Hayden left Archer in charge of the quarterdeck, and made his way forward to have a better look at the fleeing ships. A few moments later, Hart arrived with Landry and the doctor in tow. The captain’s colour was improved, but he looked like a man struggling to wake from a deep sleep, and with the temperament to match.
“What do you mean, Mr Hayden,” he demanded, “beating to quarters without my express instructions?”
“Enemy ships are in sight, Captain Hart. I am only following naval custom.”
Hart shook his head. “And where are these ‘enemy ships’?”
Hayden handed the captain his glass and pointed. The sterns of the ships were quite visible now. Through the glass, men could be made out, staring at the English frigate through their own glass eyes.
Hart raised the glass and regarded the ships briefly. “French frigates,” he announced, lowering the cylinder. “Mr Barthe!”
The master stepped forward.
“Alter our course for Brest.”
“But with all due respect, sir,” Hayden responded, his jaw tight. “When seen abeam they appeared to be transports. It would seem prudent to take a closer look. Certainly frigates would not turn tail so quickly when they have the greater number.”
Hart turned his hazy blue eyes on his first lieutenant. “They are frigates, sir, as any fool can see! Would you have us take on two French thirty-eights with more than double our weight of iron?”
Hayden could barely control his own rage. “Certainly I would chase them, in hopes of catching one while the other was distant.”
“That is why you are still a lieutenant,” Hart said cruelly. “You have not the common sense to command a ship.”
Hart thrust the glass into Barthe’s hand and spun on his heel. “We are for Brest, Mr Barthe,” he announced loudly. “And for God’s sake, leave off beating to quarters!” Hart stormed back along the gangway and in a moment he was below, leaving his stunned officers gathered on the foredeck.
So that is why they call him Faint Hart, Hayden thought. The lieutenant had never been aboard a ship where the captain had acted thus—with the enemy clearly in sight.
Landry turned on Hayden. “I warned you, Mr Hayden. The captain tolerates no defiance of his orders.”
“But those are French transports, almost without doubt, not frigates, as any landsman can see.”
“Not according to Captain Hart, who has been at sea longer than either of us.” Landry turned and marched back along the deck in the wake of his captain. The midshipmen hesitated a moment, then, gazing down at the deck in disappointment, went off about their business, leaving Barthe and Hayden alone on the forecastle.
The same disappointment was upon the faces and in the carriage of every man aboard. Hardly a word was muttered, but words were not necessary. The sail trimmers slunk to their places without energy, and the men on the quarterdeck began housing their guns, shaking their heads as they did so.
“For shame,” someone muttered. “For shame.”
“Please tell me, Mr Barthe,” Hayden intoned softly, “that this is not the common practice aboard Hart’s ship.”
The master took off his hat and slapped it against his thigh in frustration. “It is always thus,” he said too loudly. “There is ever a reason not to engage the enemy.” He tipped his head toward the escaping ships. “Every man aboard—even Landry—knows them to be transports. And yet we must all pretend they are powerful French frigates, though they flee like we are a ninety-eight-gun ship. I am sorry you found your way aboard this ship, Mr Hayden. You deserve better.”
For a moment Hayden closed his eyes, the roiling anger he felt like a brewing gale. He had his duty to think of and, when he addressed the master, tried to speak in an even tone. “I must caution you, Mr Barthe,” Hayden said so that no other might hear. “Though I admire your zeal to meet the enemy, speaking out thus will bring you into conflict with your captain.”
The corpulent master drew himself up, face redder than his hair. “I have given in to his fancies for too long, Mr Hayden, until I have been unmanned by my own deference. I shall do it no more. Let him court-martial me, if he dares. If he dares have it be known how he has fled the enemy times too numerous to count over the past months. And the way he speaks to you, Mr Hayden, and before the crew! Conduct unbecoming of a gentleman, sir. Were you not his subordinate you would call the man out. I believe you would.”
“Mr Barthe! You forget yourself!”
“No, sir. I do not forget myself. I have only just remembered who once I was.” The master spun and began giving orders to shift the yards and trim sails to shape their course for Brest. Hayden looked once more at the fleeing ships. Every man aboard would have welcomed the prize money—he not least of all—but even more important, taking an enemy ship would do much to change the spirits of the crew; Hayden had seen it before.
What, he wondered, would Philip Stephens make of this? Clear dereliction of duty. Hart could be court-martialled. He should be. But unless his actions, or lack thereof, were witnessed by a fellow captain or senior officer it would likely never come to pass. It was more likely that Barthe or Hayden would be court-martialled for insubordination—for attempting to pursue the enemy!
And where was the common sense in that?
Hayden sat at the table in the empty gunroom. Try as he might, he could not turn his mind away from what had just occurred—Hart had refused to chase a pair of under-armed transports!—and his indignation and anger could not be mastered for more than a moment. To think that he had to serve under such a pusillanimous ass! Perhaps it would be better to have no career, and to repair to America in Aldrich’s place. Better to be a street-sweeper!
He tried to calm himself and bring his attentions to bear upon the work before him. Opening a folder in which he kept the accounts and correspondence that required his attention, he found a note, in an unfamiliar hand, scribbled upon a scrap of paper. It was only a single line misspelt:
The leftenants servent hears yor privat conversasions.
Hayden stared at the note for a long moment. It did not say which “leftenant,” but then it didn’t need to.
“The Adam Tiler,” Hayden muttered to no one. How in the world had Worth, a foremast hand, slipped into his cabin? It should not have been possible. He slid the scrap of paper in among his letters and took out the hated accounts, his head beginning to throb at the mere sight of them.
It was more than an hour later when the doctor came in and found Hayden and Perseverance hard at work at the gunroom table.
“Am I interrupting…?” he asked gently.
“No, Doctor, I am done with this…damnable business for the day!” He slammed the account ledger closed. “Let us have a glass of wine!”
He quickly gathered up his papers and gave them all into the care of Perseverance. The boy had more organizational abilities, at least when it came to paper, than Hayden would ever possess, and the lieutenant had not hesitated to take advantage of this invaluable skill.
The doctor took a chair and one of the gunroom servants drew off a glass of wine for each of them from the little quarter-keg that stood on a shelf beside the door. The doctor slumped back in his chair and raised his eyebrows, then his glass in turn. “Confusion to the enemy,” he intoned, and shook his head.
Hayden lifted his glass in response.
Among the common sounds of a ship at sea came a familiar voice from above, much muffled, the words indistinguishable but the immoderate rage unmistakable.
“Who is the captain’s victim this evening?” Hayden wondered, with a glance up to the ceiling, where stout beams and planks separated the gunroom from the captain’s cabin.
“Mr Barthe, I believe,” Griffiths answered, his gaze following Hayden’s. “The captain will not have liked the master’s description of the ‘frigates’ sighted today. It will not do to have the official account of the cruise differing notably from the captain’s own journal. The governor and his deputy have come into conflict over
this precise issue before. No doubt it will not be the last time, either.”
They sat for a moment, discomforted by the row overhead, but then the captain fell silent. Griffiths waved the servant out, put his elbows on the table, and leaned closer. “Mr Hayden,” he began, “let me ask you, if I may…you seem very confident of your facility to fight an action with the French, and Lord knows you have proven that your seamanship is beyond reproach, but would you have really gone after two French frigates?”
“They were not frigates, Dr Griffiths…” but Hayden stopped in mid-sentence. He rose and circled the table, taking care to walk quietly. Without knocking he jerked open the door to Landry’s cabin and the second lieutenant’s servant boy all but fell out into the gunroom.
The doctor rose from his seat, indignation and anger written upon his face. “Why, you young whelp!” he stormed. “You were eavesdropping upon our conversation!”
“I was not, sir! I swear to you—” Seeing the rage in the doctor’s face, the boy leapt to his feet, but not before the surgeon administered a boot to the child’s retreating rump.
“Now, Doctor…” Hayden said, placing himself squarely in the man’s way as Landry’s servant flew out the gunroom door. “I suspect the boy was not eavesdropping of his own inclination…”
The doctor, still a picture of perfect outrage and indignation, stood a moment before he took Hayden’s meaning. “Why, I shall go to the captain!”—but then he calmed enough for his mind to catch up, and he slumped down into a chair, a look of some horror on his face.
“I rather doubt that will serve much purpose,” Hayden said evenly.
The doctor cursed softly but with impressive eloquence.
Hayden called for Perse, whom he stationed at the gunroom door with orders to alert him if anyone ventured within hearing. The surgeon then opened the doors to all the other cabins surrounding the gunroom. There was no one else present.
The doctor took a drink of his wine, several long breaths, and mastered himself. “Do forgive my outburst,” he said evenly. “This cursed ship and its people…” but he did not finish. A moment more, and then he turned to Hayden. “I—I have forgotten the subject upon which we spoke…”
Hayden sat down and leaned across the table so that no other might hear. “You asked if I would have chased two French frigates, and I believe my answer was that they were not frigates.”
“Yes, of course.” The doctor, too, leaned over the table. He appeared to compose his mind for a moment. “Let me speak more to the point, Lieutenant. Captain Hart is often out of sorts when first he sets to sea…Anxiety, and the strains of command, I believe. Gradually, his condition improves. I should expect him to regain his health in three or four days. After that his migraines and other disorders will see him laid up with less frequency. As the commander of this ship, who might be called upon at any time to use his judgement to preserve his crew, I attempt always to give Captain Hart the smallest measure of any physic that might impair that judgement. There might be times, however, when his afflictions require greater doses of physic, large enough that he might not be fit to command for several hours, perhaps the better part of a day. I just want to forewarn you, for you might have to assume command for that period of time, and make all decisions as to the preservation of the ship and her crew, including decisions to engage or not engage enemy vessels. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”
Hayden was afraid to answer. “If you were utterly certain that such physic was necessary to the captain’s health, Dr Griffiths, I should be prepared to do my duty…to carry out the Admiralty’s orders as best I comprehend them.”
The doctor nodded. “We have an understanding, then?”
“I believe we do, and I thank you, Doctor, for making me aware of this possibility.”
“I thought it my duty,” Griffiths said, then leaned back and took up his wine glass. “Let us drink the captain’s health.”
Hayden raised his own glass. “Captain Hart,” he said, and both men drank.
For a moment Hayden closed his eyes. Conspiracy to take command of the ship, even temporarily, would call down upon the conspirators a punishment too terrible to contemplate. He was placing entirely too much trust in a man he did not know well. But there was revolution in the air upon His Majesty’s ship Themis. The Jacks whispered among themselves, and the officers were in all but open rebellion. Somehow, Hayden didn’t think this was quite what Philip Stephens had in mind when he offered him the position aboard the Themis: his agent conspiring with others aboard to set Captain Hart aside—at least for a few hours. But what else could they do? Flee the enemy upon every meeting? Hayden would never live with himself if he did so.
The lieutenant had a nightmare image of the poor man, Penrith, who’d been murdered: a seaman swinging from the main yard out into the darkness, clinging to life with the tips of his fingers…before the knife fell. The image came to Hayden now, but it was he who clung to the yard. He who saw the blade falling.
Thirteen
The cliffs of Brittany, broken blocks, stacked and shattered, were almost aglow in the day’s last light. The sight produced a tide of emotion in Lieutenant Charles Hayden. As a child, he had played upon these cliffs with his cousin Guillaume. Disobeying every edict of his aunt and uncle, they had explored the ledges and gullies to gather seabird eggs. He shuddered to think of it, the bravado they had shown—rather short of common sense, he now thought.
But his reaction was more perplexing than that—he felt a great distress to be so close to one of his two homelands and know that he could only set foot there if he carried war to the French, who had once been as much his people as were the English. At the same time, it was in France that he had been swept up in the mob…and he now felt an odd disquiet, almost an apprehension of the place and the people. He could not trust himself among them. He did not know what he might do or what passions might be drawn up through the thin surface of his English rationality.
“I will tell you honestly, Mr Hayden,” Barthe stated, breaking into his thoughts, “in all my years in these waters, I have never chanced the Four Passage.” He gazed at the surrounding waters, impressed, but then his face changed and his manner grew anxious. “Are you satisfied with our situation?”
“I should like it better if the wind had not gone around to the west, Mr Barthe, but as long as it does not die altogether we are in no danger.” Hayden extended his glass toward the shore. “Point St Matthew. The Outer Water of Brest Harbour lies just beyond.”
They had fallen in with the French coast some hours before, and carried a following breeze along the cliffs of Brittany, steep-to and littered with off-lying rocks and shoals, much to the master’s discomfort. Hayden, however, had sailed these waters before and was confident, if wary. His vigilance had been compounded an hour before when the breeze had shifted to the west, though it showed no signs of rising.
The lieutenant gazed out toward the western horizon. “What do you think this weather will do?”
The sailing master’s gaze followed Hayden’s. The sun had set, and low in the west a thin band of broken cloud glowed like hot coals. A low, easy swell barely disturbed the ship, and shags and grebes swam and dove in her shadow. Fitful north-east winds had carried them slowly across the Channel, until they had raised the Brittany coast, four days after escaping Plymouth Sound.
“We might be in for a few more days of calm and light breezes from all points, Mr Hayden.”
The first lieutenant glanced around, gauging the distance to shore and the nearby islands and shoals. “Yes, I’m afraid you’re right. I’ll be glad to get into more open water. If the wind dies, the tide could carry us into difficulties. You have our anchor readied?”
Barthe nodded, but his response was cut off.
“On deck,” came a call from aloft. “Sail. Two points off the larboard bow.”
As the Themis rounded the high point, the Outer Water opening before them, a ship did appear. Hayden and the sailing master crossed over
the forecastle to have a better view.
“Mr Hayden, sir…” the lookout called. “There is a second ship.”
“So there is!” Hayden said, glimpsing the sails, half-hidden, behind the first. Lieutenant Landry appeared at his elbow, fixing a glass on the two ships.
“Transports, by the look of them,” Barthe offered.
“Yes, but well out of our reach,” Landry pronounced.
Hayden did not lower his glass. “Do you think, Mr Barthe, that we could overhaul them before they pass through the Goulet?”
Barthe did not hesitate to answer. “We certainly can try, sir!” The master lowered his glass and looked expectantly at the first lieutenant.
“But this wind does not favour us,” Landry objected. “We might be becalmed just outside the harbour itself, and easy prey for gunboats.”
“Oh, I think we are more than a match for a few gunboats, Mr Landry,” Hayden said, feeling a tightness in his chest and yet an accompanying elation as well.
“The captain will never allow it,” Landry said.
“Let us not have this argument again!” Hayden said hotly. “We have orders to assess the strength of the French fleet anchored in Brest Roads. To do this properly we must sail up to the mouth of the Goulet—if there are transports there at the time, we would be remiss in our duty if we did not try to take them.” Hayden faced the second lieutenant, trying to control his anger. “Would you do me the honour of going aloft, Mr Landry? I trust no one else to make an accurate count of the diverse ships.”
Landry turned crimson. “Mr Hayden, someone must inform the captain. You exceed your authority, sir.”
The surgeon arrived on the forecastle at that moment.
“Ah, Dr Griffiths,” Hayden greeted him. “How is Captain Hart? able to take the deck, I hope?”
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