Man Of War

But the fire from Sphacteria had slackened, even if its accuracy had increased. A three-decker might be an easy mark, but there was no doubting that three decks wrought heavy damage on the fort, and faster than any 74 could have done it. Peto reckoned that Armide with her single deck of eighteen-pounders would keep the Turks occupied until Captain Antrobus and his party decided the matter with the bayonet. As for New Navarin, the battery there was already under cannonade from the French Magicienne, who had found herself with otherwise little to do, since the fireships masked her allotted station at the eastern point of the horseshoe.

He checked his instinct to see for himself the damage in the waist. Rupert was not a frigate: if the entire upper deck were out of action, there were two more. He fixed his gaze instead – as best he could in all the smoke – on Asia.

Rupert made good headway. Peto thought to steer between Asia and the Turkish two-decker to her starboard, firing as they bore. If that did not silence her he would at least have bought Asia’s starboard battery a little respite. He would then turn hard across her bow to rake the other Turk from astern with the larboard battery. ‘Damage report, if you please, Mr Lambe,’ he barked as they left the traverse of Sphacteria’s remaining guns.

A boy was swilling the quarterdeck, but no one spoke. They had been blooded, just as had the deck, and it was a powerful concoction, at once sobering and yet invigorating. The antidote was rum or more blood.

Not long and he had his damage report: the main-topsail was gone, but sail and rigging were otherwise intact; two guns of the middle-deck batteries, one each side, were disabled. And – it had never been the practice in the French wars to report the human damage – one midshipman and six seamen dead, seventeen taken below.

Peto nodded – no damage to trouble them, though a considerable surgeon’s bill for the opening of an action. ‘Thank you, Mr Lambe. Guns double-shotted again, if you please.’ He looked at his watch: a little after three o’clock. He had not thought it so late.

Rupert bore down silently on Asia’s besiegers like some giant predator. She might use her bowchasers to some effect, but Peto reckoned on the greater shock of the broadsides. Whether the Turks saw or not, they made no move. It was the mark of the novice to be mesmerized by the fight at hand, when the mortal danger lay often in what threatened. Peto intended teaching a lesson that those who survived it would never forget.

‘Larboard batteries to hold their fire, Mr Lambe. Remind them that it is the flagship they see. Starboard batteries will fire as they bear.’

Lambe had his midshipmen-repeaters relay the order to the larboard lower deck, and then back up again to be sure, before giving the discretionary order for the starboard guns to fire as they bore.

‘Mr Shand, we shall go about across Asia’s bows. Be ready if you please.’

‘Ay-ay, sir.’

There was resolution in the master’s voice: tacking with so little sail would be the very devil;Rupert might be pushed a good way astern before gathering headway.

Peto looked at his watch again: a quarter after three, and a hundred yards to run. Asia’s fire was slackening. He prayed she had not been too severely mauled.

He clasped his hands behind his back. It was time for kind words. ‘An admirable course, Mr Veitch.’

‘Thankee, sir.’

‘Capital trim, Mr Lambe.’

‘Sir.’

The smoke thinned a little. Peto peered disbelievingly, then raised his telescope. ‘That deuced cutter is alongside the flagship!’

‘Sir?’

‘Robb – the deuced fool has put his boat between the flag and yon Turk. I do believe he’s firing! He must be sorely in want of promotion!’

Lambe lifted his own glass. ‘He’ll be raised up one way or another,’ he said drily.

Peto growled. Hind would likely catch a good deal of metal when they began raking the Turk. But it could not be helped.

Rupert’s marines fired first as they ran in – sharpshooters and the fore carronade, sweeping the Turk’s quarterdeck, though half blind with the smoke, breaking every piece of glass in the stern. And then the starboard battery, gun by gun, simultaneously on each deck, regular enough to sound like the mechanism of a monstrous clock. The Turk – the Souriya – fired but two guns in reply, neither doing the slightest damage. Carronades swept her upperworks so completely that Peto thought there was not a man left standing to strike the colours. Below, the work of Rupert’s gun-decks had made of her nothing but a bloody mangle. The Asias cheered the Ruperts heartily. The larboard gunners returned the cheer, leaning out of the ports for three lusty ‘hoorahs’ before bracing for their own action.

‘Hard a-starboard, Mr Veitch!’ snapped Peto as the aftmost gun fired.

The mates heaved mightily to put the rudder full to larboard.