He stepped over the inert shapes and continued to the quarter-deck.
Tyrrell saw him and said, “You know about th’ wind?”
Bolitho nodded and walked to the nettings, seeing the bay opening up in the pale early light like ruffled steel, the dancing cat’s-paws against the hull, pushing it gently but insistently on the taut anchor cables.
Buckle came to his side, his face grey with fatigue.
“We can’t set even a scrap o’ canvas, sir. We’re on a lee shore an’ no mistake.”
Bolitho was staring along the larboard gangway and away towards the dark slab of land emerging from the shadows. The point, around which lay the river and the deep channel.
Graves said, “We will have to stay where we are and hope that Frog has a mind to do likewise.” He sounded doubtful.
Bolitho shook his head, thinking aloud. “No. The Frenchman will have guessed we are about, even if he does not realise our exact strength. Either way he will up anchor soon and make for open water. If he sees us in passing he will have little difficulty in aiming his broadsides.”
He peered up at the yards where some topmen were casting away the last of their leafy camouflage. Above their heads the masthead pendant was whipping towards the cove, and he saw the beach regaining shape in the light, the marks of many feet, the small humps to show where some of the soldiers had been buried within sight of rescue. Rescue. He rubbed his chin and tried to think more logically.
Once out in the bay they could make sail and tack towards the entrance and open sea. The Frenchman, on the other hand, already had the advantage of the wind. Could even anchor if desired and pound Sparrow to fragments while she lay helpless in the cove. She would sink with her masts above water. It was a cruel picture.
He said, “Break out the kedge anchor, Mr. Tyrrell, and then hoist all boats.” He looked at the long racks of sweeps. “We will have to see what those will achieve this morning.”
Once free of the kedge the hull swung sternwards towards the beach, the current swirling around her stem as if she was already under way.
The gun deck and gangways were crowded with men, and he knew that below every space was filled with exhausted soldiers. He watched the gig rising above the gangway before dropping neatly on its chocks between the cutters, the seamen working in unusual silence, glancing occasionally towards him by the rail as if to see his intentions.
He was able to pick out individual faces in the strengthening light, and realized he now knew most of them by name. The reliable and the lazy, the malcontents and those who were able to accept their calling, enforced or otherwise, with varying degrees of trust. He remembered that first day, the sea of unknown men, with Graves excusing Tyrrell’s absence. It seemed so long ago.
Tyrrell reported, “Boats secured, sir!”
Bolitho walked to the rail and leaned on it. The wood was moist and clammy, but within a few hours would be like a furnace bar. If it was still above water.
He said, “You all know of that frigate, lads. She’s up there now, taking her time, as Frogs do in such matters.” He paused, seeing some of the older men nudging each other and grinning at his feeble wit. “You can also see that we are unable to loose tops’ls without driving ashore. But if soldiers can march all the way across country to us, I reckon we should be able to get ’em home again, what d’you say?”
For a long moment nobody moved or spoke, and he felt despair rising as if to mock him. Why should they care? After his displeasure following the fight with the privateers they might simply see it as a just rebuff.
Surprisingly, it was the boatswain who was the first to break the silence. Bursting from the larboard gangway, his face glowing like a grotesque heated shot, he bellowed, “What are we waiting for, my lovelies? A huzza for the cap’n! An’ another for Sparrow!”
The cheering spread along the decks and up to the topmen on the yards. To the dazed soldiers below and in the cramped holds, and wherever a foot or so had been found for them.
Tilby yelled, “An’ to ’ell with them bloody Frogs!” He was already cutting the lashings on the nearest sweeps, pushing men towards them while others scampered to open the small ports on either beam.
Bolitho turned away, seeing Tyrrell’s great grin and Buckle nodding his head and beaming as if they were already at sea and away under full sail. Even Graves was smiling, his tired face both dazed and pleased by the din.
He said, “Man the capstan.” He wished they would stop cheering. That Tyrrell would obey and leave him to his thoughts. “Run out the sweeps, if you please.”
Tyrrell shouted the order, and as the helmsmen stood to the wheel and the capstan took the first slow strain, he turned and said, “They’ll not let you down. Not after what you’ve done for those poor redcoats. Not now. Not ever, Cap’n.”
Bolitho could not face him. Instead he stared along the lar-board side at the wavering line of sweeps poised above the swirling water like the oars of some ancient galley. It would take a great deal of effort to move her into the bay. With the wind against her and the dead weight of all her guns and extra passengers it might prove impossible.
“Stand by!”
The sweeps swung gingerly forward, the seamen clinging to the long looms and gripping the deck with their bare toes.
“Anchor’s aweigh!” Graves came running aft above the seamen and yelled, “She’s paying off, sir!”
“Give way all!” Tilby threw his own weight on the aftermost sweep, his bulging muscles showing evidence of the strain. “’Eave! Come on, boyos, ’eave! Agin now!”
Rising and failing, the lines of sweeps thrust and slashed at the water to hold the Sparrow’s drift towards the beach, and then very slowly, painfully brought her under command and towards the bay.
Bolitho called, “Mr. Buckle, take the wheel!” To Tyrrell he added, “Every officer and man on the sweeps! Everyone!”
As the anchor was catted home and Graves led his own party to the sweeps others slithered down backstays or ran from their stations elsewhere to give weight to the stroke.
Bolitho tried not to watch the point, green and brown now in the light. It was stationary and the sloop was hardly making headway. Yet already the men were gasping for breath, and only Buckle and himself were not helping. The wind was too strong, the current too insistent.
Tyrrell’s voice carried like a trumpet. “Heave! Heave! An’ one more, lads!” But it was no use.
Buckle called softly, “We’ll have to anchor again, sir! They’ll be beat in a moment!”
Several seamen missed their grip and almost fell as a voice shouted above the plunge and creak of sweeps.
“Quickly there! Spread yourselves out with the seamen!”
Bolitho stared with disbelief as Foley emerged below the quarterdeck, and following him, two by two, some limping, others blinded by bandages, came the remnants of his company.
Foley looked up. “The 51st have never been known to fail in showing up the Navy, Captain!” He steadied one of his men who was groping past him before adding, “You spoke earlier of miracles. But sometimes they, too, need a little help.” He turned away and put himself beside a master’s mate on the end of a sweep.
Bolitho gripped the rail, wanting to hide his face from them, but unable to tear his eyes from their combined efforts.
Buckle called huskily, “I’ve got steerage way, sir. She’s answering now!”
Bolitho said softly, “The colonel told me he could take half the continent with the right men. With men such as these he could conquer the world.”
When he looked again he saw that the point was slipping across the starboard quarter as with great care Buckle eased the helm over and watched the jib-boom pointing towards deeper water.
Here and there a man fell exhausted from a sweep, but the stroke barely faltered.
When the full rim of sunlight eventually broke above the distant hills, Sparrow was well out into the bay.
Bolitho shouted, “Topmen aloft! Stand by to make sail!
”
The jib cracked and flapped angrily, then hardened into a firm crescent, and as the long sweeps were withdrawn from their ports the deck tilted to a small but satisfying angle.
“Lay her on the starboard tack, Mr. Buckle. As close to the wind as you can. We will need all the room possible to weather Cape May.”
Tyrrell came aft and stood beside the compass, his eyes fixed on the hazy shoreline. He looked strangely contented. Reassured.
He saw Bolitho watching him and remarked, “It was a good feeling to get ashore again. But then I guess you feel th’ same about England.”
Bolitho nodded gravely. Maybe Tyrrell had been tempted after all. But he had come back, and that was what counted.
He said, “You did well, Mr. Tyrrell. You all did.”
Tyrrell gave his lazy grin. “If you’ll pardon th’ liberty, sir, you ain’t no hoof-dragger yourself.”
“Deck there! Sail on th’ starboard quarter!”
Bolitho looked at Buckle. “The Frenchman is after us sooner than I thought. Get the t’gallants on her, if you please.” He walked up the slanting deck and shaded his eyes. “We’ll give him a run for his money.”
Tyrrell was still grinning. “For th’ general’s money, you mean!”
Bolitho glanced down at his stained breeches. “I’m going to shave.” But the mood persisted for him also. “In case we have visitors this morning, eh?”
Buckle watched him go and then said, “Nothing ever seems to worry that one.”
Tyrrell was peering up at the topmen, his eyes critical. He recalled Bolitho’s face when the wounded soldiers had staggered on deck to help man the sweeps. For just those few moments he had seen beyond the brittle composure, the mantle of command, to the real man beneath.
Half to himself he murmured, “Don’t be too sure of that, Mr. Buckle. He feels it right enough. Just like th’ rest of us.”
Bolitho closed the telescope with a snap and steadied himself against a belaying-pin rack.
“Alter course two points, Mr. Buckle. Steer due east.”
It had taken another two hours from sighting the French frigate to tacking dangerously close around Cape May. With the nearest spur of that untidy headland barely two cables under the lee side they had surged towards the open sea, close enough to see smoke from some inland fire and the morning sunlight flashing on a hidden window or an unseen watcher’s telescope.
It had been harder than he could have imagined to remain in a wardroom chair while Stockdale shaved him and laid out a clean shirt. Now, as he watched the men running to the braces, the lifting, dipping bowsprit beyond the taut rigging, he wondered why he had made himself waste time below. Pride or conceit, the need to relax even for minutes, or a greater need that his seamen should think him so calm he could concentrate on his own comfort?
As the sloop plunged round still further until she had the wind directly astern, he could feel every spar and timber quaking to the motion. Above the quarterdeck rail he saw the mainyard bending like one huge bow, the splayed legs of the topmen denoting the savage vibration aloft, the need for care when one false step could mean instant death. Or the longer agony of watching the ship ploughing away to leave the fallen men to drown alone.
“Steady she be, sir! Due east!”
He walked to the compass and then took a careful glance at the set of the sails. Every inch of canvas was fully drawn, the bellies so rounded and hard they looked about to burst.
He gestured with the telescope. “Another pull on the larboard forebrace, Mr. Tyrrell, and then belay.”
As the men ran to obey he took one more glance astern. The enemy had gained on them during the dash from the bay, had cut away their early advantage while Sparrow had lost valuable time clawing around the last headland. Now, as he steadied the glass across the taffrail he could see their pursuer rising and driving over the lively white-horses, her hull bathed in spray, the gun ports awash as she surged on a starboard tack, showing her sleek hull and full pyramids of canvas. She had set her royals once away from the headland and was heading into deeper water before continuing the chase.
Tyrrell came aft, wiping droplets of salt from his arms and face.
“We’re standing well afore th’ wind, sir. There’s nought else we can do at present.”
Bolitho did not reply. At the quarterdeck rail he leaned over and saw the uneven lines of wounded soldiers, and others less handicapped, helping with food and bandages. Two of Dalkeith’s assistants came on deck and hurled a bundle over the gangway and vanished down a hatchway with hardly a glance. Bolitho watched the bundle bobbing away on Sparrow’s creamy wake and felt his stomach contract violently. Some bloodied bandages, but most likely the amputated limb of one more luckless soldier. Dalkeith was in his makeshift sickbay, as he had been since the sloop had weighed anchor, working in almost total darkness with saw and swabs while the ship yawed and staggered around him.
Graves called above the boom of canvas, “The Frenchman’s wore, sir!”
The frigate was now about eight cables off the starboard quarter. Certainly no more, and steering a parallel course, her royals fully squared and straining at their bolts like pale breastplates.
Bolitho said, “She’s pulling up, Mr. Tyrrell. Not a great deal, but enough to worry about.”
Tyrrell rested at the rail and kept his eyes forward, away from the enemy frigate.
“Will I clear for action?”
He shook his head. “We cannot. Every bit of space is packed with soldiers. There is barely room on the gun deck for a twelve-pounder to recoil.”
He thought of the big thirty-two-pounders pointing from either bow. With the enemy astern they were impotent. Just so much extra weight. Had the enemy been in their line of fire they might have been able to cripple her, if only temporarily, or until some ship of the inshore squadron could give them support.
Tyrrell looked at him worriedly. “You have a choice, sir. You close th’ shore now and risk losing th’ wind altogether. Or you alter course to seaward within th’ hour.” He angled his thigh against the rail as Sparrow plunged heavily, the spray dashing aft over the decks, rattling against the courses like lead pellets. “There’s a long ridge of sandbars running north to south. You take one side or t’other. But in an hour you’ll have to decide which.”
Bolitho nodded. Even with the barest information he had discovered on his charts he knew Tyrrell’s estimate was only too true. The sandbars, like uneven humps, ran for over twenty miles across their line of advance. To wear ship north or south to avoid them would mean loss of time, and with the enemy so near, it could represent the measure of disaster.
Tyrrell said, “We could wait and see what th’ Frenchie intends.” He rubbed his chin. “But it would be too late for us by then.” He shrugged helplessly. “I’m sorry, sir. I ain’t much help.”
Bolitho stared past him towards the land. As the coast turned north-east it was falling away. Ten, fifteen miles, it was hard to gauge in the bright sunlight and low sea haze.
“You have been helpful.”
He walked aft to the compass and saw Buckle watching him grimly. The earlier laughter, the sudden relaxation of clearing the land, had all gone now. From a rumour to the sight of a sail. From a distant ship to real, deadly menace in the frigate’s line of gun ports. It had all changed against them so quickly.
“Deck there! Sail fine on th’ starboard bow!”
Graves said excitedly, “The squadron! By God, that’s better!”
Moments later, “Deck! She’s a lugger, sir! Headin’ away!”
Bolitho clasped his hands behind his back. Some frightened trader, no doubt. If still within sight she might witness a swift one-sided fight within the hour.
“The Frenchman’s altered course apiece!” Buckle was peering astern through a telescope. “His yards are coming back!”
Bolitho waited, counting seconds. The frigate had swung off her original course, her speed and drive taking her away slightly further off Sparrow’s qu
arter. He tensed, seeing the telltale puff of brown smoke, driven away instantly by the following wind.
The heavy ball plunged short by a cable, the waterspout rising violently as if to mark a spouting whale.
Bolitho shut the seamen’s jeers from his thoughts. No matter what they believed, it was a fair shot. She had fired nearly two miles with what must be a powerful bow-chaser like his own.
Foley appeared at his side. “I heard the cannon.” He shaded his eyes to peer over the nettings. “He means to unnerve you.”
Bolitho smiled gravely. “He intends much more than that, Colonel.”
He heard more footfalls on the quarterdeck and saw Dalkeith blinking in the sunlight, wiping his face on his big handkerchief. He had removed his heavy apron, but there were dark stains on his legs and shoes, not yet dry.
He saw Bolitho and reported, “That is all for now, sir. Ten have died. More will follow, I fear.”
Foley said admiringly, “Thank you, Mr. Dalkeith. It is better than I dared hope.”
They all looked round as another dull bang echoed across the cruising white-caps. It was nearer, and level with the starboard quarter.
Dalkeith shrugged. “On dry land I might have saved more, Colonel.” He walked away towards the taffrail, his brilliant wig askew, his shoulders sagging as if from a great weight.
Bolitho said, “A good surgeon. Usually the calling attracts the failure or the drunkard. He is neither.”
Foley was studying the frigate with a telescope. “A woman drove him to sea maybe.” He ducked involuntarily as the other ship fired and the ball whimpered high overhead before throwing up a shark’s fin of spray on the opposite side.
Bolitho said, “Hoist the colours, Mr. Tyrrell. He has the feel of us now.” He watched the scarlet flag break from the gaff. “Mr. Dalkeith! Have your helpers move those wounded men to the lar-board side.” He silenced his unspoken protest with, “Better now than when we are in real trouble.”
Sloop of War Page 13