‘Gentlemen. We don’t know each other. But I’ve watched you today, and you’ve had a proper chance to look me over. I expect rumours are flying about because of what happened last night, so I’d better tell you what I intend. For reasons I can’t fathom, Gideon Bartholomew wants me dead. He chose a way of doing it that lacked any Christian feeling. Any of you that have spoken to the lads that got me out will know what I mean.’
A shudder of fear and disgust rippled through the assembled hands.
‘I don’t know what Bartholomew is about. All I know is that he’s making a mint of money. I intend to take it off him, and I won’t lie to you, I intend to kill him as well. It would be nice to pretend that the odds mean nothing, but that would be a downright falsehood. I will say this, though. I’ll take a wager that I’m as good a sailor as any in that little fleet, and I’ll also wager that this ship, the Principessa, can outsail the lot of them.’
‘So you intend to fight them all?’
Heads turned and Harry looked to see who’d spoken. It was Sutton. He had a badly swollen black eye where Pender had clouted him, and Harry’s servant made to move forward again. Harry couldn’t understand what had happened to Sutton to change him so, for he’d seemed willing enough to join early on, though he’d proved work-shy. Now he seemed to be making every effort to undermine him.
‘I won’t fight them all at once, Sutton.’
‘They might not give you any choice.’
Harry smiled. ‘I’m not fool enough to leave them the option.’
‘So you say,’ Sutton sneered.
Harry looked slowly around the assembled faces, full of doubt. ‘What if we can take just one of them and find out what they’re about? If we could get to their rendezvous before them, we could steal their money from right under their noses.’
That pleased his crew, for there was much grinning and digging in the ribs. But Sutton wasn’t to be mollified. ‘Seems to me that you’re more bent on getting Bart. Seems to me that you’ll get us all killed just for that.’
Harry decided it was time to gamble. They were either with him or they weren’t. If not, he’d rather have them off the ship. ‘Anyone who wants to, can leave the ship. The Dido is over there. She might be a tub, but she’ll float long enough to get you to where you want to go.’
It was subtle, for in truth they had nowhere to go but back to the navy. Harry made his final pitch. ‘Those who’re going get over to the gangway. Those who are staying best get below for their dinner.’
There was much murmuring and quiet argument as people traded the prospect of Harry’s offer. Money and the risk of death, against what they could expect from the navy, which was the risk of death and no money. Harry could see that he was winning. Sutton looked set to speak again. Harry called to him to cut him off, swinging his arm to indicate the Dido.
‘I think your ship awaits you, Sutton.’
The man walked towards the gangway. He’d boxed himself into a corner which no one wanted to share. Harry admired the way that, left with no choice, he didn’t plead or whine, but took the only decision he could. Time to get the poor sod off the hook.
‘You’ll have a devil of a job sailing it by yourself. And I better warn you that I intend to use it for target practice in about half an hour. And if it’s any help to you, Sutton, I would like you to stay.’
Someone laughed, but it wasn’t derision, for a couple of others grabbed him, jostled him playfully, and dragged him below. Pender smiled at him. ‘Neat, your honour. Very neat.’
They put the Dido under topsails and lashed the wheel. Harry stood on the deck of the Principessa as the ship came about for its run in. Not the real thing, with no return fire. But it would cheer up the men no end, and when they came to face a real enemy, he hoped that their spirits would be as high as they were at this moment.
The Principessa bore down on the Dido. Harry gave the order to open the gunports, load, and run out. All went smoothly, and the men leant over their guns with a keen air. As they came abreast, Harry gave the order to fire on the upward roll. The nearest gun went off, and there was loud cheer as the ball smashed into the side of the Dido. Then the second gun, which missed its timing. Cries of derision erupted as it sent a spray of water over the Dido’s side. This was followed by the first carronade, and one of the Dido’s gunports disintegrated. The ball carried on, just missing the mast, and taking out the bulwark on the other side of the deck as well. The second carronade put a ball clean through the hull. The Dido staggered as though some great hand had grabbed it, and they could hear the sound of tearing timbers below decks, even at two cables. Wood flew off the mainmast from the next shot, more of the side was damaged by the next, and the last one, poorly aimed, went past the bows.
Harry put the ship about once they’d headreached the Dido, and the men rushed to the other side to repeat the manoeuvre. Shot after shot went home. Holes appeared in the side, and after several passes the bulwarks were a jagged mess. Next he had them shooting bar shot at the rigging, and that was in tatters after two passes. The Dido wallowed in the swell, with no way left on her.
No more carronades, she wouldn’t stand it. He kept up the firing with the twelve-pounders, pass after pass, shot after shot. The Dido started to settle in the water, every shot into her hull opening a dozen seams. The guns were hot and the men were tired, with the sun dipping into the western sea. Still she floated. He decided on one more pass. Then he would house the guns for the night.
He bore down, bringing his ship in close. This time he did include the carronades. The rolling broadside was now well practised, though far from the perfection he loved. But what he had was enough. The balls crashed into the other ship sending wood flying in all directions. Then the carronades spoke. This time they must have hit something mortal, for the Dido split in two. The men cheered as if they’d just won a great fleet action. Harry ordered all to be made secure as he put his ship about and, leaving the wreckage of the Dido littered across the ocean, headed back for the approaches to Genoa.
‘I wonder if it would be possible for you to put me ashore somewhere?’
Harry looked up from his plate at Fairbairn. The surgeon was in a terrible way. He hadn’t touched his food. His gaunt face had a hunted look, and every so often he would clutch at his stomach as if in the grip of some deep pain. He was desperate to feed his opium habit, and the means to do so lay back at Ma Thomas’s. Harry would have been reluctant to let him go anyway. He was heading into a fight, and a surgeon aboard was a great comfort to the hands. But he had no intention of putting him ashore so that he could head right back to the inn, driven by his habit. For a man like Fairbairn, in the grip of something so cruel, secrecy would be sold for a taste of opium. But it wasn’t just that. He owed Fairbairn his life. The man had killed to save him, causing himself great distress in the process. Perhaps there was something Harry could do to return the compliment.
‘No, Mr Fairbairn. I cannot put you ashore. I don’t have either the time, nor the inclination.’
‘You must,’ he gasped.
‘No. I have a fight on my hands, Mr Fairbairn.’ The surgeon grabbed his stomach again, and his lank fair hair fell over his face and he shot forward in pain. ‘So it seems do you. Let’s pray that we both win.’
Harry sat with him that night, holding his hand and talking to him. He gave him some tobacco to chew, which helped a little. At times Harry had to hold him physically on the cot, and for someone so thin and wasted he showed surprising strength. In the end, much against his will, he had to strap him down, so that he could get some sleep himself. As he came into the main cabin, Pender poured him a cup of coffee.
‘It will get worse. I don’t want to restrain him, but I’ll have to tonight. From now on we take turns.’
‘God forgive me for saying it, Captain, but what he needs is something to do.’
Fairbairn lay in the coach tortured by his obsession, screaming for relief, while Harry in the sleeping cabin dreamt of rats trying to
tear out his throat, and the unholy cries from his nightmare were every bit as unnerving as those of the surgeon.
Yet Harry Ludlow was clear-eyed enough at sun-up the next morning. He sat on the foremast crosstrees, his telescope trained on the distant harbour of Genoa. They beat to and fro all morning, watching ships heading in and out of the port, speaking with none, and ignoring all enquiries. They’d have to risk Bartholomew picking up news of his presence. But Harry reckoned if he had a rendezvous, then he would keep it. After all, he outnumbered Harry Ludlow by five to one.
They’d just turned the glass on the afternoon watch when he spied his quarry, all five of them coming out of the roadstead in an untidy line. He turned his glass onto the Bella, easy to spot with her lack of topmast, genuinely amazed that she been made ready to sail. Harry had the impression that she was labouring. He took them in turn, watching each ship for a while to see how they handled. Bartholomew’s ship Daedalus was in the centre, for all the world like a commodore, and ably handled. The wind was foul and they had to tack out of the bay, a manoeuvre Bartholomew carried out better than his consorts. Looking at the sails, he could see that Daedalus was the fastest ship. He had reefs in his courses and topsails where some of his fellows had none, sailing more slowly than he needed to maintain the line.
It was plain to see that the Bella, second in the line, was keeping them back. She had sails going in and out every few minutes, as she sought to increase her speed a fraction, and a steady stream of water shot from her side, evidence that the pumps were working flat out. The ship ahead of her was not faring much better, despite being undamaged. Harry, looking at her lines, and the setting of her sails, marked her out, for she was capable of better. It was her captain that let the ship down; his ship-handling was a mess. He guessed, from what he’d been told, that she must be Cromer. Apparently her captain, Pilton, was a buffoon. The ones astern of Bartholomew, Mercury and Ariel, looked to be much better sailors, and much better ships.
They were well out of the lee of the land now, and as they turned south the wind favoured them and they increased speed. Harry, knowing he would now be able to see them from the deck, slid down the backstay and gave the orders to set more sail, bringing his ship round onto a converging course. They must have had a lookout on him, for Harry heard the sound of a gun, and he saw a puff of smoke from Bartholomew’s ship. They edged closer together, to afford each other more protection.
Harry grinned. Bartholomew couldn’t realise how much he had revealed. They weren’t going to commence any action, leaving him the initiative. Bartholomew would reckon on Harry going for the slowest ships, which is why he’d placed them ahead. As Harry engaged he could come up to assist, helped by those astern of him going wide, hoping to catch him in a trap from which there would be no escape.
But Harry didn’t want to attack his slowest ships, and that was another thing Bartholomew had inadvertently told him. If he’d brought out the Bella, slowing his whole line to accommodate her, that meant that he needed the ship for some reason. Very well, let him keep her, for the very lack of speed would be to Harry’s advantage. These men sailing in convoy was one of the things that had nagged at him.
Whatever they were about to do required all their ships. And if that need was strong enough, Bartholomew would stick with it. If he did, Harry Ludlow would have an easier task picking off his best ships. For one thing was certain. If those two lead captains tried to come about to engage him when he attacked the rear ships, they would probably miss stays. Given their rate of sailing compared to Harry’s they would most certainly miss the battle. The odds had fallen from five to one down to three to one. Harry fully intended that before the day was out he’d have reduced them further.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
HE SAT a mile away from his quarry, sailing along on a parallel course. The wind had swung round into the north-west, gusting slightly, and being colder than the southerlies the day was clear and bright. The five ships were silhouetted against the rocky coastline. Bartholomew had decided to stay close inshore, as an added security measure. It was a shrewd move, and somewhat confounded Harry, who needed room to manoeuvre for the best chance of success. He realised that he could not hope to cripple more than one ship at a time, and even that would pose problems, for if he hesitated they would be down on him in a trice, outnumbering him and nullifying any advantage he had. There was the other consideration, that as soon as he fired his guns the level of his armaments would be revealed. You can only surprise an enemy once in such circumstances, so the first time had to count. What he really needed to know was where Bartholomew was headed, and that without them knowing that he had gained the information.
Chittenden, who as the second most senior captain was bringing up the rear, was sailing along very comfortably. Given that their leader had slowed the whole flotilla to accommodate one ship, Harry was left to wonder how far Bartholomew would carry this. Could he, over the course of the afternoon, so damage one of Bartholomew’s ships that he would be forced to leave it behind? And how would they behave in battle? Harry knew it was attitude and training that produced a good crew in a fight. He always worked up his crews with the idea of fighting a ship that would shoot back, and do so with enough power to win. The richest prizes were the biggest, and they always sailed with a large crew and a lot of cannon. Most privateers avoided them like the plague. Indeed, most privateer captains couldn’t even see the sense in practising gunnery, since they only ever envisaged themselves as being in action against a small merchant ship. They relied on speed, a few wild shots to unnerve their opponents, and a lot of shouting and screaming as they boarded. He couldn’t wait to find out how this lot would behave.
Harry gave the orders to bring the Principessa round. He had tried this several times, and on each occasion the result had been the same. He watched as the three rear ships, Mercury, Ariel, and Bartholomew’s Daedalus, made more sail, moving up to cover their slower consorts. He called to Lubeck and the three leading hands to whom he had given command of their sections. Pender stood beside Harry as they gathered on the deck, behind the wheel.
‘What I want to do is take out the last ship, the Mercury, the main advantage being that if they want to support her they’ll have to bear up and reverse their course, and given that they’re close inshore, they’ll try to tack rather than wear. Coming right up into the wind will slow them even more. Chittenden knows that as well as we do, so at the first sign of attack, he’ll come abreast of the next ship in line, which is Frome’s ship, the Ariel.
‘So we must fool them. Bartholomew might not think it odd if we seem to go for him. Foolish, yes, for I’d be playing right into his hands. But given what happened in that warehouse, he may think my anger has got the better of my judgement. So we must favour that thought, get within range, bear up ourselves in a flash, and get between the bows of the Mercury and the stern of the Ariel. They don’t know how fast we are on a bowline. If we can do it quick enough we can force Chittenden away from the land, away from his friends and any immediate help.’
He could see that this had them worried, for the crew was new to the ship and each other. ‘If the manoeuvre looks to be going wrong, I’ll come back round and bear away. We only go into action if the odds are in our favour.’
‘You don’t reckon on him having a go at us?’ asked Pender, articulating what must have been in everyone’s mind.
‘No, if he was going to do that, he would have sought to engage us before now.’
The captain of the tops spoke up. ‘Seems daft, for he must know we can’t fight them all.’
‘Look at it from his point of view. What man in his right mind would take on odds of five to one?’ The speed with which they all looked away amused Harry and he gave them a wide smile.
Pender spoke up, his voice full of supportive confidence, though the look he gave Harry had a strong element of hope attached. ‘If he’d bothered to get to know you, your honour, he’d never have doubted it.’
‘But he d
oesn’t know me. He’ll expect me to act like he would himself. He thinks that I’m going to shadow him, not attack him, hoping for some kind of opportunity to present itself. And opportunity is a two-edged sword, for he might find he has the chance to take me by surprise, or get away from me one moonless night. One serious attack, even if it’s not completely successful, will throw that plan out the stern windows.’
‘And how does that aid us?’ asked the captain of the tops. He didn’t ask what he must indeed be wondering. How, in the name of hell, could Harry Ludlow be so sure of all this?
‘The first rule of war is to force your enemy away from his own plans then impose your own.’ Harry looked out over the larboard side. They were coming closer. His guns had been loaded as soon as he spotted them. ‘Gunports shut until the last moment; I don’t want them to see those carronades until it’s too late.’
Harry took the wheel himself, while Lubeck took station amidships, trumpet in hand, ready to yell the orders. It was a tricky affair right enough, for most of the men would have to be involved in the change of sails. Then, once they had braced the yards round, they’d have to run for their guns.
Bartholomew’s ships were now sailing with their bowsprits practically brushing the stern of the ship ahead. There was the chance of a collision if Chittenden didn’t sheer off. Again Harry was relying on this need to maintain their fleet. Preservation of their ships intact must be their overriding motive, so Chittenden would not ram Harry. He’d do everything in his power to avoid it. He smiled, and for the first time thought of James, who, in a situation like this, would have accepted that his brother knew what he was about, and not indulged in any of the carping criticism that had so annoyed Harry in Genoa.
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