Authors: Alexander Kent
Heeling over on the opposite tack
Wakeful
responded again to wind and rudder, but with the lively north-easterly hardening her sails like armour plating, she held firmly to her course, the motion less violent.
“Sou'-west, sir! Steady she goes!”
Bolitho walked stiffly to the larboard side and watched the first thin sunlight touch the land. It looked much nearer, but it was a trick of light and colour which often happened in coastal waters.
Bolitho snatched up a telescope as the lookout yelled, “Deck there! Ships on th' larboard bow!” He sounded breathless, as if the violence of the manoeuvre had almost hurled him down.
It was still too far. Bolitho watched the waves looming and fading as he trained the glass carefully on the bearing.
Smaller vessels. Perhaps three of them. One of them firing, the sound reaching him now through the planks under his feet. Like driftwood striking into the hull.
“Deck there! 'Tis a chase, sir! Steering sou'-west!”
Bolitho tried to picture it. A chase, using the same wind which made
Wakeful'
s canvas boom like thunder. What ships must they be?
“Let her fall off two points, Mr Queely. Steer south-southwest.”
He forced himself to ignore Queely's stifled resentment. “Make as much sail as you can safely carry. I want to catch them!”
Queely opened and closed his mouth. Then he beckoned to Kempthorne. “Loose the tops'l!”
Bolitho found time to think of his dead brother as under extra canvas the cutter seemed to throw herself across the short crests. No wonder he had loved his
Avenger.
The picture faded. If he ever really cared for anything.
He looked up and saw the sunshine touching each sail in turn, the canvas already steaming in the first hint of warmth.
The guns were still firing, but when he raised the glass again he saw that the angle of the sails had increased, as if the furthest craft was being headed off and driven towards the land when before she had been making for open water. Like a sheep being tired and then harried by the shepherd's dog until all thought of escape was gone.
A voice said, “We're overhaulin' the buggers 'and over fist, Ted!”
Another exclaimed, “They ain't even seen us yet!”
The coastline was taking on personality, while here and there Bolitho saw sunlight reflecting from windows, changing a headland from purple to lush green.
“Deck there!” Everyone had forgotten about the masthead. “Two French luggers, sir! Not certain about t'other, but she's in bad trouble! Canvas shot through, a topmast gone!”
Bolitho walked this way and that. Two luggers, perhaps after a smuggler. “We shall discover nothing if the French take her.” He saw the others staring at him. “
More sail,
Mr Queely. I wish to stand between them!”
Queely nodded to the master then said in a fierce whisper, “We shall be inside their waters in half-an-hour, sir! They'll not take kindly to it.” He offered his last card. “Neither will the admiral, I'm thinking.”
Bolitho watched more men swarming aloft, their horny feet moving like paddles on the jerking ratlines.
“The admiral, fortunately, is in Chatham, Mr Queely.” He glanced round as more shot hammered over the crests. “Whereas we are here.”
“It is my right to lodge a protest, sir.”
“It is also your duty to fight your ship if need be, to the best of your ability.” He walked away, angry with Queely for making him use authority when he only wanted co-operation.
“One of 'em's seen us, sir!”
The other lugger had luffed and was spilling canvas as she thrust over into the wind to meet
Wakeful'
s intrusion.
Queely watched the lugger, his eyes cold. “Clear for action.”
Kempthorne strode aft from the mainmast, his gaze questioning.
“Sir?”
“Then stand by to shorten sail!”
Bolitho looked across the deck, feeling his displeasure, his resistance.
“Have your gunner lay aft, Mr Queely. I wish to speak with him.”
Something touched his coat and he turned to see the boy staring up at him, the old sword clutched in both hands.
Bolitho gripped his shoulder. “That was
well
done, Matthew.”
The boy blinked and stared at the frantic preparations to cast off the gun's breechings without hampering the men at halliards and braces. There was no longer awe there, nor excitement. His lips quivered, and Bolitho knew that fear, and the reason for it, had replaced them. But his voice was steady enough, and only Bolitho knew what the effort was costing him. As he helped Bolitho clip the sword into place he said, “It's what
he
would have done, sir, what he would have expected of me.”
Once again, Allday's shadow was nearby.
Luke Teach,
Wakeful'
s gunner, waited patiently while Bolitho described what he wanted. He was a thickset, fierce-looking man who hailed from the port of Bristol, and was said to boast that he was a true descendant of Edward Teach, or Blackbeard as he was known. He had also come from Bristol, a privateer who soon found piracy on the high seas was far more rewarding.
Bolitho could well believe it, for the gunner had a jowl so dark that had the King's Regulations allowed otherwise he might have grown a beard to rival that of his murderous ancestor.
Bolitho said, “I intend to drive between the luggers and the other vessel. The French may not contest it, but if they doâ”
Teach touched his tarred hat. “Leave 'un to me, zur.” He bustled away, calling names, picking men from various stations because he knew their ability better than anyone.
Queely said, “That ship is in a poor way, sir.” But his eyes were on the preparations around the carronades. “I fear we may be too late.”
Bolitho took the telescope and examined the other vessels.
The luggers would be wary of the English cutter, for although they served their navy and were well-handled, probably by local men, like
Wakeful'
s, they would be unused to open combat.
He watched the nearest one tacking steeply under a full press of tan-colored sails and saw the new French ensign flapping from her gaff, the little-known Tricolour set in one corner of the original white flag.
He glanced up and saw that Queely had already made his own gesture, although he doubted if the French would need to see an English flag to know her nationality and purpose.
The craft being chased had lost several spars and was barely making headway, some rigging and an upended boat trailing alongside to further pull her round. A fishing vessel of some kind, Bolitho thought, their own or English did not matter. It seemed very likely she might be employed in the Tradeâfew revenue officers dared to venture into the fishermen's tight community.
“God, she's taking it cruelly.” Kempthorne was standing on the mainhatch to get a better look as more shots pursued the stricken vessel, some striking the hull, others tearing through rigging and puncturing her sails.
“Run out, Mr Queely.” Bolitho rested his hand on his sword hilt and watched as the
Wakeful'
s men hauled and guided their guns up to their open ports.
The French lugger would know what that meant.
Baring her teeth
. Making it clear what she intended.
The lugger changed tack and began to fall downwind to draw nearer to her consort.
Teach the gunner was creeping along the bulwark like a crab, pausing to peer through every port, to instruct each man, a hand-spike here, a pull on a tackle there.
Wakeful
was no fifth-rate but at least she was prepared.
Queely exclaimed, “The Frogs are hauling off!”
Bolitho thought he knew why but said nothing. The explosion when it came was violent and unexpected. A tongue of flame shot from the fishing boat's deck and in seconds her canvas was in charred flakes, the rigging and upperworks savagely ablaze.
A boat was pulling away, and must have been in the water, hidden by the shattered hull before the explosion was sparked off. One of the luggers fired, and a ball passed above the little boat to hurl a waterspout high into the air.
Queely stared at Bolitho, his eyes wild. “
Engage,
sir?”
Bolitho pointed to the fishing boat. “As close as you dare. I don't thinkâ” The rest was lost in a second explosion as a ball crashed directly into the oared boat, and when the fragments had finally ceased splashing downâthere was nothing to be seen.
Queely banged one hand into his palm.
“Bastards!”
“Shorten sail, if you please.” Bolitho trained his glass on the sinking fishing boat. By rights she should have gone by now, but some trick of buoyancy defied both the fire and the gashes in her hull.
Kempthorne whispered to his commander, “If there is another explosion we shall be in mortal danger, sir!”
Queely retorted, “I think we are aware of it.” He looked hotly at Bolitho. “
I
certainly am.”
There was a far-off, muffled bang, and it seemed an eternity before a great fin of spray cascaded across the sea near the cap-sizing hull. Fired at maximum range from some shore battery which was watching the drama through powerful telescopes. Probably a thirty-two-pounder, a “Long Nine” as the English nicknamed them, an extremely accurate gun, and the largest carried by any man-of-war. For that purpose it was also used on both sides of the Channel to determine the extents of their territorial waters.
Wakeful
was out of range for any accurate shooting. But it would only need one of those massive iron balls, even with the range all but spent, to dismast her, or shatter her bilges like a battering ram.
It was why the luggers were keeping well clear, and not just because they were unwilling to match the cutter's carronades.
Bolitho said, “No time to put down the boat. I want grapnels.” He looked at the men not employed at the guns. “
Volunteers
to board that wreck!”
Nobody moved, and then one of the half-naked seamen swaggered forward. “Right ye be, sir.”
Another moved out. “Me too, sir.”
A dozen hands shot up, some of the gun crews too.
Bolitho cleared his throat. Allday might have got volunteers; he had not expected to do it himself with total strangers.
“Take in the mains'l!” Queely had his hands on his hips, pressing against his waist to control his agitation.
“Tops'l and jib, Mr Kempthorne, they will suffice!”
Bolitho walked amongst the volunteers as they prepared their heaving lines and grapnels.
The first volunteer peered at him and asked, “Wot we lookin' fer, sir?” He had the battered face of a prize-fighter, and Bolitho's mind clung to yet another memory, that of Stockdale, his first coxswain, who had died protecting his back at the Saintes.
“I don't know, and that's the God's truth.” He craned over the bulwark and watched the sinking hull moving dangerously near. The surrounding sea was covered with dead fish and shattered casks, flotsam, charred remains, but little else.
There was another distant bang and eventually the ball slammed down just a few yards from the wreck. The fishing boat was an aiming mark for the invisible shore battery, Bolitho thought. Like a lone tree in the middle of a battlefield.
The shock of the heavy ball made the wreck lurch over and Bolitho heard the sudden inrush of water as the seams opened up to speed its end.
“Grapnels!”
Four of them jagged into the wreck and within seconds the seamen were clawing their way across, urged on by their mess-mates, the luggers all but forgotten except by Teach and his handpicked gun crews.
The shore battery fired again, and spray fell across the sinking vessel and made the seamen there peer round with alarm.
Queely said hoarsely, “They'll catch us at any moment, sir!”
A grapnel line parted like a pistol shot; the wreck was starting to settle down. There was no point in any further risk.
“Cast off! Recall those men!”
Bolitho turned as the man with the battered face yelled, “'Ere, sir!”
He floundered through a hatchway where the trapped water already shone in the sunlight like black glass. If the hull dived nothing could prevent it, and he would certainly go with her.
“Call him back!”
Bolitho watched, holding his breath as the man reappeared. He carried a body over his bare shoulders as effortlessly as a sack.
Queely muttered, “God's teeth, it's a woman!”
Willing hands reached out to haul them on board, then as the wreck began to dip, and another line snapped under the strain, Bolitho said, “Carry on, Mr Queely, you may stand your ship out of danger.”