The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [524]
I followed his gaze to where three people were huddled the other side of a large coil of rope. One was dressed in the uniform of the ChronoGuard, another was holding a clipboard, and the third had what looked like a TV camera on his shoulder.
“Documentary filmmakers from the twenty-second century,” explained my father, hailing the other ChronoGuard operative. “Hello, Malcolm, how’s it going?”
“Well, thanks!” replied the agent. “Got into the soup a bit when I lost that cameraman at Pompeii. Wanted an extra close-up or something.”
“Hard cheese old man, hard cheese. Golf after work?”
“Righto!” replied Malcolm, returning to his charges.
“It’s nice being back at work, actually,” confessed my father, turning back to me. “Sure you won’t have a jawbreaker?”
“No, thanks.”
There was a flash and a burst of smoke from the closest French warship. A second later two cannon shots plopped harmlessly into the water. The balls didn’t move as fast as I supposed—I could actually see them in flight.
“Now what?” I asked. “Take out the snipers so they can’t shoot Nelson?”
“We’d never get them all. No, we must cheat a little. But not yet. Time is of the essence at moments like this.”
So we waited patiently on the main deck while the battle heated up. Within minutes seven or eight warships were firing at the Victory, the cannonballs tearing into the sails and rigging. One even cut a man in half on the quarterdeck, and another dispatched a small gang of what I took to be marines, who dispersed rapidly. All through this the diminutive admiral, his captain and a small retinue paced the quarterdeck as the smoke from the guns billowed around us, the heat of the muzzle flashes hot on our faces, the concussion almost deafening. The ship’s wheel disintegrated as a shot went through it, and as the battle progressed, we moved about the deck, following the safest path in the light of my father’s superior and infinitely precise knowledge of the battle. We moved to one side as a cannonball flew past, moved to another area of the deck as a heavy piece of wood fell from the rigging, then to a third place when some musket balls whizzed past where we had been crouched.
“You know the battle very well!” I shouted above the noise.
“I should do!” he shouted back. “I’ve been here over sixty times.”
The French and British warships drew nearer and nearer until the Victory was so close behind the Bucentaure that I could see the faces of the staff in the staterooms as we passed. There was a deafening broadside from the guns, and the stern of the ship was torn apart as the British cannonballs ripped through it and down the length of the gun deck. In the lull of the cannon fire as the crews reloaded, I could hear the multilingual cries of injured men. I had seen warfare in the Crimea, but nothing like this. Such close fighting with such devastating weapons reduced men to nothing more than tatters in an instant, the plight of the survivors made worse by the almost certain knowledge that the medical attention they would receive was of the most rudimentary and brutal kind.
I nearly fell over as the Victory collided with a French ship just astern of the Bucentaure, and as I recovered my balance, I realized just how close the ships were to one another in these sorts of battles. It wasn’t a cable’s length—they were actually touching. The smoke of the guns made me cough, and the wheeezip of musket shot close by made me realize that the danger here was very real. There was another deafening concussion as the Victory’s guns spoke, and the French ship seemed to tremble in the water. My father leaned back to allow a large metal splinter to pass between us, then handed me a pair of binoculars.
“Dad?”
He was reaching into his pocket and pulling out, of all things—a slingshot. He loaded it with a lead ball that was rolling along the deck and pulled the elastic back tight, aiming through the swirling smoke at Nelson.
“See the sharpshooter on the most for’ard platform in the French rigging?”
“Yes?”
“As soon as he puts his finger on the trigger,