The Hawk

by Peter Smalley

  'Very good, Mr Abey, thank you. We will lift the rate, if y'please. I want three knots – four, if we are able. But no chanting, no singing to the rhythm. We must remain silent.'

  'Aye, sir.'

  The instruction passed by a boy, his face blackened, his feet pattering on the deck. The pulse of the sweeps presently quickened, the grunting breath of the men as they pulled joined the other sounds and became part of the cutter's murmuring voice.

  'We will all take our places at the sweeps in turn,' James decided. 'Say so to Mr Love, Richard.'

  'Aye, sir.'

  'Glass by glass, say to him.'

  And soon, as the glass was turned, he and Midshipman Abey took their places at the great oars, with Mr Love, and the cook, relieving spine-weary men, and drove Hawk on through the sea. Thomas Wing appeared, demanding in an indignant whisper to know why he had not been called upon to take his turn at a sweep with the others.

  'Nay, Doctor – hhh – you are not required on deck – hhh . . .' James, bending his back.

  'Is it because I am too small? Hey?'

  'In course it is not – hhh . . .'

  'Then tell me the reason!'

  'Hhh – keep your voice low, for Christ's sake – hhh . . .'

  'Then oblige me with an answer, if y'please!' Furiously husking.

  'Oh, very well – hhh – take your place . . . relieve Dickens forrard there . . .'

  'Thankee, I will.'

  Dr Wing duly relieved the seaman at the sweep, and bent his own back. Small as he was in stature he was not lacking in strength; in fact, he was exceptionally powerful, and contrived to pull on the sweep with great vigour. However, he was quite unable to find the correct rhythm, and each of his strokes was out of tempo with the others on his side of the deck. He strove to correct the impediment, which caused his sweep to snag others, but failed utterly to achieve his desire – and was soon obliged to desist.

  'Dickens! Worshipful Dickens, resume your place, resume your place!' Mr Love, and the seaman obeyed, taking the sweep wordlessly from the embarrassed doctor, who stepped away, wordless himself, and went shamefaced below.

  'Hhh – he will take it hard – hhh . . .' James muttered, half to himself. Presently: 'We will lift the rate again, lads! Never forget, we are in a chase!' Calling in his hoarse husking tone.

  The men at the oars renewed their efforts, bending their backs with a will, and Hawk slowly increased her speed.

  Half a glass, and:

  'Sir, I feel a wind on my face.' Richard Abey.

  'Aye, so do I.' James turned his face to one side, and felt the zephyr flowing over his sweating cheek and neck, felt it grow in strength, blowing and gusting from the west, felt Hawk begin to heel.

  'Oars!' he called. And gratefully the weary seamen feathered and rested on the sweeps. A moment or two after: 'Lay in the sweeps! Hands to make sail!' Abandoning whispers now, and bellowing the commands in carrying quarterdeck.

  The great oars were dragged inboard and stowed, and men hurried aloft in the shrouds, took up position at the falls, and Hawk busied herself in renewed hope and purpose with harnessing the wind and running before in pursuit of the two vessels ahead, flying toward France.

  'Cheerly now, lads! Let us crack on!'

  Rennie lay in a dead faint in the lantern glow, slumped on the forrard platform of the orlop where he had fallen.

  'Damnation!' said Aidan Faulk, holding up a lantern. 'Why have you pressed him so?'

  The man who had tortured Rennie shrugged, pushing out his closed lips in a moue. 'I thought that you wished him to be pressed.'

  'Hell's fire, what use is he to me, or you, or to our cause, when he lies unconscious?' Sharply.

  Faulk had come aboard when Lark ran up beneath the corvette's stern, allowing him to clap on to the flung rope ladder, cling there above the sea and mount the twisting strands as Lark stood away to take station. His feet and legs had been made very wet, and he was not in best humour when he came below to the orlop. Now he was very angry.

  'Did you learn anything at all?' Severely.

  'Learn?' Icily, in turn growing irate. 'We did not need to learn that he attacked the boatman, and nearly killed him, and threw something overboard in the struggle. He was seen from the deck.'

  'Attacked the boatman? Why . . . ?'

  'That is the question I asked, exact. Also – what did he throw into the sea?'

  'And he did not answer?' Without waiting for a reply he held the lantern closer to Rennie's supine form, as if proximity of light would bring out the truth. 'It don't make sense . . .'

  'Mais oui, it makes perfect sense.' The torturer, softly. 'He was never "with us", as you say in English. He meant us harm, I tell you.'

  'One man, in a boat? Do not be foolish.' He stared down at Rennie, then quietly: 'Was he not blindfolded by the boatman, as ordered?'

  'He tore off the blindfold when he attacked the boatman.'

  'Are you certain, entirely certain, that the boatman did not attack him? That Rennie was not simply defending himself?'

  'A lookout was posted, and he saw the whole thing. It was just as I have said.'

  'Where is the boatman now? I will like to ask him certain questions myself.'

  'He has remained unconscious since we hoisted in the boat.'

  'Christ's blood, is everyone senseless in this damned ship?' An exasperated sigh. 'Now I cannot talk to either man! I wished most particular to ask Rennie how much the Admiralty knew of my activity, and to pursue an host of other things. Lieutenant Hayter – what has become of him and his cutters? What is the involvement of the elusive Mr Scott?'

  'I did ask him these things, naturally. He would tell me nothing, and then – '

  'Why did not y'listen to me more careful, damn you? When I said press him, I meant persuade him to speak freely. Pump him, not put the wretched fellow on the rack.' He paused, lifted his head, frowned. 'Wait, though . . . yes . . . I believe I have it, after all.'

  'Have it?'

  'Aye. Aye. I must apologize for having doubted your logic and suspicions, monsieur. They are entirely justified.'

  'Thank you, your apology is accepted. You believe now that Rennie meant us harm?'

  'I do. The boat was followed.'

  'Followed! No, surely we – '

  'It was followed, and Rennie was about to make an agreed signal to the shadowing vessel. A light, a pistol shot – and the boatman threw overboard the pistol, or the lantern, during the desperate struggle that ensued when he saw what Rennie intended to do. Your lookout was right in all but that one detail.'

  'But we would of course have seen such a vessel, if it was there. We have seen noth—'

  'Not if they have been clever. They will have kept their distance in the mist, and even now they may be astern of us, waiting their chance to attack.'

  'You believe this?' Doubtfully. 'Frankly – '

  'It may be more than one ship – perhaps two, or even three. I am going on deck. There ain't a moment to lose. We will beat to quarters at once.'

  'Monsieur Faulk, you forget that this is not the Royal Navy, and that you are not in command of this ship.'

  'At once, if you please!'

  'If I was you, Monsieur Faulk, I should be careful not to overreach myself, and upset my friends. I should remember what they have done for me.' A hint of menace.

  'What you have done for me! If you mean that you have helped me to make a large fortune, may I remind you that I have spent every penny of it in aiding the cause!'

  'Ah, yes. Yes. You have not put any of it aside, of course.'

  'I haven't time for this bloody foolishness! We must get under way!'

  'Perhaps, if you have not put any money aside, then you are the foolish one, no? Perhaps, before you attempt to take command of a ship that is not yours, you should consider this. Your part in the cause is really a very little one. You and I – all of us – are little parts of the whole, and we must not presume to know everything of the grand design.'

 
'I never have presumed it! I have always done what I was asked, purely out of belief and loyalty to great ideas, to the noble ideals of the revolution. But I am also a practical man, a practical sea officer. If I am right about the boat being followed, and the shadowing ships, we face great danger. Surely you must grasp that I am in the best position to undertake – '

  'You are not in command here, Monsieur Faulk.' Over him, with cold authority. 'Please return to your own vessel, and leave all questions of strategy and command to us. Yes?'

  Aidan Faulk stared hard at the other man, shook his head, then ran up the ladder and went on deck, into the rising wind.

  Dawn at sea, the grey light broadening over the wind-licked swell, spray flying from the crests, and vestiges of mist rolling and swirling away all round the tall heeling shape of HM Hawk cutter, ten guns, sailing large on the starboard tack, the wind three points on her quarter.

  'D-e-e-e-e-ck! Two sail of ships to the east!' The lookout in the top.

  James jumped into the shrouds, hooked an arm through for steadiness, and focused his glass. Found the sails, a league or more distant across the hazy, wind-tossed sea, the crests foreshortened in the lens.

  'They make for Dieppe.' To himself. Jumping down to the deck:

  'Mr Love! We will beat to quarters!'

  He had not kept the guncrews at quarters in darkness, thinking it unwise to make men weary when they could be at rest. Better that they should fight the guns fresh and alert than that they should come to an action bleary, stiff, and tired. The scattering roll of the drum, the calls, thudding feet, sand strewn in fans across the deck. A lone herring gull floating at the topsail yard, dipping and gliding, his grey and white plumage, the wings black-tipped, coming clearer in the rising light. He saluted Hawk with a battle cry – 'quah-quahquah' on the wind – and heeled away towards England. The rush of sea along the wales, curling up nearly to the rail, and surging away aft in a seething lace of foam. Backstays humming and taut, blocks a-quiver aloft, the pennant flickering long from the trucktop, curling and streaming seventy foot above, and the great standing curve of the mainsail spanking them along at fourteen knots.

  James drew in a mist-cold, lung-filling breath, and felt himself alive to the tips of his fingers.

  'Starboard battery, Mr Abey!'

  'Ready, sir!'

  'Very good.'

  Hawk dipped her head and yawed a little, and corrected herself with almost no help from the helmsman at her tiller. James smiled, and set his hat a little firmer athwart his head.

  'Come on, then.' Murmuring to himself as he raised his glass and peered. 'Now we shall discover who is master, right soon.'

  Nothing of this was officially sanctioned, he knew, nothing of it was according to the book, yet he did not feel that what he undertook today, what he meant to undertake – in rescuing Captain Rennie, and bringing him home safe, and besting the other vessels at sea – was in any wise reprehensible, or ill-advised, or wrong.

  'On the contrary,' he murmured, 'it is entirely right.'

  He had decided on a stratagem during the night. First, he must disable the Lark. He must shatter her rudder by raking her stern. He must then contrive to dismast her. Rudderless, unable to make sail, she could not bring her guns to bear. Straightway after he must deal with the corvette. She was ported for at least twenty guns, probably six-pounders. She could well carry other guns – chasers, or carronades, and swivels. Rennie would be kept below, James was in no doubt, and thus would not be in immediate danger during the action. Hawk, with her eighteen-pounder carronades, could match the corvette's broadside weight of iron – and better it, too, by thirty pound. In speed of handling, going about, and reloading, Hawk also held the advantage.

  However, he must in least consider the possibility – probability – that Hawk could suffer damage. Should the corvette manage to loose a broadside at Hawk, and strike her with even a fraction of the roundshot aimed, severe injury could result. Two or three six-pound roundshot, flying at a thousand feet per second into Hawk's rigging, or striking her mast, gaff, yards, could deliver crippling impairment. He must rely on speed, and the sheer determination of his assault. Again he went over the plan in his head. One broadside to disable her rudder, a second to dismast her. Then an immediate following attack, even as the guns were reloading, upon the corvette. He summoned Midshipman Abey.

  'Sir?' His hat off and on.

  'I know that you are tired, having kept the deck all night.'

  'I lay down under the boat as you advised, sir, and got an hour or two of sleep.'

  'Very good. You are refreshed?'

  'I am, sir. And ready for anything asked of me, or ordered.'

  'I will like marksmen in the top when we attack the corvette.'

  'Aye, sir. How many?'

  'Two, Richard. But they are not to carry muskets aloft. They are to carry swivels, and canister. They are to fire down into her waist, and kill men.'

  'Aye, sir.' A little subdued.

  'That is a very harsh thing for a sea officer to require of his people – we must kill seamen deliberate – but in this action we shall have no choice. We are outnumbered very severe.'

  'Yes, sir.'

  Glancing away, and taking a quick step or two, then returning: 'Our first broadsides will in course be roundshot, to smash Lark. Reloaded, our broadsides are to be grape.'

  'Grape, sir?' Surprised. 'To attack the larger ship?'

  'Aye, y'heard me right. I know that I said we would use roundshot throughout the action, with full allowance powder, when I gave you my plan of action yesternight. I have changed my mind.'

  'Yes, sir?'

  'I will like to employ French tactics against this French ship.' Seeing the youth's puzzled face: 'They will naturally expect from an Englishman roundshot broadsides, first fire.' He shook his head. 'French gunnery method – I believe it is in their fighting instructions – is to deploy grape, firing into the rigging, and firing at guncrew, for maximum damage and injury. Very good, we shall match them. Only we shall fire first, that is the essence of it. Fire first, and bring down on their heads a great tangle of rigging, yards, and canvas on the heads of gravely broken men. Throw them into terrible disarray. Then, our second broadside . . . ?'

  'Roundshot, sir?'

  'Roundshot, Richard.' A nod. 'Pass the word for the gunner, if y'please. I will like full allowance and double shot, our second fire on the corvette. Then we must board her, and find the captain.'

  When James had seen the gunner, and given him his instruction, he again fell into reflection. Not only was this stratagem without official sanction, it was very probably – the plan entire – a career-ending matter, should it go badly. England was not at war with France – not yet, at any rate – and to make war on another ship at sea in the peace was in usual described as piracy. If things went wrong, badly wrong, by God he could face court martial, and be cashiered.

  'Disgraced.' Aloud.

  'Sir?' The helmsman.

  'Nay, nothing. I was clearing my wind.' And he coughed and made a performance of clearing his throat. Glanced aloft, and forrard, and asked the usual questions. How did she lie? How did she respond? Received the usual replies: Hawk was a fine sturdy sea boat; she sailed true and fast.

  'We will ease her a point.'

  'Aye, sir.' And it was done.

  A few moments told James and the helmsman both that Hawk was not appreciably faster, in fact was perhaps a fraction slower, and James gave the order to take back that point, the wind on her quarter, and again she lay fast and true, cutting through the sea.

  James summoned the carpenter, and discovered the depth of water in the well – negligible. He strode forrard, and trod the length of his command, and returned. Jumped up into the shrouds, and focused his glass. They had gained. Hawk had gained, despite the chased vessels' stunsails and clear determination to outrun the pursuer.

  'I mean to prevail this day.' James jumped down on the deck. 'I feel in my marrow that I will.'

  The
day broadened, and the distance between pursuer and prey narrowed on the sea.

  The first intimation Lieutenant Hayter received that his stratagem was undone was the divergence of the two vessels ahead. It happened abruptly. The corvette turned away wide to the south; Lark ran in a looping sweep to the north.

  'Christ's blood,' James, in consternation, 'we must chase one, or t'other. But which?'

  He summoned his sailing master, Garvey Dumbleton, and presently made his decision:

  'We will smash Lark first, and then pursue the corvette. I want you to lay me as close in by the cutter as may be possible.'

  'Aye, sir. Ain't Captain Rennie in the . . . ?' Faltering as he saw James's glare.

  'What about Captain Rennie?'

  'I only meant – that I believed him to be in the corvette, sir.'

  'So he is, Mr Dumbleton. I will not like to attack the corvette, however, only to discover Lark doubled back and lying under my stern, and her shot raking my own rudder. I must disable Lark at once.'

  'Very good, sir.'

  He did as he was told, and soon Hawk was in fleet pursuit of the fleeing Lark, the sun gleaming and dazzling from out of the east, from out of the hidden coast of France.

  The Hawk pursued the Lark, the bird of prey attempting to fall on the songbird, and gained on her. The lookouts in the top kept the deck constantly informed; one watched the cutter, the other the corvette.

  'D-e-e-e-ck! Lark coming about!'

  'Coming about?' James, bringing up his Dollond glass.

  'The corvette continues due south!' The second lookout.

  James swung his glass briefly to the south, saw the corvette still in full retreat, and was part relieved, part dismayed. If he did not resolve the question of the Lark right quick, the corvette would slip away altogether. Muttering:

  'Why does she go so far south? Why don't she swing east for Dieppe?' He swung the glass again to the north, just as the first lookout:

  'Lark heading due south, sir!'

  'South! He sails at us direct?' James lowered the glass a moment, frowning, then: 'Yes, I see. The corvette makes for Le Havre, not Dieppe after all. The Lark seeks now to engage us, having lured us away, while the corvette escapes into Le Havre, to take Captain Rennie ashore and into the depths of France, where we cannot hope to rescue him.' Louder, sucking in a breath: