“Mark!” he called.
The seaman at the opposite gunwale swung the lead plumb over the side and dropped it into the sea. The wet rope uncoiled by his feet to squeak through the cleat. It did not run long. Only two knots went through. “Two fathoms!” he called before hauling in.
Lieutenant Varage scowled. Twelve feet and getting shallower. He was about to order another sounding when the sailor leaned out over the rail, peering.
“On the starboard quarter!”
Varage strode across, hands reaching for the clammy gunwale. He squinted out. “Where?”
“There!” He followed the sailor’s outstretched arm. A long shadow lay against the sea, motionless. Varage waved back at the helmsman so that Cerf began to heel, heading toward it. They closed steadily, then when only twenty feet away, a long plume of water fountained from the shadow. Flukes flicked upward and the big fish was swallowed by the sea.
“A whale,” the sailor said, disappointed.
Varage grimaced, turning away to return to his own lookout post. “Mark! And keep looking!”
***
“Hold your stroke. Rest a moment.”
Cutting Lunt’s head was cocked as he listened for any sound in the thinning fog. He sat in the jolly boat’s stern sheets, a midshipman on either side. Both the junior officers looked miserable. Every man of the crew was exhausted. They had been together now for thirty-six hours chasing the deserters without hot food. The boat’s meager supply of biscuit and water had run out twelve hours previously. While the oarsmen rested, heads fell forward, the men slipping into sleep at their posts. Only Cutting Lunt’s anger at himself kept him alert. He would catch those damned deserters if it was the last thing he did.
“Will they be looking for us, do you think?” asked one of the shivering midshipmen. Not even duck down on his cheeks yet, thought Cutting Lunt. And what could he say to the boy? That there was not a chance in hell Bonhomme Richard would find them in this fog? Besides, they were too far inshore where the seabed climbed too steeply for Richard. Too much shoaling water and too many jagged little reefs hungry to sink their teeth into a ship’s keel.
“Of course they’ll be looking for us, lad. How do you think that ship would sail without me? Now be quiet and listen.”
There was nothing to hear but the sea lapping against the boat’s hull and the whisper of distant breakers. A reef or the shore, he wondered. He turned in his seat, trying to penetrate the fog with his raw eyeballs in an attempt to forget the hopelessness of their situation and the hunger that gnawed like a starved rat in his belly.
Hours passed. The fog did not let up. They were cold, hungry, tired. Each minute of misery sapped even Cutting Lunt’s determination. At last he decided to end it. One way or the other.
“All right! Wake up you scavengers! All oars. At the ready!” The men roused themselves, sniffing and coughing in the chill air. “It’ll warm you up. All oars! Stroke!” With the boat facing the sound of the distant breakers, they dipped and pulled. After a few ragged strokes they found a rhythm where before had only been weariness, and they discovered a strength they thought long drained from aching muscles. The volume of the crashing breakers increased. “I hope to God it’s not a reef,” Cutting Lunt muttered under his breath.
Ten minutes later they glided in, the keel crunching as it drove up the shingle beach. The sailing master was on his feet. “Port oars, and every man out!” He leaned down to one of the midshipmen. “Then we’ll try and find out where in this godforsaken land of leprechauns we are.” They went over the side, the freezing waves soaking the canvas trousers of the oarsmen and the officers’ white stockings. With a concentrated effort, they ran the jolly boat up the beach where she would be safe from the fingers of the rising tide. The men sank down on the pebbles, panting while Lunt drew out his chart. He studied it for some minutes, before walking a few yards until he was drawn up short against a rock face. He retraced his steps back to the boat.
“Where are we, then?” one of the midshipmen asked through chattering teeth.
“Truth to tell, I’m not exactly sure,” he replied, head bowed over the map.
Someone laughed behind him, a rich throaty chuckle. He swiveled, a sneering rebuke ready on his tongue to quell the insolence, but the faces of his exhausted boat crew stared back silently. Then he saw them. Twenty figures emerged from the wall of fog. All were armed. Some carried pistols, others muskets, and all had a hangar or cutlass tucked in their belts.
A man stepped forward, redhaired and bearded, his face split by a toothy grin. “Lost, are you? Well, I’ll be telling you this is Ballingskelligs Bay.”
“And who are you?” demanded Cutting Lunt, rising to his feet, a hand reaching toward his pistol.
“Oh, I wouldn’t be touching that now,” the leader said, motioning that his pistol wasn’t for show. When Cutting Lunt dropped his hand away, the man laughed, rocking back on his heels, the same mocking laugh that had risen from the fog. “And who are we, you’re asking? Oh well, I can tell you are strangers here. We’ll be being the Kerry Rangers, and I think you’ll be being our prisoners.” He raised his eyebrows. “Now, will that be answering your question?”
***
Bonhomme Richard sailed on northward. The gale Paul Jones had feared materialized, and although his men kept a lamp burning at the masthead and fired a minute gun, by morning only Vengeance was to be seen. He had expected no less of the fiery Landais commanding Alliance, but he was surprised Pallas was absent. When the gale blew itself out, the wind remained brisk enough for Richard and Vengeance to log 450 miles in the next four days, a journey that took them up the Irish coast and up the west coast of Scotland.
When the sun rose on 31 August, they were standing off the entrance of North Minch in the Outer Hebrides. Paul Jones was on the main deck when the lookout called down from the crosstrees.
“Two sails to leeward!”
The commodore grunted his dissatisfaction when the glass revealed the two vessels were making speedy headway. There was no possibility of out sailing them for they were too close inshore and would run for the nearest harbor. He pushed the telescope back under his arm and resumed his inspection of the cannon. At the last twelve-pounder he rubbed his fingers inside the bore. They came away dirty. The gun captain saw his expression and steeled himself for the tirade to come.
“Sail to windward!” the lookout called.
Paul Jones froze. Beside him Lt. Dale faced the horizon.
“Belay that! Three sail to windward!” the lookout corrected.
The dirty cannon was forgotten. The gun captain relaxed as the commodore cut across the main deck, pulling out his telescope. Dale and the two midshipmen trailed in his wake, ready to relay any orders. They waited impatiently, unable to make out any detail beyond the mere fact three small white dots lay where the sky met the sea. The commodore studied the craft for long seconds, then spoke out of lips compressed with excitement.
“Give chase,” he ordered.
Dale grinned while the gun crews standing at their posts broke into a volley of cheers before he could shout.
“Go about and make all sail!”
The duty watch who had been idling in the waist during the cannon inspection ran for the ratlines as the petty officers jumped to follow the sailing master’s stream of orders. They scaled the rigging with the agility of a troop of baboons, laughing and joking while the port watch turned out of the foc’sle to man the braces.
Lt. Amiel stood with hands on hips, head tilted back as he watched the activity on the yards. “Don’t make a donkey’s breakfast of it! Silence in the rigging! Stand to, or I’ll flog you myself, you muttonheads!”
CHAPTER 8
Bonhomme Richard came out of her tack, swinging her head west. The deck listed as she faced up to the wind, then her bow fell to leeward, filling the main and mizzen sails. Grunts and bellows were heard as the headsails were hauled around by the lines of men stamping backward, heaving on the braces. The canvas b
lossomed again, swollen on a feast of wind and Richard began the pursuit, bowsprit rising and dipping, pointing the way.
Midshipman Fanning had run to the flag locker to hoist the signals. Astern, Vengeance acknowledged and maneuvered to take up her new station. While Paul Jones watched the performance aloft, quietly pleased at the competence of his crew, Richard Dale strode back and forth chivying the bos’n and petty officers in a bid to speed the chase. While the seamen worked the ship, the gun crews clustered about the gunwales, speculating on their quarry, issuing threats and promises about what they would do when they caught up. With Richard on her new course, Lieutenant Dale turned his attention back on them.
“Stand by your guns! We may be giving chase but this inspection is not over!”
Paul Jones could not resist a smile. “I’m going below. Carry on.”
Dale gestured to the midshipman beside him to follow, then crossed to the starboard side where the commodore had noticed the ill-cleaned bore. The gun captain’s face fell when he realized his reprieve had been in vain.
“Take that man’s name!” the lieutenant barked, scowling at the smudge on his fingertips, mimicking the commodore’s example. He completed the inspection, aware of the midshipman’s shuffling behind him. They were moving along the starboard battery, the fleeing craft invisible from their position. Even as he stooped over each weapon, studying the fall of the tackle, he could detect the gun crew’s eyes wandering to the port side, hoping for a glimpse. When he was satisfied there was no more to be seen or criticized, he called up one of the junior lieutenants.
“Mr. Stack, you will supervise gun drill.” He glanced about the deck, smiling at the crestfallen expressions of the men.
While Richard tacked steadily against the wind, going about to leave a trail on the map like a series of doglegs, she was shadowed the day long by Vengeance. The corvette skipped and danced across the wave tops like a colt held on a tight rein, rattling the bit impatiently between her teeth, forced to travel at the more sedate pace of her sister ship. On her decks, as on Richard, the gun crews practiced running out their weapons while the red-jacketed marines formed squares and lines abreast, one rank kneeling to take aim while the second rank reloaded, ready to step forward before moving on to more specialized maneuvers necessary for shipboard combat hampered by gear and rigging that blocked fields of fire.
As the minutes dragged into hours, glances at the horizon told of Richard’s reluctance to overhaul her quarry. The distant scraps of white canvas seemed no closer. The morning sun climbed to its zenith then began the afternoon descent. Only at twilight did they seem to have made any headway and nightfall stole the distant ships from the telescope’s reach. The dark hours held frustration, eyes strained into the blanket of night, searching for a glimpse of a riding light or the faint calling of an order carried across the water. Men slept uneasily below, while on the weather deck the duty watch paced restlessly, fingers fretfully knotting and splicing ropes before pulling the fraying ends apart once more.
The eagerly awaited dawn found men lingering by the rails, eyes to windward. Two of the ships had vanished under the cloak of night but the third was still ahead. Muttered voices urged Richard to skim the waves with every ounce of speed.
They were closing.
Faces turned to the quarterdeck when the commodore and his first lieutenant appeared to stand at the weather rail, eyeglasses and sextant in hand to take the morning sighting. The commodore’s lips were pressed into a thin line, blood drained, eyes dark ringed after a restless night. He looked long and hard at the horizon, then aloft to the spread of the ship’s glutted canvas. His voice, although low, carried to the ears of the nearest crewman.
“Sail her hard, Mr. Dale, and hoist the English ensign. We will have her before noon.”
***
Three hours brought them within hailing distance. The fleeing ship’s stern cabins could be seen clearly, her name Union boldly painted and edged with gilt below the taffrail. A group of worried officers lined the rail, staring as Richard closed the gap with each minute, their gaze straying from the English flag at the yardarm to the lines of the old East Indiaman as they tried to decide who she was. Vengeance suffered the same scrutiny.
“Ahoy there!” Lt. Dale hailed. “Heave-to! Prepare to accept a boarding party!”
The officers on Union’s quarterdeck looked at each other then back at Richard.
“Ahoy there! Heave-to! Union!”
A speaking trumpet was raised. “By whose order? What ship are you?”
“Heave-to!” Dale shouted back, ignoring their inquiry.
Beside him Paul Jones watched a stream of men appear on Union’s weather deck, moving toward the shrouds.
“Run out the cannon. Chain shot at the lower rigging.”
Immediately, the gun ports were triced up. Bonhomme Richard’s topsides bristled with bronze snouts sniffing the salt air. The gun captains took their cue, a salvo rippling from half a dozen twelve-pounders like overlapping thunderclaps. The rolling smoke engulfed the horrified expressions on Union’s bridge as the deadly charges tore into her rigging, forestalling any orders to modify her sail plan in a bid to break for leeward. As the gun smoke thinned the damage could be seen. The main and mizzenmast shrouds were in tatters where the chain links had screamed through. Ten feet lower would have spread carnage across the decks. For’ard, one charge had smashed into the bulwarks, ugly splinters of shattered timber protruding at all angles, sickly white in the sun.
Not a shot was fired in return. There had been no margin for retaliation. Victory was swift. Pride filled Paul Jones’s chest. His first success of the voyage. He hoped it was merely the beginning.
In moments Union’s ensign was struck, a terrified midshipman shaking as he hauled the flag down.
“Run up the colors and prepare to board,” Paul Jones said with a grim smile. Bonhomme Richard came alongside, grapples thrown to pull Union into a reluctant embrace. A lieutenant led the boarding party over the rail, the heavily armed men greeted by the stunned expressions of Union’s crew, shocked into silence by the speed of their defeat. They stood with arms dangling helplessly at their sides, here and there a figure sprawled on the deck, victims of stray ricochets from the cannon fire. When the prisoners had been herded together by Richard’s officers, Paul Jones and Richard Dale crossed over to stand on the rigging strewn deck.
“A letter-of-marque ship,” Dale observed, glancing around. “What is your cargo?”
“Army supplies,” the tight-lipped captain replied.
“What manner of supplies?”
The tousled head of the lieutenant who had led the boarding party appeared from below. “Uniforms, sir. English infantry uniforms, winter issue.”
Dale repressed a smile. “For Canada, no doubt. We may not have robbed the English of the means to fight, but at least they’ll be cold when they do it.”
The commodore sniffed. Better than nothing. And one less ship to supply the enemy army. He accepted the English captain’s sword as a token of surrender, then turned to Lt. Dale. “Detail the lieutenant and the boarding party to man her until we select a prize crew to sail her back to France.” As the commodore turned to go, the English captain made to step forward. Two marines quickly moved to intercept him. Paul Jones stopped, waved them back, and raised a questioning eyebrow.
The Englishman was stiffly formal. “May I ask to whom I surrendered my ship?”
A faint smile. “How remiss of me. Commodore John Paul Jones of the American Navy.”
The Englishman nodded, eyes slowly traveling over the American from head to foot as though committing every detail of his image to memory. Their eyes locked.
“I will remember you, sir, believe you me I will.”
BOOK TWO
1779
Scarborough Fair
CHAPTER 1
One whiff of the salt wind told Jackie Rudd everything.
The day was already wasted. He closed the cottage door quietly behin
d him as he looked up. Cloud smothered the horizon from east to west, long gray banks that bunched and exploded, scudding across a raw gunmetal sky. With a grimace he pushed his hands deep into his pockets then clumped along Tutthill Street, empty in the gray dawn, before turning down into East Sandgate where he caught his first glimpse of the North Sea. His prediction was correct, but knowing he would be unable to put out into the heavy swell robbed him of any satisfaction.
Down at the Posthouse there was already a gathering of fishermen. Dressed in dark blue guernseys and canvas trousers tucked into leather sea boots, they glowered at the rebellious waves from beneath their peaked caps. One or two sucked fruitlessly at cold pipes.
“Up in the morning’s the game, lad,” one rumbled with a glance at Jackie.
“Not that there’s owt to climb from your pit for today,” commented another, dragging his eyes away from the sea to peer up at Scarborough Castle. High on the cliff under the glowering sky the battlements gazed immovably at the North Sea jostling the Yorkshire coast at their feet.
Jackie nodded acknowledgement of their welcome before leaning on the rail to look down into the harbor. The Gin fretted and chewed at her mooring like a tethered stallion eager to run free. Her gunwale fenders butted the stone pier then scraped up and down as she rolled with the tide. He squinted at the painters fore and aft that held her fast. Not trusting his eyes, he ambled down to check them with his fingers. Kneeling as he looked down into her, he reassured himself she had not made too much water during the night. But then she never did, tough and sure, clinker built like Scarborough cobbles had been for centuries. He ran his eyes over the gear to make sure it was all still stowed securely.
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