The Flood-Tide

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  William leapt for the ratlines, a telescope under his arm, while at the masthead the lookout was still counting.

  ‘Thirteen, fourteen - twenty or more, sir. They're French all right, sir.’

  A while later William's voice, adding more information. ‘Twenty-four in all I count, sir.' Then, after a pause, in a different voice, 'Deck, there! Captain, sir, I think I know those ships. There's Marseillaise, sir, I'm sure of it, and Languedoc, and Saint Esprit. And - there's Ville de Paris, sir, Admiral De Grasse's flagship. It's the West India fleet, sir.’

  So Admiral Rodney had miscalculated, Thomas thought. The West India fleet had come after all, and with them France's boldest and ablest sailor, De Grasse. Twenty-four French ships of the line not only outnumbered the English fleet, they very seriously outweighed her in firepower. Those big three-deckers carried forty guns a side, against the British seventy-fours. The London was the only British ship bigger, with ninety guns, while the monstrous Ville de Paris carried one hundred and ten. As against that the coppered British ships were all more seaworthy and handier, and the British seaman was worth ten of his French opponent. But in a light wind, and with a moderate sea, these advantages would not count for much. Their only chance would be to trap the French fleet in the mouth of the Bay, with no room to manoeuvre, and batter them against the shores and shoals.

  ‘Flagship's signalling, sir,' said the signals midshipman at his elbow. 'Flag to all ships, sir, prepare to tack.'

  ‘Acknowledge,' Thomas said. 'Mr Wallis, prepare to go about.’

  A few minutes later the signal came down, and Thomas tacked the Daring at the heels of the Intrepid before him, like every other ship in the fleet. Like a machine, the whole long line of ships came round in beautiful, rigid order, and headed for the mouth of the Bay and the waiting French. There was a movement at his elbow, and he glanced round to see William rejoining him.

  ‘Flagship signalling, sir,' said the signals midshipman again, but this time there was a tremor in his voice which he endeavoured to control as he continued. 'Flag to all ships, clear for action, sir.'

  ‘Acknowledge,' said Thomas. He met William's level gaze, and William gave a tiny smile, hardly more than a jerk of his lips, of excitement. Thomas noticed, as one notices tiny, irrelevant details at a moment of crisis, that William's eyebrows had been bleached white by the sun, like his hair.

  ‘Drummer, beat to quarters,' Thomas said. 'Mr Wallis, we'll clear for action, if you please.’

  *

  Charles came in from the fields hot and uncomfortable and discontented. More and more as the years passed he wished Philippe had not died and left him the burden of his wealth. Charles was not Philippe; he was a botanist, not a farmer or a businessman. There was little he did not know about the way flowers attracted the fertilizing insects with their colours and marks, or about their root systems, or the ingenious ways trees had of dispersing their seeds. But he did not know how to get the best out of his field hands, or how to drive a hard bargain with a Virginia merchant. He was not hard enough on his overseers, and they took advantage of him; he knew too little about business, and the tough Virginian buyers and sellers cheated him. The plantation was taking on a slipshod, half-neglected air, and he knew it, though he did not know how to prevent it.

  When he got to the house, he found Eugenie in the drawing room, sitting for her portrait. It had been her own idea, for a cousin in Martinique had written that it was absolutely the thing to have one's portrait taken with one's children, and war or no war, Eugenie was not one to lag behind a fashion once she knew of it. The painter was a Frenchman from Paris, who claimed to have painted Queen Marie Antoinette herself. It was not clear why such an eminent man should have strayed so far from civilization; Charles suspected he had fled, like so many before him, to the West Indies to escape the consequences of some crime - debt, perhaps, or fraud, or a duel.

  He paused in the doorway, however, to look at the scene for a moment, and to admit to himself that it was a pretty one, and that if the painter's skill captured it, it would be a lovely portrait. Eugenie had dressed all in white, white lace in tiers over white silk, her glossy black hair dressed high and topped with white flowers and plumes in the Parisian style. Little Charlotte, four years old now, was at her knee in a dress that was a miniature of her mother's, her dark ringlets falling over her shoulders, a pink sash round her middle making a splash of colour. Bendy, the spaniel, was on Eugenie's lap, his black patches and ginger eyebrows making a contrast with her snowy skirts, and beside her stood a diminutive Negro maid holding baby - Philip, who at almost two years was too big and heavy for her, and was kicking her rhythmically through his flounced and lacy skirts in his endeavour to make her put him down.

  At the sight of Charles, however, Philip's scowl of boredom changed to a smile of delight.

  ‘Papa!' he cried, and wriggled so hard that the exhausted Negress was forced to put him down, at which he ran across the room and flung himself at Charles's dusty knees.

  ‘My little man,' Charles cried, lifting the boy up. Thomas had been right in this, he thought, that the presence of his children growing up around him had been a great comfort, compensation in some measure for his loss of freedom and companionship. Philip adored him, and though little Charlotte was a capricious miss, and sometimes dismissed him loftily and refused to smile for Papa, yet she would often creep onto his lap, and demand that he should come and tuck her up in bed, and tell her a story.

  Philip's defection had spoiled the group, and the painter raised his hands in Gallic exasperation.

  ‘Monsieur, je vous en prie - Madame, je n'ai pas fini—!’

  But Eugenie looked round with a languid smile, and said, 'Ah, Charles. Yes, we have done enough for the morning. You may go, Monsieur du Barry. We shall sit again for you tomorrow.' The Frenchman, muttering in French too rapid for Charles to understand, began to pack away his gear, and Charles went across to kiss Eugenie's hand. She had grown lovelier over the years, and more gracious since the birth of her second son. She no longer chattered to him about fashions, and her silences were longer, and if he had still been in love with her he might have thought those silences were filled with profound thought. But though he cared for her, love had been too delicate a bubble to survive his loneliness and boredom and anxiety. He did not understand her, but no longer troubled himself to try. He was becoming a silent and morose man, and if he had thought about Eugenie, he might have wondered whether she was as disappointed in him as he in her.

  ‘Well, madam,' he said now, by way of greeting.

  ‘Well, sir,' she countered with a gracious smile. 'Do you not think the painting is coming along well?’

  He went across to the easel to look at it. It would be an agreeable thing indeed when it was finished - if it were ever finished.

  ‘It seems a pretty likeness, madam,' he said, 'but I think you should instruct your painter to hurry his work a little, lest the war interrupt it for good.'

  ‘The war? Charles, what can you mean?' Eugenie said without the least change of tone. 'Mary, take Master Philip and Miss Charlotte back to the nursery, and send Sam with some wine for the master. He is very tired from his work.'

  ‘The war, madam, is upon our doorstep,' Charles said with ironic patience. 'You cannot have failed to learn that the British are in Yorktown, that Washington has marched into Virginia with a large troop, or that the French navy has been achored in the Bay for days. At any moment the British navy will arrive, and we shall be convulsed with battle by land and sea.'

  ‘Convulsed?' The word was extraordinary, pronounced in Eugenie's gentle drawl. 'You must not be so sensational, Charles. What can a battle by land or sea be to us?’

  It was true, Charles thought, in the past year or two the war had passed out of their life to a great extent. With the theatre of war changing to the West Indies, York Plantation had ceased to be a staging post and hospital for the Patriots, and with his own manifest change of loyalties, the Virginia Patriots had left hi
m alone. But ever since Cornwallis had marched into Virginia, he had known a crisis could not be postponed indefinitely. The painter bowed himself out, and they were alone.

  ‘You do not think then, madam,' he said 'that we should pitch our weight into the scales? We should not aid the Cause? We should not do what we can to ensure our liberty and that of our children from the British yoke?'

  ‘No, sir, of course not,' Eugenie said calmly, and it took the wind out of his sails, so that for a moment he could not reply.

  At last he said, 'You are monstrous calm about it, madam. Yet you welcomed the Patriots into our drawing room that first day like lifelong friends.'

  ‘It was necessary,' she said, smoothing the creamy lace of her skirts. 'I did not wish to see you or my father shot, and my house burned down.’

  So there at last was his answer. He stared at her. 'You do not care, then, who wins the war?'

  ‘Why should women ever care about war?' she asked as if mildly surprised. 'Men make wars to amuse themselves. It is all waste, and women have to repair the damage. But you, Charles, why should you care? York is not your home, and you do not care about it.'

  ‘I promised your father to protect it,' he said. She nodded.

  ‘Yes, I suppose you did. Well, that is good.'

  ‘And what do you think I should do about the conflict in Virginia, then?' he asked. She stood up, her every movement slow and graceful.

  ‘Why, whatever is most convenient to you, sir,' she said easily, and with a bow of her head she left the room. Charles remained, thoroughly confused and taken aback by this extraordinary revelation. Eugenie's words had been spoken in a voice uniformly gentle and slow, yet their content had been as dark and sharp as West Indian spice. What other thoughts had she been concealing from him all their married life? When she was sitting embroidering, her face a mask of serenity, was she really watching him, criticizing inwardly? The servant, Sam, came in with the wine, and the news that a pinnace was coming towards the landing stage.

  ‘It look to me like Mr Tomkin, sir,' he said. 'Shall I bring him in when he come?'

  ‘Yes, of course, show him in,' Charles replied absently. He was brought abruptly back to earth, however, when Tomkin, his nearest neighbour, burst into the room, wildly excited.

  ‘The British have come, the navy - nineteen ships of the line, against the French twenty-four. There's going to be a battle, man! I'm going down to the headland to watch. Do you want to come with me?'

  ‘Good God! Yes, yes, of course, I'll come right away. Sam—'

  ‘Yes, master. I'll get your cloak.'

  ‘And tell your mistress where I've gone - no time to speak to her myself.’

  And minutes later they were running down to the landing stage where Tomkin's men were so eager to be off that Charles had to jump for it across a widening gap, landing clumsily upon a pile of weapons in the bottom of the boat.

  ‘You never know if we might need 'em,' Tomkin said as Charles rubbed his bruises.

  As soon as he saw the British fleet standing in towards him, De Grasse took the bold step, and one after another the French ships made a break for the open sea, where they would have a chance of fighting, rather than being forced aground. Thomas watched them with resignation: it was what was to be expected of an active commander-inchief.

  ‘They're coming out, sir,' Wallis reported belatedly.

  ‘Yes,' said Thomas. It changed the odds, of course, giving the advantages back to the fleet with the greater firing power. But British Jacks were better than the Frogs, everyone knew that; and a French man-o'-war would only fire two broadsides at most to the three from a British first-rate.

  ‘Flagship signalling, sir,' said the midshipman. 'All ships - wear ship, sir.’

  ‘Acknowledge.’

  It was prudent to keep the weather gauge, of course.

  Now the two fleets were in line of battle on converging courses that would meet at a point a mile or so ahead. Another signal from the flagship: 'Fire when your guns bear.’

  Well, that was that. No need for any more commands. Each ship in turn would come within range of the enemy, each ship would engage one of the opposing ships, and would fight until one or other was disabled. Thomas found his palms damp, and rubbed them absently against his trousers. He need not chide himself for a coward - everyone found the waiting terrible, as the ships drew slowly, ever so slowly, towards each other. The eighth ship in line -that would be Daring's target. Thomas could see her now. He had seen her before in the West Indies, often enough to recognize her without being able to see the name painted across her transom. It was the massive two-decker Achille - fortunate that the French spelled it without the 's'. Thomas could see her gunports were open, revealing a long, long line of guns, bared like teeth at her enemy; forty of them, and in such a moderate sea she would be able to use them all to good effect.

  ‘Starboard a point,' he said quietly to the quartermaster, bringing the ship yet closer to the wind. She moved faster through the water than her enemy, thanks to her coppering; there might be a chance to intercept the Achille on her bow where some of her guns would not bear, rake her, and turn down her blind side before they had a chance to run out the portside guns. He glanced at William, and was proud of the boy, standing calmly, his fair brows drawn together against the sea dazzle, the blond curls blowing at his temples in the little wind, watching the machine of war approaching as if it were nothing more than a fishing vessel. And he glanced too at the lovely blue sea and the blue sky; it was a beautiful world, and they might both be leaving it soon.

  The heavy rolling boom of guns echoed to him across the sea as the leading ships opened fire on each other, but Thomas did not heed it, concentrating as he was on the Achille and the delicate question of how they would intercept each other. Closer and closer they came; close enough for a long shot? But no - that first broadside, delivered at leisure by unhurried gun captains, was too useful to give up. Closer yet. And now.

  ‘Portside guns - fire.’

  Almost before the command was spoken, the broadside roared out, and the Daring heeled to the recoil while the bitter smell of smoke drifted back to Thomas's nose. There were crashes from the Achille, and screams, and he saw splinters flying, and men going down. They were close enough now for him to see the captain of the Frenchman on his own quarterdeck, and to want, ridiculously, to wave to him. And another thing to notice - blue-coated snipers up in the rigging of the French ship. Then came the French broadside, deep orange flashes spouting from the mouths of her guns, followed a moment later by the flattened boom of the sound. A crash from the Daring's side and a strange howling noise somewhere close behind him told him of the passage of two shots.

  ‘Their guns won't bear, sir,' Mr Wallis said excitedly. ‘Only half a dozen shots told.’

  The thunder of Daring's second broadside drowned anything further he might have to say.

  ‘Hands to the braces,' Thomas shouted. 'Ready to go about.’

  The Daring whirled round and ran down the port side of the Achille, delivering shot after shot into her blind hull. Not a gunport was open on that side, not a shot was returned, and the damage inflicted was enough, Thomas hoped, to level the odds. He tacked again, and came across her stern, battering it shapeless, but now the utmost of the advantage had been taken. Now he would have to bear the Achille's fire in return. Her broadside came, ragged but terrible, shots crashing into the Daring, men screaming, men lying dead. One of the maindeck guns was blown off its carriage, and a man was trapped underneath it, shrieking wildly with the pain. Another broadside from Daring, another from Achille, and a high-pitched whistling made him duck as one of the stays parted and the severed end snapped through the air like a whip. A wild cry told him some wretch had not ducked quickly enough.

  ‘They're aiming high, sir,' said Wallis, at his elbow. ‘They're trying to—’

  He stopped in mid-sentence, and Thomas turned to look at him. He was staring in what looked like surprise, straight ahead of him; then
he crumpled gently to the deck, shot through the heart. Thomas had forgotten the French snipers in the crosstrees. William had crouched down to examine him, and Thomas snapped his fingers to two of the starboard-side guns crews, standing ready while their guns were not in use.

  ‘You two men, take Mr Wallis below. Quartermaster, let her pay off a point. Mr Morland, my compliments to Mr Harris, and will he step up here in Mr Wallis's place.’

  William dashed away on his errand. It was growing dark - or no, perhaps not. It was just the great pall of smoke drifting up and across them from the battling ships. The din was huge and continuous, so that it ceased to be a noise at all. Before and behind Thomas ships were engaged, firing broadsides into each other, dealing out death and destruction. He saw the Minotaur drift past him, her foremast down, severed six feet above the deck and trailing a mess of wreckage over the side, while men tried to clear it away with axes. Here came Harris, his face blackened with powder so that his teeth gleamed strangely white.

  And then, chaos. Out of the pall of smoke on his disengaged side another broadside was delivered; one of the French ships from further back in the line had come up on the other side of him. A crash, a hideous groaning creak, and the mizzenmast swayed and then fell, bringing the main topmast with it. It was like the heavens falling in, noise, confusion, screaming. Thomas saw a man fall past him out of the rigging into the sea. And then as the mass of the wreckage turned the Daring as if she were on a pivot the Achille fired again, into Daring's bow, aiming upwards. Ashot from one of her maindeck guns came through the taffrail, spraying splinters outward in every direction, but Thomas had only time to receive a vague impression of something black flying at him, very fast. It struck him in the chest, killing him instantly, smashing his body backwards, taking one of the quartermasters and part of the wheel with it, and ended its flight by crashing into the raised poop.

  William, about to step back onto the quarterdeck, saw it happen, and yet could not take it in. With her wheel gone and the mizzenmast trailing over the side, the Daring was out of control. Her bow collided with the Achille's, snapping off both bowsprits, and she drifted on down to leeward, out of range of the guns, out of the battle and the bitter smoke, until, with the ceasing of her own guns' fire, it became quiet enough to hear the screams and groans of the wounded.