Under Enemy Colours

by Sean Thomas Russell

  Hayden glanced over the list, largely to be sure the small number of men were distributed as intelligently as possible. “Well done, Wickham. How fare the castaways?” he asked of the men in general.

  “They are being fed now, sir, and look all the better for it,” Landry answered up smartly.

  “Mr Archer, gather a crew and move the sick-bay down to the orlop-deck. I know there is little room, but it will have to be done all the same. I would move them into my cabin, but it is no place for wounded men and doctors in an action. Mind you attend to Dr Griffiths’ instructions, and take great care with the wounded. Once that is done we will clear for action. We haven’t enough men to sail the ship and man the guns, so the gun crews shall go a man shy and we will keep the most able seamen on deck to handle sail. I should think it would be best to put Bourne’s crew on deck as they work together well.”

  Landry reached out an open hand, nodding to the watch and station bill Wickham had made up. “I will organize the crew, if you like, Mr Hayden.”

  “If you please, Mr Landry. I have another task for Mr Wickham.” Hayden turned to the young acting-lieutenant. “Back to the mast head for you, I fear; the curse of having the sharpest eyes on the ship. I’d rather we spotted the Themis before they us.”

  “I won’t allow that, sir,” Wickham said, touching his hat and hurrying off.

  The wind, which had blown with great consistency, but faintly, all through the forenoon, now began to sigh, then hold its breath, only to sigh again. The ship would steady as her sails filled, then lose her wind and all her gear would slat terribly on the low swell. Even at this stammering pace they soon sailed into the bright, frosty mist that clung low to the ocean. Lookouts were posted in various places about the ship, even a man out on the end of the jib-boom. The fog, which fairly glowed a snowy, crystalline white, thinned to wisps at times, then gathered its powers and pressed close again.

  Hayden paced about the deck, observing the efforts of the crew, speaking now and then with Mr Barthe about the set of the sails, for the inconstant wind forced them to tend sheets with frustrating regularity if they were to keep the ship moving.

  “Mr Hayden, sir …” Wickham called from aloft, interrupting his circling of the deck.

  Hayden turned his attention upward, and found the acting third lieutenant perched upon the topmast trestle-trees, glass in hand, gazing down at the deck.

  “I can see the tops of several masts, sir. Three or four large ships of war, I would guess.”

  “Are they showing colours?”

  “Not so I can see, sir, but they appear to be seventy-fours. One, perhaps, larger. They pass south, and seem unaware of us.” Wickham peered off into the mists again, then leaned over and called down, “Gone, sir.”

  “You might want to rid yourself of your British jacket, Mr Wickham,” Hayden called up, and then to Archer nearby, “We might all do the same, in the event that we must pass for Frenchmen.” He looked around the deck. “Monsieur Sanson? Where is my servant?”

  “Ici, mon capitaine.”

  “Can you find us coats and hats from the French officers?” Hayden enquired in French.

  “I believe so, monsieur.” The Frenchman inclined his head in a precise motion.

  “We will keep them ready to hand in case we need them. Find yourself an officer’s uniform as well. I might need another who can speak French.”

  Hayden continued his rounds, finding the men adapting easily to the new ship. He spoke with several members of the Themis’ crew, almost all of whom appeared deeply distressed by what had happened. Hayden had never been forced to kill a member of his own crew, so he could only imagine what a whirl of confusion must be going on inside them. And now they were hunting the Themis and would engage her people again, if Hayden had his way.

  As he detached from a small knot of men, Hayden found Barthe gazing at him thoughtfully, a purple cheek, shiny and swollen, contrasting with his brick-coloured hair.

  “You look very pensive, Mr Barthe, as do most of the castaways, I note.”

  “To be ill-used by your own crew mates. To see your friends murdered at the hands of these very same men … It is enough to send a sound mind spinning into melancholy, that is certain.”

  Hayden felt himself nodding. “Yes, I’m sure you’re right. And now I wonder … will the men who came away with you in the boats fight their fellows, do you think? Have they the heart for it?”

  “No one’s heart will be in it, but I think we will fight all the same. You will see. They are stout fellows, though Hart did everything he could to unman them.”

  The ship passed into fog, and was then becalmed within its unearthly grasp. A fanciful world of wafting mist and invisible, oscillating sea.

  “It could be a level of Hades, could it not?” Hawthorne observed as he and Hayden drank coffee on the quarterdeck. “A hell where seamen are stranded—cast away—until the end of the world. Look, we appear to be afloat in roiling mist.”

  “As infernos go it is rather dank,” Hayden answered, surprised by the marine lieutenant’s seriousness. “But we are not the men in hell. Not this day. It is Bill Stuckey and his confederates who must feel the nearness of the flame. I have no sympathy for Hart, who brought this calamity upon himself, but the poor sods who suffered under him are almost certain to find justice, and a terrible sentence it will be.”

  “Perhaps we should pray not to overhaul them …” Hawthorne ventured, watching Hayden’s reaction.

  The lieutenant shook his head. “No, despite all the sympathy I feel for every man who endured beneath Hart’s boot, we cannot win a war without ships, even ships under the command of tyrants.”

  “What of shy tyrants?” Hawthorne said quickly. “Men too cowardly to meet the enemy?”

  “Hart should have been removed from his command—you will get no argument from me on that point—but it was the place of the Admiralty to do it. Not the crew.”

  “Unfortunately the Admiralty were not fulfilling their trust, but supporting their man instead.”

  “Mr Hawthorne, I agree it is a moral morass, but we will only compound it by taking matters into our own hands. It is our duty to take the Themis if we can do it by any means short of our complete destruction. That is what I will attempt and I will draw my pistol against any man who will not follow those orders.”

  “And I will draw mine beside you, Mr Hayden, but it is all a muddle. The only justice that has been done since I boarded that ship was the flogging of Hart, and that was done by a mutineer.”

  “Mr Hawthorne …” Hayden cautioned.

  At that moment the wind filled in, the sails bellied, and the ship slowly gathered way. Sun, obscured in a watery haze, began to burn through the mist, which thinned visibly around them. Even so, their world was only reduced to an irregular circle, two leagues broad and circumscribed by a bright, crystalline fog.

  Hayden could not help but notice that the middies were a melancholy lot, having lost the well-loved Albert Williams, the Bert of “Trist and Bert.” Tristram Stock was red-eyed and embarrassed for it, though he looked to commence weeping again as Hayden spoke with him.

  “I will tell you this, Mr Hayden,” he whispered, “most of the men did not want the mutiny but the captain drove them to it. You could see it in their faces once it was all over. I’m sure they are a sorry lot this day. Many had wives and children whom they’ll never see again. We mayn’t have had a crack crew, like the Tenacious, but they were mostly good-hearted men, good-hearted men driven to folly.”

  They spoke a little of Williams, of how he liked to use the word eloquent to describe the most unlikely things (“I have the most eloquent little course change for you, Dryden.” “An eloquent measure of grog for you, sir”), and his love of debate, having been known to reverse his opinion completely upon another conceding he was in the right. They agreed that he would have made a fine officer one day, as one always did of young gentlemen who departed this life too soon.

  The fog edged away a
ll that long afternoon and the dusk seemed to press in as the mist finally disappeared altogether.

  “I don’t know how we’ll ever find her now,” Barthe complained. “Fog all day and now the night is setting in. Unless we overhaul them in the darkness and arrive at the harbour of Brest before them, they have slipped away, Mr Hayden.”

  “Sail ho,” Wickham called from aloft. “Hull down and dead before us.”

  Hayden hurried forward to a place where he could see the midshipman high above. “Is it the Themis?”

  “I cannot say that, Mr Hayden, but I cannot claim it is any other ship, either.”

  By the time Hayden reached the top-gallant trestle-trees the dusk had grown all but impenetrable. A faint, pale patch, possibly angular, was all that Hayden could make out even with a night glass, but he had no doubt Wickham was right—it was a ship. But was it their ship? That was the question every one asked.

  “They are on our exact course, sir,” Wickham noted, “and not carrying top-gallants in a fine top-gallant breeze, indicating that she might well be undermanned.”

  “My hunches have never paid me much at the gaming table, but perhaps at sea my luck is better. I think this is our ship, Mr Wickham. Keep us in her wake as long as you can.” As Hayden descended to the deck, the stars began to fill the sky, a great river of luminosity passing overhead, stars so densely packed that no one could rightly explain it.

  Despite Wickham’s gifted night vision, Hayden knew the most likely method of overhauling the ship was to keep their course diligently. He and Mr Barthe arranged tricks at the wheel for the most capable helmsmen, and with their small muster, that left both the master and acting captain to stand a trick themselves. Hayden did not mind. Truth was, he liked to take the helm now and then, but as an officer this small plea sure was denied him. Once he had the spokes in his hand, Hayden imagined he could feel the sea breathing beneath him, could feel each rise of the ocean’s breast as the wave carried them forward, and then left them settling into the trough. The wind caressed his neck, whispering its origin on the compass rose, and he steered, feeling the billowing sails draw them on.

  The ship’s bell sounded the night’s depths. Midshipmen heaved the log, noting their progress and marking a position upon the chart.

  Landry approached him at the wheel. “Idlers and watch below are in their hammocks, sir.”

  “Thank you, Mr Landry.” Hayden finished his trick at the wheel and was relieved by Mr Barthe. Leaving the deck to Landry, he went below to the dead captain’s cabin, a place he had been avoiding for reasons he did not quite fathom.

  Five tapers in a silver candelabra illuminated the table. The white overhead spread this soft light to all corners of the cabin, which was revealed to be much damaged by the Lucy’s cannonade. An elaborate place-setting lay upon the table and it occurred to Hayden that Williams would have termed it “eloquent,” as though it spoke. All but one of the gallery windows had been destroyed by cannon fire and were covered now by stout planks, caulked and payed. Before the undamaged window sat Giles Sanson—the executioner’s son. In his hands he held something angular, bringing Hayden up sharp.

  “Monsieur Sanson?”

  “Capitaine Hayden,” the man responded, but his gaze remained on the object he held. “I believe I told you that my capitaine protected me from my countrymen … And yet I betrayed him. Is that not strange? Perhaps it is as the others say—I am tainted, my blood impure from the thousand murders of my family. I am inherently an evil being, cursed in the sight of God.”

  “A man is defined by his deeds, not his blood,” Hayden said. “Is that not why your countrymen deposed their king and nobles?”

  “Yes … perhaps.” He was silent a moment. “When I reach England what will become of me?”

  “You will be imprisoned, likely in a hulk.”

  “With my countrymen?”

  “Yes, until you can be exchanged. And I’m sorry for it.”

  The young man nodded, as though he had known this all along. “My father told me that I could not escape what I was. That I would be driven back, and perhaps he was right, at least in part.” He held up the object he contemplated. “The signal book of my capitaine, monsieur. I was charged with throwing it into the sea, but I did not, hoping that I might trade it, use it to buy protection from my fellow citizens.” He stood and gently placed the book on the table. “For your kindness. Do not turn the ship around on my account, Capitaine Hayden,” he said softly, “my pockets are filled with grape.” With that he lifted the window sash and, without hesitation, threw himself into the obsidian sea, the window slicing closed behind him. Hayden rushed to raise the sash and thrust his head out. There was nothing to be seen but the slightly luminescent wake scratched upon the glassy waters.

  “Poor, sad bastard,” Hayden muttered. He knew it was his duty to put the ship about and search for the man but he also knew that he would find nothing. Sanson had joined the thousand victims of his family.

  A knock sounded on his door, and the marine posted there let Archer in at a word from Hayden.

  “Sir,” the young man said, flushed from having run down the ladder, “quarterdeck watch said that something fell from your cabin. There was a splash.”

  “It was Sanson.”

  Archer looked confused. “The gypsy, sir?”

  Hayden nodded. “He threw himself out the window.”

  “Shall I have the ship put about, sir … ?”

  “No, Mr Archer. Sanson weighted his pockets with grapeshot. He will not be found in this life. Have Mr Barthe write it in the log … the French captain’s servant, one Giles Sanson, likely of Paris, self-murdered. Due to the circumstances of his death, which I have just explained you, no search was made.”

  “Aye, sir.” Archer started to back out the door but then stopped. “Why did he do it, Mr Hayden?”

  “Because he was a good man unjustly persecuted due to the circumstances of his birth.”

  “Because he was a gypsy, you mean?”

  “Something like that, yes.”

  “So much for liberty, equality, and fraternity.”

  “Yes, so much for all three.”

  Archer reached up and tipped his French hat, and backed out, closing the door. Hayden took up the volume left on his table. It was heavy due to its lead covers. Inside he found the signals of the enemy—something that the Admiralty would be very happy to possess even if the advantage provided would be brief.

  He collapsed into a seat, realizing suddenly that he was exhausted beyond measure. Too much had happened in the last twenty-four hours and he’d had hardly a wink of sleep to bolster his defences. And now this melancholic Frenchman had brought death into the cabin. It occurred to him then that he would be overwhelmingly relieved to have this cursed voyage over.

  A soft rap at the door was followed by his writer, Perseverance Gilhooly, bearing a tray of food.

  “It’s French food, sir,” the boy said with distaste, “but Mr Wickham said you might not mind.”

  “I will manage, Perse. You were not injured in the mutiny, I take it?”

  “Hardly, sir, though I fought alongside the middies and Mr Barthe in the gunroom.”

  “Good for you, Perse.”

  “Thank you, sir. Will you be needing anything else?”

  “No, thank you … Where is Joshua?”

  The boy hesitated, hovering by the door, his face suddenly pale and drawn. “He … he departed this life, Mr Hayden.”

  Hayden felt a hand go to his forehead, though he had not commanded it do so. “I am so sorry,” he replied softly. “What became him?”

  “I did not see it, sir, but was told one of the mutineers threw him over the side.”

  “My God! The child could not swim a stroke …”

  Perseverance choked back a single sob, nodded, then stepped out of the cabin.

  Hayden ignored the meal upon the table and went to the window, staring out over the dark, moving sea. Here he was aboard a French frigate, wear
ing a French captain’s coat and hanging his hammock in his cabin. A feeling of kinship came over him at that moment for the poor Frenchman who had thrown himself into the bottomless waters. Hayden, too, could not escape his family or his heritage, it seemed. This strange masquerade appeared to have been contrived to make this point unavoidable.

  “And now am I an Englishman in a Frenchman’s coat?” he whispered.

  Though he had no appetite, the acting captain forced himself to eat, tasting nothing, but knowing his body had need of sustenance. He lay fully clothed in the former captain’s cot and slept for an hour—a haunted hour—and woke feeling utterly unrefreshed.

  Twenty-one

  Four bells—midpoint of the middle-watch—two of a morning upon the land. Hayden mounted to the quarterdeck and gazed around all points of the compass, assuring himself that the weather was much unchanged, the stars still alight in a pitchy sky.

  “All is well, Mr Landry?”

  The first lieutenant was a shadow figure, eyes lost in black pools, his diminutive chin all but invisible in the dark.

  “It is, Mr Hayden, but for some thick little patches of fog and a weak-willed breeze.”

  “Biscay will always demand her pound of flesh. Our chase?”

  “Wickham is on the forecastle, sir, and says he saw a light some time ago. I could not see it myself, but his eyes are more cunning than mine.”

  “Indeed. You may take some rest, Mr Landry,” Hayden said. “Two hours in a cot and some victuals will not go amiss, I should think.”

  “They would not, Mr Hayden.”

  The shadow figure tipped its French officer’s hat and retired. Hayden made a tour of the ship, assuring himself that Mr Hawthorne’s marines had the prisoners secure, although he did not have the door opened this time. To see his mother’s people so confined and defeated was not a sight he bore easily.

  Upon the foredeck he found Wickham, his night glass trained forward.

  “I understand there was a light … ?”

  Wickham, decked out in a too-large French lieutenant’s coat, like a child playing grown-up, lowered his glass and touched his hat. “For the briefest instant, Mr Hayden. And twice since, I’ve seen the same. Whoever she is we are in her wake, sir.”