Across the water a voice cried out in surprise, "Hey!" and was followed by the sound of the running feet. Snatches of loud conversation were carried on the wind.
"They see us now," Biddlecomb observed. "If they're a man-of-war, and they fire on us, we'll give them a broadside then crack on all she'll carry to get away, do you understand?" Biddlecomb addressed Wilson, Barrett, and Rumstick, who were gathered now on the quarterdeck. The three men nodded. "Good. Wilson, go forward and pass the word."
Wilson ran forward once again and the Icarus fell silent. Biddlecomb tried to imagine the discussions taking place on the other ship, less than a quarter mile away. They had not put up their helm and fled upon seeing the Icarus, and that did not bode well.
Biddlecomb could feel the tension like a physical presence on the deck. The quiet was distracting and unnerving. And then the strange ship broke the silence.
"You there, the brig!" The voice was loud and distorted by a speaking trumpet. "What ship is that?"
Biddlecomb snatched up the speaking trumpet. "This is Capt. James Pendexter, of His Majesty's brig Icarus. Who are you? Identify yourself immediately."
There was a pause as the two vessels sailed on, the sloop closing with the brig, and then the voice spoke again. "This is Commander Smith, of His Majesty's sloop of war Swan. To whom an I speaking?"
"I've told you once already, sir! I am Capt. James Pendexter of the brig Icarus!" said Biddlecomb in a tone of exasperation. The sloop of war Swan. Another vessel of the British navy was polluting his home. Here was the enemy now, not a cable length away.
"Heave to immediately. Heave to or we shall fire into you!" said Commander Smith.
The two vessels sailed on, silent, and Biddlecomb could see that the Swan was setting topgallants and heading to cross the Icarus's bow. He was considering coming about, spinning the brig on her heel, and running for the shelter of Gould Island when the Swan fired her forwardmost gun. The muzzle flash was blinding in the dark night, and the deck beneath Biddlecomb's feet shuddered as the ball struck the Icarus's side.
The fear and rage poured into Biddlecomb, filling him up, like the sea through a sprung plank. They had made it this far, they would not be stopped now. He clenched his fists, feeling as if he would burst, feeling the need to lash out. He heard his own voice yell, "Fire!" and the night was shattered with a roar and flash as the Icarus's starboard battery went off. Biddlecomb saw fragments flying from the Swan's side, heard a man screaming across the water. Biddlecomb realized that he was smiling.
"Set the foresail!" he shouted, coming to his senses, and hands peeled away from their stations at the guns to attend to the sail.
And then the Swan fired her larboard battery, the full broadside, in one horrible rain of iron. The bulwark five feet in front of Biddlecomb blew into splinters, and the hull jerked from the impact of the round shot. But now the Icaruses were running their guns out again.
"Fire!" Biddlecomb shouted, and another broadside hurled across the water.
"Sir, you might want to order "fire as you bear" and just let them have at it," Barrett advised, and Biddlecomb saw the wisdom of this.
"Mr Wilson, fire as you bear!" he shouted just as the Swan exploded in another broadside. The fore topmast stay parted and collapsed and two gunports were smashed into one. A seaman fell screaming, impaled on a four-foot splinter, and was dragged out of the way by his mates.
The foresail tumbled down and was sheeted home, and Biddlecomb felt the Icarus's speed increase. They were pulling ahead of the Swan now and might even cross her bows and rake her. He could not allow a chase clear to Providence, he had to cripple her and lose her.
For an instant the two vessels and the intervening water were brilliantly illuminated as both broadsides fired together, and in the flash Biddlecomb saw that the Swan was setting more sail as well. With her ship rig and longer waterline she would be faster than Icarus. It would not be easy to shake her.
He coughed as the gun smoke filled his lungs, and tears streamed from his eyes. It was so hard to think in the noise and the smoke and confusion.
Biddlecomb tried to block out the screams and the smoke and gunfire and concentrate. Where were they? Tactics would do them no good if they were hard aground. He looked over the larboard side. Conanicut Island was still abeam and ahead, and he could just make out the west side of Prudence Island. He would have to turn east and try to cross the Swan's bow if he hoped to make the east passage.
The gunfire was continuous now, and the weird light reminded Biddlecomb of a terrific lightning storm. Iron and splinters whistles through the air, and the Icarus shuddered again and again with the impact of round shot. The smoke made Biddlecomb's eyes ache.
"Make your head east-northeast!" Biddlecomb shouted to the men at the helm. They nodded and pushed the tiller over, and Biddlecomb saw the bow begin to swing. He looked over at the Swan. The sloop was not altering course, rather it was closing with the Icarus. Biddlecomb imagined that Commander Smith would try to come alongside and board. That would never do, they were certain to be outnumbered.
Biddlecomb took his bearings again. He considered the navigational hazards in that area. There was Prudence Island, of course, and Dyer Island, and Halfway Rock...
Biddlecomb felt suddenly sick with fear. Halfway Rock! Of all things, how could he have forgotten that?
"Steady as she goes!" he yelled at the helmsmen as he leapt down to the main deck and raced forward, jumping over wounded men and clumps of fallen rigging, and made his way to the bow. He mounted the bowsprit and peered forward, but his night vision was quite destroyed by the gunfire, and he could not make out any details beyond the jibboom.
The Swan fired, three guns at once, and in the flash Biddlecomb thought he saw the marker. With his eyes fixed in that direction, he waited for the guns to fire again.
The Icarus's guns, number three and five, went off together, and Biddlecomb saw it clearly: a two-fathom pole with a white flag streaming from the top, a quarter mile ahead. There was still time to avoid it. And then another thought struck him.
He made his way aft again, searching the wild deck for Rumstick. He found him at the main mast, reeving off a new forbrace.
"Ezra!" Biddlecomb shouted. "I want hands ready at the braces. Take a gun crew if you need to. They must be ready to brace up, larboard tack, when we turn. Quickly now, go!"
Rumstick nodded and raced away, shouting orders as he went, and Biddlecomb stepped up to the quarterdeck. The helmsmen stood like statues at the tiller, only their heads moving as their gaze alternated from the compass up to sails and then over to the Swan. "Listen here, you two!" Biddlecomb shouted above the din. "On my command you'll turn hard to larboard, do you hear, hard to larboard!"
"Hard to larboard on your command, aye," said the helmsman on the weather side.
"Good. Watch for my signal." Biddlecomb clambered up into the main shrouds, a few feet below the main top where he could peer over the foreyard and past the bow of the ship, trying to ignore the whistling round shot and musket balls that pelted the spars around him.
Along the deck Biddlecomb saw men standing by at the braces, Rumstick racing fore and aft to see that all was in readiness. A section of the bulwark shattered, and the men at the maintopsail brace was tossed across the deck like a rag doll, but Rumstick was there and snatched up the brace himself.