by Hunter, Seth
Nathan joined Tully at the rail, staring into the murk to the west.
“So what manner of man is this Williams,” he inquired, “the skipper of the Fortune?”
Tully made a face. “I only met him once,” he said, “though I knew him by repute. A vain man, a braggart, and greedy. He’s a good enough seaman, I believe, but I did not like him.”
So was this why he was ready to betray him? Or was it a more noble cause: the oath he had taken to serve the King, perhaps? There was no way of asking such a question, not for Nathan at least, and besides, he was committed now. And his officers would judge him for it. Happily, Collector Swales had gone below to sleep off the effects of a large hip flask that had comforted him through the hours of darkness while Nathan spent the night on deck, worrying.
He wondered what made him so concerned: to lose sleep over a smuggler? Nothing to do with honour, for where was the honour in such a mission? It might earn a commendation from his superiors but would do little for his self-esteem. It was more a matter of his own competence. Of judging himself fit for command.
Doubts of this nature had begun to assail him from the moment he had stepped aboard the Nereus; perhaps earlier, during the long months ashore on half pay. He had been ten years in the Navy and it seemed a little late to be considering that he had chosen the wrong career and yet he was increasingly of the opinion that this was the case.
He had been happy enough for the first few years—as a midshipman on the West Indies station and then a lieutenant on a survey vessel in the South Seas—but he had been fortunate to escape many of the restrictions and the formalities that were the norm in the King’s service. When the Hermes was paid off in ’91 he had spent almost eighteen months ashore, mostly in London, and discovered there were more ways of spending one’s life than on the deck of a ship of war and companions for whom the Navy was not the be all and end all of life.
Then he had been offered the command of the Nereus. It was a surprise appointment and he suspected his father’s influence in the matter. Nathan’s father, Sir Michael Peake, had fought in three wars against the French and retired with the rank of rear admiral but he still had friends in high places and was always willing to use them to his son’s advantage. Nathan had briefly considered turning the offer down—effectively ending his career—but it would have broken his father’s heart. Besides, what else could he do? He painted a little. He wrote verse. He was interested in astronomy. He was learning to play the flute. The accomplishments of the average gentleman of leisure with aspirations to learning. He was afraid that if he permitted himself the time to focus on any one of these endeavours he might discover himself to be totally without talent.
Yet he could not help but reflect that there had been something of the coward in his acceptance of the commission. And his restlessness would not be abated. He felt a persistent sense of restriction that he could not quite identify or define—though the physical restrictions were obvious on a vessel barely a hundred feet long and thirty in the beam, crammed with over a hundred officers and men.
But it was not that. The simple truth was that he loved the sea but not the service. And, of course, it did not help that he was employed in nothing more heroic than the hunting down of a smuggler of fine wines and full proof brandy in the service of His Majesty’s Customs.
Yet another squall to the west. Nathan stood and eased his cramped limbs over to the weather rail and gazed out at the distant rain. It seemed to be flowing up rather than down, as if the clouds were replenishing themselves from the ocean. He would have liked to try and capture the image on canvas but he could imagine what his officers would have made of that, let alone Collector Swales, should he ever emerge from his slumbers.
Sirs, I beg to report that the master and commander of the King’s sloop Nereus, forsaking the chase and sailing above ten hours to the coast of France, proceeded to set up easel and canvas upon the deck and indulge himself in painting the view . . .
After which he treated us to an improvised arrangement upon the flute. The smuggler, meantime, made good his escape.
It would at least end the dilemma over his naval career.
A shout from the maintop, an arm flung out to sea, two, perhaps three points on their quarter. Nathan could see nothing from the deck. Just those dirty strands of rain twixt sea and sky. There could be anything out there or nothing but the direction was right. He swung himself up into the shrouds and joined the lookout in the top.
“Damned if I can see her now, sir,” the fellow muttered, chastened, shaking his head, avoiding his captain’s eye. “But I did I swear it. A black lugsail to nor’-nor’-west and then she vanished, by God, as if by sorcery.”
Nathan caught the implication. He’d seen it in the faces of the crew on deck. They were beginning to think of her as a ghost ship, with her black sails and hull. A nautical legend, manned by skeletons. He stood up with his arm through the foretop shrouds and stared out at the drifting cobwebs of rain. Nothing. Then . . .
“Yes,” he said. It was almost a growl in his throat. He felt the seaman gazing at him in wonder and felt the same boyish satisfaction he had as a midshipman when he’d played the same game. He took out his glass, slid it open and clapped it to his eye. It took him a moment to fix her and in that time he heard the shout of exultation from the lookout as he spied her again. Then Nathan had her framed in the lens, heading straight for them with the wind a little abaft her beam and those great lugsails heeling her hard to leeward. Keep right on, my beauty, he silently urged her. She could lead them a merry dance on a bowline but if she kept going large the Nereus had her measure. The problem was her skipper knew it as well as he. He could come round in an instant and vanish in the murk.
But would he? He could not possibly know the Nereus by sight, not from that one brief glimpse of her off the Cuckmere in the dark. And why would he think to find her off the Somme? He would know her for a ship of war but Nereus flew no ensign. He would take her for a Frenchman, surely, standing off the coast, or waiting for high tide to enter St. Valéry as he himself intended.
Nathan slid down to the deck and favoured Mr. Tully with an appreciative nod before he let the first lieutenant know—but he stayed him from calling the watch below. If the lugger did hold to her present course they’d be watching his every move through the glass and he wanted nothing to alarm them, not until she was beyond redemption.
“And Mr. Harris,” he turned to the marine subaltern standing with the elder of the two midshipmen by the rail, “would you oblige me by keeping your men below for the time being.”
Nathan wanted no redcoats on deck to give the game away.
“And perhaps you would be good enough to give my compliments to Mr. Swales,” he said to the midshipman—Ericson, “and tell him I would be obliged if he would step on deck.”
Fortune came on apace. They could see her now from the deck without a glass and the figure at her head: a bare-breasted goddess with flowing hair, white as marble; and those distinctive lugsails, not quite black but a very dark crimson, the colour of dried blood. She could not go through him so which way would she bear? Best it were to larboard so he could force her out to sea. But she’d not run past him—not on either side, not if he ran out his guns. One broadside would finish her: if he had the nerve to fire it.
He crossed to the weather side and raised his glass to study the nearer of the two batteries that guarded the entrance to the Somme. No apparent sign of life apart from the large tricolour at the flagstaff. Six gun ports. Forty-two-pounders by report. Britain and France were not at war—as he kept reminding himself—but if he was to fire upon another vessel so close to the French coast what would they do?
Swales was at his side, bleary-eyed and puffy-faced.
Nathan handed him the glass.
He applied himself to it for a moment. Then, begrudgingly, “How in God’s name . . . ?”
“What can I do?” Nathan asked him. “What jurisdiction do we have?”
“Jurisdiction?” For a moment Nathan thought he would have to explain the term. Swales gazed through his naked eye at the vessel bearing down on them. A furred tongue flicked over dry lips.
“Well . . .” he began, “we have every right to board her.”
“And what would we find?”
The man appeared to deflate, knowing as well as Nathan that she was no longer carrying contraband and was well outside English waters.
“Would you swear she is the same vessel we saw off the Cuckmere,” Nathan pressed him, “that fired into the Badger?”
Swales blew himself up again. “That I would,” he replied. “No doubt in my mind. And you?”
Nathan nodded. But this was scarcely the point. Would a jury convict on such evidence—and a Sussex jury at that?
She was coming up a little into the wind. She meant to pass between the Nereus and the shore. Then he saw her sails shiver for a moment and fall aback. A moment later the slap of his own sails against the mast announced that they had lost the wind. The bow began to swing at once into the mouth of the Somme.
Nathan considered his options. The Nereus carried sweeps but it would be hard work against the flood. Better to drop anchor in the mouth of the river until the wind picked up. Almost certainly the Fortune would do the same, for she would not wish to enter the Somme until the tide was up and Nathan could send his boats to board her.
A loud boom from the direction of the shore and he jerked his head to catch the puff of smoke from the battery on Pointe du Hourdel. A moment . . . and then the tall splash about a cable’s length off the larboard bow. The officers exchanged glances. Nathan swore quietly, more in exasperation than alarm. A warning shot, he thought, to tell him they did not want him in their river. Serious enough but . . .
But it wasn’t. It was a ranging shot. Moments later the fort vanished in a cloud of black smoke shot with orange as the rest of the battery opened up. The sea rose up off the larboard bow in several enormous waterspouts. One shot skipped twice and sank a few yards from their stern.
“Man the sweeps,” Nathan commanded the first lieutenant. His voice sounded calm enough but his heart was pounding. In ten years of service it was the first time he had been under fire, at least from cannon—and these were no little pop-guns such as the Fortune carried or even the Nereus. They were 42-pounders, bigger than any of the long guns carried on a first-rate. A single hit and the Nereus would know she was in a battle. But what really upset Nathan was that they were not at war.
“Let them see the ensign,” he instructed the first. Then, as Jordan gave the order to hoist it from the flagstaff, “No. Between the yards.” He had no wish to see it hanging limply from the stern so the French could claim they had not seen it. Let them know they were firing upon a King’s ship and think on what it meant.
They had the sweeps out now and the bow was coming slowly round but Nathan was alarmed at how far they had drifted into the mouth of the Somme. They were already within the jaws of the two headlands and still moving.
Another salvo—but from the other battery on Pointe à Guile.
This time Nathan heard the whine of the falling shot and the sea erupted all along their starboard side, close enough to soak the deck in spray.
They must have seen the ensign, even in the poor light. They had fired on the flag: an act of war. Nathan’s indignation surpassed his concern and even as the gravity of the occasion impressed itself upon him, a strange logic persuaded him that they would go no further than that; that having thrown down the gauntlet they would let the Nereus crawl away with her tail between her legs. It surprised him when they fired again—and again. Both batteries with scarcely a space between them.
It was astonishing that the sloop was not hit. The water boiled around her and several shots passed through the rigging with the noise of a great wind through a forest but without bringing down a single spar. Nathan still had the sails rigged in hope of an offshore breeze but they hung sullenly from the yards, sodden with rain, while the crew toiled gamely at the sweeps. For all their efforts they were barely making headway against the flood and Nathan had the two watches ease off in turn so the brig slewed and shot about like some ungainly water boatman in a bid to spoil the gunners’ aim. But the gunners could not make such practice for long without a hit. One shot skipped up off the water and struck the hull amidships just above the waterline with a sound like someone beating upon a big bass drum; another parted the backstay with a great twang; and the orchestra was augmented by an enormous clang and a thud up forward that had Nathan puzzled until he realised it had struck the bower anchor and shattered, one half flying high in the air and dropping on the deck, the other going God knows where. The crew were tiring. Nathan and most of his officers had joined them at the sweeps but as far as he could judge through eyes near blinded by sweat and spray they were barely holding their own against the flood.
When he felt the wind on his cheek he thought it was another near miss. Then he saw the sails fill. They missed the next stroke as the brig lurched and Nathan went sprawling on the deck in a tangle of arms and legs, officers and crew all cheering and laughing, dignity and discipline gone by the board. When Nathan scrambled to his feet and reached the helm they were scudding under a fair breeze. He looked astern as both batteries fired together and the space the sloop had so recently vacated rose in fury like some multi-headed sea monster robbed of its prey. The next salvo fell astern by half a cable’s length and the one after that was a waste of powder. Then another squall scrubbed away the shore, forts and all.
Nathan looked for the Fortune but she had vanished into the rain and he was not displeased to see the last of her. He set a course for Shoreham so he might see the last of the Revenue officer, too, and asked Mr. Jordan for a damage report. There was the backstay, of course, spliced already, and some timbers slightly sprung amidships by the spent shot, which the carpenter said he could attend to. But the surprise for Nathan was the damage from the shot that had struck his best bower anchor. The anchor was sound enough but—the lieutenant informed him, lowering his voice for the shame of it—part of the shot had flown forward and smashed the heads.
Nathan went forward to see for himself, more in wonder than alarm—he had his own more civilised arrangements in his cabin. It was the crew who would suffer by it. Then he saw that the figurehead, old Nereus himself, the old man of the sea, had lost a large chunk of his beard.
“They have added insult to injury,” he complained to the carpenter who he knew took a special pride in the figure, which he somewhat resembled.
The boatswain’s mate brought him the half cannonball that had landed on deck, neatly sheared where it had struck the anchor, and Nathan had it put in a canvas bag with some notion that it might be kept for posterity: the first shot in a new war. For the French had fired on a King’s ship and he was confident their lordships would not suffer the wrong to go unavenged.
Chapter 3
Chez Kitty
Nathan sat in the crowded waiting room of the Admiralty with his cannonball at his feet and small lump of lead in his heart. When the commodore had commanded him to make report to their lordships in person and to take his trophy with him by way of evidence, Nathan had entertained some notion of celebrity, even advancement. The war of ’39 had commenced with a not dissimilar incident when the skipper of an English merchant vessel, about his lawful business, had suffered the loss of an ear in an encounter with the Spanish garda costa off Cuba. The severed organ having been displayed in Parliament and the House being in temper, a state of hostilities had ensued which became popularly known as the War of Jenkins Ear. Though unbloodied and with all his organs intact, Nathan was of the opinion that firing upon a King’s ship must constitute a greater offence to the dignity of the realm than the physical injury to a merchant se
aman and that it was not impossible, given the current mood of Parliament and the humour of the press, that Peake’s Ball, or even Peake’s Heads, might achieve a similar notoriety.
He had been instructed to report to the Second Secretary but understood this official to be a mere conduit to the First Lord himself. However, on his arrival he had discovered the establishment to be in a state of turmoil and tumult, his visit having coincided with more dramatic news from the continent.
The King of France had been killed—murdered, in the view of the London press—and the regicides had declared war upon England; or England had declared war on the regicides, no one seemed to know the precise sequence of events. But war it was and the fleet had been ordered to sea and every half-pay officer in England had converged upon the Admiralty in the hope of securing a position.
After waiting more than three hours for his appointment Nathan had an increased perception of the vanity of human endeavour. After another half hour he gave up and went home, taking his cannonball with him—home in this instance being his mother’s house in St. James’s, where he was at least assured of a welcome and his cannonball a place of prominence among the family memorabilia.
His mother was not there—an eventuality he might have anticipated—but her steward, Phipps, assured Nathan that she would be back shortly. He proposed a dish of cold meats, which Nathan took in the kitchen, and a hot bath, which he took in his room. He was comfortably immersed in the latter and contemplating whether to call for more hot water when his mother burst in with her usual lack of ceremony and hailed him from the open door while several maids blushed and giggled in the background.
“My darling boy,” she exclaimed, in tones of surprised delight, “I had persuaded myself you were sacrificed already on the altar of false patriotism.”
