Touch and Go

by Parkinson, C. Northcote

  “We are faster, I think, than the Dove,” Delancey concluded, “and the frigate is a little faster than we are . . .”

  “God, sir, look at that!” Mather, who had relieved Stirling, pointed aft.

  A mountainous wave, bigger than any they had yet seen, was overtaking them. It was a green-grey mass of water flecked with foam, intricately seamed and furrowed, lightened at its crest by the sunrise, darkened below by the shadow of the preceding wave. It came on quite slowly and Delancey found himself estimating their chance of survival. Had it been breaking, they would all have been dead in a matter of minutes. But the mountain ridge was sharp-edged, hardly beginning to curl inwards. It came nearer—and nearer—and then, sickeningly, the stern of the Merlin began to sink like a stone.

  Down, down it went and Delancey, clinging to the mizen shrouds, had the feeling that his body was weightless, his feet merely touching the deck, no longer resting upon it. Would the fall never end? Looking aft, the moving mountain was now, seemingly, twice the height. It blotted out the sky, filled the world with its threatening immensity. Would the Merlin slide stern-foremost into the giant wave, never recovering from its present fall? But, no, the fall had been checked. It seemed, for an instant, as if the ship were at the bottom of a well.

  Then, with frightful speed and force, the ship’s stern was tossed upwards. It felt now as if a giant were trying to push Delancey through the quarterdeck planking. The weight on his feet was increasing and as he looked forward, he could see the forecastle far below him, poised as if about to disappear beneath the surface. The stern was nearly at the summit and he had a glimpse of the sunrise.

  There was a sudden crash as the tip of the wave came over the stern and washed down the ship like a waterfall. He was nearly torn from the mizen shrouds by the weight of the water and, gripping convulsively, saw with wonder that the helmsmen were still at their post. The crest of the great wave was now ahead of the ship, a retreating mountain on its way to make its final collision with the rocky coast.

  Now the ship’s stern was sinking again, almost as sickeningly as before, but the next wave, as Delancey could see, was no such monster as the one that had passed. He had a feeling that the worst of the storm was over and that the gale would lessen in the course of the morning. Soaked to the skin and desperately tired, he wondered to find that he was still alive.

  On deck again after a change of clothes and an attempt at breakfast, Delancey found that the situation had somewhat changed. The day was brighter, the wind lessening, but that damned frigate had gained perhaps a mile. The Dove, by contrast, was losing ground. He could see no damage to her rigging but she might, of course, be leaking as the result of having gone aground.

  “Where are we, Mr Mather?”

  “Opposite Noirmoutier, sir. The Ile d’Yeu is on our starboard quarter, Belle Ile somewhere ahead of us.”

  “And what course is the lugger steering?”

  “She is heading eastward of Belle Ile, sir.”

  “It seems to me that she is doing more than that.”

  “Sir?”

  “As she is heading, she will pass east of Les Cardinaux and so into Quiberon Bay.”

  “But then she’ll be trapped. I should guess, sir, that she is damaged and that her master means to put her ashore before she sinks.”

  “Sam Carter? Not he. I think it’s time, however, that we gave that frigate a choice. We’ll head west of Belle Ile and see which prey she chooses to follow.”

  “Aye, aye, sir. She’ll follow us, as more worth capturing.”

  “I wonder.”

  Over the next three hours the chase continued, the pursuing frigate closing the distance but clearly following the lugger rather than the sloop.

  “I can’t make it out, sir,” said Mather. “The lugger is passing east of Hedic and Houat. She will be trapped in the Bay.”

  Delancey closed his telescope and turned to Mather with a smile.

  “So the frigate pursues the smaller prey—the craft that cannot escape!”

  “Is Mr Carter doing this in order to save us, sir?”

  “Not exactly, Mr Mather. North of Houat there is a passage through the reef which the Dove can pass and a frigate can’t. So Mr Carter has led the frigate on, letting her gain on him. I’ll lay ten guineas that the Dove is undamaged but has been towing an old sail astern. Now he will slip through the channel—one he knows about and I know about—and will leave the frigate trapped in Quiberon Bay, far to leeward of the Dove and further to leeward of the Merlin.

  “By the time the frigate has tacked out of the bay, which will take hours, and rounded Les Cardinaux, there will be no other damned vessel in sight. We and the lugger will both be over the horizon and out of the picture. So the French captain will give it up and head for Rochefort. ‘Citoyen Admiral,’ he will report, ‘two British frigates tried to reconnoitre the Basque Roads but I chased them off!’ This will gain him the ribbon of the Legion of Honour and he is welcome to it. We shall be safely at anchor off St Peter Port.”

  “Guernsey, sir? I supposed that we were bound for Plymouth.”

  “But, surely, Mr Mather, we have no alternative? I must recover the young officer I lent to a British merchantman in distress.”

  Later that day Mather repeated this conversation to Stirling, adding with some hesitation that the captain had almost winked at him. “I couldn’t swear to it, mind you, but his eyelid did seem to close for an instant.”

  “A bit of spray, I expect,” said Stirling, “But I do wonder, sometimes, what he is up to, especially when he looks most innocent. He has made himself this chance to visit Guernsey—his own home, after all.”

  “We were lucky to shake off that damned frigate. I feared at one time we should be brought to action.”

  “But he never gave it a thought. Do you realise, sir, that we manoeuvred for hours in the presence of the enemy and never so much as cleared for action?”

  “And that’s true enough. But the captain would have played some other trick even if the lugger had not been there. No French frigate could catch this sloop in a hundred years!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  THE LAST CHANCE

  WINDS were light and variable during the latter part of the night and it was broad daylight when the Merlin came slowly into the anchorage off St Peter Port. There was the harbour in the foreground, with red-roofed houses huddled beside it and straggling up the hillside. There was a faint haze of smoke from the chimneys and the cry of the gulls as they circled round the fishing craft. Among the houses facing the harbour was the one where Richard Delancey had been born. Although strangers lived there now, he still had the sense of homecoming.

  With conditions so ideal for the purpose, he could not resist the temptation to show off a little, performing a trick which is just possible for the well-trained crew of a crack ship in what was almost a dead calm. As the sloop drifted into the anchorage her guns saluted Castle Cornet, the boom of each gun echoing off the cliffs. For a space of perhaps three to four minutes the Merlin was hidden in a cloud of smoke. When the smoke finally cleared, she was seen to be at anchor, her sails neatly furled, with a boat alongside in the water, looking for all the world as if she had been there for a week.

  There were appreciative comments along the waterfront and exclamations from women on their way to market. The trick had been worth watching and one or two seamen ventured a guess as to who the sloop’s commander must be. The man who had no need to guess was old Captain Savage, who had last seen the Merlin in Grand Harbour, Valletta. He was on the jetty when the gig pulled into the steps and called for three cheers from the longshoremen and idlers who were assembled there. “And three more cheers for Sir James and the victors of Algeciras!”

  Delancey stepped ashore while the boat’s crew tossed their oars and was greeted by Savage at the top of the steps. “Welcome home!” cried the old man, and Delancey, with Northmore and Stock at heel, stepped ashore amidst raised hats and shouts of welcome. He had not counted
on making any such triumphant entry—he had planned, indeed, to be there at daylight—but it came, as he had to admit, as a pleasant surprise. Moving up High Street, he was greeted all the way, pausing here and there to shake hands with old privateersmen and schoolfellows.

  After calling on the Governor, who was not at home, he went on to call at the Saumarez town house. Lady Saumarez received him and welcomed him home to Guernsey. In return, he gave her his own account of her husband’s victory, adding his assurance that Sir James was unhurt and in good health. If he had no specific message it was because his visit to Guernsey had not been planned. So kind was his reception that he asked for a word in private, leaving his aides-de-camp to talk with the other members of the household. He then told Lady Saumarez about the slave market at Tetuan.

  “She was a mere child,” he explained, “and I couldn’t leave her to be sold into a life of suffering and shame.”

  “But of course, you couldn’t!” exclaimed Lady Saumarez. “Your action does you credit.”

  Then Delancey explained that what he did was easy to misunderstand. “The stories told in Gibraltar were greatly to my disadvantage,” he went on, “and the Admiral himself thought the worse of me.”

  He hoped that Lady Saumarez would some day let the Admiral know the truth. She readily agreed to do him justice and guessed that her husband would himself have had second thoughts about it. She made it clear that Delancey would always be welcome at her home. He left with the feeling that this was true and that his career might prosper accordingly.

  He met Captain Savage by previous arrangement and they dined together at the Golden Lion. During dinner the landlord brought them news that the Dove was entering harbour. A message was sent down to the harbour with the result that Sam Carter and young Topley came to join them in a glass of wine.

  “Well, Sam,” said Delancey, “we managed to give that frigate the slip!”

  “So we did, Richard, but I owe my escape to Mr Topley here!”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “Well, things looked bad. Five of my men deserted and there was none I could depend on save my mate and boatswain. Then these two Frenchmen came aboard, a man called Delmotte and another called Guichard and they had four of their men behind them. Their idea was that I should sell them the Dove for a quarter of her value, otherwise they would betray me to the police. Yes, things looked bad. I didn’t know what to do.

  “But then there was a lamp alongside and the sound of voices and into the cabin comes your Mr Topley. The mere sight of his uniform put new heart into me. He didn’t say much but I told him in a few words what was happening. It is odd, come to think of it, that Delmotte allowed me to explain: I suppose he thought Mr Topley a mere boy.

  “Anyway, Mr Topley asked just one question, ‘Which of these two men is the better local pilot?’ I replied, ‘Guichard,’ and pointed to him, knowing that he lived there, although Delmotte was the leader in this affair. A moment later Mr Topley drew his pistols, shot Delmotte through the heart and pointed the other at Guichard. ‘Disarm him’ was all he said.”

  “What did their men do?”

  “Nothing. With Delmotte dead, there was no fight left in them. We let them go, tied Guichard to the mizen-mast, cut the cable and hoisted sail.”

  “It must have been a difficult passage.”

  “You can call it that. But Mr Topley here told Guichard that he would have a bullet through his head the moment our keel touched bottom. He was a good pilot after that, attentive and careful.”

  “So Delmotte thought Mr Topley a mere boy, did he? He was wrong, Sam. Mr Topley is a man!”

  “He is that, Richard; and thank you for the loan!”

  All this time Topley was the picture of confusion, looking more like a child, but Delancey put him at his ease by saying “Well done!” and sending him off with a message to the first lieutenant. Then he turned to Captain Savage: “You see, sir, I had a difficult choice. Here was this smuggling craft held to ransom. Had she been a real merchantman under the British flag I might have sent her an officer and a party of seamen. But she was a smuggler and in a French port. Should I leave her to her fate? I couldn’t do that either. So I decided to send her one man. But which man to send? I seem to have chosen the right one!”

  “You did that—and Sam here was in luck.”

  “That’s true,” said Sam, “but in years to come I shall wake up screaming in the belief that I am in the Pertuis d’Antioche in pitch darkness on an ebb tide. And now, Richard, I want to show you how grateful I am. I made some inquiries about that ship, the Bonaparte. I reckon she’ll be off Cape La Hague in three days’ time.”

  “And the war not over?”

  “There’s no word of peace yet, although news is expected almost any day now.”

  “So there’s still a chance?”

  “Yes, but I’ll have another talk first with Citoyen Guichard, who is still aboard the Dove. Dine with me tomorrow, Richard—you, too, Captain Savage—by which time I may know more than I do now.”

  Delancey and Savage accepted the invitation with pleasure and they went on together to buy some supplies for the inevitable parties which would mark the end of the commission: wine, rum and tobacco included. Then Delancey returned to the Merlin and heard the story from Topley of how the Dove made her escape. Topley was thanked and congratulated on a tricky piece of navigation. Thanks to him the French had been cheated of their prey.

  That evening Delancey had Mather and Northmore to supper with him at the Golden Lion. Over their wine Mather expressed his sorrow that the Merlin’s commission was coming to an end.

  “It takes so long to bring a crew up to our present state. Take that little display as we entered port this morning—we could never have done that a year ago and few other ships could do it at all. Week by week, month by month, we have promoted the good men, trained the unskilled, cured the idle of idleness and found simpler work for the stupid. We have worked at it, sir, and the result is the crew we have. We were lucky, though, in one way. We had no men who were actually disloyal.”

  “That wasn’t luck,” said Delancey, “I got rid of those at the outset.”

  “How did you do that, sir?”

  “I sent them ashore under the command of young Topley—this was in the early stages of his career, before he had gained confidence—so they all deserted and poor Topley was mastheaded for neglect of duty.”

  “I remember that, sir,” said Northmore, “I wondered at the time why you should have sent Topley instead of me.”

  “But you see what I mean,” Mather persisted, “we have, at long last, an effective man-of-war and now she is to be paid off. It seems almost a waste of effort!”

  “It is not a waste of effort,” Delancey replied, “and that for two reasons. In the first place we have also trained ourselves. What we have done before we can do again but next time more quickly. In the second place this commission is not yet at an end. We may encounter and capture a French corvette between here and Plymouth. That is certainly not inevitable and may not even be likely, but bear the possibility in mind. The war is not ended yet.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  The party ended pleasantly and Delancey sent Mather and Northmore on board again so as to relieve Stirling and Topley whose turn it would be to come ashore. These last two would meet Delancey on the quayside at eleven.

  With a feeling of temporary freedom from other responsibilities, Delancey strolled around the town and looked in at another inn, one he knew to be a haunt of smugglers and privateersmen. Delancey was recognised at once by several of the inn’s regular patrons, acquaintances he had made during the privateering period of his life. He was asked at once to join them. “It’s good to see you, captain,” said one of them, “and the way you brought your ship into port was worth watching!” There was a chorus of agreement on this score and Delancey joined the party around the fireplace.

  All present wanted to know about Sir James at Algeciras and some of them cou
ld name the other Guernseymen who had been serving in the flagship. Delancey told them the story, feeling at the same time that he was gaining stature by his association with the local hero. Then he led the conversation round to privateering and was told that business had declined of late. There had been too many British men-of-war in the Channel and too few French merchantmen. Delancey asked whether the talk of peace might not lure the French from their harbours.

  “We’ve thought of that,” said Will Duquemin, “but what if peace is made and we in Guernsey not the first to hear about it? We should be in court and accused of piracy, murder and heaven knows what.”

  “Or accused at best of wrongful detention,” added Luke Tostevin. “No Letter of Marque holds good after the war is ended. Any mistake the like of that could ruin captains and owners alike. Several of our regular privateers are laid up already and those at sea have mostly been sent letters of recall.”

  “Things were better in the first few years of the war,” maintained Will, “and people here still talk of the way you captured the Bonne Citoyenne. No cleverer capture was ever made, and no private man-of-war out of Guernsey has ever taken as big a prize with as small a loss. We used to talk in those days about Delancey of the Nemesis. No, sir, you have not been forgotten.”

  “What has happened to that other ship which used to frequent Cherbourg? Do you hear of her these days?”

  “Ah!” said Tostevin. “You mean the Liberation, sister ship to the Bonne Citoyenne, trading out of Rochefort. They have changed her name and she is now called the Bonaparte.”

  “And has no one tried to capture her?”

  “No.” Duquemin shook his head slowly. “When you captured the Bonne Citoyenne, the other ship was given six more guns and another twenty men. She is too strong for us now even if she wasn’t before. We have talked it over time and again—haven’t we, Luke?—but we have agreed in the end to let her alone. She would outgun any privateer we have. She might be taken by any two of our ships but the result would be to wreck all three of them. As you know, captain, that sort of action is never worth while.”