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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Serie: Privateersman
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015
During the Napoleonic Wars, Harry and James Ludlow are aboard the Magnanime, a gunship under the command of Oliver Carter. Oliver and Harry are old rivals and when James is found near the dead body of the First Lieutenant, Carter assumes James is the murderer. Harry has to prove otherwise.
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The Devil’s Own Luck
DAVID DONACHIE
Contents
To Vince and Tommy
CHAPTER ONE
HARRY LUDLOW should have run as soon as he spotted the frigate’s topsails on the horizon, and got on with his proper business, the taking of French merchantmen for profit. Warships could be left to the Navy.
Now hull-up, she had been speedily identified as the Verite, a twenty-eight-gun frigate. Speedily identified because half the sailors aboard the Medusa were ex-Royal Navy, including Harry himself. Mind, they could not be sure that in a fit of revolutionary fervour the French had not renamed her. It was no great surprise to find the Verite in these waters. Given the recent activities of the Medusa, it was remarkable that they had not encountered something like her sooner. War had been declared two months before. Harry, working double tides, had got to sea before the fleet, cruising between the approaches to Brest, La Rochelle, and the Gironde estuary. He had taken a number of well-laden Frenchmen, and was already in profit from the enterprise.
Perhaps that was why he had decided to bait the Verite. He could outsail her in most instances. The Medusa was a fast-sailing schooner of graceful lines. Perhaps the Frenchman could best him in a really heavy sea. But given that as an exception, the Verite would have to catch him completely unawares to have a chance of taking or destroying him. Yet here he was, playing with her, deliberately not sailing at his best, drawing her on after him. And very likely, this was no chance encounter. The merchants of the coastal towns from Bordeaux to Brest would have complained loudly about their losses in ships and valuable cargo. Many voices would have been raised, insisting that something be done to rid them of this pest.
The proper course of action for a privateer was to get as far away as possible from such a potential threat. Harry had quite deliberately chosen to do the opposite. He was now the object of much curiosity, since he hadn’t bothered to explain what he was about.
His brother James had been the first to air his doubts, using the privilege of being both family and a shareholder in the Medusa to question the captain’s decision.
‘A little sport?’
‘We’re not out here for sport, Harry,’ said James, putting aside his sketch pad.
Harry just smiled, not the normal reaction of a captain whose orders have been questioned.
‘I’m not sure that it is entirely sport.’ His brother’s question had taken him slightly unawares, forcing him to examine motives which, till that moment, had been instinctive.
‘Then what is it?’ There was no rancour in the question. James was no sailor and he readily acknowledged it. He would defer to his elder brother in all matters nautical. But he was no fool, and he was curious.
‘I think she came out looking for us.’
‘All the more reason to avoid her. If she gets within range she’ll blow us out of the water. Even I know that.’
‘She won’t get within range.’
‘She’s gaining on us now.’
Harry gave his brother an amused look, aware that even someone as inexperienced as James knew that the Medusa was not sailing at her best. Rigged as she was the Medusa could sail very close to the wind. Heading north, with a steady west-nor’-west breeze, she had more than an edge on the Verite. James had watched the crew ease the braces to loosen the mainmast sails so that they would not draw their best. Eased just enough to look, from a distance, as though the Medusa was really trying to get away. He had also done a quick sketch of the crew putting the kedge over the side, four barrels lashed together, with just enough ballast to keep them below the surface. This, acting as a drag on the ship, further reduced her rate of sailing. James, using the excuse of his inexperience at sea, was determined to make his brother explain. And not only for himself. He was the only one who dared ask, and it was plain from the looks Harry was getting that James was not the only one who had doubts.
‘I confess that I’m an ignorant lubber, Harry. But I can smoke a risk as quick as the next man. And since you’re the one who’s always harping on about taking no chances at sea, it being such an unforgiving element, it seems a strange way to be going on.’
Much nodding of heads greeted this remark. The crew, especially after their recent successes, had a lot of faith in their captain. They knew him to be a ‘proper seaman,’ equally at home on the quarterdeck of a hundred-gun ship as on a minnow like the Medusa. A man who had been at sea since before he was breeched, and who’d had charge of all classes of ship in all manner of weather. A man who’d survived the terrible carnage of a proper sea battle, for Harry, as a junior lieutenant, had taken part in the Battle of the Saintes. Their captain had spent more time afloat than he had on land. He was the type to be careful of his ship and his crew, and given that nothing could be sure at sea, they felt safe in his hands. A few reassuring words and all would be well. There was only one problem. He didn’t know what to tell them. Was his behaviour a hang-over from his Navy days, an ingrained desire to do battle with the enemy? Or was it the streak of unpredictability in his nature which had caused him so much trouble in the past, trouble which had placed him here, aboard the Medusa, rather than on the quarterdeck of a man-of-war?
James deserved an answer. Yet how to describe something made up from so many strands of experience? Harry was, quite literally, at home on water. He knew the elements, all his senses tuned to pick up the constant variations in the weather and the state of the sea. And he knew, just by looking at the Verite, a whole mass of things which would take for ever to explain. He knew that the plan he had yet to fully form had a reasonable chance of success. He had observed the way the frigate was handled. How to distil that into a simple reply?
‘If she came out looking for us, we must find a way to discourage her.’
‘Surely the fact that she cannot catch us will suffice for that?’
‘Not so, James. How we must have hurt the French trade. Our name and activities here, I think, stung them into sending out a warship to either take us, or chase us away. I suppose we should take that as a compliment.’
‘That still doesn’t explain why we are not doing everything in our power to avoid them.’ James gave Harry a look that made it plain that he was not going to be fobbed off.
‘I am not obliged to explain my actions, even to you, brother.’ Harry said this quietly, with a smile. Not always a gentle man, he still felt the need to treat James with respect. How different his brother looked from the gaunt creature who had come aboard at the beginning of their voyage.
‘You’re ready enough to explain everything else we do, why not this?’ James picked up his sketch pad again, and with quick strokes started to draw Harry, an action which had one purpose. It allowed him to remain silent.
Harry’s smile grew even broader.
‘I have obviously not explained fully, that aboard ship a captain’s word is law.’
‘What about a brother’s word?’
‘Such distinctions do not exist at sea.’ Harry indicated the Verite. ‘But since I have brought you out to sea to make a sailor of you, I see no harm in continuing your education.’
‘You’re wasting your time, brother, I’m only fit to haul on a rope. If Father was still alive, he would disown me.’
The idea of James, even now dressed in a smart buff coat, hauling on ropes, was absurd. Harry, yes. They were similar in appearance, if you excluded girth. Both handsome men with fair hair, Harry was broad and his face weather-beaten. His clothes, no matter what the quality, rarely made him look like a gentleman. James was pale, slim, and elegant, his movements refined. His natural milieu was the drawing room of a grand house, not the quarterdeck of a ship. He behaved in a manner that befitted a rising artist, someone whose commissions were shown in the salons where the rich and influential gathered, a man who’d been proposed as a member of the Royal Academy.
When Harry was a boy, their father had been a senior naval captain. While the family was comfortable, they were not wealthy. He’d entered his eldest son on the books of his ship as soon as he could, committing him to following in his father’s footsteps. By the time James came along, their father had become an admiral. By the proper exercise of influence, he had secured for himself a three-year term of command in the West Indies, retiring from that with a substantial fortune. Admiral Ludlow then did the proper thing; bought a country estate, including a couple of parliamentary seats, and set himself up as a landed gentleman. His younger son had, quite properly, been kept away from a life at sea. For him, it had been tutors, school, and university. Gilded youth, some said. Had the recent scandal destroyed all that?
‘If you look closely, James,’ Harry continued, his glass trained on the frigate, ‘you will observe that the man who is in command of the Frenchman is lacking in sea-going experience. His crew are not much better. And he seems to have put to sea in something of a hurry.’
‘How so?’ James put aside his pad and raised his telescope to look at the frigate.
‘First, his ship is not properly trimmed. He’s stowed his holds badly. She seems to be down at the head. The way he has rigged her sails is making this worse. It is a common mistake to assume that the more sails you set, the faster you will go through the water.’
James had a noncommittal look on his face. He knew that Harry, ten years his senior, would want him to say something intelligent, something that would demonstrate that Harry’s lengthy explanations, these last weeks, were having some effect. But for the life of him he could think of no observation that would please his elder brother.
‘Observe how his bowsprit dips into the sea. He is overpressing her,’ said Harry patiently. ‘That is, pushing her head down even more, increasing the drag on the bows, slowing himself quite considerably.’
‘Perhaps he is playing with us.’
‘Now that would be an interesting game!’ Harry’s eyes lit up at the prospect.
‘Which takes us back to my original question. You have yet to explain the purpose of the game.’
‘The purpose?’ said Harry, with feigned surprise. ‘Why, I intend that she should be taken or destroyed.’
‘Then you had better pray for some assistance.’ James indicated the guns on the deck. They were not enough to take or destroy a frigate.
‘You know me, brother. I’m not much given to prayer. I’m happier with a fine calculation of chances.’
‘A fine private calculation?’
Harry laughed out loud.
‘James. You are incorrigible. Father was right to educate you. You would never have made a King’s officer.’
‘You mean I would actually be able to uphold a family tradition. Now that would be unusual.’ This time they both laughed. Few people could make a joke of Harry’s dismissal from the service. James was one of them.
They were more like friends than brothers. Perhaps it was the difference in age which had kept them from mutual jealousy. Harry, away at sea most of the time, had always been a hero to James. As a small boy, nothing pleased him more than his elder brother’s homecoming. Harry, perhaps because of the long separations, loved James, and was open in his affections. Naturally, as James grew older, his awe and hero worship had been replaced by insolence until he had reached an age where, despite the ten-year gap, they could behave as equals.
Equals with different skills. Harry had spent his life at sea, first in the Navy, and then, after his dismissal from the service, in the running of fast cargoes from the Indies. James, with his better formal education, could show away in Latin and Greek, and discourse wisely on philosophy. But his first love was art. He had studied under Reynolds, taking a basic ability to draw and turning it into a sought-after gift for painting.
Harry was as lost in a drawing room as his brother was on a quarterdeck. Even his sister, Anne, who adored both her brothers, would blush for shame at some of Harry’s more blatant gaucheries. But home was in the country, and Harry compensated for the occasional faux pas with his daredevil attitudes. He rode harder to hounds than any of their neighbours, played effective, if unstylish, cricket, and always entered for the more physical competitions at the local fair.
Both had sadly neglected the duties that fell upon them as heirs to a great deal of land, wealth, and influence, leaving that task, after their father’s death, to their sister Anne’s husband. Arthur, Lord Drumdryan was a man with a title, but no money of his own. Their brother-in-law had happily taken it upon himself to ensure that neither their wealth nor their influence were in any way diminished by their frequent absence. He appointed the two members who sat for the parliamentary seats that Harry controlled, and corresponded regularly and fluently with whoever was in power. For this Arthur was rewarded with a life of luxury that he could otherwise never have attained. It was one of the few points of friction that existed between Harry and James. Affable Harry liked Arthur well enough. James, seeing instead a stiff pedant, couldn’t abide him.
Harry reflected that, given the gossip that was current in town, James had chosen to accompany him on his voyage as the lesser of two evils. That he had to leave London was plain. The thought of facing their brother-in-law in such a situation would, for James, be intolerable. And in this respect Arthur was just as much at fault. For a man who prided himself on the quality of his manners, he showed a singular lack of restraint when it came to what he saw as James’s failings.
Country or sea air, it seemed to have had a positive effect. James had been drinking to excess just a few weeks before, seeking to drown his sorrows. Now he was, again, the rational, urbane man that Harry remembered. The cause had never been mentioned. James might have had the words to eloquently describe his difficulties, but his brother certainly lacked the verbal skills to effect a cure. And given his own chequered past, Harry was not humbug enough to remonstrate with James.
Arthur would not have been able to contain himself, which would have led to another family row, another demand from James that their brother-in-law took too much upon himself.
Yet where would Harry be without him. Certainly not here, in the Bay of Biscay. It was Arthur, who, hounding the Admiralty, had arranged Harry’s Letters of Marque, permitting him to sail as a privateer, plus the exemptions needed to crew the Medusa in time of war, when the nation was chronically short of proper sailors.
‘You still haven’t told me what you intend. I’m beginning to suspect that you don’t know yourself.’
That had been true when James had first asked, but now Harry, as usual thinking while he was talking, had ordered his thoughts, putting aside the nagging suspicion that he was behaving impetuously.
‘If she’s come out looking for us, then giving her the slip won’t stop her. In fact, it will tell her more about us than I’d want her to know. If we stay in these waters we are bound to run into her again. First she would try to catch us out, like being upwind of us at first light and close enough to get off a couple of broadsides before we could get out of range.’
‘And if that fails?’
‘There are lots of other possibilities. But if we continued to evade her, it would only be a matter of time before she came after us with a couple of consorts.’
‘Can the French muster three frigates just to chase us?’
‘They wouldn’t have to be frigates, James. Even a couple of ships smaller than the Medusa would answer. As long as they could slow us down enough for her to come up and finish us. Right now, what she needs to know is how fast we sail, and how the Medusa handles.’
‘Can she really learn that much from this distance?’
‘Why yes! You can tell a great deal from just observing the way a ship sails. About her crew, and her captain.’
‘That explains her actions, Harry, not ours.’
‘So we turn the tables on her. I want to draw her on, into exactly the kind of situation that I suspect she would be forced to use on us. With this wind it’s the best chance we’ve got. Somewhere over the horizon are the frigates of the squadron blockading Brest. We must interest one of them in the Verite.’
‘But won’t she turn and run if she spies a British warship?’
‘I expect so. But then it will be our job to slow her down, and let our ship come up to engage. A neat reversal, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Harry. You’re mad.’
‘Am I, James?’ Again that nagging suspicion that his brother might be right. ‘If I am going to have to fight this fellow, I would rather fight her in company than alone. And I think I can keep us out of harm’s way for long enough to make that happen.’
‘And in this fine calculation of chances, how long have you allowed?’
‘Till nightfall. If we haven’t come across one of our warships by then, we’ll slip the kedge and outrun her in the dark. That way she will not see our rate of sailing.’
James pulled a gold hunter from his waistcoat pocket.
‘We have about ten hours,’ said Harry.
‘The whole plan is ingenious.’ There was a twinkle in James’s eye.
‘I think so,’ said Harry.
‘Especially considering you have only just thought it up.’
Harry tried to look stern and uncomprehending, but the smile forced its way through.
‘I have to have some pleasure in life, brother, and besides, as you have often remarked, I have the devil’s own luck.’
They sailed on through the morning, the Verite slowly gaining on the Medusa. Harry kept a strict naval routine on the ship, echoing the Navy in the way he split the watches and messed the men. The Medusa, fully manned, was a crowded ship, again just like a man-of-war. Fast, and armed with twelve nine-pounders, her job was to capture merchantmen, not destroy them. For that she needed men to form boarding parties and to provide prize crews after a successful action. That they could also handle the guns with speed and accuracy was a commendable bonus, one that Harry had insisted on. Most of his fellow privateersmen would not have bothered to expend the money on powder and shot necessary to make their crew proficient in that area. Harry, perhaps more prescient, knew that if he stayed at sea long enough he was bound to encounter an enemy warship. Good gunnery could mean the difference between escape or capture.
The lookout in the tops gave the cry of ‘sail ho’ at about two o’clock, just as the watch was changing. Everyone stayed on deck as the sail was identified as a British 74-gun ship.
‘I’d have preferred a frigate,’ said Harry, raising his glass to his eye. ‘Though with this fellow, it may not make a great deal of difference.’ He indicated the Frenchman.
‘Let me know the minute you make her number,’ he shouted to the lookout. Harry reached into a locker and came out with an official naval signal book.
‘As part of your nautical education, James, I shall give you the honour of supervising the raising of the signals.’
‘Aye, aye, Captain,’ said James, touching his forelock and assuming a gruff lower-deck voice. ‘Would ye care to be a-telling me which one?’
‘I think we could start with “Enemy in sight.” He should deduce from that we are being chased. Then our name, letter by letter, and the signal for a Letter of Marque. He should be able to tell from that who we are.’
‘Might he not also deduce that he is being tricked?’ James was already leafing through the signal book, looking for the flags required.
‘He’ll come and have a look. Once he’s seen the Verite he’ll give chase. Even together we represent no threat to a seventy-four.’
‘How can you be so sure of all this?’
Again Harry looked mildly surprised.
‘I mean, how can you assume that this fellow will understand your intentions. Can you be sure that he will try to attack the enemy?’
‘He won’t be in command long if he fails to! They shot Admiral Byng for failure in that quarter.’
‘All right, but how can you then be so sure that he will do what you want him to?’
‘He doesn’t have to do what I want him to. He just has to do the right thing.’ Harry said this so emphatically that further questioning seemed superfluous. Yet James was as aware as anyone of the gap that existed between an officer’s duty and his actions.
‘What we have to hope is that she is not one of the Forty Thieves, because if she is, we might as well abandon the whole thing.’
Harry was referring to a class of ship, seventy-four gunners, that, in an age noted for its corruption, were notorious for the poor quality of their build. They were slow, slab-sided tubs made of green timber that leaked in any kind of sea. It was one of the great burdens of the Navy that, being so numerous, they formed the backbone of the fleet. That they were also known as ‘widow makers’ testified to the number that had been lost in storms.
‘Will that make it difficult?’
‘It will probably make it impossible. I can only seriously delay that Frenchman for so long without endangering our ship. Eventually we are bound to sustain some damage. And if he does manage to get a clear shot at us …’ Harry shrugged his shoulders, but the meaning was plain.
‘I don’t suppose that anyone will persuade you to drop the whole idea?’ Harry looked sharply at his brother. ‘And it is not fear that makes me say that.’
‘I can’t stand the suspense,’ said Harry, glancing aloft. ‘I shall have to go and have a look myself.’ They both knew he was ducking the question.
Harry tucked his telescope into his belt, and headed for the shrouds. These ran, like an ever-decreasing rope ladder, from the side of the ship up into the top. Harry climbed up the mainmast shrouds, then on to the topmast shrouds. He climbed up to the crosstrees, slinging his leg over the topmast yard and allowing his body to roll with the action of the ship. He nodded to the lookout, and raised his glass to his eye.
The seventy-four, just a sail on the horizon to the naked eye, leapt into plain view. His heart gave a little flip as he recognised the Magnanime. He had sailed in her as a lad when his father was captain. He knew her to be a flyer despite her age. She had been captured from the French by Anson. Many ships since built by British yards had been broken up, but the Magnanime sailed on. Built from timber cut on the site, put together under cover instead of being allowed to rot in the open, she was visible proof of the ability of the French to design and build better ships than the British.
If her bottom was clean and her timbers still sound she could manage twelve knots in this wind. That might explain her position, out here on the edge of the area patrolled by the blockading squadrons, a role normally reserved for the frigates. He watched her for a while, noting the way she was sailing and remembering his days aboard her as a young, and mischievous, midshipman. Captain Ludlow had seen his eldest son stretched across a gun many times, stoically receiving a beating for some escapade or other.
Harry turned his glass back to look at the Verite. The way she was being handled, the Magnanime might even have the legs of her. It all depended on the seventy-four’s captain. He didn’t know who had her now, but from the mere knowledge that it was such a fine, fast sailing ship, he could finalise the details of his plan.
Handing his glass to the lookout, he slid down a backstay to the deck and snapped out the orders to stand by. Orders that would cast off the kedge, trim the sails, and man the guns. James tried to stay out of the way as this operation was carried out. The deck was suddenly still, everyone in their place, ready for the moment when the Verite sighted the Magnanime.
CHAPTER TWO
THE CRY of ‘sail ho’ did not interrupt the punishment taking place on the deck of the Magnanime. Very few of the crew, brought aft to witness the punishment, turned their heads from the bloody scene before them. The grating was rigged, and the bos’n, sweating freely, was finishing his two dozen with the cat. The man had long since passed the point where he could feel any pain. He hung limp, the ropes binding him to the grating cutting into his wrists, the blood running freely down his torn back and staining his grimy duck trousers at the waistband. He was the third member of the crew to receive a flogging on this occasion, and the deck leading from the grating to the stairwell was already liberally spotted with dark red stains. The canvas at the man’s feet, laid down to catch the blood, was swimming with the rapidly blackening gore, as it mixed with the sea water which had been thrown over the gaping wounds of the previous ‘offenders.’
As soon as the punishments ended, hands would be set to swabbing and holystoning the deck. More flogging would follow if it was not returned to its previous snow-white condition. No one would speak out at this, for it only took a malignant officer to imagine that he overheard any dissent to make a case which could have a man hanging from the yard-arm for mutiny. Thus men whose daily lot was back-breaking work, on a diet of poor food and often foul water, with constant exposure to disease, death, and injury, said nothing, refusing even to glance at their commander, lest he see the look of hate in their eyes.
Oliver Carter, himself looking at the deck, did not even raise his eyes to the lacerated back as the cry came, and since he did not move, neither did anyone else. They were not entirely still. Bentley, the first lieutenant, his eyes fixed steadily on the man hanging limp on the grating, was swaying perceptibly, an action which had little to do with the motion of the ship.
The other officers stood in various poses, seemingly indifferent to the scene. They had observed much of this in their life, too much on this commission, and it would never do to be seen to be moved by it. The marines, lined up on the poop, muskets in their hands, looked out over everyone’s head towards the bows. Only their officer, Mr Turnbull, evinced any interest in the scene taking place beneath their noses. The parson, Mr Crevitt, stood Bible in hand, silently mouthing a prayer. He too gazed at the victim’s back, but he seemed to do it from a sense of duty, a feeling that he could not offer comfort if he had not observed the pain. The bucket of salt water was thrown over the man’s back as the bos’n put the blood-stained cat back into its red baize sack.
Outhwaite, the surgeon, ran forward as they cut him down. He examined the man quickly, and ordered the waiting seamen to take their messmate below. He stood, looking at his captain, who seemed to be in some kind of trance. Carter suddenly realised that Outhwaite was looking at him. It seemed to bring him back to the present. Bentley, too, seemed to awake from his dreamlike state.
‘Punishment completed, sir,’ he said, looking around, as if unsure that what he said was correct.
Carter stood beside Bentley, with the look of a man waiting for something on his face. The other officers deliberately turned their heads away, wishing neither to assist their first lieutenant, nor to risk the wrath of their unpredictable commander by acknowledging that the second-in-command had failed to behave correctly. Bentley was rescued by the lookout, who chose to complete the message.
‘Schooner fine on the weather bow.’
‘Permission to dismiss the men, sir,’ said Bentley.
‘Carry on, Mr Bentley,’ said Carter coldly. Even in the lofty tone normally used by a captain when issuing orders, his lack of regard for Bentley was manifest.
The orders were given. The men dispersed slowly, their feelings for what they had just witnessed plain in their gait. At this point the captain would normally have left the deck, but he stayed, waiting to hear details of the other ship.
‘Sail has hoisted a signal,’ cried the lookout.
‘Get the hands about their duties, Mr Craddock,’ snapped Bentley, turning to the second lieutenant, an elderly red-faced man. Aware that Carter was staring at him, Bentley pulled himself erect and sent a midshipman aloft with a telescope. The midshipman called down the number of the flags. Another young gentleman leafed through the signal book.
‘The sail is signalling “Enemy in sight” sir.’
Silence followed this shout. Bentley was shaking his head, as if to clear it.
‘Ask her to make her number, Mr Bentley,’ said Carter, plainly angry.
‘She hoisted a fresh signal, sir,’ said the voice from above. Shout followed shout as the signal midshipman on the quarterdeck deciphered the message.
‘She’s the Medusa, sir,’ said the young man finally. Then after a pause to read the last few flags, ‘Privateer.’
‘Privateer,’ shouted Carter, his face going red. ‘What the devil is a privateer doing flying naval signals?’
‘Why, I imagine he is trying to tell us something, sir.’ Bentley made no attempt to mitigate the sarcastic tone in his voice. Though accustomed to Bentley’s insolent air with the captain, the other officers registered embarrassment. Carter flushed bright red.
‘He has no right to tell us anything in that manner, Mr Bentley. And neither have you.’
‘Aye, aye, sir,’ said Bentley quickly, but there was a trace of a smile on his lips. He walked up to his captain and spoke quietly in his ear.
‘If I’m not mistaken the Medusa is owned by Harry Ludlow.’
Carter said nothing, but the look of anger turned to one of shock.
‘Another sail, same bearing,’ cried the midshipman that Bentley had sent aloft.
‘He’s giving me orders, damn him,’ snapped Carter.
‘She’s flying French colours, sir.’ Then almost without a pause: ‘She’s let fly her sheets. Medusa has worn. She’s signalling, sir. “General chase”.’
Bentley, coming to life, started to rap out a series of orders that would bring all hands on deck and send men up into the tops to set more sail.
‘Mr Bentley,’ screamed Carter. ‘Belay!’
Everyone stopped where they were. Was this the long-awaited confrontation? No one knew why such a hard horse captain allowed Bentley such liberties. They had waited a long time for the moment when Carter would haul him up with a round turn.
‘Belay, sir?’ said Bentley quietly. Again that smile.
‘Are you obeying the instructions of a bloody privateer, man?’
Carter’s shouted question ignored the presence of everyone else. Yet they were left to wonder why a captain was brought to discussing his orders, publicly, on his own quarterdeck.
‘I am seeking to profit from the news she is giving us. If the Medusa is running, she can only be running from a superior enemy. That would imply that the chase is French. Perhaps a warship?’
Carter’s face froze. Bentley was talking to him in the most outrageous manner, completely ignoring the courtesies required when addressing a superior officer. He also had the right of it, and no one would really understand Carter’s hesitation.
‘Permission to make more sail, sir,’ said Bentley.
‘Carry on, Mr Bentley.’ It was hissed rather than spoken. Carter turned his back on Bentley, wanting no one to see the expression on his face.
Harry rapped out his orders as the Verite, having sighted the Magnanime, shot up into the wind, her sails flapping. The cable holding the kedge was cut, and the parties manning the falls let go of the sails. The man at the wheel spun it quickly and the Medusa wore round. Another command had the men hauling again, this time bowsing the sails tight. The Medusa was round, with the wind abaft the beam, and heading quickly for the Verite before the Frenchman, having missed stays in his attempt to tack, had got any way on him.
Harry, having had James standing by, added the signal ‘General chase’ to the one already flying. He knew that he risked causing offence. No naval officer would take kindly to any sort of command from a mere privateer. But he could think of no other clear way to signal his intentions, other than the use of the Navy’s own signal book. He left the signal flying long enough to ensure that it had been read, before hauling it down and replacing it with ‘Am engaging.’
The seventy-four was cracking on. Harry saw sails flashing in and out as the captain looked for his best point of sailing. The Magnanime heeled over under the press of sail, her lower larboard ports under water as she shot along, her bowsprit sending up great cascades of water. Harry himself was gaining fast on the Verite. His first task was to outreach her and get ahead so that the Medusa could interfere with her attempts at flight. But before that he must sting her in the tail, sting her so hard that she would turn to deal with him while the gap between her and the Magnanime was still wide enough to ensure escape.
The guns were run out to starboard. He could not run out his larboard guns. The heel of the ship was too great to allow that. But they had been run out, loaded, run back in, and bowsed tight inboard. They were ready to fire the minute the Medusa shortened sail and the deck became level again. Right now it was like a pitched roof.
Harry stood there, his arm looped round a backstay as he watched the relative positions of the three ships. He was gaining fast on the Verite. He raised his glass to watch the Frenchman’s quarterdeck. At all costs he must ensure that they didn’t best him by turning to fight him before he had got into position. Again he noticed how the French captain was overpressing her, pushing her head down by carrying too many upper sails, more obvious now with the wind pushing him forcefully. That, and what he had seen of her attempt to bear up and get away, underlined his earlier feeling that it was not only the captain who lacked experience, but the entire crew.
The whole scene seemed to freeze. Men stood still, and to an untrained eye so did the ships. The gain seemed barely noticeable, and James, exhilarated in spite of his doubts, felt the first pangs of impatience begin to invade his excitement. His drawing materials had been put aside.
‘How long before we catch him?’ he shouted to his brother.
‘Within the hour,’ said Harry, as though that meant immediately.
They raced on, with only the position of the Medusa seeming to alter, as she slowly increased the distance between herself and the seventy-four, and drew closer to the Verite. Yet the seventy-four was gaining. Harry could see the French officers plainly now, gathered at the taffrail, their glasses concentrated on the Magnanime. They would be content, sure that if need be they could deal with him and still get away. He was looking forward to surprising them.
Harry steered the Medusa until she was sitting in the Frenchman’s wake. There was a flash from the stern and he saw the ball fired by the stern chaser fly overhead to land harmlessly in his wake. They would keep shooting at him, hoping that they would wound a spar, or even better the mast, and thus reduce his speed.
‘Is there nothing we can do in reply, Harry?’ shouted James, as the second ball sent up a plume of water on the starboard side.
‘Not for a while. We could only use the starboard chaser, and on this deck I would think we would just be wasting powder and shot. But when we pay them back, it will be more than in kind.’
Ball followed ball, one better aimed than the rest going clean through the maincourse, leaving a neat round hole. But they missed the wood, their prime target if they were to achieve anything. Harry gave orders to stand by. Men ran along the steeply sloping deck to take up their various stations. Harry knew that his guns were pitifully light for an action against even the smallest frigate, but his attack would be delivered against the unprotected stern. Any ball that could penetrate the deadlights, which had been shipped to cover the frigate’s stern windows, would run the whole length of the lower deck. The potential for damage to wood was minimal. But flesh and blood could not withstand it. His aim, anyway, was to make him turn, and seek to rid himself of this pest.
Harry yelled the command and the way came off the Medusa, as the quartermaster swung the wheel. She came round, her starboard guns facing the stern of the Verite. Harry did not fire a broadside, but instead instructed each gun to fire as it bore. One by one the guns went off, smashing into the heavy wooden shutters. He could hear the sound of breaking glass as one shot followed through the hole made by the previous round. He shouted again, and those men set to look after the sails hauled on their ropes to bring the yards round. The Medusa caught the wind, and as the guns were reloaded she set off again in pursuit of the quarry.
Three times Harry carried out this manoeuvre, but instead of firing into the stern of the Verite he set his guns at maximum elevation, firing on the up-roll, both trying to hit a spar, as well as unnerving those directing the battle from the quarterdeck of the frigate. The actual damage he caused was minimal, but the French captain could not let the Medusa just continue, since she was bound to inflict some serious damage eventually.
Harry, gaining speed in the wake of the Verite after his fourth sally, saw the French crew rushing to man the sheets. These ropes, once loosened, would allow the yards to swing, taking the pressure off the sails. The helmsman could then use the rudder and the remaining forward movement of the ship to swing her broadside on to the Medusa, bringing her guns to bear on the smaller ship that would, if properly aimed, inflict terrible damage.
But this was just what Harry had set out to do. First to get the Verite to confront him, thus slowing her down. Then to use the superior sailing qualities of the Medusa to get past the Frenchman. Placed in front of her, the task of slowing her down would be simpler. The question was, which way would the Verite turn? Would she tack or wear?
Harry had all his men in place. He watched the rudder, hanging from the great sternpost, waiting. He wanted to pass her stern close to, and fire a full broadside into it as he did so. He saw the sails flap as the yards were released. The rudder started to swing the Verite to starboard. He set the wheel and trimmed the Medusa’s yards to take her to larboard. It was a dangerous manoeuvre. If the Frenchman came round quickly, she would get a broadside off at him before he could get out of the way. Harry was entirely reliant upon their lack of skill.
The side of the Verite started to show, the row of open gunports coming into view. He could see the men on the guns trying to lever them round so that they could fire on the Medusa as soon as possible. The Verite, coming up into the wind, was trying to use that to check her way. Harry needed the same wind to escape. It was kinder to him than it was to the Frenchman, whose sails were simply not coming in quick enough for a speedy manoeuvre. Harry, at the wheel himself, had the wind perfectly placed abaft the beam. Still, it was a narrow scrape. The Verite’s side disappeared in a cloud of smoke. One shot smashed the stern lantern, but the rest fell harmlessly, churning up the sea behind him.
‘Back the foretopsail,’ he yelled as he came across her stern. The Medusa’s speed was slightly checked, and as she drifted by the Verite his gunners, now firing from a steady platform, poured a telling broadside into the Frenchman at point-blank range.
‘Man the braces,’ he shouted. ‘Haul away!’ The foretopsail was hauled tight again and the Medusa sailed past the Frenchman. Harry let her pay off to keep his ship out of the arc of the enemy’s guns. He saw that they were setting sail again. But now he was ahead of them, and he could see that the last manoeuvre had cost the Verite a good mile. The Magnanime was coming up hand over fist.
Now the most dangerous part of the game had to be played. He had to slow his opponent down when she had the weather gage. Up until then he had held the advantage of the wind. He loaded his guns with grape. His guns were too light to cause any serious damage to the mainmasts of a warship at this range, but a steady diet of grapeshot across her deck would make them shear away, slowing their progress. As long as they did not take the wind out of his sails he would be able to manoeuvre. If it should happen that the Verite got between him and the wind, he would be at the Frenchman’s mercy, and that, even with poor gunnery, could only have one result.
He darted in and out firing his guns from a position on her larboard quarter, then turning away and using his speed to get out of harm’s way. And his plan was working. The Verite, faced with his assaults, could not maintain her best rate of sailing, constantly having to shear away to avoid his thrusts. The Magnanime was closing. Four times he stood in towards her quarter and fired his deadly grapeshot. The screams could be clearly heard across the intervening sea. The Verite replied with as many of her forward guns as could be brought to bear, but these were few, and wildly aimed.
The critical moment was approaching, the time when he would have to actually take station across the bows of the Verite, a time when she would have to turn to meet the bigger enemy bearing down on her. At that moment she would be doomed, for the Magnanime would do as much damage to the Verite as the Verite could do to the Medusa.
‘Bar shot,’ he called to the gun captains. He was going in much closer on this attack. So now he would aim at the sails, using two ingots linked by chain to slice through some of his opponent’s rigging. If she was busy splicing ropes, she would have fewer men free to man the guns on both sides. Harry turned to his brother, who stood at the taffrail, sketching madly, as he tried to record the scene for a future series of paintings.
‘We come to the high point of the action, James,’ he shouted. ‘You will observe the Magnanime will soon be shortening sail, reducing to topsails only. She will turn to face our foe, and seek to rake the Verite. If the French captain is wise, he will fire a broadside for the sake of his honour, then strike his flag. I fear I must leave the Navy to take the man’s sword, but I will try to get you over there in time to record the ceremony.’
James just smiled and waved, then carried on drawing.
Harry gave the orders that brought the Medusa round yet again. The French captain might be inexperienced, but he was no fool. He knew what was coming, and the action of the Medusa had ceased to interest him. He had manned his starboard guns and was turning to face the Magnanime, himself shortening sail to avoid the risk of fire.
‘Aim high,’ shouted Harry. ‘He’ll be down to topsails soon.’ The Medusa was practically stationary, Harry having reduced sail, just like the Verite which lay broadside on to her, her larboard guns unmanned. He could see the topsails of the Magnanime through the enemy rigging. He gave the command and the Medusa’s guns spoke. He heard the whistle of the bar shot as it sliced its way towards his now vulnerable foe. He was in high spirits, his face flushed; he knew that success was assured.
At that moment his face froze. The Magnanime should have come on, ready to turn and pour a broadside into the Frenchman. Instead he saw the bigger ship back its topsail and lose what little forward speed it still maintained. It was heaving to, out of range of the enemy’s guns, leaving him at the mercy of the Verite. There was a period in which no one moved, except his brother, who was still drawing furiously, unaware of the danger. He saw the gunners on the Verite rush to the larboard side. Their guns were already loaded and run out. His, aimed at the rigging and reloaded with bar shot, were useless.
He just had time to turn round and shout to his brother to get down, when the side of the Verite erupted in smoke. The world exploded around him, guns were dismounted, the side was smashed and the deadly splinters took their toll. He started to give commands that would get his ship under way, removing her from this arc of certain destruction, but hearing the cracking sound of wood splitting, he looked up to see the mainmast breaking above the cap. There was a tearing and crashing sound as it ripped apart the rigging. Blocks were falling and men were running as the great length of timber crashed to the deck. Harry opened his mouth to shout as something hit him. He staggered then collapsed on deck, blood streaming from his head. He tried to rise. Surprised to see James still standing with a shocked look on his face. Then there was blackness.
CHAPTER THREE
THE BRIGHT blue sky hurt his eyes as he tried to open them. He was aware of the light, the pain in his head, and a powerful smell of bad breath as a silhouetted head came between him and the sky. Another dark shape obscured some of the sky.
‘Back, sir, I pray. Let him breathe some air.’ The other head pulled back and Harry heard his brother’s voice.
‘Will he survive?’
‘Too early to say, sir. Too early to say.’
In the background Harry could hear shouted commands. Men were moving about, blocks were creaking and ropes straining. He judged by the motion of the deck that he was still aboard ship. But which ship? He struggled to sit upright. The sharp pain in his head made him fall back again.
‘Easy now, sir,’ said the man above him. Any comfort intended from the words was entirely washed away by the foul blast of air. Harry lay back, the memory of the action with the Verite filling his mind. Something had gone wrong, and he could not think what it was. Why had the Magnanime hove to at the critical moment?
‘Mr Outhwaite. I would be obliged if you could move your patient below. We are about to commence firing.’
The voice cut through Harry’s pain. At first he refused to believe that he had heard right. But Outhwaite’s reply laid any doubt.
‘A few moments more, Captain Carter, if you please. No good will be served by killing a man for the sake of a minute.’
‘Waste not a minute,’ said Harry.
‘You remember, Ludlow.’ Another shadow stood over him.
Harry lifted his head again. This time he ignored the pain. He started to get up from the deck. Hands grabbed him to help him up. He stood swaying, trying both to remain standing and to focus on the man before him.
‘Harry?’ James’s voice was full of concern.
‘A fine calculation, James. Is that not what I said?’
‘You must come below, sir,’ said Outhwaite.
‘I calculated everything, James. Everything except the fact that this man would be captain of the Magnanime.’
Harry tried to point at Carter. But he was too weak to raise his arm.
Oliver Carter was not as tall as Harry remembered. Or was it the fact that he had grown fat that made him seem small? But the face, round though it now was, carried the same expression. And the smile, utterly without warmth, was very familiar. The hatred in the eyes was unmistakable.
‘I’m glad you are up and about, Ludlow. You are just about to see me remove a serious hazard to shipping.’
Harry looked past Carter to where the Medusa rocked on the ocean swell. Nearly all of her rigging was over the side. Her masts were reduced to stumps, jagged where they had broken off. Boats which had been alongside his ship were pulling furiously away. He shrugged off the arms supporting him and staggered towards the bulwark.
‘Stand by to commence firing, Mr Bentley.’
Harry looked at his ship. The damage to the Medusa was great, but her hull was sound. Given his crew and a little assistance from Carter, she could be jury rigged and sailed home. He fell forward against the side of the ship, struggling hard to avoid passing out again. With a great effort he turned to face Carter. As he opened his mouth to ask the man he hated for help, Carter, looking straight at him, shouted: ‘Fire!’
Harry did speak, but his words were drowned out by the roar of the guns. He spun round to see the damage inflicted.
The Magnanime was a floating gun battery of enormous power. Yet the Medusa should have withstood her broadside for longer. But his poor ship simply blew apart after the first round had been fired. The last thought that Harry held before he passed into oblivion was that Carter had lined the deck of his ship with gunpowder barrels. The Medusa did not sink. She disintegrated.
Hatred was not an emotion with which Harry Ludlow felt comfortable, sensing that somehow it caused him more suffering than the person it was directed against. So while as capable as the next man of holding a strong dislike, his affable nature and abundant optimism tended to hide this. Few people could, by their mere existence, upset him.
As he lay in the cot, he thought back to their first meeting. Harry seemed to remember a degree of friendliness. Carter had been the premier of Admiral Hood’s flagship, the Barfleur, a three-decker of a hundred guns. Hood, having held the command in the West Indies, was superseded by Rodney, who commanded a combined fleet of thirty-four ships of the line. A few months later, in March 1782, these two gentlemen were to fight a most decisive battle. Rodney, breaking the French line in defiance of the Admiralty’s Fighting Instructions, changed the whole nature of naval warfare. Harry had joined Hood’s ship in January of that year as fourth lieutenant.
It would be hard to describe the gulf that separated a fourth lieutenant from the first lieutenant, especially aboard a flagship. Yet the icy reserve, so common in such a situation, was wholly lacking. On meeting the other members of the wardroom, he had been left in no doubt that Carter was a hard man to mess under. For him, nothing could have been further from the facts. Carter, on deck, seemed to go out of his way to praise his abilities. The premier also encouraged Harry to air his opinions at table. Young men find such attention from their superiors flattering. Harry was no exception. If the others in the wardroom had noticed that he was being favoured, they had chosen to ignore it.
The curtain of his cot was pulled back. Harry kept his eyes shut. Even in the dark of the screened-off cabin, the faint light from the lantern hurt his head. He knew that the man who had tended him on deck was leaning over him by the blast of foul breath that hit his nostrils.
‘Still out cold by the look of him.’ The voice was deep and rasping, the kind of voice that denotes the heavy drinker.
‘It is to be hoped that the Lord will see fit to spare him.’ Another voice, also deep, but much clearer in tone.
‘If’n there be such a thing. It would be a kindness if he were spared your ministrations. After the damage your lord and master has done, a dose of your supplications could see him off.’
‘Captain Carter has merely done his duty.’ Quite a sharp response. Defiant.
‘His duty, you say.’
‘I had the honour to assist him in the writing of the dispatch.’
‘Then I hope you did not imperil your soul.’
‘I shall leave medical matters to you, sir. I would suggest you leave the state of my soul to me.’
‘All I’m asking is that you leave this one, body and soul, in peace.’
‘There is a proper function for prayer. The vital spirit is succoured by it. You cannot contend that the power to heal is merely a physical thing.’
‘True. But being spiritual has the power to kill, usually through boredom. Snuff, Parson?’
Harry heard just one sniff, so he assumed that the parson had declined. He could also tell that the other man had been careless in his distribution, for some of the mixture was tickling his own nostrils. He tried in vain to contain himself, but to no avail. A huge sneeze rent the air, jerking him off the bed and sending a searing pain through his head. He fell back on the bed with his eyes open.
‘Bless my soul,’ said the parson. ‘It looks as though he’s come round. Praise the Lord.’
‘As a man of science I’d rather praise the snuff.’
‘Can we not look to a higher authority for this provision?’
‘Only someone as indoctrinated as you could look for divine inspiration in my spilling a little snuff. I have the unsteadiest hand in the fleet.’
‘A fine boast for a surgeon.’ There was no Christian charity in that remark. ‘You must be hungry, sir. Some soup, perhaps?’
The man with the bad breath leant over him again.
Harry blinked, and with a convincing stab at the air of a man just waking up, he said, ‘Where am I?’
‘He appears to have lost his wits,’ said the parson, leaning over the surgeon’s shoulder to look at him.
‘What a fine example of dogma,’ said the bad-breathed man with more than a trace of asperity. ‘He asks a perfectly natural question, and you doubt his sanity before you even answer it. You, sir, are aboard the Magnanime.’
Harry said nothing. He looked past the surgeon, taking in quickly the details of the cabin. Fixed wooden bulkheads told him he was below the gundecks. The deep shelves were filled with a variety of instruments and an array of apothecary’s bottles, each labelled in Latin to denote its contents. No daylight, or fresh air, pierced this section of the ship. The smell of the bilges, and of packed humanity, was all-pervasive. But the lanterns did show that at least the cabin was dry. Very likely the surgeon’s own quarters.
‘Do you recall the action with the Frenchman?’
‘Yes. And I also recall the sinking of my ship. How long have I been like this?’
‘All last evening and through the night. You’ve taken a nasty blow on your head, Mr Ludlow. I’ve stitched you back together again. You didn’t budge throughout. Some of the hands claimed you was dead. Taking wagers they were.’
‘We all prayed for your eventual recovery,’ said the parson sonorously.
The other man gave an eloquent grunt. The surgeon put his arms under Harry’s back and lifted him to a sitting position on the cot.
‘Bear a hand, Mr Crevitt.’
The parson quickly pushed a bolster behind Harry’s back. His eyes were now in focus, and in the dim light he could see the faces of his two attendants. The one who had helped him up had a ruddy vinous complexion and a purple swollen nose. Watery and bloodshot eyes stared out from under an untidy, unpowdered scrub wig. His leather waistcoat was stained and dirty. His companion, tall and thin, was dressed in clerical black, relieved only by the white swallow tail of the parson’s collar round his neck. A large hooked nose dominated the bony face. His complexion was sallow, in contrast to his sharp black eyebrows. He stood stooped because of his height, his gaunt face anxious and concerned.
‘We should inform the captain,’ he intoned.
‘Not yet. Soup first.’ The vinous face smiled, displaying few teeth, all black.
‘Outhwaite,’ he said. He had too few teeth for such a name. ‘And this be the parson, Mr Crevitt.’ The parson gave the briefest nod of acknowledgement.
‘I’ll fetch the soup.’ He pulled back the canvas curtain and left. Harry’s head hurt abominably. He put his hand up and felt the bandage round his crown.
