Читать книгу With Wellington in Spain: A Story of the Peninsula - Brereton Frederick Sadleir - Страница 4

In the ordinary way the immediate prospect of an encounter at sea might be expected to rouse qualms in the breast of a novice, and we cannot affirm that Tom would have been any exception to the rule on this his first meeting aboard an English frigate with a French man-of-war. But there was so much else to attract his attention. Even in those days the wooden walls of our stout ships contained sufficient to interest even a dullard, and to a lad of active brain, as was our hero, there were things to watch and marvel at, while the men themselves grouped in the 'tween decks were quite a study. They stood about their guns stripped to the waist, joking and merry, the master of each gun with his eye on the sights. Close at hand a lad sat on a long narrow tub filled to the brim with powder.

"Powder monkeys we call 'em," said Jim in a hoarse whisper. "The young villains! They're always up to some sort o' mischief, and when it comes to fighting, blest if they wouldn't take on the whole of Boney's fleet alone. They ain't the lads to squeak. If we fetch up alongside the Frenchman, and there's a call for boarding parties, them imps is amongst the first to answer."

"Stand ready!" the order came at this moment, and turning his head Tom caught a glimpse of Mr. Riley, still with a long glass beneath his arm, his sword belted to his side, and his shapely form bent so as to allow him to peer through one of the ports. "Stand ready, men," he shouted. "Gun layers train your sights on the enemy and aim low. Between wind and water is the mark, lads!"

The crew of the guns answered him with a cheer, and for a while gun layers stretched over the weapons they commanded, sighting for the enemy. Tom watched as Jim squinted along the sights, and then peered out at the French ship of the line. She was bowling along before a fresh breeze, heeling well over, so that half her deck showed. He could see a mass of men on it, and others running to and fro, while quite a number were clambering into the rigging.

"Shows she means to come right up close," said Jim in his gruff way. "That'll suit us nicely. Hammer and tongs is the best sort of fighting for us boys, and we don't get it too often. She's going to run right in and when there's a broadside it'll be a close one, and thunder won't be in it."

"Stand by to fire!" was heard through the 'tween decks, while an instant later there came a roar from the deck above, a trembling and shaking of the whole vessel which all could feel, and then the rumble of wheels as the guns were run in, sponged out and reloaded. By now the enemy had disappeared from sight behind a huge cloud of smoke, which, however, was whisked away swiftly by the breeze. It was a minute later, perhaps, when the French battleship was again visible, that Mr. Riley gave the order to fire, and Tom was witness of the result for the first time in his life. Jim touched the vent of the gun with his portfire, and instantly a squirt of flame and smoke shot upward. There was a huge commotion in the gun itself. Though braced into position by numerous cables it started backward, drawing them as tight as iron bars, while the wheels thudded heavily on their runners. The commotion was accompanied by that of every other gun on that deck in the broadside, while the ship herself shook from end to end. The roar of the discharge was indescribable, and deafened him, while the 'tween decks was instantly filled with volumes of sulphurous smoke.

"Slack off! Haul her back, boys!" came in stentorian notes from Jim. "Run her in quick. Now with the sponge rods, and we'll have a second charge into her before the smoke's cleared."

Five minutes later Mr. Riley's voice was heard. "Stand by for another broadside," he bellowed. "Double shot your guns next time – ah!"

The frigate quivered from end to end; she seemed to have been struck by a cyclone. An iron hail beat on her sides, bursting them in in many directions, while splinters of iron and wood flew across the 'tween decks, striking men down in many directions. In one brief second the orderliness of the place was transformed to the most utter disorder, as the enemy had answered the frigate's broadside with one of her own. Tom looked about him wonderingly, dazed by the commotion and astounded at what he saw. For by now the wind blowing in at the open ports had cleared all the smoke away, and he could see all that was happening in the 'tween decks. There lay the gun on his right a wreck, turned on its side, its muzzle crushed out of sight, two of its wheels broken and half-buried in the deck. What had before been a square porthole was now an irregular, torn opening, through which a vast expanse of sea could be watched. But it was the poor wretches who had manned the gun who claimed his greatest attention. Five of them lay mangled upon the deck, with pools of blood accumulating about them and draining off towards the scuppers in trickles and streams. On the port side, opposite where the gun had stood, three men had been struck by the missile, and lay silent and motionless. Elsewhere there were rents in the side of the frigate, and men lay about in all postures, some moaning, others silent, nursing a wounded arm or leg. This was war; this was the treatment meted out by one nation to another.

But of loss of discipline there was none. If the 'tween decks was in disorder there was order amongst the men, and no flinching. Already the surgeon's mates and helpers were carrying the wounded away towards the ladder leading to the cockpit, while at every gun stood its crew, immovable and ready, waiting the word of the officer. As for the enemy, the shapely lines of the French man-of-war had changed wonderfully, for she was so near now that one could see distinctly. The white deck, still careened towards the frigate, was seamed and scarred and torn. One mast lay over her rail, the sails towing in the water, and her sides were marked by shot holes, two of her ports having been converted into one by an enormous rent that extended between them.

A dull cheer resounded through the frigate; the men in the 'tween decks took it up lustily, and then came again that commotion above. The vessel shivered, shot and flame and smoke belched from the ports on the upper deck, the roar being followed once again by the rumble of gun wheels on their metal runners.

"Fire!" Mr. Riley stood halfway up the ladder leading to the upper deck and waved his cocked hat at the crews under his own command. Crash! went the broadside. Tom watched the powder at the vent squirt upward in flame and smoke as on a previous occasion, and then sprang to the cables as Jim's husky voice called to his own crew to draw the gun in and reload.

"Double shot; don't forget," bellowed Mr. Riley, and obedient to the order the loaders thrust first one and then a second huge iron ball into the gaping muzzles. In the middle of the operation there came a resounding discharge from the enemy, while huge columns of smoke hid her sides. But the shot failed to strike the frigate, for a few seconds earlier the commander had put his helm up and had sheered off towards the Frenchman. It was a clever manœuvre, and made a wonderful difference to the fight in progress. For the enemy had received four successive broadsides now, and had returned only one effective one, and that not so effective as it might have been had the ships been nearer. Added to that, it was less than five minutes later when the gunners on the port side got their sights aligned on the enemy, and a simultaneous broadside was delivered by the guns of the upper and 'tween decks. Then the commander swung his helm again and made across the stern of the Frenchman.

"Stand ready," sang out Mr. Riley again, his eyes glued upon the man-of-war. "Layers concentrate on the stern. In one minute, men; in one minute we shall be there. Now! Fire!"

Running round in a circle after crossing in the wake of the Frenchman, the frigate had gone about after emptying her complete port broadside, and had then swept round in rear of the enemy. It was a manœuvre which, if not quickly carried out, might have ended in disaster. But nothing occurred to disturb it, while the Frenchman, impeded by his broken mast and the sail dragging in the water – and slowed considerably thereby – was unable to counter the movement by swinging also. It followed, therefore, that the frigate had an enormous advantage, and, making the most of this, crossed and recrossed the rear of the enemy, emptying first the starboard broadside and then every gun on the port side. As for the French battleship, her guns were useless. Not one of her broadsides could be brought to bear, and though she sheered off to the south a little, the commander was at once able to alter his own position correspondingly.

"It's a victory," said Jim, with elation. "The man that laid the gun that brought down that mast deserves to be made an admiral this minute. It's saved lives aboard this ship, boys. It's won the battle."

"Shall we board her now?" asked Tom, who was densely ignorant of naval matters.

"Board her! Not us!" cried Jim. "Where's the use? She carries two or three men to every man jack of us, and would have all the chances if we boarded, not that I say as we wouldn't do the business. But we've the best of it like this. She's cut that mast adrift, but it'll be hours before she can refit, and meanwhile we've the legs of her. We've only to keep here, astern, plugging shot into her all the while, and she's bound to give in before long. Of course she can't do that yet awhile. That wouldn't be fighting, and I'm bound to say that the Frenchies are good at the game, almost as good as we are. She'll hold on and endeavour to best us; but she'll have to haul down her colours before very long. Ah! What'd I say? Look at 'em!"

The flag of France flying aloft on the enemy was seen to flutter. It dropped a foot or two and then came down with a run. Instantly a hoarse bellow resounded through the frigate. Men gripped hands and cheered, the shouts coming from every deck. Even the wounded, who had not all been removed, sat up with an effort and cheered as best they could.

"Silence, men," came from Mr. Riley at this moment, and turning they saw him standing halfway up the ladder, bent so that the men could see his face. "Stand to your guns all the while; don't draw charges till you get the order. Jim there, from No. 4 gun, send me four of your men to join the boarding party."

Tom noticed that the officer had been wounded, for he carried one arm in a sling, and there were stains of blood on his breeches. He was wondering how he had come by the wound, when Jim struck him heavily on the back.

"Avast dreamin' there, me hearty," he shouted hoarsely, still elated at what had happened. "Get off to the officer and go aboard the ship. You'll see something to interest you."

Tom wanted no more coaxing; he dropped the cable on which he had been hauling and went at a run towards the ladder, followed by the other men. They kept close on the heels of Mr. Riley, and in a twinkling were on the main deck. There the commander was now stationed, and about him a group of officers and men.

"Ah, there you are, Mr. Riley!" he exclaimed. "We'll go aboard in the cutter, taking three men from each deck. Step in, my lads."

Tom scrambled into the boat with the crew, and watched as it was lowered away. He was filled with amazement, first that a boat of such proportions as the cutter could support so many men when hung to her davits, and then that she could be safely lowered with such a load to the water. Meanwhile he noticed the high sides of the frigate, the officer up on the quarterdeck, and the men of the watch away aloft in the rigging. The frigate lay inert, her sails flapping, while, almost a quarter of a mile away now, the French ship lay in the water, slowly heaving up and down, with a peculiar and significant twist in one of her masts.

"Struck by our broadsides as we passed and repassed," Mr. Riley told him as they were lowered away, for the officer happened to be close to our hero. "She had bad luck. It's rare that one brings down a mast at the first discharge, and that of course proved her undoing; the loss of the second makes her useless for fighting purposes. This has been a gallant action and will give us no end of credit. Ah, there goes a recall gun!"

A spout of flame and smoke belched from the frigate a little above the heads of the men in the cutter, for the latter had now reached the water, and turning his head Tom watched the ball discharged strike the sea some two hundred yards ahead of the small sloop that had been sailing in company of the battleship, and which had now changed her course.

"She'll not disobey the order," reflected Mr. Riley. "Once we are aboard the enemy the frigate could sink that vessel within ten minutes. There go her sails aback; she'll swing round and come in like a docile dog. Now, lad, clamber aboard when we reach the ship; you come as one of my escort."

"You're wounded, sir," said Tom. "Let me fasten that sling for you again; it's too long, and doesn't support the arm."

He undid the knot with the help of fingers and teeth and then rearranged the sling. By the time he had finished they were under the counter of the French battleship, to which a man at the stern and bows of the cutter clung with a boathook. At once a midshipman sprang at a dangling rope ladder and went swarming up with the agility of a monkey, two of the crew following. Tom picked up a coil of rope and without a question made a noose fast round the waist of the officer who had already befriended him.

"I'll get aboard and help to haul you up, sir," he said. "You'd never manage to clamber up that ladder with one arm wounded."

He waited for no orders, but, springing at the ladder, went scrambling up, the end of the rope secured between his teeth. A minute later Mr. Riley was being hoisted to the deck of the French battleship. Then the commander followed, and after him more of the crew, with two officers.

Tom found himself looking down upon a scene which was almost indescribable; for the ship had been cruelly mauled by the broadsides of the frigate. There were a dozen holes in her deck, where shot had penetrated, while in many places the rails were driven in. A dismounted gun lay in one of the scuppers, with part of her crew crushed beneath it; and from end to end of the ship there were signs of the awful havoc the iron tempest had created. Men lay in all directions and in all postures. The damaged mast swung by the starboard halyards and threatened to fall inboard at any moment, while a huge stretch of crumpled and shot-holed canvas covered one portion of the deck. To add to the scene of ruin, smoke and flames were belching from a hatch towards the stern of the quarterdeck, and some fifty sailors were endeavouring to quench the conflagration with water cast from buckets. Almost opposite the spot where the ladder dangled, and where the victors had come aboard, was a group of officers, and in their centre one seated on a chair, pallid to the lips and obviously wounded. The commander went towards him instantly and took him by the hand.

"You are hurt?" he asked. "You have fought your ship gallantly, but fortune was against you. Go to your quarters, please. I will take no sword from an officer of such courage."

He put aside the sword that was offered him so feebly, and signed to men of his crew to lift the injured officer. Then he shook hands with the other Frenchmen present, many of whom shed tears as they replaced their swords in their scabbards.

"Ah, monsieur," said one, who seemed to be the second in command, "it was the fortune of war, but bad fortune for us. With that mast shot away we were helpless, and then your broadsides poured into our stern tore the lengths of the decks, and did terrible damage. Our poor fellows were shot down in heaps. War, monsieur, is a terror."

None could fail to admit that who visited the French ship, for what had been a well-found, trim vessel was now a shambles. It turned Tom sick and faint when he looked about him, so that he was forced to cling to the rail. But a moment later, when Mr. Riley called him, he was able to pull himself together.

"We're to go aboard the sloop and see what she is," he called. "Help to lower me into the cutter."

Half an hour later Tom clambered up the side of the smaller vessel, and hauled his officer up after him. They found a French midshipman in command of a crew of five, while beneath the hatches there were three prisoners.

"Release them," Mr. Riley ordered; and, taking a couple of the French crew with him, Tom saw the hatch lifted, and called to the men below to come up. The smart uniform of an officer showed through the square hatch at once, and in a moment or two a youth stood on the deck before him, whom one would have said was British to the backbone.

"Ensign Jack Barwood, 60th Rifles, sir," he reported, drawing himself up in front of Mr. Riley and saluting. "Going out to join my regiment, this little sloop in which I had taken passage was held up by a French man-of-war. Our men were taken off, that is, the crew. I and two of my own men were left here as prisoners. We heard heavy firing, and guessed there was an action. What has happened?"

Mr. Riley turned and pointed at the French prize won by the frigate. "We beat her," he said, with pride in his tones. "You've had luck to escape so early from a French prison. Where were you bound for?"

"In the first place, Oporto," came the answer. "Later, as a prisoner, for Bayonne. Now, I suppose, we shall have to return to England?"

As it turned out, however, it was to Oporto that the little sloop made.

"The frigate makes for home at once," Mr. Riley reported, when he had rowed back to the ship, and had again come out to the sloop. "She sails in company with her prize, and no doubt the homecoming will be a fine triumph. I have orders to take this sloop to Oporto, there to hand over this young fellow to the authorities."

He pointed to Tom and smiled, while the ensign, turning upon our hero, surveyed him with amazement, and with some amount of superciliousness if the truth be told.

"Pardon, sir," he said, "I don't understand."

"Of course not," came the smiling answer; "nor does he. Come here, Tom."

Our hero, as may be imagined, was just as dumbfounded as the ensign; for though Mr. Riley had been wonderfully kind to him from the beginning, his manner had suddenly changed. He addressed him as if he were an equal, not as if he were one of the crew.

"I'll explain," he smiled, seeing the bewilderment expressed by both young fellows. "While the action was passing between us and the man-of-war our lookouts reported a sail in the offing. She has come up to us since, and turns out to be a smaller frigate than ourselves. But the point is this – she left the Thames after us, and has carried a brisk breeze with her all the way. She asked at once for information concerning a young fellow brought aboard just before we weighed, who had been impressed by a gang having quarters near London Bridge. That, sir, is the young fellow."

He pointed at Tom, whom the ensign still regarded in amazement.

"The whole thing has been cleared up, of course," said Mr. Riley. "There is no longer any doubt that this gentleman is the son of Mr. Septimus John Clifford, wine merchant, of London Bridge."

"Eh?" suddenly interjected the ensign, staring hard at Tom. "Clifford, of London Bridge. Well, I'm bothered! Why, Tom, don't you know me?"

It must be confessed that our hero was somewhat taken aback. In this young officer so much above himself, clad in the handsome uniform of the 60th Rifles, he had not recognized an old friend. Indeed his attention had been centred on his own officer. But now, when Jack Barwood lifted his cap, Tom recognized him at once, and gave vent to a shout of delight.

"Why, it's you!" he cried, gripping the hand extended. "Haven't seen you since – now when did we meet last?"

"Time you licked that cub of a grocer's boy," laughed Jack, who seemed to be just such another as our hero, and who was evidently a jovial fellow. "He passed when we were with your cousin, and grinned and sauced you. You were at him in a jiffy."

Mr. Riley laughed loudly when he heard what was passing. "Why, he's been at one of our men aboard the frigate," he cried. "Hammered him badly just before we fell in with the Frenchman. He's a tiger."

"He's a demon to fight, is Tom, sir," laughed Jack. "Ask him how we became acquainted."

"Eh? How?" asked the officer curiously, and then pressed the question when he saw that Tom had gone a crimson colour and was looking sheepish. "Eh?" he repeated.

"He's pretending to have forgotten," shouted Jack, enjoying the situation. "I'll tell the tale. It was at school one day. Tom was chewing toffee, mine had disappeared from a pocket. I tackled him with the theft, and we went hammer and tongs for one another. It was a busy time for us for some ten minutes."

"Ah!" smiled Mr. Riley. "Who won?"

"Drawn battle," exclaimed Tom, somewhat sulkily.

"I had a licking," laughed Jack. "It was a certainty for him from the beginning."

"Not surprised," came from the officer. "And the toffee?"

"Eh?" asked Jack.

"The toffee you accused him of stealing?" asked Mr. Riley. "You found it later?"

"In another pocket – yes," admitted Jack, with a delightful grin. "I deserved that hiding; it made us fast friends. So Tom's been impressed."

"By the machinations of his cousin."

That caused Tom to lift his head and come nearer. He had wondered time and again how that impressment had been brought about, whether by accident or design, and had never been able to bring himself to believe that José was responsible. Mr. Riley's words made him open his ears.

"You are sure, sir?" he asked.

"The commander has letters from your father with positive proof. However, things seemed to have happened fortunately. You are to be taken to Oporto after all, and here you meet with an old friend. Things couldn't have been better. Now I shall leave you both aboard while I go to get together a crew. We'll set a course for Oporto when I return, and ought to reach the place inside the week. Tom, you'll no longer be a sailor before the mast. I have the commander's orders to take you as a passenger, or, if you wish it, to appoint you an officer for the time being. How's that?"

It was all delightful hearing; and when at length the sloop turned her bows for Oporto, leaving the frigate to sail away with her prize, and incidentally to carry Tom's letter to his father in England, the party aboard the little vessel could not have been merrier.

"You'll have to turn soldier yet," declared Jack to our hero, standing so that the latter could inspect his uniform, and indeed the young fellow cut such a neat figure that Tom was even more tempted than formerly. For Jack was slimmer and shorter than he, while the few months of training he had experienced had taught him to hold himself erect. A jollier and more careless ensign never existed. It can be said with truth that, had the fortunes of the troops in the Peninsula depended on Jack's wisdom and military knowledge, disaster would promptly have overtaken our arms. He was just one of those jolly, inconsequential sort of fellows, always skylarking, always gay and laughing, who go through the world as if serious subjects were not in existence.

"Hooray for the life of a soldier!" he shouted, knowing Tom's ardent wishes that way, and anxious to fill him with envy. "Who'd ever sit on a stool and sweat over books in an office?"

"I'll lick you if you don't stop short," growled Tom sourly, and yet laughing for all that; for who could take Jack seriously? "Who knows, I may be a leader of troops before you have cut your wisdom teeth? Who knows?"

Who could guess the future indeed? Not Tom. Not the jovial, thoughtless Jack. Not even the wise Mr. Riley, with all his experience of the sea and of the men who go upon it. It seemed that Oporto would receive them in the course of a few days, and that Jack and Tom would there part. But within twenty-four hours of that conversation the scene was changed. Two vessels raised their peaks from the offing, and, sailing nearer, declared themselves as French. They overhauled the little sloop, in spite of a spread of canvas that threatened to press her beneath the water. And that evening Tom and his companions were prisoners.

"My uncle! What awful luck!" groaned Jack, in the depths of despair, as is often the case with high-mettled people when reverses come along. "No soldiering, Tom; no office for you. I'd prefer that to a prison."

"It's the fortune of war," exclaimed Mr. Riley with resignation. "For me it makes no great difference. The wound I received aboard the frigate has not improved, and, even if I become a prisoner, I shall receive proper treatment, which is impossible aboard this sloop. I'm sorry for you two young fellows."

"Pooh, sir," smiled Tom, "we'll give 'em the slip! Seems to me I'm not meant for Oporto yet awhile. We'll give 'em the slip, and then I'll take on as a soldier."

"Slip? How?" asked Jack, somewhat staggered, for the idea had not occurred to him.

"Depends; couldn't say now how we'll bring it about. But we'll manage it some way. I speak Spanish and Portuguese and a little French. If with those advantages we can't manage the business, well, we're only fit for a prison."

"Hooray!" shouted the excited Jack; whereat one of the French officers accosted them angrily. But Tom quickly appeased him.

"Where do we get landed, Monsieur le Lieutenant?" he asked politely.

"Ah, you speak our tongue! That is good," came the more pleasant answer. "But where you land I cannot say; you will be sent with troops to the north of Spain, and so to a prison."

It was not very cheering news, but Tom made the best of it.

"I don't put my nose into a French prison if I can help it!" he declared, in that particular tone of voice to which Jack had grown accustomed when they were chums at school.

"And he won't!" declared the latter. "I know Tom well – a pig-headed, stubborn beggar from his cradle. Tom'll give 'em the slip, and we with him. One thing seems all right in the meanwhile – there's grub and drink in plenty. I never could stand starvation; I'd rather go to prison."

But whatever thoughts they may have had as regards escaping were set aside when they landed. Putting in at an obscure port, Tom and his friends found a squadron of horsemen waiting to receive them, for the ship had flown signals. The three friends, together with the two men belonging to Jack's regiment, were given horses, while a trooper took their reins, two other men riding close to each one of them. And then they set off across a barren country, which, however fair it may have been in other days, was burned black, stripped of all eatables, while those villages which had not been swallowed by the flames were wrecked and useless.

"You will be careful not to attempt an escape," said the officer in command of the squadron, speaking to Tom, the only one of the prisoners who could understand him. "I have given orders for the troopers to shoot at the first attempt. We ride now to join our main army, and through a country inhabited by people who would flay us alive if they could catch us. Let that alone warn you not to attempt escape. The Portuguese peasants are more dangerous than my soldiers."

He shouted to the head of the column, set his own horse in motion, and led the way at a pace that threatened to be trying. It was obvious, in fact, that he was anxious to reach the summit of the hills near at hand, and not to be found in the open when night fell. As for Tom and his friends, the outlook seemed hopeless; an attempt at escape meant a bullet from their guard. And, even were they successful, they were in a country where bands of peasants scoured the valleys murdering all who were too weak to oppose them. It looked indeed as if a French prison would shortly shelter them, and as if there Jack's military career would come to a halt before it had actually begun, while Tom's ambitions in that direction would be cut in twain and end only in bitter disappointment.