Until the Sea Shall Give Up Her Dead

by Sean Thomas Russell

  Two British topmen and Lord Arthur Wickham came to his side, and the four of them pressed forward, a deadly little squadron of fighters, taking a foot of deck and then another. Hayden felt a point penetrate his left arm above the elbow and realized it had been a thrust aimed at Wickham which the midshipman had parried. There was no time to stop and assess damage; they were beset on all sides.

  It was a long battle and, when finally it appeared that his side had carried the day, Hayden had to use his cutlass as a cane to hold himself up. All his reserves were spent and he heaved and gasped like a man who had been too long beneath the water.

  Although he could still hear the sounds of battle forward, the Frenchmen around him were surrounded in little knots and began throwing down their arms and suing for quarter. Wickham went off into the dark as though on some urgent errand and returned a moment later with midshipman Gould in tow.

  Immediately, Gould approached his captain and Hayden realized that he and Wickham were removing his jacket and that his forearm and hand dripped with blood. He felt suddenly a little light-headed.

  ‘It was my doing,’ Wickham explained to Gould. ‘I parried a thrust and it went off my blade and caught the captain unaware … and I am heartily sorry for it.’

  Hayden wanted to tell Wickham that it was not his fault in any way at all, but could not, somehow. The two midshipmen sat him down on a gun carriage while Gould tore away his sleeve and used it for a dressing.

  ‘Have I ever told you, Mr Gould,’ Hayden said, carefully forming his words, as though he were a few drinks drunk, ‘how pleased I am that your brothers studied medicine?’

  Gould managed a smile. ‘Never have you, sir.’

  ‘Well, now I have. How have we fared, Mr Wickham?’

  ‘Ransome and Hawthorne are gathering up the prisoners. I do not know how the other Themises have done, but Captain Serrano shall have a butcher’s bill such as he has never seen, I suspect.’

  ‘And has our good Spanish captain survived?’

  ‘I saw him but a moment ago,’ Gould replied, ‘going below … looking for prisoners, I should imagine.’

  ‘Let us hope there are some … we need to make up a prize crew … and Serrano needs a command, I think.’

  Gould finished tying Hayden’s dressing. ‘No major arteries were severed, sir, so I should hope it would stop bleeding soon.’ He did not say a word about the possibility of the wound going septic.

  ‘Thank you, Gould.’ Hayden’s moment of light-headedness had passed and he rose to his feet. He turned back to the rail and called up to the men in the rigging, ‘Aloft there! Can you yet see the other ships?’

  ‘I can just make them out, Captain. They haven’t moved, sir.’

  ‘And I am more than glad to hear it,’ Hayden muttered. ‘How much damage is there aloft?’ he then called.

  ‘A good deal, sir,’ came the reply from the heavens. ‘It shall be a job of work to put it aright.’

  Ransome came striding out of the dark, cutlass still in hand. ‘She swims, Captain,’ he declared. ‘We managed not to hole her below the waterline.’

  ‘Are there prisoners, Mr Ransome?’

  ‘Not so many as on the frigate. Appeared to be fifty or sixty, sir. Captain Serrano is seeing to them.’

  French prisoners were being herded on to the forecastle and made to sit down on the deck. Hayden glanced up at the stars, wondering how distant dawn might be. Wind remained in absence – not enough to stir a lock of a maiden’s hair – and even in the darkness the heat was oppressive, the air close.

  There was a flurry at the ladder head. Out of the gaggle of men rushing on to the deck appeared Serrano, holding a square of linen over his mouth and nose.

  ‘Fever,’ he blurted from behind his hand. ‘They have fever aboard this ship.’

  Thirty-one

  Every man who heard retreated from Serrano and his small entourage. The word passed along the deck like a hissing little breeze. Fever! They have the fever!

  Hayden fought an impulse to retreat over the rail back on to the frigate.

  ‘How many?’ he asked quietly, displaying composure he did not feel.

  ‘I did not count,’ Serrano replied. ‘The sick-berth is overflowing.’

  ‘Has it spread among the Spanish prisoners?’

  ‘I – I do not know.’

  ‘Send a man below to find out. I shall not release them if there is fever among them.’

  ‘But I have released them already.’

  ‘They might have to go into quarantine. Have a lieutenant find out if they have the Yellow Jack.’

  Serrano nodded. He spoke a moment to one of his officers and then retreated to the rail. Certainly, he would have gone back to the frigate but could not while Hayden and his officers remained aboard the infected ship. His pride was not yet overruled by his terror of the fever, though this was clearly substantial.

  Hayden felt for a moment that the decisions he had to make were too complicated for his brain to encompass. He had a Spanish frigate bearing too many French prisoners. A privateer’s ship with likely one hundred and fifty more. He had fever among the French on this ship and perhaps among their Spanish prisoners as well. He had hoped to use this ship in his pursuit of the privateers and his bride but now he had other difficulties.

  Serrano’s lieutenant emerged from below, found his captain by the rail and shook his head. Hayden almost sighed aloud.

  He went to the Spanish captain at the rail and waved the others away.

  ‘I shall put you in command of this ship and send you into Havana with all of our French prisoners. You will have to go into quarantine there, but you might send us aid. There must be Spanish Navy ships there.’

  Serrano was clearly taken aback by this and did not offer an answer.

  ‘Shall I put one of your lieutenants in command and send him to Havana?’ Hayden whispered.

  Serrano looked around, as though searching for something that might save him from this command. ‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘I shall take her in. But we might have trouble with the prisoners if they know they are going into a ship with the fever.’

  ‘It is likely known among all their ships, but we will quarantine the sick and keep them separate. I will speak with the French master.’ This brought another matter to hand. ‘Where is the master of this ship? What has become of him?’

  Enquiries were quickly made, and it was revealed that the French master – the formidable captain who had fought his ship so cunningly – had been killed in the hand-to-hand fighting. Hayden was sorry to hear it, for certainly the man had been a brilliant officer … even if a privateer.

  Hayden put Serrano and Hawthorne in charge of transferring prisoners, and sent Ransome and Wickham aloft with a Spanish bosun and his crew to begin putting the frigate’s rig to rights. Serrano mastered himself and began to effect repairs on the privateer.

  Hayden went about his ship, seeing to everything being done. As he did so, he encountered an acrid smoke hanging over the ship and on her lower decks. Finding Ransome, he enquired of it.

  ‘Some leaves and twigs, sir,’ the lieutenant informed him. ‘The Spanish surgeon has ordered it burned to keep back the Yellow Jack from the other ship.’

  ‘I should think it would hold any contagion at bay,’ Hayden said. ‘It is the most wretched odour!’

  Ransome smiled. ‘I agree, sir. It seems to keep the insects away, so it is not altogether useless.’

  Light found all the ships, becalmed only a few miles from the Cuban coast, men clambering among the rigging, swaying up topmasts, crossing yards and renewing shrouds and stays.

  Almost forgotten in the fighting was the schooner. Hayden asked Serrano to make up a small crew of experienced men and sent it off for Nassau to carry word of what had occurred, hoping to find Navy ships there that might be sent to his aid. Commonly, he would have put a lieutenant or midshipman in command but he was so short of officers he could not spare them. Using a Spanish crew was less than ideal, bu
t he could see no way around it, and watched the vessel set sail with some misgivings.

  It was noon before the ships were ready for sea, and still the wind did not blow over that part of the ocean. Hayden and all his men were exhausted beyond measure, for none had slept that night and they had fought a hard battle and refitted their ship – much of it by darkness.

  Hayden had kept one of Serrano’s lieutenants aboard the frigate to translate his orders and station the Spanish crew as necessary. Watches were arranged, messes organized and the ship put into order.

  The lieutenant, whose Spanish rank Hayden believed was Teniente de navío, was named Reverte, and he seemed rather pleased to find himself in the chase – despite the odds – and not returning to Havana to seek help. The fact that the ship Serrano commanded had the Yellow Jack aboard was likely something of a relief as well.

  While the watch below slept, the deck watch were kept busy about the ship, despite their exhaustion. With the enemy so near, Hayden did not feel he could allow these men to rest but kept them constantly employed so that they might be ready to defend the ship of an instant should the privateers again launch boats.

  He questioned Reverte closely about the other frigate – the one he believed carried Angelita. She was a sister ship to the frigate he had taken, with identical guns arrayed in the same manner. Reverte did not believe either ship to be swifter or more weatherly, and both, according to him, were fresh from refit and in near-perfect condition. It was obvious he believed them to be superior to both French and British frigates of similar rate.

  ‘The privateers would never have taken either ship, but they employed a ruse no one had before seen,’ he explained to Hayden. ‘We first saw smoke on the horizon and, upon approaching, the Spanish-flagged ships taking off the crew of a transport that appeared to be afire. Boats were plying back and forth with all haste and some men on the burning ship plunged into the sea and swam. Immediately, we went to their aid but all the boats in the water bore armed men and suddenly we were beset by overwhelming numbers and our ships, which were utterly unprepared, overrun.’

  ‘I have never seen such a ruse before,’ Hayden admitted, ‘and almost certainly would have fallen victim to it myself.’

  ‘You are being very gracious, Captain. We abandoned all common caution. I believe it was the men leaping into the sea – to avoid burning, it seemed – that convinced us what we saw was real.’

  ‘And you did not note that these ships carried more guns than any transport would?’

  Reverte held up a finger, ‘Ahh, but here they were clever as well. We could see canvas strips painted with gunports, which transports sometimes wear to appear to be what they are not. But these canvas strips concealed real gunports! As though one wore an obviously false beard to hide one’s real beard.’

  ‘Do you recall seeing, among the privateers, a young woman?’

  ‘This is Mrs Hayden, Captain?’

  It was uncanny, Hayden thought, how easily rumours could penetrate the language barrier. He nodded.

  ‘Yes, there was such a woman. Not the sort one would expect to see aboard a French privateer. She was with a young man I assumed must be her husband. I should have realized they were Spanish by his dress, but my mind … We had just lost our ship to a ruse and my career was finished.’

  ‘Perhaps we can resurrect your career, Lieutenant.’

  ‘Perhaps …’ The young man, who appeared to be about Hayden’s age, glanced over at the prize so recently taken and now under command of Captain Serrano. ‘My captain will never revive his career. It is a tragedy, for he is an admirable man and an exceptional officer.’

  Hayden thought the captain something of a fool for approaching strange ships without first beating to quarters, or at least being utterly certain of their nationality and intentions before drawing near. Panicked men leaping off the burning ship, though … Hayden suppressed a smile of admiration – it was a brilliant bit of theatre.

  ‘On deck?’ the lookout cried. ‘The privateers appear to have wind, sir.’

  Hayden and Reverte hurried forward, where they found Ransome gazing through a glass. A glass, however, was not necessary: Hayden could see sails being loosed.

  ‘They will sail their anchors out on that wind,’ Ransome declared.

  Hayden glanced up at the masthead. There was hardly a breath stirring. The crew was already at quarters, in the event that they must repel boarders.

  ‘Prepare to heave our anchor, Mr Ransome. We shall keep the crews at their guns but have them ready to loose sail at a moment’s notice. These privateers might let the wind carry them down to us, and could reach us even as the wind does.’

  ‘Will we cut our anchor cable, then, sir?’ Ransome asked.

  ‘If we are forced to. I am loath to give up another anchor.’

  ‘I believe they will run,’ Reverte declared.

  ‘But they are four ships and we are but two …’ Ransome handed the Spaniard his glass.

  Reverte raised it to his eye. ‘That is true, but Captain Hayden has already taken two of their ships. They will not want to risk losing the prize they have taken. I believe they will run … but perhaps I will be proven wrong.’

  An anxious half of the hour followed and, just as wind began to stir about the ship, it became clear that Reverte would not be proven wrong. The privateers gathered way and shaped their course to follow the coast away from Hayden and Serrano’s vessels. For a frustrating hour Hayden and his crew watched their quarry fly, gathering speed, it appeared, by the minute.

  But, finally, the wind reached them, almost on the beam. Setting just enough sail to give them way against the current, they retrieved their anchor, the men at the capstan almost trotting in a circle to keep up.

  Perhaps two hours after noon, they were under sail and in pursuit of their enemy, the lookouts calling out when reefs or coral heads could be seen, and the officer of the watch giving orders to the helmsman and sail handlers to shape their course to avoid these obstacles. While they had been refitting, Hayden had ordered the mizzen topmast and yards swayed up so that his ship could carry all possible sail.

  Ransome and Wickham had gone over the ship’s stores and reported that, as expected, they were victualled and watered for an ocean crossing and had enough powder and shot to take on a good-sized fleet.

  The four ships of the privateers sailed in a line, the distance between them short and the frigate second in line. Two of the converted transports, with their twenty 12-pounders, lay between Hayden and Mrs Hayden – and the same two ships lay between the British members of the crew and a cargo of Spanish silver. Avarice, Hayden thought, could be seen shining in their eyes and upon their very faces. Although they did not know the value of this cargo, everyone imagined it large enough to make them wealthy for life. Hayden did not tell them that they were treading into a legal quagmire. The Spanish remained their allies (or so Hayden assumed), they were aboard a liberated Spanish ship which the Spanish captain had claimed to be property of the Spanish Crown. Hayden contended the frigate was a British prize until superior officers deemed it otherwise and, if they were to take the frigate bearing bullion, it would be the same. However, it was possible, given the delicacy of Britain’s alliance with Spain, that the Admiralty or the British government might choose to return the ships – and their cargos – to Spain. In which case the Admiralty might compensate Hayden and his crew for this loss, or they might not. More litigation, Hayden felt, with a distinct lowering of his spirits, might lie in his future.

  The weather remained unsettled. Great continents of cloud passed over; the flattened, dense landscapes oppressively grey and unvarying. The wind, though constant in its direction, would take off, then make, then fall almost calm so Hayden ordered the anchor cable faked down upon the gundeck so that they might let go the anchor should the ship lose way altogether. The current, though small, could easily sweep a ship up on to a reef and do her considerable damage.

  Hayden was forced to slip down to the cap
tain’s cabin and sleep for a few hours, as he could hardly stand for fatigue and he knew he would need a clear head and excellent judgement over the next few days. He did not want to be making decisions out of exhaustion and desire. His men deserved better than that. He emerged in the late afternoon, feeling somewhat befuddled, hoping the wind would clear his mind.

  The brief tropical day wore swiftly on, and the sun was soon astern where the vast plains of cloud had not yet travelled. A honeyed light illuminated the fleeing ships and their tanned sails against the grey so that they appeared to be revealed in some holy light. All aboard gazed at this sight in solemn silence, as though they could see the very glitter of Papist silver going before them.

  Hayden called together his senior officers, and both Scrivener and the Spanish sailing master, and spread a chart upon the table in the captain’s cabin.

  ‘The channel grows broader and again broader as we approach the Windward Channel. Even this night its width is much greater than when we weighed. I do not think we should give the enemy the slightest indication of it, but I propose we man all the guns on the gundeck, keep our gunports closed, and in all ways prepare for battle except upon the upper deck, where such preparations might be observed. With this dark sky, we will slip up on the aftermost ship and use our 18-pounders to our very great advantage. We might knock one ship out of the fight this very night.’

  The young officers shifted about in excitement, but Hayden looked to Hawthorne, whom he had charged to be his common sense over the next few days – given that Hayden’s own might be pushed aside by his feelings.

  Hawthorne gave an almost imperceptible nod, which, for some reason, forced Hayden to hide a smile. There was something oddly amusing about a marine who was known to become ill in small boats sanctioning his plans.

  ‘Shall we return the anchor cable to the cable tier, sir?’ Ransome enquired.