Foley looked up, his face grim. “It has already taken too long. I must know if you think we can proceed.” He laid one finger on the chart. “Here, directly north of where you say we are now. I estimate it to be about six leagues. There is a cove.” He was speaking quickly and Bolitho could feel his agitation.
Bolitho leaned over the table. “To the west of Maurice River?” He paused, visualising the set of the yards, the weakening wind across the quarter. “It will take at least four hours. More if the wind goes.”
He stood back and tugged his neckcloth. With the shutters tightly closed to mask the chance of showing even a glimmer of light, the cabin was like a small oven. On deck, as he had been for much of the passage, he had not felt either fatigue or strain. Now, he was not so sure, and could even pity Foley’s misery during the journey. Outside the hull it was pitch-black, and once the ship had slipped past the protective headland he had felt the same sensation as a man striding blindly into an unlit cave.
He asked, “How long will your scouts need?”
“Six hours maybe.” Foley stretched his arms and yawned. He was giving little away.
Bolitho made up his mind. “In that case we will have to anchor and wait for tomorrow night before we can leave the bay. There may be enemy ships nearby, and I can’t risk a conflict in these confined waters. Especially if your scouts fail to find our missing soldiers and need one more day.”
“Handling the ship is your concern.” Foley regarded him evenly. “Well?”
“The tide is right and if we wait further we might lose the wind altogether.” He nodded. “I am ready.”
Foley stood up and massaged his stomach. “Good. By God, I think I have recovered my appetite.”
“I am sorry, sir.” Bolitho smiled. “For the galley fire has been doused.” He added, “Unless you would care for some salt beef from the cask?”
Foley eyed him ruefully. “You have a cruel streak. One sight of that muck would render me as weak as a rat.”
Bolitho made for the door. “In a King’s ship the rats are rarely that!”
On deck he had to wait several seconds before he could see further than the rail. Below on the gun deck he could just make out the waiting seamen, their bodies etched against the darker shapes of the nearest guns. He walked aft and held his hand above the shaded compass light.
Buckle said, “Due north, sir. Full an’ bye.”
“Good.” He beckoned to Tyrrell. “I want our two best leadsmen in the chains.”
“Already done, sir.” Tyrrell shrugged. “Seemed th’ thing to do.”
“When we draw closer to the northern shore we will slip the gig.” Bolitho sought out Stockdale’s thick outline by the hammock nettings. “You will take the gig and a boat’s lead and line. The waters hereabouts are so shallow and treacherous that you must keep ahead of the ship, sounding all the while. Understood?”
Stockdale said stubbornly, “I should be ’ere, sir. Just in case.”
“Your place is where I say, Stockdale.” He relented immediately. “Do as I ask, and keep a shaded lantern with you. You may need to signal us.” He glanced towards Tyrrell. “If that happens we will drop the kedge anchor and pray.”
The sails flapped loosely above the deck, and Bolitho knew the wind was still dropping, its touch clammy across his face. He pushed the nightmare of Sparrow grinding aground from his mind. He was committed. No, he had committed all of them.
“When we reach our destination, Mr. Tyrrell, you may have the starboard cutter lowered. Mr. Heyward will convey our passengers ashore and return when all is well.”
Tyrrell said, “They’ll have to wade th’ last few yards I’m thinking. It’s shallow up there.”
“You’ve guessed the place then?”
He grinned, his teeth white in the gloom. “There ain’t no other suitable for this sort of game, sir.”
From forward, hollow-toned like a lost spirit’s, came the leadsman’s cry, “By th’ mark five!”
Tyrrell muttered, “Bring her up a point, Mr. Buckle.” His palm rasped over his chin. “We must have drifted a piece.”
Bolitho remained silent. They were doing all they could. Thank God Sparrow had such shallow draught. Otherwise . . .
“Deep six!”
Tyrrell grunted. “Fair enough. In bad times I’ve seen a tide race turn a schooner round like a bit o’ flotsam.”
“Thank you.” Bolitho watched the faint splash beyond the bows as another lead went down. “That is a comfort.”
“By th’ mark five.”
“Trust a soldier to choose such a place.” Tyrrell leaned over the compass. “To th’ west still further and in th’ main Delaware channel there’s depth to spare for us, even if th’ tide’s wrong.”
“A quarter less five!”
Buckle whispered, “Hell’s teeth!”
Boots scraped on the planking and Foley asked crisply, “How are we getting along, Captain?”
“By th’ mark three!”
“ Is it necessary for that man to make so much noise?” Foley stared round at the figures grouped by the wheel.
Tyrrell drawled calmly, “It’s either that, Colonel, or we rip our keel out.”
Bolitho said, “A man as tall as yourself, sir, could just about walk twixt the keel and the ground below if he had a mind to.”
Foley did not speak for a full minute. Then he said, “I’m sorry. It was a foolish thing to say.”
“Deep four!”
Buckle breathed out slowly. “Better.”
Bolitho felt Tyrrell’s fingers on his arm as he said, “If we can keep her steady we should rest easy, with some room to swing at anchor. The bottom’s safe and we might touch without too much danger.”
“Captain!” Foley’s tone was as before. Sharp and impatient. He waited by the nettings and then said, “Tyrrell. Is he an American?”
“A colonist, sir. Like a good many of the hands.”
“God damn!”
Bolitho added, “He is also a King’s officer, sir. I hope you will remember that.”
Foley’s white breeches vanished into the hatchway, and Tyrrell said bitterly, “Thinks I’m running th’ ship aground just to spite him, I suppose.”
“That will be enough.” Bolitho stared past him at the dancing phosphorescence below the closed gun ports. Like magic weed, changing shape and vanishing only to reappear elsewhere along the slow-moving hull. “I do not envy him his work.” Surprisingly, he found that he meant it.
Somewhere out there in the darkness was the great mass of land. Hills and rivers, forest and scrub which could tear out a man’s eye if he was careless. There had been many stories of attacks and ambushes in this area, and even allowing for their being magnified in the telling, they were enough to chill even a seasoned fighter. Indians who were used to scout for Washington’s army, who moved as silently as foxes and struck with the savagery of tigers. A world of shadows and strange noises, cries which would bring a drowsy sentry wide awake in a cold sweat, if he was lucky. If not, he would be found dead, his weapons gone.
“Deep eight!”
Tyrrell moved restlessly. “We can leave th’ channel now. I suggest we steer nor’-east.”
“Very well. Man the braces and bring her round.”
And so it went on, hour by hour, with the leads going and the reefed topsails being trimmed and re-trimmed to hold the fading wind like something precious. Occasionally Tyrrell would hurry forward to feel the tallow in one of the leads, rubbing particles from it between his fingers or sniffing it like a hunting-dog.
Without his uncanny knowledge of the sea bottom, his complete confidence despite the shallow water beneath the keel, Bolitho knew he would have anchored long ago and waited for the dawn.
Foley came and went several times but said nothing more about Tyrrell. He mustered the Canadian scouts and spoke for several minutes with their sergeant. Later he remarked, “Good men. If I had a regiment of them I could retake half of America.”
Bolitho let him talk without interruption. It broke the tension of waiting. It also helped to discover the man behind the disciplined arrogance which Foley wore like a shield.
“I have fought the Americans in many places, Captain. They learn quickly and know how to use their knowledge.” He added with sudden bitterness, “So they should, they have a hard core of English deserters and soldiers-of-fortune. Whereas I have had to manage with dregs. In one battle most of my men spoke only a few words of English. Imagine it, Captain, in the King’s uniform, yet their tongues were more used to German dialect than ours!”
“I did not know there were so many English deserters, sir?”
“Some were stationed here before the rebellion. Their families are with them. They have found roots in this country. Others pin their hopes on rich pickings later, land, maybe, or some abandoned farmstead.” Again the harsh bitterness. “But they will fight dearly, no matter what their conviction. For if they are taken and are found to be deserters, they will leave this world on a noose and with Jack Ketch to speed their passing!”
Tyrrell loomed out of the darkness, his voice hushed. “Ready to slip th’ gig, sir. Th’ cove will be fine on th’ larboard bow, by my reckoning.”
The tension was momentarily removed as with whispered commands and groping fingers the waiting seamen hoisted the gig over the gangway to tow jerkily alongside.
Midshipman Heyward was standing nearby as the gig idled clear, and Bolitho said quietly, “Take good care when you land with the cutter. Keep your wits about you, and no heroics.” He gripped his arm, feeling the tension like the spring of a cocked pistol. “I want to see you leave Sparrow as a lieutenant and in one piece.”
Heyward nodded. “Thank you, sir.”
Graves climbed lightly up the ladder. “Cutter’s hoisted out and ready.” He glanced at the midshipman. “Send me, sir. He’s no match for this sort of thing.”
Bolitho tried to see Graves’s expression but it was impossible. Maybe he really cared about the midshipman. Or perhaps he saw the prospect of action as his first chance of quick promotion. Bolitho could sympathise with him on either count.
But he replied, “When I was his age I was already commissioned lieutenant. It was not easy then, and it will not be so for him until he has learned to accept all that goes with his authority.”
Bethune said quickly, “Signal from gig, sir! Three flashes!”
Tyrrell snapped, “Th’ bottom has changed, most likely.” He became calm again. “I suggest you anchor, sir.”
“Very well.” Bolitho saw the black outline of the gig bobbing slowly off the larboard how. “Back the mizzen tops’l. Prepare to go about. We will let go the anchor and then take the kedge away in the other cutter. Lively there, or we’ll be joining Stockdale in the gig!”
Feet thudded on the gangways, and somewhere above the deck a man yelped with pain as he almost fell headlong. The mizzen topsail was flapping and cracking in spite of the wind’s weak pressure, and the noise seemed loud enough to wake the dead. On darkened decks the men ran to braces and halliards, each so familiar that there was hardly any more delay than if they had been in bright sunlight.
Unsteadily, drunkenly, the sloop rode into her cable, the water beneath the stem alive with swirling phosphorescence. Both cutters were already swaying up and over the gangways, their crews tumbling into them, groping for oars and each other in the rush to get clear.
Then, and it all seemed to happen in a matter of minutes, everything was quiet again. Sails furled, and the hull rocking gently to a pair of anchors, while close by the boats moved warily, like predators around a tethered whale.
Foley stood beside the nettings and said, “Send my scouts ashore, Captain. You have done your part.”
Then he strode to the larboard gangway to watch Heyward’s cutter hooking on to the chains where the army scouts were already clinging like so many untidy bundles.
Bolitho asked softly, “What is this cove like, Mr. Tyrrell? Describe it.”
The lieutenant ran his fingers through his thick hair. “It’s well sheltered, ’less some other vessel comes close by. Inland it’s heavily wooded, and as I recall, there’s two rivers running down towards us.” He peered over the side. “Th’ cutter’s nearly there. If we hear shooting we’ll know we’re in for a spell of bother.” He forced a grin. “One thing. We don’t need no wind to work clear. We can run out th’ sweeps and pull her to safety.”
Bolitho nodded. In almost any other vessel this mission would have been madness. Close inshore and with little chance of beating clear into the centre of the bay, they would have been as good as wrecked.
He said, “Get Tilby to grease the sweeps while we are waiting.
If go we must, then I think we had best do it silently.”
Tyrrell strode away, his head jutting forward to seek out the boatswain.
Foley reappeared and remarked, “I think I will get some sleep. There is nothing more we can do but wait.”
Bolitho watched him go. You will not sleep, Colonel. For now it is your turn to bear the load.
Bethune said excitedly, “Cutter’s returning, sir. All’s well.”
Bolitho smiled. “Pass the word that our people will remain at quarters during the night, but may sleep watch by watch. Then find the cook and see what he can produce without relighting his fires.”
The midshipman hurried away and Graves said sourly, “He’d eat anything. Even if he cannot see the damn maggots in the dark.”
Bolitho sat down on the hatch casing and loosened his shirt. As his head lolled in a doze he heard a heavy body lower itself to the deck nearby. Stockdale had returned. Waiting. Just in case, as he always put it.
The very next instant Bolitho fell into a dreamless sleep.
“Where th’ hell are they?” Tyrrell trained a glass over the nettings and moved it slowly from side to side.
It was approaching noon, and lying at two anchors the Sparrow held the heat like a kiln. The cloud, like the wind, had gone overnight, and beneath an empty sky and dazzling sunlight it was impossible to move without sweating badly.
Bolitho plucked his shirt away from his waist. He had been on deck since awakening at dawn, and like Tyrrell was uneasy about the lack of results. How different it was in daylight. At the first glimmer of sunrise he had watched the nearby land growing from the shadows, the rounded hills and thick green trees beyond. Pleasant crescents of beach, shaded by thick foliage which ran almost to the water’s edge. It had all seemed quiet and harmless. Perhaps too quiet.
He made himself walk to the opposite side of the quarterdeck, wincing as the sun burned his shoulders like fire. The bay looked vast. The water was unbroken by crests, and but for a swirling uneasiness of currents it could have been one large lake. It measured about twenty miles across and as much from the headland to the north, where the great Delaware River gave it its substance. Beyond the jutting point which made the cove and protected Sparrow from any passing vessel, the river curved and twisted in an ever-changing concourse, with a full seventy miles before you could sight the outskirts of Philadelphia.
He looked along the gun deck, seeing the men on watch, some protruding legs to mark where others lay resting beneath the gang-ways to escape the merciless glare. He let his gaze move upwards, where the yards were now festooned with branches and leaves brought aboard soon after first light. They might help disguise her outline and deceive all but the professional observer.
Between the ship and the nearest beach a cutter pulled slowly and painfully back and forth, Midshipman Bethune squatting in the sternsheets watching the shore. Foolishly he had stripped to the waist, and despite his tan would suffer for it later.
Tyrrell followed him as he returned to the shelter of the hammock nettings.
“I’d like to go ashore, sir.” He waited until Bolitho faced him. “I could take a small party of men. Try and find out what’s happening.” He opened the front of his soiled shirt and sucked in a lungful of air. “Better’n waiting lik
e bloody cattle for slaughter.”
“I’m not sure.” Bolitho shaded his eyes as a movement made the trees shimmer by the beach. But it was only a large bird.
Tyrrell persisted, “Look sir, I guess th’ orders are supposed to be secret, but th’ whole ship knows why we’re here. Them scouts spoke freely enough with a tot of rum under their belts.”
Bolitho smiled wryly. “I thought as much.”
“Yes. An’ it seems we’re expected to rescue a whole crowd of soldiers who’ve got lost coming overland.” He grimaced. “I can well believe it, too. It ain’t no barrack square.”
Bolitho studied his strong profile and pondered over the suggestion. He had not mentioned the gold bullion, so that was obviously a secret which Foley had not even shared with his own men. And it was just as well. Some might be tempted to try for it rather than any kind of rescue.
“Very well. Pick your men quietly and take the gig. You will need arms and provisions, too, otherwise . . .”
Tyrrell smiled. “Otherwise it might be too bad for us if Sparrow sails without waiting, eh?”
“It is a risk. Do you want to reconsider?”
He shook his head. “I’ll start now.”
Bolitho said, “I’ll make a report of this in the log.”
“No need, sir. If I come to grief it’d be best left unwritten.” He smiled sadly. “I’d not want for you to face a court martial on my account.”
“I will make it, none the less.” Bolitho forced a grin. “So be off with you.”
The gig had covered less than a cable from the side when Foley burst on deck, his face screwed up in the glare.
“Where is he going?” He clung to the nettings, staring after the small boat which was almost shapeless in a drifting haze. “Did you give him permission?”
“I did.”
“Then you are a bigger fool than I imagined!” Foley’s anxiety was pushing aside his self-control. “How dare you take it on yourself?”
“Colonel Foley, I have no doubt you are an excellent field officer. Experienced enough to realise that if your scouts have failed to make contact with those landed here earlier they must either be dead or taken.” He kept his voice level. “You will also appreciate that I am not going to risk my ship and company to comply with a plan already misfired.”
Sloop of War Page 11
