The Distant Ocean

by Philip K Allan

  ‘Aye aye sir,’ said the midshipman, as he took the telescope from him. After a glance he scoffed. ‘The Frogs are making game of us, sir. With a very indifferent set of our signal flags.’

  ‘Look again please, Mr Russell,’ said Preston. ‘Does the signal mean anything?’ The midshipman looked again, his lips working as he ran down the flags. His mouth remained open as he reached the end.

  ‘That’s our number, sir!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘I fancied it was,’ said Preston. ‘What is the rest of the signal?’

  ‘The other number was that of the poor Rush, sir. How the devil did the Frogs get hold of our codes?’

  ‘So the signal reads Rush to Titan, does it?’

  ‘Yes sir, but—’

  ‘But nothing, Mr Russell,’ said the lieutenant. ‘Kindly send an acknowledgement. Sedgwick, run down and get the captain, if you please. Give him my compliments and tell him it is urgent.’

  Preston continued to watch the tree. The moment the acknowledgement broke out at the Titan’s peak, the line of flags was hauled down.

  ‘What is it, Mr Preston?’ said Clay when he came up on deck, his face still flushed from his meal. Lieutenant Taylor and Jacob Armstrong followed in his wake.

  ‘We are being signalled to from the shore, sir, using our own codes,’ said the officer of the watch. ‘So far they have signalled to us with the Rush’s number.’ Clay stopped in his tracks, the colour draining from his face.

  ‘Where away?’ he asked, taking the telescope from the lieutenant.

  ‘From the little white house above and behind the battery, sir. That one, by the tree.’

  ‘New signal being hoisted, sir!’ said Russell. ‘Numeral, one. Enemy ship. Weighing anchor.’

  ‘Acknowledge, please,’ said the captain as he scanned the shore. ‘I can see some figures in the shade, but little more than that. Here comes the next part of the message.’

  ‘Numeral… Eight… Bells… First watch,’ read the midshipman. ‘That is midnight tonight, sir.’

  ‘This must be some manner of trick, sir,’ said Taylor, from the rail beside him.

  ‘If so, it is a curiously elaborate ruse,’ said Clay. He was still looking through his telescope. ‘There seems to be three men, two busy arranging their flags afresh, and one with a glass looking this way.’

  ‘Who can it be?’ asked the first lieutenant. ‘Is it possible one of the Rush’s officers survived?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Clay quietly, hardly daring to hope. ‘There must be at least one there who knows his signal book by heart.’

  ‘I have the complete signal now, sir,’ said the midshipman as he came over with his slate. ‘Rush to Titan. One enemy ship, weighing anchor at eight bells in the first watch. Sailing by passage bearing north through reef.’

  ‘Passage bearing north?’ queried Taylor. ‘But that would be between us and them. Is there such a passage?’

  ‘None marked on the chart, sir,’ said the ship’s master.

  ‘Aloft with you, Mr Armstrong,’ said Clay. ‘Take our best glass. If a channel exists, it should be visible from the main royal yard.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ said the American.

  ‘Mr Russell, signal the commodore, if you please. Captain of Titan wishes to come on board.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ replied the midshipman.

  ‘Shall I pass the word for your barge, sir?’ asked Preston.

  ‘If you please,’ said Clay.

  ‘Black Prince to Titan,’ reported the signal midshipman. ‘Come aboard when convenient.’

  ‘Acknowledge, if you please, Mr Russell, and then make a signal back to the shore. Titan to Rush, is Captain Sutton present?’

  *****

  ‘And you received no further reply then, captain?’ asked Montague, regarding his subordinate over the top of his desk.

  ‘No, Sir George,’ said Clay. ‘A large patrol of French soldiers appeared on the beach at that moment, and whoever was signalling wisely decided to take down the flags. I put the ship on the other tack, so as not to draw any more attention to that portion of the shoreline, but we kept a good lookout on the tree. No further signals have been sent.’

  ‘That is vexing,’ said the commodore. ‘What would you have done, if you had been able to establish who had signalled you?’

  ‘Once I ascertained who was present, my next action would have been to pose a question to which only they would have known the answer, Sir George. I might have asked Mr Sutton for his father’s name, for example.’

  ‘Quite so,’ said Montague. ‘For without such reassurance, how are we to know if this message is genuine? It is quite possible that it could all be a trap of some kind. The French may have captured the signal book of the Rush and be seeking to make game of us.’

  ‘That is possible, sir, but if so I struggle to see to what end. The passage through the reef undoubtedly exists, and my ship’s master has now plotted it with some accuracy. It is difficult to see what the enemy stands to gain by gifting us such a valuable piece of information.’ Montague sat back in his chair and stroked his neatly shaped sideburns as he thought about that.

  ‘Might it be possible that they have revealed this passage to put us off our guard?’ he said. ‘Perhaps they seek to conceal a greater lie within a small truth. They want us to concentrate our forces against this passage tonight, while they shall try to escape in a quite different direction?’

  ‘Perhaps, but such a ruse is easy to counter,’ said Clay. ‘If the information conveyed to me is accurate, it is only one enemy that will try and break out down the passage. So we need only deploy the Titan to oppose such a move. If I can catch one of their frigates in this narrow passage, with reefs all about them, I will be able to make them most uncomfortable. You and the Echo can cover the main exit to the harbour, and we can signal to each other if it is indeed some manner of trap. Then one force can come and assist the other. At no stage will we be particularly far apart.’

  ‘That might answer,’ said the commodore. ‘How do you plan to frustrate the French?’

  ‘I will head away from the coast at sunset, shaping to join the rest of the squadron. As soon as it is dark I will return and anchor at the end of the reef, with my guns pointing down the line of the passage, ready to rake any ship that comes through it. There will be no moon tonight, and it looks like it may rain. If the ship is silent, with no sail set or light showing, I doubt if the enemy will detect us. But we shall mark them, as they move through the water towards us.’

  ‘What of the shore battery that covers that section of the coast? Will they not present a hazard?’

  ‘Firing at extreme range against muzzle flashes in the dark, Sir George?’ queried Clay. ‘Let them do their worst. They are as like to strike their own frigate as us.’ The commodore thought about all this for a moment and then came to a decision.

  ‘Very well, let us make it so,’ he replied. ‘My Black Prince and the Echo will watch the normal passage out from St Paul. If you should get into difficulty, show two Bengal lights from your foreyard, and I shall do the same if the enemy concentrates against me. Is that a satisfactory plan?’

  ‘I believe it will answer very well, Sir George,’ said the captain of the Titan.

  ‘Good, that is settled. Can I move on to another matter I wish to discuss with you?’

  ‘By all means, Sir George,’ said Clay. ‘What is it that you wanted to say?’

  ‘Now that the possibility has emerged that your friend John Sutton may be behind these signals and is therefore perhaps alive, are you considering some manner of rescue?’

  ‘The thought had naturally occurred to me, Sir George. The French battery precludes any attempt at a landing during daylight hours, but something could be tried at night.’

  ‘I thought that might be the case,’ said Montague. ‘It is a course of action that I must forbid in the strongest terms.

  ‘What!’ exclaimed Clay, jumping to his feet. ‘But he is my oldest and dearest friend
! Should the opportunity arise to restore a brother officer to his liberty, of course I shall take it!’

  ‘Calm yourself, I pray you,’ said the commodore, holding up a hand. ‘Please resume your place, captain, and give me a full hearing.’ Clay continued to glare at the commodore, but he sat back down again. When he was seated Montague resumed.

  ‘I do understand the sensitivities here, and that he is your friend, but I must ask you to place to one side such considerations. Permit me to explain my motives, which are quite honourable, I assure you. I speak now as commander of this squadron with only the good of my country at heart.’

  ‘Go on, Sir George,’ said Clay.

  ‘I make no doubt that you would seek to lead such a rescue attempt?’

  ‘Given the strength of my interest in its success, I probably would, sir,’ conceded Clay.

  ‘Which, given that you would be landing on a well protected and hostile shore, shall place you at considerable risk. I have already lost Captain Sutton. For the good of the mission entrusted to us by the Admiralty, I cannot lose you too. It would leave the squadron bereft of leadership.’

  ‘If I were to succeed, I could restore Captain Sutton to you, Sir George.’

  ‘True, but if you were to fail, I would be left with only the commander of the Echo. To be frank, it is not a prospect I relish. I regret to say Mr Windham has shown himself to be wanting as a commander, over this affair of the Rush.’

  ‘I understood him to have been your prodigy, Sir George?’ Clay looked across the desk with an unblinking stare.

  ‘I would not put it so firmly,’ said the commodore. ‘I asked for him as a favour to a long dead but dear friend. Regrettably, precious little of the uncle seems to have rubbed off on the nephew.’

  ‘Do I take it that you do not find his explanation of his actions when the Rush was lost wholly plausible?’ asked Clay.

  ‘Frankly no, which is the second reason why I must forbid your rescue attempt. Mr Sutton, if he is alive, is likely to bring a quite different version of the loss of his ship back with him. I cannot afford to have such ill feeling and dissension among my command at this critical time.’

  ‘Sir George, I must protest,’ said Clay. ‘You speak of duty and honour, yet you propose to abandon a brother officer, because he is likely to speak ill of Captain Windham? So be it, I say! Because I hold that Mr Windham has a great deal to explain. If he has acted dishonourably, as I feel certain he has, and abandoned one of our ships to its fate, he deserves whatever censure is his due. Why do you seek to protect him?’

  ‘Understand that my injunction against attempting a rescue is not a permanent one,’ said Montague, leaning forward to urge his case. ‘Captain Sutton, or whoever is signalling; for mark this, we still have no certain intelligence that it is he; whoever our mystery ally is, they are perfectly safe where they are. In fact this person is proving to be a most valuable spy. He will be returned to us in time, doubtless through a prisoner exchange. Come now, captain, let us not fall out over this. I give you my word that once we have gained an upper hand over the French, I shall make enquiries as to whether Captain Sutton lives, and how we may best exchange him. Once he is released, then we will hear his version of events, but it shall not happen tonight. We have quite enough upon our plates as it is. Agreed?’

  ‘If that is an order, Sir George,’ said Clay, after a pause.

  ‘Good man! Now, come closer. I have an idea for what the squadron should do tonight, once you have captured your prize. Allow me to share it with you.’

  *****

  The sun was setting off the port bow of the Titan as she stood out to sea. It had rained for much of the afternoon, but the towering thunderheads had drifted away to the north. Now there was a scatter of clumpy cloud across the sky, all lit in pink from below as the sun sank amid a bed of crimson. Lower and lower it slipped, till only a slither of gold hung above the horizon. The frigate dropped into the trough between two waves, and when she rose back up again the sun had vanished and night rushed towards them from all sides. She carried on, displaying no light to the outside world, conscious of the many eyes that might still be probing the dark from the shore as they looked for her. An hour after sunset, the frigate hauled her wind, turned about, and headed back towards the shore. As she drew closer, she gradually reduced sail, minimizing the faint silhouette that might be visible against the black water.

  Clay looked at the island, a dark brooding presence before him. St Paul stood out as a glow of yellow off to one side. The lights of the port thinned to single points scattered along the shore that marked where individual dwellings lay. He looked at the few clustered near to the spot he thought the signal had came from and wondered if his friend were there, on a dark veranda, looking out to sea with a lamp-lit room at his back.

  ‘Shall I clear the ship for action, sir?’ asked the shape of his first lieutenant by his side.

  ‘If you please, Mr Taylor,’ he replied. ‘Pass the word, rather than using any drums. And make sure the battle lanterns are shuttered until the action begins.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’ Clay guessed that Taylor would have touched his hat in the dark, so he did the same, even though both gestures were invisible. Then he turned to the bulky shape of the sailing master who was stood by the wheel, giving gentle instructions to the helmsman.

  ‘How are you managing to navigate in this dark, Mr Armstrong?’ he asked.

  ‘Tolerably well, I thank you, sir,’ replied the American. ‘I took a bearing on the end of the reef while it was still day, and St Paul can be readily marked. I am quite confident I will be able to navigate us into position.’

  Clay looked around him in the warm tropical night. Dark, but not completely so, he thought, as his eyes continued to adjust. Through the gaps in the clouds above his head a few stars had appeared, tiny points of silver against the velvet of the sky. Where the bow of the frigate split the sea there was a tumble of phosphorescence that faded into lines of light along the ship’s side. In the faint glow of orange lamplight on the main deck below him, the shadows of the gun crews grew and shrank as they moved to their places. And ahead of him were the lights of the shore, twinkling off the surface of the sea, and growing all the time. Clay let his mind wonder as he struggled to come to a decision. He paced along a portion of deck that was free from the mass of gun crews and marines that crowded the quarterdeck. Then he paused at the rail and looked towards the shore once more.

  ‘Damn the man, ordering me not to rescue John!’ he muttered. ‘What gentleman uses rank to force another to abandon his friends?’ Then he paused, as a though came to him. ‘Ordering me to not to rescue John,’ he repeated. ‘It was my presence that he forbade, was it not?’ He pushed himself away from the rail and turned towards the figures grouped by the wheel. ‘Mr Taylor, Mr Macpherson and Mr Preston, I would obliged if you would join me at the back of the quarterdeck,’ he said. ‘You come too, Sedgwick.’

  He walked to the stern rail, where they would not be overheard and waited until the shadowy figures stood around him. ‘Now, Mr Taylor, we shall be in position at the end of the channel through the reef a good hour or more before the enemy frigate will arrive. While you are anchoring the ship and getting a spring deployed, I intend for Mr Preston to go ashore, if he is willing.’

  ‘Ashore, sir!’ exclaimed the first lieutenant. ‘With what object?’

  ‘It was you that first saw that signal, Mr Preston. Do you believe you could find the house again?’ asked the captain.

  ‘Aye, I daresay I could,’ confirmed Preston. ‘What am I to do?’

  ‘Find those that signalled, and bring them off,’ said Clay. ‘I will not order you to do it, for it may be hazardous, and I cannot go myself. But it is just possible that Captain Sutton may be there.’

  ‘I will go with all my heart, sir, and bring him back,’ said the lieutenant.

  ‘But what of the French frigate, sir?’ asked Taylor.

  ‘It is a bare mile to the beach, so Mr Preston wil
l be back in good time for the action. Now Sedgwick, I intend him to take the barge. See the crew are armed and ready to go as soon as the ship drops anchor.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ said the coxswain. ‘I reckon as it would be best to get that there boat in the water now, sir, and tow it behind us. That way there will be a deal less noise for the Frogs to hear.’

  ‘Good idea, make it so,’ said his captain. ‘Mr Macpherson, for your part I need you to select a small number of your best marines. Mr Preston can only take a handful in the barge.’ The Scotsman’s broad smile glinted in the night.

  ‘I know precisely the men to take. Every one of them a former poacher, well used to moving with stealth at night.’

  ‘Sir, I must protest,’ said Taylor. ‘What if the enemy should come down the channel early? Surely there will be time for this sort of escapade once the battle is over?’

  ‘Time, yes,’ said Clay. ‘But opportunity, decidedly not. Once we discharge our first broadside, this beach will be alive with more French soldiers than you can wag a stick towards. I am sorry, George, but I am quite resolved on this course of action.’ He patted the older man on the arm. ‘All will go fine, you shall see. Now, let us make our preparations. The shore is fast approaching.’

  *****

  ‘Sails all in, Mr Taylor,’ reported the sailing master, a shape silhouetted against the few lights that showed ashore.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Armstrong,’ he replied. He then turned towards the starboard gangway and said in a quiet voice, ‘Pass the word to drop anchor.’ The order was repeated from man to man away into the night towards the forecastle. A few moments later came a loud splash, followed by a return hiss of whispers up the ship.

  ‘Mr Hutchinson says as how the anchor is holding, sir,’ said the final voice. ‘And that he be fixing the spring on now.’

  ‘Anchor is holding, sir,’ he repeated to the tall figure next to him.