The Captain's Nephew

by Philip K Allan

  Then at last came the news they had been waiting for. Four bells in the afternoon watch had just sounded, and Clay was on deck helping Booth with his navigation class for the Agrius’s midshipmen and master’s mates.

  ‘Deck there! Ship ahoy!’ came the hail from the lookout.

  ‘Masthead there! Where away?’ asked Clay.

  ‘Right on the bows, sir, just coming over the horizon.’

  ‘Carry on here, Mr Booth,’ ordered Clay. He was about to pass the word for the captain, when Follett rushed up on deck, and without acknowledging anyone, hurried along the weather gangway and onto the forecastle. Clay followed him and both men took position either side of the bowsprit, staring through their telescopes at the horizon.

  The bright sky faded to hazy white as it touched the dark blue bar of ocean. The Agrius would need to close over several miles of sea before a ship in view from the lofty masthead would also be visible to them down on deck. Clay swept the horizon in front of the frigate with care – nothing. He looked again, moving slowly from one side to the other – still nothing. And then he saw it, just for a moment as the ship rose on a wave. A tiny little tooth of more solid white against the sky. It vanished for a moment, and then returned again.

  ‘Sir!’ he called, not daring to take his glass from his eye. ‘I believe I have sight of her, a shave of a point to starboard.’ Follett came around the bowsprit to join him and focussed too on the same spot.

  ‘Upon my soul, I do believe you are right. It is the topsails of a ship, for sure.’ He closed his telescope. ‘Of course it may not be the Courageuse. Let us hope that she is, and not another dammed Guineaman. Kindly set a course to close with her, Mr Clay. Call me when you are certain of what she is,’ he ordered, returning to his cabin.

  All afternoon they sailed on, reeling in their quarry. Agrius was one of the faster frigates in the navy, and her best point of sailing was broad reaching as she did now. Hour by hour they drew closer and closer to the sail. From a tiny white speck on the horizon she grew into a distinct ship with towering pillars of sail. It was soon clear that she was a warship and on the course she was on, sure to be the Courageuse. Even the rate at which they were closing pointed to her probable identity. The vessel they chased was slow for the amount of sail she carried, perhaps an indication that they were following a heavily-laden ship, packed with extra men and stores.

  Hour by hour they drew closer and hour by hour the sun sank farther towards the western horizon. On the quarterdeck Booth and Clay carefully calculated the two ships’ different rates of progress, and plotted the point on the sea when they would finally catch up with the Frenchman. They gave the bad news to their anxious captain.

  ‘Three hours after sunset!’ exclaimed Follett. ‘And when does the moon rise?’

  ‘Two bells in the mid watch, sir,’ said Booth. ‘But it will be no more than a slither of new moon tonight. With this cloud I doubt if it will help us at all.’

  ‘So no moon before one thirty in the morning, and precious little light even then!’ Follett snorted. ‘Damn little help that will be to neither man nor beast.’ He paced up and down the deck in search of inspiration. Having found none he turned back to the pair of officers.

  ‘Well gentlemen, do you have any suggestions to offer?’ Booth remained silent, but Clay spoke up.

  ‘Sir, I believe we must reconcile ourselves to losing contact with her at sunset. I have no plan that has any certainty of success, but we must make shift to do the best we can. We should take a fix on her position at the moment it becomes dark. We now have a good idea of her speed of sailing so we can calculate how far she can have sailed in three hours and close on that point. If we can get close enough we may be able to see her in the dark.’ Follett was unimpressed.

  ‘Mr Clay, do you not think she will change direction the moment the sun sets?’ asked Follett. ‘By dawn she could be long gone, and our search will need to start again. No, what I need from you, Mr Booth, is to calculate for me the spread of ocean she could possibly be in come dawn. We need to place the Agrius in the centre of that area during the night.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ said Booth. ‘I will go below and make the calculation now.’

  Clay and his captain stared across at the French ship, now so close that they could see how deeply laden her red painted hull was, but already turning into a silhouette against the glow of a tropical sunset. They could see her elaborately carved stern with the naked eye now. Her sails were fingernails of pink in the evening light. The sky around them was a forest of towering pink clouds, things of beauty in the last of the sun, but clouds that would make for a black night ahead. The sun sank lower. As it dropped below the clouds it shined directly into their eyes and blinded them. For long minutes the French ship was invisible, lost right in the eye of the setting sun. The clouds turned to purple as the sun dropped farther. Now it was an orb of fire, split in two by the horizon. Then just a tiny paring of molten gold was visible. It hung on the horizon for a moment, and was gone. The tropical night spread over them, cloaking the world in darkness.

  Follett and Clay continued to watch the faint outline of the French ship, something more solid in the gloom. The silhouette transformed from the stern-on view they had seen all afternoon to the three masts of a ship in profile as she changed course and headed south. Moments later the image melted into the grey dusk and vanished altogether.

  ‘By Jove!’ exclaimed Follett. ‘Did you see that? Just when she thought we could no more see her, the cunning cove changed course. She means to fool us by turning south.’

  ‘She did appear to do so, I agree,’ said Clay, still staring at the darkening sea in the hope of a further glimpse of the Courageuse.

  ‘Masthead there!’ shouted the captain. ‘What do you make of the chase?’

  ‘Deck there!’ came the reply. ‘She’s gone now, but just before the sun set I thought I saw her turn southward.’

  ‘Good man that,’ enthused Follett. ‘Now Mr Clay, we know where our opponent is headed, Mr Booth and you have formed a firm opinion as to her sailing qualities. Between the two of you lay me off a course to intercept her, and even in a dark night it would be strange if we could not bring her to action.’

  ‘Sir, may I make an observation?’ said Clay.

  ‘If it is a positive one, by all means, Mr Clay,’ said Follett, the familiar frown just visible in the darkening night.

  ‘Is it not possible that the French captain turned to the south while still visible with a view to drawing us in that direction, and may have in fact returned to his original course, or indeed another one as soon as it was quite dark?’

  ‘Come come, Mr Clay,’ smiled his Captain. ‘That is a trifle scheming, do you not think? We are dealing with the French here, not Machiavelli in his pomp. Surely it is far more likely the man just got the timing of his turn wrong. The fools thought we couldn’t see them, what with the sun in our eyes and all. Perhaps we should not inspect the mouth of this given horse too closely, what! Now pray sit down with Booth and lay me my course.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ Clay replied.

  By the time Clay returned to the quarterdeck with the course the captain needed, it was quite dark. Follett wanted as little light showing as possible, but had permitted a single shaded lamp in the binnacle for the helmsman to steer by.

  ‘My thanks, Mr Clay,’ he said, accepting the slip of paper and holding it towards the faint light. ‘Damned if I can read it in this gloom!’

  ‘We need to steer west southwest, 230 degrees, sir,’ Clay told him. Follett repeated the instruction to the helmsman, and the Agrius settled onto the new course.

  ‘Mr Sutton!’ called the captain ‘Take in the studdingsails, and then have the ship cleared for action, if you please. Do not run out the guns though, I want no light to show.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ replied Sutton, stepping forward and calling the order down into the dark well of the ship. ‘All hands, all hands to reduce sail.’ Follett turned next to the midship
man of the watch.

  ‘Mr Croft,’ he said. ‘You have young eyes, I make no doubt. Take this night glass and position yourself on the forecastle with a good view towards the enemy. I want to know the moment they are in sight.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ replied Croft, swelling a little at the importance of the task he had been set.

  ‘Mr Clay,’ Follett continued. ‘Kindly select four or five of our keenest-eyed crewmen and provide them with night glasses to assist Mr Croft. Tell them I will give five guineas to the first man who sights the enemy.’

  As the night grew darker about them, an orderly bustle ran through the ship as the Agrius prepared herself for the battle ahead.

  *****

  On the ink-dark forecastle, the night was full of gentle noise. Below where Trevan sat with his telescope resting on the rail, he could hear the constantly renewed swish of water as the Agrius’s sharp bows cut through the velvet black of the sea. Next to him the massive, solid cylinder of the bowsprit gave off a faint hum, conveying the creaks and strains from the unseen headsails above him down into the hull. In the sky only a few scatters of stars were visible through occasional gaps between the clouds. Stare as he might, he could see only the faintest glimmer of starlight on wave. There was no sign of the Courageuse. He took the cool brass ring of the eye piece from his eye, and turned to Hoskins, a presence more felt than seen in the dark next to him.

  ‘Hey, John,’ he said. ‘You see anything?’ His companion paused for a moment.

  ‘Hard to tell, Adam, but maybe I do,’ said Hoskins, still staring out to sea. ‘Perhaps a little glimmer of wake out yonder?’

  Trevan focussed his night glass in the direction that Hoskins was looking, sweeping the sea forward and back. He paused at one point. Was there a faint line like a silver thread on the surface of the sea?

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Trevan. ‘But perhaps not, though.’

  Croft came bustling over to them from the other side of the bowsprit, the white collar patches of his uniform faintly visible, hanging in the dark.

  ‘How are you men doing?’ he asked. ‘Have you sight of the enemy?’

  ‘Hoskins here holds that he might be able to see the line of a wake, sir,’ replied Trevan.

  ‘Really!’ replied Croft, the excitement plain in his voice. ‘Where away?’

  ‘Only a glimmer mind, but just a shade to starboard of the bow,’ replied Hoskins, helping the midshipman to focus in the right direction.

  ‘Yes, yes, I see it,’ said Croft, staring into the night. ‘And perhaps something a little more solid ahead of it?’

  He turned his back on the possible sighting to call up to the masthead.

  ‘Masthead there!’ he yelled. ‘Anything in sight, a little to starboard of the bows? A ship, maybe?’

  A long pause followed before the reply came.

  ‘Aye sir, perhaps the loom of a ship,’ the voice from above sounded guarded. ‘Hard to tell, sir.’

  ‘Now Mr Croft, what is this talk of a ship,’ said Follett as he bustled up on to the forecastle. ‘Have you sight of the enemy?’

  ‘Hoskins here has sighted the wake of a ship and I believe that I may be able to see the enemy, if you focus just there. Find the wake and track it to larboard. The lookout can see it too.’

  ‘I do declare you are right, Mr Croft,’ enthused the captain. ‘Yes, a definite dark mass in the night. The enemy for sure. Keep a good watch on her, and let me know if she varies in her course.’

  *****

  The excited chatter flowed back through the ship from the forecastle with the happy news that the enemy was in sight. Clay stared out into the night and found it to be impenetrably dark, but others around him seemed to be able to see what he could not. Some claimed that they could see the enemy clearly, others were more circumspect. Well, thought Clay, they must have keener eyes than mine.

  In the centre of the black night the deck of the Agrius was dark too. No navigation lights had been lit and the glow from the binnacle illuminated little more than a portion of the wheel and the legs of the men who manned it. Only the creak of the rigging above Clay’s head and the occasional cough from the unseen crew around him gave any hint that he was on a ship at all. The whole focus of the frigate was now narrowed to that tiny, half guessed at glimmer in the night, growing steadily as the Agrius closed in. Now more and more of her crew could see the Frenchman. Some with keener eyes claimed to be able to make out a little of her hull, a blacker shadow in the dark. The Courageuse must have taken in sail with the arrival of night, for she was not quite where Booth and Clay had predicted she would be, and no starlight shone back from her canvas. Closer and closer the frigate came, stalking her prey.

  ’Mr Sutton!’ said the captain as he returned to the quarterdeck, full of purpose. ‘The enemy is in sight ahead. Steer two points to larboard to bring us up alongside her.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ Sutton replied. ‘Two points to larboard it is.’

  ‘Mr Windham!’ called the captain. ’You can light the battle lanterns, but keep the port lids closed. I want no glimmer of light to show.’ This was sensible; the gun crews had to have at least some light in which to operate. Now a dim glow seeped up from the main deck below them. Sutton leant over the quarterdeck rail to look down onto the main deck. In the faint illumination of the battle lanterns he could see the gun crews crouched around their guns, waiting for the order to run out. The many gun captain’s linstocks glowed like hot red eyes.

  Clay shook his head in the dark of the quarterdeck as he stood next to Sutton. ‘What is the matter, sir?’ whispered Sutton.

  ‘I am not sure John, but does this all not seem to be a little convenient?’ Clay whispered back. ‘Why would the French have gifted us their position in this way? They had only to wait another five minutes after the sun had set to have been able to sail in any direction they chose, with us none the wiser. Yet they did not.’

  ‘You suspect we are being made game of?’ asked Sutton. ‘The captain is quite convinced that they are at hand. What is the subterfuge that you suspect?’

  ‘I have no certain notion of any danger,’ Clay sighed. ‘It just feels quite wrong.’ He looked around at the night about them, searching for the answer. ‘Is it a trap, maybe?’

  ‘A trap?’ queried Sutton. ‘But we are cleared for action now, and fully prepared for battle. Anyway, trap or no trap, we will soon find out,’ answered Sutton. ‘We are nearly upon them.’

  The Agrius glided on through the black night. The lack of light would have been disorienting, had they not had a constant flow of slight course corrections from Croft on the forecastle. As the frigate approached the French ship, Follett continued to take in sail, till they were ghosting through the dark, barely faster than the enemy. Follett gave quiet instructions to the quartermaster at the wheel to set a course to slide past the enemy within a hundred yards, point blank range for her twelve pounder cannon. There was now no further need for silence.

  ‘Up ports!’ ordered Follett.

  Squares of light appeared along the side of the frigate. Still the enemy remained silent.

  ‘Run out starboard side!’ With a cheer the gun crews threw themselves against the gun tackles, heaving their pieces forward and into place against the ship’s side with a collective thump.

  ‘Fire!’ called the captain.

  A split second later it was no longer dark. Huge tongues of fire leaped out from the side of the ship, a brilliant flash of light, dazzling to those who had spent hours staring into the night, and then nothing. The officers on the quarterdeck looked at each other in confusion. No crash as the broadside struck home, no enemy frigate rearing up out of the night, caught in the orange flash of cannon fire, no return fire, no cries of panic. Nothing.

  ‘What the hell is going on!’ yelled the captain, staring towards where the Courageuse should have been. ‘What has become of the God damned enemy? Mr Croft, where is this bloody frigate?’

  The gun crews, lost in their private world of swab
bing out, loading and running up, carried on down on the main deck. A second broadside roared out again into the night. All the officers saw in that instant of brilliant illumination a seascape of rolling black waves, empty and bare, stretching out as far as the light would travel. Near at hand was the dispersing smoke of the last broadside, but there was no trace of the Courageuse.

  Chapter 11

  Chase

  At breakfast next morning there was only one topic of conversation amongst the officers grouped around the wardroom table.

  ‘It is by no means the first time I have come across this phenomena, you know,’ said Booth, in his rather superior fashion. ‘I believe it to be the origin of many of the legends of the sea, from your humble mermaid to your mighty Kraken. Why many a time I have known a whole ship’s company convince themselves that they have seen a thing, once the suggestion has been placed before them with sufficient authority. The Mind of Man is a truly strange and wondrous place,’ he concluded, tapping the side of the skull in which he kept his own strange and wondrous place, before he reached across the wardroom table for the jam.

  ‘That is indeed true, Mr Booth,’ replied Wynn, a little peeved to have the ship’s master encroach on what was clearly a medical man’s territory. ‘The power of suggestion is well known to philosophy from the ancients onwards. Indeed, it underpins the acts of many a conjurer and mountebank, and can be seen in action at most village fairs. But have we got to the root of where the suggestion came from originally?’ He turned in his chair towards his neighbour. ‘What was your view of these events, Mr Windham?’

  ‘Alas, I was down on the main deck in command of the guns. My view of the world from that station is limited even in broad daylight. Often in action, I understand that there is so much gun smoke that it may as well be dark. I just made sure the guns were pointed straight and discharged on the down roll of the ship. I doubt not that if I had been posted somewhere of more consequence, I might have seen what was going on, and been in a position to intervene with my uncle.’