The Distant Ocean

by Philip K Allan

  At first the rain was welcome, as it washed through their hair and cooled their sweating faces. But then the sky became increasingly dark. The thunder grew in volume and the shower of rain swelled into a considerable downpour, soaking them to the skin. The ground began to soften underfoot, slowing their progress.

  ‘Damn!’ cursed Croft. ‘I left my pea jacket back at the house when we left in such haste.’

  ‘With respect, sir, at least you had a coat to leave,’ said Chapman. ‘Mine had a bleeding great hole cut in the back for one of them flags.’

  ‘This rain is not wholly unwelcome, however,’ said Sutton. ‘That dog we encountered put me in mind of hounds. The French may well have some, for tracking run slaves. By rights this rain should wash away much of our trail.’

  They pressed on into the deluge, but it was hard going. Their rain-sodden garments clung to their bodies, chaffing and annoying them with every step. The wind got up and drove sheets of water into their faces, blinding them as they walked. Sutton pointed a little way ahead, to where there was a small wooden lean-to. It was thatched with dried banana leaves and stood next to a field of sugarcane.

  ‘Shall we try our luck there?’ he suggested, and then, ‘Have a care, Chapman. There are leeches all over that bush beside you.’

  ‘Bleeding hell,’ cried the sailor, jumping clear of the long grey tubes as they reached out towards his body heat. ‘I am fine with indoors, sir. So long as it ain’t alive with more of them buggers.’

  A short dash through the tropical downpour and they clattered through the doorway and into the little hut. Some rusting tools rested against one wall. For now at least, the floor of beaten earth was dry.

  ‘Do you suppose that our signal will have worked, sir?’ asked the midshipman, a little while later, when they were sitting in a row with their backs to the wall of the shelter, staring out through the curtain of water that poured off the roof.

  ‘I sincerely hope so, Mr Croft,’ said Sutton. ‘Else all our efforts will have been in vain, and we could have been resting in the convenience of our house.’

  ‘Aye, be good to watch this storm through a layer of glass, sir,’ added Chapman, scratching patterns in the dirt floor with his clasp knife.

  ‘Quite so,’ said the captain. ‘My only concern is if Captain Clay should suspect a trap. He may think we were the French, making use of a captured signal book. I had intended to transmit something to reassure him. His birthday, for example, or his sister’s name, but we were detected too soon.’

  ‘So what do we do next, now that we have been rumbled, sir?’

  ‘Let us stay here for the moment, while the rain lasts,’ said Sutton. ‘To answer your question with regard to the long term, we need to get off the island. The commandant will be very unforgiving to those who have been in communication with the enemy, no matter how crude the means employed. But till we have a plan to achieve that, we may as well stay dry. I will keep watch for the enemy, while you two get some rest.’

  The companions settled down on the hard floor. Croft felt the first rumblings of hunger in his stomach, and his wet clothes were chill against his skin, but he was tired from all their running and he eventually slipped off to sleep. It seemed that he had hardly shut his eyes before he was being shaken awake. He opened them to find it had stopped raining, and the light outside had softened with the approach of evening. Sutton’s face was close to his, a finger held up to his lips, while behind him Chapman peered through a gap between the slats.

  ‘We need to go, Mr Croft,’ he whispered. ‘A patrol is coming in our direction.’ The three men slipped away from the hut and vanished once more into the cover of the tall green stems of sugarcane.

  *****

  By nightfall, the fugitives had reached the very edge of the cultivated area of land around St Paul. Beyond the hill they were on was a ravine with a gushing stream flowing through it, and then the steeply forested mountains of the interior. They seemed to have shaken off any pursuit for now, and on the far side of the hill was another small shelter, similar to that they had used earlier. Tired and hungry, they settled down inside and quickly fell asleep.

  Later that night, Sutton was awake in an instant, wondering what had woken him so abruptly. It was quite dark in the little shack, and the packed earth under him was hard as iron. From the ache the ground had left in his limbs, he could tell that he had been asleep for several hours. He could also tell, as he pushed himself into a sitting position, that both his companions were tense and awake too.

  ‘What was that sound?’ he whispered. ‘Another of those damned patrols?’

  ‘I don’t think so, sir,’ said Croft. They all stopped to listen. The night was full of the noises of the tropics. Insects hummed, frogs croaked and nameless creatures rustled through the undergrowth, but there seemed to be no human sound. And then they heard it again. The low rumble of distant gunfire.

  ‘That’s a bunch of cannons firing, or I ain’t never heard them before, sir,’ said Chapman from his other side.

  ‘Do you still have your spy glass?’ asked Sutton. He felt cool metal press against his arm as the midshipman held it towards him in the dark. ‘My thanks, Mr Croft.’ He grasped the telescope, rose to his feet and went outside. The other two men followed him through the low entrance. Above their heads the clouds had been tattered by the night breeze, and patches of starlight shone through. Behind them loomed the interior mountains, dark and impenetrable. Off to one side they could see the lights of St Paul. At their feet was a rolling landscape of black fields, punctuated by clusters of light from the plantations and farms dotted here and there. It stretched down to the shoreline, beyond which was an endless, vast ocean of dark water, brushed by starlight, and stretching away to the far horizon. Then he saw a line of orange tongues flash out, sending light washing across the sea. And in that flash, before the boom of the guns could reach him, he saw the battle that was raged in the night.

  Two frigates formed a shape like a T, perhaps a mile off shore. One seemed to be at anchor, to judge from the lack of sail it carried. It was bow-on to the land and was firing rapid broadside after broadside at the second ship. That frigate was under modest sail, and seemed to be picking its way towards the first ship. A pair of orange tongues showed where it returned a little fire from twin guns mounted in its bow. As it was heading directly towards the first ship, the cannon along its sides had no target to aim at. There was a third source of light and flame. One of the shore batteries was firing too.

  ‘Captain Clay did trust our signal, sir!’ exclaimed Croft. ‘That must be the Titan at anchor, and the Prudence coming down the channel towards her. How marvellous! See how she pounds away.’

  ‘Aye, that Frog ship is proper screwed,’ said Chapman with satisfaction. ‘Beggin’ your pardon for my language, sir.’

  ‘Granted,’ said Sutton. ‘I believe you may have the truth of it. If that channel is too narrow to turn in, the Prudence can only sail on and try and lay herself alongside the Titan. She will take a fearful pounding all the way in, much as our poor Rush did.’ He focused his telescope on the scene below them. The surface of the water had become obscured with gun smoke, which drifted in clouds towards the shore. The positions of the ships were still obvious to see, their tall masts soaring above the fog. There was another flash of light as the Titan fired again, and he saw that the Prudence’s foretopgallant mast hung down in a mass of severed rigging, but still she came on.

  ‘Will you look at all that flame and smoke, sir,’ said Chapman. ‘It’s like Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens on November the bleeding fifth.’

  ‘It’s a grand sight, sir,’ agreed Croft. ‘The old Rush is being revenged at last. God, I wish I was there.’ Sutton said nothing, but he wished that he were there too, beside his friend, in the midst of the fight. Then he looked up from the telescope, deep in thought. All that flame and smoke, Chapman had said. He turned the words over in his mind, aware that an idea was forming. Flame and smoke, the first could guide them i
n the dark, the second would conceal them from hostile eyes. He tried to think back to his walks along that beach of black sand, just after dawn. At the time his mind had been cluttered with tortured thoughts of Betsey Clay and revenge against Windham, making him take little note of his surroundings. Then his head started to clear. He could remember something at his feet, something very important. Something he had seen, but not really noted at the time.

  ‘Fishing boats,’ he muttered.

  ‘Beg pardon, sir?’ said Chapman, looking around.

  ‘Fishing boats,’ he repeated, more strongly. ‘There are two little ones, pulled up on the sand, this side of the battery. I have passed them most mornings.’

  ‘I know the ones, sir,’ said Croft. ‘Didn’t you say they were too small for the ocean?’

  ‘I did,’ confirmed Sutton. ‘But we need not cross an ocean to reach the Titan. A mile and a half of paddling will answer well enough.’

  ‘Go back down back to the beach, sir?’ queried Chapman, sucking in his cheeks. ‘Won’t it be alive with Frogs?’

  ‘It may well be, but every man jack of them will be looking at your Vauxhall Gardens display. With all that gun smoke, I doubt they will mark three men in a little boat.’

  ‘Well, I did say I wanted to be out there, sir,’ said the midshipman.

  ‘And soon you shall be, Mr Croft,’ said Sutton. ‘Let us head down the path over there. It seems to tend towards the beach.’

  *****

  Sutton’s flame and smoke were growing all the time as the three men hurried towards the sea. They tried their best to move quickly, but they had been running and hiding for much of the day, and none of them had eaten since breakfast. The patchwork of fields seemed like a labyrinth in the dark, with just the distant flicker of light and the thunder of the guns to guide them forward. After an hour, they struggled up to the top of a low rise, close to the shore with tall walls of sugar cane boxing them in. The sound of the gunfire was very loud, the concussion splashing across the underside of the low clouds, and they could see the battle laid out before them. The two frigates were locked together now, side by side, with both their full broadsides hammering away at each other. A glow of light swept across the sea as the guns fired, making the shape of the palm trees that fringed the shore stand out like dark phantoms for an instant. The blast of the cannon was so loud now that they could all feel it, deep in the chest, as well as a sound heard by the ear.

  ‘That Titan’s got her beat all ways up,’ said Chapman. ‘I never saw cannon plied so brisk.’ Sutton looked at the volcano of fire that lit up the sea. The sailor was right; one of the ships was being overwhelmed by the other. The fight could not last much longer. He estimated how far they still had to go. Perhaps another half mile?

  ‘Come on, lads, we need to make haste,’ he said. ‘Who still has the wind to run?’ He forced his tired limbs into a shambling trot, and, followed by the others, he disappeared down the track towards the beach. The groves of trees on either side towered up above them once more, like the black walls of a canyon.

  Now they moved more slowly, creeping forward in short dashes between the dark shadows cast by trees. Exhaustion and fear combined to slow their progress as they neared the sea. They could still hear gunfire ahead, but the tone and volume had changed.

  ‘I believe it is just the shore battery firing now, sir,’ said Croft, as they crouched down behind a palm close to the beach. ‘The Prudence must have struck her colours.’

  ‘No end of gun smoke in the air, mind, sir,’ added Chapman. He turned his face to the gentle breeze and sniffed. ‘That or we be right close to the Gates of Hell. I would recognise that brimstone smell anywhere.’ Sutton was silent as he concentrated on the way ahead. The big guns of the battery boomed out again, sending a flash of orange light into the night. In the moment before dark returned, he saw the curve of the upturned boats, close to a pair of palm trees a little farther along the shore.

  ‘Follow me,’ he whispered. The three men ran forwards with their bodies crouched over till they reached the boats. They dropped down into the sand beside the hulls.

  ‘Not sure as this one will answer, sir,’ muttered the voice of Chapman from the other side of the two hulls. ‘Feels to be a might snug for three, like.’

  ‘Help me with this other one, Mr Croft,’ said Sutton, and the two men rolled it over on the sand. It was a long, shallow craft, made from overlapping planks. From memory he remembered that the hull was painted a faded blue. Both men groped around the interior, their hands busy in the dark.

  ‘Hull is sound enough, sir,’ whispered the midshipman. ‘I have found a bailer stowed under this seat, but no oars.’

  ‘I have a paddle here,’ said the captain. ‘But it does feel rather small. Chapman, has your boat got any oars?’ There was a pause while the sailor scrabbled underneath his boat.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ he replied. ‘The owner must have taken them away.’

  ‘Sir!’ hissed Croft. ‘I can see another patrol!’ He pointed down the beach towards the battery, where an orange light was bobbing towards them. The guns boomed out again, silhouetting the little group of black figures. Each one had a musket over his shoulder. Their long shadows raced across the sand, then vanished into the night. The three men looked around, desperate for somewhere to hide on the flat sand.

  ‘Under the boats!’ ordered Sutton. ‘Now!’ Chapman heaved up one side of the smaller boat, and slid from view like an eel under a rock. The other two twisted their boat over them and lay together, tight as spoons. The night was already warm and balmy and it became even closer for the two men under the hull. The air grew stale, with an added note of tarred wood and fish, caught long ago. The guns from the shore battery boomed out once more, the shock wave reverberating on the hull as if it were the skin of a drum. Then they heard voices, quiet at first against the background hiss of the sea, but growing louder all the time. They seemed to stop near to the boats, and what sounded like an order was given. Now a set of footsteps crunched in the sand close to where they lay. A pause and then the thump of a musket butt as it struck the wood of the hull, the sound shocking as it boomed around inside the boat.

  ‘Non, rien ici,’ said a bored voice, loud and close, and the footsteps withdrew. Sutton felt his racing heart bang in his ears. He waited for the feeling to pass, and for the voices to fade. When they had, he inched up the side of the boat to create a little gap. The night air smelt pure and clean by comparison, and he sucked it in hungrily. Then he looked for the patrol’s orange lamp, still dancing along the shore, but now far down the beach.

  ‘All clear,’ he said, and he held up the side of the boat to allow Croft to emerge, coughing and spluttering. The two men heaved their boat over once more, then went around it to release the steward.

  ‘Christ, but it were close under there,’ gasped Chapman, as they lifted the hull off him. ‘Proper ripe, like a Billingsgate slop bucket.’

  ‘Come on,’ urged Sutton. ‘Let us be away before the next patrol should arrive.’ Chapman took the bow, the two officers each took a side of the stern, and between them they managed to carry the boat, stumbling, down to the shallows.

  ‘No tiller at all,’ said Sutton, feeling around the flat stern. ‘That paddle must have served as one. Well, we have no oars, so we shall have to make shift with what we have. Chapman, you go into the bow to act as lookout. Kindly go in the middle, Mr Croft, and I shall paddle in the stern like a Mohawk. When I can pull no more, we can change about.’

  They pushed the boat deeper into the water, coral scraping against the hull, and then it floated free. They all scrambled aboard and took their places in the little craft. The waves that lapped past them were small, and Sutton found he was able to paddle the heavy boat slowly forwards, each dip of the blade accompanied by a swirl of phosphorescence in the black water. The two frigates had long since stopped firing, giving him little mark to steer towards. Just then a line of orange flames shot out from the battery, followed by the tearing
shriek as the shot flew over their heads. They all ducked down instinctively, and when Sutton looked up it was dark once more.

  ‘Keep a good watch in the bow there, Chapman,’ he called. ‘Use the light of the next salvo to see by.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ came the reply, and the boat paddled on into the night.

  ‘Do you mark the Titan?’ asked the captain, after a while.

  ‘I ain’t sure as I do, sir,’ the sailor replied. ‘I thought I saw the loom of a ship, half a point more to starboard, but there is that much smoke about.’

  ‘Half a point you say,’ said Sutton and he turned the boat a little farther out towards the open sea.

  ‘We are making decent progress, sir,’ said Croft as the battery fired again. ‘Those guns look to be a good two cables away now.’

  ‘I would like to say it is all my hard work with a very indifferent paddle, but I think much of the credit must go to this off-shore breeze propelling us along,’ replied the captain.

  ‘I reckon there’s a couple of knots of current an’ all, sir,’ added Chapman, sniffing the air. ‘Tide will have turned. Might I try with the spy glass, Mr Croft? Help me see this barky we needs to find, like.’ The midshipman passed it forward and Chapman studied the dark night with care. The boat carried on out to sea.

  ‘That shore battery has stopped firing, sir,’ said Croft, a few minutes later.

  ‘So it has,’ replied Sutton. ‘Will you take over with the paddle please, Mr Croft? I am quite spent.’ The men changed places and the boat’s progress resumed. Sutton massaged his tired arms and looked back towards the island. The smoke was clearing now, and he could see the occasional light from the shore as it twinkled and danced off the water, giving them at least some mark to steer by in the dark. Chapman was right about the tide, Sutton thought to himself. The glow of St Paul was much more distant than his efforts with their feeble paddle could have achieved. They must be several miles out now. In the bow Chapman muttered a curse under his breath, and turned around in the boat.