Chapter 6 Chapter 2 Jujian ① light cruiser-3

Man has won, but it can also be said that cannon has won.Although the danger of total shipwreck was eliminated, the ship could not be brought back to life.The damage was so severe that it was irreparable.There are five cracks in the hull plating, one large crack in the bow.Twenty of the thirty cannons lay there.The cannon which was seized and tied was rendered useless, the bolt of the breech-bolt broken, making it impossible to aim.Only nine guns remained in the battery.Flooding in the bilge.Damaged areas must be repaired immediately and drained immediately. Now people go to see the mid-deck, and it's astounding.The cages of the rampaging elephants would not be so dilapidated.

The frigate must not be discovered by the enemy, but there was another urgent task, that of saving the ship.So people had to put a few lanterns to illuminate the deck. The crew, engrossed in their wretched work, and thinking more of life and death than of any other, paid no attention to what was going on outside the ship during this time.The fog thickened and the weather changed.The ship was blown at will by the wind, and had deviated too far south from the smooth channel from Jersey to Guernessy.The sea was rough.The billows kissed the open wound of the ship, a terrible kiss.The shaking of the sea is full of menace.The breeze has turned to the north.A gust of wind, perhaps a storm, is brewing.Beyond the four waves, there is confusion.

The crew hurriedly made simple repairs to the middle cabin, blocked the water hole, and straightened the cannon that survived the catastrophe.At this moment, the old man stepped onto the deck again. He leaned against the mainmast. He paid no attention to the movement on board.The Knight of La Vieuxville had ordered the naval infantry to form skirmish lines on either side of the mainmast.The sailor gave a whistle, and the sailors who were busy with the operation also lined up on the mast street. " The Comte de Boisbertlot walked towards the passengers. Walking behind the captain was a frightened, panting, disheveled man, who seemed satisfied.

This is the person who showed the courage to subdue the devil at the critical moment and defeated the cannon. The count paid a military salute to the old man dressed as a peasant, and said; "General, this is the man." The gunner stood in the prescribed posture, eyes downcast. The Count of Boisberteau added: "General, should the officers do something about this man's behavior?" "I think so," said the old man. "Then please give your order," continued Vabertello. "It's up to you to give the order, you are the captain." "But you are a general."

The old man looked at the gunner and said: "Come here." The gunner took a step. The old man turned to the Count Boisberteau, took the Cross of Saint-Louis from him, and put it on the gunner's tunic. "Hurrah!" shouted the sailors. The sailors raised their guns in salute. The old man pointed to the cheerful gunner again and said: "Now it's time to shoot him." Surprise replaced cheer. Then, in the grave silence, the old man raised his voice and said: "Inadvertence has ruined the ship, and it is probably beyond repair. To sail is to deal with the enemy. A ship sails at sea like an army does battle. The storm is hidden, it does not disappear. The whole sea is a trap. Enemy Right now, any mistake should be punished by death, and mistakes are irreparable. Bravery should be rewarded, and negligence should be punished.”

The words sounded slowly, solemnly, with a relentless rhythm, like an ax hammering down an oak. The old man looked at the soldiers and said: "Execute." The man with the gleaming Cross of St. Louis bowed his head. At the Count of Boisberteau's gesture, the two sailors went down to the center cabin to fetch a hammock as a shroud.The ship's chaplain, who had been praying in the wardroom since departure, also came.A middle-earth called out twelve soldiers from the skirmisher line and arranged them in two lines of six men each.The gunner stood between the two rows without saying a word.The abbé came forward with the cross in his hand, and came up to the gunner."Let's go," said the sergeant, and the firing squad moved forward slowly, followed by the sailors carrying the shroud.

There was an eerie silence on board.The storm howled in the distance. A few seconds later, gunshots sounded in the darkness, a flash of light flashed, and then everything returned to silence, and the sound of a body falling into the water was heard. The old man was still leaning against the mainmast, his arms folded in thought. Pointing at him with his left forefinger, Boisberteau whispered to La Vieuxville: "The Vendée has a leader." What is the future of this cruiser? The clouds, which had been with the waves all night, hung low at last, covered the horizon, and hung over the sea like a coat.There is thick fog everywhere.The situation was dire, even for the intact ship.

In addition to fog and swells. The time was taken to lighten the ship, to clean up the damage done by the cannon, to throw overboard disassembled cannon, broken hulls, twisted or stripped ribs, broken pieces of wood or iron.The gangway was opened and the corpses and the broken limbs wrapped in the hatch sails slid off the planks into the sea. The sea began to roar.The storm was not imminent, on the contrary, the sound of the storm seemed to be getting weaker on the horizon, and the wind was moving northward, but the waves were heavy, which meant that the bottom of the sea was not good.Such a damaged ship is powerless to withstand the shock, and the high waves will kill it.

Gracquar was at the helm, thoughtful. It is the habit of maritime commanders to be calm in the face of adversity. Lavigneville, still an optimist in the face of peril, approached Gracquard to say: "Well, helmsman, the storm has miscalculated. Tried to sneeze in vain. We'll get out of it. There'll be a fair wind, sure." Gracquar replied solemnly: "Where there is wind, there will be waves." Neither smiling nor sad, that's how sailors are.Gracquar's answer tinged with unease.A leaky boat will quickly sink when hit by waves.Gracquar frowned slightly as he spoke the prophecy.After the disaster of the cannon and the gunners, La Vieuxville's gaiety was perhaps premature.There is always something at sea that brings bad luck.The sea is mysterious, you never know what it is doing.Be vigilant.

La Vieuxville, feeling compelled to be serious, asked; "Where are we now, helmsman?" "In the will of God." The helmsman is the master.What he does, what he says, should be up to him. What's more, the helmsmen have always been reticent.La Vieuxville walked away. The vision gave him the answer to the question he held at the helm. Suddenly, the sea appeared. The curtain of mist that hung over the waves parted, and in the twilight obscurity the dark undulations of the waves stretched as far as the eye could see, so that one could see what lay below. The sky seemed to be covered by a cloud cover, but the cloud and the sea were no longer connected.The east is pale because the sun is rising, and the west is white because the moon is setting.The two whites looked at each other, forming two narrow bands of pale light on the horizon, with a dark sea and a dark sky in between.

Before the two bands of light there was a dark shadow, a straight, motionless black shadow. To the west, under a moonlit sky, stood three towering rocks, like Celtic pillars of rough stone. To the east, on the pale morning horizon, stood eight galleons, neatly aligned and terribly spaced from one another. Those three rocks are the reef, and those eight sailing ships are the fleet. Behind is the very dangerous Manguier Reef, and in front is the French cruise team.To the west is the abyss, to the east is carnage.People are between shipwreck and war. Facing the reef, the ship's hull was ripped out, the rigging was stripped, and the foundations of the masts were loose; in the face of the battle, twenty-one of the ship's thirty doors were damaged, and the best gunners were killed. has died. The light of dawn was very weak, and there was still a little bit of night.The darkness lasts even for a long time, for it comes from the clouds, which are thick, high, deep, and solid as vaults. The wind finally cleared the fog below, and the boat veered off course toward Manguire Reef. The ship was exhausted and dilapidated, and barely obeyed the helmsman.It's not so much driving as it is drifting, and it's being whipped by the waves, letting them have their way. The forbidding Reef of Manguier was sharper and more formidable then than it is now, for several of the fortresses of this abyss are now leveled by the constant onslaught of the sea, and the reef is changing shape.Ocean waves are called lanes for a reason, because every tide is like a saw.At the time, touching Manguier Reef would have meant shattering your bones. As for the French cruise, this was the Cancale fleet, which became famous under the command of Captain Touchet, whom Leginho called "Father Touchet." The situation is critical.While the cannon was raging, the ship had insensibly drifted off course, not toward Saint-Marguez, but toward Granville.Even if she could hoist her sails, Manguire blocked her return to Jersey, and the French fleet prevented her from reaching the French coast. But instead of a storm, as the helmsman said, there was a wave.Under the whipping of the strong wind, the sea water rolled on the sharp rocks on the bottom of the sea, extremely turbulent. The sea never says what it wants right away.There are many wonders in the abyss, even tricky ones.It can almost be said that the sea has its own program, it advances and retreats, affirms and denies, brews storms and cancels.Promising the abyss and breaking the promise, threatening the north and attacking the south.All night, the Great Sword was in a thick fog, thinking that a storm was coming.The sea reneged on the foreword, but in a brutal way.It plans a storm, but it realizes a reef.It's still shipwreck, just in another form. Crushed on the reef and wiped out in battle.These two enemies complement each other. La Vieuxville said with a heroic smile: "Here's a rock, that's a war. We've hit the lottery on both sides." ① French lame can refer to huge waves, knife edges, blades, and saw blades. ② "Papa Douchet" was a very radical revolutionary newspaper from 179* to 1794. The cruiser was almost a wreck. In the pale flash, the clouds, the shifting hazy sky, the mysterious break-up of the waves, all this had a sepulchral majesty.All was silent except for the fierce wind.Calamity rises majestically from the abyss.It's not like an attack, it's like a manifestation.There was no movement on the reef, nor was there any movement on board the enemy ship. It was a great silence.is this real?More like a dream skimming across the sea.There is such a scene in the legend.The cruiser is caught between the Devil of the Reef and the Ghost of the Fleet. The Count Boisberteau whispered his orders to La Vieuxville, who went down to the battery, and then the captain, seizing his glasses, went and stood behind the helmsman. Gracquar was doing everything he could to keep the boat afloat because if it got a sea on its side it would surely capsize. "Helmsman," said the captain, "where are we?" "Towards Manguire." "Which side of it is it?" "The bad side." "How's the bottom of the sea?" "Sharp rock." "Can you anchor?" "It's mortal anyway," said the helmsman. The captain looked west through his binoculars to observe Manguier Reef, and then turned east to observe the sailing ships that could be seen. The helmsman seemed to be talking to himself: "This is Manguier Reef. The Laughing Gulls, and the Black Gulls from Holland, use it as a stopover." By this time the captain had counted the number of sailboats. It was indeed eight boats, lined up neatly, showing a fighting posture on the water.In the middle is a tall ship with three decks. The captain asked the helmsman: "Do you know these ships?" "of course." "What is it?" "It's the fleet." "French?" "Devil's." There was a moment of silence.The captain asked again: "Is the whole cruise team here?" "not all." Indeed, the captain remembered Varazze's announcement to the Convention on April 2 that ten barques and six ships of the line were cruising the Channel of Manche. "Yes, there were sixteen ships in that fleet, and here only eight," said the captain. "The rest are scattered all over the coast, watching." The captain looked through the binoculars and murmured: "A battleship with three decks, two first-tier battleships, and five second-tier battleships." "But I'm watching them too," murmured Gracquar. "It's a fine ship," said the captain, "and I have commanded it a little." "I've seen them close up. I can't mistake them because I've got their features in my head." The captain handed the binoculars to the helmsman: "Helmsman, can you see that multi-decked ship?" "Yes, Captain, that's the Gold Coast." "This is the name they changed. It used to be called the Boyuandi Group. This is a new ship with one hundred and twenty-eight cannons." The captain took out a notebook and a pencil from his pocket, and wrote down the number 128 in the notebook. He went on to ask: "Helmsman, what's the first ship on the port side?" "It's the Veteran." "First class warship. Fifty-two guns. It was assembled in Brest two months ago." The captain wrote down the number 52 in the notebook. "Helmsman, where is the second ship on the port side?" "The Fairy of the Mountains." "A first-class battleship. Forty 18-pound cannons. It has been to India and has made outstanding achievements." He wrote 40 under the number 52 and looked up: "Now look to starboard." "Captain, they are all first-class warships, there are five in total." "Counting from the flagship, what is the first ship?" "Resolute number." "Thirty-two 18-pound cannon. Where's the second?" "The Richmond." "Same firepower. What else?" "The Atheist." "That's a strange name for sailing. What else?" "The Calypso." "anything else?" "The Occupier." "Five ships of war, each with thirty-two guns." The captain writes 160 under the first few numbers. "Helmsman, do you understand?" "And you, Captain, you know them. Of course identification is important, but understanding is more important." The captain fixed his eyes on Ben, and added in his mouth. "One hundred and twenty-eight, fifty-two, forty, one hundred and sixteen." At this moment La Vieuxville returned to the deck. "Knight," said the captain, "we are facing the land of three hundred and eighty gates." "OK." "It just happened to come back, La Vieuxville, exactly how many guns do we have at our disposal?" "Nine cannons." "Okay," said Boisbertello. He took back the telescope from the helmsman and watched the horizon. The eight silent black warships seemed to be motionless, but they were getting bigger and bigger. They are slowly approaching. La Vieuxville gave a military salute: "Captain, this is my report. I was wary of the Great Sword. It's a headache to be on a ship that doesn't know you or love you. British ships will betray Frenchman. That damned cannon has proved it. I checked, the anchor is good, not wrought iron block, but hammered wrought iron. The anchor ring is very strong. The cable ①The name of the warship is the introduction of the fleet in March 1793 in Genshu's naval archives. --The original editor's note rope is of the highest quality, easy to handle, and of a standard length, 120 fathoms.There is also a large amount of gunpowder.Six gunners were killed.Each gun can fire one hundred and seventy-one shells. " "Because there are only nine guns left," murmured the captain. Boisbertello aimed the telescope at the horizon.The fleet is still slowly approaching. The sea cannon has an advantage: three people can operate it, but it also has a disadvantage: compared with ordinary cannons, the range is not far, and the landing point is not accurate, so the enemy ship must be within the range. The captain whispered an order.The whole ship was silent.No bells were ringing for battle readiness, but people were getting ready for battle.Whether dealing with the waves or against the enemy, the ship was out of combat.The best possible use was made of the wreck of the ship, with hawsers and spares piled up in the passage on the main deck, near the gangway, to strengthen the mast if necessary.People arranged the positions of the wounded, and according to the navigation customs at that time, a protective net was drawn on the deck, which could avoid bullets, but not shells.Caliber checkers were brought in, and although it was a little late in doing so, who would have guessed that so much would happen.Each sailor received a cartridge case, two guns and a dagger in his belt.The hammocks were folded, the hatches were adjusted, the guns were ready, the axes and hooks were put away, the cartridge ships and shell bays were arranged, and the powder ships were opened.Everyone stands at his post.No one spoke while doing all this, as if in a dying patient's bedroom.Fast and sinister. Then the boat stopped.It has six berths like a three-gun battleship, and these six anchors have been cast down. The bow is a warning anchor, the stern is a small anchor, the side near the sea is a wave anchor, the side near the reef is an ebb anchor, and the starboard side is a figure eight. Anchor, the left is generally the main anchor. The nine intact cannons were all aimed in the same direction, the direction of the enemy. The enemy fleet is also quietly preparing for battle.The eight ships were now arranged in a semicircle, and Manguier Reef was like a string.Blocked in this semicircle, and tied down by her own anchor, the Great Sword was backed against the reef, that is, against the shipwreck. It is like a pack of hounds surrounding a wild boar. The hounds no longer bark, but show their fangs. Both sides seem to be waiting. The gunners of the Great Sword are already in position. Bois Berteg said to La Vieuxville: "I must fire first." "Have fun teasing," La Vieuxville said.