Sails on the Horizon: A Novel of the Napoleonic Wars

by Jay Worrall

  “A week ago, possibly,” Charles answered. “Why?”

  “There’s a pair of French privateers hereabouts,” Pierce replied. “I’m searching for ’em. Thought you might help.”

  “I’ve just been looking at the Irish coast from Dublin south. We found nothing.”

  “I thought that’s why you were late,” Pierce said with a chuckle. “How about this? You take your time sailing up the coast of Wales and I’ll try further south. Keep a sharp lookout for anything suspicious. If they ask in Liverpool why you were delayed, you can say it was by my order. I’ll note it in my log.”

  “Yes, sir,” Charles responded. Then he added, “Thank you, sir.” He saw Pierce gesture to his lieutenant to get under way. As the frigate’s sails were braced around to catch the wind, Pierce called, “Good luck, Edgemont, and good hunting.”

  “The same to you, sir,” Charles called back, then turned to Tillman to get under way. “Set course due east, if you please. We should raise the Welsh coast by nightfall. We’ll heave to well offshore and look into Fishguard Bay first thing in the morning. Maybe our luck will change.”

  “Then north, sir, back to Liverpool?” There was a note of exasperation in Tillman’s voice.

  “Yes, north and home for you. The end of this command for me, and with likely nothing to show for it,” Charles said a little bitterly. “But we may take our time. What’s your hurry, anyway? Do you have a girl waiting for you?” He meant it as a joke, but Tillman blushed bright red. “My fiancée, sir, Mary—we’re to be married this summer.”

  “Oh,” Charles said. The mention of Mary made him think of Penny. He didn’t want to be reminded of Penny and hadn’t thought about her for days, or at least hours, and now there she was again. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” he said.

  “Would it have made a difference if you had, sir?”

  “Probably not,” Charles answered.

  ___

  “ ’ERE’S YOUR COFFEE, sir,” Attwater’s disembodied voice insisted. “It’ll be dawn in ’alf an ’our. Come, sir, you asked to be wakened.” Charles didn’t want to wake up. He had been dreaming about Penny, a smiling, willing Penny. She was so close he could feel the warmth of her skin, the silken strands of her hair, smell her smell, hear her voice.

  “Come, sir,” Attwater’s voice intruded. “Din’t you not tell me to get you up?”

  “Oh, all right,” Charles managed, by degrees his dream and the sense of intimacy leaving him. “I’m awake.”

  “ ’Ere’s your coffee. Your uniform is all laid out. Wind is moderate from the west. The ’ands will be at quarters as soon as they’ve finished their breakfast.”

  “Thank you,” Charles said sleepily. Only the warmth of her nearness remained, and then that too dissipated. He took a sip of the proffered coffee.

  On deck he saw that it was still entirely dark. Perhaps a shade lighter to the east, perhaps not. It was Charles’s policy when at sea—indeed, it was the usual practice in almost all the navy, but apparently not on the Lomond—to greet each dawn with the ship cleared for action, the crew at their battle stations, the guns loaded and run out. This was a standard precaution in case the first light of day should reveal that an enemy warship had strayed into their vicinity unseen during the night. It was unlikely, Charles knew, and it had never happened in his thirteen years at sea. Still, it might one day, and he didn’t want to have to explain how he’d lost his ship because he’d decided it best to let the men sleep in.

  “Good morning,” he said to Tillman. “Anything to report?”

  The lieutenant touched his hat and replied, “Morning, sir. Nothing at all. Been as quiet as a graveyard. Be light soon.”

  The dawn was already starting and the outline of Strumble Head could just be seen to the east, the sea dark as ink beneath.

  “The hands are at quarters?” Charles asked, just to fill the silence. He had already heard them clamoring up the ladderway after their breakfast, and if that weren’t enough, the rumble of the carriage trucks as the guns were run out.

  “Yes…” Tillman began.

  “Deck, deck there,” a call came from the foremast top, clear and loud in the morning air. “Ship off the starboard bow, I think. Might be two ships. Maybe seven, eight miles.”

  “What bearing?” Charles shouted back. “Can you see anything of their rigging?”

  “Two points to starboard. And no, sir, it’s too dark. I can only see the sticks. Might be three ships, sir.”

  They would know soon, Charles thought; the light was coming fast. “The sticks” meant bare masts with sails furled or brailed up. Two ships, possibly three, laid to during the night. It could be a small convoy of merchantmen sailing together, but Charles didn’t think so. Merchantmen would more likely seek the comfort of a cove or bay—Fishguard Bay, just beyond the headlands, for example. “All the plain sail she’ll carry, Mr. Tillman. Let’s see what we have.”

  Men swarmed up the shrouds and out onto the yards, loosening the sails and letting them fall one by one. “Braces there,” Charles heard Tillman shout, and in a quieter tone to the quartermaster, “Steer east by southeast.” The canvas filled with loud snapping sounds and the Lomond began to surge ahead, sailing large, with the wind neat on her starboard quarter.

  “It’s three ships,” the lookout shouted down over the noise of the wind in the taut rigging, the filling sails, and the straining yards. “Two cutters, it looks like, and a fat brig. The cutters are hoisting sail. You might see ’em from the deck soon. The brig’s following.”

  The freshening wind and the current kicked up a small chop on the sea, more blue now as the sky lightened. The Lomond raced at an angle across the waves, throwing spray outward from her bow. Charles crossed to the binnacle for his glass, then back to the lee rail. He scanned the horizon as best he could dead ahead, at first finding nothing but empty sea against the dark loom of the Welsh coast. And then he saw them, two gaff-rigged single-masted ships with a brig between them, slicing across the wind to the south in an attempt to round Strumble Head. That answered one question. Any ships that hurriedly ran up their sails and set off at the sight of a warship in the Irish Sea were most likely no friends of Britain. And the brig, what was she, a third privateer or a prize? It was an important question: The Lomond could outgun the two cutters, but not all three if the brig were armed. They’d know soon enough.

  “Run up the colors,” he said to Tillman, “and keep to windward.”

  The Lomond churned south by southeast on a converging course with the officially unidentified but highly suspicious trio of ships. She had a much better point of sailing with the wind on her quarter. The distance closed quickly, and it soon became evident that they would be within range of even the Lomond ’s six-pounders well before the other ships could clear the point. Within half an hour Charles, and everyone else on deck, could see the full set of the enemy’s sails and not long after the tops of their hulls. He estimated they were less than five miles off.

  “We’re reaching on them,” Tillman offered conversationally.

  “Yes,” Charles answered. The cutters in particular were not sailing across the wind anywhere near as quickly as he thought they could, while the brig was struggling unsuccessfully to keep up. “What do you make of them?” he asked, turning to the lieutenant. “Is the brig a warship or a prize?”

  “Oh, a prize for certain, sir,” Tillman said immediately. “True, she’s pierced for guns, but she’s beamy and Liverpool-built. Both cutters were built in French yards, I’ll wager my pay on it. They’d fly without the brig.”

  Charles could see their hulls to the waterline now. What Tillman said made sense. “Do you think she’s armed?”

  “Probably a couple of popgun four-pounders on either side, I’d guess,” Tillman answered, squinting across at the brig. “But she won’t fight. She’ll only have a prize crew big enough to sail her. Whoever commands those cutters must be too obstinate to give her up.”

  Charles thought about this f
or a moment in silence. What should he do when the cutters came within range? The brig he could have, but he didn’t want her as a consolation prize. He wanted at least one of the privateers as well. More to the point, what would the cutters do when the Lomond was in a position to open fire? It was obvious to all that he would be on them long before they could weather the point. Why hadn’t they left the brig behind already and fled?

  Perhaps they weren’t planning to flee. The two cutters and their captive were still about three miles away, downwind and slightly ahead of the Lomond. On their present course he judged they would come alongside the brig in about a half-hour’s time.

  “Alter course two points to windward, if you please, Mr. Tillman,” Charles ordered. “We’ll take a parallel course until we’re well in front of them.”

  Tillman relayed his instructions to the quartermaster, then asked, “What are you thinking, sir?”

  “I’m thinking that we can outsail that brig on any point of the wind. It’s the cutters we need to worry about. If they let us get ahead of them, which they’ll have to if they’re going to stay with their prize, we’ll drop down and squeeze them against the point or force them to fight.”

  Tillman looked at him, then back at the enemy ships. “They’ll abandon her as soon as they see what we’re up to,” he said. “They have to.”

  “They might,” Charles agreed. “But I want to see what they do. We get the brig either way. Maybe they’ll do something foolish.” He didn’t really think the cutters would do anything foolish. He watched them closely as the Lomond’s sails were braced around and she settled on a nearly parallel course, about two miles to windward. They were easily reaching on the three craft. No, he corrected himself, the Lomond was overtaking the brig; the other two could shoot ahead whenever they chose to. Why hadn’t they done so already? The Lomond would soon be in a position to run down on the cutters and open fire. He didn’t think that the Frenchmen, with their lightly armed and thin-skinned craft, would risk a broadside-to-broadside pounding. Their strengths were quickness in the stays and lightning speed. No, if they chose to fight, they would do something unexpected—suddenly reverse course, or tack and try to take the weather gauge. And there were two of them, they might divide, one occupying Charles’s ship while the other maneuvered to cross her bow or stern to rake him. Each of the cutters probably carried a larger crew than the Lomond. Given half an opportunity, one or the other would try to run alongside and board.

  The Lomond was nearly abreast of the leading cutter. Charles wasn’t sure what the privateers would do, but he knew they would do it soon. “Prepare to alter course to south by east, Mr. Tillman. Steer to close within long range of the leading cutter.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Tillman responded, fairly alive with excitement now that the action was about to begin. The Lomond seemed to have every advantage.

  “And Mr. Tillman, keep the hands at the braces; we may not stay our new course long.”

  “Yes, sir,” Tillman answered, nodding his understanding. “Hands to the braces, lively there.” To Wilson at the wheel he said, “Port your helm, steer south by east.”

  Charles felt the rudder ease and the ship settle onto an easier course, with the wind more over her stern as the yards came around. She quickly began to pick up speed, slicing across the chop diagonally toward a point some distance in front of the enemy and their prize, but still in position to retain the all-important weather gauge. He put his glass to his eye and watched intently for any sign of the privateers’ reaction. He didn’t have to wait long. Almost immediately, he saw the tiny figures of men on the shrouds of the leading privateer racing aloft to add more sail. Shifting the telescope to the second cutter, he watched her mainsail momentarily thrown into confusion as it swung hard around. The cutter tacked with incredible nimbleness, seeming to rotate on her keel, showing first the diminishing profile of her starboard side, then her stern, and finally her port side as she reversed course from south to north. Just for an instant Charles could read the name painted below her taffrail: La Petite Claudette. As soon as she had gathered way on her new course, she hauled her sails closer still and began to angle into the wind. The brig, he noted without surprise, continued on her own slow, now lonely course as before.

  “We could run down and retake the prize,” Tillman offered. “They’ve abandoned her.”

  “No,” Charles said. “That’s what they want us to do.” The privateers’ plans were clear. The brig was being offered as bait while the two cutters worked separately to windward. If the Lomond went for the brig, they would circle around and attack from either side, with the wind at their back. He surveyed the relative positions of the enemy ships. They were very fast, even faster than he had anticipated, and were already well on their way to taking the weather gauge. Not a moment was to be lost. “We will tack directly,” he said, his throat feeling suddenly dry. “We will close with the northernmost cutter before she gets to windward of us.”

  Charles stood balanced on the balls of his feet with his hands clenched firmly behind his back as the orders were shouted, the yards pulled around and the helm spun hard over. Tacking into the wind was quicker but riskier than wearing. It was a gamble they had to take. His stomach muscles tensed as the Lomond’s bowsprit turned in a tight arc toward the wind, her bow kicking spray over the forward decking in fine white clouds. The rate of the turn slowed painfully the nearer she came to the wind. If she missed her stays and fell off, they would have to gather her back up and then wear around in the opposite direction. By then both cutters would already be well to windward.

  The Lomond came into the eye of the wind and seemed to balance there with her sails aback, booming and pounding in confusion as if trying to make up their minds. Charles held his breath as the bow inched sluggishly across. “Hold her, hold her,” he muttered, speaking more to himself than the quartermaster. Then she was across. “Braces there, tight up!” he shouted. Turning to the lieutenant, he said, “Keep her as close to the wind as she’ll lie.” Tillman grinned in response, his eyes wide with excitement.

  Charles turned his attention to the Claudette, about a mile distant off the port bow. A large part of her copper bottom showed as she heeled well over, her mainsail pulled hard as a board and her cutwater kicking regular puffs of spray over her bows as she sliced seemingly effortlessly across the chop. She was a beautiful sight, a thoroughbred galloping over the waves, all purpose and urgency. The Lomond had little of her elegance and style, but Charles noted that his own deck was steeply enough canted as she heeled as to make it difficult to climb from starboard to port. Leaning on the lee rail for support, he studied the Frenchman closely. She was laying perhaps half a point closer to the wind than the Lomond and making better speed while doing it. Their courses were slowly converging, and Charles could almost see the point on the sea, as real as if it were marked in ink, where one ship would cross the bow of the other. It was vitally important that the crossing ship be the Lomond.

  He looked over his shoulder and saw that the second privateer was well to the south, four or five miles at least, but had turned north and was pursuing at a furious pace across the wind. It all depended on which of the northernmost ships, La Petite Claudette or the Lomond, reached the imaginary spot in the ocean first, and which crossed the other’s bow. If the Frenchman won, the Lomond would be forced to fall off the wind to bring its guns to bear and avoid being raked. If his ship wasn’t crippled in the initial encounter, he would then have to deal with both cutters, both to windward, acting in concert. If properly handled, they would have every advantage. One at a time, he was confident the Lomond’s heavier broadside could defeat them. Both acting together, with one or the other of the nimble ships threatening his stem or stern, was not a prospect he relished.

  His eyes were fixed on the Claudette, now even closer off the starboard bow. It would be close, by God, it would be close. He glanced upward at the rigging for what seemed like the hundredth time since the race began. Every yard was braced
tight, every sail taut and hard. He saw no telltale flapping on their leading edges to indicate that she was too close to the wind, but there were tiny ripples that indicated she could go no further. There must be something he could do to improve her trim, to give her just one extra fathom of speed.

  “I think we’ll hit her midships,” Tillman interjected, a certain awe in his voice. Charles had forgotten that the lieutenant was standing next to him by the rail. “Either that or she’ll come and board us. Don’t know why she doesn’t lay off and run.”

  “For the same reason we don’t,” Charles answered. “She wants us, that’s why. All she has to do is get to windward. When the other cutter catches up, one or the other will board and carry us by main force. Run out the port-side battery.”

  “The larboard guns, sir? You mean starboard. If we engage, she’ll be to starboard.”

  “No, I mean port-side. Hauling their weight outboard will stiffen the ship a little and give the keel just a bit more bite. Every foot to windward will help. When that’s done, have the starboard guns double shotted but not run out.”

  Tillman shouted the orders and the port guns were hauled laboriously up the steeply canted deck until they were snug against the bulwarks and secured in place. Charles bitterly wished he’d thought of it earlier. The ships were closing, almost within musket range. It did indeed look as if there would be a collision. One of them was going to crash into the side of the other, it was almost certain. What then? Both ships might lose their masts, more probably the frailer-built cutter. The Frenchman would probably try to board straightaway if he could. Was it a chance Charles was willing to take? Was it a chance the Lomond should take? He decided it wasn’t. The odds would be better if he wore now to bring his guns to bear and hope to cripple the privateer. If that failed he would have to trust his luck in an open-sea fight against both cutters.

  “It’s no good,” he said to Tillman. “Prepare to lay off. We’ll try to rake her as we pass her stern.”