A Sea Unto Itself (13 page)

“Mr. Aviemore?”

The very young midshipman was still struggling with his numbers. He hurriedly wiped at a spot on his slate with his sleeve then chalked a new figure. With his tongue pushing out the side of his cheek, he handed his effort over.

Charles took the merest glance at the jumble of scribbled digits. “There is no 5,283rd parallel on this earth, Mr. Aviemore,” he said patiently. “You will please attend to your text on navigation once more. I shall expect a better result tomorrow.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Aviemore answered with an unashamed grin.

Charles turned to Hitch, standing idly with a superior smile. “And tomorrow, Mr. Hitch, you will place your person next to Mr. Aviemore in the event he requires assistance.”

Hitch’s smile faded.

“If that is all, gentlemen,” Charles said, “I suggest we may return to our duties.” He noticed that Aviemore had become distracted with his sextant and was peering absently through its scope at random objects—that moment at a bird that had lighted on the taffrail at the stern end of the quarterdeck. “Mr. Aviemore,” he said sternly. “I will thank you to attend to me when I am speaking.”

“Sir,” the child said excitedly as he lowered his instrument. “I seen something what’s there.”

“Terns are of no particular interest to us at the moment,” Charles said. “Your attention to your captain is.”

“No, sir, I seen something other, afar on the sea.”

“No, you didn’t. All right, what?”

“I dunna know. A speck yonder, just on the edge of that cloud like.”

This made no sense to Charles, but he saw that Beechum had snatched up a long glass from its place at the base of the mizzen and was training it toward a low-lying bank of mist in the far distance to windward. “There is something on the horizon,” the lieutenant said. As Cassandra's stern rose on the crest of a swell he added, “It’s someone’s royals, I think.”

At that moment a shout came down from the mainmast tops, “Sail ho, north by northeast out of that fog. There’s two of them.” Charles looked up angrily. The lookout should surely have reported the sighting before Aviemore.

“Mr. Beechum, if you would take your glass up to the mizzen tops and report back what you see.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“And tell the lookout that I expect him to keep a sharper eye out in the future. No, on second thought, send him down to me.”

Beechum touched his hat and departed for the shrouds.

Charles went to stand beside Bevan. “What do you make of it?” he said.

“The sails? I don’t know, could be anything—Indiamen, men of war, slavers, or just your average merchant bottoms. I’d guess Indiamen outward bound, so you can’t press any men off of them, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Charles knew that any ships of the East India Company or other friendly merchant shipping would be making to round the Cape of Good Hope, the same as he. British captains were strictly prohibited from enlisting, by coercion or otherwise, men off them when they were in transit. Once they returned to home waters, however, they were fair game so long as enough were left on board to make port. Slave ships, to his mind, were another matter. He would have little hesitation about taking what men from them he wanted. It would be a long time before he returned home, and any complaints their captains made would receive no great sympathy at the Admiralty in any event.

He saw that Beechum had reached the tops, and watched as the seaman stationed there swung out onto the futtocks and started down.

“What are you going to do with that one?” Bevan said, nodding toward the descending lookout.

Charles frowned. “I’ll know the reason he was late in reporting. I can’t just let it pass. This kind of sloppiness has gone on too long. “Hell,” he said in frustration, “I should flog him. I should flog them all.”

“Yes,” Bevan said. “But you won’t.”

“No.” Charles fell silent as the man crossed the quarterdeck toward him. “You’re Jenkins, aren’t you?” he growled.

“Yes, sar.” He touched his forehead.

“Tell me, Jenkins, why you failed to spy that sail aft before I saw it from the deck.”

Jenkins did not seem particularly cowed. “She must of just emerged from that bit of fog, sar. One minute there was nothing there; when I looked back again, I saw ‘em.” It was a plausible explanation, and Charles’ anger drained away. “Thank you for your report. Keep me informed,” he said. “You may return to your station.”

“There’s one thing more,” Jenkins said.

“What is it?”

“Them’s Frenchies, sar. Both of ‘em,”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Them are two warships to windward, sar,” Jenkins repeated. “One larger than t’other. Mebby a frigate and a ship o’ the line. I could see them’s French by the roach in the cut o’ their sails. I made ‘em out just afore I came down.”

“Christ.” Charles glanced up at the mizzen shrouds where Beechum was just beginning to descend. He had enough problems without having this put on his plate. Something like twenty miles to windward of him were two enemy ships on a detached mission to somewhere. Where? It didn’t matter. The French, and whatever their intentions might be, were no concerns of his. He immediately dismissed any notion that he might engage them. Even if it were a lone frigate he would not entertain it. It was no part of his orders and his crew were not sufficiently practiced—not even near to sufficiently practiced. He also knew too well that the relatively frail Cassandra was no match for a line of battle ship with thirty-six-pounder cannon on her lower gun deck.

Beechum arrived breathlessly from his hurried descent of the shrouds. “There’s two, a frigate in the fore and a bigger one following about a mile or two behind. They’ve seen us by now, I’m sure of it.”

“I imagine they have, Mr. Beechum. What can you tell me of the battleship?”

“Don’t know for sure, sir. She’s hull down, a two-decker I should think. Possibly a seventy-four from the size of her masts.”

That seemed probable. It made little sense to send a lumbering three-decker far from home in the company of a single frigate. A seventy-four-gun warship would be powerful enough to deal with anything they might be likely to encounter, but with sufficient speed to almost keep pace with a swift-running frigate. “Thank you,” he said.

It would be safest, he decided, to move out of their way so that they might pass him by. He didn’t want to take any chance of being overhauled in the dark. “Make our course due west, Daniel,” Charles said. “We will resume southward when those two have moved on.”

Bevan passed the order to the quartermaster at the wheel, then sent the men to brace the sails around. As Cassandra settled on her new course, Charles went to the binnacle and took up his personal long glass that he kept housed there. Training the telescope aft, he soon picked out the dot on the horizon that was the enemy frigate’s upper sails clear in the lens. As the stern rose on a crest he saw her royals and a sliver of the topgallant beneath. He could see no sign of the second Frenchman from the deck. He was about to lower the glass when he thought he saw the attitude of the sail alter. Immediately a call came down from Jenkins, now back in the mainmast: “Deck! T’ Frenchies’ changing ‘er course towards us. She’s ‘anging out her stuns’ls.”

Charles’ first reaction was annoyance. Surely the French had something better to do than chase a solitary English frigate across the high seas. There was no cause for alarm. He didn’t need to outrun them, only to be sufficiently ahead when darkness came so as to lose them in the night. “Daniel,” he said, “we will hang out the studding sails as well. There’s no point in encouraging false hopes.”

“Aye, aye,” Bevan answered. He went to bellow the orders.

Charles turned to Cromley standing near the wheel. “What do you figure is our best point of sailing?”

The master cast his eyes at the set of the canvas aloft and the long pendant fluttering toward the southwest. “I figure it to be three points on either quarter, near enough, sir,” he answered, giving the conventional response.

“We will take the wind three-points off the starboard quarter then, if you please,” Charles said. He tilted his head back and watched with disapproval as the topmen started up the shrouds of the fore and mainmasts to put out the booms at the ends of the yardarms to extend their reach. There was the barest appearance of hurrying aloft, enough to avoid a reprimand, but no real urgency about it. The studdingsails would be hung from the booms extending the yardarms and alongside the leeches of the main and maintop sails, increasing their surface. It should give them another knot or two.

 
Hour by hour he could see more of the distant frigate’s masts despite the addition of the studdingsails. All too soon the Frenchman’s topgallants had shown clear, then glimpses of her topsail. There was no doubt she was the faster ship. By late evening, in the last of the dying light, he climbed into the mizzen ratlines with his glass. From this vantage he could see the masts of the frigate nearly down to her deck and guessed that she would be about fifteen miles behind. For the larger warship he had to scan the horizon for several minutes before he picked out the tip of her uppermost sails, a tiny dot of lighter gray against the increasingly overcast sky. “In two hours, Daniel, wear ship to put the wind on the port quarter,” Charles said as soon as he returned to the deck.

“You hope to lose them in the dark?”

Charles nodded. “With any luck at all they will give up and go on their way. I’m thinking to loiter a bit before taking up our course again. We should be well to windward by then.”

“Aye, aye,” Bevan said. “In two hours.”

The lookout shouted down: “I think the big Frenchie has sent up signal flags, sir. It’s hard to be sure in this light.”

 
Charles assumed that the captain of the larger ship was recalling his frigate lest they become separated during the night. Satisfied, he made his way below to his cabin. He allowed Augustus to bring his supper, found he had little appetite, and returned to the quarterdeck where he stayed until Cassandra wore to take up her altered course.

*****.

"”Tis a half-hour to the dawn, Cap’n,” Augustus’ voice spoke from behind the small circle of candlelight at the curtain to Charles’ sleeping cabin. “Here be your coffee.”

“Bless you,” Charles said. For an instant he had a lingering sense that he could feel the warmth of Penny’s breath against his neck and smell the scent of her hair as if she had just been under the bed linen beside him. The image faded quickly. He pushed himself into an upright position and took the offered mug. With the first sips of the heated liquid inside him, he pulled on his clothing and left to go on deck. Passing along the darkened gun deck, he heard more than saw the crews gathering around their weapons and speaking in low tones as they prepared to run them out. This they were required to do when greeting every dawn at sea, in the case they should find themselves in proximity to an enemy warship. He heard less grumbling about it this morning and guessed that the appearance of yesterday’s enemy might have sparked some interest in them.

Emerging from the ladder-way onto his quarterdeck he felt the breeze against his cheek. It had freshened during the night, he decided. Looking up, he saw neither moon nor stars, only the black void of what must be a still overcast sky. Low on the horizon to the east lay a band of light, or at least less dense blackness, signaling the coming of the day.

“Good morning, Mr. Cromley,” Charles said to the sailing master, dimly illuminated by the lantern shielded in the binnacle near the wheel.

“Good morrow, sir,” Cromley responded formally. “There’s a blow coming, less I miss my guess.”

Charles sniffed the air. He could feel the beginnings of long rollers passing under the ship’s hull. But he wasn’t thinking about the possibility of a change in the weather. He wanted to be comfortable that he had shed the French during the night. “I expect you’re right,” he said absently.

“The barometer’s falling,” Cromley persisted.

“I expect so,” Charles answered. He stared intently over the rail, but the darkness obscured anything on the sea’s surface.

“With the wind picking up we should take in the stuns’ls. They’ll be blowed out otherwise.”

Charles knew this to be sound if conservative advice. The studdingsails on their undersized booms were for light and moderate airs only. The breeze came strong enough to think about taking them in; if it strengthened they would have to. “I’ll have them stay as they are for now, Mr. Cromley,” he said. “I’ll think on it again when it becomes light.”

“Yes, sir.”