
see fit to begin.”
“And will he be any better off?—It would be next to
madness to think of fighting the lower-deck guns, in such
weather, and we will keep all fast. Should the French
commence the sport, we shall have the advantage of being
to windward; and the loss of a few weather shrouds might
bring down the best mast in their fleet.”
Greenly made no answer, though he perfectly understood
that the loss of a mast would almost certainly ensure the
loss of the ship, did one of his own heavier spars go. But
this was Sir Gervaise's greatest weakness as a commander,
and he knew it would be useless to attempt persuading him
to suffer a single ship under his order to pass the enemy
nearer than he went himself in the Plantagenet. This was
what he called covering his ships; though it amounted to no
more than putting all of them in the jeopardy that happened
to be unavoidable, as regarded one or two.
The Comte de Vervillin seemed at a loss to understand
this sudden and extraordinary movement in the van of his
enemy. His signals followed, and his crews went to their
guns; but it was not an easy matter for ships that persevered
in hugging the wind to make any material alterations
in their relative positions, in such a gale. The rate of sailing
of the English, however, now menaced a speedy collision,
if collision were intended, and it was time to be stirring,
in order to be ready for it.
On the other hand, all was quiet, and, seemingly, death-like,
in the English ships. Their people were at their quarters,
already, and this is a moment of profound stillness in
a vessel of war. The lower ports being down, the portions
of the crews stationed on those decks were buried, as it
might be, in obscurity, while even those above were still
partly concealed by the half-ports. There was virtually
nothing for the sail-trimmers to do, and everything was apparently
left to the evolutions of the vast machines themselves,
in which they floated. Sir Gervaise, Greenly, and
the usual attendants still remained on the poop, their eyes
scarcely turning for an instant from the fleet of the enemy.
By this time the Plantagenet and le Téméraire were little
more than a mile apart, each minute lessening this distance.
into the seas to the hawse-holes, while the former had a
swift, easy motion through the troughs, and along the summits
of the waves, her flattened sails aiding in steadying her
in the heavy lurches that unavoidably accompanied such a
movement. Still, a sea would occasionally break against
her weather side, sending its crest upward in a brilliant jetd'eau,
and leaving tons of water on the decks. Sir Gervaise's
manner had now lost every glimmering of excitement.
When he spoke, it was in a gentle, pleasant tone,
such as a gentleman might use in the society of women.
The truth was, all his energy had concentrated in the determination
to do a daring deed; and, as is not unusual with
the most resolute men, the nearer he approached to the
consummation of his purpose, the more he seemed to reject
all the spurious aids of manner.
“The French do not open their lower ports, Greenly,”
observed the vice-admiral, dropping the glass after one of
his long looks at the enemy, “although they have the advantage
of being to leeward. I take that to be a sign they
intend nothing very serious.”
“We shall know better five minutes hence, Sir Gervaise.
This ship slides along like a London coach.”
“His line is lubberly, after all, Greenly! Look at those
two ships astern—they are near half a mile to windward of
the rest of the fleet, and at least half a mile astern. Hey!
Greenly?”
The captain turned towards the rear of the French, and
examined the positions of the two ships mentioned with sufficient
deliberation; but Sir Gervaise dropped his head in a
musing manner, and began to pace the poop again. Once
or twice he stopped to look at the rear of the French line,
then distant from him quite a league, and as often did he
resume his walk.
“Bunting,” said the vice-admiral, mildly, “come this way,
a moment. Our last signal was to keep in the commander-in-chief's
wake, and to follow his motions?”
“It was, Sir Gervaise. The old order to follow motions,
`with or without signals,' as one might say.”
“Bend on the signals to close up in line, as near as safe,
and to carry sail by the flag-ship.”
“Ay, ay, Sir Gervaise — we 'll have 'em both up in five
minutes, sir.”
The commander-in-chief now even seemed pleased. His
physical excitement returned a little, and a smile struggled
round his lip. His eye glanced at Greenly, to see if he
were suspected, and then all his calmness of exterior returned.
In the meantime the signals were made and answered.
The latter circumstance was reported to Sir Gervaise,
who cast his eyes down the line astern, and saw that
the different ships were already bracing in, and easing off
their sheets, in order to diminish the spaces between the
different vessels. As soon as it was apparent that the Carnatic
was drawing ahead, Captain Greenly was told to lay
his main and fore-yards nearly square, to light up all his
staysail sheets, and to keep away sufficiently to make everything
draw. Although these orders occasioned surprise,
they were implicitly obeyed.
The moment of meeting had now come. In consequence
of having kept away so much, the Plantagenet could not be
quite three-fourths of a mile on the weather-bow of le Temeraire,
coming up rapidly, and threatening a semi-transverse
fire. In order to prevent this, the French ship edged
off a little, giving herself an easier and more rapid movement
through the water, and bringing her own broadside
more fairly to the shock. This evolution was followed by
the two next ships, a little prematurely, perhaps; but the
admiral in le Foudroyant, disdaining to edge off from her
enemy, kept her luff. The ships astern were governed by
the course of their superior. This change produced a little
disorder in the van of the French, menacing still greater,
unless one party or the other receded from the course taken.
But time pressed, and the two fleets were closing so fast as
to induce other thoughts.
“There 's lubberly work for you, Greenly!” said Sir
Gervaise, smiling. “A commander-in-chief heading up
with the bowlines dragged, and his second and third ahead
— not to say fourth — running off with the wind abeam!
Now, if we can knock the Comte off a couple of points, in
passing, all his fellows astern will follow, and the Warspite
and Blenheim and Thunderer will slip by like girls in a
orders to be ready with those eighteens.”
Greenly obeyed, of course, and he began to think better
of audacity in naval warfare, than he had done before, that
day. This was the usual course of things with these two
officers; one arguing and deciding according to the dictates
of a cool judgment, and the other following his impulses
quite as much as anything else, until facts supervened to
prove that human things are as much controlled by adventitious
agencies, the results of remote and unseen causes, as
by any well-digested plans laid at the moment. In their
cooler hours, when they came to reason on the past, the
vice-admiral generally consummated his triumphs, by reminding
his captain that if he had not been in the way of
luck, he never could have profited by it; no bad creed for a
naval officer, who is otherwise prudent and vigilant.
The quarter-masters of the fleet were just striking six
bells, or proclaiming that it was seven o'clock in the morning
watch, as the Plantagenet and le Téméraire came
abeam of each other. Both ships lurched heavily in the
troughs of the seas, and both rolled to windward in stately
majesty, and yet both slid through the brine with a momentum
that resembled the imperceptible motion of a planet.
The water rolled back from their black sides and shining
hammock-cloths, and all the other dark panoply that distinguishes
a ship of war glistened with the spray; but no sign
of hostility proceeded from either. The French admiral
made no signal to engage, and Sir Gervaise had reasons of
his own for wishing to pass the enemy's van, if possible,
unnoticed. Minute passed after minute, in breathless silence,
on board the Plantagenet and the Carnatic, the latter
vessel being now but half a cable's-length astern of the admiral.
Every eye that had any outlet for such a purpose,
was riveted on the main-deck ports of le Téméraire, in
expectation of seeing the fire issue from her guns. Each
instant, however, lessened the chances, as regarded that
particular vessel, which was soon out of the line of fire from
the Plantagenet, when the same scene was to follow with
the same result, in connection with le Conquereur, the
second ship of the French line. Sir Gervaise smiled as he
passed the three first ships, seemingly unnoticed; but as he
must cease.
“What they mean by it all, Greenly,” he observed to his
companion, “is more than I can say; but we will go nearer,
and try to find out. Keep her away a little more, sir; keep
her away half a point.” Greenly was not disposed to remonstrate
now, for his prudent temperament was yielding to
the excitement of the moment, just reversing the traits of
Sir Gervaise's character; the one losing his extreme discretion
in feeling, as the other gained by the pressure of circumstances.
The helm was eased a little, and the ship
sheered nearer to le Foudroyant.
As is usual in all services, the French commander-in-chief
was in one of the best vessels of his fleet. Not only
was the Foudroyant a heavy ship, carrying French forty-twos
below, a circumstance that made her rate as an eighty,
but, like the Plantagenet, she was one of the fastest and
most weatherly vessels of her class known. By “hugging
the wind,” this noble vessel had got, by this time, materially
to windward of her second and third ahead, and had
increased her distance essentially from her supports astern.
In a word, she was far from being in a position to be sustained
as she ought to be, unless she edged off herself, a
movement that no one on board her seemed to contemplate.
“He 's a noble fellow, Greenly, that Comte de Vervillin!”
murmured Sir Gervaise, in a tone of admiration, “and so
have I always found him, and so have I always reported
him, too! The fools about the Gazettes, and the knaves
about the offices, may splutter as they will; Mr. de Vervillin
would give them plenty of occupation were they here. I
question if he mean to keep off in the least, but insists on
holding every inch he can gain!”
The next moment, however, satisfied Sir Gervaise that
he was mistaken in his last conjecture, the bows of the
Foudroyant gradually falling off, until the line of her larboard
guns bore, when she made a general discharge of the
whole of them, with the exception of those on the lower
deck. The Plantagenets waited until the ship rose on a sea,
and then they returned the compliment in the same manner.
The Carnatic's side showed a sheet of flame immediately
after; and the Achilles, Lord Morganic, luffing briskly to
game, like flashes of lightning. All three of these ships
had directed their fire at le Foudroyant, and the smoke had
not yet driven from among her spars, when Sir Gervaise
perceived that all three of her top-masts were hanging to
leeward. At this sight, Greenly fairly sprang from the
deck, and gave three cheers. The men below caught up
the cry, even to those who were, in a manner, buried on the
lower deck, and presently, spite of the gale, the Carnatic's
were heard following their example astern. At this instant
the whole French and English lines opened their fire, from
van to rear, as far as their guns would bear, or the shot
tell.
“Now, sir, now is our time to close with de Vervillin!”
exclaimed Greenly, the instant he perceived the manner in
which his ship was crippled. “In our close order we might
hope to make a thorough wreck of him.”
“Not so, Greenly,” returned Sir Gervaise calmly. “You
see he edges away already, and will be down among his
other ships in five minutes; we should have a general
action with twice our force. What is done, is well done,
and we will let it stand. It is something to have dismasted
the enemy's commander-in-chief; do you look to it that the
enemy don't do the same with ours. I heard shot rattling
aloft, and every thing now bears a hard strain.”
Greenly went to look after his duty, while Sir Gervaise
continued to pace the poop. The whole of le Foudroyant's
fire had been directed at the Plantagenet, but so
rough was the ocean that not a shot touched the hull. A
little injury had been done aloft, but nothing that the ready
skill of the seamen was not able to repair even in that rough
weather. The fact is, most of the shot had touched the
waves, and had flown off from their varying surfaces at
every angle that offered. One of the secrets that Sir Gervaise
had taught his captains was to avoid hitting the surface
of the sea, if possible, unless that surface was reasonably
smooth, and the object intended to be injured was near
at hand. Then the French admiral received the first fire—
always the most destructive—of three fresh vessels; and his
injuries were in proportion.
The scene was now animated, and not without a wild
with the raging of the ocean and the howling of the winds,
mingled the roar of artillery, and the smoky canopy of battle.
Still the destruction on neither side bore any proportion to
the grandeur of the accompaniments; the distance and the
unsteadiness of the ships preventing much accuracy of aim.
In that day, a large two-decked ship never carried heavier
metal than an eighteen above her lower batteries; and this
gun, efficient as it is on most occasions, does not bring with
it the fearful destruction that attends a more modern broadside.
There was a good deal of noise, notwithstanding, and
some blood shed in passing; but, on the whole, when the
Warspite, the last of the English ships, ceased her fire, on
account of the distance of the enemy abreast of her, it would
have been difficult to tell that any vessel but le Foudroyant,
had been doing more than saluting. At this instant Greenly
re-appeared on the poop, his own ship having ceased to
fire for several minutes.
“Well, Greenly, the main-deck guns are at least scaled,”
said Sir Gervaise, smiling; “and that is not to be done
over again for some time. You keep everything ready in
the batteries, I trust?”
“We are all ready, Sir Gervaise, but there is nothing to
be done. It would be useless to waste our ammunition at
ships quite two miles under our lee.”
“Very true—very true, sir. But all the Frenchmen are
not quite so far to leeward, Greenly, as you may see by
looking ahead. Yonder two, at least, are not absolutely out
of harm's way!”
Greenly turned, gazed an instant in the direction in which
the commander-in-chief pointed, and then the truth of what
Sir Gervaise had really in view in keeping away, flashed on
his mind, as it might be, at a glance. Without saying
a word, he immediately quitted the poop, and descending
even to the lower deck, passed through the whole of his
batteries, giving his orders, and examining their condition.
| CHAPTER VII. The two admirals | |