The Flying Squadron Read Online Free PDF Page A

squelching miserably in sodden shoes, on to the quarterdeck.
    For three-quarters of an hour he wondered what all the fuss had been about. On deck, he could no longer see the main batteries properly, though he caught glimpses of activity beneath the boat booms in the waist. The upper-deck gunners manning the quarterdeck 18-pounders seemed to squat idly round their guns for some time whilea tirade of shouted orders in which the clipped voices of Frey and Gordon, each in charge of a 24-pounder battery on the gun deck, were interspersed with shouted exhortations from Mr Metcalfe.
    The first lieutenant’s most offensive weapon was a silver hunter which he consulted with maddening and incomprehensible regularity, dictating numerous time intervals to Porter who ran after him with a slate as he went from waist to quarterdeck and back, pausing now and again to make some remark to Captain Drinkwater.
    The captain appeared to take very little interest in the proceedings but stood by what Vansittart was now able to identify with some pride as the mizen weather rigging, addressing the occasional remark to Mr Wyatt, whose face bore a sort of disdain for the present activity. Vansittart knew Wyatt was specifically charged with the frigate’s navigation and supposed it was some esoteric point on this to which he and Drinkwater referred.
    Periodically there was an awful rumbling from below which Vansittart felt most through the soles of his feet, but it did not appear to affect the men on the upper deck. Quite mystified as to what was happening and ignored by all who might otherwise have enlightened him, Vansittart was compelled to wait foolishly for an explanation.
    In the event he was saved the trouble, for after half an hour Metcalfe ran up from the waist, stared at his watch, referred to Porter’s slate, muttered something to Drinkwater, and turned his attention to the quarterdeck guns.
    Silence was called for and the 18-pounders that had been cleared away earlier were brought to a state of readiness. Metcalfe excitedly called out a stream of orders at which the gunners, with varying degrees of verisimilitude and enthusiasm for so dumb a show, leapt around their pieces. The cause of the rumbling was swiftly revealed as the 18-pounders were run out through their open ports. On the command ‘Point!’ the gun-captains kneeled beside the breeches of their brute black charges, squinted along the sights and ordered the carriages slewed, adjusting the elevation at the same time. Vansittart looked in vain for a mark, concluded correctly that it was a sham since no boat had put out from the ship,neither had she been manoeuvred, and watched with increasing fascination. Each gun-captain drew away from his gun, raised one hand in signal while the other grasped the lanyard of his fire-lock. When the row of hands had all gone up, Metcalfe yelled ‘Fire!’ and there was an anticlimactic click as flint sparked ineffectually against steel.
    Having repeated this procedure with both quarterdeck batteries and then the half-dozen 42-pounder slide-mounted carronades on the forecastle, Metcalfe trotted back to Drinkwater.
    â€˜Very well,’ Vansittart overheard the captain say, ‘you may load powder.’
    For the next few minutes Vansittart’s ear-drums were assailed by the battering thunder of the guns. Clouds of acrid grey smoke swept over him and he was dimly aware, through the sudden, bright flashes that pierced the smoke, of dark objects hurled from the guns, first to starboard and then to larboard. At last they fell silent and Drinkwater turned towards him, the infuriatingly amused yet somehow attractive smile playing about his mouth.
    â€˜The noise disturbs you, Mr Vansittart?’
    â€˜A little, I confess,’ Vansittart said, feeling more than a trifle foolish.
    â€˜They were only half-charges, don’t you know, to conserve powder. I get no allowance from the Navy Board, damn them.’
    â€˜And