Authors: Brenda Novak
Located aft of the orlop deck, the sick bay was below the water line, less in danger of enemy fire than the gun deck. The surgeon’s table consisted of the crew’s sea chests. Beyond that, only a small table along the wall, containing an assortment of knives and instruments, occupied the large room, which smelled more ripe of blood and less of gunpowder than anywhere else. Injured men and boys lined one wall as more poured in, like a steady stream running into a lake.
The surgeon helped to settle a sailor with a nasty gash in his leg on the table. Beneath and around them sat half-barrels containing different items, a vat of tar, the smell of which made Jeannette wrinkle her nose, and water heated on a portable stove. One of the surgeon’s mates oversaw that as well as the inventory of rolled bandages.
Already Surgeon Sivern looked tired. Sweat dampened his gray hair and caused his face to glisten as he barked out an order for Smedley to deposit the boy at the end of the line, near the door. Although painful, the powder monkey’s injury was probably not life-threatening, which made him less of a priority, despite his tender age.
“Can I help?” Jeannette asked Sivern as Smedley headed out. “Perhaps I can do something for the boy or some of these other men....”
A look of annoyance claimed Sivern’s face. “I haven’t the time to coddle a woman, my lady. An attack of the vapors is the last thing I need.”
“I won’t faint. It looks like you can use all the help you can get.”
“You deliver a baby and you think that makes you a surgeon, eh?” The man on the table cried out as Sivern probed a gash on his thigh to see how deep it was, but the surgeon ignored him. “Stay if you like, but keep out of the way. After this, you will be eager to return to your parlor, I guarantee you.” He nodded to a barrel containing someone’s sawed-off leg, and for the first time, Jeannette realized what it was.
Forcing back the bile that threatened, as the surgeon had no doubt expected it would, Jeannette stood straighter, more determined than ever to brave it out. Sick bay needed more hands, and hers were capable enough.
Swallowing hard, she stepped up to the table, only to wince and turned away when Sivern put a stick, sideways, between the man’s lips for him to bite and brandished a saw. “Perhaps I can help with the water and bandages,” she mumbled.
“Suit yourself.”
The sound of Sivern’s blade hitting bone made Jeannette blanch. The man on the table screamed again, his voice muffled by the stick. With nothing but rum to ease the pain, the patient—or victim, Jeannette thought sadly—could only hope Sivern would do his work quickly.
In this, the surgeon obliged. The man’s amputated leg thumped the bottom of the barrel. Then Sivern cauterized the bloody stump with hot tar, and Jeannette helped bandage the wound.
The smell of burned flesh almost incited her already weakened stomach to mutiny. Jeannette tried to keep her mind off the battle as a whole and her work in particular, but the fear that Lieutenant Treynor might soon be carried down to have a limb sawed off was ever at the back of her mind.
The surgery took on an unreal quality as the blasts above continued and more men stumbled or were carried in, some barely alive. Rocked by cannonballs and barrages of smaller shot, the
Tempest
tossed about on the sea as though it weighed a mere fraction of its several tons. And still the two ships pounded away at each other, making it difficult, at times, for Jeannette to keep her balance.
From the number of sailors swamping the sick bay, she could hardly believe there were men left to fight. But she had yet to see an injured Lieutenant Treynor, or hear of his death, and for that she was eternally grateful.
“He’s dead. Throw him overboard.” Sivern indicated a man along the wall.
Jeannette cringed at the thought of a lifeless body floating in the briny water. So many bodies. But she knew they had no choice. Not in battle.
The surgeon’s mate left to dump the barrel of severed arms and legs over the side and was followed by another man who carried the dead sailor. The container was brought back to be filled again, a process that continued for over an hour.
The advent of two sailors, barking for the others to move aside, broke the routine when they entered carrying the captain.
A hush claimed the room as the surgeon motioned for the man on his table to be returned to the line so he could care for Cruikshank, who was bleeding from the right shoulder.
“How do you feel, Captain, sir?” the surgeon questioned as he examined the wound.
“Like hell,” Cruikshank groaned. “Give me a pull of that.”
Cruikshank took a gulp of the rum Jeannette provided. Then he gritted his teeth and refused to cry out as the surgeon went to work.
Once Sivern determined that the captain’s injury had been caused by a ball, which had passed clear through his shoulder, he washed the blood away and set Jeannette to bandaging the wound.
“What are you doing down here?” Cruikshank asked, as though seeing her for the first time. “Now I understand why the baron can’t keep track of you. I can do no better.”
“Well said.” Jeannette laughed. “You are going to be all right, sir.”
The captain grew serious and contemplative. “It is not my shoulder that worries me, beyond the fact that it keeps me from my duty.” He turned his head to stare out the door, obviously wishing he were back on deck.
Cruikshank’s words were Jeannette’s first indication that the fighting wasn’t going well. Although she knew they’d sustained a great many casualties, and even more injuries, she had no idea what was to be expected, or whether the French crew wasn’t suffering worse death and injury. Now she worried about losing the battle.
“Is Cunnington in charge then?” she asked.
“Aye,” he said, but the sigh that followed told her more than his words.
Her fate—and that of all those on board—now rested in Cunnington’s hands.
It was a terrifying thought.
Had the last blast of the
Tempest
’s guns hit their mark?
The pepper of gunfire sounded in Lieutenant Treynor’s ears as he squinted through the smoke. The
Superbe
’s mizzenmast showed damage, but besides a few broken yards, it remained intact. He needed one more lucky round—just one.
“Wait...wait...wait...and fire!” he cried.
With another deep belch of the cannons there was a loud crack, as if the earth itself was dividing asunder. Then the French ship’s entire mizzenmast fell onto their deck, forcing those below it to scatter.
A cheer rose from Treynor’s men, but their exuberance did little to relieve the nagging worry at the back of his mind. Cruikshank had fallen among the injured. Now Lieutenant Cunnington was in charge, a man who had little experience and, in Treynor’s opinion, even less sense.
He threw a glance toward the wheel. Cunnington strutted where the captain usually stood, behaving as if the battle had already been won, the continuing volleys of gunfire superfluous in some way.
They were out-manned, out-gunned, and the French crew had already proven themselves better trained and more experienced than any Treynor had faced in the past. They had to do something decisive.
Putting one of his gun captains in charge, Treynor made his way amidships.
“What do you want?” Cunnington hollered above the din.
Treynor suppressed his irritation; Cunnington was, after all, his superior officer. “With all due respect, Lieutenant, judging from the condition of the
Superbe
’s quarterdeck, I think we may have injured or possibly killed their captain.”
“They certainly do not appear to have a lack of leadership,” he sneered.
Ignoring his response, Treynor lifted a hand. “Listen—do you hear that?”
Cunnington looked bewildered. “What?” he snapped impatiently.
“The silence since that mast went. If we capitalize on their confusion, we might board, turn their own guns upon them, and capture the ship.”
“Have you gone mad?” A staccato laugh punctuated Cunnington’s question. “Our crew is smaller than theirs.”
“They not only have more men, they have bigger guns,” Treynor pointed out.
“So?” He shrugged. “The bloody frogs are idiots.”
Treynor bit back a curse. “I beg your pardon, sir, but we have to do something before those ‘idiots’ blow us out of the water.”
“We
are
doing something, Lieutenant. They haven’t the mettle of Englishmen, as you know. If we keep at it, we will pound them into the sea.” He fisted his hand as though it were that easy.
Again, Treynor struggled with his temper and raised his voice. “A little difficult when so many of our crew are awaiting the surgeon’s attentions, don’t you think?”
He’d been unable to keep the sarcasm from his voice. “Watch yourself,” Cunnington warned, “or I will have you court-martialed after I return home with our prize. Although your idea shows a certain amount of...daring, by your own account of our injured, we haven't the men to pull it off.”
“Already our carpenters are overworked and unable to fix the damage we have sustained,” Treynor argued. “We are taking on water despite the pumps. Several fires have broken out and are barely contained. Once the
Superbe
starts firing again, she will continue to lob eighteen-pounders into our hull—”
“
If
they get going again.”
“—while we respond with fewer and fewer twelve-pounders. It is only a matter of time. Do you not see that?”
“I see that you haven’t enough confidence in our men. I think the battle is going quite well. Some difficulty is to be expected, as well as a certain number of casualties. If we won the battle easily, there would be no glory in it.”
“Glory? Are you blind?” Fearing he might throttle Cunnington yet, Treynor took a deep breath. “My God, man, you are talking about running up an impressive butcher bill, a bloody battle to brag about back home, when we should be trying to swarm their ship so we can win while there is yet time!”
Cunnington narrowed his eyes. “Get back to your station, Lieutenant. Now! I will not have you tell me how to run this ship or win this battle! Do you hear?”
Even more convinced that the injured captain had left the ship in the hands of an inept fool, Treynor stepped forward. “You are asking for a miracle—”
“No, you are. Board their ship! Swarm the deck! Evidently you—”
There was an explosion, followed by a loud crack.
The mainmast fell toward them. It might have killed them both, but Treynor threw himself against Cunnington and knocked him far enough to the side to avoid one of the broken spars that stabbed the deck like a spear.
As Treynor got to his feet, a dazed Cunnington followed suit. Brushing off his uniform, the first lieutenant stared about himself in amazement, as though he’d only now awakened to find himself amidst such chaos.
Treynor almost wished his reaction when the mast went hadn’t been quite so quick nor half so instinctual. “We must board!”
Cunnington’s brow furrowed. “I cannot go charging off. I must stay with the ship.”
“Then I will lead the men. May I do so? Now?”
The first lieutenant stared at the
Superbe
while wringing his hands.
Treynor wanted to shake him. Cunnington was wasting precious time. Only the sure knowledge that a quarrel would most certainly take its toll in lives kept him speaking civilly. “If we do not act, and soon, we will all be killed,” he reasoned. “Or taken prisoner. They are probably planning to board us just as I am hoping to board them. They shall not beat us a second time today!”