“Aye, sir.”
“Very well then, Lieutenant. Now, come with me.” Already, midshipmen were scurrying
from the lockers with armloads of colorful flags. Gray joined them, noting their nervousness that he, their admiral, was in their midst. “Are you ready, my young lads?”
“Aye, sir!” they cried in chorus.
He crossed his arms, tugged at his earring and angled his head to one side as though lost in thought. “The first signal I should like to make,” he said pensively, “is to Triton, to be repeated to the convoy beyond. And make haste, Mr. Stern, as you must warm up for the work you shall soon have to perform for me!”
“Aye, sir!”
“To the convoy: continue sailing with all haste for England. With any luck, they’ll be safely away before Villeneuve sees them, but if not, I doubt he will be fool enough to chase after them and thus weaken his own strength as a massed fighting unit. Make the signal directly, Lieutenant, we haven’t all day, you know!”
The signals were hauled skyward, bursting from Harleigh's masts, clawing at the wind.
Puffs of smoke plumed from the leading French frigate, a half mile away now and closing fast.
Another ball plowed the sea, twenty feet beyond Harleigh' s taffrail. Seconds later, the sharp report echoed across the waves.
“My second signal. Make to Captain Lord in Triton: Prepare for battle and make more
sail. ”
Sir Graham watched the French frigate running out her bow chaser. “The third. Make to our frigates Chatham and Cricket. Prepare for battle and take station to windward of Triton.”
The Frenchman fired again. The ball splashed into the sea just aft of Harleigh's rudder.
More flags darted skyward, the little midshipman trying desperately to keep the pages of his signals book from fluttering in the wind. He glanced at his admiral, that man so far removed from his own lowly rank that he might have been a god, and found Sir Graham smiling at him.
The admiral winked. “Cheer up, Mr. Marshall, I have not even begun to work you yet!”
“Signal from Triton, sir! Acknowledged!”
Out of the corner of his eye, Gray saw Captain Warner fidgeting with impatience.
“Signal from Chatham, sir! Acknowledged!”
The admiral gave a barely perceptible nod. And then he saw the pile of signal flags lying on the deck, the flag-lieutenant and the midshipman standing ready, an anxious marine positioned nearby, and Captain Warner regarding him anxiously. He saw nearly three hundred men all watching him, wondering what he would do—and how he would get them out of this.
“Cricket acknowledged, sir!”
And then he gazed up at the halyards on each side of the ship, the fathoms and fathoms of ropes and flags, the party of loyal men, all anxious and ready to convey his barrage of signals to an unsuspecting fleet.
Another half hour and Triton would reach him. Another ten minutes and he estimated the convoy would be well out of sight of Villeneuve’s fleet. Another minute, maybe two, and
Harleigh would be trading fire with the first of the enemy frigates.
“Are you ready, Lieutenant Stern?”
“Aye sir, as ready as I’ll ever be!”
“Very well, then, let us proceed. And do ensure that my messages can be viewed from every angle. These messages are for the benefit of our fine French friends.”
He put his hands behind his back, and when he looked at Lieutenant Stern, his eyes were
gleaming with wicked humor, his mouth curving in a smile and his jaw dimpling with delight.
“My first signal is general and to the Fleet: All hands prepare for divine worship. ”
“Uh—all hands prepare for divine worship, sir?”
“Just make the signal, boy, and be quick about it!”
Aboard the frigate Cricket, an excitable lieutenant with nineteen years behind him seized his captain’s arm and pointed wildly. “Signals from Sir Graham aboard Harleigh, sir! Look!”
Captain Roger Young grabbed his telescope. Quick-thinking and competent, he’d had his
ship cleared for action before he’d even received his admiral’s signal and now, sweating, bare-backed gun crews stared up from their huge cannon and as one swung to look at the signals bursting from the frigate Harleigh.
“What the devil?” the captain said.
“Can you make them out, sir?”
“Of course not, lieutenant, they are all mumbo jumbo to me! Midshipman Beauregard! Yes,
you with the damned French name! Can you make out that signal the admiral is flying?”
The little midshipman opened his signals book, pushing through the spray-damp pages to
look up the meaning of each flag. Bracing his legs against the leaping deck beneath him, he slowly began to spell out the message. “It”—shaking his head, he turned bleak and confused eyes upon his captain—“it makes no sense, sir!”
“Read it!”
The boy puckered his brow, his high-pitched and still-youthful voice laboring over the
message: “Signal from flag. It says”—he looked up at his captain, confused— “All— hands—
make— ready—for— divine—worship.”
“What?”
Thunder cleaved the air as the French frigates opened fire upon Harleigh.
“It says, ‘All hands make ready for divine worship,’ sir—”
“Damn you, I know what you said, surely it must be some mistake!”
“No, sir, it’s in the book—”
Another gun boomed from the French ship, raising a burst of spray off Cricket's quarter, and Captain Young clenched his fists as he willed more speed from his vessel.
“Look, sir, another signal!”
“Read it, Mr. Beauregard!”
“Prepare— to—” he hunched his shoulders, screwed up his face, stuck his neck out—“this can’t be right!— take— on stores. And another— B— L— A—C— K— What? Blackbeard Forever? Sir, what does that mean, ‘Blackbeard Forever?’ Wait, another! It’s an easy one, number 2045 ... but it doesn’t make any sense!”
“READ IT!”
Beyond Harleigh, the leading French frigate hove to, suspicious and obviously confused by the barrage of flags, their messages undecipherable without a signals book, breaking from the British ship’s ensigns.
The boy screwed up his face and looked at his captain, his expression stating his opinion that Rear Admiral Sir Graham Falconer had clearly lost his mind. “It says, Can you spare an anchor-stock? ”
But Captain Young was staring past him, his eyes intense, hard; the next signal was already at Harleigh's masts, equally ridiculous, equally nonsensical, fluttering in beautiful bursts of color for all the world to see. And as the second of the French frigates hove to and stood off, unsure about whom the English frigate was signaling to over the horizon, Captain Young figured out just what his admiral was about.
Of course the signals made no sense. They weren't meant to. Falconer was buying time by
trying to make the enemy believe he had a greater force than he actually did. Buying time. For himself, his frigates, the convoy—for all of them.
“Bonaparte’s blood!” he swore, laughing, and then, to the poor little midshipman, “make signal to Harleigh, Mr. Starkey. Acknowledge! ”
He glanced aft, but the massive flagship Triton was already overtaking him, a fortress of checkerboard sides and hungry guns towering above the sea, crowned by acres of sail and strung with an array of brightly colored flags streaming in the wind as she charged forward to collect her admiral.
###
On the deck of his own flagship, Admiral Villeneuve, in command of the Combined Franco-Spanish forces, trained his glass on the distant British frigate and the mighty ship-of-the-line that was quickly running down to meet her. Sweat dappled his aristocratic upper lip, and
apprehension clawed at his gut. Sacre bleu! He didn’t like this, didn’t like it one bit.
He lowered the g
lass. “All those signals . . . whatever do they mean?”
“Je ne sais pas, sir,” his flag-captain responded. “But were I to hazard a guess, I would say that English frigate is calling for assistance, maybe, to that fleet whose sails we can just see over the horizon?”
“I am confused. I must know what those signals mean!”
The captain gave a shrug. Between the emperor’s threats, insults, and orders, the deplorable state of the Combined Franco-Spanish Fleet, the constant confrontations with his officers, the Spaniards, and that most bone-chilling fear of all—the fear of the dreaded English Admiral Nelson, the clever, cunning, fierce Admiral Nelson who would never rest until he had run them down at last—Villeneuve had lost his nerve.
The alarming news that his English nemesis was not looking for them in Egypt as he’d been led to believe— but had chased them clear across the Atlantic—had sent Villeneuve fleeing the West Indies in blatant disobedience of the Emperor’s orders that they remain there to wait for reinforcements.
Napoleon would not be happy . . .
“That British battleship and its three meager frigates will pose us no threat, sir,” the French flag-captain assured his panicky admiral. “Our seven frigates will make short work of them. And as for Nelson, you have eluded him once again—I know what you are thinking, sir, that that frigate is summoning his assistance, but surely, the English admiral is still foolishly searching for you in the Indies—”
Villeneuve swung on his captain. “Surely, you don’t think that is Nelson that frigate is signaling to, do you?”
“Oh, no, sir, surely not! Besides, if those sails out there were Nelson’s fleet, you know as well as I do that he’d be running toward, not away from us—”
Villeneuve was falling apart. “Well, I’m not taking any chances! Mon Dieu, Capitaine, don’t just stand there! Signal our frigates to attack immediately, and for one of Gravina’s battleships to go with them in case that Englishman is too much for them!”
“And the rest of us, sir?”
“Continue on our present course for Europe!”
###
H.M.S. Triton and the frigate Harleigh reached each other at last.
To the wild cheers of seven hundred men, Rear Admiral Sir Graham Falconer clambered up
the sides of his flagship, saluted the quarterdeck, and shook hands with Captain Colin Lord.
Then, the two senior officers of the fleet strode briskly to the helm, where they watched the big Spanish battleship detach herself from the Franco-Spanish fleet and turn her massive bows toward them.
“Ready for a pell-mell battle, Captain Lord?”
“Aye, sir. You’ll not find my men lacking this day.”
“Yes, well, we’ll show those French buggers yet, eh, Colin?” The admiral clapped a hand
across his flag-captain’s shoulders to encourage him in the face of the terrible odds. “Besides, I have a strategy that cannot fail. . . .”
Captain Lord sure hoped he did, for even as the two stood watching, a frigate was detaching itself from the enemy fleet and turning her bows on them.
Another.
He took a deep and steadying breath. It was going to be a pell-mell battle, indeed.
Chapter 26
VICTORY, June 13th, 1805
My Dear Lady Hamilton,
I have learned the French fleet passed to leeward of Antigua on Saturday last, standing to the Northward and no doubt steering for Europe. My opinion is firm that something has made them resolve to leave these islands and proceed directly for Europe, but at least I leave the Indies knowing Britain’s holdings here are secure. As you may believe, my dearest, beloved angel, your Nelson is very sad at not having got at the Enemy here, but I shall hound them all the way back to Europe where I hope to bring them to glorious battle at last and annihilate them. Then, my beloved, I shall return to you crowned with glory, and the only reward I ask will be my dear Emma’s love. Oh, if not for the wrong information given me by that damned Brereton, I would have been at them days ago, and your own dear Nelson would have been forever immortalized— “Sir?”
Nelson was just putting the third emphatic bold line beneath angel and forever immortalized when the lieutenant’s words jolted him back to awareness. “Mr. Pasco!”
“I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to give you a start—”
“No, no, Mr. Pasco, it is my fault for not having heard your arrival. Pray, what is it?”
Reddening a bit, he curled his arm around the letter, hiding his words from the young lieutenant with all the guilty protectiveness of an adolescent in love.
“The captain’s respects, sir, and the masthead has just sighted the Pirate Queen’s schooner closing rapidly to windward. She seems to be in utmost haste, sir.”
“The Pirate Queen? Whatever is she doing here, she is supposed to be with Sir Graham . . .”
Trailing off, Nelson jumped to his feet, blanching as his swift mind put two and two together.
“Oh, dear God—Falconer . . . the convoy— Villeneuve!”
Flinging down his pen, the admiral grabbed his hat and charged out of the cabin.
###
Dawn.
The sky was bleak and gray, with low-hanging clouds dragging behind the darkness of
night. The ocean was still, tense, expectant, the swells filing endlessly past, lifting up the debris
—broken spars and splinters of wood, ragged cordage, and pieces of shot-torn sail—that littered the lonely patch of sea and dropping it into each successive trough.
Silence, and the haunted sighs of the wind.
A battered British frigate lay in the lee of a noble leviathan whose mizzen still flew the proud colors of a rear admiral. Where there had been three frigates, there was now only one, and some thousand feet below them the wreck of the Chatham, and those who had died with her, made her final anchorage on the bed of the Atlantic.
The other, Harleigh, had been dispatched to catch up to the unprotected convoy.
Deep in Triton's innards, the orlop was as dark as the long night had been, with only the meager glare of swinging lanterns to illuminate that dismal space that had not seen daylight since the great ship was built.
The smell of blood, sickly and sweet, lay heavily on the air. The deck planking was
drenched with it. Vomit and excrement and suffering made a choking stench strong enough to make one’s eyes water. But the surgeon and his mate had had no respite since Triton had engaged the mighty Spanish San Rafael and now, twelve hours after the battle, Dr. Ryder moved like a sleepwalker, his apron crusted with dried blood, his movements mechanical, his sweat-damp hair clinging to his brow.
It was a wonder they were all even here at all, and not lying dead on the decks, sunk, or worse, chained as prisoners of war in the hold of one of the enemy’s ships.
And they could thank their admiral, Sir Graham Falconer, for that.
With him to inspire them and Captain Lord to lead them, Triton’s crew had fought well—
and they had fought hard. So hard, in fact, that after Triton and San Rafael had pounded the stuffing out of each other for nearly three quarters of an hour with the Spaniard clearly getting the worst of it, Villeneuve, safely aboard his flagship three miles away, had finally recalled his battleship and frigates—which were also taking a beating from their own—and the enemy fleet had fallen off to leeward under a full press of sail. Why Villeneuve hadn’t sent in additional heavy battleships to handle Triton was a mystery, but Ryder suspected the French admiral had no desire to see his ships so heavily damaged that it would cost them valuable time in the flight back across the Atlantic.
Valuable time that might, Ryder thought wryly, give Lord Nelson all the more opportunity
to find and destroy them.
It was a damned good thing that Sir Graham had come up with that ruse with the signals,
because if Villeneuve had known that the sails on the horizon were not, in fact, Nelson’s fleet, but a harmless and lucr
ative sugar convoy, the outcome would have been very different indeed.
Yes, thank God for their admiral.
Ryder thought of how, his Bible in hand, Sir Graham had solemnly recited the Twenty-third Psalm in his clear baritone as the bodies—sewn in sailcloth and weighted by cannonballs—had awaited that final journey to the bottom. Ryder knew the solemn ceremony would soon be repeated; already, the sad shapes of those he'd been unable to save lay waiting to be sewn into their canvas coffins. Less fortunate men lay groaning in pain in the gloom around them, some babbling in delirium or screaming in agony as a limb was removed or a splinter cut out, while others merely lay on the deck propped against the bulkhead, their eyes staring into space as if they were already dead.
One of the survivors was set a bit away from the rest, still and unconscious now after the agonies he had suffered earlier: Ryder’s eyes went bleak that the fates had laid waste to such a fine young officer as Captain Colin Lord. It was always ones like him that God took; the finest, the most promising, the cream of the crop, the best.
He heard footsteps approaching and sighed heavily. Well, if God wanted Captain Lord, He
was in for one hell of a fight.
The admiral paused to comfort a ship’s boy who had lost a finger and was sobbing brokenly for his mother. And then, his face solemn and the ship’s cat struggling in the crook of his arm, he walked slowly to where his flag-captain lay, and knelt down beside him.
“Colin.”
Out of the corner of his eye, the surgeon saw Sir Graham set the little animal carefully down against the flag-captain’s ribs, then reach out to take the still hand in his own.
“He’ll not hear you, sir,” Ryder said quietly, watching as the cat flattened itself protectively against Captain Lord’s side. “I dosed him up good with rum before I set the leg. He appears to have a remarkably low tolerance for alcohol and will be out of it for a while, I’m afraid.”
“It is better that way.” Sir Graham looked up, his dark eyes troubled, anguished. “I should like to have him moved to my quarters, Ryder. This is no place for him to—”
To die, he’d been about to say.
My Lady Pirate Page 25
