Absolute Honour

by C. C. Humphreys

  ‘Well, man?’ snapped Link.

  ‘She’s a French frigate—’

  ‘I can see her apple-cheeked bow for myself. Means nothing,’ Link interrupted loudly to quell the muttering that arose. ‘Half those who sail the Bristol Roads are French prizes. But do ’ee know her?’

  Engledue thrust out a lower lip. ‘She has the cut of the Marquis de Tourney. Captured by Chislet in the Lion in forty-seven.’

  Those who had telescopes raised them. Jack whispered, hopefully, ‘She’s English, then?’

  Red Hugh gave a faint smile. ‘She might be. But I’ve heard of ships that have been fought, captured, fought again, captured back, and that have flown under five different flags just in this one war. Wait, lad.’

  ‘So what will she carry?’ Link’s harsh voice came again.

  Engledue turned to look at his master. ‘Perhaps, sir, I should give you my thoughts in private—’

  Link shook his head. ‘The crew will see her sides for themselves soon enough. So tell us all your thoughts, if you please.’

  ‘I think she’s a cruiser of twenty-four guns.’ Engledue said quietly. ‘Nine- and six-pounders probably, for if she is the Tourney or her near sister, she’s not big enough for more.’

  ‘Big enough e’en so,’ muttered Red Hugh. Jack looked down the line of men. All seemed to share the Irishman’s opinion in their dropped eyes, their sudden frowns. He knew that they only carried eighteen guns and those mere four-pounders. He could see them now for they were all lashed alongside their ports on the quarterdeck, forecastle and poop. Though the Sweet Eliza was also born a frigate, she’d been converted to bear slaves, and the gun deck below that had served as their prison now contained only the trade goods being transported, its ports en flute, caulked shut against heavy seas. As a cavalryman, he knew little more about gunnery than he did about the ocean, but even he could tell that they were seriously outgunned.

  ‘What now?’ he whispered, a question apparent in the eyes of all who looked to the Captain and Lieutenant.

  Aware of their attention, Link handed his eyeglass to his slave, Barabbas, who stood, as ever, a pace behind him. ‘Let us run out our guns anyway and not sit here like a mouse before a cat. Show ’em we mean to fight ’em.’

  ‘Even if we do not, Cap’n?’ It was Williams, the tattooed Welshman, who called down from the con, though his hands barely rested on the wheel.

  Link glowered but held his temper. ‘Let’s see his colours before we decide that, man.’

  The crew moved reluctantly to their guns, confusing Jack. ‘Why do they move so slowly? Surely Link will order them to fight?’

  Red Hugh shook his head. ‘On a King’s ship he could command. But I’ve even heard of captains in the Royal Navy striking their colours without a shot, if the odds were impossible and the crew unwilling.’ He tipped his chin to the other ship, creeping slowly nearer. ‘And these odds do not look good.’

  Jack had considered this possibility; anyone journeying the dangerous sea lanes of the Atlantic had to. He had no especial desire to be shot at by superior guns at a distance. He had seen men before the walls of Quebec stand in their red lines and receive shot, witnessed limbs shorn and heads lopped. Yet the idea of surrendering to a Frenchman without a fight …

  The Irishman noticed the struggle on his face. A hand came onto his shoulder. ‘Still and all, lad, yon fellow might well hail from half a dozen other nations, including the English. As Link says, let’s wait till we see his colours.’

  The man turned to observe the crew about the lashings on the gun carriages. Jack looked back over the rail, to the approaching ship. Perhaps he was thus the only man aboard who was not occupied with other tasks, the only man to see something stir the limp cloth at the stern of the ship. It was indeed a flag. It unfurled, and the instant it did he knew it. The same flag had preceded the regiments which had marched down upon him on the Plains of Abraham last year.

  ‘It’s white! White, by God. The Flag of the Bourbon, the flag of France!’

  All turned at his cry. All saw. And several noticed what Jack had not – the wind that had stirred the flag now stirred the sails. A few moments later that same wind reached them, bringing to their nostrils heat and a strange, rich scent.

  ‘The wind, by Christ. Let’s get before it and outrun this poxy Frenchman,’ yelled Link.

  ‘But it’s a full quartering breeze, Captain,’ said his conman, Williams, ‘and he’ll be sailing large upon’t. While we’re in irons.’

  Jack looked up. He may not have understood the jargon but he could see that they were heading prow first into the eye of the wind, the fore and aft sails barely drawing.

  ‘We’ll box-haul her, then,’ cried Link. ‘Pipe me “all hands”.’ While his boatswain, McRae, plied his pipe – though Jack was sure no one could be below deck – Link yelled, ‘Hold a larboard rudder. Get aloft and brace the foresails to larboard.’

  Men ran for the foremast. The first had barely set his foot on the rigging when Engledue called out, ‘Sir, I submit it will take too long. We’re close-hauled on the larboard tack. And look!’

  All followed his pointing hand. The Frenchman’s sails were full, though Jack thought it odd that only a few were flying.

  The Captain explained it. ‘He’ll not fill his yards till he lays his boats alongside.’

  ‘Aye, Cap’n,’ replied Engledue, ‘but with respect, it will not take him long and he’ll be upon us when we’re halfway round.’

  Link’s mottled face darkened at this opposition. But he knew his Lieutenant’s experience as well as any man there. And like any man there, he had no desire to spend time under shot or in a Bourbon prison. ‘What alternative do you suggest, man?’

  ‘Club-haul her, sir.’

  The face darkened further. ‘What, and lose my main anchor?’

  ‘It will save us a glass, Cap’n. And a glass may get us to the Azores and a Portuguese harbour.’

  A glass of sand ran for half an hour, Jack knew. Engledue was seeking to buy them the tiniest of leads.

  All eyes looked to the Captain. The men on the foremast rigging had their feet suspended between rungs. Finally Link shrugged, then bellowed, ‘We’ll club-haul her. McRae, take the starboard watch to their anchor. Ingvarsson, get the men into the yards. Prepare to brace on the starboard tack.’

  Red Hugh had moved over to Jack. ‘Do you have any idea what yer men are talking about?’

  ‘You know,’ replied Jack, ‘I speak French, Iroquois, Latin and Greek – and I haven’t a bloody clue!’

  They may not have understood the words but actions and orders soon made this ‘club-hauling’ clear enough. Some men made ready the starboard anchor for its drop. Others tied line to the anchor ring, then hauled the rope the length of the ship to a hole just before the stern. The ship was now pointed directly into the wind and, as soon as it was in the eye of it, the fore and aft sails went limp, while the mainsails filled the wrong way. The Sweet Eliza began to drift slowly to stern.

  Link called along the quarterdeck, with a touch of bitterness. ‘Since this is your idea, Engledue, perhaps you’d give the orders. And, by God, I’ll have your hide if you founder my ship.’

  ‘Aye, Captain.’ Engledue looked swiftly afore. ‘Now, men, now,’ he cried, and immediately the crew about the anchor began to let it out swiftly. ‘And the spring,’ he turned and shouted aft. ‘Lively now.’

  The aft line, also attached to the anchor, was run out as fast. The ship continued to make sternway. Engledue was standing still, slap in the middle of the quarterdeck. His face was into the wind, his eyes shut.

  ‘Now, Lieutenant?’ Link queried testily.

  ‘A moment. A moment,’ came the murmur. The Sweet Eliza continued its drift to stern. Jack, even if he did not understand exactly what was happening, held his breath. He only expelled it when the Lieutenant suddenly opened his eyes and yelled, ‘Now!’

  The Captain’s ‘Now!’ came hard upon it, and the aft crew immediate
ly wound the spring line round a capstan, halting its tumble into the sea with the groan of rope suddenly tethered to wood, while the anchor continued to be paid out.

  ‘Brace the yards. Starboard tack,’ cried Link, and the crew aloft did just that, the yards and their burden of sail swinging into the wind, held there. At either rope, a man raised an axe high into the air.

  ‘Steady, lads. Steady,’ Engledue called softly, and Jack remembered how that same word was as calmly repeated by the officers of the 78th when he’d stood with them on the Plains of Abraham eighteen months before, holding their soldiers’ fingers light on their triggers until the French were nearly at their muskets’ mouths. He’d understood what he was waiting for then. He didn’t now. Yet he knew that it was every bit as important to his survival. He looked up and saw the sails were full of wind.

  ‘Now,’ said Engledue, softly, but loud enough for the axemen at the ropes to hear, to bring their weapons crashing down. Up they rose, to fall again and then again. The ropes sheered, parted and ran into the sea, while the ship seemed to buck and plunge forward with the wind full in the sails.

  Jack’s and Red Hugh’s cheers were lost in those of the crew. Engledue took off his hat, dipped it in acknowledgement. Glancing at the Captain, Jack saw relief and jealousy war briefly on the florid face. ‘I want every man aloft and every sail hoisted from the spirit to the mizzen,’ he bellowed, his men scrambling to obey.

  ‘And if you have a handkerchief would you be kind enough to wave it now,’ said Red Hugh. Engledue was just passing them and the Irishman halted him. ‘That was finely done, sir, will it be enough?’

  Engledue glanced in the direction of the nod. Jack, too. The French ship did not appear any closer. But its boats had been gathered and it was making way. ‘We’ve a glass’s lead and however long he’ll take to come up with us.’ He paused. ‘By my noon sighting, the island of Flores should lie afore. I think we passed her a couple of nights ago.’

  ‘Think?’

  ‘One can never be certain. I’ve got the latitude and the bearing and … this.’ He tapped his nose. ‘And prayer, sir. Prayer!’

  ‘Amen,’ said the Irishman, as the Lieutenant moved on. ‘Are you a praying man, Absolute?’

  ‘No. Never got the knack of it.’

  ‘Then I’ll say some for the pair of us.’ Red Hugh was looking past Jack’s shoulder. ‘But first I think the Captain wants a little word.’

  Jack turned. Link was indeed beckoning them. ‘What does he want, do you think?’

  ‘I’ve a fairly good idea.’ As they moved forward, he leaned down and said softly, ‘Now, did I ever tell you, dear Jack, how I had the honour of practising the law for a short while in Dublin?’

  Jack smiled. There was nothing, it seemed, that the man had not done. ‘You did. Why do you raise the subject now?’

  ‘Because, if the conversation we are about to have goes the way I think it will, you may want to allow me to act on your behalf.’

  ‘I don’t quite under—’

  Red Hugh gripped his upper arm and squeezed. ‘As I am interceding for the pair of us in heaven, I may as well do the same here on earth. Agreed?’

  Jack was still puzzled but nodded anyway. ‘So long as there is no slight to my honour.’

  ‘Ah no, dear soul. I would never dream of compromising that.’

  – FOUR –

  Honour, Part One

  Link stood at his table, sea charts held down by instruments before him.

  ‘Come, gentlemen, come,’ he said, beckoning them in. ‘You’ll take rum?’

  Jack and Red Hugh both had to stoop beneath the ceiling. But they slowed their progress further, instantly suspicious of the politeness in the Captain’s voice.

  ‘Sit, dear sirs, please do.’ He gestured them down and Barabbas forward. Rum was poured carefully into mugs. ‘The King’s health!’ he said, raising his and gulping. Jack took a sip for the toast’s sake, grimacing as the taste reminded him of his waking. Red Hugh let his mug lie.

  ‘Now, sirs,’ Link continued briskly, ‘despite the Lieutenant’s skill in turning us about,’ Jack could hear the envy in the voice, ‘my calculations do not agree with his. We are nowhere near the Azores, no haven awaits. Our ship’s crank and a frigate will easily forereach us ee’n to leeward.’

  There was a pause. ‘Any idea, Jack?’

  ‘None.’

  Link glowered. ‘The Frenchman will catch us within the span of four glasses.’

  Two hours, Jack thought, and contemplated another sip of rum. Christ!

  ‘So we must prepare to fight him. Do you not agree?’

  Red Hugh tipped his head. ‘But was not the Lieutenant’s estimate of our pursuer as skilled as his seamanship? Are we not seriously outgunned?’

  A scowl and a brisk nod. ‘We are. But the Frenchman will not fire on us, sir. Not above a broadside, perhaps, to awe us.’

  ‘Oh, just the one?’ Red Hugh smiled. ‘And why will he not do more?’

  ‘He wants us undamaged, of course. The ship and all its goods.’

  Jack interjected. ‘So he’ll board us?’

  A nod. ‘He will. And that’s where we will have him. As a privateer, he may have three times our numbers—’

  ‘Will have,’ Red Hugh commented.

  ‘Aye, will have. But three to one are English odds, by God. Our history is full of fighting at such odds and triumphing.’

  As I am sure French history is full of the reverse, Jack thought.

  ‘So we’ll let them come aboard and drive them back with our ferocity,’ Link concluded. ‘What do you say?’

  Jack looked at Red Hugh. The Irishman was finding some detail on his forefinger fascinating. ‘And why should we fight?’ he said softly.

  ‘Wh- why?’ The word obviously stuck in the Captain’s throat. ‘The men look up to you, sir. You are both soldiers. They would …’ Their silence provoked him. ‘You would be prisoners of the French?’

  ‘I have been before. Charming people. We’ll drink far better on their ship than we do on ours, Jack.’ He leaned forward to push the rum mug away from him. ‘And, with a cartel, we’ll be free within months of reaching a port.’

  Of course! Relief filled Jack with the thought. Prisoners were exchanged on cartel all the time. Suddenly French wine and a swift release seemed preferable to even one broadside and hot work on a sloping deck.

  Link was still finding the Irishman’s reluctance astonishing. ‘But, sir! Sir! What about your honour?’

  ‘Ah, honour. Weren’t we just discussing that, Jack? Now, I’ve always thought that honour was a somewhat flexible thing. One man’s conceit of it is very different to another’s.’

  The Captain gave up any pretence of politeness. ‘An Englishman’s may be very different to an Irishman’s,’ he exploded.

  Red Hugh’s voice was a soft contrast. ‘Now, you see, there we have an example of that very flexibility. You may call me a coward and I may choose to see that as an insult to my honour or as a compliment to my good sense. I may then choose to fight you for it or no. But to impugn my honour due to the country of my birth is, well,’ he rose slowly, ‘quite another matter.’

  Link instinctively began to rub his wrist. ‘I … I … meant no disrespect,’ he muttered, looking hastily at Jack. ‘But you, sir. You are an officer in the King’s army. Surely it is your duty to fight?’

  Jack was about to speak when Red Hugh sat again, laying a hand on his forearm. ‘It is his duty not to. On two counts.’ Jack listened as a lawyer’s tones filled the Irish voice. ‘Primus, he is a messenger of that King, his duty thus to bear the dispatches back, not stop to get involved in every local quarrel. Secundus,’ he raised his voice and hand to override Link’s protest, ‘he has stated time and again that you are about a trade he abhors. Ergo, honour demands that he does not help you conserve the goods that will pay for further slave trading voyages. Quod est demonstrandum.’

  ‘Erat,’ whispered Jack. ‘You’ve already demonstra
ted it.’

  ‘Damn! Age has rotted my declensions.’

  Link’s mouth was wide, his eyes confused. Finally, he spluttered at Jack, ‘Well, sir?’

  Jack looked between the two, shrugged. ‘What he said.’

  Before another squawk could come, Red Hugh went on, ‘Now, personally, I’ve never been adverse to a little scrap. And it’s true my … business would prefer that I made for Bristol directly and not via a French prison. Since we have discounted honour and duty as reasons to fight, may I suggest another thing that might – just might, mark – persuade the lad and myself.’

  Link looked cowed by the verbal assault. ‘What?’ he sighed.

  Red Hugh smiled. ‘Money.’

  ‘Money?’

  ‘Aye. I’ve always found it an excellent recruiter in the past. When honour’s honoured and valour is cooled, money’s still there, keeping one warm.’

  A short time later, pausing only for a brief conversation with Engledue, Jack followed Red Hugh as he wove through the stacked goods on the gundeck. Each was clutching a piece of paper, intent on stowing it safely in their chests.

  ‘Now, lad, did I not say leave it to me? I’ve taken a great care of your future.’ He tapped the paper in Jack’s hand with his own.

  Jack looked down at the contract Link had been forced to sign. He’d tried to fob them off with a cockswain’s one and a half share but Red Hugh had insisted on a lieutenant’s six or they’d sit out the fight.

  ‘What could this mean?’

  ‘Why, Jack, six shares of a rich prize?’ The Irishman’s eyes glowed even in the dim light of the deck. ‘Did you never hear of the Nuestra Señora de Cabodonga? Taken by Captain Anson in forty-three?’ Jack shook his head. ‘It was a treasure ship, lad, on the return from New Spain. Loaded with gold and silver. The common sailors took close to two hundred pounds apiece. That’s nine years pay for ’em. But the officers got not much short of five thousand.’