The Sea and the Sand

by Christopher Nicole

  Yet that she should still be thinking of him … undoubtedly the circumstances had been very strange. She had stayed up all that night, a year ago, watching men fighting for their lives. And then had actually met one of those men, unharmed, and looking for all the world as if he had just left his tailor. He had been taken with her, she knew; she still flushed as she recalled his words. She had not taken his promise very seriously, although she had thought how nice it would be if he could ever appear in Gibraltar. And then had been convinced it would never happen, especially when the illness she had contracted in England had forced her to remain behind there for several months after her parents’ departure.

  But now, actually to see American ships steering for the Rock, or at least the Strait of Gibraltar; they could be going nowhere else, on that course. And surely they would need to stop for water and fresh provisions, after having crossed the Atlantic. She was so excited she had to bite her lip.

  ‘Whatever can they be at?’ she asked the captain, returning the glass to Mrs Flemming so that the older woman would not notice her agitation.

  ‘They are probably going to show the flag off the north African coast,’ Brathwaite told her. ‘And try to convince the Barbary pirates to cease interfering with American vessels. What with both the British and French Navies entirely occupied with fighting each other these past eight years, those Moorish scoundrels have been growing very bold. It is something to which we shall have to address ourselves before too long. Oh, yes. We shall have to bring a few of their castles tumbling about their ears.’

  He was a fire-eater, who regarded the Royal Navy as the panacea for all the ills that beset the world. Nor would she argue that point. Which meant, as the convoy was under the escort of five warships, including a ship of the line on her way to join Admiral Cornwallis’s squadron blockading the Spanish port of Cadiz, that as Brathwaite had said earlier, there was no risk of even a French privateer attacking them, much less any Barbary pirate who happened to have passed the Strait.

  She turned away from the rail, and reseated herself in her chair on the afterdeck, alongside Mrs Flemming’s daughter Margaret, a young lady no older than herself, although as she took after her mother and was thus short and plump, as well as possessing a head of brilliant yellow hair, as opposed to Felicity’s brown, the contrast between them was considerable. Yet they had become friends through force of circumstances, even had they not been the only two girls on board.

  The chair was still very wet, although the rain appeared to be stopping, but even wet chairs on deck were preferable to being cooped up in the stuffy, crowded cabin of the brig.

  ‘Do you know anyone on board those American ships?’ Margaret asked.

  ‘How on earth could I do that?’ Felicity demanded.

  ‘Well … I thought you had met some American naval officers once.’

  ‘Oh, good Lord,’ Felicity said, ‘so I did. But there are hundreds of American naval officers.’ Or were there? She frowned. Her brother Jonathan had told her the entire American Navy only consisted of half a dozen not very large ships. That meant there could hardly be more than fifty American officers currently serving. Of whom perhaps twelve were just over there, on one or other of the two ships. Toby McGann could very well be included in those short odds. She almost went back to the rail to borrow the telescope again. But even with a telescope she would not be able to make out the faces on board the distant ships, and she did not want either of the Flemmings to think her the least interested — because surely they were all bound for Gibraltar, and would meet there. When she would at last be free of this constant prying supervision.

  The Flemmings were inclined to be busy-bodies. Mr Flemming was also on board, on his way to Gibraltar and thence Malta, where he was intending to take advantage of the British occupation of that island to set up a branch of his family business. His wife and daughter were accompanying him for, mysteriously, his wife’s health — she did not look the least ill to Felicity.

  The Crowns and the Flemmings had apparently known each other for years, although Felicity could not remember either Peggy Flemming or her mother from their previous sojourn in England, five years earlier. They had renewed their acquaintanceship last summer, just before Felicity had come down with that dreadful attack of pneumonia, which had left her too weak to travel for several months. She had remained in the care of her Aunt Lucy, but Father had immediately arranged that, if she was well enough, she should go out to Gibraltar with the Flemmings the following spring.

  In fact, her naturally strong constitution, and her determination to get on with her life, had brought a complete recovery by Christmas, and she had felt well enough to travel long before now, but of course there had been no way anyone would allow her to undertake the week-long voyage unchaperoned. And Mrs Flemming had from the start considered her as a sort of foster child, regularly calling at Aunt Lucy’s house on Hampstead to take her riding in her phaeton, and just as regularly entertaining her to tea so that she could be introduced to ‘nice’ young men, at least in Mrs Flemming’s opinion.

  Mrs Flemming regarded Felicity as an unfortunate, because of her lack of wealth. Her father was a salaried civil servant, her brother a penniless naval officer; the Crowns did not have the solid substance of a family business behind them, as did the Flemmings. Yet the girl was undoubtedly good looking, and it might be possible to find her a husband more interested in looks than a dowry.

  Felicity had no doubt there had been more to Mrs Flemming’s interest than that. Mrs Flemming was also attempting to discover a husband for Peggy, and in that instance the form would need to be reversed, and the man more interested in the size of the dowry than in his wife’s looks. Having a very attractive girl around could only enhance Peggy’s chances, in Mrs Flemming’s opinion.

  In the event, she had been sorely disappointed. Felicity had not yet been the least interested in any of the young men trotted out for her approbation. She had not been sure why. All of them had been perfect gentlemen, and one or two had been passingly handsome.

  And if the majority had been the sons of business acquaintances of Mrs Flemming, who had never left England, and who had seemed entirely unable to understand the great forces at work in the world beyond the Channel and the Atlantic, there had been a couple of soldiers, and even a Naval lieutenant acquainted with Jonathan. Yet even he had failed to attract her in any degree. Could it possibly be that the romantic streak which was the curse of her nature — according to her mother, and, she suspected, in the opinion of Mrs Flemming as well — demanded that the man to attract her had to have arrived straight from the heat of battle? She had only ever met one such man. Or, rather, three. But Captain Truxton had been old enough to be her father, and Mr McDonough had been only a midshipman. Mr McGann had been a lieutenant, and so tall and yet gentle, he had fulfilled her ideal of what a man should be. Another of her recurring problems was that at least half of the men who wished to come courting were shorter than herself.

  It was not a point of view she had confided to anyone. Mother and Father might have been graciously pleased to meet the Americans on the morrow of their remarkable victory, but perhaps because they were not out of the very top drawer of society themselves, they were the most utter snobs, who by definition regarded Americans as upstart rebels with the breeding of peasants. She presumed the Flemmings held the same opinions. In any event, any suggestion that she might actually know and be interested in someone on the American ships would be disastrous. Even supposing Mr McGann could actually be there. And he couldn’t, possibly.

  ‘Who’s a bear with a sore head, then?’ enquired Peggy Flemming.

  ‘It’s the weather,’ Felicity complained. ‘It really is terrible.’ It had now been raining for a steady twenty-four hours.

  ‘But the rain has stopped,’ Peggy pointed out. ‘Look … there’s blue sky. I do believe the sun is going to shine.’

  ‘Briefly, ladies, briefly,’ Captain Brathwaite remarked. ‘If I were you, I’d go below an
d make sure everything you value is properly stowed. There is going to be a blow.’

  Mrs Flemming was properly impressed by his prognostication, and had to fortify herself with a tot of gin. They, and all the ten passengers carried by the Poseidon, as the brig was rather grandly named, shared the great cabin, so there had been little encouragement to unpack anything more than was strictly necessary — the ladies had in fact worn the same clothes since leaving Plymouth five days before. But that was an accepted part of the discomforts of sea travel, and now they quickly closed and locked their various boxes, and stowed them as best they could, while above their heads they heard the scurrying of feet as the ship heeled to the sudden increase in wind, and the seamen were sent aloft to shorten sail.

  ‘A storm at sea,’ Mrs Flemming groaned, sitting on the bunk she shared with her husband — an uncomfortable business, as the bunk was narrow and Mr Flemming was nearly as plump as his wife — and clutching her gin bottle as if it were a lifebelt. ‘A storm at sea! Oh, what shall we do?’

  ‘I am sure there is no need for us to do anything,’ Felicity suggested, pulling on her cloak. She had every intention of returning on deck. ‘This is a well found ship, and Captain Brathwaite is a capable man.’

  And besides, she had been in a storm while crossing the Atlantic the previous year, two in fact; the first had frightened her, but she had taken the second in her stride. And here they were within five hundred miles of the Portuguese coast.

  She climbed the companion ladder, and held on to the main shrouds to peer across the water at the Americans. The patch of blue sky had disappeared again, and in its place great black clouds were scudding up out of the ocean. The brig had already reduced sail, and there were two men on the helm in anticipation of the hard work ahead; now she watched the American ships also reefing their sails, as were the Royal Navy vessels to either side.

  ‘You’d be better off below, Miss Crown,’

  Captain Brathwaite told her. ‘This is going to be a strong gale.’

  ‘How can you tell?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, miss, there are several bad signs. The glass has been dropping for three days, pretty steadily. That’s bad. Long foretold, they say, long last. Then, the rain came before the wind. There’s an old saying about that too: when the wind comes before the rain, soon you shall make sail again; but when the rain comes before the wind, then your sheets and halliards mind. And lastly, we’re on a lee shore.’

  ‘But land is five hundred miles away,’ she protested. ‘That’s what you said at breakfast.’

  ‘Five hundred miles ain’t all that far in a westerly gale. And that’s an iron-bound coast, no place to get too close to in bad weather. We’re going to have to beat out against it.’

  ‘Then you mean we won’t get to Gibraltar on Friday?’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it may delay us for a day or two. But so long as the Poseidon has sea room, Miss Crown, we’ve naught to worry about. Save being washed overboard. Now do as I ask, and go below. Up here is for men.’

  Felicity cast a last look at the Americans, but they were obviously also preparing for the storm, and even more efficiently than the brig. Then she obeyed his command and went below, where Mrs Flemming was still drinking gin and Peggy was being seasick, as were two of the other women. How she wished she were a man and could stay on deck.

  But she changed her mind as the wind rose, and the ship began to heave and plunge and roll as well; as she listened to the orders being shouted above her head, and the creaking of the wheel being turned to and fro; and as the waves struck the wooden hull, it seemed only inches from where she sat, with tremendous crashes. Up there really was man’s work. And there was sufficient to do in the cabin, coping with the alarm of the women, and of the male passengers as well. Mr Flemming sat with his arm round his wife’s shoulders, but was clearly just as terrified, and soon took to the gin bottle himself.

  It became one of the longest days that Felicity had ever known. It was of course impossible for the steward to serve a proper meal, and they had to exist on biscuits and snaps of brandy, while the wind howled and the seas battered the ship. In the cabin it was impossible to tell what was really happening outside, but when Felicity could stand her confinement no longer, or the sounds and smells which went with it, and attempted to return on deck, whatever the risk, she found that the companion hatch was locked and battened. My God, she thought, we are trapped down here. A feeling which grew as she listened to the clacking of the pumps, suggesting that the hull was making water. Yet even that soon became commonplace, as the day faded into darkness, and she found that she dozed off, her arms around Peggy Flemming, to be awakened in the middle of the night by a tremendous crack.

  ‘Oh Lord!’ Mrs Flemming shrieked. ‘Oh, God in heaven, have mercy on us, for we are lost.’

  ‘That was a mast snapping,’ said Major Britton. He was on his way to join his regiment, and up to this moment, as befitted a soldier, he had been the calmest of them all, but now even he was looking pale in the light of the swinging lantern.

  ‘We must find out,’ Felicity decided, and climbed the ladder again, prepared to bang on the hatch door until someone heard her, but as she reached the top it opened anyway, and the captain peered in.

  ‘Now ladies,’ he said, shaking water from his oilskins on to her upturned face, while she inhaled great gulps of magnificent fresh air, and looked past his shoulder at the huge waves, white crests tumbling over, clearly visible even in the darkness as they surged by. ‘There is nothing to be afraid of. We have lost our foretopmast, that is all. But we are hove to, and the wind is abating. And as soon as it is gone altogether, why, we’ll rig a jury and get under way. So sleep well.’

  ‘A topmast,’ Major Britton surmised. ‘Well, that is not so bad, I suppose.’

  ‘And hove to,’ Mr Flemming said. ‘Oh, that is very good. You heard the captain, my dear. There is nothing to be afraid of.’

  Oddly, Felicity believed him, and the wind was dropping, she was sure. She fell into a deep sleep, curled on the bunk beside Peggy, who every so often gave a convulsive shudder, as if she was having a succession of nightmares, and awoke with a start to find the cabin almost still and filled with snores and grunts, but also with a considerable amount of daylight, finding its way in through the stern windows. Out there the seas did not look half so terrifying as during the night, and the terrible whistle of the wind was gone.

  Cautiously she pushed herself up, straightened her clothes as best she could, drew a brush through her hair, and tiptoed past the various sleeping bodies, to gain the ladder. The hatch was open. She stepped out into the waist of the ship, and the most beautiful morning, with the heavy clouds of yesterday quite disappeared, and the sea, if still splashed with the occasional whitecap, no more frightening than at any previous time on the voyage. To her dismay, however, the other ships of the convoy, together with the warships, British or American, had all disappeared. The Poseidon was no longer hove to, but sailing quietly before the wind under a storm trysail only; her foredeck was a mass of disordered rigging and canvas, and the fore-topmast hung like a broken bone from its lower section.

  ‘Where is everyone else, Captain Brathwaite?’ she cried.

  ‘Scattered by the storm,’ the captain replied. ‘I imagine they’re not too distant, though. There’s one in sight back there …’

  He pointed astern, and Felicity shaded her eyes to see a ship several miles behind them, carrying only a single sail, and appearing to roll heavily in the swell.

  ‘She’s been dismasted, I reckon,’ Brathwaite said. ‘Once we get our foremast jury-rigged, and can work to windward again, we’ll beat back to her and see if she needs assistance.’ Felicity swept the horizon with the captain’s telescope. ‘And there’s another over there,’ she cried, vastly relieved as she made out the sails. ‘She looks quite all right.’ Because the ship was carrying all sail, and was approaching quite fast; she was coming from the direction in which the Poseidon was at the moment sa
iling, and thus the two vessels were on converging courses.

  ‘Now that’s odd,’ the captain said, and took the glass back to level it. ‘Yes,’ he said doubtfully, after a careful inspection of the approaching ship. ‘I don’t like the look of her very much. Certainly she’s not one of ours.’ Felicity frowned at the stranger, which was by now quite visible to the naked eye, and realised that it was indeed unlike any vessel she had ever seen before; a long, low hull, with no discernible forecastle or quarterdeck, and fore-and-aft-rigging, like a schooner, save that the after yard seemed unnaturally long.

  ‘That’s a lateen mainsail, that is,’ Captain Brathwaite said. ‘I don’t like the look of her at all.’ He left Felicity’s side and went to the rail. ‘Mr Lewin,’ he called. ‘Make haste with clearing that deck and rigging that mast. Mr Clark, issue muskets and cutlasses to the crew, and load the guns. We’ve a Barbary pirate on the starboard bow.’

  The crew ceased their activities to run to the bulwark and peer at the approaching vessel. Felicity’s stomach seemed to give an enormous roll. They had been so safe, just twenty-four hours ago, surrounded by well-armed warships, by friends. Now … Desperately she ran to the stern to look back at the other ship. But they could expect no help from that quarter; she was entirely crippled for the time being. And the pirate was definitely coming straight at them.

  But if perhaps they could get back to the other straggler, and form a united front …

  The same thoughts were obviously occurring to the captain. ‘Mr Lewin,’ he bawled, and the first mate hurried aft again. ‘Our best course will be to beat up to that fellow astern. Together we’d be too strong for the Moors.’

  ‘She’ll not do it, Captain,’ Lewin objected. ‘She’ll only carry one foresail until that mast has been shored up, and that’ll be too slow. Those corsairs are like whippets to windward. She’d haul us down in minutes.’

  Brathwaite chewed his lip, while Felicity watched them anxiously.