Sails on the Horizon

by Jay Worrall

  Bevan’s face assumed a pained expression as his mind ran down the list of potential alternatives. “All right,” he said at length. “I suppose he can’t sink the ship all by himself.”

  The talk turned to other tasks necessary to restore a sense of purpose and routine to the running of the ship. Charles sent word to have the galley lit so the ship’s company could be fed. The watch list had to be reorganized to compensate for their reduced numbers and to ensure that the pumps would continue to be manned while the most critical repairs were being made. And it all had to be done without exhausting the crew.

  Darkness shaded the eastern horizon when Bevan left to oversee the reorganization and repair of the ship. Feeling slightly more fit, Charles pushed himself slowly off the hatch cover and got to his feet with the idea of looking around to reassure himself that everything that needed doing was being attended to. He heard a loud splash as the first of the cannon was levered over the side. A third ship’s boat—he immediately recognized it as the admiral’s barge—pulled smartly from behind the bows of the captured San Josef and headed for the Argonaut’s side. A solitary officer, who Charles knew was the flag lieutenant on the Victory, climbed the side steps. He stayed only long enough to ascertain whether Argonaut would be serviceable to sail or be towed in the morning, and to deliver an envelope. Charles responded that he was confident the ship would be fit to be towed in the morning, but not ready to sail, even under the most limited jury rig, until the afternoon.

  “Thank you, sir,” the flag lieutenant said, saluting. “I will report your situation to Admiral Jervis.” He offered his own congratulations and after a few pleasantries returned to his boat.

  Charles inspected the envelope and was surprised to see that it was addressed to “Lieutenant Charles Edgemont, Commanding, HMS Argonaut.” He broke the seal and read:

  HMS Victory

  February 14th, 1797

  Sir,

  The fleet sails for Lisbon at four bells in the morning watch. If you are unable to sail under your own power, the frigate Niger, Captain Edward Foote commanding, will be alongside to take you under tow.

  I expect your fullest report in writing and in person the inst. we reach port.

  Your servant, &c,

  J. Jervis

  Charles folded the letter and put it in his jacket pocket. He felt tired and hungry now and his head still stung painfully. So the Argonaut was officially his. The admiral must have learned of his identity from Collingwood or Nelson. He, and he alone, was responsible for every one of the almost five hundred men still alive aboard her, for seeing that the repairs were carried out efficiently and competently, and for getting her to Lisbon, tow or no tow. There were no such things as excuses in the navy, not for a senior post captain, and certainly not for a junior lieutenant who hoped to keep his commission. For a moment he wished for the return of Captain Wood, cold, aloof, and autocratic in life, now laid out in his cabin. Wood had made it seem the easiest and most natural thing in the world to command a ship of the line, and Charles began to glimpse some of the pressure that made him the seemingly harsh and distant man he had been.

  Would he become the same, frigid and aloof, should he ever come to command one of His Majesty’s warships? More important, would he ever have the abilities and judgment that the position required? Deep in his heart, Charles knew there was doubt. During his years in the navy he had experienced all of the many complex operations, from setting sails to arranging the holds, that were required to keep a large line-of-battle ship and her crew at sea for months at a time and to fight her when necessary. But could he be responsible for all of them at once, balancing one crisis against another? Would he have the instinct to know when to order the sails taken in just before a sudden squall or to judge the exact moment to cut across an enemy’s bow and rake her? It was all well and good for Nelson and Collingwood to congratulate him for Argonaut’s heroic stand, but he hadn’t been in command then. Besides, he knew he had been frightened half out of his wits during the battle, with the ship being pounded and men dying all around him. He should have struck the colors, surrendered the ship the moment he’d come on the quarterdeck. That would at least have saved the deadly raking by the Spanish frigate.

  He bristled at the recollection of the Santa Brigida’s repeated broadsides into the Argonaut’s unprotected stern. If he ever did command a ship of his own, he would very much like to meet with her again. But to have any hope of striking back at the Spaniard he would need a ship to command. To have even the slightest chance of gaining such a command, he had to see to it that Argonaut reached Lisbon safely. He decided that he had better see for himself what damage she had suffered and what progress was being made to repair it. The most important thing in his life at that moment was that she be at least fit enough to be towed at dawn the next morning.

  A little unsteadily at first, he made his way belowdecks, bending deeply so as not to hit his head on the low deck beams above, and headed aft. In the cramped, dimly lit tiller room, he found two men threading a three-inch cable painfully through several sets of blocks and pulleys. The cable would then be fished up through a chase to the upper deck, wound around the axle of the newly replaced helm, and fed back down into the tiller room, run through a second, identical set of blocks and pulleys on the other side, and reattached to the tiller head. “How long till the helm is rigged?” Charles asked the seaman nearest him.

  “Not too long, sir,” the man answered, glancing over his shoulder. “As soon as I get this here pulley-block set”—he grunted and strained with his arms and shoulders at something over his head in the darkness—“we’ll send the cable topside. Maybe an hour, maybe an hour and a half, and she’ll be good as new.”

  “Thank you, er—” Charles began, but couldn’t recall the man’s name or even if he had ever known it.

  “Smith, sir, Todd Smith, carpenter’s mate. And this here’s Jimmy Bowan,” he nodded at the seaman farther back in the shadows.

  “Thank you, Smith and Bowan,” Charles said. “I’m sure the helm is in good hands. Carry on.”

  “Thank ye, sir,” Todd Smith answered while Jimmy Bowan shouted, “Goddamn you fishmonger’s doxie’s poxed whore’s arse; get through there!” He was trying to bend the heavy, stiff cable through the eye of the block. “Sorry, sir,” he added, nodding in Charles’s direction.

  Charles grinned to himself and started forward in search of the ship’s carpenter to find out about the progress patching the shot holes in the hull. The unceasing sounds of the chain pumps rattled loudly in the dark, confined space between decks. He came upon numbers of hands, some hurrying on one errand or another, others in small gangs, carrying tools, timbers, or lengths of cable of various thickness, or other objects urgently needed for repairs. Everyone knew by now that Captain Wood had been killed, and how and where and what he looked like when he was dead. Firsthand reports, rumors, conjecture, and pure fiction all moved like lightning belowdecks. And every member of the crew now knew who Charles was—“The second who were the new captain. You know, the taller one what ’as dark hair like, not t’other one”—even if he didn’t know half of their names. Every one of them, when they came upon him, stopped with a surprised look at seeing him, then knuckled a fist to his forehead or nodded respectfully if his hands were full, and waited for him to pass. Yesterday they would have hurried around him with the briefest nod and a quick, “By your leave, sur.”

  Charles passed through the lower gundeck. Here the wounded were laid out on the floor or in hammocks hung from the deck beams. The numbers shocked him. Even with the added space once occupied by the great guns, the deck seemed to be filled with prone or seated men, some still, others writhing in pain. Incoherent babble, cries for mothers or sweethearts, moans, and occasional screams competed in the thick, foul-smelling air. Charles recoiled from the sight of the blood-sodden bandages and shortened stumps where arms or legs had been removed. He hurried through the mass as quickly as he could, picking his way carefully around the
injured men and stepping over those he could not avoid. Their presence, the reminder of the human cost of the battle paid in pain, limbs, and lives, unsettled him. It wasn’t that he saw his own mortality in their injuries—like most young men, he thought himself immune to crippling wounds or death—but he felt awkward to be whole in their presence and inadequate to do anything for them.

  “Lieutenant, Lieutenant,” a weak voice implored as Charles passed. He stopped and looked at the faces to see who might be calling him.

  “Here, sir, it’s me, Johnson.” Charles recognized the pale figure lying under a bloody cover on the deck as the captain of a gun crew under his command during the battle. He knelt by the man, noticing from the shape of the blanket that Johnson had had a leg removed just above the knee.

  “How are you, Johnson?” Charles said as cheerfully as he could manage.

  “Oh, I’ll be fine, sir,” Johnson answered a little uncertainly, as if it were something he wanted to believe. “I wanted to ask ye about the fight; how we did.”

  Charles raised his voice so others around them might overhear. “We did ourselves proud. The Spaniards have run for home with their tails between their legs. Argonaut herself got three prizes: two seventy-fours and the San Nicolás, a three-decker. There’ll be plenty of prize money to go around.” He heard pitiful murmurs as the wounded closest by passed his words on.

  “That’s truly wonderful, sir,” Johnson said. “We really gave it to them.”

  “Yes,” Charles said, starting to rise, “we really did.”

  Johnson’s hand grabbed Charles’s sleeve. “Ye’re hurt, sir. Are ye all right?”

  Charles touched the bandage over his injury. “Just a knock on the head,” he said grinning. “It’s nothing. You and the others down here are the ones who did the hard part. You’re all heroes in my book.”

  “Thank ye, sir,” Johnson said, letting go of his arm. “Thank ye kindly.”

  The ship’s surgeon was in the midshipmen’s wardroom, which had been taken over for use as a surgery. The long dining table had become an operating platform for two patients at a time, head to foot. The surgeon and his well-remembered mate were working with a third man, noticeably less disreputable in appearance, who was introduced as Excellent’s surgeon. There was a name attached, but Charles didn’t catch it. He told his own surgeon that he wanted a full report on the dead and wounded first thing in the morning. The man nodded and said, “O’ course, sir,” picked up a bloodied bone saw, and turned toward a seaman with a shattered arm on the table. Charles fled.

  He finally found the master carpenter, several of his mates, and a number of other seamen on the orlop deck just forward of the mainmast. Here there was ample evidence of damage from the Spanish guns. Most of it had been crudely patched with hammocks or partly unraveled pieces of sailcloth saturated in tar, wadded up, and jammed into the shot holes with scraps of wood nailed over them. Larger repairs were reinforced with shoring, wedged and nailed against the deck or ceiling beams or any other convenient anchor. Water ran in small rivers down the inner planking below the patches, but in far less quantity than had gushed in through the open holes.

  The carpenter, a stout, ruddy man who spoke in a broad Irish brogue, reported that all the more serious damage to the hull had received attention, but some of the patches would have to be reinforced or redone before the ship could get under way. The worst of the damage, he went on, was forward, where several ribs had been stove in. “They’ve been braced every which way,” he said, “but they won’t hold in heavy weather.”

  “Enough to get us towed to Lisbon?” Charles asked. “If the wind holds, it should only be two days or so.”

  “Aye, if the sea don’t get up too much.” The carpenter scratched his chin thoughtfully with the claw of his hammer before continuing. “I don’t know if she’s worth fixing proper, to go to sea again, like. I never seen her this bad, and I been on the ol’ girl near on thirty years as mate and carpenter. She’s too old and slow, like me. For sure they’ll send her to the breaker’s yard.”

  “But she won’t sink between here and Lisbon?” Charles wanted to be certain. He didn’t care much about what happened to her afterward.

  “Probably not,” the carpenter said thoughtfully. “Now, when Captain Wood—ain’t it a shame he copped it?—were in command, he took real good care to see that nothing happened to her. Hardly had a scratch in all his years. Now he dies and see what happens.”

  “Thank you,” Charles said, the irony not lost on him, and started to leave.

  “It’s a crying shame, I say. I remember—”

  “Thank you,” Charles said again and disengaged himself from the man and his crew. He made for the forward ladderway when he heard word being passed that dinner was available on the upper gundeck for the starboard watch. His stomach growled. He made his way to the galley, two decks above, sat himself at the cook’s table, and gobbled down a large helping of the biscuits, peas, and salt pork prepared for the crew. The cook protested repeatedly that such food wasn’t fit for the Argonaut’s commander and that he would prepare a proper meal from the captain’s stores and have it served to him in the captain’s dining room along with after-dinner coffee.

  “Coffee,” Charles finally said between mouthfuls. “I’m going topside. You may send up a large mug of coffee as soon as it’s ready.”

  Charles wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his uniform jacket, noticing anew that it was still discolored by blood and filth, pushed himself away from the table, and went to see about the rigging of the foremast. On reaching the forecastle, he saw that it had grown quite dark under a moonless and starless sky. By the light of several lanterns, he noticed that a tall, foot-thick spar had been raised and securely scabbed to the stump of the old foremast. Two bosun’s mates were busy securing stays and shrouds in the dimness above and preparing to hoist a yard so that at least the forecourse and the forestaysail could be set. Charles noticed Midshipman Winchester standing near the port rail, organizing the lowering of the shearlegs upon which the jury-rigged foremast had been lifted. A boy arrived from the galley, gingerly holding a tin mug of steaming-hot coffee.

  “Thank you kindly,” Charles said, taking the mug and savoring the strong bitter-smooth liquid. “Now hurry back and bring me a second cup.”

  The boy looked at him questioningly, but when Charles repeated, “A second cup. Now. Hop,” the child turned and departed at a run.

  “Mr. Winchester,” Charles called, taking a careful sip, “a word with you, please.” Stephen Winchester turned, said something to a man beside him, and approached.

  “May I say I’m sorry about your injury, sir,” Winchester said touching his hat.

  “It’s a little tender,” Charles answered. “Probably hurt like hell in the morning.”

  “Probably, sir,” Winchester replied and fell silent.

  Charles found the curt reply irritating. He had expected something warmer in response to his opening. The one he got seemed smug bordering on overconfident. Perhaps he had been mistaken about Winchester’s readiness to assume greater responsibilities. Still, he had come this far, so he pressed on. “I wanted to tell you that I appreciated your handling of the cannon earlier this afternoon. I didn’t know you’d had experience in guns.”

  “Thank you, sir. To tell the truth, I hadn’t much. I asked one of the gun captains, the oldest one I could find, what to do. He, Higgins, I think, told me.”

  Charles thought that showed uncommon presence of mind in such a chaotic situation. He could think of few other midshipmen who would have done anything other than blunder ahead to cover their ignorance. “You’ve done a tolerable job with this foremast as well,” he said, nodding at the spar.

  Winchester’s face broke into an unexpected smile. “This is the first time I’ve been able to set up a mast and rig it on my own, as it were.” Then he quickly added, “Sir.”

  The second cup of coffee arrived from the galley. Charles offered it to Winchester, who blew on it and
then drank a little too much so that it burnt his mouth. In that moment Charles sensed that what he had taken for excessive confidence, even arrogance, in the younger man came from an effort to mask his nervousness or sense of inadequacy in the presence of his superiors. Charles could remember feeling similar emotions during his own years as a junior officer. He came to a decision. “How old are you?” he asked.

  “Eighteen,” Winchester answered, competing flickers of curiosity at Charles’s question and pain from his burnt tongue crossing his face. “I’ll be nineteen in April.”

  “How long have you been rated midshipman?”

  “Since I first came into the navy, just before I turned thirteen, sir.”

  “You’ve been at sea all that time?” It was not uncommon for children of twelve, or even considerably younger, especially from well-connected families, to be entered onto a ship’s books but not actually serve until they were much older. It helped them get promotions requiring seniority without their having to do anything inconvenient or dangerous, like actually going to sea.

  “Yes, sir, my father thought I needed to see the world—and discipline.”

  Charles sensed a note of resentment in the young man at the mention of his father. “You know we’re short of officers,” he said. “There’s only Lieutenant Bevan and myself.” Winchester nodded his comprehension without speaking.

  “In my capacity as acting commander, I would like to raise you up to acting lieutenant. It will mean more work and more responsibility.”

  Winchester blinked, then quickly nodded his head. “Thank you, sir. I’ll do my best,” he said, a small show of emotion crossing his face.

  “I’ll put it in my report to the admiral and recommend that it be fixed permanent if you do well. But I don’t really know if I have the authority to promote you, even to acting status. And, of course, I don’t know whether the admiral will confirm it.”

  “It’s all right, sir,” Winchester responded with feeling. “I just appreciate your confidence.”