Honour Be Damned Read Online Free PDF

sails on the steady northern breeze to close with the land. Markham smiled. He had possession of a third of the available re-supply, and with Brownlee at the wheel he thought he could double that. Without succour was a term to be decided by the French commander, but he doubted if one Tarantine carried enough of anything to materially alter the nature of the siege.
    ‘How we doing, your honour?’ asked Halsey, stood to close by, staring over the rail at the stationary cutters.
    ‘I doubt you’ll have to go back to the Royal Louis Battery, Halsey.’
    Quinlan, the skinny Londoner spoke up, his voice full of venom. ‘Does that mean we’ll never have to suffer that effing priest again?’
    ‘Stuck up sod,’ added his best friend, Ettrick. ‘Though the Crapaud Colonel was a proper gent.’
    Markham smiled and ignored them, addressing his calls to Brownlee. ‘We must make sure of one of them. If we try to take both we could fail. Get me alongside one by whatever means.’
    Markham was suddenly tired and very thirsty. He lifted the ladle from the water butt by the companionway and drank greedily. But whatever else he felt, he was content. They had done well, better than he’d expected, and could look forward to completing an action that would make every naval officer jealous. It would certainly be one in the eye for those who saw fit to condescend to him.

Chapter three
    T he boom of the cannon, and the crack as the single mainmast split, seemed almost simultaneous. Slowly, agonisingly, it began to topple sideways, the rending of wood accompanied by the snapping of ropes through the warm evening air. It was hard to believe when Markham spun round to look, that the nearest cutter, a few seconds before intent on treating their officer’s condition, could have fired the shot.
    But they had, a fact that was very obvious as the smoke cleared from the muzzle, and the glee of the man who’d aimed the piece spread to his companions. The officer Rannoch had hit, was sitting up again, bloody leg bandaged, pointing his sword, and seemingly encouraging his boat crew to repeat the exercise.
    Brownlee was calling out commands again, his men rushing around, looking for axes to cut the debris clear. With the sail removed, Markham had no trouble in seeing the other Tarantines, their sails aloft straining on the wind as they sought to pass by him at a safe distance.
    ‘Yon cutter is closing in,’ called Rannoch. ‘They will be fashioning a shot for our hull next.’
    The remark cleared Markham’s thinking, mainly because he knew the sergeant to be wrong. They would not hull the ship, though they might try to make the threat look real. That wounded officer, who’d probably directed the lucky shot that had taken away the mast, must have ordered his men to fire high deliberately . The last thing he wanted to see was any of the available supplies to the garrison slipping beneath the waves, even if in doing so it took some of the British besiegers with it.
    The next shot hit the water and bounced into the straking well clear of the sea. With some of the force absorbed by the deflection, the ball was too weak to pierce the side, instead embedding itself in the wood, sending a shudder through the whole frame of the vessel. The broken mast was cut free almost at the same moment,which caused the Tarantine to keel over to the opposite side, throwing several of his Lobsters onto their knees.
    The next cannon boom came from the second cutter, and was aimed at the other boats still trying to close the gap with the stranded boarding party. It hit close enough to send up a huge fountain of water, which drenched the men in the jolly boat. It was admirable the way that it didn’t deter them from coming on. In fact, they seemed to be increasing their efforts to come to his aid.
    Markham knew that the men aboard were looking at him, awaiting clear orders. He was in an agony of indecision. On land he felt he would have acted quickly. But the sea was