Under Enemy Colors (36 page)

“And I will draw mine beside you, Mr Hayden, but it is all a muddle. The only justice that has been done since I boarded that ship was the flogging of Hart, and that was done by a mutineer.”

“Mr Hawthorne…” Hayden cautioned.

At that moment the wind filled in, the sails bellied, and the ship slowly gathered way. Sun, obscured in a watery haze, began to burn through the mist, which thinned visibly around them. Even so, their world was only reduced to an irregular circle, two leagues broad and circumscribed by a bright, crystalline fog.

Hayden could not help but notice that the middies were a melancholy lot, having lost the well-loved Albert Williams, the Bert of “Trist and Bert.” Tristram Stock was red-eyed and embarrassed for it, though he looked to commence weeping again as Hayden spoke with him.

“I will tell you this, Mr Hayden,” he whispered, “most of the men did not want the mutiny but the captain drove them to it. You could see it in their faces once it was all over. I’m sure they are a sorry lot this day. Many had wives and children whom they’ll never see again. We mayn’t have had a crack crew, like the
Tenacious
, but they were mostly good-hearted men, good-hearted men driven to folly.”

They spoke a little of Williams, of how he liked to use the word
eloquent
to describe the most unlikely things (“I have the most eloquent little course change for you, Dryden.” “An eloquent measure of grog for you, sir”), and his love of debate, having been known to reverse his opinion completely upon another conceding he was in the right. They agreed that he would have made a fine officer one day, as one always did of young gentlemen who departed this life too soon.

The fog edged away all that long afternoon and the dusk seemed to press in as the mist finally disappeared altogether.

“I don’t know how we’ll ever find her now,” Barthe complained. “Fog all day and now the night is setting in. Unless we overhaul them in the darkness and arrive at the harbour of Brest before them, they have slipped away, Mr Hayden.”

“Sail ho,”
Wickham called from aloft. “Hull down and dead before us.”

Hayden hurried forward to a place where he could see the midshipman high above. “Is it the
Themis
?”

“I cannot say that, Mr Hayden, but I cannot claim it is any other ship, either.”

By the time Hayden reached the top-gallant trestle-trees the dusk had grown all but impenetrable. A faint, pale patch, possibly angular, was all that Hayden could make out even with a night glass, but he had no doubt Wickham was right—it was a ship. But was it their ship? That was the question everyone asked.

“They are on our exact course, sir,” Wickham noted, “and not carrying top-gallants in a fine top-gallant breeze, indicating that she might well be undermanned.”

“My hunches have never paid me much at the gaming table, but perhaps at sea my luck is better. I think this is our ship, Mr Wickham. Keep us in her wake as long as you can.” As Hayden descended to the deck, the stars began to fill the sky, a great river of luminosity passing overhead, stars so densely packed that no one could rightly explain it.

Despite Wickham’s gifted night vision, Hayden knew the most likely method of overhauling the ship was to keep their course diligently. He and Mr Barthe arranged tricks at the wheel for the most capable helmsmen, and with their small muster, that left both the master and acting captain to stand a trick themselves. Hayden did not mind. Truth was, he liked to take the helm now and then, but as an officer this small pleasure was denied him. Once he had the spokes in his hand, Hayden imagined he could feel the sea breathing beneath him, could feel each rise of the ocean’s breast as the wave carried them forward, and then left them settling into the trough. The wind caressed his neck, whispering its origin on the compass rose, and he steered, feeling the billowing sails draw them on.

The ship’s bell sounded the night’s depths. Midshipmen heaved the log, noting their progress and marking a position upon the chart.

Landry approached him at the wheel. “Idlers and watch below are in their hammocks, sir.”

“Thank you, Mr Landry.” Hayden finished his trick at the wheel and was relieved by Mr Barthe. Leaving the deck to Landry, he went below to the dead captain’s cabin, a place he had been avoiding for reasons he did not quite fathom.

Five tapers in a silver candelabra illuminated the table. The white overhead spread this soft light to all corners of the cabin, which was revealed to be much damaged by the
Lucy
’s cannonade. An elaborate place-setting lay upon the table and it occurred to Hayden that Williams would have termed it “eloquent,” as though it spoke. All but one of the gallery windows had been destroyed by cannon fire and were covered now by stout planks, caulked and payed. Before the undamaged window sat Giles Sanson—the executioner’s son. In his hands he held something angular, bringing Hayden up sharp.

“Monsieur Sanson?”

“
Capitaine
Hayden,” the man responded, but his gaze remained on the object he held. “I believe I told you that my
capitaine
protected me from my countrymen…And yet I betrayed him. Is that not strange? Perhaps it is as the others say—I am tainted, my blood impure from the thousand murders of my family. I am inherently an evil being, cursed in the sight of God.”

“A man is defined by his deeds, not his blood,” Hayden said. “Is that not why your countrymen deposed their king and nobles?”

“Yes…perhaps.” He was silent a moment. “When I reach England what will become of me?”

“You will be imprisoned, likely in a hulk.”

“With my countrymen?”

“Yes, until you can be exchanged. And I’m sorry for it.”

The young man nodded, as though he had known this all along. “My father told me that I could not escape what I was. That I would be driven back, and perhaps he was right, at least in part.” He held up the object he contemplated. “The signal book of my
capitaine
, monsieur. I was charged with throwing it into the sea, but I did not, hoping that I might trade it, use it to buy protection from my fellow citizens.” He stood and gently placed the book on the table. “For your kindness. Do not turn the ship around on my account,
Capitaine
Hayden,” he said softly, “my pockets are filled with grape.” With that he lifted the window sash and, without hesitation, threw himself into the obsidian sea, the window slicing closed behind him. Hayden rushed to raise the sash and thrust his head out. There was nothing to be seen but the slightly luminescent wake scratched upon the glassy waters.

“Poor, sad bastard,” Hayden muttered. He knew it was his duty to put the ship about and search for the man but he also knew that he would find nothing. Sanson had joined the thousand victims of his family.

A knock sounded on his door, and the marine posted there let Archer in at a word from Hayden.

“Sir,” the young man said, flushed from having run down the ladder, “quarterdeck watch said that something fell from your cabin. There was a splash.”

“It was Sanson.”

Archer looked confused. “The gypsy, sir?”

Hayden nodded. “He threw himself out the window.”

“Shall I have the ship put about, sir…?”

“No, Mr Archer. Sanson weighted his pockets with grapeshot. He will not be found in this life. Have Mr Barthe write it in the log…the French captain’s servant, one Giles Sanson, likely of Paris, self-murdered. Due to the circumstances of his death, which I have just explained you, no search was made.”

“Aye, sir.” Archer started to back out the door but then stopped. “Why did he do it, Mr Hayden?”

“Because he was a good man unjustly persecuted due to the circumstances of his birth.”

“Because he was a gypsy, you mean?”

“Something like that, yes.”

“So much for liberty, equality, and fraternity.”

“Yes, so much for all three.”

Archer reached up and tipped his French hat, and backed out, closing the door. Hayden took up the volume left on his table. It was heavy due to its lead covers. Inside he found the signals of the enemy—something that the Admiralty would be very happy to possess even if the advantage provided would be brief.

He collapsed into a seat, realizing suddenly that he was exhausted beyond measure. Too much had happened in the last twenty-four hours and he’d had hardly a wink of sleep to bolster his defences. And now this melancholic Frenchman had brought death into the cabin. It occurred to him then that he would be overwhelmingly relieved to have this cursed voyage over.

A soft rap at the door was followed by his writer, Perseverance Gilhooly, bearing a tray of food.

“It’s French food, sir,” the boy said with distaste, “but Mr Wickham said you might not mind.”

“I will manage, Perse. You were not injured in the mutiny, I take it?”

“Hardly, sir, though I fought alongside the middies and Mr Barthe in the gunroom.”

“Good for you, Perse.”

“Thank you, sir. Will you be needing anything else?”

“No, thank you…Where is Joshua?”

The boy hesitated, hovering by the door, his face suddenly pale and drawn. “He…he departed this life, Mr Hayden.”

Hayden felt a hand go to his forehead, though he had not commanded it do so. “I am so sorry,” he replied softly. “What became him?”

“I did not see it, sir, but was told one of the mutineers threw him over the side.”

“My God! The child could not swim a stroke…”

Perseverance choked back a single sob, nodded, then stepped out of the cabin.

Hayden ignored the meal upon the table and went to the window, staring out over the dark, moving sea. Here he was aboard a French frigate, wearing a French captain’s coat and hanging his hammock in his cabin. A feeling of kinship came over him at that moment for the poor Frenchman who had thrown himself into the bottomless waters. Hayden, too, could not escape his family or his heritage, it seemed. This strange masquerade appeared to have been contrived to make this point unavoidable.

“And now am I an Englishman in a Frenchman’s coat?” he whispered.

Though he had no appetite, the acting captain forced himself to eat, tasting nothing, but knowing his body had need of sustenance. He lay fully clothed in the former captain’s cot and slept for an hour—a haunted hour—and woke feeling utterly unrefreshed.

F
our bells—midpoint of the middle-watch—two of a morning upon the land. Hayden mounted to the quarterdeck and gazed around all points of the compass, assuring himself that the weather was much unchanged, the stars still alight in a pitchy sky.

“All is well, Mr Landry?”

The first lieutenant was a shadow figure, eyes lost in black pools, his diminutive chin all but invisible in the dark.

“It is, Mr Hayden, but for some thick little patches of fog and a weak-willed breeze.”

“Biscay will always demand her pound of flesh. Our chase?”

“Wickham is on the forecastle, sir, and says he saw a light some time ago. I could not see it myself, but his eyes are more cunning than mine.”

“Indeed. You may take some rest, Mr Landry,” Hayden said. “Two hours in a cot and some victuals will not go amiss, I should think.”

“They would not, Mr Hayden.”

The shadow figure tipped its French officer’s hat and retired. Hayden made a tour of the ship, assuring himself that Mr Hawthorne’s marines had the prisoners secure, although he did not have the door opened this time. To see his mother’s people so confined and defeated was not a sight he bore easily.

Upon the foredeck he found Wickham, his night glass trained forward.

“I understand there was a light…?”

Wickham, decked out in a too-large French lieutenant’s coat, like a child playing grown-up, lowered his glass and touched his hat. “For the briefest instant, Mr Hayden. And twice since, I’ve seen the same. Whoever she is we are in her wake, sir.”

“Let us hope it is the
Themis
, for having heard what befell my servant, I should, myself, like to hang the man who flung poor Joshua into the sea.”

Wickham nodded. “Mr Hawthorne told me, sir. It saddened me terribly.” A moment’s silence. “And now this papist, Sanson, has followed behind, I am told…?”

“Yes. A whole family too intimate with death, I think, though Sanson certainly was melancholic, and such people often take their own lives.”

“I had a great-aunt did the same, sir, much to everyone’s sorrow.” Then his arm shot up. “There! Did you see? Just a dull flash, almost dead ahead.”

Hayden squinted into the dark, attempting to force a light to appear, without success. For ten minutes he stood on the foredeck, staring into the night, but then he gave it up with a shake of his head, a heave of his taut shoulders.

“Keep me informed of any sightings, Mr Wickham. It torments me to think that she might be sensible to our presence and drop back in darkness to give us a broadside.”

“I shall never allow that, sir.”

As Wickham made this vow, the ship sailed into a dank cloud. In a moment, beads formed on the bulwarks and darkened the deck.

“Damned bloody fog,” Barthe growled as he joined the others on the foredeck. “Thick as molasses where you find it, but hanging low over the sea, hardly stretching to the masthead. Aloft there,” he cried. “Are you above this deuced fog?”

“We’re in the thick of it, Mr Barthe.”

“Well, it is still low to the sea,” Barthe intoned, “you can be certain of that.” The corpulent sailing master had a dwarf-like silhouette due to the slight stoop in his carriage.

“I have no doubt you’re in the right, Mr Barthe,” Hayden assured him. He gestured at the slowly swirling fog. “In this we could ram the
Themis
before we knew she was there.”

Barthe stood by the starboard rail, staring anxiously into the night. “I will be more pleased to see the dawn than I am commonly, and that is saying a great deal.”

“A few hours, Mr Barthe, and we shall have a shred of light.” Hayden made a slow circuit of the deck.

Wind and sea, the two things sailors discussed with greater frequency than even the fairer sex, proved that indecision was not exclusively a human distinction. The wind would make for a time, sending the ship rushing through the waters, and then would take off to a mere zephyr. A ground-swell would reach them out of the darkness, and see the men rushing aloft to reduce canvas, expecting the wind that such seas foretell, but the wind would not materialize and the seas would die, mysteriously, away, leaving the old salts to mutter and shake their heads. Stunsails were not reset, though top-gallants were held to.

The watch crept on, bell by bell, until the morning watch was called. Two hours more and a meagre brightening of the eastern sky marked the advance of the autumnal morning. Hayden was standing by the taffrail when he heard the sailing master’s deeply felt sigh.

“Your much-longed-for daylight at last, Mr Barthe,” Hayden remarked.

Barthe gazed a moment more, then turned his bruised face toward the acting captain. “It was a damned long night given the number of hours encompassed.” Barthe looked around. “Where is Mr Wickham? Has he our chase in sight?”

“Lieutenant Wickham is on the foretop, Mr Barthe,” Hobson reported.

“It is a bit close for even Wickham to see any distance. Would you join me for a breakfast, Mr Barthe? Mr Landry will take the deck in a moment, I’m sure.”

“Sail ho!”
Wickham shouted from high up among the rigging. “On the starboard beam.”

Hayden went to the rail and a glass was placed in his hand, but all he could discern was a landscape of varied grey—fog and sea—a scene that reminded him, inexplicably, of winter London. The ship rose and fell, parting the mist and sending it spinning in little dervishes behind. He felt his breath coming in short gasps and endeavoured to master it.

“Mr Franks,” Hayden addressed the bosun softly. “Go to quarters…but with as little noise as can be managed. Mr Archer? There you are. Silence fore and aft; pass the word.”

“Aye, Mr Hayden,” Archer whispered.

Breakfast was forgotten. The watch below was roused quietly—no piping up hammocks—and bleary-eyed sailors crept onto the deck. The bulkheads had been taken down the previous day, and the gun-deck was clear but for the captain’s cabin, which Hayden could hear the men dismantling as silently as could be done. Landry popped out of the companionway aft, glanced around, and came immediately to the rail.

“Is it the
Themis
, Mr Hayden?”

“We don’t know, Mr Landry, but very likely.”

Guns were run out, sails dampened, the boats streamed aft. Glancing one to the other, men shifted about, saying nothing—anxious and excited, wondering if today would make their fortune or see them dead. A tired-looking Wickham materialized at the rail.

“Did she appear to be the
Themis
, Mr Wickham?” Hayden asked the acting lieutenant, who was a little out of breath.

“I think it was, Mr Hayden, but couldn’t be certain. She keeps to the same heading or very nearly so.”

Hayden nodded and was silent a moment, calming his mind so that he might weigh their situation. “Mr Barthe? Prepare to wear ship. Send the men to their stations and stand ready to shift our yards.”

“What have you in mind?” Landry asked.

“We will wear and try to range up astern of them. Before they know we’re there, we’ll rake them once.”

“Sail, sir!” Wickham’s arm shot up and he pointed into the mist.

Slowly, a ship began to take shape, sails and rigging, the dark smudge of a hull—impossible even to count the gunports.

“She is the
Themis
!” someone blurted.

“Silence, there,” Landry cautioned. And then to Hayden: “I do think the man was right. That is our ship…is it not?”

Whoever she was, Hayden was certain she was a frigate. She lay about an English mile distant, under lowers, topsails, and top-gallants, but the inconstant fog still obscured her sufficiently that Hayden could not be certain she bore the mutineers.

Wickham was gazing intently into his glass. “They’re going to quarters, sir.”

“And so passes our small advantage.” Hayden raised his own glass, damning the fog.

“Men are at their stations, Mr Hayden,” Barthe informed him. “Shall I give the order to wear?”

Hayden lowered his glass but did not take his eye from the distant vessel. “Wait but a moment, Mr Barthe. Let us be certain of this ship. We might want to slip off into the fog yet.”

“She’s running up her colours, Mr Hayden,” Wickham said quietly.

Hayden raised his glass in time to see a flag jerk to the mizzen gaff, waft once, then spread against the grey. “That would appear to be the
tricolore
upon the canton,” he said.

The silence was broken by whispering.

“She could easily be the
Themis
,” Mr Barthe asserted. “We flew the French ensign to confuse our enemies many a time. Many a time.”

Smoke blew out from the ship and a hoist of signals hauled aloft. An instant later the report reached them over the seas.

“If it is the
Themis
then they are hoping the fog will make that appear to be the French navy’s private signal,” Wickham ventured.

“Where is my writer?” Hayden asked. “Someone find Perse and send him down to my cabin for the book I had him put away this morning.”

Barthe looked at Hayden oddly, as though he thought it a strange time to do a little reading.

A moment later Perseverance Gilhooly came running onto the deck and put the weighty, sailcloth-covered volume into his master’s hand. Hayden tucked his glass under an arm and began thumbing the pages. After a moment he stopped at a loose page that had been inserted. “I fear, Mr Wickham, that these are not our mutineers. Either that, or they have learned the enemy’s private signal.” He turned and glanced around the quarterdeck. “Mr Archer? You read a little French?”

“I do, sir, though I do not speak it as well as yourself and Mr Wickham.”

“It will not matter.” Hayden gestured the young officer nearer, and showed him the book. “Here is the answer to the private signal. Run it up immediately, if you please.”

“Aye, sir.” Archer took the offered book. “Is this the French captain’s signal book?”

“It is.”

Archer stood a moment, stunned, then hurried to the flag cabinet.

“How in the world was that overlooked?” Barthe asked. “They had all the time in the world to throw it into the sea.”

“So they did, but it was entrusted to Monsieur Sanson, who kindly passed it along to me.”

“Three cheers for melancholy French gypsies, sir,” Wickham declared, making Hayden smile.

A moment later Archer ordered a gun fired and he ran up a hoist of flags in reply. Hayden stared at the distant vessel, still half-obscured in the grey.

“What effect has that had, Mr Wickham?”

“Difficult to be certain, sir, but I would venture that they appear a little relieved.”

“We will know if they answer our signal with a broadside,” Barthe muttered.

“On deck!”
the lookout cried. “Sail. Almost dead ahead.”

“Mr Wickham. Would you hop forward and see if you can distinguish the nationality of this ship? I hope we’re not in the middle of a French squadron. Mr Landry. Give the order—no calls in English. Let us not give ourselves away.”

Wickham jogged down the gangway, onto the forecastle, along with Hobson, and the two of them trained glasses forward. For a moment the middies made no move, and then Wickham whirled around.

“Capitaine
,” he called out.
“C’est l’anglaise. La
Themis.”

“Fucking hell,” Barthe muttered. “Mutineers ahead and a French frigate on our beam—no doubt fully manned. We’re in the fire now.” The master worried the stay he held by one hand, unable to hide his alarm.

Hayden hurried the length of the ship, joining the two midshipmen on the foredeck. “You’re certain, Mr Wickham?”

“I am, sir. The fog parted a moment and I could see her plainly. That is our ship, Captain. I know her.”

Raising his glass, Hayden picked out the frigate in question. The mist obscured her somewhat while he watched, but not so much that he couldn’t distinguish the French naval ensign as it was hoisted. A gun was fired and signals sent aloft, impossible to make out in the gloom.

“Well, they’re not as foolish as one might hope,” Hayden observed.

“Do you think they’ll deceive the Frenchman, sir?”

“Difficult to know.” Hayden glanced from the
Themis
to the French frigate. His situation had turned rather abruptly: two hostile ships, one fully manned, almost certainly. He wondered if he shouldn’t use the thinning fog to slip away, but somehow Hart lying below in a fury at his chase of the mutineers made this seem craven—the course a man like Hart would choose.

“Mr Wickham, if we open fire on the
Themis
do you think the Frenchman will realize we’re Englishmen in disguise?”

Wickham lowered his glass and gravely considered the question. “They will certainly presume that one of the two ships is British. What else could they think?”

An idea formed in Hayden’s mind—a rash idea, certainly, an idea fraught with hazards…“Exactly so,” he muttered. For a brief moment he hesitated—utterly unlike him—then turned to the other midshipman. “Mr Hobson, jump back to the quarterdeck and have Mr Archer make the signal for ‘chasing enemy vessel’ or whatever the French equivalent would be.”