Jane Austen Made Me Do It (49 page)

“
L
ieutenant Glover's greetings, Captain—and the watch has spotted sails approaching from the northwest.”

Francis William Austen set down the letter he had been reading when the midshipman entered his cabin. The remains of his breakfast lay pushed aside on the small dining table, awaiting clearance by the steward. He had eaten late, having gone on deck shortly after rising to observe a French brig that had first come into their sights yesterday, and that had escaped a volley of British fire by taking refuge under the cover of a battery on shore. After assuring himself in the hazy morning light that their “chase” had not managed to sneak past them during the night, and giving
orders to set a northeast-by-north course that kept their quarry in view, Austen had returned to his cabin to reread the latest dispatches over a lukewarm meal of ham and porridge. Fortunately, the coffee held its heat, and he had just poured a second cup from the pot to combat the chill of the day's early spring gales.

“How many?”

“Three, sir.” The junior officer's eyes were bright, his face eager. At fourteen, he saw every foreign sail as a potential opportunity to make his fortune or distinguish himself for promotion while advancing the cause of the Crown. In truth, so did most of the Royal Navy.

“And the brig?”

“Still skulking alongshore.”

“Thank you, Mr. Phillips. Tell Mr. Glover that I shall join him on the forecastle directly.”

Left to himself once more, Captain Austen indulged in a last sip of coffee before rising from the table to resume his coat. It hung from a peg near one of the two cannons that dominated the cabin's sides—an ever-present reminder that despite the relative luxury of his accommodations compared to those of the rest of the ship's company, he was nevertheless aboard a sloop of war.

The
Petterel
was a fast, reliable vessel of sixteen guns—twenty-four, if one included the eight carronades mounted on the quarterdeck and forecastle. At full complement she carried one hundred twenty-one men, boys, officers, and marines, trained and disciplined to exacting standards with measurable results: last June, they had proved their merit and valor as part of a fleet action under Vice-Admiral Lord Keith in which they captured a French squadron of five ships-of-the-line near Toulon. Now on blockade duty in the western Mediterranean Sea, the
Petterel
was under general orders to intercept any vessel that came in her
path—whether naval or private—thus crippling French commerce and thwarting Napoleon's attempts to supply and reinforce the army he had left behind in Egypt.

Austen hoped the
Petterel
would prove the making of him—the means by which he would rise from a mere commander addressed as “Captain” out of courtesy, to a post-captain: title, right epaulette, and all. Making post was the most significant promotion of a naval officer's career, the date from which the seniority that determined all further advancement was established. A full captain could command larger ships for better pay—frigates and ships-of-the-line; perhaps serve as flag captain to an admiral. Until that day came, however, Austen was content to command the
Petterel
to the best of his ability, to carry out his duty knowing that the smaller engagements of his sloop contributed to the greater efforts of the war that all in His Majesty's Navy strove and sacrificed to win.

As he adjusted the single epaulette on his left shoulder and smoothed dark blue lapels over his white waistcoat, his gaze strayed to the letter he had been reading when the midshipman interrupted him.

My dear Frank
,

I just today rec'd your letter of July 27th, and expect this reply will be more traveled than you by the time you read it.…

The missive had been forwarded to him along with the dispatch packet he had received last evening, and was from Jane, his younger sister and most faithful correspondent. Separated by little more than a year in age, they shared the dark eyes and slender nose common to the Austen family, but more important, they shared a determination to stay in contact as best they could despite the obstacles of distance and war. Other family members wrote him as well, but Jane's tidings were rendered with sharp observation and wit that was uniquely hers. The letters often
took months to find him and sometimes arrived out of order, but he treasured every one, for they were his connection to the people with whom he was not “Captain Austen,” but “Frank,” and to the home he had left when not quite twelve to enter the Naval College at Portsmouth. Now just one month shy of six-and-twenty, he had already served in the navy more than half his life.

Frank put away Jane's closely written pages, and with them, thoughts of the family he had not seen since before taking command of the
Petterel
in Gibraltar thirteen months earlier. More urgent matters demanded his attention. The letter joined others in his sea chest, which, like all of the room's furniture, would be removed to the hold if the decks were cleared for action. The dispatches he secured on his person in an inner pocket of his coat. From the windows of his cabin beneath the quarterdeck, he could not see the sails Mr. Glover had reported, but he could hear the north wind, which blew strong today. With full canvas, the unknown vessels could be within range of the
Petterel
before noon.

He reached for his hat and settled the bicorne over dark hair worn closely cropped in a futile attempt to control its curls in the Mediterranean humidity. “Captain Austen” once more, he headed for the door.

Three ships. If friendly, they and the
Petterel
would exchange news.

If not, they would exchange fire.

Upon emerging from his cabin, Austen raised his gaze to the
Petterel
's sails before proceeding to the forecastle. The jib and driver had been set, per his earlier orders. Mr. Glover, the sloop's first lieutenant, was high up the mainmast observing the approaching ships through a telescope. Austen felt a moment of mild envy, and fleetingly entertained the notion of climbing the ratlines himself to have a look. It had been some time since he had enjoyed the
view from the platform and the soaring sensation of being carried not by a ship but by the wind—the closest man could come to experiencing flight. But he resisted the impulse and instead went to confer with Mr. Thompson, the ship's master, while waiting for Mr. Glover to descend the ropes.

“Tacking again, sir,” Mr. Thompson said. “West by northwest, half north.”

Austen nodded. They had been tacking all night and through the morning, zigzagging to move against winds that had blown at gale force after dark and had diminished only slightly at daybreak. The approaching ships, in contrast, sailed with the wind behind them and could therefore hold a steady course. Windward of the
Petterel
, they also had the weather gage—an advantage should they bear down on the sloop to attack.

But the
Petterel
had Mr. Thompson.

The sloop's chief navigator and senior warrant officer, John Thompson possessed a gift for exploiting any ship's full capabilities, and his handling of the
Petterel
was truly masterful. He knew her strengths and subtleties, and could coax her to perform beyond expectations whether assailed by wind, rain, or enemy fire. Austen looked at the sky, hoping they would not experience all three simultaneously today. Fortunately, the haze was breaking up, revealing patches of sunlight and clear blue.

“Steer us toward the approaching sails, but not too far from the brig,” he said, glancing at the vessel still taunting them from under the battery's protection. “We have not finished with her yet.”

An answering spark lit the master's eyes. “Aye, Captain—not if there is aught I can do to trouble her.”

Austen crossed the main deck and climbed the steps to the forecastle, where Mr. Glover joined him a minute later. As first
lieutenant, Mr. Glover was Austen's second-in-command, and while it was the Admiralty who had appointed him, it was John Glover who had quickly demonstrated himself worthy of the commission. He possessed intelligence, good judgment, and honor, and could be relied upon to remain steady in a crisis. A ship as small as the
Petterel
could not afford to have a first officer who was anything less, and neither could Austen. In their few months of working together in combat and out, commander and first lieutenant already had developed a rapport in which Mr. Glover often could anticipate Austen's decisions before he even voiced them.

He greeted his lieutenant and gestured toward the cluster of sails ahead. “It appears we have company approaching.”

“Indeed, sir.” Mr. Glover's face was reddened by the strong winds aloft and the exertion of traversing the rigging—an activity that required stamina even in calm. Though he wore his hair tied back, the cold spring wind had loosed light brown strands that now wisped round his angular countenance as the two men gazed across the bow. “Five sails.”

“Five? I was told three.”

“Three of them are closer than the others—the watch observed them first. They are small vessels. But I thought I saw another sail on the horizon, so I went up to have a better look. Two more ships follow in the distance.”

Austen scanned the waves, and indeed spied the other two ships—tiny dots—now that Mr. Glover had advised him of their existence. At their present distance, his unaided eyes could not confirm the flag colors of any of the vessels. “French?”

“Mais oui.”
Mr. Glover grinned. “The closest three, at least.”

Austen could not help returning the smile. The
Petterel
routinely encountered merchantmen, Spanish ships, and an occasional
Dutch vessel, but the only thing more satisfying than destroying a French ship was capturing it.

“And the other two?”

“I could not discern.”

He took the glass from his lieutenant so that he could study the convoy for himself. The telescope caught the glare of sunlight glancing off the bay before he settled its view on the two clusters of sails. Two barques and a ketch sped along at the fore. “The farther ships appear to be a corvette and a xebec,” he said.

“I thought so, as well, though I was not entirely confident at this distance.”

“Keep a close watch on all five. Were I a gambling man, I would wager the corvette and xebec are French, too, perhaps part of the convoy.” Austen handed the glass back to Mr. Glover. “Surely the nearest three have sighted us by now. Have they changed speed or altered course?”

“They show no signs of concern,” Mr. Glover said. “We are close enough to shore that they might take us for a friendly vessel.”

“Very good.” That had been Austen's intent. Though the
Petterel
had spent most of the autumn and winter cruising near Minorca, presently the sloop patrolled the Bay of Marseilles with the
Mermaid
, a thirty-two-gun frigate captained by Robert Oliver. Last evening, Oliver had directed Austen to keep the
Petterel
close to shore so as to block the brig's path round Cape Croisette and deceive other enemy ships that happened along. It was a tactic Austen had used on previous occasions with great success—his record of enemy vessels captured or destroyed was already impressive—but it was not without risk. Nature guarded the coast with rocks, while Napoleon defended it with batteries.

“They might simply pass us by,” Mr. Glover said.

“They might.” French ships tended to concentrate on completing their missions rather than deviate to pursue unexpected opportunities—which was why Britain, not the Republic, dominated the seas. “If we allow them.”

Austen studied the convoy, which grew larger as the distance between them closed. The barques would offer little, if any, resistance; they might not even be armed. When attacked, most small vessels—indeed, most French vessels in general—attempted to outrun their pursuers. If part of a convoy, they took themselves out of the way and left the fight to the larger ships assigned to protect them. The ketch was a greater source of concern. If the heavier two-masted vessel proved to be merely a cargo carrier, it might not put up much of a struggle, but that type of craft was sometimes used as a bomb-ship.