‘Ha!’ snorted Booth. ‘Would you indeed, Mr Windham? Well I was in a position to see, and it was quite clear how matters proceeded. The captain had already decided that the enemy would be there, and was throwing guineas about him to reward any hand that saw them first. With the night as black as it was he received what he had requested in full measure. Here is how it worked – John might think he sees a thing, who tells Joe who maybe sees it too, who tells Jack who is sure he sees it, who tells James who would stake his life on what he sees, and before you know it the whole ship of fools is all convinced. As I said, the Mind of Man is passing strange. Yes, I will have more coffee, Hart.’ This last comment directed to the hovering wardroom steward.
‘Quite so,’ said Wynn. ‘Well it is a shame that we were cleared for action. It meant that I was obliged to be at my station in the cockpit, so I was not there to intervene either. Had I been at hand, I might have provided council to the captain on the perils of excessive suggestion.’
‘Ha!’ snorted Booth again, ‘Much good it would have done you. I hear from Mr Sutton that the captain did receive such council. Our first lieutenant smelt a rat all along and urged the captain to be cautious. Mr Clay thought the Frogs were playing us false from the very start.’
‘Did he indeed?’ said Wynn. ‘So has the ship then been the victim of one of these “ruse de guerre” that you nautical men are so fond of, with your false colours and what not?’ Wynn’s eyes twinkled with delight behind his little round glasses, his recent bouts of sea sickness quite forgotten.
‘Not exactly a ruse de guerre, no,’ said Booth. ‘But we have been fooled good and proper. This French captain’s a deep one, for he did play us a cunning trick. Foxes aren’t in it.’
‘How intriguing, Mr Booth,’ said Wynn. ‘Might you be able to explain how his stratagem worked in a manner that a simple man of philosophy like myself might follow?’ Wynn drew his coffee cup closer to him, and settled back in his chair.
Booth reached across the table, for various items to help with his explanation. He settled on the crock of butter and the bread barge.
‘Your pardon, Mr Fleming, I will return the butter directly,’ said the master. ‘Now then, while we chased them yesterday afternoon, they would have made a calculation as to our relative speeds, just as we did of theirs. From that they would have deduced that we would overhaul them during the night. The time that the moon would rise is a matter even a French ship would know, and a glance at the clouds would have shown that we were in for a night as black as the Earl of Hell’s hat.’
He reached forward and placed the bread barge in the centre of the table, and the butter crock closer to him. ‘Assume that Mr Munro over there is the setting sun. His hair makes for a fair approximation with the colour.’
‘I have no objection, so long as it is just the sun you require me to be and not the moon... ’ replied Munro, with only the tittering Windham following his allusion.
‘The bread barge is the Courageuse sailing away from us at sunset,’ continued Booth, ‘and the butter is us, trailing in their wake. Just on sunset, they turn south,’ he leant across to correct the course of the bread barge, ‘making it seem that they have turned a little too early and given the game away. The moment it is fully dark, they turn again,’ once more he leant over to move the bread basket. ‘Perhaps to head north, or resume their way westward, and we carry on to intercept them on the course we hold them to be on.’ The butter crock sailed across the table, narrowly avoiding the hazards of two coffee cups and some jam. ‘Doubtless they even witnessed our broadsides lighting up the far horizon and made merry at our expense as they did so,’ the master concluded.
The officers considered the two items of crockery, now a considerable distance apart. Fleming quietly recovered the hull of the Agrius, and took some long awaited butter from it.
‘Fascinating!’ breathed Wynn. ‘So where do you believe the enemy to be now?’
‘Where indeed, Mr Wynn,’ said Clay as he entered the wardroom, and flopped down in his usual chair. ‘That is the principal question we would all very much like an answer to.’
*****
Clay had been up most of the night, trying to resolve that very question with Follett. After the realisation had dawned on the captain that the Courageuse was not alongside, and that they had been chasing shadows in the dark, his reaction was one of fury.
‘I tell you Mr Clay, I will have every one of those damned lookouts flogged for this, if it is my last act of earth,’ he had ranted, as he marched up and down his small coach like a caged beast. Clay had been sat at the chart table with a map of the mid-Atlantic spread out in front of him. On it was plotted the current position of the Agrius, and neat lines of pencil spread out in a web from the last known position of the Frenchman. A lantern held the chart flat, filling the dark cabin with shards of light and menacing shadow. Lloyd had drifted in with a pot of coffee, and placed it on the table.
‘The galley fire has just been relit sir, and I thought you and Mr Clay might appreciate a coffee.’
‘I need a brandy after this bloody shambles,’ Follett had muttered, but aware that they had a long night ahead, he had eventually sat down and sipped at the hot liquid.
‘Sir, I would urge caution with regard to the lookouts,’ Clay had said. ‘I am sure you were jesting about flogging them, but I would be wary of any sanction. If we are to start punishing the men for honestly telling what they believe they have seen, then they will become shy of reporting on any matter they are unsure of in the future, perhaps to our detriment.’ Follett had glared at his first lieutenant, still furious, but not so enraged that he had not been able to see the sense in what he said.
‘You may have a point, Mr Clay,’ he had conceded. ‘But I will have that bloody fool Croft at the masthead for the rest of the voyage. It was he that led me on, you know. Now, let us consider how best to make matters right. Where do you consider the enemy to be?’
‘Sir,’ Clay had begun, ‘I believe we must set aside the events of tonight, and focus upon what we know for certain to be true. The enemy’s ultimate destination is still St Lucia, so they must return to a westerly course at some stage. I know that there are many paths they could take across such a vast expanse of ocean, but I hold that now the enemy knows he is pursued, he will seek to press on to his destination by the fastest route. For the French the fast path is the straight path. If we head west upon our original course, we shall find him.’
‘Hmm,’ Follett had said, as he sipped his coffee. ‘There is much sense in what you say, and your grasp of the overall position is sound, but as you say, they have many paths they might have taken in the short term. I wish to bring them to action as soon as possible, long before they near their destination, where all manner of events might let them evade us. Simply heading west on a hope will not answer. I need to know where they are now, this very moment.’
‘Sir, they might chance to be almost anywhere, on a night as dark as this,’ Clay had said, running a hand through his hair as he thought of all the possibilities. ‘They may have sailed north till they were clear of us, and then resumed their westward journey, or south and then west again. Why they may even have doubled about and tracked back on themselves. If they were to show no lights they could have passed us in the dark and now be behind us, trailing along in our wake below the horizon. Yet if we reverse our course to investigate such a possibility and the Courageuse has actually carried on westwards, we might be many hundreds of miles apart by dawn.’
‘It is rather as a game of whist,’ Follett had added, staring at the chart, ‘full of bluffs and double bluffs. Do you play at all?’
‘A little sir,’ Clay had said, ‘for very modest stakes.’
‘Well then,’ Follett had continued, ‘you can at least grip the concept. The stakes we play for in this game now are rather more serious.’ He had thought for a moment, pondering the options in his mind.
‘I do not believe that the French would risk your reverse of
their course,’ he had said. ‘It would be a bold move that might quite undo us, but it also would put us between the French captain and his destination. For the reasons you spoke of, I believe he will chose a shorter route than that. Do you agree?’
‘Yes, I do, sir,’ Clay had said. ‘The wind is also dead foul for such a move, and I believe our opponent will wish to be as far as possible from where we last saw him by dawn.’
‘A sound point, Mr Clay,’ Follett had said. ‘Let us then dismiss that option from our minds. So that leaves three possible actions – they carried straight on westwards, or they turned aside either north or south. Agreed?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Clay had said again.
Follett had looked at the expanse of white chart spread between them. The plot of his ship was a thin line of tiny pencil crosses, lost in the vast expanse of white. The French could be almost anywhere, he had thought. He was conscious that with each minute that passed the Courageuse and her precious cargo would be sailing onwards through the night. The passing of time had been emphasised by the eight clear strokes of the ship’s bell that had drifted down through the open skylight, accompanied by the boatswain’s calls and the tramp of feet as the watch had changed at midnight. Follett had looked up to find that Clay was watching him with his grey, almost wolf-like eyes. He had felt a moment of envy for his troublesome first lieutenant, able to advise but not ultimately responsible for the final decision. He cleared his throat.
‘The only certain evidence I have to guide my decision is what we saw at sun set,’ he had said. ‘We both clearly saw the enemy turn to the south, therefore that is where we shall search. It also serves us that we have been heading to the south for much of the night. Kindly plot a position with Mr Booth as to where we might expect the enemy to be at dawn, and lay a course to take us there.’ Follett had sat back, relieved now that the decision had been taken. Clay had moved uncomfortably in his seat.
‘Sir, I respect your decision,’ Clay had said, ‘but before I put it into effect, I beg you to consider an alternative view. I confess I have thought much about this. I was troubled by what we saw yesterday evening. It appeared to me to be quite staged and false. Why would the French not simply carry on for a further few minutes till it was quite dark, and then turn on to a new course? It is what I would have done. The only explanation that makes sense to me is that they shaped to head south while still visible to us, but in reality I believe they did no such thing.’
‘Mr Clay,’ Follett had said, sighing. ‘I sometimes believe you go out of your way to disagree with me. It has been a long and trying night. I am exceedingly weary, yet I know I will not be able to sleep. For the love of God, please follow my orders on this one occasion without offering any of your damned alternatives.’
‘Aye aye, sir,’ Clay had replied, rising from his seat at the table.
Through the dark night the frigate had sailed on and on following the course he had set to the south, perhaps towards their enemy, perhaps putting mile after lengthy sea mile between the two ships. If the captain was wrong, the French would be far, far away at dawn. The watch below had been stood down, but Clay and his captain were too anxious for sleep. The other officers had drifted back to their cabins to rest, leaving only those on watch behind them. All night the wind had grown lighter, good news in that light airs would tend to favour the smaller Agrius over her large opponent, but also worrying for Clay. If they had made the wrong decision, as he believed they had, it would take much longer to correct it.
Slowly the sky had begun to lighten, at first only a faint hint of grey in the east, just visible against the black sea. Follett had hailed the masthead to make sure the unseen lookout was ready to report what he saw. By tiny increments the light had grown. The shadowy figures on the quarterdeck had begun to resolve themselves from grey shapes to recognisable people, the quartermaster at the wheel chewing at a quid of tobacco with a bovine rhythm; the unshaven, tired face of the captain. Clay and his captain had looked up at the lookout. There he stood like a gilded statue as the first rays of the sun made him brilliant, even though the rest of the ship was still washed in grey pre-dawn light. Then the sunlight had crept down the masts, turning sail after sail from inert grey to scoops of pearl. At last it had warmed the side of Clay’s face down on deck as the sun had cleared the horizon, and the long night had been over at last.
‘Masthead there!’ Follett had yelled, unable to contain himself any longer. ‘Any sight of the enemy?’
Clay watched the lookout complete a final circuit of the now distant horizon, before cupping a hand to reply.
‘Deck there! Begging your pardon, but nothing in sight, sir.’ Clay and Follett had exchanged glances.
‘I fear we chose the wrong option, sir,’ Clay had said. ‘They must have carried on west or turned north. In case of this eventuality, I did calculate during the night that a course of west by northwest would be best to cover both possibilities.’
‘Make it so, Mr Clay.’ Follett had replied, before shuffling away to go below.
*****
By midmorning, Clay was back on deck, barely refreshed by his few hours of sleep, but anxious to see how the chase progressed. Booth was officer of the watch, and both men stared over the side of the ship at the flattening water. As the wind dropped the normal Atlantic rollers diminished with them. Now the sea was gently slopping past the ship, the surface calm enough for them to be able to see below it. Adjacent to the quarterdeck and swimming alongside the frigate was a huge shark. It kept station with the shadow of the ship. With pleasing symmetry, the shark itself had its own small pilot fish that kept station in its shadow. Clay wondered how long it had been swimming there, undetected beneath the waves.
Clay looked away from the shark and up at the sky. It was a more hazy blue today with a slightly brassy look to it.
‘What is your opinion of this weather, Mr Booth?’ Clay asked the older man. Booth looked up and sniffed.
‘I like it not at all. I am fearful that we may have caught the northern edge of the Doldrums. If that is the case, what wind still persists will shortly die on us altogether, or my name is not Edward Booth, sir.’
‘Yes, that is my assessment too,’ said Clay. ‘What of the French?’ Booth sniffed again.
‘That is not so easy to predict. It is clear enough that they did not turn south last night and that they played us a wicked trick in appearing to do so, but as for where they did go, I have no more notion than you. What I fear is that they could be as little as fifty leagues away, somewhere over the horizon, and yet be making ten knots with a fair trade wind behind them as easy as kiss my hand,’ he concluded, his face grim.
All day the ship’s progress slowed as the wind continued to die. At each heave of the log, it became harder to record any speed, with the knotted line lying almost inert in the hand. By evening the ship was only faintly ghosting along, and robbed of any sea breeze, the heat became intense. Down in the wardroom, the lanterns added their oily warmth to the already sweltering air. Clay allowed the officers to dispense with their coats, but Hart had made no such allowance for the conditions with his choice of meal. He threw open the wardroom door to allow two of his assistants to enter bearing a huge, steaming salt beef and kidney pudding, while he stood back to witness the highly satisfactory alarm his choice of meal produced on the officers’ already sweaty faces.
‘How long do you think we will remain in the fearsome Doldrums, sir?’ asked Munro, spreading out his portion of the pudding in the vain hope that it might eventually cool a little. ‘Just at the moment I would be mighty pleased to see one of Mr Booth’s ice mountains from the Southern Ocean.’
‘We are not trying to cross the Doldrums but to escape from them,’ replied Clay as he mopped his brow with a handkerchief. ‘We are making steady, if slow progress to the northward but the sooner we can get clear of them the better. I believe it is unusual for them to be found so far north, is that not so Mr Booth?’ Clay looked across at Booth. The master drank dee
p from his wine glass before he answered.
‘Quite so, sir, but I have also known ships to be stuck in them for weeks,’ he replied.
‘Weeks!’ exclaimed Windham and Munro together. ‘But surely the Courageuse will be long gone by then,’ continued the Irishman.
‘If we are indeed trapped for weeks,’ said Clay, giving Booth a withering stare. ‘But I live in hope that these conditions will not long endure. As I say, we still have a little wind at present, and that is bearing us steadily northwards. If this wind holds we may well find ourselves shortly back in the chase.’
‘What interests me is what is to occur when we do overhaul the Frenchman,’ said Fleming. ‘Mr Wynn and I have made a few calculations.’
‘Calculations! God preserve us all,’ muttered Booth. Fleming pressed on, ignoring the master, who was in any case well on the way to his usual state of inebriation.
‘While we do not claim to have the military expertise of you gentlemen, it did strike us that an encounter between the Agrius and the Courageuse would appear to be rather an unequal one. We are a ship of thirty-two guns, mostly twelve pounders, while they have the benefit of some forty guns, mostly larger eighteen pounders. We made them to be over half our weight in metal again, with presumably a comparably larger crew to serve all those additional cannons.’
‘Hah!’ shouted Booth, pointing to the purser with his glass, the red wine in it sloshing onto the table cloth. ‘Isn’t that just what you would expect from a purser? He has it finely calculated in pounds, shillings and pence, and thinks to have it all well understood. Sir, you may be able to name the trees, but you have sadly missed the forest. An action at sea is no simple matter of guns and numbers. You must never forget that we are Englishmen!’ His arm swept around the table, generously including both the Irishman and the Scot. His gaze returned to Fleming. ‘While our enemy are merely French!’
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