by Hunter, Seth
“But she went straight after the Greyhound,” said Leach, “and at such a lick I’ll swear she will have o’ertook her.”
“And you say she was a frigate?”
“I do. And a French national ship. To tell truth I thought you was her, somehow got ahead of us—for she had the same red band on her side. That is why we ran from you, even though we saw the ensign.”
“And when was this?” Nathan felt a fierce exhilaration; if only he was not in such pain.
“About three hours since.”
Nathan thanked him and sent him on his way. He instructed Baker to set a course for the southwest.
“You think she is the Virginie?” enquired Pym unnecessarily.
“Whoever she is, we must see if we can come up with her,” Nathan informed him briskly.
There was little chance of catching her up, given the start she had, but if she was the Virginie there was a fair chance she had been heading for Boca del Serpiente, even if she had permitted herself to be distracted for a while by the packet. He was considering whether he had the energy to consult the charts in his cabin when Gabriel approached bearing a tumbler upon a tray.
“Doctor says this is your bolus, sir, and you are to drink it at once, if you please.”
“Be damned to the doctor’s bolus,” said Nathan. He peered into the glass and made a face. “Does Mr. McLeish think that if he makes something sufficiently disgusting, the more gullible among us will be convinced of its efficacy?”
“That would indeed be a futile exercise,” said McLeish dryly as he emerged from the companionway, “given your immunity to the power of suggestion. But you will find it no more disagreeable than a cup of whey. If you will be so obliging as to take your medicine like a good fellow.”
Muttering to himself, Nathan drank. McLeish was right. It was not at all unpleasant, though he was conscious of a pressure in his innards.
He gave vent to a mighty belch. “Be damned,” he murmured weakly, and was shaken by another.
The quarterdeck maintained a thin veneer of discipline. But the pain had eased a little and now he felt a stirring in his bowels.
“What in God’s name is it?” he demanded, gazing into the empty cup.
“Bicarbonate of soda and a distillation of liquorice and senna,” McLeish informed him calmly. “A concoction of my own devising which I have always found efficacious in cases involving the use of sorcery.”
“Dear God, get me to a privy,” Nathan commanded Gabriel as he struggled out of his chair.
“Wind,” he heard McLeish remark complacently to Tully as he limped from the quarterdeck. “I told him it was wind. It can be surprisingly painful if trapped in the wrong place.”
Nathan was comfortably installed on the privy adjoining his cabin when he heard the shout from the lookout:
“Sail ho! Three points off the starboard bow.”
CHAPTER 23
The Virgin and the Unicorn
NATHAN STARED INTENTLY at the approaching ship through his Dolland glass. At this distance all he could be sure of was that she was ship-rigged, almost certainly a ship of war, and that she might, just might, have a red stripe along her side.
And she was exactly on course to round Cape Cruz and beat back into the Boca del Serpiente.
He closed the telescope and made his way back down the shrouds, rather more staidly than was his normal practice, to where his impatient subordinates awaited him on the quarterdeck.
“Very well, Mr. Pym, let us fly the signal but in the meantime I think we may beat to quarters.”
The ship came alive to the stirring beat of the marine drum and the fiendish shriek of the boatswain’s pipes down the companionways, calling up the watch from below. But Nathan felt a deeper stirring.
“Carry on, Mr. Pym,” he murmured to the bemused lieutenant as he hurried below to find McLeish.
More concerted activity all along the gun deck as they folded the bulkheads up to the deckhead and cast loose the guns, converting them from mere furnishings—convenient hurdles between mess tables—to deadly weapons of war. Powder boys rushed up from the magazine with their paper cartridges and McGregor’s sentries hurried to take up their stations at the companionways to prevent others from leaving theirs. Nathan’s own quarters appeared entirely demolished and Gabriel was supervising the removal of the breakables to the orlop deck … Nathan followed them below and found the doctor busy in the cockpit with his assistant and the loblolly boys, laying out the grisly tools of their trade: the scalpels and forceps, the tenon saws, probes, catlins, needles, nippers and turnscrews, the yards of bandage and cloth.
“So you want something to bind you now,” the doctor established after listening to Nathan’s apologetic and somewhat oblique request. Out of respect for his captain’s dignity, he at least spoke in the language of his profession.
“I do,” Nathan confirmed, in the same tongue. “For while I am much obliged to you for easing the apparent obstruction, I fear you may have loosened more than is advisable at the onset of a battle.”
“Indeed and it would inevitably have an adverse effect on morale were you to unburden yourself upon the quarterdeck,” McLeish conceded unnecessarily. “Well, I can supply the means of redress but I must warn you that while it may render the bowels inactive for a limited period the inevitable release, as it were, when the effect diminishes may confine you to the seat of ease for some considerable time.”
“My dear doctor,” Nathan replied, “if that is the worse unpleasantness I may suffer as a result of the forthcoming engagement, then I may count myself fortunate, indeed, and if it is not disrespectful to the Almighty, I will make use of the enforced period of leisure to offer thanks for my deliverance.”
He returned to the quarterdeck with the small brown bottle that McLeish had delivered to him with the instruction: “Fifteen drops in a cup of water. Not a drop more. And if the engagement should continue for more than an hour or so, you had better repeat the dose if you do not wish to make a spectacle of yourself in sight of the enemy.”
The quarterdeck was restored to its usual calm but considerably reinforced by a contingent of marines and the gun crews at the 6-pounders and the carronades. Nathan glanced swiftly to the southeast. The other frigate was noticeably closer and had not altered her course by a single degree. Twenty minutes and they would cross her bows if they did not collide.
“She has not answered the confidential signal, sir.”
“Thank you, Mr. Pym.”
He applied his eye once more to the glass, thrusting a steadying arm through the shrouds. Yes, there she was. The chaste white figure at the bow and the broad red stripe along her gun ports. After journeying so far and for so long. And this time he was ready for her, except …
He snapped shut the telescope. “Send the word for Mr. Lloyd.”
The carpenter hurried aft, dragging his cap over his sweating pate.
“Mr. Lloyd, I believe we still have your virgin at our bow.”
“Aye, sir, which I was never instructed to remove.”
“I am aware of that and I do not blame you for it but it will never do, you know.”
“I had thought, sir, that they may take it a form of mockery, do you see?” explained the carpenter, “the way the Welsh archers would give the French the two fingers, you know, at the time of Agincourt.”
Nathan stared at him incredulously. The man had hidden depths.
“I am sorry, Mr. Lloyd, but we cannot charge into battle with a smirking whore at our bow. You must get rid of her, sir. Cast her into the sea and give us back our unicorn.”
It was easier said than done, even with the carpenter’s mate sawing away from the beak and two hands out on the bowsprit pulling at the noose around her neck but at last she fell away and there was their unicorn, if not quite whole.
“The horn, sir, the horn,” exclaimed Nathan who had gone up forward to see the job done. “You must give him back his horn.”
“Oh, sir, but I do not know
if we have the time, you see.”
The carpenter looked pointedly out towards the enemy, looming large off their starboard bow. But under Nathan’s fierce frown he scuttled off with his mate to the carpenter’s store and came back a minute later with the object clasped to his bosom.
“You will be glad now that you cut it off at an angle,” Nathan assured him, as the carpenter leaned over the beak, holding the gilded horn in position while his mate hammered in the nails. “Perhaps a lick of paint to disguise the join.” He grinned into the carpenter’s appalled countenance. “I am making game of you, Mr. Lloyd, you may return to your station.”
And Nathan returned to his at the quarterdeck where Mr. Holroyd begged his attention.
“Mr. Tully’s compliments, sir, and he wonders if you would free the prisoners that are in irons, so that he may make use of them at the guns.”
Dear God, he had entirely forgotten them. It was to Tully’s credit that he had not.
“By all means,” he said. “Find the master-at-arms and have them freed. Let us see if they may redeem themselves somewhat,” he remarked to no-one in particular. He doubted if it would count much in their favour at a court martial but it might save them from a hanging, if only by getting in the way of a round of French shot.
“Sir, beg pardon, sir, but there is something I think you should see …” Mr. Lamb now with his telescope.
Nathan took it from him and crossed over to the leeward rail.
“She is full of soldiers, sir. I thought you should know …”
“Quite right, Mr. Lamb.”
He could see them packed into the waist and crowded into her tops. French regular infantry and marines. Nathan wondered if they were the same marines that had been paroled in the Mississippi Delta, and with the thought he swung the glass up to the quarterdeck and there he was: Gilbert Imlay, large as life, standing a little apart from the huddle of officers on the weatherside and staring over towards the Unicorn as she bore down on them.
Nathan handed the glass back to the midshipman without comment and sought out the sailing master at the con.
“Mr. Baker, when we have run past her, we will wear ship and cross her stern.”
“Aye, aye, sir, wear ship it is, sir, to cross her stern.”
It was an obvious manoeuvre, even to Baker. It was worth conceding the weather gauge for that one raking broadside. But if it was obvious to Baker it must be obvious to their opponent. So what would they do about it?
Nathan stared intently at the approaching frigate. He had questioned the Channel Islander, Robin Tierney, very closely about his time aboard the Virginie and had learned a great deal about the workings of the ship. He knew every one of the senior officers by name and Tierney’s assessment of their strengths and weaknesses. The overall strategy was the responsibility of Commodore Lafitte, but the man who sailed and fought the ship was her captain, a man called Bergeret. Jacques Bergeret. A former sailing master, like Tully. It was he who made the decisions that mattered in a situation like this.
So what would he do? Nathan wondered. Almost certainly, with all those soldiers available to him, he would try to board at the earliest opportunity.
A sudden stab of flame from the Virginies bow. Then another. The two separate explosions rolled over the water towards them, chasing the hurtling shot. Nathan marked where they fell, about a cable’s length short of the Unicorn’s bow and a little to starboard.
“Tell Mr. Clyde to fire as he bears,” he instructed Lamb absently. He was not to be distracted by a duel between their bowchasers, not when they would be exchanging broadsides a few minutes from now.
“What is the time?” he asked his clerk, Mr. Shaw, who stood at his side with his chronograph and his notebook.
“Eleven minutes past four o’clock, sir,” replied the clerk precisely but Nathan saw that his hands were shaking.
A hole suddenly appeared in their fore course. They were aiming high as was the French style, hoping to disable him before he brought his broadside to bear. If they kept to their present course the two ships would pass each other at a distance of no more than a hundred yards, Nathan figured. And then, as he gazed out at her from the leeward rail, he saw her bows come round into the wind until they were pointing directly towards him.
He sought Mr. Baker’s eye.
“Bring her a little further into the wind, Mr. Baker.”
“Aye, aye, sir, but she is already near as far as she will go.”
“Even so, I think she may take half a point.”
He watched the edge of the sails for the slightest sign of feathering, both ships now heading up into the wind as close as they could possibly sail.
What was she trying to do? She could not cross the Unicorn’s bow for she could not come that far into the wind. And if she kept to her present course the two ships would collide. Was that what her captain intended? A head-on collision would cripple both ships. No, he was hoping Nathan would give way and forfeit the weather gauge—and if he did not …
He came to an instant decision. “Mr. Baker, prepare to wear ship.”
“To wear?” It was almost a wail. “Now, sir?”
Nathan turned a furious face upon him and saw the despairing glance Baker threw at Pym before he opened his mouth to issue the necessary orders.
“Gun crews to larboard,” Nathan roared, loud enough for them to hear him on the gun deck below. He heard his cry repeated in the waist and then the rush of feet, the creak of tackle and the screech of the carriages as they ran out the guns on the larboard side.
They were coming round, crossing directly ahead of the Virginie’s bows at a distance of about a cable’s length. Nathan glanced down the row of guns in the waist.
“Fire as you bear!”
The rippling crash of the broadside. The Virginie disappeared briefly in the black pall of smoke.
“And now they will rake us,” he distinctly heard Pym mutter in the background.
“Right about, mind you take us right about, Mr. Baker,” Nathan instructed the bemused sailing master in case he had it in mind to run downwind. But they were still coming round, the Virginie’s bow pointing directly at their stern, the bowsprit barely fifty yards from them and closing. He could see the holes in her fore course, one of the bowchasers dismounted and by God, they had taken the head off her virgin …
“Gun crews to starboard,” Nathan roared but they were already on their way, running back to their former positions as the bows came round, the sails filling and cracking as they took the wind from the starboard quarter, and the Virginie coming up fast on the same side.
“Fire as you bear!”
The two broadsides crashed out together and Nathan could barely see for the smoke. He heard a scream of metal on metal and saw one of the quarterdeck 6-pounders knocked clear off her truck, the human screams of her crew as the shot ploughed into them. The starboard rail disintegrated into splinters, one of which, a foot long was sticking out of Shaw’s throat. His chronograph and his notebook fell from his hands as he followed them to the deck. Nathan felt wind on his cheek and heard the crack of muskets from the French marines up in the rigging. A round of lead shot punched into the deck at his feet; another plucked at his sleeve. One of the helmsmen staggered back with blood pouring from his neck and another rushed to take his place. McGregor was red-faced and roaring, pointing his sword at the Virginie’s tops and the marines next to him firing up. And Pym looked surprised as a French round took off his hat and the top part of his head.
Then the Virginie was past, her greater way taking her ahead of them as Nathan had known it would, with the Unicorn still completing her turn. He shouted in Baker’s ear to make him understand they were to come as far into the wind as was possible, on exactly the same course as the Virginie had been.
“But stand by to wear again if she drops off from the wind.”
Would she? It was what Nathan would do. But the French frigate was holding to her present course with the Unicorn about half a cable�
�s length behind her. Why? She could not be running from them, surely.
“Mr. Lamb?” He looked round for the midshipman.
“Here, sir,” Popping up from behind him like a pantomime demon with a crazed grin on his face. Instantly changed to horror as he stared at Nathan’s chest. “Oh, sir, you have been hit.”
Nathan glanced down and felt his heart leap into his throat as he saw the spreading stain, and then raised his eyes to heaven as he remembered the little bottle of brown medicine McLeish had given him.
“Give me the glass.” He snatched it from Lamb’s hand and sighted along the rail at the huddle of officers on the Virginies quarterdeck. They seemed to be arguing. He could see them waving their arms in the French manner, not that he had anything against that, he did a fair amount of arm waving himself when he was excited, perhaps it was the French in him. He saw that Imlay was involved in the dispute, if dispute it was. Could she be running for the Sea of Sirens? Hoping to carry out her mission of aiding the rebels. But she would have to leave him labouring in her wake and there was little chance of that—the two ships were just about matched for speed—and if she held to her present course there was a danger of running upon Cape Cruz. Besides, she had no sternchasers and not much in the way of weaponry on her quarterdeck either, for she had left her obussiers in the swamps of the Rigolets. The Unicorn, on the other hand, could fire with her bowchasers and—as she clawed into the wind—the most forward of the forecastle guns.
But the rational view must have prevailed, for Nathan saw the Virginies stern swing away from him as she fell off from the wind and he yelled to Baker to follow suit. The two ships wore together like two stately dancers and began to race downwind, hammering away at each other with their long guns and scarcely a hundred yards between them.
The Unicorn’s crew had improved at their murderous trade. All along the crowded gun deck they toiled without ceasing, swabbing out the smoking muzzles, ramming in the paper cartridge and the iron shot, heaving at the tackle to run the heavy cannon back up to the open ports, the iron wheels of the trucks shrieking almost as despairingly as the wounded; and the two ships running so close at times the flame from the muzzles leaped across the space between, the burning wads striking the sides and falling back hissing into the rushing sea.