Touch and Go (20 page)

“A laconic report doing scant justice to the most exciting days I have spent or will ever spend!”

“It was a pleasure to have you with us, sir.”

“I should like to add that I have formed the highest opinion of your professional skill. Should I have the chance to mention your name to anyone with interest in high places, I shall do so in terms of warm admiration.”

“Thank you, sir. I shall be obliged to you.”

“Forgive me, however, if I hint to you that your worldly wisdom falls a little short of your warlike accomplishments.”

“How so, Dr Rathbone?”

“Your purchase of a slave girl is a romantic story that will lose nothing in the telling.”

“But what was I to do? I could not let a mere child be sold like that to an Arab dealer.” Delancey had acted on impulse, as he knew, and it was a lame excuse.

“I know—I know,” said Rathbone. “But what will people think when she steps ashore at Gibraltar?”

“People? Do you mean the Port Admiral?”

“No, I don't mean the senior officers of either service. I mean their wives. This could ruin your chances of making the right sort of marriage.”

“I see what you mean, sir. I suppose I could smuggle the girl ashore after dark . . .”

“What would be the use? Tetuan is a short day's sail from Gibraltar, forty miles or less, and there is constant communication, with supply ships passing every week. What happens in Tetuan today is known in Gibraltar tomorrow. Come what may, that story will make the rounds.”

“What then can I do?”

“Leave her on board in my care. Find a kind woman on shore and persuade her to visit the ship, bringing with her some clothes and, above all, some shoes. Then they can land together in broad daylight. That will look perfectly proper even if it doesn't prevent the gossip. Do you know a motherly sort of woman who would look after the girl and train her as a maidservant?”

“No, sir, I don't. I've only a small acquaintance in Gibraltar.”

“That being the case, you had best consult with the garrison chaplain. Call on him as soon as you have reported to the Admiral. It will help, perhaps, if you tell him that the girl is aged nine.”

“And you, sir, a clergyman, would have me tell a lie?”

“What lie, captain? What is her real age? Do you know?”

“Of course not, sir. I can only guess.”

“But with no real knowledge. I can guess too and I put her age as nine.”

“I am sure you are right, sir. She might, in fact, be no more than eight.”

Delancey went to visit Souraya at this time and took Dr Rathbone with him. The girl was up and looking out of the nearest gunport with every sign of bewilderment. It could have been, and probably was, her first sight of the sea. Delancey sat near her and talked soothingly, putting all the kindness he could into the words she could not understand. He finally extracted a single fleeting smile, after which she looked fixedly again at the deck. He then realised (with an absurd touch of jealousy) that Teesdale was already a friend of hers and could make her laugh. So he and Dr Rathbone left her in good hands, wondering how the steward had overcome the language difficulty. Overcome it he had, anyway, and he admitted to having a way with children; something Delancey conspicuously lacked.

After dinner that day, a farewell occasion for Dr Rathbone, the Rock of Gibraltar was in sight. Delancey presently spoke with a cutter on patrol and learnt that Linois had not yet been seen but that the
Speedy
was known to have been captured. Asked whether the same admiral was there, the master reported that there was no admiral at all. The flag-officer to whom Delancey used to report had gone home, invalided, and there had been no replacement. The harbour was empty of men-of-war, save for a single sloop. So there was no likelihood of Delancey being asked questions about what he had been doing.

With Linois daily expected, with a crisis at hand, no one would take much notice of Souraya. Thinking it over, Delancey decided that Dr Rathbone had made too much of the problem. He put the matter out of his mind and turned to something of more immediate importance.

“We shall presently be entering harbour, Mr Mather, and I want to do so with credit. Replace the old ensign by the new one. We'll have the sails a little more taut. Be ready to salute the flag and check the appearance of the men. The
Merlin
is no frigate but she can be as smart as any frigate in the list. Here is the place and now is the time!”

T
HE
Merlin
was rounding Europa Point and Delancey was secretly thrilled, as he had always been, by the sight of Gibraltar, the rock-face rising almost sheer from the sea on the eastern side, the sea breaking over the rocks to the south. The scene was warmly sunlit and he could see the yellow-brown hillsides beyond the Spanish coast. He could almost smell the undergrowth on Gibraltar's rocky slopes.

He had been there during the great siege eighteen years back, gaining his commission just before peace was signed. He had reconnoitred the floating batteries and had served in the gunboats which finally rescued some of the Spanish survivors. He had been at Gibraltar quite recently, for that matter, but his mind dwelt now on that earlier and historic occasion. General Elliott's defence of Gibraltar would be remembered, he supposed, for as long as Britain herself should survive. But war was fought in those days with a sense of chivalry. There were courteous messages and flags of truce and the whole affair ended with an inspection of the garrison by the Duc de Crillon, a polite visitor to the fortress he had failed to capture. The French Revolution had changed all that. So much had changed and so much for the worse. Lord Nelson had learnt from his opponents to aim at the annihilation of the enemy. There had been no thought of that in the previous war. In Rodney's day it had been enough to win the battle; one was not expected to destroy the enemy

As the harbour came in sight, Delancey saw that the only other man-of-war on the scene was another sloop, a queer-looking craft, probably smaller than the
Merlin.
If her commander were his junior, which was not very likely, he would himself be the senior naval officer at Gibraltar, entitled to open the dispatch of which he was the bearer. As for the squadron sent to fight Linois, there was no sign of it. The
Merlin
's passage from Minorca had been delayed by headwinds and Delancey guessed that Linois's passage might be slower still.

In the meanwhile, pending the arrival of other forces, three French sail of the line would be opposed by two British sloops. Coming smartly into harbour, Delancey saluted the flag, dropped anchor, and signalled his number to the other sloop. From her reply Delancey gathered that she was the 14-gun
Calpé
—commanded, according to the List, by the Honourable George Heneage Laurence Dundas, senior to Delancey in rank but almost certainly his junior in age. After issuing a few routine orders to Mr Mather, Delancey went off in a boat to pay his respects and deliver his dispatch. Dundas turned out to be a red-haired young man, aged little over twenty, with a very slight Scots accent, who received Delancey with more than a hint of patronage.

He looked rather prosperous and overweight, to all appearance more of a gentleman than a sailor. His after-cabin was richly furnished with brocade curtains, Persian rugs and silver hanging lamp. Glancing at Delancey's uniform he all but muttered “Provincial tailoring—it never looks right.” After some slight hesitation he offered Delancey a glass of wine, thinking almost audibly that his ill-dressed visitor would not appreciate good wine when he tasted it and would probably have preferred ale. He broke the seal of the dispatch and then, belatedly, asked Delancey to sit down.

“Pray be seated, captain, while I read this.”

The pause which followed gave Delancey time to look around and admire the prints, the cushions, the crystal decanters. Dundas was evidently a man of wealth. He looked up sharply after he had finished reading:

“You know the contents of this?”

“Yes.”

“Well, there are only two facts I can add. First, Linois has not yet been sighted. Second, there is a squadron off Cadiz commanded by Rear-Admiral Sir James Saumarez.”

“So Linois will have to fight?”

“To reach Cadiz, undoubtedly. But my guess is that he will call at Algeciras. There he will be told that Cadiz is blockaded. It will then be for him to decide what to do next. He might, for example, sail back to Toulon.”

“He will be outnumbered, I take it, by Saumarez?”

“Oh, yes. Sir James has seven sail of the line besides the
Thames,
frigate, and a sloop. He in turn would be outnumbered, of course, by the French and Spanish together.”

“Should he be warned about Linois?”

“Not until Linois is actually sighted. In the meanwhile, you will want to call on the Governor, General O'Hara. With Spain now at war with us, he sees himself as the hero of the coming siege.”

Delancey and his officers dined that day with the Governor, giving him news of Malta. The Governor, for his part, assured his guests that the fortress would be held to the last. Perhaps prejudiced by memories of General Elliott, now Lord Heathfield, Delancey decided silently that he himself would never have entrusted a key fortress to anyone called O'Hara. An Irishman, he thought, would be better leading an assault.

He enjoyed the occasion, nevertheless, and was glad that Dr Rathbone was among those present. The old scholar came across to Delancey when the guests rose from table and said at once, “I want you to meet the garrison chaplain, the Reverend Mr Samuel Slater. His wife, whom I have had the pleasure of meeting, is going to be very helpful indeed. She has a friend, Mrs Hardwick, who would be delighted to provide a home for Souraya. Come and meet Mr Slater before he goes about his duties.”

It soon appeared that Mrs Hardwick was kindness itself and promised to come aboard the
Merlin
next day, together with Mrs Slater, and would bring with her some suitable clothes and shoes for Souraya. Delancey accepted this offer with real gratitude but was not quite as pleased when the actual moment came for Souraya to leave his ship. He realised then that the girl had meant something to him, that he would miss her. He realised as promptly that her sadness, which was evident, was the result of her parting from Teesdale. There were tears on either side and then the parting came. His last glimpse of Souraya was of a small figure on the quayside waving good-bye to Teesdale.

On July 4th Dundas and Delancey watched the French squadron pass Europa Point, cross the bay and drop anchor four miles away at Algeciras. From their point of vantage on the King's Bastion they gazed through their telescopes until the French sails were furled.

“The flagship I take to be the
Formidable,
a seventy-four,” said Dundas, “with the
Indomptable
and
Desaix.”

“I believe the
Formidable
is an eighty-gun ship, sir,” was Delancey's reply, “and so is the
Indomptable.
There is a frigate—the
Muiron,
I think, and I suppose the other vessels are prizes.”

Dundas looked a little put out but came back with a comment of his own:

“One of them must be the
Speedy
and the brig is a small merchantman.”

“It looks to me, sir, as if the French men-of-war are in pretty good order.”

“Yes, the
Formidable
is a ship to reckon with and I suppose that the other is a sister ship. I must admit that I never heard of Linois.”

It almost seemed that Linois had been dismissed as a man of no social consequence but Delancey did what he could to reinstate him.

“He was an officer of the old regime, I believe, sir, and served under Suffren in the East Indies. He was promoted quite recently. He is a Breton, I have heard, with a reputation for caution rather than for enterprise.”

They closed their telescopes and walked back towards the harbour, both looking thoughtful.

They provided a certain contrast. Dundas was prosperous and well connected but rather lacking in experience. Delancey was a good practical seaman but had no influential relatives. They were on reasonably friendly terms but with a hint of jealousy on either side, liking each other better when they came to know each other more.

That night was windless and the
Calpé's
launch was sent off in a flat calm to warn Sir James Saumarez. Delancey was on board the
Calpé
when the dispatch was sent and he remained to discuss the situation.

“This sloop would have been seen at once,” Dundas explained. “The launch will pass unnoticed.”

“A pull of about eighty miles. . . . And what will Saumarez decide to do?”

“I have been thinking about that. His first instinct will be to prevent Linois joining up with the French and Spanish at Cadiz. His idea will be to destroy the weaker of the two squadrons before it can join forces with the other. That means attacking Linois tomorrow.”

“But Algeciras offers Linois a good defensive position in shallow water, with covering fire from the shore batteries. Saumarez would think twice, surely, before attacking him there.”

“Yes, but what else can he do? Suppose Linois sends a message overland to the Admiral at Cadiz, whose squadron then puts to sea. Then, when Linois himself quits his anchorage, Saumarez would be caught between two enemy squadrons. What chance would he have?”

“What is the Spanish strength, sir?”

“The French and Spanish are said to have about eleven ships between them at Cadiz, but they include three ships of a hundred guns or more. Two of them, we hear, the
Real-Carlos
and the
San-Hermenegilde,
mount a hundred and twelve guns apiece. They must be among the biggest ships in the world and we hear that they are splendidly built.”