Two post captains going to cut out a little brig,” Archer heard Barthe grumbling to the doctor. “Why do we have lieutenants, I ask you?”
“We all knew Jones’ reputation,” Griffiths replied quietly. “I have little doubt that our captain will come out of it unharmed. His judgement is very sound.”
Archer only heard Barthe growl in response. The young lieutenant walked aft, out of hearing, along the gangway. All around, the sea was inky black. To Archer, it seemed as if the boats had set off hours before, though it had not been nearly so long.
He went to the rail and examined the dark mass of Guadeloupe, the large open bay. From where his ship lay, hove-to, a few lights could be seen—likely on the shore, though it was difficult to be certain.
Archer realised that he felt both slighted and embarrassed. If anything were to happen to his captain while he remained safe aboard ship . . . well, he would look shy, even if he had been following orders.
“Did I hear a musket, Mr Archer?” the helmsman asked. Even hove-to, a man stood by the wheel ready to cast free the ropes that held it in place.
Archer strained to hear over the sound of wind and sea. For a long moment he thought the helmsman had imagined it, but then, faintly, came the crack of musket fire, dulled by distance. The fire was staccato, or perhaps it could be only intermittently heard and then fell to silence. Aboard the Themis the hands and officers went utterly still, listening.
The silence, as much as the gunfire, created apprehensions in the mind. Had the brig been taken, or did the gunfire mark the discovery of the cutting-out parties? What did this terrible quiet signify?
And then a flash of distant light and the deep boom of a gun. A regular, if slow, fire began.
“Shore batteries,” Archer heard someone mutter.
Barthe came waddling along the gangway and onto the quarterdeck, the doctor striding purposefully behind. This fire was kept up for some minutes, everyone aboard listening as though, somehow, the reports of the great guns would eventually sum to a comprehensible account of the action in the bay—the meaning of it would be revealed. But then the guns, too, went silent.
“I will wager they have sailed the brig out of range of the shore batteries,” Barthe announced.
That was the meaning of it.
“Or the brig has been dismasted or disabled in some way,” Griffiths suggested softly.
“Perhaps the gunners lost sight of the brig in the darkness,” Archer said, “or they were not firing at the brig at all.”
Some time, unknown and unmeasurable, passed, the night about them soft and silent, and then guns began to fire again, the flashes lighting up some small part of the bay. Archer called for his night glass and fixed it on the point where the flashes originated.
“Mr Barthe . . .”
“Mr Archer?”
“There would appear to be some goodly number of ships at anchor; I can make out their silhouettes when the guns flash.”
“Are they ships, Mr Archer, or fishing boats and coasters?”
“I believe they are ships, though I should not wager great sums upon it.” He handed the glass to the sailing master.
Another broadside was fired, the flashes appearing in the dark.
Barthe stared into the night for a long moment more and then returned the glass to Archer. “I cannot say if you are right or wrong. There is smoke lying upon the water, and a small cloud of smoke can appear to be a vessel at this distance on such a night.”
The gunfire fell silent again.
“I wonder if they could be firing at the ships’ boats,” Griffiths said.
“It would not be impossible, Doctor, though boats are very hard to hit at any distance, as you well know, especially by darkness.” Archer did not believe the surgeon did know, which is why he had taken the trouble to inform him.
“Have we not fired at boats at any time?” Griffiths asked testily. “I believe we have.”
“And you are quite correct,” Barthe told him soothingly, “and particularly so if there are several boats close together. In such cases there is a very real chance of striking them. I have seen it done on more than one occasion.”
Again the guns fell silent, and the crew of the Themis drew breath and did not seem to let it out. A protracted silence, and then guns fired again.
“That was a broadside, or I have never doubled a cape,” Barthe pronounced.
They strained to hear a moment more, and then another ragged broadside—muffled, distant, the flashes half buried in lingering smoke. A long silence before the guns spoke, yet again. And then musket fire, carried to them over the breathing waters.
It was sparse to begin with, and then concentrated. Archer was quite certain he heard the clash of steel on steel, and men shouting and calling out, but the wind carried so much of this away. It went on sporadically for the next forty minutes and then died away.
Archer began to pace back and forth the length of the quarterdeck, stopping now and then to listen or to call up to the lookouts, who then reported nothing. He was about to conclude that he would never know what had happened inshore, when there was a hail, in English, out of the darkness.
Boats appeared, and Sir William Jones drew near.
“I fear the crews of your boats have been taken prisoner, Archer,” he called across the few yards of dark water.
Archer could not quite credit what he had heard.
“But what of our captain?” he called, leaning his hands upon the rail.
“And Captain Hayden, as well. We shall tarry half an hour, but then we must make sail. There are frigates and at least two seventy-fours anchored in the bay. They will be upon us at first light if we linger.”
Jones did not tarry but ordered his boats on, leaving Archer at the rail with Barthe and the doctor, the sailing master muttering a stream of curses.
“I, for one, should like to know what occurred,” Griffiths told them.
“Jones said he feared ‘the crews of the boats had been taken.’ Did that mean he was not certain?” Archer asked. “If he is not certain, should we not linger as long as we dare on the chance that our captain will return?”
“Several frigates and two seventy-four-gun ships . . .” Barthe waved a hand at the darkened bay. “The French have reinforced the islands, then. That is what I would conclude.”
“Why, then, did they attempt to cut out a ship?” Archer asked. “Does that not seem the height of folly?”
“Only if one fails,” the doctor observed softly. “If one succeeds . . . then it is the stuff of legend.”