Sails on the Horizon: A Novel of the Napoleonic Wars Read Online Free Page A

turned to rage at the gratuitous slaughter. It was pointless, cruel, uncalled for. The ship was already crippled. She had no way to defend herself. After a third murderous salvo, the frigate smartly filled her sails and fled to the east. Her name, etched in gold leaf across her stern, was Santa Brigida.
    “I’ll sink you, you son of a bitch! I’ll see you in hell,” he screamed at the departing form, but the words rang hollow, even in his own ears. He was powerless to do anything, impotent.
    After a moment he tried to calm himself. He had to think. The Argonaut had to gain control of her rudder if she was to have any hope of survival. He made his way as quickly as he could over the littered deck to the lieutenant of the marines with his sharpshooters. “My compliments, sir,” he said, trying to steady himself. “I want you to take your men belowdecks to the tiller ropes. When I send an order down to turn to starboard, for example, I want you all to pull the tiller over the right, if you were facing forward, that is.”
    The lieutenant drew himself up to his full height. “Cease fire,” he snapped at his men. To Charles he said disdainfully, “I know port from starboard, sir. But the tiller and its ropes ain’t my responsibility. Shooting dagos is.”
    “I’m making it your responsibility, Lieutenant,” Charles growled. “At present I command this ship. I am giving you a lawful order that you disobey at your peril.”
    The lieutenant hesitated. “I don’t know. It ain’t my—”
    Charles cut him off. “If you don’t like it, you can bloody well complain to the Admiralty. In the meantime, if we don’t get some goddamned steerage soon, none of us will live to see England again. Take your men to the fucking tiller room.” The lieutenant stared at him wide-eyed for an instant, then nodded, collected his men, and marched them off in the direction of the aft ladderway.
    Out of the corner of his eye, Charles noticed another Spanish three-decker edging around from behind the San Nicolás ’s bow for a clear shot at the Argonaut. My God, when will it stop? He recognized her as the San Josef, 112 guns. She towered over the San Nicolás and from the Argonaut looked like a mountain, masts seemingly reaching to the clouds. She was about halfway clear when her forward guns fired. The roundshot and grape ripped through the marching marines. The young marine lieutenant died instantly along with about half of his charges.
    The mizzenmast, already much weakened, snapped with a loud crack at deck level and came crashing forward, braces, stays, yards, blocks, tackle, and all. Charles barely had a chance to duck before something heavy and solid swung down on the end of a rope and hit him a glancing blow to the side of his head. In a stunning blaze of pain, he dropped like deadweight to the deck. Instinctively, he scrambled to his feet on unsteady legs, tripped over a line, and fell again. The second time he gingerly pushed himself to a sitting position, where he struggled to penetrate the wool that seemed to have filled his brain. The huge San Josef was nearly clear, looming over Argonaut ’s stern—beautiful, terrifying, and ready to finish off his crippled ship.
    Charles stared, holding his breath as one by one the three decks of cannon were run out. He vaguely noted that San Josef ’s mizzenchains had fouled themselves on the San Nicolás’ s catheads by the bow. It hardly mattered. In an instant she would unleash at least fifty guns, including the thirty-six-pounders on her lower deck, and blast the beaten Argonaut to matchwood. He could hear his heart pounding in his chest and his hands began to shake uncontrollably. After a moment that seemed unending he exhaled and then breathed in again. He waited. Inexplicably, the massive thing neither fired nor moved nor even attempted to free herself from her sister. There was a brief commotion on her upper deck and what sounded like musket shots, but he couldn’t see what