The two vessels were less than a hundred yards apart now, and the Swan was rapidly closing the gap, men crowding her side, ready to leap aboard the Icarus. Biddlecomb looked forward. In the light of the nearly continuous fire he could see the marker, fine on the starboard bow and a cable length ahead. He guessed that the Icarus was making nine knots, the Swan slightly more.
Together they raced down on the buoy, one hundred yards, fifty yards, and Biddlecomb hoped fervently that the marker was in the right place and had not drifted. Thirty yards, twenty-five yards, the Swan was closing rapidly on their starboard side.
"Turn, now! Hard a-larboard!" Biddlecomb shouted, and waved his arm, and the two helmsmen pushed the tiller over. The Icarus heeled hard as she came broadside to the wind, sweeping through the turn. Biddlecomb tightened his grip and looked aloft as the brig heeled. The yards were bracing around together, the sails full and straining.
"Amidships!" Biddlecomb shouted, and the helmsmen pushed the tiller over.
Biddlecomb looked aft. The Swan was coming up in the brig's wake, swinging wide as she followed the Icarus around. The sloop's yards braced up and the ship heeled hard to starboard, building momentum on a beam reach, her speed climbing beyond ten knots, when she piled up on Halfway Rock.
Chapter 29.
Bitter End
BIDDLECOMB WAS STAGGERED by the destruction. The Swan's foremast bent like a bow, then snapped ten feet above the deck. The mainstays, designed to prevent the mainmast from falling backward, now served to pull it forward, and in succession the main topgallant mast, the maintopmast, and the mizzen topmast snapped like dry twigs and crashed to the deck.
The sloop was smothered by sails and fallen wreckage. A gun fired blindly from the larboard quarter, and then it was quiet again and the most obtrusive noise that Biddlecomb could hear was the ringing in his ears. The wreck shifted, and Biddlecomb imagined that it was filling with water and settling. The Swan was shattered, a total wreck, and Halfway Rock was the only thing preventing it from sinking.
Capt. James Wallace of His Majesty's frigate Rose, watching from the break of the quarterdeck, was equally staggered by the Swan's destruction. It was not the first time he had seen a ship reduced to wreckage, but this was so sudden and so complete. And more to the point, this was a ship under his command, being destroyed, he had to assume, by an American. His face was expressionless and he uttered not a word as he watched the Swan wreck itself on Halfway Rock.
Lieutenant Leighton, behind him and at the leeward rail, knew no such stoicism. He had been swearing intermittently for ten minutes, since the running fight began. The ships had been just visible to them, two miles distant, but as the gunfire grew steady, they had had a spectacular view of the battle. Wallice turned to order his first officer to be silent, but Leighton spoke first.
"Studdingsails aloft and alow, sir?" The Rose was close-hauled under plain sail, and Leighton asked the question as if the answer were obvious.
"No. Clew up the courses and topgallants. I'm going to wear ship. We'll spin on our heel and dip behind Dyer Island. We'll heave to and wait for the brig to come to us."
Leighton was visibly taken aback, but he issued the orders firmly, with not a second's pause.
"But what if she's bound to sea, sir?" Leighton continued to protest even as the sails were hauled up to the yards. "We'll lose her!"
If she was bound for sea, she would have been heading for sea during the fight. If we show ourselves now, she will head for sea, and we'll lose her among these damned islands."
"But what if she goes around the west side of Prudence Island?"
"She won't," Wallace said, surprised and not a little annoyed by the extent of the lieutenant's questions. "The shallows are too tricky." With that Wallace turned his back on the lieutenant, turned his attention back to the brig now sailing directly away from the frigate, barely visible in the moonlight.
The Yankees had become increasingly bold, hiding their livestock from him, depriving him of provisions, and firing at the Rose from the shore. But this was the end. He would butcher this Yankee, whoever he was, who had destroyed the Swan. Wallace ground his teeth together. He will wear ship, Wallace thought. He will turn and come to me.
A lantern appeared on the Swan's deck, then another, and in the light Biddlecomb could see the crew scurrying about, axes in hand, as they cleared the wreckage away. It was a useless effort, but perhaps they wanted the great guns clear, fearing that the strange brig would come about and rake them as they lay stranded.
That thought made Biddlecomb realize that the Icarus was sailing in the entirely wrong direction, and if he did not come about soon, they would be blown up the west side of Prudence Island. "Prepare to wear ship!" he shouted, then turning to the helmsmen said, "Put your helm down."
The icarus began to turn, and the yards braced around, as her stern swung through the wind.
"Hold her there. Steady as she goes," Biddlecomb said to the helmsmen, and the brig steadied up on her new course, the wreck of the swan now broad on the starboard beam. They closed quickly and Biddlecomb could see her men scrambling for cover. He hoped that they would not fire at the Icarus.
The Swan came abeam of them, one hundred yards to leeward, and the men of the Icarus watched silently as they passed, as if witnessing a funeral. The sloop fired once, her aftermost gun, and here and there were flashes of small-arm fire, but no shot struck the Icarus.
And then they were past. The Swan's guns would no longer bear and the distance was too great for small-arm fire. Biddlecomb saw the lanterns reappear on the sloop's deck, and the men resumed clearing the wreckage.
"Mr Rumstick," Biddlecomb called out, surprised at the fatigue in his voice. "Please see the decks cleared of all wreckage and squared away. And set some men to reeving off new running gear. Mr Wilson, detail a party to attend to the wounded."
Biddlecomb turned to the helmsmen. "Steady as she goes. I'm going forward for a moment."
"Steady as she goes."
Biddlecomb stepped down to the waist and made his way forward, past knots of men clearing wreckage away and flinging it over the side. He stepped past the shattered bulwark and his foot slipped out from under him. He felt himself going down, would have fallen had not a seaman standing nearby grabbed him.
"Careful, sir, there's blood still on the deck and it's slick as a kipper," the seaman warned.
"Thank you," said Biddlecomb, and spotting Rumstick, called out, "Ezra, come to the bow with me."
The two men walked forward together. "Harland's dead. Cannon fell on him," said Rumstick. "I'll own it's better he didn't live long."
Biddlecomb stepped up on the bowsprit and looked forward. Their way was clear as far as he could see. The bay looked tranquil in the moonlight. "There's Dyer Island. We'll see Bristol in half an hour."
The two men stood on the base of the bowsprit, drinking in the smells of the pine trees and the brackish water of the bay and the wood smoke carried faintly on the wind. Overheads the familiar stars of that northern latitude, those brilliant enough to outshine the moonlight. were eternal and comforting. Biddlecomb felt his anger subside, purged by the destruction of the Swan, and in its place he felt an overwhelming joy at being back in Narragansett Bay, at regaining his freedom and shedding the burden of the Icarus. Soon he would be back in Bristol, his beloved Bristol.