The officers on board the adversary were clustered on the quarterdeck, and more were ranged in their gun control positions. They too were playing the waiting game, and when the balls started flying they would not have far to travel. Broad was helpless, but tensely excited. Henry Joyce must change his mind, must strike the colours before it was too late. At this short range the net result was carnage, on either side or both. The colours! Even now, even with the gap between them closing at a suddenly accelerated rate, it struck him anew as strange, unreal, fantastic; they both carried colours, both the same. Two British men-of-war about to open fire at each other.
All the slowness of the last twenty minutes, all the odd sensation of the two vessels closing imperceptibly, had changed. The Welfare appeared to be charging now, tearing across the last gap of grey-white water as if in a frenzy.
Broad’s mouth was dry, his fists were clenched. His eyes flicked from the Welfare’s decks to the tight little waiting frigate, to the long lanky back of Arthur Madesly. There seemed to be about a half a dozen upper-deck guns manned, the twelve-pounders. Below on the gundeck, presumably some eighteen-pounders were out. All those men who had not joined in were standing aimlessly. No one had taken cover, no one had manned sheets or braces in case of an altered course. And yet again the last few seconds changed the way that time was running. It almost stopped. The ships were in a limbo. Nothing could happen. Everything was fixed.
With amazing suddenness, Joyce thrust his bald-domed, pig-tailed head out of a forward hatchway.
‘Put up the helm!’ he shouted. ‘We’re going to blast her!’
Madesly did not reply. He began to heave at the spokes, and after a few seconds the Welfare responded. Her stem swung slowly to larboard, towards the waiting frigate.
Farther and farther round it came, until more guns were brought to bear. No one moved to trim the sails.
Matthews was staring at the mizzen, out to starboard. ‘It’s starting to lift,’ he said to Broad. ‘She’ll be by the lee if he doesn’t watch her. He’ll gybe the bugger, then we’re done, there’s no preventers rigged.’
Broad was staring at the adversary. This aggressive manoeuvre by the Welfare had moved them not at all. The sight of the bigger ship’s ports swinging round to face them seemed to signify nothing to the man in command or to his people. She hung in the wind, luffs shaking, waiting for the Welfare’s guns to speak.
The gap was madly small. ‘Almost spitting distance’, went through Jesse’s mind. Joyce gave a great roar to the men on deck, then dropped out of sight, doubtless to repeat it below.
‘Fire!’
Time hung in the balance once again. Broad clearly saw the men apply their linstocks, then spring back. He clearly saw flashes at two breeches, then another slightly afterwards. Then there was a pause, of unbelievable duration.
As the guns went off, Madesly began to spin the wheel, to get the wind back on her quarter, to lessen the target she presented to the foe. He was too late.
The Welfare’s roar was not particularly loud. The forepart of the ship disappeared momentarily in a cloud of smoke. The deck trembled. As it did so, it also gave a lurch. With the flat explosions ringing in his ears, Broad heard Matthews shout: ‘Get down! He’s gybed her!’
Madesly was too late. The Welfare’s mizzen had already been caught by the lee. The freezing wind, its strength apparent once again now it was no longer merely pushing from astern, got underneath the sail and tore it from its vangs.
It was a huge piece of canvas, on a massive, iron-bound wooden yard. With the full weight of the wind in its wrong side, it swung across the quarterdeck with irresistible force and speed. Broad and Matthews, crouched, heard the roar as it shot above their heads. Even had the mizzenmast not been sprung, it could hardly have survived the shock.
But it was sprung. As the flying yard smashed over to larboard the deck beneath them bucked as though alive. There was a crunching, splintering crack, then a prolonged roar. As mast, shrouds, stays, everything, came down, they were enveloped in clammy, icy canvas which was beaten from above by other falling gear. By the time they had clawed their way out, the end was very near.
Welfare’s mizzenmast had gone by the board. It was hanging overside, still firmly attached to her by the rigging. It had taken the mainyard and main topsail with it, so the ship was miraculously back on something like her old course, being dragged slowly downwind by her reefed fore topsail, her headsails flapping uselessly.
There was no one at the wheel, and the scene on deck was very much as it had been before. Broad studied it.
Judging by the fact that three of the guns were still run out, only the three he had noted could have fired. Judging further by the amount of noise there had been, he reckoned only three or four of the eighteen-pounders below could have gone off. So. He looked at the adversary, terrifyingly close-to. There was not a mark upon her. Not a yarn of rope had been damaged, not a speck of paint scratched. He licked his lips, looking at Matthews. Six or seven guns at point-blank range. And not a hit.
Joyce was back on deck. He and Madesly were shouting at the gun-crews, trying to make them reload and run out.
Joyce was cutting the air with a cutlass, dancing in a kind of frenzy. The gun-crews stared back stupidly. One man played idly with a swab, throwing it from one hand to the other. Nobody made so much as a gesture towards a gun.
All the others on the deck were looking at the frigate, only yards ahead now. If she opened fire at this range she would tear the life out of the Welfare. She was still athwart their course, still heading the wind. Broad saw an officer in blue move towards the helm. An order was clearly passed.
As the Welfare drew level with the ship, it became obvious what the order was. The helm was up. The ship was moving off the wind, turning on her heel to bring herself parallel with the cripple.
Parallel, and close enough to throw a line. Broad wondered if that was their intention, to throw a line. Not in this sea, surely? It would be too dangerous to lie alongside. They would grind each other badly.
Their intention became clear very quickly. As the ships ranged side by side, gunport to gunport, the captains of the visible guns took up their stances to fire.
Joyce was still dancing, the idler was still playing with his swab, the bulk of the people stood about in their ugly, stolid daze. The crippled Welfare wallowed on, dragging her mizzenmast clumsily. Broad breathed evenly, unmoved despite the awful cruelty of it all, the terrible, desperate cruelty.
The point at which she fired was lost. An incredible bang, a searing flash, a biting, filthy, burning smell. The Welfare staggered, trembled, shook. Everything disappeared, completely, in a choking mass of smoke. For seconds, minutes, a time that could have been an age, Jesse Broad was lost. Deaf, blind and agonised, neither alive nor dead.
When the smoke cleared away, when he could hear and see again, the Welfare was a wreck. The foremast was a fifteen-foot stump, the larboard main shrouds had gone, and debris from above was piled about the decks as in a dockyard. It was difficult to take it in. The expanse of clear deck had gone. Everywhere broken spars, and blackened canvas, piles of twisted cordage. And smoke. Smoke hanging about in mounds, twirling and melting, blowing from one ragged heap to the next.
For a little while all seemed silent, save for the rhythmic ringing in his ears. Silent and still. He could not see a man, except for Matthews, knelt beside him. Then a moaning started, the moaning of the wind. Then another moaning, of men. Then slowly, building slowly up, came screams, of fear and agony and horror. From the littered deck shapes rose up. Some were bloody, some were not.