Hayden took stock of their situation. The wind had taken off until it was no longer blowing a gale but had begun veering into the north-west, and the temperature was dropping noticeably. An ugly cross-sea was beginning to develop and waves pressed by the north-westerly began to build and overlay the swell from the sou’west. The ship was now running almost free, but had a terrible corkscrew motion.
‘Enough to make a man-o’-war’s man retch,’ Barthe growled. ‘It will have gone around to the north in another hour and the seas will become more confused yet. We have a cold, uncomfortable night ahead.’
Hayden was about to agree when a meagre, reddish glow appeared off their starboard quarter. Almost everyone noted it at once, engendering a little choir of exclamations.
‘It is a red flare, high up in the rigging,’ Archer asserted. ‘We are merely seeing it light the sails from abaft.’
As if to prove him right, a red flare appeared in a slot between the sails, and then a second, though how distant no one could gauge.
‘A red flare!’ the foremast lookout called. ‘A point off the larboard bow.’
‘We are between them,’ Archer said in consternation. He looked about wildly as though fearing such flares would appear all around.
‘Two ships,’ Mr Barthe pronounced solemnly. ‘Let us hope there is no third.’
‘Jump forward, Mr Wickham, if you please,’ Hayden ordered, ‘and see if you can make out the ship.’
‘Aye, sir.’
Wickham and Madison went running forward. A gust from the north struck them then, and a little rain obscured all flares in the blur. The squall seemed to race past, and the wind fell to lulls and gusts. Some distance aft, the flares of the ship reappeared, setting sails aglow and silhouetting a faint tracery of rigging.
An urgent rapping along the deck was Madison returning. ‘Captain Hayden,’ he whispered urgently. ‘Mr Wickham believes that is a ship of the line off our bow. At least a seventy-four, sir, perhaps greater.’
‘Is luck never to be with us?’ Barthe demanded, his voice despairing.
Not another word was said among the officers on the quarterdeck but Hayden could sense their distress. He fought down his own panic and misery. The thought that he had miscalculated, horribly, brought on a moment of near blankness before he mastered his feelings and brought order back to his mind.
‘How distant?’ Hayden asked, his voice dry.
‘It is difficult thing to measure in the dark, but Mr Wickham ventured a mile, sir.’
Hayden took up his night glass and fixed it on the ship in their wake. ‘Well, that is no seventy-four. It is a frigate, at best, and very likely the same that Bradley fell in with and we drove off. Is Captain Cole to be seen?’
A moment of desperate searching – but no one could find the British twenty-six.
‘Mr Archer,’ Hayden asked, forcing his voice to something resembling normal, ‘have we red flares made up?’
‘I’m certain we do, sir,’ Archer answered with admirable calm.
‘Have someone fetch them, if you please.’
‘How many, Captain?’
‘At least two. Half a dozen, if they are to be had.’
‘Aye, sir.’
‘Mr Hayden,’ Barthe whispered, drawing near. ‘I do not know what we can do. When the captain of this ship realizes he faces only a pair of frigates… we will be dished…’
Hayden could not have his senior officers losing their nerve and replied equally quietly to the sailing master. ‘Mr Barthe, guard your words, sir.’ And then to everyone present. ‘We have but one chance,’ Hayden said. ‘Snuff every light, aloft and alow. Mr Barthe, we will slack sheets and let this frigate overtake us. Reload the guns with chain and bar and, on a roll, when well-heeled to larboard, fire at her lights and rigging aloft. If we can bring down her flares, and damage her rig enough to slow her, we will put the Themis between her and the larger ship, light red flares aloft and go after the second Frenchman. I will speak to the ship when we draw near, and, I hope, confuse them long enough that we can sail across her stern and fire every gun at her rudder, wear ship, and attempt the same a second time.’
‘With these gun crews, Mr Hayden?’ Barthe responded. ‘Half their musters are landsmen.’
‘The captains are all experienced gunners, Mr Barthe.’ Hayden heard a little frustration and peevishness creep into his voice. ‘If we can damage her rudder so that her helm no longer answers, she will not make harbour lest she is towed. And we might slip away.’
‘What about Cole, sir?’ Archer asked. ‘I should hate to have him mistake us for a Frenchman, or worse, collide with us in the dark.’
Hayden stared out into the night. Where the devil was Cole? ‘Captain Cole should be some distance to starboard and clear of us for a few moments yet. We shall have to trust to sharp eyes and providence to keep us apart.’
‘I will see to the flares aloft,’ Madison offered, and went off at a run.
‘Douse the lanterns, then,’ Hayden ordered. ‘And we must have silence on the deck. Mr Archer, have the starboard guns reloaded, if you please, and be certain the gun captains understand what is expected of them. We have but one chance this night and can make no mistakes.’
‘I’ll see it done, sir.’
The quarterdeck gunners ran in their carronades, wormed out the wadding, lowered the barrels as far as the carriages would allow and, on the roll, coaxed out the ball. Bar and chain shot were carried up from below and the guns quickly reloaded and run out, ready to fire. It was not accomplished in the most efficient or seamanlike manner, which made Hayden wonder if Barthe might be proven right, but they were in a corner and had only one very precarious track out.
The sails flapped as Barthe ordered sheets eased. A bitterly cold northerly was building, and kicking up a short, steep sea over the swell left by the sou’west gale.
‘This ship is coming up rather quickly, Captain,’ Hawthorne whispered. ‘Can she see us, do you think?’
‘It is rather close out here, but perhaps they have a French Wickham aboard whose eyes penetrate the dark.’
The red flares appeared to illuminate more of the ship as she drew near, casting a devilish glow over rig and hull. Hayden could see her pitching and rolling on the confused sea, her flares making great, ponderous ellipses in the sky. Judging distances by night was always something of a black art, but Hayden guessed the Frenchman was no more than a hundred yards distant. An order, called out in French, drifted down to them. The sails shook in a frigid gust, the thrumming travelling down stays and shrouds to the very deck.
‘I dearly hope this Frenchman catches us up,’ Barthe growled, ‘before our sails have flogged themselves to ruin.’
‘Another seventy-five yards, Mr Barthe,’ Hayden predicted. ‘Mr Archer? Open the starboard gun ports, if you please.’
‘Aye, sir.’
Wickham reappeared on the quarterdeck and Hayden sent him down to the gundeck to oversee the gunners’ efforts.
Another gust. A few drops of hard-driven rain clattered against the transom. Sails flogged, thrashing the air unmercifully. The French ship loomed up to starboard. She was a frigate now, not just a faintly glowing apparition. Hayden could almost make her out in detail. He could even see the obliquely angled gunports – open. The Themis would receive a broadside.
‘Helmsman,’ Hayden whispered. ‘Port your helm. Bring her up two points to starboard. We will haul our wind, Mr Barthe, just enough to allow us to fire before she can bring her larboard battery to bear. Then we will bear off.’
A slow turn to starboard, which gave the ship an even stranger motion as the seas struck them on the quarter. Hayden knew this would make the gunnery even more untenable. He stepped to the nearest carronade, crouched down, and sighted along the barrel. A dull, silver filigree in the trough of the Atlantic was reflection from a smudge-moon that raced among tattered clouds. And then the ship began to roll to larboard, and pitch and yaw. The view along the barrel of the gun was sea,
then slashed left to right across a great arc of sky. It would be a miracle if they hit any part of the French ship at all. They might be better to lay close alongside, pour in the broadsides that time would allow, and then return to their convoy and hope the French might be discouraged. But Hayden knew it was too late for that. He had made his decision – there was no losing one’s nerve now.
‘Mr Baldry,’ Hayden said quietly to the gun captain. ‘This will be a madly lucky shot, and I don’t think you will get more than one. Crouch here and watch the progress of your gun so you can judge the path of it. You shall have to time your firing to a nicety, or you will be bringing down nothing but cloud. I will take the helm and try to position us so that we might have a chance. Good luck to you.’
‘Thank you, sir, but if I am not speaking out of place, we’ll get more than one shot, sir. I promise you.’
‘I hope you are right.’
Hayden relieved the helmsman of his wheel. His only hope was to keep the ship on her course; it was all but impossible under such conditions to counter the yaw caused by seas on their starboard quarter. If he could but give the gunners half a chance… They would have enough to do trying to predict the motion of the two ships and then pull the firing lanyard at the right instant. There was always a delay between the lanyard being tugged, flint striking steel, sparks igniting the powder in the pan, the flare of the touch-hole powder, and detonation of the charge in the barrel. Occasionally guns failed to fire at all or hung fire for seconds… or longer.
The seas coming from the north and the swell originating in the sou’west, though each of reasonable regularity, never seemed to converge at the same point – crest meeting trough, or two crests mounting up together. The sea was, therefore, chaotic, and the motion of the ship utterly unpredictable. It did not help that darkness hid the seas until they were upon the ship from astern, and Hayden was unaware of the sou’east swells until they lifted the bow.
‘Gun captains,’ Hayden said loud enough to be heard across the quarterdeck, ‘fire when you have a shot.’
‘Aye, sir,’ the men answered up promptly but without confidence.
There was utter silence on the quarterdeck. Every man there knew what a mad endeavour this was. Gun captains crouched in the near darkness, sighting along their carronades, the dark shapes of their crews arrayed about them like standing stones. Hayden fought the wheel, trying to keep the stern from being pushed off to larboard. The mouths of the quarterdeck guns swept across the sky with such speed and unpredictability that no one dared fire.
‘Mr Baldry,’ Hayden said urgently. ‘You have to take a chance. Mr Barthe, take the helm, if you please.’
The sailing master crossed the swinging deck and took the wheel from Hayden, who went to the nearest carronade. There was a danger that the French ship would pass before a single gun was fired. The gun captain found Hayden’s hand in the dark and placed the lanyard in his fingers. As Hayden crouched, a gun on the deck below fired, to no appreciable effect; the shot blasted out into the dark sky.
‘Damn,’ one of the officers swore.
Hayden tried to time the swing of the ship with the roll, yanked the lanyard and the gun, hesitated a second too long, and fired, hissing back along the wooden slide. He’d missed… utterly.
Other guns began firing then, the element of surprise lost. One struck the rig low down – too low down – but most holed only sky.
A little moonlight filtered down, and Hayden could see the French ship turning to bring her own guns to bear.
‘We’re going to receive fire, Captain,’ Hawthorne warned.
Hayden had jumped back to let the gun crew reload.
‘Haul sheets aft, Mr Barthe,’ Hayden called and the sailing master, unable to leave the helm, called the order to Franks.
A French gun discharged harmlessly down into the sea, and then a sporadic firing began from the enemy frigate, most of it missing but one shot passed through the mizzen a dozen feet above Hayden’s head, and another thundered into the hull amidships – above the waterline, Hayden hoped.
The deep, jagged screech of eighteen-pound balls lacerating the air pimpled Hayden’s skin. It did not matter how familiar – it was a horrifying sound felt in one’s chest. Just the noise alone seemed capable of tearing away limbs.
The fire from the Themis was utterly ragged, and apparently without purpose or discipline, as the gun captains attempted to aim high into the rig of their enemy. The scream of spinning bar, as it went end for end through the air, tore apart the oceanic night, but only a few shots struck the French ship, and none produced the desired effect. The red flares still burned, their glow diluted by the faint moonlight.
Desperation was beginning to press up through Hayden’s conflicting emotions. More and more he felt like a man in the grip of a relentless undertow, struggling to keep his head above water. He heard one of the gun crew whispering, ‘Please, God. Please,’ with all the discouragement he felt.
The gun crew ran out the carronade and Hayden took the lanyard again, wondering if Baldry might not do better than he. Sighting one-eyed along the barrel, he realized that it would be a matter of the most complete luck to bring down the flares on their frame. He waited a second as the ship began to roll to larboard. The Frenchman’s guns were firing as the roll brought them to bear, and they were beginning to damage the Themis’s rig. Hayden tried to ignore it, concentrating on the motion of his own ship. Entirely by intuition he yanked the lanyard just as two other guns fired aboard the Themis. The red flares jerked suddenly forth and back, plunged, swung oddly aft, then checked.
There was a cheer from the men on the quarterdeck.
‘We’ve shot away the forward halyard,’ Barthe called out.
The invisible frame hung oddly askew, the flares still blazing. Supported at only three corners, the light-frame flopped and swayed to the movement of the ship. More shots were fired from aboard the Themis but the flares persisted in their odd, jerky motion.
Hayden watched, mesmerized, expectant, wondering how quickly the French sailors could get hold of the wildly moving frame and rig a new halyard. The flares jerked suddenly, plunged a fateful yard, flailed madly, then swung down in a long arc, fetching up against the mainsail. Before the wet canvas could catch fire, the frame plummeted to the deck.
There was another cheer, and Hayden went immediately to the helm. ‘Mr Barthe, discover how badly our rig is damaged, trim sails and chase that seventy-four. We will wear as we draw near, brace our yards, and sail across her stern.’
The immense relief that Hayden felt could not be expressed, as though he’d made a last wager with all his resources on a worthless hand of cards and somehow, inexplicably, won.
Barthe was calling out orders, and the hands clambered aloft to repair damage.
‘Shall I order the flares lit, Captain?’ Archer asked. The sound of relief and elation in the lieutenant’s voice could not be mistaken.
‘Immediately.’ Hayden motioned to the helmsman to take the wheel. ‘Can you see the French two-decker?’ Hayden asked the man.
‘Aye, sir.’
‘We will run up on her starboard quarter, wear, and cross her stern within thirty yards – twenty, if we can manage it.’
‘I’ll manage it, Captain.’
‘Mr Franks! Silence on deck.’
‘Aye, sir.’
‘Well, done, Captain,’ Hawthorne said. Hayden could hear the grin in the marine’s voice.
‘That was the part most easily managed. Have you ever taken on a seventy-four-gun ship with a deck of eighteen-pounders?’
‘No, but I once fought a rather large artillery corporal who offered offence at an inn.’
‘How did that come out?’
‘Not at all well.’
‘Ah.’
A fiery glow suffused the night, illuminating spars and rigging with a deep wine blush. At the same instant, a cold squall overtook them from astern, lobbing great dobs of rain down into the sea. The officers turned their
backs to the weather, but Hayden could feel the massive rain drops battering his back and the cool water seeping through his oilskins, slowly saturating his woollen coat.
‘Do you believe this deception will work?’ Hawthorne asked quietly.
‘If we reach the seventy-four before the French frigate; it was difficult to judge how badly damaged she might have been.’ Hayden turned, shaded his eyes with a hand, and tried to look astern but the rain hid all and stung his face until he turned away.
The frigate was quickly gaining on the larger ship, which was clearly under reduced canvas in anticipation of action.
‘Mr Archer,’ Hayden spoke to the lieutenant so no other might hear. ‘I will go forward and speak to this ship in French. It is your responsibility to see that the helmsman brings us across the Frenchman’s stern.’
‘Aye, sir.’
‘Mr Barthe? You are prepared to wear ship?’
‘Every man is at his station, Captain. Mr Franks has been told to maintain silence on the deck.’
‘I will be on the forecastle.’
Hayden careened forward on the strangely heaving deck. Rain continued to rattle against the planking, and a blast of wind luffed his oilskins like a stiff sail. Just as he stepped onto the quarterdeck the air exploded to his right and he fell hard on the slippery planks. Immediately he hauled himself up, awkwardly.
Around him men were cursing and clumsily finding their feet.
‘Fucking Frenchman,’ someone growled.
‘Shall we return fire, sir?’ one of the gun captains asked.
‘Only if you want to kill Englishmen. Those were twelve-pounders.’
Hayden went to the starboard rail and shouted in French. ‘Cole, you English bastard! You would fire upon your own brothers!’
He hoped that he could not be heard upon the French ship they chased, but if he was they might glean only enough to realize he spoke French.
Two more guns fired, one after the other, and then fell silent.
‘Do they realize it is us, sir?’ Madison asked.
‘Let us hope someone speaks French.’ Hayden turned away, remembering that he had threatened to fire into Cole’s ship but three days before. As he went to the forward barricade, he wondered if a second broadside would suddenly tear into his ship. With great effort he focused on the swaying flares of the French two-decker as they appeared and dissolved between sails or impenetrable squalls of rain. How distant the Frenchman might be was impossible to gauge. The screens of rain would diminish for a moment and the chase would appear too near, but then the gale would close in again and the ship would be mysteriously pulled away.
A Battle Won Page 18
