Scarborough Fair - Chris Scott Wilson [76]
In unspoken agreement they broke the stare, then heaved together. The body vanished into the chaos below, a flickering shadow against a muzzle flash. Fanning suddenly felt calm, a sense of inevitability settling over him. What must have only been a few seconds since the marine died seemed like hours and he knew in that instant they would fight until they were all dead and Bonhomme Richard was a ghost ship, drifting and burning in the endless night.
He sighed and looked away from the battle, out to sea where the darkness waited to claim them. It was then he saw the frigate bearing down. He squinted, eyes raking her hull and sail plan. Alliance!
Stunned for a moment, his emotions somersaulted. Now they would beat the Englishman. They would blow him to smithereens! He jerked his pistol free of his belt and pointed it skywards, finger curling about the trigger. Startled by a shot so close behind their heads, two or three marines spun from the rail to glare at him.
“Look men!” Fanning shouted. “We’re saved! Alliance! It’s Alliance! She’s come to help us!”
The Frenchmen shouldered to the seaward rail. After a brief moment of disbelief they began to slap each other on the back and cheer. Their voices turned other eyes to the sea and the cry was taken up from bows to stern of the crippled Bonhomme Richard. Heartened, each man turned back to the fighting with new vigor, tapping resources already thought drained.
“You there!” Fanning yelled hoarsely. “Lay on or I’ll have you flogged at the gangway for breakfast! This is no musket drill! Lay on!”
***
“Look sir!” Lt. Wright shouted. He was watching from HMS Serapis’s quarterdeck, gauging when Alliance would cross their bows as they lay shackled to Bonhomme Richard. “The Frenchie’s going to rake us!”
Captain Pearson’s lips curled upwards, eyebrows welded together in a frown. With his head low between his hunched shoulders, he nodded he had seen the newcomer. “I expected it all along. We can count ourselves lucky the whole squadron did not have at us on first contact. I was surprised when only his flagship engaged; that he had the gall to think he could take one of His Majesty’s ships with only an old East Indiaman. Well, they won’t find us easy. Jones has lost nearly all his cannon and he will shield us when the frigate has passed our bow. There will only be time to rake once, and if he comes about onto our port side, we’ll give him a good English broadside. No, damn him, let him come.”
Lt. Wright was amazed at Pearson’s confidence, but discarded it as reassurance for the junior officers within earshot on the quarterdeck. With two vessels engaging them, they had no chance. Serapis was almost a wreck now, burning nearly from end to end. And if they managed to bring the fires under control, they would still probably burn to the waterline when the flames raging on the pirate ship spread back to them. If he could rally the men to retake the main battery…
A deafening explosion from one of the forward hatches shook Serapis like a bone clamped between a dog’s jaws. The deck heaved, hurling the two officers on their faces. Great splinters scythed the air overhead. Struggling to his knees, Pearson had hands clapped over his punished ears.