by Jan Needle
Several of the men had weapons at the ready, and looked to Raven for orders when to use them. In truth he could not tell. He felt indeed he would be better putting fresh men on the oars, but now a sea was running, to change them would be near impossible. They would have to stop completely, no sliding new men onto thwart as they had done before. He looked to Swift’s gig, in the hope of guidance.
What he saw filled him with dread. The lieutenant’s first shot had been the devil’s luck indeed, no man on all the five gigs in the fight could doubt that. But Swift was standing up once more, his knees braced against the far wilder rock and rolling of his vessel now. He was standing up, and he was pointing aft with his musket barrel. Raven felt something like despair.
‘Row, man, row,’ he gritted. ‘Just row!’
‘Don’t look at him, sir, is my advice,’ said Simpson, quietly. ‘Watch all them others, and assess your time. I think, sir, they are preparing for a broadside, so to speak.’
The Scilly gigs had made up so much ground, that they could probably afford to pause to make their fusillades. Most likely one would stop and fire, then the next, and then the last. The weight of lead would be great, the possibility of hitting and reloading threefold.
And they were near enough to hit. Quite near enough.
‘When you see them aim, sir,’ said Simpson, ’manoeuvre on the sudden, that is my advice, beg pardon for the giving of. Jink hard to starboard, snake the other way, anything. Your men will take the meaning, sir. We’re like a centipede, we’ll act as one.’
The first volley, though, was aimed at Swift’s boat, and it devastated. Four of his men were on their feet to aim, and two of them took balls. One man rolled backwards overside and disappeared beneath the water in an instant, the second appeared not mortally injured, but screamed and fell down on his knees. The oarsmen ahead and abaft of him were knocked off of their strokes, and shouted loud and vilely.
The gig that had made the action dropped aside so that another could come on to the shot. Swift’s gig, momentum broken, dropped nearer to it, and took a left lurch, and a roll. And at that moment, when aiming was impossible, Swift pulled his trigger.
This time, in Raven’s mind, it was a miracle. The helmsman of the gig, standing in the sternsheets and urging his oarsmen on, took the lieutenant’s ball full in the face, which was destroyed by it. No scream, no cry, but just a sideways crash and the man went overboard, his hand still tangled in the larboard yoke line. Which pulled the gig hard round off her course also, which added to the chaos in the men.
And Daniel Swift was roaring out in triumph.
‘You think it luck, do you? Well, it is not, you scum! I see another target! I see a great, fat dog, a murderer! You do not kill us with impunity!’
Raven now saw his opportunity, as several Scilly guns took aim on Swift. He did not have his own in readiness, shamefully, but some of his crewmen did, and had clearly seen the danger.
‘Knock them out, men!’ he urged. He did not shout. He did not wish to give a warning. His men responded, as Simpson had promised they would, like a centipede – though more like a clockwork toy in the circumstance. They stood, and fired, and sat down again.
And hit one man! Another scream came rending through the air. Just one man, and a glancing blow, but it was enough. Of a sudden, the victors were the vanquished, lost in great confusion. And in that last moment, Swift took up another gun, and took another shot, and killed another man. The God of war, from out his chariot!
The chase was over. The Scilly men had given up. And in the west, the sky was darkening. Simpson let out a laugh, half grim, half mocking.
‘And now they must row home again,’ he said. ‘I think we wish them joy of it, not so?’
Chapter Twelve
There was a possibility that Swift would deem it sense to follow after them, to consolidate his victory, maybe take prisoners. He considered it, indeed, for half an instant, then saw it was unfeasible. If they could outrun him in a chase, they would show clean heels to get away to home and safety. And anyway, what would the purpose be? His task was clear. To get to France, engage the enemy, to cut the prizes out.
Ah no, he remembered, sadly. He had orders to do no such thing. He was just to get there, map out a plan of action, wait till Hector Maxwell came up to them to win the day. Maxwell, he thought privately, was a shade selfish in this order, but he also knew that Maxwell needed a victory of some, or any, sort. His recent record was hardly of the best. And a decommission could easy be laid upon his ship.
He watched Raven range his gig alongside, and at a space of twenty feet or so. Both crews rested on their oars, and watched the Scilly gigs go skipping back to England’s shores. There was no move on either side to waste more shot and powder in expansive gestures.
‘Well fought, sir,’ Raven called. ‘And may I say, sir, that your marksmanship was a wonder. A wonder to us all, sir. Quite marvellous.’
Few cynics thought now that it was merely luck. And all found it passing odd, because Swift was not an officer they loved or admired greatly. His major talents normally were in the way of large cruelty and small imagination. He was an apprentice martinet.
‘It was nothing,’ Swift returned. ‘It needed one of us, indeed, to show some skill and vigour.’ He seemed to realize that this was ungracious, even to a midshipman. ‘Not that you did not hold yourself all right,’ he added. ‘I did not hear you make a shot, though. A few more balls would have been a noble help.’
‘I am sorry, sir. I lack your facility. Pardon me. But Captain Maxwell will have some hot work waiting for them when they get back to the islands, no doubt. They will rue the day they fired on His Majesty’s navy. Shall we proceed, sir? I take it you will lead? How near are we to our target bay?’
It was not a question easy to answer, but Lieutenant Swift had no intention of saying that. He had brought a boatswain’s mate with him who was hoping to be a master one day, and who studied his navigation tables and sextant constantly.
‘It is much too far to row,’ said Swift. ‘The men are half exhausted, and one of mine has took a ball. Not bad hurt, despite his screaming like a sow at slaughter, but he is damn well in the way. We’ve got too many men on board altogether, and now the sea is on the rise. Thank God we lost one of the fattest swine, indeed.’
Raven heard his own crew gasp at this. The normal way with such a loss as Swift’s man overboard would have been a short and makeshift service held near the spot he’d disappeared, a short prayer or two. Raven held his eyes from Simpson’s. He did not want to meet them.
‘We have a sail,’ he said. ‘In gigs at home we use it when there is an opportunity. These hulls are light, sir. We will flit along.’
Swift watched the beaten boats. They were moving very fast. And one, indeed, was raising up a mast.
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘We must have water, too, so speed is of the essence. Have you got handy sailors there?’ He turned to his own men. ‘Which one of you can get a lugsail up? Come on, look lively. This is not a tea party, and I have navigation work to do. You there, Robinson! Come aft and let me show you how it works! You’ll need the sextant and a bearing compass.’
The mast in each boat was stowed along the centre, beneath the thwarts, with its sail wrapped around the yard. The men were more than glad to leave the oars alone, for however short a time, and in minutes both lugs were going up the masts.
‘Bowse up! Tack down! Sheet in!’ came the quick orders. Then, ‘unship those oars there! Handsomely! Another inch down on the tack! Ease the sheet, you’re choking her of life!’
The breeze, still very warm, was rising steadily, and was blowing from due west. A soldier’s wind, no need for pinching, no need for expertise. Soon it was hard enough for hands to sit to windward, and they fairly leapt along. Even when darkness began to fall it stayed warm, and the westering sun bathed them in a red-gold glow that made every man on board feel strangely homesick.
Lieutenant Swift, in the leading boat, prayed n
ervously that he had got his calculations right. Robinson, the small but robust boatswain’s mate, was certain that he had, whatever the young gentleman might think. But in the way of it, if they were wrong he would doubtless get the blame.
And if right – the gentleman would surely take the credit.
Ahead, and in the growing darkness, their nemesis was waiting…
Chapter Thirteen
As they closed the coast, Daniel Swift became aware of his natural disadvantages. It was pitchy black, and there were – in time of war – no useful navigation marks, no beacons, certainly no lights. All he knew for certain of this part of the coast was that it was exceeding dangerous, and that its tides could be unnatural strong. No, not unnatural; he checked himself. They were of nature, obviously. But their nature round this rocky shore, these precipitous offshore islands, was precipitous in the extreme.
And he was not a small-boat natural. Swift had joined the service in the normal way, through relatives and financial necessity rather than a vocation. If asked, he claimed to love the sea, and indeed sometimes he did. He was known to be a brave and forward man, from his earliest midshipman years ready to throw himself into a venture. But he was happiest in a bigger ship. Even the Pointer was by no means his ideal size, nor Maxwell his ideal captain. He hoped, soon, for somewhat better things.
Hector Maxwell’s name, sadly, was not a great one in the navy. He was older than he ought to be for his current command, and every effort that he made to make an upward leap seemed doomed to failure. Not spectacularly – he had not lost a ship or failed to take an easy target – but by dribs and drabs. And he was neither of good class nor even of good fortune. In their lordships’ terms, he was probably a man that they could do without.
But for all that Swift liked him, though, and that mainly for the face he showed the world. As he swallowed disappointments, as he remained unfairly low in the prize money league, he became, in Swift’s eyes, more a man to emulate. Not in success, far from it – but in the way he handled men.
He was irascible. He was bitter. He was acid. The men in his command feared him, and sometimes hated him. Swift, who lacked imagination when it came to other human beings, who lacked awareness of what went on behind their eyes, thought such respect was admirable. Men did not dare cross Maxwell. They trod on eggshells in his presence. They dared not quibble on the smallest thing. He was a leader.
No, Swift’s problem on this night, and on this dangerous mission, was the small-boat aspect. He had seen off the threat from the Scilly gigs with skill and brilliance – which no one could deny – and now he was off a rocky, dangerous, unknown coast. And he was in sole command of a cockleshell.
He was aware, further, that the weather had been exceeding kind to him; so far. The breeze had risen steadily, and on the final course suggested – or subtly agreed – by Robinson, they had the wind in the best possible quarter for speed. It was astern but in no wise dead astern, so their sail, which was loose-footed, could catch every useful breath. As the seas rose up behind them they rode them beautifully, no labour to reach the highest peak, and to the trough as neatly as a racing pony.
Throughout the day, under oars and under pressure, they had made a speed and distance that was extraordinary. Now, wind-power alone, they were doing even better. They ate the miles. And when night fell they careered onwards. The gigs were matched. The crews were matched. Had it been a sporting race, a wager would have been a hard call to make.
In his boat, Raven fed his crew. The commons were very plain, but not short. There was wine, a sufficiency of water, and a not-bad go of brandy for each and every man. At his urging most of them slept. And before the warm night began to chill them in their enforced stasis, he broke out the blankets and insisted they were wrapped.
‘You’m like a little mother, sir,’ Simpson said, at one stage. He said it with a smile, but Raven suspected mockery, which the big man noticed. And gave a quiet laugh.
‘Nay, sir,’ he said gently. ‘Don’t you get touchy like your masters, lad. We likes you for it. When it comes to fighting, we will be your men.’
Lad, eh? thought Charlie Raven. And what man would dare dub Maxwell that? Or fire-eater Daniel Swift?
It was in the hours approaching dawn that the sharpest men on board smelled land, and it was a hawk-eyed able seaman in the bow of the lieutenant’s boat who raised it. He hissed his information aft, as though they were close enough to be overheard on shore, unlikely though that was.
‘Where away!’ called Swift, with no such inhibition. ‘Are you certain, man? Or is it a wraith?’
It was not a wraith, nor yet a mirage. Soon other sharp eyes picked it up, and as the light spread from the east, the rocky northern coast could be discerned. Swift and Robinson went into a huddle with the chart, and decided they had made a perfect landfall. One of the seamen in the boat confirmed it, from local knowledge.
‘I have sailed here, sir,’ he told his officer. He did not specify exactly why, and even Swift had tact enough not to ask. ‘I know that headland well, your honour. You sees that shape up on the top? Like a cat’s shoulder? That’s how we knows him, sir.’
When they were nearer, it was decided to have a parley. The two gigs lay close along each other, not hove-to but spilling wind for the sake of slowness, while Swift relayed his orders. Before that, though, he demanded water from Raven’s store.
‘The purser must have given you more than me,’ he said. ‘He is a fat and unctuous fool, but soon we will have more water than a donkey needs to drink. So pass some over.’
The transaction done, they got down to brass tacks. Their duty was clear, Swift said – they would go close to the headland, drop canvas, and paddle in as quietly as mice to see what lay inside the bay. It was sheltered from east, west and south, with the wind blowing across the chord. There were off-lying rocks which they could hide behind till Kingdom Come, and it would not be fully light for another hour, maybe more. Nothing could be easier.
‘What then, sir?’ Raven dared to say. A dozen faces turned on Swift. Were they just to sit there like boobies? It was night. The enemy would be likely sleeping. So surely…?
‘The wind has been blowing stronger by the hour,’ Swift replied. ‘As soon as the Pointer got a wind in Scilly, Captain Maxwell would have raised all sail.’
‘If they got the same breeze,’ Robinson said. And was withered with a look.
‘We have made good time,’ continued Swift. ‘Under oar and sail these smuggler gigs have proved themselves for being nefarious. I would not have easily believed we should have made it thus far in such time. We have, though. And Pointer under sail is like a greyhound to these little scampering lapdogs. I would not be surprised, when full daylight comes, to see her in the offing. Mr Raven?’
Raven thought that he was mad. Or at least a wide-eyed optimist.
‘But they may have had to fight, sir,’ he said, although not argumentatively. ‘They must have done, indeed. And the returning gigs were fully armed also, and—’
‘And we defeated them,’ Swift snapped. ‘Do you think Captain Maxwell incapable of picking up the pieces? They would have run like curs, in any way, in the same wise that they ran from us. We will see him on the northern horizon when the light comes up, depend upon it. Better – I will have a wager on it. Who bids?’
There was not a murmur from the two boats’ crews. A silence Swift had not expected.
‘Pah!’ he said. ‘You are all dogs of cowards. Or too tight to risk your pence on certainties.’
The only certain thing, however, was that something was happening up ahead of them. Swift’s keen-eyed watchman saw it first, and this time his hiss was frantic.
‘A sail! Ahead! A sail!
‘Drop those lugs!’ Raven hissed in his turn. ‘Sir, we must get our sails down. They will see us! Sails down and silent! Jump!’
His own men did jump, and men on Swift’s gig, without awaiting a command, moved to do likewise. The speed at which the two lugsails came
down – and the lack of noise – was startling.
‘Out oars,’ said Raven, to his crew. ‘Silently, oh never make a sound! Paddle in to the shadow of that rock! Handsomely! Oh, handsome does it, lads.’
No man on Swift’s gig added a word to this, but they moved like shadows to the actions. The lieutenant himself did not care to break the silence, and the two boats moved like ghosts into the deeper gloom.
Then Raven breathed, ‘But surely, sir, we can’t let them get away? Surely, sir, we have to…’
There was no answer, and in the darkness, the men all turned to watching.
It was a vessel coming out from in the sheltered bay, a vessel nosing into the Atlantic. All watched first the bowsprit, then the bow, then the hull and the masts, one by one.
It was a small ship, probably a light-armed sloop, but it was certainly a man of war. The wind was forward of her beam, but she was not close-hauled; it was an easy exit. It was one ship only, and they waited for the other one, with bated breath.
If the other ship came out, Hector Maxwell would have lost his target and his prize. They sat there hunched on their oars and waited silently. They watched the first ship, small, comparatively worthless, nose out into the milk-warm darkness.
If the big one came out also, and sailed away, all knew what Maxwell would surely say.
‘Merde, merde, and merde again. And double merde!’
They watched and waited.
Chapter Fourteen
After full ten or fifteen minutes, Swift decided the other ship was not following. He let out a little laugh of satisfaction.
‘The prize is ours,’ he said. ‘Come Mr Raven, come all. We will go inside and plan the whole thing out. Then when the Pointer heaves into our ken, we will have a strategy hand-made for Captain Maxwell. Now, to your oars. The watchword is silence. Mr Robinson, go forward and con us in.’