by Jan Needle
First duty, though, was to escape. In his boat, Simpson set up a cracking pace, which the midshipman tried to bring down a little for the sake of regulation.
‘Simpson,’ he said, ‘we have many miles to go. Surely you must moderate your stroke?’
‘But you have raced gigs, sir, ’tis known on board,’ the big man smiled. ‘This pace is nothing, and we must get well clear. They’ve got muskets, and a steady hull to aim them from.’
‘True, true. But won’t our men get tired? They have extra oarsmen to take over. They must not get up on us.’
‘But we’m got extra rowers, too, sir. And I’ve rowed a gig for thirty mile without a let-up. And I picked me men, sir, whatever you gentlemen did think. Fear nothing, sir.’
A scream came drifting down across the water, followed by a positive fusillade of shots. Not from the three chasing boats, though. They were pulling doggedly in the gigs’ wake. Impossible to tell if they were catching up.
A hail came from the other gig.
‘Ahoy! How do you? Christ, this is killing fun! Do you want a wager on it?’
Daniel Swift was laughing, but possibly in deadly earnest. Raven, however, was not a gambling man.
‘Simpson,’ he said. ‘He takes it for a game. Now that is—’
‘That is champion! Take him, sir! I and all my fellows will put our pay on it! Eh, lads?’
A cheer went up, with an echo from Swift’s crew.
‘Now, good heavens!’ Raven said.
‘Aye, sir!’ Simpson interrupted him. ‘With heaven’s light our guide—’
‘And hell our destination!’ shouted his fellow oarsmen. And another roar of merriment went up.
Astern of them, a different crack rang out, and Swift and Raven both twisted in their seats to catch a glimpse.
‘He’s using cannon,’ Simpson said. ‘The swivel on the poop, sir. By God, I think he’s got him!’
One of the Scilly boats might have been hit. Sure, it rolled and some oars went up like flagpoles in a breeze. But another one ceased rowing for a moment and a concerted fire was rained upon the Pointer.
‘Not over yet, for certainty,’ said Simpson.
‘And they’re not holding us,’ said Raven. ‘See, they’ve dropped a boat’s length, haven’t they?’
‘Aye, that they have,’ said Simpson. ‘But I think they got a reason to, young sir. Look you. Look.’
As the two nearer boats dropped back a little, the tail-ender whipped closer to them.
‘What’s going on?’ Swift shouted. ‘Have they given up?’
‘Buggery,’ said Simpson. For once his face looked almost serious. ‘They’re jettisoning cargo!’
By cargo he meant bodies – lots of them. With a clash of oars the tail-end boat nudged between the others, and a gaggle of men leapt lightly into the designated one. Not all of them, by any means, but enough to alter the balance of speed and weight considerably. It was neatly done. Within seconds the two leaders were back on the trail, and going like witches out of Hades.
‘Christ!’ came Swift’s voice, across the water. ‘Row you bastards, row! Put your bloody backs into it! All wagers off!’
Simpson still looked grim.
‘Right, bonny boys,’ he muttered. Then shouted: ‘Break your backs men! Sussex versus Kernow and devil take the ’Ampshire ’ogs! We’ll make these bastards jump out o’ the water!’
Now, and for a little while, it was anybody’s guess who went the faster. The Scilly men still had the harder task by far, but they were definitely the men for it. At one stage the lead boat took a moment out to let a marksman stand in the bow and take a pot at them. It was close enough not to fall short, but was wrongly angled. Which led the gig-men – maybe foolishly – to howl out a cheer.
The gun-boat had lost a length in the manoeuvre, and shortly afterwards it was apparent that the Scilly lads were tiring. Their boats were big and tarred and heavy and not built for such work at all, and they had done a damn good mile at least since passing Pointer, let alone their home beach.
Raven breathed easily, at last. The noise of battle from astern was worrying, but the result, he hoped, could never be in doubt. Now he and Swift, it seemed, would get away from their hunters, also. Which left only another hundred miles or so, and God knew what. A last heavy cannon crack from the Pointer emphasized their victory. However many Scilly men there were, they would not overwhelm her.
Three minutes later Simpson said, ‘Aha, then that is it, sir. Look astern. The dogs are pulling off. They’ve given up the hunt.’
And a man on the thwart ahead of him added, ‘Aye. Now they can go and join the terriers picking at our poor old ship.’
An optimist, a pessimist. A fair proportion, Raven thought. And then Simpson said, ‘Oh Christ, sir! Oh my God, look there! A’coming round yon headland over west! Oh my giddy Christ!’
Charlie Raven craned his neck and caught the first bow leaping from behind the island. It was a long way off, and must have set out from a bay they had not seen or dreamed of. The first bow, then another, then a third. Even at that distance they were easy to discern. They were lightweight gigs, aiming to cut them off. Swift was signalling, he had seen them too.
And then he shouted.
‘Three, and fresh, and no way overmanned. Christ, young Craven Raven! Now we’ll see some fun!’
‘Change oars,’ said Simpson. ‘Rest the three bow thwarts. That’s what I would do, sir, that’s only my advice. Beg pardon, but it’s always up to you. I know most of these men.’
Raven did not hesitate. He gave the order, and the oarsmen did not miss a stroke while shifting.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I thank you, Mr Simpson. Keep it up.’
Chapter Ten
The next six hours were a nightmare, one of those where the fear gets worse and worse. First sighted, the new gigs were two miles away perhaps, coming at them from an angle which brought them slowly closer to a future union. It was impossible to tell who went the faster, impossible to tell if they would meet at some fixed spot on the flat and glassy ocean.
Daniel Swift, though no great navigator, had the sextant sent aft and beat his brains out to remember how to fix a lateral bearing that might answer the case exactly. But the eyes of the seamen on him, as they strained and sweated at the oars, did not help. He knew he was expected to come up with miracles, and he knew that unlike Raven, he had not a store of popularity. He was too much like Captain Maxwell to be liked; and guessed sometimes that he was hated.
Which was acceptable, he consoled himself rather bitterly, for the people were but people, and most of them were scum. The way he read their glances – right or wrong he could not exactly know – was that they wished him to be foolish, to make a mistake so obvious that they might mock him, even silently. After a few minutes he slipped the instrument back into its case with a finality suggesting satisfaction at what he’d learnt.
‘At the moment we are gaining over them,’ he said. ‘It is up to you dogs to make it stay that way. In an hour we will share a water ration. Until then, keep your mouths shut and pull. Some of you strike me as not much far beyond mere maids.’
He watched their faces as he said this, assessing them – he told himself – for indications of incipient revolt. There were none. The faces were fixed in concentration, wooden as they swung in stroke, swung like pendulums. It was an easy stroke, long and almost hypnotic in its way. It marvelled him, in fact, he had never seen the like. The rowing races he watched from the quarterdeck on regatta days seemed nothing like it, although quite frankly he had hardly paid much mind. Rowing, to him and other officers, seemed such a tediosity. Something to keep the cattle happy.
After a few more minutes he ventured gruffly: ‘It seems a little leisurely to me. Aye, you there, you on the stroke oar. Could you not see your way to putting some more life in it?’
The stroke oar grunted, and fixed Swift with the cold eye of a basilisk.
‘Beg pardon, sir, if I break the rhythm
now, they’ll lose the fucker and for good and all. And then those fuckers over there will be upon us like a fly on shit.’
Daniel Swift was twenty two, and no man had ever dared to speak like that to him before. He knew that he would fire up, blush like a baby, if he lost control.
He growled: ‘Keep your eyes down, man, and watch your feet upon the stretcher. They are moving too far apart. You’ll end up ruptured worse than Emerson. Do your best to speed it up, though. That is an order.’
An order that could be ignored, quite clearly, although the man turned his eyes directly to his feet and looked no more at the face before him. Swift, the blush defeated, turned his head to starboard to see how Raven’s crew were getting on. Well indeed, it would appear. To his jaundiced eyes their stroke seemed longer, more fluid, smoother. And Craven Raven was crouched like a racing cox, elbows crooked at sides tending the yokelines, body swaying back and forth along the centre line. But he was dropping back a little. Of that there was not a scrap of doubt.
‘Mr Raven,’ he called, across the green glass of the sea. ‘Pull up, sir. Get those lubbers working harder. This race is not for money, it is for life. Your men are slacking, sir.’
Raven did blush, put into a hard dilemma. He muttered, almost to himself, ‘it is a pace, sir. We must keep within our boundaries. We have very far to go.’
Simpson had got his smile back on again, although modified this time by muscle ridges. With conscious daring, he took a mighty risk.
‘Ignore him, sir,’ he grunted. ‘It is a popinjay.’
The grunt was low enough, deliberately, to be unheard. So Raven consciously unheard it. You did not say that, man, he thought. It was a belch, maybe…
‘Aye aye, sir!’ he called to Swift. ‘I will keep them to the mark. Pull on men, pull on,’ he added. ‘Let’s get this bugger moving.’ He dared to wink at Simpson, and Simpson dared to not wink back. They understood each other.
Within two more hours, the inevitabilities were making themselves known. The three Scillies gigs had fallen in on the same track as their quarry, about a half a mile astern. Swift was convinced they had them beaten, while it grew in Raven’s mind that they were being gamed.
‘If we slacken, Mr Simpson,’ he said, suddenly, ‘what do you think would happen?’
There was no pause for thinking; not the slightest.
‘They would increase theirs, sir.’
Raven considered this. It was the answer he would have ventured, too.
‘And the gap would narrow, and we would increase again?’
‘Aye, sir. And again. We slow down, they speed, we speed.’
‘They are not tired, then?’
‘They may be tired, but not as much as we. They can keep this up all day and night, sir, it is their nature, it is how they earn their gold. They play us like a fish, sir, and when we are exhausted they hope to reel us in. Probably force us to one last headlong dash to weary us completely. Then they overwhelm us.’
‘They hope, to, Simpson. They certainly won’t succeed.’
A half a smile on Simpson’s lips.
‘Aye aye, sir. ’Ow very foolish of me. They ’ope to.’
Another hour later, Swift ranged his gig alongside them. There was only a fathom space between their oar blades.
‘I think we have them, sir,’ he said. ‘I told you, Raven. They will be worn out. It is inevitable. How is your water holding up?’
‘My water, sir?’
‘Your water, sir. My men are going through ours at a rate of knots. Fool of a purser has kept the commons short.’
Simpson had guided him on the water, as on so much else. His men had been rinsing mouths and spitting back into the bottles. Too vile for a young gentleman, but he had not tried to stop them. He had been contemplating when he must take his turn at the same game. But no need yet awhile, no need at all.
‘It is a problem, sir,’ he said. ‘This blessed sun. It is like a crushing weight.’
‘Have you any you can spare?’ said Swift. ‘It may be that I must make a requisition. Not yet, though, look not so alarmed!’
‘Sir!’
It was a sharp voice, directed at Lieutenant Swift. The man on his stroke oar.
‘Sir! They are making up, sir! They have put a spurt on! They are going at a gallop!’
Raven looked at Simpson in time to see his eyes change.
‘Damn,’ the big man muttered. ‘This could be the endgame, sir.’
‘Go!’ shouted Daniel Swift. ‘Dig your blades in! Make her leap like a salmon, damn you! This time we will show them good clean heels. Once and for all!’
‘We’m picking up a sea, sir, also,’ Simpson said. ‘Look you, it’s rolling from the west.’
He increased his stroke and made the noises to his fellows that they seemed to understand completely. The gig moved forward, pushing Raven back into his seat. On the other boat he saw an oarblade bite too deep into the surface and cause a mighty splash. The sea, as if from nowhere, was rising into waves.
‘Pull, damn you!’ shouted Lieutenant Swift. ‘Pull your bloody eyes out, men. The devils are too light for us!’
That was the truth of it. Each Scilly gig had only half the men the quarry vessels had, and half the weight. No stores, no grappling irons, no extra muskets, no ballshot, not even any bloody blankets! And the method was disclosed. They had been conserving strength with slyness and with cunning, they had been laying a false bait. And now the Pointer men had pulled their eyes out indeed. They were almost at the end of their rope.
Even Swift, at the end of ten long minutes, knew the game was up. His own men’s stroke was ragged, and each new rolling wave caught at the blades and bade to drag them under. The oarsmen were grunting, whistling almost, like a shrieking kettle. And their strength was failing visibly. They would soon be done.
Raven’s crew were not so far outwoven, but they had little in reserve. They watched the Scilly gigs come roaring up behind them, and Raven wondered if he should drop back to Daniel Swift – or what.
Then Swift stood up in his gig’s sternsheets, and slid a long musket out from underneath the thwarts. He abandoned the yoke to look after itself and tersely told his men to keep a course themselves. He checked and primed the musket, he checked and set the pan. His men all looked at him. The man was mad.
He stood up on the bottom, one foot on a side seat, one on the bilge boards. He raised the musket to his eye like a sharpshooter and sighted aft towards the Scilly men.
The sea was rising fast. A sudden gust of breeze blew sideways from the west. The gig bucked to larboard like a horse. Across the water, fifty feet away, a bowman in the leading chaser laughed.
Charlie Raven closed his eyes and tried to pray. But all he thought was this:
We’re lost.
The crack from the musket was not even loud.
Chapter Eleven
There was no chance in half a million that Swift’s shot could strike home. To the naked astonishment of all the oarsmen looking aft, it did. As a Scillonian rose up in the nearest bow to shout his mockery, he took a ball right in the chest. He was only half upright, but enough for the blow to knock him over side. He staggered, straightened, tottered – and he fell.
‘Jesus Christ,’ said Raven’s giant. ‘Jesus Christ, sir, the man has got the devil’s luck indeed.’
Swift was shouting to his own crewmen.
‘Don’t lose your stroke, fools! Don’t let the bastards gain on us!’
For the moment, though, the lead boat from the islands was out of all running. As the bowman hit the water with an enormous splash, other men leaned overboard to grab him. The boat slewed hard to port and nearly rolled her gunwale under. At least one oar escaped, while other men hung out to try and grip it. The boat lost way so fast the next behind near ran upon her, which cost time, too, as she took avoiding action.
A cheer went up from Swift’s men, and then from Raven’s.
‘Bully!’ said Simpson, through an enormous, red-lip
grin. ‘Bully, bully, bully!’
But the third gig of the Scilly flotilla was having none of it. She took a veer to larboard, and a roar of ‘Pull! Pull! Pull!’ boomed out across the water. Accelerating like a race-horse, she passed the casualties, then began a veer back on to course once more. She had a spare man in the bow as well, it seemed. Without them seeing him take an aim, a musket cracked, a smoke cloud blew away.
Raven had the advantage now, and Swift tucked in astern of him. Both crews were straining mightily, both gigs fairly leapt along.
Not fast enough, however. With the man picked up – dead or alive no one yet knew – his boat resumed the chase, now well behind the other two. They were both surging with renewed force and vigour, and were clearly not going to be beat.
‘Clear muskets out!’ Swift shouted across to Raven. ‘It’s going to be a shooting match!’
At least they had spare men, although the conditions for shooting were going downhill fast. The breeze was steadying, although still light, and the size of the western waves indicated a heavy blow out in the Atlantic. The oarsmen in the Scilly boats found it no task at all, but the navy men were tired, dog tired, and getting worse.
‘Send one aft!’ said Raven. ‘Check your powder and your pans. We will not get too many chances, I believe.’
Simpson tutted quietly, and shook his head. Defeatist talk.
‘Beg pardon,’ Raven muttered. Then, aloud: ‘Belay that last pipe, I talk foolishness. We’ll blow the bastards all to Kingdom Come!’
A ragged clatter of gunshots from astern galvanised both crews, although again they neither felt nor heard a ball go past. Raven received two muskets, but found checking primings almost impossible. As he ‘faffed and faddled’ – Simpson’s words – the big man added, ‘Forget the muskets, sir. Just steer this old scow out of range. That will be the best to do.’
