Enemy In Sight!

by Alexander Kent

  Inch crossed the deck and said, "It'll take hours before we can go about again, sir." He, too, sounded disappointed.

  Bolitho watched the yards creaking round and felt the ship cant heavily as she swung across the wind, her sails flapping and billowing before filling again to lay her over still further to follow the endless ranks of small, leaping white horses.

  "We will make up for it later." He controlled his own irritation and added shortly, "This is an excellent chance to exercise the lower battery, Mr. Inch."

  He walked aft and peered at the compass. North, northwest. Well at least it would allow the lower gundeck to exercise without being swamped through the open ports. Some ventilation would not come amiss either to drive away the damp and the foul air from the ship's deep hull.

  It took another six hours to make good the enforced alteration of course, and by the time the Hyperion was running south again, carrying every stitch of canvas to receive the indifferent offshore wind, the daylight was already beginning to fade.

  Bolitho was walking back and forth at the weather side when the masthead lookout suddenly broke into his brooding thoughts.

  "Deck there! Sail fine on th' larboard bow!"

  Bolitho glanced at the masthead pendant. There was no point in altering course. It would take more precious time, and there would be no light at all within an hour. They would pass the frigate some two miles abeam, and that would suffice to read her signals.

  He lifted his glass and peered across the nettings. He could not see the distant ship, for her shape was well merged with the dull grey blur which he knew to be the French coast. He looked aloft again and bit his lip. Up there, swaying comfortably on his dizzy perch, the lookout would be able to see her quite well, and more important, the lay of the land beyond.

  He made up his mind. "I'm going aloft, Mr. Inch." He ignored the quick exchange of glances, but concentrated all his will on climbing out on to the weather shrouds and slowly step by step up the quivering ratlines. Ever since he had been a midshipman Bolitho had hated heights, and each time he had found himself forced to make such a climb he always expected he would have outgrown such a stupid fear. But it was not so, and with gritted teeth, his eyes fixed firmly towards the swaying topmast, he continued to climb higher and higher. Up and around the maintop, where two startled marines were cleaning a swivel gun, and gritting his teeth still harder to control the rising nausea as he felt the pull of his weight against his fingers while his body hung outwards on the futtock shrouds. But with more eyes fixed upon him than the approaching frigate, he could not take the easier passage of the lubber's hole.

  When at last he reached the crosstrees he found a grizzled, pigtailed seaman already moving aside to give him room to sit down. Bolitho nodded gratefully, as yet unable to regain his breath. For a few moments he sat with his back against the trembling mast while he groped for his slung telescope and tried not to look down at the neck so far below him.

  He heard Midshipman Gascoigne yelling, "She's made the recognition signal, sir!" Inch must have said something for seconds later the arranged acknowledgement broke in a bright rectangle from the main topsail yard.

  Bolitho trained his glass and saw the sleek frigate swooping across the lens, the spray lifting above her bows in one unbroken curtain. He forgot his discomfort as he remembered his own service in frigates. Always on the move, with the dash and excitement which only such graceful ships could give. He pitied her captain's lonely vigil here. Back and forth, day after day, with nothing to show for it. A ship of the line was bad enough in these conditions, but within her sleek hull it would be a living nightmare.

  He dragged the glass away from the other ship and swung it across the darkening spit of headland to the north of the estuary. A few patches, probably coastguard houses, he thought. Above the distant offshore current they appeared to be moving and the sea to be still. He lowered the glass and wiped his eye with his sleeve.

  He heard Inch's voice carried by the wind. "Captain, sir! Ithuriel has nothing to report!"

  By waiting for the mizzen topsail to flap momentarily in the falling wind it was possible for Bolitho to see the shortened figures standing on the quarterdeck, their faces pale blobs against the worn planking. He could see Gascoigne, his signal book flapping in the breeze, and Stepkyne with his glass on the frigate as she cruised past on the opposite tack. Even the ship looked small and compact, so that it was hard to accept that six hundred human souls lived out their lives within her fat hull.

  He thought, too, of the frigate's wretched conditions. One of a chain of ships, weatherbeaten and dependent on their own resources, yet essential if the enemy was to be contained within his harbours.

  Bolitho swallowed hard and seized a backstay. He could not face another long climb, even downwards, so 56

  watched by the lookout with something like awe he swung from the crosstrees, and holding his breath made his way to the quarterdeck by a faster, if less dignified method. He arrived panting on deck, conscious of the grinning seamen around him and of the pain in his legs where the thick stay had seared through to his skin in the speedy and heartstopping descent.

  He said stiffly, "Before the light goes I will make a signal to Ithuriel." He beckoned to Gascoigne. "I've -forgotten her captain's name."

  Gascoigne was still gaping as if he could not believe a captain could behave in such an odd manner. Then he opened his book and stammered, "Ithuriel, 32, Captain Curry, sir!"

  It would sound trite to wish him a good New Year, Bolitho thought, but it would be better than nothing.

  Stepkyne said, "Well, they've kept her smart enough, in spite of the damn weather."

  Bolitho took Gascoigne's big signal telescope and lifted it above the nettings. The frigate was on the Hyperion's larboard quarter now and he could see the huddled figures on her quarterdeck below the tattered remnant of her ensign. He blinked his eyes rapidly to clear them from strain. He was mistaken. He had to be.

  His voice was still calm as he snapped, "Make this signal, Mr. Gascoigne. Hermes to Ithuriel. Good luck."

  He ignored the startled look on the midshipman's pale face and rasped, "That's right. I said Hermes!" Then he added, "Thank you, Mr. Stepkyne."

  Nobody spoke. Those standing near Bolitho even averted their eyes as if unable to watch his madness.

  Gascoigne said in a small voice, "She's acknowledged, sir."

  Bolitho looked away. "Lay her on. the starboard tack, Mr. Gossett. We will steer due west." Then as the pipes twittered and the men ran to the braces he added harshly, "Ithuriel is a thirty-two-gun frigate, gentlemen. That ship is a thirty-six! And only a Frenchman would fail to see we are not the Hermes!"

  They were all staring at him now. "Mr. Stepkyne saw it first, even though he did not recognise fully what he had discovered. She is too smart, too clean after weeks of blockade duty!

  Inch said, "What does it mean, sir?" He seemed stunned.

  Bolitho watched the yards swinging and the sails filling again to the wind.

  "It means, gentlemen, that Ithuriel has been taken. That explains how those people knew our recognition signals." It was amazing how calm he sounded. He could not understand it, when every fibre in his body was crying out for them to understand, as he did. He saw Allday leaning against a nine-pounder, staring astern at the frigate as she sidled once more into the haze of spray and growing darkness. He would know how Bolitho felt. He had been aboard his ship, the Phalarope when she had been attacked by an American privateer. That, too, had been a British frigate taken as a prize.

  Bolitho asked slowly, "Why should the French bother with such a deception? They have taken a good frigate, so why keep it a secret?"

  Gossett said, "Seems to me, sir, that they got summat to 'ide."

  Bolitho showed his teeth in a smile. "I believe so, Mr. Gossett." He looked up at the flapping pendant. "There is no time to inform the squadron, even if we could find them." His tone hardened. "As soon as it is dark we will go about and work to a position nor
th of the estuary again. I have no doubt the frigate's captain, whoever he is, will anchor for the night. He will know it to be unlikely for another ship to come from the squadron for days, even weeks maybe." He tried to keep the bitterness from his voice. If Pelham-Martin had concentrated his three frigates, and if possible the sloops as well in a tight are around the patrol area and within visual distance of one another, this could never have happened. He continued in the same flat tone, "We will close the shore as near as we are able. When the first daylight appears I want to have the wind-gage." He glanced coldly at the nearest guns.

  "This time I will do the talking first. And with authority!'

  As the banks of cloud closed across the horizon and plunged the sea into total darkness Bolitho still paced the quarterdeck. He was soaked to the skin with spray but did not even feel it. He was seeing that frigate again, feeling the arrogance of her captain as he had signalled to the two-decker. And it had been such a close call. He felt the anger twisting in his stomach like fire. Another few minutes and they would have parted. Hyperion would have informed the commodore there was nothing unusual to report, and he would have been more than willing to accept it.

  And the frigate? He paused in his pacing so that the helmsman's eyes blinked anxiously in the compass light as Bolitho stared unseeingly through him. She would be able to tell her masters that the English were deceived. He frowned. But to what purpose? He continued his pacing, aware of nothing but his thoughts and what they could mean for him, and his ship.

  Hyperion could have dismasted the frigate with one illaimed broadside as they had passed. Suppose she was no longer on her station when dawn came? Pelham-Martin would not even have the satisfaction of knowing an enemy ship had been destroyed when he wrote to Cavendish with the admission of Ithuriel's capture.

  Pelham-Martin would not be in any mood to shoulder the blame alone either, Bolitho decided grimly.

  But there had to be a reason for the Frenchman's actions. There had to be.

  At length, worn out and suddenly ice cold, he said wearily, "I will go to my cabin, Mr. Stepkyne. Call me half an hour before the morning watch, if you please." He took Inch by the arm. "Pass the word that I want all hands roused at that time. They will be fed and ready for whatever we must do when light returns."

  As he walked into the darkness of the poop he heard a voice mutter admiringly, "Cool as a shark's belly, that one! Sees a bloody Frog under his guns an' don't turn a hair!"

  Then Gossett's bass voice. "'Old yer yap, damn youl You'll find plenty o' time for noise when the guns begin to crack around yer ears!"

  Bolitho entered his cabin and slammed the door. For a few moments he stood quite still, his shoulders pressed against the bulkhead as he stared emptily at the swinging lanterns.

  Gossett knew well enough. Less than a quarter of the company had set foot aboard a ship before, let alone known the horror of an enemy broadside.

  He closed his eyes tightly and tried to clear his mind of doubt. There was no choice, nor had there been from the moment he had seen through the frigate's calm deception.

  And it had nearly worked, that was the worst part in some ways. In spite of all his experience and training he had only seen what he had expected to see. The frigate's captain had gambled on this, but he must have known the consequences for failure, must have found each minute like an hour as the Hyperion had surged by within, two miles of him.

  Whatever it was the French were hiding it must be very worth while. Surprisingly the realisation steadied him, and later when Petch padded into the cabin with some coffee he found Bolitho sprawled on the stern bench, his face relaxed in sleep.

  Petch was a simple soul, and when he told some of his friends that their captain was so self-assured he was fast asleep already, the tale gained much in the telling.

  Allday heard the story and said nothing. He knew Bolitho better than any of them, and guessed that like himself he had probably been thinking of that other time, so many years ago, when a similar ruse had all but cost him his life, and his ship.

  Allday examined his heavy cutlass in the dim light of a shaded lantern. If there was going to be a fight, the Hyperion's raw company would need more than confidence. A whole lot more!

  4

  A NAME TO REMEMBER

  "Captain, sir!"

  Bolitho opened his eyes and stared for several seconds at Inch's anxious face. He had been dreaming. There had been some sort of green field with an endless flowered hedgerow, and Cheney had been coming down the road to meet him. He had been running, and so had she, yet they never seemed to draw nearer to one another.

  "Well?" He saw Inch pull back nervously and added, "I'm sorry. Is it time?"

  Inch nodded, the lantern above the bench seat throwing his face into half-shadow. "There's a mist coming offshore, sir. It's not much, but Mr. Gossett says it could make the final approach more difficult." He jumped aside as Bolitho swung his legs over the side and began to pull on his coat.

  Bolitho's mind was quite clear now. "What is our approximate position?"

  Inch pouted. "Ten miles nor' nor'-west of the headland,

  Sir."

  "I'm ready." Bolitho took a last glance around the cabin and then extinguished the lantern.

  On the quarterdeck it was very dark, and only when Bolitho looked up did he realise the extent of the mist. It was moving quite fast, so that the sails were still drawing well, but above the mainyard he could see nothing at all, as if some giant hand had sheared away the remainder of sails and spars.

  Stepkyne spoke from the darkness. "Galley fire doused, sir."

  There was an air of nervous expectancy on every side, but Bolitho forced himself to ignore the others as he walked aft to the compass again.

  "Alter course two points. Steer sou'-east!" He held up his hand. "Make as little sound as possible!"

  He crossed to the weather. side and peered at the nearest sails. It was a pity he could not reduce the spread of canvas, he thought. The Hyperion was creeping very slowly down the enemy coast, and at first light any vigilant sentry might be quick to see the ship's topgallants and sound an alarm before Bolitho could cross the last stretch of water and place himself in the best position to find the frigate. But if he was to have enough speed and manoeuvrability to catch the frigate before she could show him her stern, he had to be ready.

  He made up his mind. "Hands to quarters, Mr. Inch. No piping or any excitement. Just pass the word, and then clear for action."

  If anything it made the business of getting the darkened ship ready for, action all the more unnerving. Shadows flitted back and forth, while from below decks came muffled thuds and bangs as screens were removed, lashings cast off from guns, and officers spoke in fierce whispers as they sought out and checked their own men. And all the while the Hyperion was gliding through the long tentacles of mist like a phantom ship, her sails wet with spray and drizzle, her rigging and spars creaking as the hull countered the swift current and the lookouts strained their eyes into the unbroken darkness around them.

  Bolitho gripped the nettings and watched the mist sifting through the mainshrouds, like pale liquid, before another clammy gust of wind across the ship's quarter drove it lifting and swirling towards the open sea. Behind him he could hear Captain Dawson speaking with his marines, the occasional click of steel or squeak of equipment as they swayed together in a close-ordered square across the quarterdeck. In the drifting mist their uniforms looked black and their white crossbelts stood out with startling clarity.

  Inch appeared, puffing and sweating. "Ship's cleared for action, sir."

  Bolitho grunted. What sort of a fool would he look if the Hyperion found the sea empty when daylight came? Any sort of confidence he had managed to build up amongst the barely trained seamen would soon be lost when the word went around that the captain was .frightened of his own shadow.

  Any other time he might have waited. Experienced men could load and run out, reload and keep on firing while all around them was lost i
n a nightmare of deafening explosions and screaming men, and if necessary they could do it in total darkness. He thought of all these men now, crouched behind sealed ports, ears cocked to every sound, hearts pounding, and grateful of the darkness if only to hide the fear from their companions. It was not worth the risk. If it came to a choice he would rather his men should laugh behind his back than die because of his conceit.

  "Very well, Mr. Inch. You may pass the order to load."

  As Inch beckoned urgently to a midshipman Bolitho recalled the other times when he had sailed into action. Every gun double shotted and loaded with grape for good measure for that first devastating salvo. But with halftrained men fumbling in the gloom of the tween decks it would be inviting disaster. It took experience to gauge those methods. One wrong charge and a gun would explode, killing its complete crew at the very least.

  The wind eased slightly, and in the sudden stillness he heard the patter of feet across the sanded decks as the little powder monkeys scampered from gun to gun with the charges newly drawn from the magazine, where Johns, the gunner, in his sparkproof felt slippers would be standing in the one place from which there was no escape should the ship take fire in action. Thank God he was an old hand and unlikely to dwell too much on the skill of those he was supplying from his magazine.

  Gossett called, "By my reckonin' we are rennin' about three miles abeam the 'eadland, sir." He coughed. "0' course, with this current an' the mist, it's a mite 'ard to be sure."

  "All guns loaded, sir!"

  Bolitho held his watch against the compass lamp. It should be getting light now. He looked around quickly. Was it in fact brightening slightly, or were his eyes so used to the gloom that the nine-pounders on the lee side appeared black and stark against the bulwark?

  He wished he could take one further look at the chart, but there was no more time left. He tried to picture it exactly as he had last seen it, to memorise and recall-the headland and the sheltered water beyond, the soundings and shoals, the deep water, and the swirling current which could turn any foolhardy approach into total ruin.