Arabella of Mars(47)
Rushing from mast to rail to hatch, dodging flying spars that clattered against the deck in a flutter of silk, Arabella reached the forward companionway with the corsair not quite yet in the line of fire. She flung herself down the companionway and into the gun deck. “Explosive shot!” she shouted to Gowse, handing him the ball and charge. “Target the enemy’s magazine!”
Grimly he nodded, then began shouting to his crew to load and aim the gun—no easy task with the ship’s rotation still pressing them against the deck. Arabella hauled and sweated along with them, getting the charge well seated and the gun aligned to face the corsair, even now rotating into view.
Gowse peered out the gun-port, eyeballing the distance to the target. “Fifteen hundred feet?” he shouted, to which his second assented with a nod.
Carefully Gowse trimmed off six inches from the shell’s fuse, then lit the end with a slow-match. Even as it began to sputter sparks and smoke, he rammed the ball down the gun barrel, followed by a wad. “Run up, boys!” he called, and Arabella and the rest of the crew hauled on the ropes that snugged the gun tight against its port.
Now Gowse sighted carefully along the gun’s barrel, calling out instructions to haul it right or left, up or down. Exhausted though they were, Arabella and the crew obeyed.
Through the gun-port, they looked down upon the corsair’s deck, the leering upturned faces of her crew peering back with rude malevolence.
“Fire!” cried Gowse. His second brought the slow-match to the touch-hole.
With an almighty bang and a gout of smoke, the gun jerked back against its stays.
This time Arabella remained with the gun. Ears ringing, the tang of burnt powder on her tongue, she peered out the gun-port and through the smoke, hoping against hope.…
Just for a moment the smoke cleared, showing the still-sputtering ball as it crashed through the corsair’s deck, well aft.…
And then a great ball of flame came rushing out of the hole, followed almost immediately by a roaring crash so loud that even Arabella’s already deafened ears rang.
A gust of black smoke rushed through the gun-port, making Arabella choke and completely obscuring her view. Shouts, screams, and confusion followed, men coughing and colliding in the sudden dark. Heedless of exposure, Arabella pulled up her shirt and breathed through the fabric.
Gradually order returned. The force which had pressed them against the deck eased, then vanished. The smoke began to clear, and Arabella quickly tucked her shirt under her belt again. All the men gathered around the gun-ports, peering through the filthy, cluttered air.…
And then someone called, “Huzzah!”
Soon all the rest joined him, including Arabella. The corsair had been blown completely in two, smoky flames guttering in the wreckage. The Frenchmen, stunned or dead, floated everywhere. The only sound that penetrated the ringing in Arabella’s ears was the crack of small arms fire, Diana’s marksmen and the few surviving privateers trying to finish each other off.
The men on the gun deck cheered and clapped each other upon the back. From somewhere a flask of whisky appeared and was passed around. Even Arabella took a swig of the harsh, burning stuff.
And then Watson, one of the young midshipmen, appeared in the hatch. “Damage report!” he called in his small piping voice. “How many casualties?”
Gowse and the two other gun captains tallied the men and materiel lost or damaged during the battle. The gun deck had caught only one ball from the corsair, which had wounded three men but not killed any. “The captain’ll be pleased to hear that, I’m sure,” said Gowse.
At that the midshipman looked grave. “Haven’t you heard?” he said.
Arabella’s heart, so recently lightened by victory, suddenly felt as heavy as lead.
“Quarterdeck took a hard hit just before that last shot,” the midshipman continued. “The captain was struck in the head by flying wreckage.”
He swallowed. The whole gun deck fell silent, all the men focused on his small pale face.
“We don’t know if he’ll make it.”
12
AFTERMATH
After the battle, Arabella’s mood resembled the air around the ship, still fogged with dense, stale smoke and cluttered with wreckage and clumps of black, clotted blood. Any joy that might have remained from the victory over the French, and Arabella’s small part in it, was extinguished by the reality of that victory and its aftermath.
The captain still lay in the cockpit, under the constant eye of the surgeon. The ship rattled with rumors as to his condition, but even when real news could be had it was inconclusive at best, discouraging at worst. The bleeding had stopped, it was said, and his injuries were supposed to be survivable, but he was still completely unconscious and his prognosis was uncertain.
The situation made Arabella sick with worry. If the captain were to die …
No. The idea was too terrible to contemplate, and so she would not do so. She would instead continue on, just as she had before the French attack, so that he would be proud of her when—when—he returned to command.
*
Fourteen of Diana’s crew had been killed, including Arabella’s messmate Hornsby. Though she hadn’t known him well, he had been kind to her, always willing to share his considerable knowledge of the air, and his absence from her mess was like a missing tooth—an aching gap that would never be filled again in this life.