He was at the centre of a ball of visibility that extended perhaps twenty yards from where he stood in all directions. In front of him he could see the forecastle, with some of the watch already at work cleaning the deck. Beyond them the ship appeared to sail towards a wall of fog, the ship’s bowsprit thrust into it like a spear. Behind him he could just see as far as the ship’s wheel, the binnacle a glow of light in the gloom, illuminating the faint figure of the quartermaster as he gripped the spokes. Above him the main mast rose up and disappeared into a grey blanket. Only a constant dripping onto the deck hinted at the mass of wet rigging and sails above his head. On either side of the ship a half moon of green, oily sea stretched out before it too was lost in the fog.
Clay strode up onto the quarterdeck where the change of the watch was reaching its climax. Sutton was giving a detailed handover to Windham, who was replacing him on duty. All around them an elaborate dance took place as each person on the quarterdeck was replaced by a new player. The final arrival was Croft, the midshipman of the watch bustling up from the gunroom to take his place beside Windham. As the old watch disappeared below, calm descended once more.
The ship was passing along the coast of Normandy, with Le Havre and the estuary of the river Seine some way behind them. Ahead of them, if there had been no fog, they would have been able to see the coast line swing through ninety degrees as it changed from east/west to run north/south, to form the long bulk of the Cotentin peninsula. They had approached at night, gliding along the coast in the hope of surprising an unwary enemy, caught in the elbow of land ahead. Clay looked about him at the fog. There would be little chance of finding anyone in this, unless it lifted soon.
Clay was making small talk with Windham, when the hail came from above.
‘Deck there! Sail ho!’ yelled the lookout.
‘How the devil can he see anything in this murk?’ Windham exclaimed.
‘It may be clearer up above,’ Clay said. ‘These sea mists sometimes cling to the surface of the water.’ He tilted his head back and yelled into the blanket of fog in the general direction of the foremast. ‘Where away?’
‘Two points off the larboard bow, sir. About three mile away,’ came the reply.
‘What do you make of her?’ Clay asked.
‘I can only see her topgallants above the fog. She looks to be ship rigged, a fair bit smaller than us, sir,’ came the reply from the unseen lookout.
‘Mr Croft!’ said Clay. ‘My compliments to the captain, and please inform him that a ship is in sight, bearing east southeast, three miles distant.’
‘Aye aye, sir,’ Croft replied, running for the companionway ladder.
When Captain Follett came on deck, he cut an extraordinary figure in the grey light of dawn. He still wore his nightshirt, crammed under a coat above the waist, flapping around his bare ankles below. On his head he wore a bright scarlet night cap that hung down one side of his unshaven face, making him resemble one of the French revolutionaries he despised so much.
‘Good morning, sir,’ said Clay, trying his best to keep his face unmoved despite the ludicrous appearance of his captain. ‘There is a ship in sight ahead of us, smaller than we are and visible only to the lookout. It could be any manner of vessel, but I summit that she is likely to be French, so close inshore.’
‘Very well Mr Clay,’ replied Follett as he looked about him, the motion of his head amplified by the long tail of his night cap. ‘I would be obliged if you would take a glass up to the upper foretop, and let me know what you make of the vessel. Should she prove to be hostile, I will need you to help me con the ship from up there, as I am blind as a mole in this dammed fog. I will place Mr Preston on the forecastle to relay your messages back to the quarterdeck. Give me the best directions to close with the enemy, if you please.’
‘Aye aye, sir,’ said Clay, with a slight sense of dread at the prospect of climbing the foremast.
‘Mr Windham, kindly call the watch below,’ Follett continued. ‘No need to clear the ship for action, but man the guns and have them run out, if you please. You are to do this as quietly as possible. No drums, no shouting and no boatswain’s calls. I do not want any clamour to alert the enemy of our presence yet.’
‘Aye aye, sir, quietly done it is,’ repeated Windham.
Clay walked forward through the ship for the second time that day, surrounded once more by the crew. This time he could sense they bubbled with suppressed excitement. Many of the men had heard the hail from the lookout, and the expectation of action in the near future pulsed through the ship, contrasting markedly with the sense of rising panic within him. ‘God,’ he muttered to himself, ‘I hate heights.’ As he climbed the fore shrouds, he heard the ludicrous sound of Knight, the barrel-chested boatswain of the Agrius below him, trying to bellow quietly at a particularly laggard member of the crew.
He was soon lost in a world of obscuring cloud. The rigging curved away from him in lines of freehand running in all directions and disappeared into the walls of fog. He could see nothing below him. If it was not for the disembodied sounds drifting up to him, the ship might have vanished entirely. He heard a quiet order, followed by the rumble of the guns being run out. Then silence. He continued to climb, up past the foretop, and onwards up the top mast. As he climbed his grip became tighter and tighter at the thought of the growing void below him. The light became brighter, the fog pearl-white now, until he reached the topmast crosstree when he emerged out into sunlight. He settled himself on the crosstree, both legs and one arm closely gripping the mast, and sighed with relief that he did not have to continue his climb up to join the lookout on the topgallant yardarm above him. Although he could see nothing of the sea below him, he knew he was already well over a hundred feet up – quite high enough for him.
He looked across towards the other ship, over a landscape of cotton wool and drifting tendrils of mist. Three miles ahead and slightly to one side, on the same course as the Agrius, three topgallant masts poked up from the mist, the white squares of sail catching the first rays of the sun as it began to clear the fog. Beyond the other ship the blanket of mist rose up in a ramp of clumpy white, presumably marking where the unseen coast lay.
‘What do you make of her, Hoskins?’ he called up to the lookout, who stood with swaying ease on the thin topgallant yard a farther thirty feet above Clay’s head.
‘Sloop of some sort I should say, sir, but I am not sure as she has seen us,’ Hoskins replied. ‘She’s not changed course yet. We can see her clearly because she has her topgallants set, but I reckon her lookout has missed our bare poles, what with our topsails being hidden in the mist an’ all.’ He looked around speculatively and sniffed at the air. ‘Mind you, that will not last. This fog is starting to thin.’
‘Yes, sloop for certain,’ said Clay, steadying his glass on her. ‘Looks French by her rig?’
‘Aye, French for sure, sir,’ said the lookout without hesitating. ‘Look at her foremast; it could be the twin of her main. No English yard would think to rig a ship so. I should say she looks to be built for proper speed an’ all.’
‘Very well,’ said Clay, looking about and gathering his thoughts. ‘So she is French and fast. Then sure to be a privateer, sailing alone out here. She may have slipped out of Le Havre over there during the night, or one of the other Norman ports. Probably waiting for daybreak to stand out to sea and snap up any unguarded merchantmen making their way along the Channel.’
‘Well, it may well be us doing the snapping up soon, sir,’ said Hoskins. ‘If this fog could hold for a while longer we shall have her caught right up ag’in the land, however fast she is.’ Hoskins was obviously an intelligent man, thought Clay. He made a mental note that he might make a decent petty officer, just as the lookout spoke again.
‘Mr Clay, sir,’ called Hoskins. ‘I think she be changing her course.’
Clay studied the French ship a little longer. The three mast heads closed with each other, aligned for an instant and then began to sep
arate again as the ship swung round on her new course in the direction of the open sea. She also seemed to be moving a little faster. Somewhere in the murk below his vision she was setting more sail.
‘Mr Preston,’ Clay called down, ‘my respects to the captain, and the chase looks to be a French privateer. She has changed course. Heading due north and making sail. We need to go about on the other tack to head her off. Also there is no further need for silence, she has spotted us now.’
‘Aye aye, sir,’ came the reply from below, followed a minute later by Windham’s voice bellowing ‘All hands! All hands to make sail.’
Clay returned to his study of the ship. The fog was definitely thinner now. A strengthening sun was melting it from above, while a freshening wind dispersed it from below. He felt the mast crosstree he sat on tilt round as the ship turned and gathered way on the other tack. He grabbed at a nearby shroud to steady himself and, like a spider, felt the distant vibration of approaching feet. Moments later the foretop men burst out of the fog and ran up the rigging towards him, passed above him and lay out on the yards to set more sail.
‘Mr Preston,’ he called down again. ‘Tell the captain two points to starboard. On our present course we will pass behind the chase.’ Shortly afterwards the mast heeled over a little further.
Now patches of water were visible as the fog continued to break up, pools of green among the swirls of grey. He got his first glimpse of the French coast through a gap in the fog, and a moment later heard Hoskins hail the deck.
‘Deck there! Land ho!’ he yelled, ‘Land on the larboard beam!’
The ship they chased was still lost in a bank of fog, and then she emerged into a patch of open water. She was a long, sleek looking sloop with a black hull, perhaps half the size of the Agrius, with all sail set to catch every scrap of the light wind that she could.
‘Captain’s respects, sir,’ Preston called from below, ‘and the chase is now visible from the deck. He would like you to come down and join him on the quarterdeck.’
With a sigh of relief, Clay made his way back down the shrouds. He knew he worked for a hard service, and had long ago found out that there was no toleration of fear aboard a Royal Navy ship. He had learnt to suppress his various human weaknesses, his revulsion for the weevils that inhabited ship’s biscuits, the claustrophobia of living in the confined space of a ship, and his profound phobia of heights. This last fear made his downward progress rather more careful than was normal in the service. The top men who had been setting the sails above his head, their work complete, returned to the deck by a long glide down the back stays, passing their more pedestrian first lieutenant as he descended the shrouds step by patient step, to reach the deck long before him.
When he did reach the bottom, he found the ships were now locked in a strange, slow motion chase. Even though they had both set all the sail they had, including their bulging studdingsails polled out on either side of the yard arms, the light wind meant that the Agrius was travelling at a scant three knots through the water. Clay looked over at the French ship. Her lighter, slimmer hull should have the edge in so little wind, he thought. He could see that the fog was almost gone now, a last stubborn bank obscured the French ship for a moment, and then drifted away to reveal the coast of the Cotentin peninsula, low and flat as it stretched away to the northwest. The privateer was closer to the shore, running due north on the quickest route to the open sea. The Agrius was a further two miles out to sea, slightly ahead of the Frenchman, but running on a course that would cross that of the enemy at some point ahead. But who will reach that point first, wondered Clay. He tried to estimate the answer with his naked eye, but could not decide. If it should be the Agrius they would have the privateer caught between the land on one side, and the guns of the frigate on the other. If not, she would slip away from them.
When Clay reached the quarterdeck, Captain Follett was still in his night shirt, pacing up and down, and making sure the sails were all drawing to the maximum.
‘Mr Clay, good of you to rejoin us so promptly,’ he said. He had observed Clay’s laborious descent of the foremast, and his time staring at the privateer. ‘Would you kindly take bearings on the enemy? I need to ascertain if we are overhauling them, or if they are head reaching on us. Pray do so as quickly as you can,’ he added, looking back towards the foremast. ‘Bring the result down to Mr Booth and myself in my coach, if you please.’
‘Aye aye, sir,’ Clay replied, before turning to Preston. ‘Mr Preston, go and find Yates. Tell him to bring up my sextant to the quarterdeck. Then go and get a minute glass, if you please.’
When he joined Booth and the captain, they were sitting with a chart of the Normandy coast in front of them. He gave them the results of the bearings he had taken, and Booth added them on to the chart. As he leant forward Clay detected a hint of acetone on the master’s breath. He watched his work with renewed care, but found himself impressed by the deft way that Booth worked, his large hands precise as he marked each ship’s positions with neat crosses, then extended both their courses forwards with long pencil lines. He checked his workings one more time, before turning to his captain.
‘In these light airs she is almost half a knot faster than us, sir. It will be damned close run, but as matters stand she will pass ahead of us, just before these islands here.’ He tapped his dividers down on a small group of rocky islands, surrounded by reefs. ‘Ile St. Marcouf,’ he read. Captain Follett leant forward to take in the situation, his magnificent night cap pushed aside as it flopped forward to obscure his view.
‘Well that will not do. Before we need to worry about your islands, we need to close up with the chase, that seems clear enough,’ said Follett. ‘How do you gentlemen propose we achieve this?’
‘Pump the ship dry, sir,’ said Booth. ‘We could start all the fresh water over the side. That should permit us to coax a little more speed from the old girl.’
‘Only a little,’ said Clay. ‘It would also mean that the hands will have no more drinking water till we reached Plymouth. That will be a hardship for men whose vittles are chiefly salt meat and dried peas, sir.’ Clay could not help from wondering to what extent drinking water was a superfluous luxury for the hard drinking Booth.
‘What do you propose as an alternative, Mr Clay?’ asked the captain.
‘Slow her down, sir,’ he said. ‘The Frogs will be in range of our bow chasers for a good while as our courses converge. We must knock away a spar or two. I believe that will be our principle opportunity to lessen her lead.’
‘Both worthy suggestions gentlemen,’ said Follett, taping the chart with the knuckle of one hand as he thought. ‘I see no reason why we cannot do both. Mr Clay, kindly have the pumps rigged, and can you select our best quarter gunners to man the bow chasers.’
With the pumps manned, the tons of fresh water carried by the Agrius were soon gushing over the side in long ropes of silver. Up on the forecastle, Clay could barely detect any change in her speed. What he could see was that the French privateer was now level with them, but still out of range. Far ahead he could just make out the rocky cluster of islands and reefs Booth had mentioned. In his mind’s eye he extended the two ship’s courses, transferring the pencil lines he had seen on the chart to foaming wakes drawn across the sea. The faster Frenchman would slowly move ahead of the Agrius while at the same time the frigate would slide across behind her until at some point she would be directly ahead of them.
*****
‘There she is!’ exclaimed Evans. ‘My first bleeding prize!’ He had had to lie along the length of the gun barrel to get down low enough to see the privateer through the gun port, filled as it was with the thick cylinder of the twelve pounder gun. The French ship was in profile now, temptingly close to the Londoner’s untutored gaze, still comfortably out of range to the more skilled eye of Drinkwater, the gun captain.
‘Oi, Evans!’ he protested. ‘Get your fat arse off my gun.’
Evans obediently returned to his place
on the left hand gun tackle, while Drinkwater fussed over his beloved cannon, polishing off imagined marks with his sleeve from the shiny black curve of metal. Bent over the gun he resembled a farmer anxiously inspecting the back of a prize sow.
The twelve-pounder was officially Number Three Gun, but to her crew she was called Spit Fire, and this was painted in bold white script on the barrel. All of the gun crews on the frigate had named their weapons, the choice varied from the traditional, like Dread Nought, through the volcanic such as the Brimstone Belcher, to a current fashion for prize-fighter’s names. Agrius boasted both a Dan Mendoza and more recently a Jack Broughton. It was Rosso who had carefully painted on the cannon’s name. He had used the curve of the barrel, together with the ‘GR’ already embossed in the metal to make the swirling P of ‘Spit’ easily mistakable for an H. This had caused much amusement for his fellow gun crew, once the literary gag had been explained to his illiterate colleagues.
‘So how much prize money will I get then?’ asked Evans, his enthusiasm undimmed. Trevan and O’Malley rolled their eyes at each other.
‘Hold yer fecking horses Sam,’ protested O’Malley. ‘We’ve not caught up with her yet, and from what I can see there’s a fair chance we never will.’
‘But if we did,’ persisted Evans, ‘how much would I get?’
‘If we overhaul her,’ said Trevan, doing his best to manage Evans expectations, ‘which is most uncertain, seeing as how she is quicker than us, and if we capture her, and if we can get her back to port, and if she is condemned by a prize court, then us hands would get two eighths of the value, shared out evenly.’
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