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Updated: May 29, 2025
The British crew, mostly stripped to the waist, stood at their quarters, grim and determined, with the gun-tackles in hand, eager for the moment to open fire. Pearce was on the quarterdeck.
All was now smoke and noise, the men straining at the gun-tackles, sponging and loading; the marines firing and stooping down, as they had been ordered, to load, to avoid the bullets of the French marines who were so much above them.
The men had just got hold of the gun-tackles, and were about to bowse out their guns, which had been run in amidship, some five hundred of them or more having for the purpose gone over to the larboard side, which caused the ship to heel still more, when the water made a rush into the larboard lower-deck ports, and, do all they could, the guns ran in again upon them.
The British crew, mostly stripped to the waist, stood at their quarters, grim and determined, with the gun-tackles in hand, eager for the moment to open fire. Pearce was on the quarterdeck.
Shoving the disabled gun out of the way, these chaps crossed the deck, unhooked the breechings and gun-tackles, raised the piece from the deck, and placed it in the vacant port. The commodore commended us, and called out, "that is quick work, my lads!" In less than three minutes, I am certain, we were playing on the enemy with the fresh gun.
He listened intently, as he lay stretched upon the gun-tackles; and then he heard the splash in the water, as the boat was hauled closer to, in order to be brought beneath the chair. The rattling of oars, too, was audible, as Ghita left the seat and moved aft. "Round in," called out the officer of the deck; after which Carlo Giuntotardi was left in quiet possession of his own boat.
And there was something else that those three men on the poop, and Pitt immediately below them, had failed to observe. Some moments ago Ogle, followed by the main body of his gun-deck crew, had emerged from the booby hatch, to fall into muttered, angrily vehement talk with those who, abandoning the gun-tackles upon which they were labouring, had come to crowd about him.
Breechings were loosed and gun-tackles unlashed, rammer and sponge laid out, and pike and pistol and cutlass placed where they would be handy when the time came to rush the enemy's decks. The powder-monkeys tumbled over each other in their hurry to provide cartridges, and grape and canister and doubleheaded shot were hoisted up from below.
The officers laboured like the men; their example encouraged the sick and wounded, who slid out of their hammocks and seized the gun-tackles, hauling at them with an energy which no one would have supposed they possessed.
Breechings were loosed and gun-tackles unlashed, rammer and sponge laid out, and pike and pistol and cutlass placed where they would be handy when the time came to rush the enemy's decks. The powder-monkeys tumbled over each other in their hurry to provide cartridges, and grape and canister and doubleheaded shot were hoisted up from below.
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