The lookout slid himself out onto the brig's fore crosstrees to accommodate the new arrival. He gave a startled grunt on seeing his skipper's face up here. Hoare could read his mind: "Captain Oglethorpe, bless 'is ol heart, 'ud never 'a made it up 're wifout a block an' taykle."
Sharp eyes or no, it took Hoare a good minute, even with the other's patient guidance, to find the stranger in the murk, but at last he had her. From all he could tell, she was a sharp-looking craft, a three-masted lugger with a topsail on her main. She looked at least as handy as the smuggler Fancy Hoare had seen founder off the Isle of Wight over a month ago. But her masts were more sharply raked, and there was that mizzen besides. There was something familiar about the rig.
"Frenchman, sir, or I miss me guess," the lookout said.
"What makes you think so?" was Hoare's whispered question.
"Seen enough of'em in St. Malo 'arbor, sir, durin' the peace. Chaz Marie."
Hoare was slow in understanding the man's word. Then it sank in. Chasse-maree was what he had said, mangling the French as every good Englishman should. The Chasse-maree, the "tide-chaser," was a fast French coaster, always lug-rigged, always three-masted.
"Smell 'er, sir? Only a Frenchman smells like that, or a Portygee. Garlic. An' she wouldn't be no Portygee, not in these waters. Besides, she don't pong of fish like a Portygee. No, sir, that's French cookin', or I'm a lobster."
"Clever man." Hoare could only agree. Now that the lookout mentioned it, even he could smell the rich scent of garlic, wine, and onions. The product of English sea-cooks was one thing, he thought sadly; French sea-cooking was another kettle offish entirely. And now he remembered who the lookout was: he was Danny Quill, an Irishman for all his Cockney speech, cook's mate.
"She'll be a privateer, sir," Quill said, "packed as full of Frogs as a keg of sardines."
"I think you're right, Quill," Hoare whispered. "Keep a sharp eye out until you're relieved. Are you a good shot?" He had a mind to see a Frenchman served the way that unknown marksman had served him, those years ago.
"Not much of an 'and at musketry, sir, fer a fact. Need practice fer that."
"Well, then, I'll have Leese send up one of his Marines to keep you company. I plan to put a spoke in that Frog's wheel." So saying, Hoare grasped the main backstay to windward, preparatory to sliding down it to the deck.
" 'Ave 'im bring a spare musket with 'im, sir," Quill suggested. 'Oo knows, I might strike it lucky."
"Aye, aye," Hoare answered, and let himself slide. He slid prudently, having seen more than one rash young man peel the skin off his palms on the harsh, tarred cordage of a backstay, just by the sliding.
"Call all hands, Mr. Clay, to quarters," he ordered once on deck, his hands burning a trifle despite his care. "But quietly, man, understand?"
How Clay was to manage preparing the brig for battle quietly was something he decided to leave to the lieutenant.
"Aye, aye, sir," said Clay, quietly, and did as Hoare had ordered. Silently, the Royal Dukes collected at their stations. The stranger's loom was ever so slightly greater.
Hoare knew what his next order must be, and his heart sank.
"And let Nemesis slip," he said. Towing behind Royal Duke as she was, she could only hold the brig back. Then he added, "Belay that. I'll do it myself."
Every man, he thought, should be man enough to shoot his own dog at need, or-if, like himself, he had no dog, at least to let go of his private bark, at need. He stepped to the taffrail and cast his sweetheart's towline off the cleat to which she had been made fast. As he watched, she disappeared astern in the mid-Channel gloom.
"Have the gunners load with chain shot, and run out the guns," Hoare now ordered. "When I whistle, they are to fire. High. High, Mr. Clay!" Clay relayed Hoare's order. All too well, Hoare knew the propensity for even trained gunners to hull the enemy whenever possible, the hull being the most massive target and the place where humans could be hit. Aiming high to disable was a foreign trick; hulling was the English way, and it generally worked. But if this craft was what he thought she was, he had no vestige of hope either of unmanning her or fleeing.
Now, how to assure himself absolutely of the other craft's nationality? It was all very well for Quill's culinary nose to identify her as a Frenchman, and the distinctive Chasse-maree brig could belong to a prize. How to smoke out her identity without revealing Royal Duke's own?
Hoare resolved upon a nocturnal version of the simple old ruse by which a ship flew false colors. As long as she hauled them down and replaced them before firing, honor was observed.
"Hail 'em-in French, Mr. Clay," he said.
"In French, sir?"
"In French, Mr. Clay."
"Aye, aye, sir," he said with a resigned shrug. "Kell vessow?" he shouted.
The awful sound he made in copying Hoare's whispered French delighted Hoare. Though his bellow was enviable, his accent was appalling, but it did as Hoare had hoped and must have left the Frenchman wondering for a precious few seconds, which was just what Hoare wanted.
The stranger gave no reply. Instead, he bore off and laid a course to cross Royal Duke's bows and rake her from ahead-or, more likely, to board. This could only be a tactic of the lookout Quill's privateer, packed as full of Frogs as a keg of sardines.
"Bear away, Mr. Clay, and hoist our colors."
"Aye, aye, sir." Clay relayed Hoare's first order to the helmsmen. There were two of them now, as was normal practice when going into action, neither of them more than two feet from Hoare. They would have heard his initial order, but, as they had been taught, refrained from complying until they heard Clay's clear command. There being no signal midshipman at hand, Clay bent the Union Jack to its halliard himself and ran it up to Royal Duke's gaff.
Hoare watched, watched, waited, eyes fixed on the other ship, judging their relative positions, courses and speeds, counting seconds with snap, snap, snap of his fingers as he had been taught when still a junior mid. Having the inner one of the double curve the two vessels were drawing across the midnight sea, Royal Duke visibly fore-reached upon the Chasse-maree, while each of the two closed upon the other. By the time they were abeam, both were sailing on a broad reach, the Frenchman taking some of Royal Duke's wind and commencing to draw ahead. By the nature of things, she was heeling toward the brig; in daylight, Hoare would have had a clear view of her cargo of privateersman. As it was, Hoare could hear the sound of the many men aboard her, as they nerved themselves to board.
He shut one eye. Thrusting two fingers into his mouth, he gave the shrill, piercing whistle that on this occasion his gun crews knew meant "Fire!"
Mr. Clay's command, unneeded, was drowned in the near-simultaneous crack of Royal Duke's larboard battery-all four laughable four-pounders. Hoare opened his shielded eye. The faint afterglow of the burning powder sufficed to give him a brief picture of the broadside's effect on the Chasse-maree.
Of the four chain shot, one must have gone astray, but the other three had done their duty, and more. One had struck the fore lugsail yard near where it met its mast, and left the sail drooping, useless. A second had struck the forestay, leaving the already weakened foremast unstayed forward, and the lugger herself without a rag drawing forward of her undamaged mainsail. The third ball must have struck in the neighborhood of her steering position, for Hoare could see a mass of heaving confusion about her wheel and could imagine cries of pain and rage. Her colors-the Tricolor, thank God-still flew.
It had been an absolute freak of luck, Hoare knew. Even at so close a range-point-blank musket shot and no more-he would have been overjoyed to see even two shots from his landlubber-manned popgun crews even hit the enemy. Well…
"Rule Britannia, and take no prisoners!" he felt impelled to shout. Being unable to shout, he successfully suppressed the impulse, thanking himself fleetingly for his muteness. Such a command would have doomed Royal Duke's gentle little crew, their ship, and its cargo of secrets.
As it was, Hoare could have ask
ed for no better. Wheel or no wheel, nothing could have prevented the Frenchman, with no foresail to keep her off the wind, from losing way and falling into the wind, where she hung. There she lay, helpless against a second, raking broadside, as Royal Duke continued on course.
"We have her!" Mr. Clay roared, pounding his little fist on Royal Duke's rail.
"Steady as you go! Reload!" Mr. Clay roared into the reddened darkness. The four gun crews commenced to scuttle about the darkened deck, preparing to reload.
"Cease fire, Mr. Clay!" Hoare ordered. "Secure from quarters, and resume our original course!"
"Sir! I protest!"
"Do as I've ordered, sir!" Hoare croaked, as forcefully as his scarred throat would allow. "Do not dismiss the watch below. I'll explain when we have stood down."
Grumbling audibly, the gun crews secured their popguns, closed the ports on both sides of the brig, and returned the rounds of chain shot to their waiting-grooves.
"A word in your ear, Mr. Clay." Hoare bent to that ear so he could be heard, and conducted his seething officer to the slight lee offered by Royal Duke's coach-house coaming.
"Think, sir. What would have been the outcome if our people were to give battle against more than thrice our number of enraged, experienced, greedy privateersman? Why, we would have been overwhelmed within minutes, and our survivors under hatches."
"I had not…"
"I know, Mr. Clay. You were carried away by the rage of battle. I understand, and I honor you for it. No one, no one, could doubt your courage. But there's more, sir-a truly compelling reason why I turned away when I did. You… will remember at least as well as I the Admiralty's original stricture against our going to sea at all under our own control, and their lordships' reasons for the prohibition… With that in mind, how, pray, would you explain even a victory when you gave your report to our masters? 'You,' I say, for… I assure you that honor would not permit me to survive long enough to give it myself." Hoare meant this with all his heart. His demeanor must have showed it, for his little lieutenant hung his head.
"I did not think, sir. I… as you say, I was carried away by the heat of battle."
"Now, Mr. Clay," Hoare went on, "I must do my best to persuade our people that my refusal to do battle was not mere poltroonery… but was in the best interest of the service. And I must ask you, once again, to act as my mouthpiece… whatever your true feelings may be." With that, he had Mr. Clay summon the Royal Dukes to the purely imaginary break of the quarterdeck.
A child could have sensed the feelings that radiated from them as they stood there in the dark of the night-shame, scorn, thwarted greed. Given a lead, there would be shot rolling about the deck, the private signal that was so often the precursor of mutiny. These people had wanted to conquer, kill, and loot. The urge to violence was all the greater, perhaps, for the memory of the contemptuous laughter from the observing men-o'-war in Portsmouth harbor, when they made their first feeble, laughable attempt to handle Royal Duke. "The Dustbins" had been the least insulting of the watchers' mocking appellations. Now, their own commander had thwarted them. During the next few minutes, Hoare must explain himself convincingly, or his command was dead and rotting.
So, without rodomontade, he set out, with Clay's big voice at his side booming out his words, to tell his people why he had turned tail in the face of the enemy instead of leading them into what they had been sure was certain, easy victory. First, though, he praised them for the calmness and order with which they had mustered in the dark and delivered the first broadside Royal Duke had ever delivered in anger. Then he asked them, as he had Clay, what outcome they, a mere thirty-odd, could have expected from battle against a hundred enemies-enemies who were not cowed but enraged.
"I ask you this," he said, "now that the thing is over and you've had a chance to cool down."
"We coulda taken 'em," came a voice; there were mutters of agreement.
"They'd'a made mincemeat of us, ye lubbers." Hoare recognized Bold's deep voice.
"Aye." That was Slopey, the brig's Oriental; Hoare had yet to determine if he was Chinese or Japanese. They all looked alike to him.
Now he reminded them of the vast treasure of vital knowledge they themselves had created and bore with them, and confessed to his own madness at having put their creation at risk. In all truth, now that the encounter was past, the thought of his recklessness appalled Hoare, and he said as much.
His offer to hear questions resulted in a few of them. Most had to do with what he thought of the crew's behavior, especially that of the individual questioners. He repeated his praise. One remark he found tough to handle.
"Ogle, sir, private of marines."
"Yes, Ogle?"
"I jest wanted to tell ye, sir. Sergeant posted me in the foretop with me rifle. I missed fire, sir."
"Shame on ye, Ogle," Leese said.
"But, sir, I brung up a musket fer Danny Quill, an 'e shot the Frog's captain, he did. Saw it wif me own eyes, I did."
Hoare knew quite well that Ogle could have seen nothing of the kind. But he believed he had, and it was a creditable thing for him to believe. The Royal Dukes were learning to pull together.
"Well done," he said through Clay's voice. "Well done, the both of you."
Three bells sounded now. He felt justified in dismissing the men with his thanks, and the feeling that his motives were better understood and his courage no longer questioned. For now.
"Thank you, Mr. Clay," he said. His lieutenant might have spoken his words in truth, or he might not. They had sounded convincing enough. Suddenly he recalled that Clay had stood watch for a good eighteen hours without relief, fought the skirmish just passed, and been rebuked by his commanding officer. The man had had enough, Hoare felt. He relieved the other and sent him below. He gave the deck to Taylor but remained on deck himself lest she run into danger.
The events of the past hour had shown him that, while Mr. Clay was undoubtedly a gallant officer, a fine seaman, and-he believed-well-disposed toward him, he wanted the cool judgment that the commander of this little craft, with its peculiar mission, must possess. Before they went into action again… Here, Hoare stopped himself with a wry internal laugh. Royal Duke must never again go into action.
"Permission to speak, sir?" It was Taylor.
"Permission granted, Taylor."
"Before we go too far on our course, sir," she said, "the tide is just turning. Could we not take two hours-no more, sir- return in our tracks, and see if we might not recover our tender? She has been a valuable asset to the ship, and it would be almost criminal to leave her behind before we have exercised due diligence in searching for her."
Put this way, the argument was an appealing one. In a manner of speaking, his pinnace was part of the brig's equipment, just as he himself was, and all his possessions-including Nemesis. From that point of view, he would even be wanting in attention to his command's condition were he to leave the pinnace behind without "exercising due diligence" in preserving it.
Suddenly it struck him. Perhaps, having spent time in Nemesis herself during the Nine Stones affair, the little craft had seduced this big woman just as she-the pinnace, not the person, as he reminded himself sharply-had seduced Hoare himself.
He thought. The picture of his crisp little craft lying in the trough of the Channel seas, abandoned, bereft, there to be caught up by any passing stranger, made him bleed anew. By God, he'd do it.
Three hours ago, Hoare, seeing Taylor grinning triumphantly astern at the recovered Nemesis, had left the deck to her and turned in himself. She had handled the recovery masterfully, and without calling the watch below, though the alert Mr. Clay, weary though he was, had awakened when Royal Duke wore, not to return below until Hoare all but thrust him along.
Hoare himself was awakened now, as he was almost every morning, by the snuffling, scratching sound of the bear on the deck over his head. He knew the bear well; in keeping with Royal Duke's size, it was a small bear. It might, in fact, be conside
red a bear cub, Hoare thought sleepily, for it needed only two men to draw it back and forth between them across the yacht's deck. Like an organic sandpaper, the bear's coarse coir surface smoothed the deck for the day, while producing its peaceful snuffling sound. Hoare was tempted to roll over and go back to sleep, but remembered that, upon arriving in the Thames estuary, he was to appear before his master at the Admiralty. Besides, last night's brush with the French had thrown Royal Duke's schedule all awry It had gone six bells already, he saw, yet the watch on deck was still preparing her for her arrival.
On deck, in the gray morning, he found matters had progressed well, bear or no bear. The four light smears of soot from last night's single broadside had been cleared away. A brace that must have been parted by one of the few musket shots the Frenchman had been able to get off had been spliced. The bear leaders were already returning their charge to its den in the fore-peak; and Mr. Clay, up again, stood beside the helmsman, small, brisk, and proud. The hands were cheerful enough as they moved about their duties. Hoare could sense no residue of ill temper. The brig was close-hauled on the starboard tack, sailing briskly full and bye, heeling to the icy January breeze and bowing to the short chop. Sarah Taylor, master's mate, was not to be seen.
Mr. Clay made his salute and his report. "We rounded the North Foreland an hour ago, sir, and managed a good ten miles before the wind began backing westerly. We're still making progress, but of course we'll be headed by the tide before long. At this rate, we shan't be abreast of the Isle of Sheppey this tide."
"Hmph," was all Hoare could reply. Happily, it meant that the flooding tide would start helping them up the narrowing Thames at about the time they passed Woolwich. All the same, it would be evening by then. Royal Duke would be lucky to make Greenwich tomorrow, and would therefore have to risk sailing at night once again, with all the risk of collision that entailed. For the Thames estuary was packed with shipping, inbound and out. This was England's great artery that brought nourishment to her heart, and delivered so much of the power that held the French the other side of the Channel, where they belonged.
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