The Captain's Nephew

by Philip K Allan

  ‘What of the enemy, Mr Clay?’

  ‘Nothing in sight from the masthead, sir,’ he replied. ‘We lost contact with them shortly after the squall hit.’

  ‘Well, Mr Clay,’ began Follett, returning his attention to his first lieutenant, ‘I need no clairvoyant to tell me what Admiral Caldwell will think of our first operation under his command. He issues orders for us to intercept a French frigate. Twice we bring her into sight, and twice we allow her to escape. I am not expecting a very pleasant first interview with him when we reach the Windward Islands.’

  ‘All may not be lost yet, sir,’ Clay replied. ‘Once we have made good the damage to the ship we will be able to resume our pursuit. We do have the faster ship.’

  ‘Ah yes, the faster ship,’ repeated Follett, taking another pull on his rum. ‘Doubtless the admiral will remind me of that when I am in his gracious presence. How might the conversation go? We caught up with the Frenchman twice, and in spite of our having the faster ship, we let her escape. Twice.’ The captain resumed his morose staring out of the window.

  ‘I did urge you not to over press the ship, sir,’ said Clay.

  Follett gave Clay a look of hatred. After a while he started speaking again, his voice distorted with suppressed anger.

  ‘I am sure you are taking great pleasure in all this, Mr Clay. They do say that revenge is a dish best served cold.’

  ‘Sir, you are quite mistaken. I take no pleasure in this situation at all,’ said Clay, angered at Follett’s suggestion.

  ‘Oh come, come, Mr Clay,’ continued Follett. ‘Let us at least be honest with each other. You have much you would accuse me of but I am sure that being dull is not one of your charges. Do you deny that you have been somewhat furious with me these last few months? Over my favouring of my nephew in Flanders, for example, or over that unfortunate affair when Hansen was drowned? I am well aware of your anger with me over my intervention to prevent you from exposing yourself to ridicule over Miss Browning in Madeira. And now you remind me that you would have reduced sail and so avoided the damage the ship has suffered. It is an easy course to recommend, when you are merely a first lieutenant, not charged with the responsibility of capturing an enemy frigate.’

  ‘Sir, I know we have had our differences, but at no time have I fallen short in my adherence to my duty,’ said Clay, trying to be reasonable. ‘When I recommended to you we reduce sail, it was because I truly believed that was the most certain way of our coming up with the Courageuse.’

  ‘Oh the noble Mr Clay! Always in the right,’ Follett scoffed. ‘I am sure that you consider yourself quite my superior, who would doubtless have made a decidedly better commander of the Agrius – you implied as much on my own quarterdeck this very day with your suggestions about reducing sail. But I do not hold that you have always been so assiduous about your duty. Have you never strayed into disloyalty to me?’

  ‘Never, I refute the suggestion! What on earth are you insinuating sir!’ said Clay alarmed by Follett’s tone.

  ‘Oh, do not give me the lie in my own cabin!’ Follett was shouting now, and had risen to his feet. ‘You may have thought that your little night time assignation with Mr Booth would remain a secret, when you met on a star-filled night, perfect for indiscretions. Well, Mr Booth at least understands loyalty. He came to me the following day and gave me a very full account of it. He was concerned about your want of respect for me, and where it might lead. What do you have to say now, Mr High and Mighty Clay!’ Clay was speechless with shock. What had he said to Booth that night that had made the master speak to Follett? How could he have been so naive to have trusted him?

  ‘Your silence is eloquent, Mr Clay,’ Follett spat. ‘Your guilt is written on your face. Well Mr Clay, I had already resolved how to handle you when we join up with Admiral Caldwell’s squadron. I will demand that you are removed from your current position. The admiral may look to place you elsewhere, but I strongly doubt if another captain will be willing to take an officer with such rumours of disloyalty crowded about him. I tried to warn you after your absurd objection to my report to the Admiralty, but you would not take heed. Well sir, you have made your bed, now you must sleep upon it.’

  Chapter 14

  St Lucia

  When the Agrius had completed her repairs, she turned her bows once more towards St Lucia and resumed her pursuit of the Courageuse. The lookouts were posted to gaze towards the distant horizon. The hands were set to trim the sails that drove her onwards, and watch followed watch through night and day. Each day the sun rose behind the frigate, swung up till it blazed down over the tops of her masts before leading her once more into the flaming west. Each noon Clay and Booth plotted the ship’s position with care. The line of neat little pencil crosses crept on across the chart, the gap between the frigate and their enemy’s destination shrank and still there was no sight of the Courageuse.

  ‘We aren’t ever going to catch that there Frenchy, you mark my words,’ said a despondent Trevan, his arms resting on the mess table. ‘It don’t signify how hard we try, it won’t never happen.’

  ‘Why do you say that, Adam?’ asked Evans. ‘Didn’t you say we had the faster ship? And we know where the bleeders are headed for, so aren’t we bound to catch them?’

  ‘Ha!’ scoffed the Cornishman. ‘Got nothing to do with who has the faster ship. The whole thing is jinxed, good and proper.’

  ‘You have the truth of it,’ said O’Malley. ‘It’s been a fecking calamity from start to finish. Just look at the way the Frogs vanished into the night. One moment they were there, the next they was gone, like Fergus in the mist. Don’t you tell me that was natural.’

  ‘Hang on there,’ said Evans. ‘That all happened because the Frogs was never there in the first place. I heard that Pipe had smoked the whole dirty trick all along.’

  ‘Wasn’t Adam after seeing the ship with his own fecking eyes?’ exclaimed O’Malley, ‘and Hoskins, and the lookout and half the crew too. Don’t you tell me it was never there, Sam Evans!’

  ‘I know you’re newly come to sea, Sam,’ said Trevan, ‘but once you have seen as much as Sean and me, you’ll understand better.’

  ‘Bah, you sailors and your hocus-pocus, old wives ain’t in it!’ scoffed Evans. ‘What about putting my knife in the mast? You told me it would make the wind blow.’

  ‘But Sam, that worked!’ exclaimed Trevan. ‘The day after you did that, did the wind not return?’

  ‘Just a minute,’ said Evans. ‘That was only ’cause we towed the bleeding ship half way across the fucking Atlantic! Anyway, the wind was bound to blow again sometime!’

  O’Malley and Trevan shook their heads, shocked by the heresy they were hearing. After a while, O’Malley tried again.

  ‘You may call it hocus-pocus, but say what you fecking like, I tell you this voyage is jinxed.’ O’Malley grew passionate, as he enumerated his points, each one with a finger pointed at the unbeliever. ‘We’ve had the captain and Pipe going at each other like rats in a sack. We had poor Hansen, as good a seaman as ever sailed, drowned in easy weather. We had a ship that vanished before our very eyes, whatever you may say, Samuel Evans. Then, when we needed a hat full of wind, we had a sea calmer than any of us have ever seen, and finally the captain himself going out of his senses and almost sinking the fecking barky. I am telling yous all, I am after thinking with this amount of ill luck, we might have a Jonah on board.’

  Evans was surprised to see this statement was greeted with general approval. He could see pig-tailed heads wag in agreement at the mess tables all around them, and even Rosso seemed to be considering the proposition.

  ‘So who do you take this Jonah to be, Sean?’ he asked.

  ‘Might be one of them Dago fiddlers,’ replied O’Malley. ‘But if you was to ask me, I have never been quite sure about that devil black cat.’

  *****

  ‘Much as I enjoy the society of my brother officers, it is pleasant to have an evening in the wardroom with just we thr
ee for a change,’ said Sutton to Munro and Clay as he shuffled the deck, the cards a blur as they flowed through his hands.

  ‘With the advantage, should you miss them excessively, that you may be reassured they are no distance away,’ added Munro, pointing upwards as the echo of a roar of laughter sounded through the deck.

  ‘They seem to be enjoying their dinner with the captain, in any event,’ said Clay. ‘Even in our absence, and that of Mr Booth.’

  ‘He has the watch, I collect?’ asked Munro. ‘That is good news for Captain Follett’s cellar. Is it only me, or have either of you noticed Mr Booth is somewhat quiet of late?’

  ‘Have you and the master had a disagreement, Alex?’ asked Sutton as he dealt the cards.

  ‘Not a direct one between us,’ said Clay. ‘If you have detected any want of civility in our relations it may be because I did share a confidence with him which he chose to pass on to Captain Follett without my consent.’

  ‘Did he now?’ said Munro, gathering up his hand of cards. ‘That was poorly done. It is a shame, for if you can set his drinking to one side, I find his company agreeable enough. On which note, are we done with this bottle?’

  ‘No more for me, William,’ said Sutton, holding his hand over his glass. ‘I have the watch after Mr Booth, and I live in hope we may yet catch our Frenchman.’

  ‘That is not a view that the crew concur with,’ said Clay, playing a card. ‘They are quite convinced the chase is hopeless. Yes, a little more wine, I thank you, William.’

  ‘I did overhear Hart talking to one of my marines about it under the ladder way yesterday,’ said Munro. ‘He was cataloguing all the unfortunate events we have been prey to this last month. He held the ship to be unlucky – something about having a Jonah on board. He even mentioned it might be one of the captain’s musicians. Have you detected any want of effort on the crew’s part, Alex?’

  ‘Not a want of effort, no,’ said Clay. ‘I cannot criticise the manner the crew go about their duties. What I detect is more of a lassitude, and a want of spirit on their part. I have seen such things grip a crew before. It manifests itself as a gradual accumulation of fatalism among them. If not checked it will begin to eat away at the efficiency of the ship, or may lead to the men taking some drastic action.’

  ‘I too have seen this before,’ said Sutton. ‘It is early days with this crew. Chiefly they mutter under ladder ways, and shun the cat. They are not at the stage where they start to roll cannon balls across the deck at night. Fortunately the solution to such a malady is well known. A victory will solve matters, you mark my words, gentlemen.’

  ‘Or the solution may be for this Jonah to leave the ship,’ added Clay. ‘Perhaps the culprit is me? In any event, I am resolved to apply for a transfer to another ship once we join our new squadron in Barbados.’

  ‘No, Alex!’ said Sutton, dropping his cards. ‘Have matters become so bad?’

  ‘I hold that they have,’ said Clay. ‘My relationship with Captain Follett is poor, and grows steadily worse. He no longer believes my advice to have any value. I sometimes think he chooses the opposite, even if it places the ship in peril. No, it is long overdue that he and I take our different paths. Too much has happened, too much resentment accrued for any amicable settlement between us now. I will miss my fellow officers, particularly you gentlemen, whom I number among my friends, but my leaving the ship is the obvious solution.’

  ‘For you, perhaps, but it is a less than obvious solution for those you leave behind, Alex,’ protested Sutton. ‘God, will this result in that fool Windham as first lieutenant? I think I may need to apply for a transfer myself!’

  ‘You would not be thinking of leaving me behind?’ said Munro. ‘But Alex, is it so easy to obtain such a transfer?’

  ‘It is not common, I grant you, but it is normally quite acceptable,’ said Clay. ‘The service realised long ago that throwing disparate men together for long periods must, on occasion, lead to resentments forming. The confines of a ship can offer little relief for those not compatible in character. Under such circumstances an amicable transfer to another ship is the obvious solution. They key word here is amicable. I need the captain to support my request.’

  ‘What is it you fear?’ asked Munro.

  ‘Well, the captain has no great love for me,’ said Clay. ‘He might take this opportunity to do me a mischief. For example, if he was to make general his views of me – that I am a disruptive presence on board, for example – that might result in no captain wishing to have me on board. With so few senior friends in the service, I might find myself without a ship.’

  ‘But that would be unjust!’ said Munro. ‘I do not wish to flatter, but you are quite the best first lieutenant I have served under. Any right-minded Captain should be pleased to have you.’

  ‘It is kind of you to say as much,’ said Clay, ‘but my character is not known in the West Indies. Any prospective captain is sure to consult with Captain Follett first.’

  ‘Why do you suspect the captain will blacken your character in such a way?’ asked Sutton.

  ‘I fear he may, for he has threatened as much, after the Agrius was damaged in the storm,’ said Clay. ‘If we fail to catch this Frenchman, Captain Follett will be hard pressed to explain the indifferent manner of his pursuit of the Courageuse to the admiral. How will he justify that we sighted her twice, yet she eluded us on both occasions? You know how the navy has grown accustomed to a rich diet of success from its captains. It is apt to be harsh with a commander who serves up unexpected failure, no matter how well they are connected. I fear that if the captain should fall from grace, he may attempt to take me with him.’

  ‘But that is intolerable,’ said Sutton, his face flushed with anger. ‘If he had listened to you, we would have caught the Courageuse long ago.’

  ‘That may be so,’ said Clay, ‘but a failure is still a failure. The particulars of who did what will be forgotten sooner than the general outcome.’

  ‘As your friend, I must urge caution, Alex,’ pleaded Sutton. ‘If you rashly provoke the result you fear, and you do indeed find yourself on the beach without a ship, it will effect more than your career. Any understanding you have with Miss Browning is based on the assurance that you will materially improve your situation. Without such progress your future happiness with her can be but a distant prospect.’

  ‘I know it, John,’ said Clay, his face grim. ‘But I also know that I cannot tolerate the situation I am placed in aboard this ship much longer. Let us hope we meet with the Courageuse tomorrow. It must be soon, because for good or ill, our race will soon be run. With this wind we will sight St Lucia presently, in all probability the day after tomorrow. Now, where were we with our game of cards, gentlemen?’

  *****

  ‘Deck there!’ cried the lookout. ‘Land ahoy! One point off the starboard bow!’

  ‘A very creditable landfall, Mr Windham, if I say so myself,’ said Booth, preening himself a little. He had been up on the quarterdeck since the dark before dawn, sure that the ship would come up to St. Lucia that morning. ‘If this wind should hold, we will shortly be able to see the neighbouring island of Martinique too, away to the north.’

  ‘I give you joy of your landfall, Mr Booth,’ replied Windham with a smile, before he yelled over the older man’s head. ‘Masthead there! Any sail in sight?’

  ‘No sir, nothing in sight bar the land,’ came the reply from above.

  ‘Mr Croft!’ called Windham. ‘My compliments to the captain, and there is land in sight off the bow. Tell him also that there is no sign of the enemy.’

  When Captain Follett arrived on deck, many members of the watch were clustered on the forecastle, or dotted among the foremast rigging, all staring at the strip of green on the horizon.

  ‘Mr Windham! Is it market day in Old Sarum, or has a school of mermaids appeared off the bow?’ he demanded to know.

  ‘Eh... beg your pardon, sir?’ queried Windham.

  ‘Why is the watch starin
g out to sea, rather than scrubbing the decks as they should be doing in a King’s ship during the forenoon watch?’ Follett explained, indicating the crewmen.

  ‘It is because land has been sigh – oh I see, aye aye, sir,’ he replied at last, turning away to get the men back to work.

  ‘Now Mr Booth, tell me of our landfall,’ he said to the ship’s master.

  ‘We are in the offing of St Lucia, towards the northern end of the island, sir,’ said Booth. ‘The island has the form as of a pear, fat at its southern end, thin at the northern end. There is only one really significant port, which is Castries, but what a fine port she is. One of the best harbours in the whole of the Caribbean, deep water, good holding ground with a fine sandy bottom, sheltered on all sides. The entrance to the port is through a channel, easily defended from rocky headlands on either side, and then it opens up into a bay big enough to take the Channel Fleet with room to spare. Courageuse will have been headed for there, sure as eggs is eggs, sir.’

  The island spread across the horizon as the frigate approached. Follett could now see a bar of lush green that rose up towards the white clouds that dotted the sky above. The captain invited Booth to walk with him up to the forecastle with their telescopes. He ignored Clay, who had also come on deck when he heard the lookout’s call. Follett examined the island with care. It had a mountainous core of forest-covered slopes, with a fringe of lighter green blocks nearer the coast. Those must be the fields of sugar cane that made the island so valuable to both sides, he thought.

  ‘I do not see this magnificent roadstead of yours, Mr Booth,’ said the captain, after a deal of searching.