Nine

The lockup had been arranged just aft of what Hayden thought might be the sail room. A few low tables with benches, crudely built of poorly dressed planks, were arranged against one bulkhead. How many others might be locked up here with him Hayden could not say. Not that it mattered. On a fair wind, the harbour of Brest was but a few hours distant.

Unable to sit, Hayden rose and tried to pace but the beams overhead were too low to allow it so he returned to the hard bench. Sitting still, however, proved difficult. He was now well aware that he would almost certainly be intensely questioned as to his origins once he was on French soil. The letters from his mother – letters that had slipped from his mind in the moment – would be scrutinized for any incriminating evidence.

To an Englishman the idea of a French officer serving as a captain in the British Navy was absurd. If nothing else, English pride would not allow it. From his conversation with Lacrosse, however, he had been made to realize that the French did not perceive this as an impossibility.

There was rattling outside the door and then Archer was thrust in and the door closed behind him. Hayden heard a bar set in place and a key rasping in a lock.

‘Mr Archer. Have you been hurt?’

The lieutenant shook his head, though he did look over his clothing – unlike Hayden he had changed back to his British uniform – as though he expected to find damage. ‘No, sir.’

‘Please, sit, Lieutenant. What is being done with our crew – can you say?’

Archer braced himself on an overhead beam. His face was ashen and he swayed where he stood. ‘All of the officers were carried aboard this ship, Captain. The hands were kept aboard the Themis, which I believe from what I overheard is being sailed to Brest.’ Archer slumped down on the bench opposite Hayden, put his elbows on the table and a hand to either side of his narrow face. He appeared about to weep but mastered himself almost immediately. ‘We have lost our ship, sir.’ These words, so final and distressing, he whispered from a dry throat so they sounded like a pronouncement from some distant underworld.

‘Yes. I have turned it over and over and do not know what else I could have done.’

‘It was just the worst luck, Captain. Nothing more. The Admiralty will certainly agree. It is a pity, though, that it befell us.’

Archer did not know what Benoît had told Hayden – his failure to carry this vital information to England would be enough to blast his career. There could be no excuse for this, especially as he had fired first into the French frigate off Le Havre. His enemies, whoever they were, would say he should have let the frigate pass. They might even question his waiting for Ransome to return in the cutter.

Archer appeared not to notice his commander’s distress. ‘I suppose we have had our share of good fortune, sir,’ the lieutenant observed. ‘Escaping Toulon harbour on so little wind was nothing short of a miracle. We might have known ill luck would balance this out.’

Hayden made no comment on this and instead asked, ‘Where are the rest of my officers? You said they were brought aboard?’

‘I believe they are being questioned by the captain, one by one. Captain Lacrosse asked me about your parentage, sir, and how you came to speak the French so well. I told him your father was a sea captain and beyond that I claimed ignorance.’ He leaned closer and spoke in a whisper. ‘I thought your mother’s nationality should not be mentioned, sir.’

‘Thank you, Archer. That was very astute. Do you think the others will comprehend that my mother’s family might be in significant danger if the connection became known?’

‘I do not know, sir. Certainly Wickham and Hawthorne would never say a word of it. Mr Barthe … well, he speaks before he thinks, on occasion.’ Archer’s gaze turned up a moment. ‘The other reefers … I fear they have little comprehension of the situation in France. Ransome … I cannot say. The doctor, of course, would never be duped into saying anything; he is private to the point of being secretive with us. He will claim ignorance of anything beyond his own name.’

Despite the circumstances, Hayden almost smiled at this assessment of Griffiths – which he agreed with in every way.

‘How long do you think it will take to arrange an exchange, sir?’

‘I wish I knew, Mr Archer. Sometimes it is weeks, at other times months. The good news is that we have an abundance of French officers imprisoned in England so finding officers of equivalent rank to exchange will present no difficulties. The greatest impediment will be the French government – it is in utter disarray if not chaos. The French navy, though we dare not say it aloud, is little better.’

The ship creaked audibly at that moment, heeled a little to starboard, and then the unmistakeable burbling of water moving past the planking came to them.

‘Wind …’ Archer said.

‘Yes, but from where?’

‘I am not certain. Maybe one of our own men will be able to tell us when he is sent down.’

As if on cue, the door was opened noisily and Ransome was let in.

‘Mr Ransome,’ Hayden greeted him. ‘They did not mistreat you, I hope?’

‘Not in the least, sir, though I was closely questioned. I told them we were cruising and no more.’

Ransome came and took a seat beside Archer – he appeared utterly exhausted in the dim light of the single lamp.

‘Did they quiz you about my parentage?’ Hayden asked quietly.

Ransome looked startled. ‘They did, sir, to my surprise. I told them your father was an English sea captain and your mother French.’

Hayden closed his eyes.

‘That was a damned fool thing to say!’ Archer informed him, testily.

Ransome was clearly offended. ‘Captain Hayden’s French mother is hardly a secret, Mr Archer. And why does it matter? I should think they would be disposed to treat Captain Hayden more kindly on account of his being half French.’

‘It might not matter in the least,’ Hayden interrupted, ‘but I have relations in France and they may be … in some danger because of their connection to me.’

‘How so, sir?’

‘They could be accused of being spies or of lacking revolutionary zeal, which will get you an appointment with the guillotine in these times.’

Ransome sat back on the bench. ‘I am most heartily sorry, Captain. Never for a moment did I comprehend that I was betraying your mother’s family.’

‘I should have warned everyone to say nothing. I confess, I never expected us to become prisoners. The captain has my mother’s letters, anyway. I told him she had been my nursemaid and taught me the French language, and then she married my father when my English mother died. That is my story. If they press me for her maiden name I will tell them it is Mercier – a common enough name. Mercier.’

‘They asked your mother’s maiden name, Captain,’ Ransome admitted. ‘Thank God I did not know it. I do apologize for not thinking first.’

‘You more than likely will not be the only one to tell them about my French mother, Mr Ransome. Do not let it trouble you.’

‘Very kind of you, sir.’ Ransome did look as though he felt the fool.

Wickham was let in next – the French captain was questioning the British sailors according to rank it seemed. He too had been asked about Hayden’s parents but beyond the sea officer father Wickham had claimed ignorance. Like the others he told Lacrosse only that they had been cruising and happened upon the frigates outside Le Havre, to which place they had gone hoping to intercept some coastal transports.

‘I have some other news for you, Captain, and I do not believe it shall prove to be propitious …’ Wickham informed his captain. ‘They carried Rosseau aboard and he was closely questioned by the captain but at too great a distance for me to comprehend what was said. He was led away in manacles.’

‘That is not good news. I shall tell Lacrosse that he was a prisoner … escaped from a hulk and caught rowing in the Channel.’ Even to Hayden’s ear this sounded implausible but what was he to tell Lacrosse? Rosseau had been serving in the Navy and had been captured. The only explanation for him now being aboard Hayden’s ship was escape and recapture.

One by one the officers and warrant officers were sent down. Barthe, Griffiths, the midshipmen, Hawthorne. Even Franks was taken aboard Les Droits de l’Homme.

They all sat in the faint, orange light that flickered off the deckhead and the bulkheads. They were a melancholy-looking group, that was certain.

‘Even with our swords,’ Hawthorne observed, ‘we are too few – by perhaps half a dozen – to take the ship by main force.’

‘Three men per deck should prove adequate,’ Griffiths replied. ‘They are only Frenchmen, after all.’

These two were attempting to raise the spirits of their fellows, Hayden could see. It was a duty he should be performing but he was so devastated by the loss of his ship and by worry over the fate of his crew that he could think of not a single word to say.

Some of the French hands, under the direction of an armed officer – hardly more than a child – carried in bread and wine.

When they had retreated and the door was locked, Hawthorne asked, ‘Was that one of the ship’s boys? He was rather well turned out.’

‘That was a midshipman, Mr Hawthorne. An aspirant he is called in the French navy.’

‘And what is it, pray, that he aspires to,’ the marine enquired, ‘long trousers?’

Despite this being one of Hawthorne’s more common sallies the others laughed.

The sound of the lock being turned took their attention, and as the door opened they found the butt of their jokes returning.

‘Capitaine ’ayden?’ the young man said. ‘Capitaine Lacrosse asks that you attend him.’

Hayden’s officers stood as he did. Leaving Archer in command, against the possibility that he did not return, Hayden followed the young officer out. Two armed men trailed behind. Up through the ship they climbed to the quarterdeck. There he found Lacrosse standing by the larboard rail. Hayden tried to catch a glimpse of the compass as he passed near the binnacle but could not. By the position of the sun – late afternoon – he judged the wind to be nor’west by north and their course to be nor’east by north – perhaps half a point east of that. The Themis was not in view, nor could he see any other ship.

Lacrosse acknowledged him kindly.

‘It would appear, Capitaine Hayden, that you have not been entirely truthful with me. Your mother – your birth mother – is French. Her letters would seem to bear this out.’

This was not unexpected so Hayden had the benefit of some time to consider his answer. ‘I apologize, Capitaine Lacrosse, for telling you this lie. As you no doubt have learned I have relations in France. I fear for their safety should the connection between us become known.’

Lacrosse continued to stare out over the ocean towards the western horizon. For some minutes he said nothing. ‘I have always believed the French to be cultured and humane but I have been forced to realize that we are a savage people. At the outbreak of the Revolution I was a thirty-six-year-old lieutenant and though I was of a noble family – well, in France there were noble families and there were noble families, if you take my meaning. I did not expect rapid advancement. Now, but five years later, I am a capitaine de vaisseau. Most of our naval officers – a great many of noble birth – were released or fled. I am still here because of friends in Paris and because I have long held eccentric views on government – I thought it should be elected.’ He paused but a second. ‘Can you hear the sound of the guillotine, Capitaine Hayden? No? That is because you are not French – just as you have claimed. I hear it, though it performs its terrible duty many leagues away. Every French citoyen can hear it. In France, even on a French ship, one can never know who might be an informant – who might send you towards the maelstrom that is the guillotine. It is known that I have a box of your correspondence but no one is aware of its contents but me and a lieutenant I trust utterly. The letters from your mother I shall destroy personally. I regret this but any other course could put us both in danger. Do you understand?’

‘I do, Capitaine Lacrosse. And I am in your debt.’

‘So many innocent people have died, Capitaine Hayden, and more every day. It is a stain upon my country that will never be washed away.’ He met Hayden’s gaze. ‘Take a turn around the deck, Capitaine. The day has become most pleasant.’

Hayden was about to thank the Frenchman, for certainly he was now deeply in his debt, but a lookout aloft cried out, ‘Sail!’

And there it was, just barely visible to the naked eye, emerging from the retreating fog bank, a three-master, Hayden thought. All about there was a buzz of French as the officers went to the rail to see. Lacrosse’s glass was delivered to him and he fixed it on the distant sail. Quietly he spoke to his lieutenants, who all gazed through their own glasses. A shaking of heads.

Lacrosse summoned Hayden, who had removed to a few paces to give the French privacy – he owed Lacrosse every possible consideration.

The Frenchman held out his glass. ‘We cannot identify this ship, Capitaine Hayden. Perhaps you know it?’

Hayden took the glass, uncertain of how far his gratitude might extend. He fixed the lens upon the distant vessel, trying to hold it in the centre. The ship yawed a little to larboard, perhaps, and the light struck it clearly upon the starboard side. Gunports were unmistakeable, but only a single row. He lowered the glass.

‘I cannot be certain,’ Hayden said in reply to Lacrosse’s inquisitive gaze. ‘It appears too small to be a seventy-four-gun ship.’

‘British?’

‘I cannot say, Capitaine.’

‘Of course. Well, we shall see how fast a ship it might be. It is shaping its course to meet us, but I believe we will prove to have the heavier broadside, should it prove to be British.’

‘Capitaine …’ one of lieutenants gestured towards the ship. ‘We believe there is a second ship hidden behind the sails of the first.’

Lacrosse raised his glass, stared a moment and cursed.

‘Sail!’ the lookout called again. ‘Astern of the first.’

With his naked eye Hayden could not make this ship out immediately but then it sailed into the open and the golden light of the late afternoon.

‘Deux frégates,’ Hayden heard one of the lieutenants pronounce quietly.

Hayden was of the opinion that the first looked too large to be a frigate, yet only a single row of gunports had been visible to his eye. Certainly Pellew was cruising these waters with Indefatigable. This caused a marked increase in his pulse. Indefatigable was a razee – a larger ship cut down to make a single decker – in this case a sixty-four-gun ship turned into a vessel with a single deck of twenty-four-pounders. He tried to hide his reaction. A little luck and he might not be a prisoner when the day ended. He glanced at the westering sun – two hours of sunlight. And then at the converging ships – not five miles distant. The wind could hardly be called a breeze and though it was fair for Brest at that moment there was dark cloud above the horizon in the north. If the wind veered north it would almost certainly strengthen and carry these ships with it.

Hayden could hardly contain his excitement and fought to master himself. He did not want to reveal the truth to Lacrosse or his officers, but he thought it more than possible that these ships were indeed British – the very frigates he had hoped to find lying off Brest. His own officers would have their spirits lifted by such news but Hayden resolved to remain on deck as long as he was allowed, in hope of knowing beyond a doubt under which flag these ships sailed. How long he might keep the deck before he was escorted below or had imposed too long upon Lacrosse’s goodwill Hayden did not know but he would find out.

That Lacrosse would destroy his mother’s letters was something of a risk for the Frenchman. Were any of his crew to be aware of these letters – or the lieutenant who apparently found them to prove untrustworthy – and their existence reported to the authorities, Lacrosse might be sent spinning towards the maelstrom of which he spoke. In the present climate of France it was not good to run afoul of the authorities, especially if you were of noble birth. The immigrants fleeing France brought stories hardly to be believed. A sixteen-year-old boy of very limited understanding was guillotined for shouting, ‘Vive le Roy!’ A woman, though able to prove beyond a doubt that she was not the woman wanted by the authorities, even if she did bear the same name, was guillotined anyway so that they might cross the name off their list.

Hayden thought of the melancholy Sanson who had come aboard his ship as a French prisoner. He had been trying to escape his family – which had been executioners for several generations. In the end he had escaped by taking his own life. Had he known what would take place in France but a few months later he might have counted himself fortunate.

Lacrosse, Hayden thought, was an honourable man of the old school. Hayden might be the enemy but he was also a brother officer and to see him murdered for no reason was something Lacrosse would not allow if it were within his power to prevent it. Hayden hoped that, were he in a similar position, he would act in the same way, but given the perceivable risks was not utterly certain that he would.

Taking Lacrosse at his word, Hayden, with his two guards in train, walked the deck. He wanted to stand and stare at the converging ships, for the second, hidden behind the first seen, was now clearly visible, but thought this might prove insulting to his captors, so he managed only a glance in that direction every few moments. There was nothing to distinguish the ships as being from either nation, that could be seen with the naked eye.

Perhaps three quarters of the hour later, though, Hayden arrived on the quarterdeck, where he found Lacrosse and his officers in muted conversation. They appeared to reach some agreement, and suddenly the lieutenants began shouting orders. The course was altered and yards shifted. Les Droits de l’Homme was put before the wind. She was flying from the approaching ships.

For a moment Hayden stood transfixed by the nearing vessels as they were brought astern. Without a glass he could not tell that they were British but clearly the French were more certain.

‘Capitaine Hayden,’ Lacrosse said, and beckoned him near.

Immediately Hayden went to the stern rail where the Frenchman stood.

‘We believe these are English cruisers – two frigates – though one seems much larger than the other … perhaps a razee.’ He fixed his glass upon the ships. ‘Some ships that have been cut down are said to be poor sailers. Others are thought quite swift.’ He passed the glass to Hayden.

Hayden stared for some moments to give himself time to consider. As an officer he was sworn to give no aid to the enemy. Yet this man had his mother’s letters, still intact as far as Hayden knew – though somehow Hayden did not think he would now go back on his promise to destroy them. The question was, could he give any information to Lacrosse that would not compromise the safety or ability of the British cruisers?

Hayden lowered the glass and returned it to its owner. ‘I regret to say these ships are unknown to me, but they do appear to be sailing quite swiftly, Capitaine, do you not agree?’

Lacrosse nodded, disappointed in the response. ‘Perhaps you should go below, Capitaine Hayden … for your own safety.’

Hayden gave a slight bow in the man’s direction, looked again at the chasing ships attempting to gauge their speed and the speed of Les Droits de l’Homme. He was escorted below and the two guards at the door of the lockup let him in.

‘Have we gone about, Capitaine?’ Wickham asked. ‘The motion of the ship has altered.’

‘We are running,’ Hayden informed them, ‘and not just before the wind but from British cruisers, too! A frigate and a razee less than a league and a half in our wake.’

The reaction of the men was almost a cheer, and they were all on their feet in an instant, their looks of dejection and melancholy replaced by grins and glowing faces.

‘What ships, sir, do you know?’

‘I believe one might be Indefatigable.’

‘She should not tire of chasing us, then,’ Hawthorne quipped.

‘You do realize, Mr Hawthorne,’ Barthe said, clearly offended by his light spirits, ‘that we are on our way to a French prison?’

‘I believe we will shortly be freed when this cursed ship is taken, Mr Barthe.’ He waved a hand at the surrounding bulkheads. ‘This is all the French prison we shall ever see.’

Barthe shifted on his bench. ‘Well, I do hope your prescience proves correct, sir, but do not count your chicks before the cockerel has fucked the damned hen!’

This caused a good deal more laughter than Mr Hawthorne’s observation; even the marine laughed.

‘I have been guilty of that a few times in my life,’ Hawthorne admitted when he finished laughing.

‘Of what,’ enquired Wickham, ‘fucking the damned hen?’

‘Gentlemen,’ Hayden cautioned, ‘we are yet prisoners of the French and I do not think this laughter will endear us to them. There will be time enough for levity if this ship is taken by our cruisers. Until then we both live and eat at the sufferance of our gaolers. Let us not antagonize them unduly.’

This brought about a semblance of decorum and many a suppressed smile. The material change in the men’s demeanour was unmistakeable – they were animated, smiling, their eyes were no longer dead and staring off into some vague distance. It was as though they had been informed of the death of a loved one and then told it was all a mistake – the person lived yet unharmed.

Hayden beckoned Ransome and the two retired to a table set apart and screened off from the rest by a scrap of sail – a private ‘cabin’ built for Hayden’s use. There was a small table with two benches here and a cot leaning in the corner.

‘Mr Ransome, it is my duty to enquire into the death of Mr Greenfield. I understand that one or more men were attempting to make silent his cries of pain by covering his mouth with a shirt or cloth of some kind. Is it possible that he was smothered by this action – even by accident?’

Ransome put two fingers up to the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes for a moment as though collecting his thoughts. ‘I cannot answer your question with any certainty, Captain. He was grievously wounded – shot through the back.’ He touched his breast with a hand and then gestured over his shoulder. ‘About this level. His breath was bubbling, sir, and he was choking on blood as well. We did not know for certain that there was only a single French boat out in the fog and Greenfield was making a terrible racket, sir. I ordered Braithwaite and Carlson to keep him quiet as best they were able.’ Ransome’s gaze became darker by the second and his skin actually appeared to grow blue-grey and dull. ‘One of them – I disremember which – removed his jacket and tried to silence Greenfield by putting it over his face. He had collapsed and I couldn’t see what happened clearly even if I had been inclined to look and I must tell you my attention was engaged elsewhere.’

‘How close was Greenfield to you, Mr Ransome?’

‘Amidships … and I was in the stern-sheets. Mr Hawthorne and his marines were forward.’

‘So Braithwaite and Carlson were attempting to muffle Greenfield’s cries with a jacket – and then what happened?’

‘We were fired on again – muskets and pistols – and we returned fire. And then Carlson informed me that he believed Greenfield had departed this life.’ Ransome touched a hand to his forehead, his gaze far away. ‘Immediately I went forward and found Greenfield limp. There was a great deal of blood soaking through his shirt and jacket where he was wounded and also around his mouth and face … and about his neck as well. He was not breathing and I could detect no pulse – at either his neck or wrist. As every breath had previously been accompanied by bubbles and gurgling at the wound in his back and now there was none, I ordered him slipped over the side, my reason being that it would be very disturbing to the men to have a corpse there so close by and I had want of their entire attention at that time.’

‘Did Braithwaite and Carlson look distressed or guilty in any way?’

‘They both appeared very distressed and out of sorts, sir, but one of their comrades had just died. Braithwaite and Greenfield were in the same mess, Captain.’

‘So there was no enmity between these two and Greenfield?’

‘I do not believe there was, sir. Certainly none of which I was aware.’

‘The first opportunity, I will ask Lacrosse for ink and quill so that you might commit your account to paper.’

‘Will there be a court martial, sir?’

‘I do not know, Mr Ransome. If I deem Greenfield’s death accidental I do not believe the Admiralty will pursue the matter. Even so, I must report the possibility that Greenfield’s death was accidental and not necessarily caused by the enemy. I will at this time ask the doctor’s opinion on the matter. He might have questions for you. I must also speak with the others involved, although but for you and Hawthorne all the others are aboard the Themis.’

Ransome nodded. Hayden asked Griffiths to join them and he came and took a seat alongside Ransome.

Hayden explained what transpired and what Ransome had told him, asking the lieutenant to verify that what he said fairly represented his own report.

‘Tell me where the wound was,’ Griffiths instructed Ransome turning away from him. ‘You may touch my back where you believe the ball entered.’

‘Here, Doctor,’ Ransome said, touching to the left of Griffiths’ spine just below the scapula.

‘Was it musket or pistol?’

‘I cannot say, as I believe both were fired in our direction.’

‘You told Captain Hayden the wound gurgled when he breathed?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Was there a great deal of blood or little?’

‘A profusion, Doctor Griffiths. The wound bled terribly and could not be stopped.’

‘And how was he lying? On his back or his chest?’

‘On his side, Doctor – or so he was when I went to be certain he was not still alive. He was in a pool of blood.’

‘Were his lips blue when you went to see him?’

Ransome pursed his own lips together. ‘I cannot say, Doctor. His mouth was so bloody … I do not know.’

‘The blood emitting from his wound – did it come in a regular rhythm or did it simply flow in an even stream?’

‘I am sorry, Doctor, but I could not see as Greenfield was down among the men amidships and I was in the stern. Carlson or Braithwaite might be more able to answer that question, sir.’

Griffiths could think of nothing more to ask and Hayden released Ransome to go back to the others.

‘What think you?’ he asked Griffiths very quietly.

‘I do not know what to think. Mr Ransome could not answer the most relevant questions because he could not see the man, or so he claims. If the blood was pulsing from the wound then it is likely the aorta artery was damaged or even severed and would have led to death within a few moments. If Greenfield’s lips were blue then he died from suffocation.’

‘Then you cannot say for certain what caused his death?’

‘If I could see the body … which was rather conveniently disposed of.’

‘Let us question Mr Hawthorne.’

Hawthorne took Ransome’s place. At that moment a distant gun was heard.

All conversation ceased a moment and then a second shot came.

‘Not so near, yet,’ Hayden informed the others. ‘Let us continue. Mr Hawthorne, you brought this matter to my attention. What made you do so, if I may ask?’

‘It appeared to me that Greenfield put up something of a fight, to begin, when Braithwaite and Carlson were asked to keep him quiet. They had him down in the bottom of the boat, sir, one holding him, the other pressing the shirt over his face. Greenfield struggled mightily against them.’

‘That is your entire reason, then?’

‘Well, no, sir. Greenfield was not well liked, sir. And Braithwaite … well, he is a rum bastard, if I may say so.’

‘I thought Greenfield and Braithwaite messed together?’

‘That may be, sir, but there was no love between them. Wickham might be able to tell you more, sir.’

‘What order did Lieutenant Ransome give Braithwaite and Carlson, do you remember?’

Guns sounded again, muffled by the hull and decks above. A gun aboard the French ship spoke in return, the report echoing down through the ship like a great hammer blow.

‘He ordered them to keep him quiet, if they could. I must say, Captain, Greenfield was crying out and moaning terribly. Certainly the French could not have been in doubt of our whereabouts or at least how near we might have been.’

‘So Greenfield’s struggle led you to suspect he might not have died of his wounds?’

‘Well, he was kicking the planks very hard, and flailing. It was all they could do to hold him. I thought he had a good deal of fight in him for a man so close to death.’

‘Did you see Greenfield’s wound, Mr Hawthorne?’ Griffiths had been listening, his countenance growing more and more grave.

‘I did. He had been shot in the back.’

‘Where?’

Hawthorne reached over his own shoulder and patted his back.

‘Just here, sir.’

‘Are you certain, Mr Hawthorne?’

‘Most certain. One of the men called out that Greenfield had been shot, and as I was reloading my musket I turned and saw him slumped over his oar. There was blood soaking through his jacket up here, high on his back on the left side.’

Griffiths and Hayden exchanged a glance.

‘From the moment he was struck by the ball until he died, how much time passed?’ Griffiths asked.

Hawthorne paused to consider this, as though he were running over the sequence of events in his mind. ‘Not very long, Doctor. Five minutes … Certainly not so much as ten.’

Hayden looked to the surgeon, raising his eyebrows, but Griffiths signalled that he had no more questions to ask.

‘That will be all, Mr Hawthorne. Thank you.’

Hawthorne, who was taller than Hayden, rose to a stooped position, touched his imaginary hat, and crouched off to join the others.

‘There appears to be a notable discrepancy between the two accounts,’ Hayden observed.

‘Indeed, and it is notable in several ways. It seems very unlikely to me that Greenfield would die so quickly of a wound inflicted so high on his back. If he was not smothered then I would guess the likely cause of death would be loss of blood. But a wound here …’ He reached over his shoulder and touched his back … but then he frowned. ‘Unless it was nearer the aorta than Hawthorne indicated …’

‘But you cannot state with certainty that Greenfield did not die of loss of blood?’

‘I cannot state with certainty anything at all. I was not there. The wound was in his back but where I do not know. A major artery might have been severed but that is not certain. Did Greenfield die because he was smothered? A man cannot last very long without air but he can take a damned long time to die of blood loss. If he died in five minutes he was either smothered or a major artery was severed.’

‘Both men stated that there was a great deal of blood in evidence.’

‘That is true, but a small amount of blood spread about can appear far greater than it truly is. I should not take that too seriously.’

Both men were silent for a moment, turning over what had been said. Les Droits de l’Homme’s gun fired again.

‘It does seem an odd time to be enquiring into the matter of Greenfield’s death,’ Griffiths observed.

‘The human memory is very fallible. The sooner such matters are brought to light the better.’

‘I am sure you are right. And it does give the men something to contemplate … other than French prisons.’

‘There is that as well. I do wish Braithwaite and Carlson were here that I might enquire further into this matter.’

‘Certainly, if they are guilty – and not fools – they will contrive to agree upon a single story. One in which Greenfield bled his poor life away while they cradled him in their arms and undertook, in the most gentle manner, to discourage him from crying out.’

‘Which is why I wish I could speak to them now before they have had time to compose such a story.’ Hayden paused a moment. ‘I cannot quite comprehend why Ransome would misrepresent what occurred … It would be more in his character, as I have come to know it, for him to cast all of the blame on Carlson and Braithwaite.’

‘He did give the order to silence Greenfield. Others heard him say it. Certainly he must apprehend that some of the blame might be attached to him.’

‘Yes, I suppose that is true.’

Griffiths pitched his voice so low that Hayden could barely make out his words.

‘Lacrosse questioned me – quite intently – about your parentage. Specifically your mother. Of course I told him I knew only that your father was a post captain in the His Majesty’s Navy. Nothing more.’

‘He knows of my mother’s origins. Others were not as circumspect as you. And he has my mother’s letters – all written to me in French, of course. Do you know the French believe I am some royalist sea officer who has enlisted in the Royal Navy! I believe I have convinced Lacrosse that this is not the case.’

‘He has your mother’s letters …’ Griffiths looked even more grave than common. ‘Does this put her family in danger?’

‘Under the present circumstances in France? Yes, certainly. Lacrosse has promised to burn the letters. Did you know he was a baron before the Revolution?’

‘It is a wonder he still has a command. It is a wonder he is alive.’

‘Precisely. I believe he is an honourable man who does not want to see my mother’s family persecuted without cause.’

‘He should beware of aiding you. Were it to come to the attention of the Committee of Public Safety – well, who knows how they would interpret it.’

‘Indeed. The man has put himself at great risk on my behalf.’

The doctor fixed his gaze on Hayden a moment. ‘What will he ask in return, I wonder?’

‘If he is truly honourable, nothing.’

‘It is his duty to keep his men safe and his ship out of enemy hands. If either of these come into doubt I believe he will consider it more honourable to perform his duty than to aid a family he knows not at all.’

‘Yes. I wish I could know if he had destroyed the letters, as he said he would. I do, however, think there is a good chance Les Droits de l’Homme will be a British prize before the night is out. And then the letters will be mine again … if they have not been burned.’

‘Let us hope. I for one do not relish the idea of a French gaol. Officers they will quickly exchange … Surgeons? I am not so certain.’

‘Do not be concerned, Dr Griffiths. There are French surgeons aplenty among our prisoners. You shall be exchanged along with the rest of us.’ Hayden almost patted the doctor on the shoulder but stopped himself. ‘I believe we should rejoin the others.’

The two men went out to take their place among the other Themises and for a moment this caused an awkward silence, but Hawthorne soon swept that away and speculation began about the British ships whose guns could be heard firing now at regular intervals.

‘Were there but two British ships, Captain?’ Wickham asked.

‘When I was on the deck that was the case. We might hope others have joined them but if not I think two can manage perfectly well, do you not?’

‘Certainly, sir, but I am worried that this ship might make Brest before she can be taken. Mr Barthe was just speculating that we might not be so far off the coast.’

‘Do you think so, Mr Barthe?’ Hayden asked.

‘I cannot say for certain, sir. We had seen neither land nor the sun these three days past. My dead-reckoning put our position south of Brest and about four leagues distant from the French coast, but I would not bet a farthing on it, sir, nor even a ha’penny.’

‘Where are we steering, then?’ Smosh asked.

‘We were steering west by north-west, more or less,’ Hayden told him, ‘though I could see neither sun nor compass so I cannot be certain. Since then Lacrosse has put the ship before the wind and we are flying east by south.’

The sound of a ball finding wood crashed through the ship above, causing a moment of silence.

‘Banish every thought of a huzzah, Mr Hobson,’ Hayden ordered the midshipman, who seemed about to jump up and cheer. ‘If our own cruisers free us you may cheer as much as you wish. Until then we shall cheer only in the quiet of our own minds.’

The men all nodded, clearly requiring no more explanation than that.

‘Mr Wickham, do the French realize that you speak their tongue?’

‘I do not believe so, sir. Lacrosse spoke to me in quite acceptable English.’

‘In that case, I should not give it away if I were you. It is quite well known that I speak their tongue but they might feel free to speak French out of my hearing if they believed no one else understood. This might give us some small information we do not have. The same applies to you, Mr Archer, or anyone else who has a smattering of French. Keep it to yourselves; you might hear something of value.’

The men ate in near silence, the sounds of firing guns, both on Les Droits de l’Homme and from the distant ships, chiming like slightly irregular clocks. It was too early to sling hammocks and the men sat about after their meal talking quietly. A few fell asleep leaning against a bulkhead. Hayden’s watch had not been taken and he consulted it after a while, wondering how long until dark – half an hour more or less.

Voices were heard outside the door and the lock turned. A dull thud of a wooden bar being removed and then the door slowly opened, a face appearing in the dim lamp light, peering in to be certain there was no ambush.

‘Capitaine Hayden? Capitaine Lacrosse requests your presence.’

‘Mr Archer,’ Hayden said to his senior lieutenant. ‘In the event that I do not return, you are in command.’

‘Aye, sir.’

Hayden followed the Frenchman out and two seamen armed with muskets fell in behind. In a moment they were upon the lower gundeck. The gunports were closed here and the gun crews had not been mustered, though in every other way the deck appeared to have been cleared for action. The upper gundeck had all the gun crews mustered – both the larboard battery and starboard – though they stood idle at that moment and the ports were yet closed. The firing came from the upper deck and Hayden went quickly up into a late afternoon, wind making and seas quickly mounting. Darkness appeared to be gathering its forces just beyond the limited horizon and streams of rain could be seen all around. The two British ships were not distant and the larger, Hayden could now see, was undoubtedly a razee. Pellew was the most determined captain in the Royal Navy, Hayden thought, and he did not expect him to give up this chase until the French ship had hauled down her colours. Indefatigable was certainly the right weapon for the job and in the right hands, too. Both British ships were firing their chase guns and Lacrosse’s crews on the quarterdeck were engaged in this same exercise.

Hayden was quite certain that the French seventy-four would be neither as handy nor as swift as the smaller British ships, and though Lacrosse might have some advantage in weight of broadside one English ship could engage him while the other manoeuvred to rake his ship. The sea was already running so that Les Droits de l’Homme did not dare open her lower gunports, meaning that the weight of broadside would favour the British. At least that was Hayden’s assessment of the situation in the first moment he was on deck.

Lacrosse noticed him and motioned for Hayden to be brought forward.

‘Capitaine Hayden.’ He gave a slight bow. ‘If I may have a word with you …’

Despite the guns being fired but a few yards away and the sound of British shot tearing into the air, the two officers retreated to an empty patch of deck to converse. Hayden admired Lacrosse’s composure. He might have been out enjoying his garden for all the fear evident in the man’s demeanour. For his part, Hayden thought it would be ironic if he were killed by a British gun.

‘There is a disagreement among my officers, Capitaine Hayden,’ Lacrosse began, ‘regarding our exact position. Many sections of the coast in this region are very dangerous. The disagreement is over how close to the coast we might be.’

Clearly, Lacrosse wanted the greatest possible value for the favour he had promised Hayden, and given the situation of his mother’s family, Hayden wondered how he could refuse.

‘You do realize, Capitaine Lacrosse, that giving you such information would be seen as aiding the enemy, for which I could be court-martialled and executed?’

‘I assure you, Capitaine, that no one beyond myself would ever know that you offered any aid to me at all. I might also say that if we were to go ashore your men would be in as much danger as my own. Certainly you consider it your duty to preserve the lives of your own men?’

‘Indeed. Unfortunately, we had seen neither land nor sun for three days running and my sailing master was uncertain of our own position when we surrendered our ship. That is God’s truth.’

Hayden could not read Lacrosse’s response to this. For a moment he said nothing. ‘Unfortunate,’ he said at last and excusing himself rejoined his officers. Hayden was left standing on the quarterdeck, sharing the danger with the French officers. He even wondered if Lacrosse had done it a-purpose to demonstrate his own indifference to danger and death and to put the Anglais at risk. Hayden leaned his hip against the rail, crossed his arms and fixed his attention on the chasing ships. Although the sea was getting up, they maintained a regular fire, perhaps every fourth shot finding Les Droits de l’Homme, though usually passing through the sails and doing little more harm. The scream of the iron ball parting the air was something felt in the chest. It demanded fear – like putting your hand on a viper in the dark. For Hayden, there was no possibility of not feeling apprehension, it was simply a matter keeping it locked up. The pounding heart, the knife of fear awakening every nerve, the growling stomach where the fear went to prowl.

But he had become something of a master at this. And a fatalist as well. He truly believed that when one’s time came there was nowhere one could hide. Better to die standing than grovelling – that was his belief. Die with the deck beneath one’s feet, not one’s knees.

So he stood, staring down the British guns, damned if he would show the least sign of fear before these Frenchmen. And it appeared they were equally determined to demonstrate their sang-froid before the Anglais.

The running sea raised the stern and then rolled along beneath until finally the stern sank into the trough and the bow was cast up – the motion of a seventy-four-gun ship so different from his own frigate. This thought of the Themis reminded him that she was now in enemy hands – a prize of war. He might not have been the first British captain to lose his ship but, even so, the thought of it caused both distress and humiliation. For some reason, he imagined the Themis’s former captain – the notoriously shy Hart – gloating and spreading it about that Hayden was a reckless pup who knew neither ships, nor men, nor war.

Lacrosse and his two senior officers huddled by the binnacle in whispered but heated debate. Clearly they were not of one opinion and Hayden was quite certain it was their present position that was the subject of this dispute. Perhaps it was not even their position that was debated but the uncertainty of their whereabouts.

Les Droits de l’Homme was sailing more or less east, Hayden thought, with the wind now behind them. If the coast was near and no bay or harbour offered shelter and the protection of shore batteries … they could be trapped against the French coast or worse. Visibility was very poor even by daylight, and darkness would reduce it to a musket shot or little more. Had he been Lacrosse he would be more than concerned.

Lacrosse suddenly drew himself up and declared to his officers, ‘I shall not surrender my ship to any two frigates. The English will have to board my ship and tear down the flag with their own hands!’

A ball crashed into the stern just beneath the level of the quarterdeck. Hayden was glad his own men were being held forward and below the waterline. The French gunners fired back, their own shot striking even less frequently than the British; though it must be admitted that a seventy-four-gun ship did offer the larger target.

After only the briefest period of observation it was apparent to Hayden that the British ships were gaining, ranging up on either quarter. He could very clearly make out the gun crews, bent over their guns, swabbing and ramming home powder. Of course, Hayden had been aboard a French ship fighting a British ship before – although the French ship was a prize and the British vessel crewed by mutineers – even so, he had fought the English and risked being killed by them. Standing on the quarterdeck in his French captain’s coat, the present situation felt oddly familiar – as though he actually had once been a French officer just as the French believed.

An eruption of fire and smoke at the bow of the chasing razee sent an iron ball screaming overhead. It tore a hole in the mizzen but did no other damage. Hayden estimated that the ball had missed him by fewer than a dozen feet.

Upon the nearer British ship – the razee – Hayden could see marines climbing up to the foremast tops, muskets slung over their backs, red coats standing out against the dark sky. The quarterdeck of the French ship was about to become an even more dangerous place to be. Lacrosse responded by sending his own sharp-shooters up the mizzen.

Another ball found the stern of the French ship with a crash that Hayden felt through the soles of his boots. There was a part of him that felt a great deal of pride in this display of British gunnery – and a part of him that wished they could be a good deal less accurate.

The hands began to carry up weapons – pikes and cutlasses, pistols and tomahawks – and these were distributed to men who were ordered to sit upon the deck amidships hidden from the view of the enemy. Two young officers were put in command of the boarding party and the ropes for the grappling hooks coiled down ready to throw.

Hayden thought that boarding with such a sea running would be difficult if not impossible. The British snipers began firing at that moment and at least one thing was not in doubt – they had smoked the French boarding party because the British marines were shooting as often at them as at the men upon the quarterdeck.

Lacrosse appeared to have forgotten about Hayden, and went about his business very coolly. It was clear to Hayden, however, that the spirit of liberté had spread among the crew and they did not take orders from those above them readily. Although he saw little open defiance, compliance was grudging and dilatory, and the execution of orders would certainly have been unacceptable aboard his own ship.

French sailors were not in open mutiny, but very clearly they, like Lacrosse, could hear the sound of the guillotine, though for them the sound was the heads of their oppressors tumbling into the basket. Lacrosse, they knew, could be disposed of in the blink of an eye. They neither feared nor respected him. He was an officer’s coat stuffed with straw.

Hayden had been in command of an untrustworthy crew and he felt some pity for Lacrosse – but not too much, as he knew this situation would make it easier for the British ships chasing. Musket balls began smacking into the wooden deck and one of the men at the wheel fell in a swoon, a ball in the back of his skull. A young aspirant – a boy whose voice had not yet begun to change – was shot through the leg, and then, as he fell, through the bowels.

He dug his fingers into the shoulder of another aspirant who bent over him. ‘Les Anglais,’ he said, ‘they have killed me …’ His eyes, so innocent but an instant ago, filled with a terrible knowledge. ‘They have killed me.’ And then he released his friend, closed his eyes, and fainted away, his limbs thrown out like a sleeping child’s.

A grumbling began among the boarding party crouching in the waist, with many a dark look cast back towards Lacrosse and his officers. Then, to Hayden’s utter and complete surprise, these men rose as a mass, and in open defiance of shouting lieutenants, streamed below out of the gunfire.

Hayden turned back to find Lacrosse standing motionless beside the helmsmen. He called no orders, nor did he protest in any way. Everything about him, his face, his posture, revealed that he knew there was nothing he could do. At that moment Hayden realized that if Lacrosse could not get his ship into a French port or under the protection of shore guns, it was lost, and despite his declared defiance, he knew this full well.

The French officer turned away, back to the chasing enemy.

Well, Hayden thought, one hardly need look further for an explanation of why the war at sea is being largely won by the British.

The Royal Navy ships ranged nearer and Hayden thought they might soon be in a position to bring their broadsides to bear. At that point Hayden thought he would volunteer to go below. Facing enemy guns was one thing – being killed by British guns to prove his aplomb was just bloody foolish.

A squall overtook all of the ships, pressing them on, stretching the canvas so that it looked about to tear out its clews. The seventy-four appeared to surge ahead, picked up and carried by a wave. At the same moment Indefatigable tore her mainsail to ribbons, and she fell back almost immediately.

Hayden wondered if Les Droits de l’Homme’s sails would hold, given that many had been holed several times, but a glance showed them all bearing up to the gust so far. For perhaps ten minutes the gust held, and Hayden wondered if it were a gust at all or a general increase in the wind, when suddenly it fell away, and the ship began to slow.

From the forecastle the cry ‘Land! Land ahead!’ came with such a tone of panic that everyone turned towards the bow. Out of the grey, cliffs loomed, and before the bow breakers foamed white.

Lacrosse jumped to the wheel and wrenched it to starboard.

Not heeding the danger, Hayden leapt up onto the rail, grasping the mizzen shrouds and screamed at the top of his lungs in English, ‘Land! Land dead ahead!’

He could not know if his voice was heard but the razee ship began turning to starboard and the frigate to larboard. Before Les Droits de l’Homme had turned a point Hayden was thrown down onto the deck, landing on one foot, and then sprawling. One of the chase guns thundered by on its carriage, barely missing him. A rending and splintering came from forward and the foremast went over the bow. The ship was hard aground.

Hayden staggered up to see Indefatigable making her turn, barely out of the breakers, and bear off south. The frigate also managed to turn but then she too went aground and was thrown immediately upon her beam ends. Hayden saw the first wave break over her side and exposed copper.

A wave lifted the stern of Les Droits de l’Homme, and threw it to larboard. Hayden stood up to find water sloughing down the gundeck below, no doubt washing in through the shattered stern gallery.

Lacrosse screamed orders to his officers but even they looked about to panic, the men were jumping to the shrouds and clambering aloft but as they did so the main mast went by the board, throwing the men down hard upon the planks below. Hayden hurried over the sloping deck to Lacrosse.

‘Capitaine!’ he shouted above the sound of men calling and crying out. ‘My officers … they are locked up below.’

Lacrosse grabbed the shoulder of a frightened aspirant. ‘Go with Capitaine Hayden,’ he ordered, ‘and release his men.’

The boy, for he could not have been more than fifteen, ordered Hayden’s two guards to accompany them but by the time they were on the upper gundeck the two men retreated with the stream of men coming up from below.

‘We must hurry!’ Hayden urged.

But panicked men climbing out of the bowels of the ship would not let them pass and they were forced to stand aside until what seemed like all six hundred souls had passed. The boy looked so terrified that Hayden thought he might bolt with his frightened countrymen. Water was pouring down the next ladder, which was leaning at a precarious angle as Les Droits de l’Homme began to heel to larboard.

As each wave struck, the ship was driven further up the rocks upon which she had impaled herself and Hayden and his companion were hurled almost off their feet into the knee-deep water. The lower deck was half awash, the larboard side almost filled to the deckhead. Any lanterns that had been hung here were out or gone and almost no light made its way down through the streaming scuttles. Above the grinding of the hull on rocks and the general hubbub of wind and frightened men, Hayden could hear the muffled shouts of his crew, crying out and pounding upon the door. But the two sentries who had been standing guard were gone, the door still barred and locked.

‘I have no key,’ the aspirant said, looking around in terrible distress, as though he might find a key hanging upon a hook.

The hammering on the bulkhead became more desperate by the second. Hayden called out but could not be heard over the banging. Finally he hammered on the boards with his fist and heard Archer and Hawthorne urging the others to silence.

‘Mr Archer!’ Hayden yelled at the top of his voice. ‘The guards have run off with the key to the lockup but I shall find a way to have you out in a moment. Compose yourselves and remain quiet so that I might give orders for you to aid me.’

‘Aye, sir,’ Archer called back, his throat already hoarse from shouting. ‘But the water is rising in here, sir. I don’t know how long we shall remain above it.’

‘I will have you out of there, Mr Archer, if I must break all of my bones to do it. You have my word.’

‘Bless you, sir.’

Even in the quick light Hayden could see that the lockup had been built in such a way as it would be easier to break in than out. The fastenings were driven from the inside through substantial, horizontal planks and into temporary posts.

‘What is your name?’ Hayden asked of the aspirant.

‘Pierre, Capitaine.’

‘We must have an axe, Pierre, or even a capstan bar.’

The boy, who was shivering from the cold water that washed about their belts, shook his head. ‘An axe …’ He shrugged.

‘Then let us hasten up to the capstan.’

Reaching the ladder on the half-flooded, sloping deck was no easy feat and Hayden knew that getting a bar and returning would take more time than he wished. But there was nothing for it. He needed something to batter down the planks. His fists would not answer, even if he broke them as he had promised.

Hayden pushed the boy up the streaming ladder and clambered up hand over hand behind. They went as quickly as they could to the capstan and took down one of the ash bars. These were both long and heavy upon a seventy-four-gun ship, and two of them were required to bear it under those conditions.

It took a moment to slide it down the ladder, brace it from getting away and then both clamber down onto a deck even more filled with water than when they had left but a moment before. Bracing themselves on the uphill side of the lockup so that gravity might aid them, Hayden and the aspirant used the bar as a battering ram and soon drove one plank loose.

Hands took hold of it from inside and they quickly wrenched it free so that Hayden could now see the faces of all his captive men, staring out at him from inside, panic barely held in check.

The next plank was more stubborn but with the men all pulling and Hayden and Pierre driving their bar as hard as they were able, it finally gave way and was pulled free. The midshipmen clambered out through this hole but the others were all too large. With the aid of Wickham, Hobson and Madison, the battering ram became more effective, though they once lost their footing and took Hayden sliding into the bulkhead in a pile, the deck was so slick. As each wave drove the ship up the reef, Hayden and his helpers had to wait a moment for the ship to settle, then quickly smash their ram into wood.

The third plank was torn from its posts, and the rest of the Themises struggled out, Mr Barthe needing Hawthorne and Franks to pull his substantial bulk by the arms through the too narrow opening.

‘All of you with me,’ Hayden called over the noise. ‘And bring along that French boy. When all the others lost their nerve and fled he kept his head. I should never have managed it without him.’

The boy got such a pounding upon the back as they went one would never have thought him an officer but merely a mascot, much caressed by all the crew. He hardly knew what to make of it.

Hayden led the way up to the next deck. As he put his feet upon the wet planking at the ladder head the mizzen went by the board. There was no mistaking the rending and breaking of timber, the snapping of rigging. He felt it all through the deck. Hawthorne brought up the rear, and here, in better light, Hayden could see that all of the men, including the marine lieutenant, were shaken and blue-pale.

‘Is anyone injured?’ Hayden asked, noting that Archer’s hand was bleeding.

Everyone denied any such thing, even Archer.

‘Doctor, will you see to Mr Archer’s hand when we are upon the upper deck?’

‘I will, sir,’ Griffiths responded. Hayden took a count of heads and led them on – twelve Englishmen including himself. Hawthorne, Griffiths, Archer, Ransome, Wickham, Hobson, Madison, Gould, Barthe, Franks and the Reverend Smosh.

The upper gundeck was reached in a moment, and just as they were all accounted for, two guns broke free from the starboard battery and slid down the deck, one toppling from its carriage and rolling and bouncing until it thundered into a gun opposite, shattering its carriage. The other gun tumbled down the ladder opening forward and crashed upon the deck below.

‘This is a dangerous place to be,’ Hayden said to Barthe. ‘Follow me.’

In a moment they were upon the upper deck in the face of the storm. And what a scene it was. Men clung to the high side of the ship and to one another as though to let go would begin a slide to hell. All around the seas broke, sending heavy spray crashing over the weather side. The ship lay, listing terribly to larboard, her bulwarks all but in the water. With each sea the ship heaved a little and then settled with a rending of planks and timbers. The shore was distant some half a mile or more, and in between stretched a thousand yards of churning, running ocean, April-cold and murky grey.

If that was not enough, the wind drove rain upon them without mercy. The drops slashed down upon Hayden’s face as though they were beads of glass. His hat had been lost and he held up an arm to protect himself.

‘God have mercy,’ Hayden heard Barthe intone.

The crew members of the Themis all looked around as though they had just woken to find themselves in some level of Hades, unexpected and undeserved.

‘Good Lord, Captain,’ Hobson cried out, ‘are we lost?’

‘No, Mr Hobson, we are not lost,’ Hayden said, firmly if not testily. ‘Nor will we be if we master ourselves and do not give way to panic and fear. I do not think boats can be launched and taken safely ashore in such a sea, but this gale will take off shortly, I hope, and until then we will remain patient, follow my orders and those of Captain Lacrosse, and we will all survive. This ship will not break up for some days and I do not think our gale will last so long. Have patience and good faith. God will preserve us.’

When Hayden had spoken Barthe, who sat with his good foot wedged up against a scuttle, addressed his crew mates. ‘I would venture I am the only man here unfortunate enough to have been wrecked before and I will tell you that panic is a greater enemy than the sea. If we do not give way to it and follow the captain’s orders with a will, we shall stand a very good chance of passing through this with our lives. Give in to the fear that we all wrestle with and you will surely die.’ The old sailing master fixed each of the midshipmen with a dark glare as though to be certain they understood the gravity of his words. Hayden thought that if they were not frightened near to death before they certainly were now.

‘Captain,’ Smosh said, ‘if I may … ?’

‘Yes, Mr Smosh, certainly.’

And Smosh led them all in prayer. Hayden had not heard an appeal so heartfelt aboard the Themis since he had first come aboard, not even when Smosh had held service in the midst of a pestilence that had killed over twenty of the Themis’s crew and laid low double that number for some weeks with a grave illness.

Every man there bowed his head penitently – even the papist French sailors nearby, so in fear were they for their own lives. The French, however, crossed themselves thrice when Smosh completed his prayer.

Hayden took hold of the bulwark and stood, holding on lest he slide down the deck. Not far to the north he could see the British frigate in much the same position, beam on to the sea, laid over on her beam ends, hard aground yet still quite distant from the shore. Her masts, too, were gone. The other British ship had disappeared into the rain and growing twilight. Darkness was all but upon them. Shore, backed by cliffs, was already a dim line of white where the seas broke heavily upon the beach.

Hawthorne dragged himself up beside Hayden and cast his own gaze upon the distant shore. ‘Could you swim it, Captain?’ he asked quietly.

Hayden shook his head. ‘No. The sea is too great and it is common in such places for there to be an undertow that will drag a swimmer out to sea. We have the ship’s boats and, come daylight, we shall build rafts. That is our best hope. We shall not have rescue unless this gale moderates a good deal, and I see little sign of that.’

Hawthorne, for once, did not look the least jocular but, like all the others, ashen and blue-lipped, his hair plastered over his forehead from the pelting rain. ‘There are some six hundred French sailors,’ Hawthorne said so low Hayden could hardly make out his words over the wind. ‘Will they be the least concerned for English prisoners or will we be left here to our own devices?’

‘Lacrosse is an honourable man – an officer and nobleman, though citoyen now. He would give up his place in the boats to one of us, I am sure … but his crew … I saw the officers openly defied by a boarding party but a few hours ago. If the French sailors refuse to take orders we shall be in a great deal of trouble. We are but a dozen, but much may fall to us for I do not believe our men will forget their duty or shy from danger.’

‘Sir …’ Hawthorne said, nodding his head towards the stern, ‘Captain Lacrosse in the offing.’

The French officer was making his way along the sloping deck. Here and there a sailor would give him a hand, for they lined the bulwark, clinging to it as the point farthest from the terrifying sea. Many a man, however, turned his face away and Lacrosse was forced to get by as best he could.

Hawthorne made room for him at the rail. It appeared to Hayden that Lacrosse had aged several decades; he looked gaunt and thin and bent. As he pulled himself to the rail beside Hayden, he was racked by a prolonged fit of coughing.

When he straightened, red-faced, he asked Hayden, ‘Are all your men present and unharmed?’

‘Yes. My first lieutenant has injured his hand,’ Hayden gestured towards Archer, whose wound Griffiths had already dressed with a strip of cloth, probably torn from a shirt hem. ‘I would never have got my crew free without your aspirant, Pierre.’

Lacrosse brightened slightly at this news. ‘He has the body of a boy but the heart of a man, that one.’ Lacrosse leaned closer to Hayden and in heavily accented English said, ‘You must know, Capitaine Hayden, that discipline has broken down in the French navy. Liberté and fraternité mean that no man is obliged to take orders from another but is free to do as he pleases. Our very lives depend upon all of the men here taking the correct measures at the right time … Though I am ashamed to say it, I am less than certain my crew will accept this.’

‘You may rely upon my own men, Capitaine,’ Hayden informed the Frenchman, trying to allow no sense of pride to enter his voice. ‘They are very steady and have proven themselves again and again. They will attempt whatever is asked of them. But we are only twelve.’

‘I may be forced to ask your aid, Capitaine Hayden, and the assistance of your men. We are in a very dire situation. This gale will draw the heat from men who are wet to the skin. We have no food and no water. But a short time ago the weather glass was seen to be still falling. This gale will last at least a day more and I have seen spring gales last much longer.’ Lacrosse looked off at the distant shore, now almost dark. ‘Is it possible, do you think, to row ashore through this surf?’

‘Perhaps, but a boat could never return against this sea. Launching boats safely will be near impossible.’

Hayden could see Lacrosse nod agreement; apparently Hayden had confirmed his own belief.

‘If there is no sign of the storm abating by first light, Capitaine Hayden, I will order a boat put over the side. I might be sending men to their deaths, I don’t know, but we must try. As frightened as the men are to be stranded on the ship, they will be more frightened to go into a boat until they know it can be managed.’

‘I have men I could send,’ Hayden offered.

‘I might accept this offer, Capitaine, if you are certain.’

Hayden assured him that his offer was in earnest.

‘Thank you, Capitaine. There is little I can do for you in this situation but do not hesitate to ask my help if you require it.’

Hayden found he was touched by this, for both men knew there was little either could offer but even so Hayden was certain Lacrosse would do whatever was within his power.

‘Thank you, sir,’ Hayden replied.

‘Bonne chance.’

The deck was sloping to the degree that men could just sit upon it and not slide down though walking upon it with wet leather soles was treacherous. Everyone was huddled in the shelter of the starboard bulwarks or behind the netting where hammocks were stowed. Although this offered some little protection from the wind, it offered next to none from the pelting rain.

Hayden had begun to shiver and he could see many others in much the same state. It was going to be a night of great misery, and he could see the men gathering into knots in largely vain attempts to gain warmth. His own men did the same but Hayden feared it would make little difference.

Darkness settled about them but the gale did not abate nor even falter. The wind continued to howl up and down an eerie scale, and the seas crashed against the hull with numbing regularity, some sending icy salt spray over the already shivering men. The noise and bitter wind overwhelmed the senses and drove men inward in an attempt to escape into some kind of silence and calm.

Hayden’s hands and feet began to ache and he stuffed his hands into his armpits as best he could. Exhaustion leached away all his strength, or so it seemed, for he had been awake for much of the previous three days. He lay down, and curled onto his side on the hard deck, closed his eyes and felt the rain clatter down upon his face and the wind push at him like a hand trying to rouse him from his slumber. For moments at a time he would slip away into unconsciousness but then he would be roused back into a kind of torpor where lethargy overwhelmed him, cold racked his limbs, and his mind was blank and despairing.

And so the endless night crept on. There was no bell or even a moon to measure out the hours but Hayden began to think that dawn would not come to this place. Men would now and then sit up and beat their arms against their sides in an attempt to restore some warmth but it profited them little. Sometime, deep into the night, Hayden heard men shouting from a distance and then realized the sound was coming up through the planking from the half-flooded gundeck. He was certain he heard cursing in French and the sounds of a struggle, but then it came to an end. Were Les Droits de l’Homme his own ship he would have forced himself up to investigate but this was Lacrosse’s vessel and Hayden did not think French sailors would obey orders from an English prisoner when they openly defied their own officers.

He slipped back into his torpor, listening to the menacing voices of the gale, occasionally doused by heavy, salt spray from the icy Atlantic. Upon one of these rude awakenings, Hayden opened his eyes and caught sight of something. Immediately, he sat up and realized there were flames burning some distance off – upon the shore no doubt.

‘Bonfires,’ came Griffiths’s voice over the wind. ‘They were lit some time ago.’ The doctor was sitting up, his hands thrust in the front of his jacket. ‘Have they come to rescue us?’ Griffiths asked, struggling to speak; he was shivering as badly as Hayden.

‘Perhaps – or they are keeping vigil, waiting for the ship to break up to see what manner of flotsam the sea might carry ashore.’ That appeared to give Griffiths pause to think. ‘How fare you, Doctor?’ Hayden asked.

‘My very soul is frozen, I think. I have been passing the hours by making mental notes on the process by which the human body is overwhelmed by cold. If I live it shall make a fascinating study. I might write a pamphlet.’

‘I am pleased to see that you have turned this night to profit. Very enterprising of you. I have been lying here in a state of utter numbness of both body and mind. It is a strange kind of delirium, I find, which can be described as neither dream nor wakefulness.’

Barthe sat up at that moment, perhaps wakened by the others. ‘I can no longer feel my cock, Doctor,’ he said. ‘If I live I shall never have use of it again.’

‘You shall find your manhood as useful as ever, Mr Barthe,’ Griffiths assured the sailing master, ‘once your body’s furnace has begun to burn again.’

‘So I pray.’

‘As d-do we all,’ Griffiths replied.

Hayden lay down but turned a little that he might catch a glimpse of the distant fires now and again. The presence of people on the shore gave him hope somehow.

Sometime before dawn Hayden could bear it no more and stood on the sloping deck and began to stiffly work his arms, certain that if he lay still a moment longer his blood would freeze. There was yet no sign of daylight but he could feel the approaching morning. The gale blew unappeased, and the sea, steel-cold, ran just as high, although the tide had ebbed and was near low water now. Hayden wondered if the rocks Les Droits de l’Homme was wrecked upon would be visible. Certainly a boat could not be launched if that were the case. A thought that the tide might ebb so far that all might walk ashore came to him – there were places along this coast where that would be possible – but not near here, he knew.

Around him a whispering blended with the sounds of the gale. The French sailors began to stir. Many began to mutter prayers and cross themselves. Then, like Hayden, a few rose up and tried to restore some warmth through movement. The British sailors forced themselves up as well.

Sunrise did not occur that day but only a dull, growing illumination that had no discernible source; a kind of twilight that Hayden knew would persist through the day. There were no victuals and no water – nothing to sustain the men but a slim hope of reaching shore.

Hayden made his way aft and soon found Lacrosse speaking with his lieutenants – pleading actually was what it appeared to be. But whatever it was, the lieutenants were not giving way, and finally Lacrosse noticed Hayden and took his leave of his officers, making his way awkwardly along the sloping deck.

‘How fare your men, Capitaine?’ Lacrosse enquired in English. There was no place for the two captains to have a private conversation so the best they could do was not to speak French.

‘They have all lived through the night but I do not think any man will survive long without water and victuals and shelter.’

Lacrosse shook his head sadly. ‘Several men perished this night, two by foul play, I fear.’

‘Sir?’

‘We found a pair, stabbed to death on the gundeck, apparently over some small scrap of food.’

Hayden could not sit in judgement – there had been a murder on his own ship when he was her first lieutenant and now this matter of Greenfield. ‘I do not think this gale will blow itself out this day, nor even on the morrow. Will you still launch a boat?’

‘That is my desire but all of my lieutenants, they do not want it. I have no one but an aspirant to put in command of such a boat.’

‘Can you not order one of your lieutenants to take this command?’

‘It shames me to say this, Capitaine Hayden, but I believe they would all refuse. If I lose the support of my officers how are the men to be governed?’

For a moment Hayden hesitated to speak. Clearly, Lacrosse hoped Hayden would offer to take charge of the boat, or perhaps put one of his own officers in command but Hayden was uncertain. It would take great seamanship and a measure of luck to get a boat ashore in the sea that was running. Hayden was willing to attempt it but he would not leave his own men. He was also reticent to leave Lacrosse on his own. The man had done him a great favour destroying his mother’s letters. Hayden was loath to leave him now. There was also the possibility – and not a remote one – that a boat would not make it through the surf. Hayden might drown his entire crew on such an enterprise. And there was one other significant problem – no one wanted to be first.

‘I would put one of my officers in charge, if that will meet with your approval,’ Hayden said at last.

‘I see little other choice, Capitaine,’ Lacrosse replied, both relieved and shamed.

‘Then let me speak with them. We will send the small boat?’

‘Yes. I will find reliable men to man the sweeps.’

Hayden went back to his own crew.

‘Shall we send a boat, then, sir?’ Archer asked as Hayden approached.

‘That is Lacrosse’s wish. He has asked that one of us take command of it. As he will supply the men to man the sweeps, it must be someone who speaks French.’

‘I will do it, sir,’ Archer said immediately.

‘I commend you, Mr Archer, but as the officer in charge must take the helm, and you have an injured hand, I shall have to ask another.’

‘Then it must be me, sir,’ Wickham said before Archer could protest. ‘No one else speaks their tongue well enough and I have taken command of many a boat, as you well know.’

‘I do, Mr Wickham, but I want you to understand, nothing you have ever done will have prepared you adequately. In truth, I am far from certain that a boat can be got ashore safely.’

‘If you please, Captain,’ Barthe interjected, ‘with no disrespect to any man present, to pilot a boat through such waters is not a matter to be taken lightly. I would venture that only yourself, sir, Mr Franks and I have long enough wakes to even attempt it.’ He gave a little bow to Wickham. ‘No disrespect to you, Mr Wickham, but you have never been in such a sea before in an open boat.’

‘I take your point, Mr Barthe,’ Wickham replied, ‘truly I do, but you do not speak French and Captain Hayden requested someone who has command of that tongue.’

‘That cannot be denied,’ Barthe agreed, ‘but I would put forward that I should take command of the boat and you should come as my second and translate all my orders upon the instant I call them out. That is the only way we have any hope of success – or so I believe.’ Barthe turned to Hayden. ‘Do you not agree, Captain?’

Hayden did not like any solution, that was the truth of it. Barthe was certainly correct – Wickham had never taken a boat through such a surf and the chances that he would succeed were slim. For that reason Barthe was certainly the better choice to take command, but the possibility of the oarsmen misunderstanding his translated order, or of the instant it took to make that translation, might be enough to see them all put under. Hayden knew that he was the right man for this endeavour but he was also certain that Lacrosse would need his assistance if he were to preserve lives.

‘Mr Barthe, we shall have to have a perfect understanding between yourself and Mr Wickham and Wickham and the oarsmen so that there can be no delay in translating your orders and no delay in their execution. There can be no hesitation on the part of the oarsmen lest it lead to disaster.’

‘I agree, sir,’ Barthe said.

Lacrosse chose older seamen for boat duty, and Hayden thought, though they all looked apprehensive, they appeared to be steady men. After asking Lacrosse’s permission he gathered these men together with Wickham and Barthe and made certain that all of the French commands were clearly comprehended by all and that Wickham knew the proper translation for each. He even ran them through a pantomime drill, to be certain that there would be no misunderstanding. Even so, Hayden feared he had forgotten some order that Barthe would call out and Wickham would not know the correct French for it.

Launching the boat was not an easy feat in such a sea. There were no masts standing and no yards to be used to swing the boat out so it had to be manhandled by the crew, all of the Englishmen involved, including the doctor. Hayden would have liked to have seen the boat manned and oars in place and then slid, bow first, into the sea but it simply could not be managed with such a weight under these circumstances. The boat would have to go into the sea and be held alongside until the crew were aboard. There was, Hayden knew, a good possibility of the boat capsizing right there next to the ship.

With many a bruise and barked knuckle, the boat was launched, the oarsmen clambered aboard even as the boat lifted wildly then dropped with the surf, banging hard against the ship again and again.

Hayden and Hawthorne steadied the hobbled Mr Barthe and helped him aboard as the cutter surged up, whereupon the master’s ankle gave way and he tumbled down awkwardly into the boat. Hawthorne turned to Hayden in horror but it was too late to bring the master back now. He pulled himself up painfully, and took hold of the tiller, not meeting his captain’s gaze.

‘Luck to you, Mr Barthe,’ Hayden said and the sailing master gave a curt nod. Hayden had never seen the old seaman look so grave. Until that instant, Hayden had not realized how little hope Barthe had of the enterprise’s success.

All the men settled in their places, took up their oars, and in a moment Barthe, through Wickham, ordered the boat away, both the Englishmen forcing confidence into their voices that Hayden now knew neither felt.

‘Do you think they will manage it?’ Hawthorne asked as they watched the French crew ship their oars.

‘I am not sure Barthe is confident.’

‘You know he cannot swim a stroke?’

‘It would not make the least difference, Mr Hawthorne. No swimmer is a match for this sea.’

‘God preserve them,’ Hawthorne intoned.

‘That and good seamanship.’

‘I would rather the oars were manned by Englishmen,’ Hawthorne said quietly.

‘Lacrosse chose steady men. I have no doubt of that.’

‘Then you are more confident than Captain Lacrosse.’ Hawthorne nodded in the direction of the French captain, who stood with one hand over his mouth, appearing to hold his breath. If his own son had been aboard the boat he could not have looked more distressed, or less confident of the outcome.

Every eye aboard watched with hope and dread. If the boat could be taken ashore safely then that would mean another boat could do the same. The problem then would be that there was only one other boat and it would bear but thirty souls in this foul sea.

Each wave lifted the little boat up and swept it on, Barthe and Wickham fighting the helm and calling out orders to the oarsmen. A sea broke over the stern and the boat was lost to sight for a moment as it slid into the trough. Hayden fully expected their next view of it would be the boat overturned and all of the hands thrown into the sea, but it lumbered up to the top of the crest, clearly burdened with water and with more than one man bailing to preserve his life.

Again the boat went down into the trough and all the men aboard Les Droits de l’Homme strained to catch sight of it. And yet again the stern was thrown up, caught by the wave, slewed to starboard and disappeared.

A long anxious moment was endured aboard the wreck, and then the boat came up again, the helmsmen fighting to keep the stern square to the seas. Again the boat was seen to yaw as the wave took hold of the stern and threw it to starboard. This time Hayden was certain the boat had broached and been swamped or overturned.

If the boat lifted above the sea on the next wave, Hayden could not see, for a larger wave interposed itself. There was a groan from all the men aboard. Some covered their faces and Hayden thought that not a few wept, for here was their single hope lost.

Hawthorne cursed under his breath.

But then the boat lifted into view. It was deep in the water now and Hayden feared that if it rolled even a little the water it had shipped would wash to one side and the weight would overturn the boat. The men were pulling for their very lives, Hayden could see, even at this distance, Barthe and Wickham standing in the stern fighting the tiller.

Down again the boat went, and was lost from view for some moments.

‘They were not so far from the beach,’ Hawthorne whispered to Hayden. ‘Do you think they might cling to the boat and be washed ashore?’

‘I do not know,’ Hayden replied softly. ‘They might be more distant than we comprehend.’

‘I do hope we have not lost our shipmates, sir.’

‘God preserve them both,’ Smosh said quietly, sidling over to where Hawthorne and Hayden stood, braced against the sloping deck. ‘Cannot Mr Wickham swim so short a distance?’

‘The surf is very great, Mr Smosh, and the sea yet very cold. Twenty minutes in this water and all of a man’s vital energy will have been sapped away. If the boat overturns I hold little hope for any man to survive.’

‘I have prayed to God to preserve their lives – even the papists – but God has his own plans for us and is little influenced by Smosh, I fear.’

A cheer went up around them at that moment, and Hayden could see men from the shore wading into the surf, and then the boat appeared, almost up to its gunwales, the oarsmen all tumbling out. They were helped ashore, staggering through the surf, bracing themselves as it ebbed and then thrown forward onto their knees when a sea swept over them. But they were ashore.

Around Hayden men jumped to their feet and pounded each other on the backs as though somehow they had been responsible for this miracle.

The storm, however, was not so pleased and howled all around as though angered anew. Hayden was near pushed off his feet and could lean against the wind with all his weight. Around him men slumped down onto the deck clinging to one another as the wind screamed and rippled their sodden clothing.

There was no choice but to lie flat on the deck so that the heeled ship provided some small protection. Within moments the sea mounted and began to crash against the hull, shoving the massive ship each time. A splintering and rending of timbers was heard aft and a moment later two shattered sections of the transom floated off into the foaming waters.

‘She is breaking up!’ Griffiths looked over at Hayden like a man about to be cast into this cold, fearsome sea.

‘The stern is the most vulnerable part of a ship, Doctor, and it was much damaged by British gunfire. We have many hours, yet, before we need worry about her breaking up.’

But even so, all the men aboard stared in horror as the sections of the transom drifted off. Lacrosse scuttled across the deck to Hayden, his wet hair whipped back by the wind.

‘We dare not launch a boat in this, Capitaine Hayden,’ he called over the wind, his voice hoarse from thirst.

‘I agree, Capitaine Lacrosse. We must wait for the sea to moderate and this wind to take off.’

A wave boomed against the hull and shot spray high into the air before it slatted down heavily upon the deck. Hayden and Lacrosse both wiped salt water from their eyes and faces, but Hayden thought the look they shared said all that was needed – getting a twentieth of the men safely off this ship would be the most they could hope for.

All through the morning and then the afternoon the shipwrecked men lay on the deck, their stomachs boiling with hunger, mouths and throats gummy from thirst. As one had no choice but to shout over the wind, conversation was difficult and men soon gave it up. Each lay with his own thoughts, and Hayden believed that there was no more fertile soil for fears and doubts than inactivity. Had he been in command he would have employed the men in making rafts or in some other enterprise.

Waving the doctor near, Hayden leaned towards him and asked as quietly as the wind would allow, ‘How long can men go without food and water, Doctor?’

‘Commonly, one would say without food, many days, although in this matter every man is different. Water, however, one cannot do without for more than four days, and under these circumstances perhaps as few as three and one half. It is singularly cold for April, Captain, and as we are all wet to our very skins the wind will draw away our reserves more quickly than we realize. I for one am shivering without pause.’ For a moment Griffiths appeared to consider his answer. ‘Although this might disgust everyone, Captain, it is possible to drink urine as it is aseptic and can be imbibed without detriment.’

‘Let us hope it does not come to that.’

Griffiths clearly had more to say, so Hayden remained propped up a little on one elbow.

‘Sir, there is but one boat remaining and near to six hundred souls aboard this ship. How many might be carried safely ashore?’

‘Thirty, more or less,’ Hayden said.

‘And can it then return to take away more?’

‘Not while the storm persists.’

‘Then some five hundred seventy shall remain aboard?’

‘Yes, but we will make rafts and attempt to reach the shore upon those.’

This proposal did not seem to raise the doctor’s hopes in the least – if anything he looked more despondent.

‘Doctor, if we are able to launch the boat this day, will you go with it?’

Griffiths shook his head. ‘I believe my knowledge will be required here, Captain. Ashore there are surgeons enough.’

Through all of the meagre morning the wind battered man and ship, wailing up and down a discordant scale. There was little anyone could do but lie on the hard planks and shiver miserably. Hayden’s mind was given over to something like dream, and he thought often of Henrietta and imagined a warm meeting where all of their misunderstandings had been swept aside and their affections were all but impossible to keep in check.

This waking dream was interrupted often by Hayden wondering whether the penetrating cold caused more misery than the hunger and thirst. His muscles ached. His very bones were in agony. Spasms of shivering would overwhelm him and he would lie hugging himself and rocking on the hard planks. Around him men moaned and muttered and cursed their ill luck. Prayers were offered up in both French and English and not a few in the language of Bretagne.

Hayden was uncertain how much time passed, for his watch had ceased to work, water having penetrated its case, no doubt, and there was no way to find the sun. Forcing himself up, he went in search of Lacrosse, whom he found on the slowly disintegrating quarterdeck.

‘Capitaine Lacrosse, I would like to put my men to work building rafts. To lie here doing nothing I believe will only make them more despondent and when this weather takes off we might be able to use rafts to get ashore.’

Lacrosse nodded vigorously. ‘That is wise, Capitaine Hayden. I will set some of my own men to do the same. The carpenter’s tools were not saved, however, so we have little but our hands and some cordage that tore away when we lost our masts.’

‘Did I not see a boarding party go below to the gundeck before we struck the reef?’

This brought an unhappy look to the French officer’s face but he nodded.

‘Perhaps some of their tomahawks might still be on the gundeck. I will collect some of my men and search.’

Hayden made his way back along the sloping deck and explained his plan to his crew. Immediately they were making their way stiffly down the remaining ladder forward to the gundeck below. But for a thin ribbon upon the seaward side, the deck was entirely awash. The opening torn in the transom allowed the sea to come fully in and with each wave the water level rose to the point where even amidships the men were fighting to keep their heads above water. Worse, however, was the flotsam that washed back and forth, caved in barrels, strakes of heavy timber, capstan bars and gun carriages that would crush a man were they to pin him against the hull.

The silence of profound apprehension settled among Hayden’s men, who watched the deadly flotsam as though it were about to pounce. Waves thundering against the hull were immediately followed by the water level rising and the flotsam being washed from the stern towards the bow, battering along the hull and thudding dully together.

Hayden ordered the doctor and the other non-swimmers to remain on the upper deck. ‘You can be no help here,’ he told them, ‘and we cannot spend our energies rescuing any man.’

There were still half a dozen guns lashed to the starboard side but the rest had rolled or tumbled down into the water, doing who knew what damage to the ruined hull. Wisely, no one wanted to be downhill of these guns so Hayden picked a spot where there was no gun poised to come sliding down on them and turned to Hobson and Gould. ‘We will not last twenty minutes in this water. Best we get on with it. Be wary. There is much dangerous flotsam here and if you are pinned against the hull there will be little any man can do.’

The midshipmen nodded quickly.

Hayden let himself go and swam a few strokes to the leeward side of the wrecked ship, keeping clear of a half-submerged gun carriage. The iciness of the sea scythed into his muscles and he felt the strength torn away. A sea washed in at that moment filling all the air space and he felt himself swept towards the bow. The sea washed out and Hayden madly grabbed for anything that would hold him in place, trying desperately to see if dangerous flotsam bore down upon him. When he surfaced he called out for the midshipmen and found them both clinging to a cleat not too distant and cursing like Mr Barthe. As the water reached a brief equilibrium they all put their heads under and groped about with hands and feet.

Hobson surfaced as Hayden did, they both took a breath as the sea washed in and then held on for their lives. Something heavy lumbered into Hayden and broke him free. But he dived under it and managed to find purchase. Again the sea washed out the stern and Hayden found Gould and Hobson both coughing madly. He swam a few strokes and caught hold of Hobson.

‘I have an axe, sir,’ the midshipman said and held the weapon up. ‘There is another just here,’ he said, nodding downwards.

‘I will find it,’ Hayden replied. ‘Both of you get up onto the deck.’

He watched them go, gauged the position of all dangerous flotsam, and then forced himself down into the frigid cold one last time. If he could not lay his hand on the axe he would have to give it up. He could not bear it longer.

An iron ball he found, and cannister shot, and just when he was about to give it up, he laid his hand on the axe and shot up, cracking his head cruelly on a carline. There was no air to breathe and Hayden found a streaming line used to run out a gun and clung to that while the water tried to sweep him towards the stern and out into the storm. A broken barrel struck him a glancing blow on the shoulder and he near dropped his precious axe. A moment later he was crawling up onto the thin ribbon of planks not submerged and then onto the ladder and up into the wind, his treasure in hand.

Hawthorne and Franks had wrapped the two midshipmen in their own coats, which though not dry were certainly better than the sopping garments the boys wore. Franks took Hayden’s coat and with massive hands wrung from it all the water he could and then beat it on the deck to dry it more. Hayden was shivering so severely that he could not manage speech and allowed Hawthorne to take his waistcoat and shirt and twist the water from them. By the time he had donned his still-wet clothes Hayden thought he would depart this life on the spot, the cold had knifed so deeply into his heart. The doctor chaffed his wrists and one of the French lieutenants came aft and produced a flask, giving all three of the swimmers a precious mouthful of brandy. This emptied the flask and the Englishmen stammered their thanks through blue lips. The man shrugged and tossed the flask into the sea, to prove it empty to the crew, Hayden suspected.

Mr Franks took charge of the raft building. Lumber was needed and being sensible of the state of the ship, the bosun went about prising it loose from places where it would not weaken the structure.

Hayden and the two midshipmen huddled as best they could out of the wind and trembled like men with the palsy. Three French sailors who had been bunched beneath a hammock came and wrapped the midshipmen in it and then sat close around Hayden bearing the brunt of the wind and sparing what little heat they could from their own frames.

Lacrosse approached to find out how Hayden fared and looked very concerned. Hayden motioned him near with a shaking hand.

‘C-Captain La-c-crosse,’ Hayden whispered in English, ‘this ship will not l-last long. The sea is w-washing in and out and w-will break it apart from the iiiinside out.’

‘Save us,’ Lacrosse said, crossing himself. ‘I will put some of my own crew to work building rafts … but rafts will never pass through this …’ He waved a hand at the sea breaking all around and streaked with white. The French captain went off awkwardly along the slippery deck, and called together his lieutenants.

Griffiths, who hovered nearby came nearer. ‘How long do we have, do you think?’

‘Until m-morning,’ Hayden replied.

The doctor said nothing but went crabwise along the deck towards the men building the raft. Best they knew how little time remained.

The construction of rafts proceeded so slowly that Hayden worried they would not be able to carry a quarter of the crew even if the sea would allow them to be launched. For the first time doubt began to invade his thoughts – like hands reaching up out of the sea and pulling him downwards. It occurred to him that he might not escape this wreck with his life. If the storm did not begin to abate by morning they might be forced to launch the one remaining boat before the ship began to break up. He felt a fool for not taking Wickham or Barthe into his confidence before they set out for shore – someone needed to survive to pass on Monsieur Benoît’s warning of the French massing at Cancale. If Hayden died here that knowledge would die with him.

Hayden lay down upon the deck, where he hugged himself and shivered in the midst of his French protectors. When he was lucid he thanked them, or perhaps he dreamed he did.

He opened his eyes at some point, surfacing from his torpor and half-dream and found the night had settled around them. The sounds of the storm still raged but new tones had been added, the creaking and working of timbers as the ship was wrenched apart from inside. Even in his reduced state and with his mind half taken by fancy, Hayden realized their danger was great and the destruction of the ship imminent.

The night crept by, moonless and chill, the secret sea running high and the wind shrilling over the deck. Hayden never became warm but the frigid numbness and palsied shaking did pass even though it took some hours. Before first light men rose and set to the building of rafts; no doubt it had become apparent to all that the ship could not hold together much longer. When light did come Hayden was met by the gruesome sight of men lying utterly still upon the deck, their comrades unable to stir them. Griffiths, the French surgeon and his mates went about the deck seeing to these men, and to the dismay of all more than a few were slipped over the leeward side, where the sea carried them off. Three dozen, the doctor reported when this gruesome task was completed.

By the time light began to grey the sky, the deck commenced to move and was clearly going to buckle. Once that occurred the ship would swiftly break up. Lacrosse found him and after enquiring after his well-being, led him as far away from others as the sloping deck would allow. The Frenchman looked about to collapse, Hayden thought – unshaven, ashen, his eyes appearing to be sunken back into their sockets as though he retreated from the sight of this horrible day.

‘The ship will not remain as it is for much longer,’ Lacrosse began, speaking quietly, his voice a croak from lack of water. He bent over then, and grimaced, hands upon his knees – hunger pains Hayden knew for they had doubled him over several times during the night. Lacrosse forced himself upright. ‘I do not believe we can wait for the sea to become less. We might wait too long. I will put my strongest men to the oars but the sick and the weak must go into the boat. They have not the strength to take to the rafts and have no chance of survival if left on the ship.’

‘I agree,’ Hayden said. ‘All of my men are hale and have been employed in the making of rafts; they shall not take up any space in the boat.’

Lacrosse tilted his head to one side. ‘I had hoped that you might have a man to take the command and helm the boat, Capitaine. I have no one I trust to do this.’

‘Only Mr Franks or myself have the experience and Franks speaks not a word of French and I will not abandon men on the ship.’

‘I have a man – a good seaman – who speaks English très bon. I would send him like your young lieutenant Wick—’

‘Wickham.’

‘Yes. He will call out the commands of your Mr Franks, just as young Wickham did.’

Hayden looked out over the breaking sea. Certainly the conditions were worse than the previous morning when they had launched the smaller boat, but to remain aboard the wreck was very likely a more certain death, he believed.

‘I will speak with Mr Franks,’ he said.

Stiffly, he went forward to find Franks overseeing the construction of yet another raft. Hayden looked quickly at the rafts that were more or less ready to be launched and those in build and could see immediately that barely half the men would find a place on these makeshift vessels. The remainder would be left to the wreck hoping that whatever pieces they might cling to would be washed ashore.

‘Mr Franks …’ Hayden beckoned the bosun. ‘If you please.’

‘Sir?’ Franks limped quickly towards his captain.

‘Mr Franks, Captain Lacrosse is seeking a man to take the helm and command of his barge, as soon as it can be launched. It is his hope to convey ashore the sick and those too weak to fend for themselves. He has asked if such a man might be found among our crew and I believe only you have the experience to manage it.’

Franks did not hesitate. ‘I would do it, sir, though I speak not a word of their tongue.’

‘Lacrosse assures me that he has a man who speaks both languages very well and will act as Wickham did, conveying your orders.’

‘If that is the case, then certainly, sir. I shall endeavour to con the boat through the surf, sir, and bring everyone safely ashore, may God help me.’

Hayden had never heard Franks invoke the aid of a deity before, but he had little doubt that many had found renewed faith these last hours.

‘I shall inform Captain Lacrosse,’ Hayden replied. ‘And Mr Franks … good luck and God’s speed.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

Hayden went back to Lacrosse, who was then gathering together a crew to man the oars. The sick and men deemed too weak to save themselves were being chosen by the surgeons, and then brought to one place convenient to boarding the boat. The boat itself was larger than a British barge and proportionately heavy. There was but one method of launching: it had to be manhandled into the sea. Lacrosse called out orders and to Hayden’s surprise the French sailors appeared to willingly comply that day, perhaps realizing that too much independent action might lead to their own deaths. With each passing sea the water would rise up and bury the leeward barricade, washing up the deck, which could be felt moving up beneath the feet of the men.

In their weakened state moving the boat into the water took as many men as could find purchase upon the hull. Even then it was not managed quickly or without a few small injuries, but at length the boat finally slid into the Atlantic, where men attempted to hold it close alongside and tended painters attached fore and aft. Franks clambered in first, showing it to be no easy task as the boat rose and fell, wanting to smash itself to kindling against the hull. To be caught between boat and wreck would mean injury or even death so the men all but threw themselves aboard, where they crouched down looking even more frightened than they had aboard the wreck.

The oarsmen went aboard two or three at a time, and then the sick were handed across, and then the weak, many of whom looked near to death. All of the ship’s boys were then ordered aboard, which they managed with the nimbleness common to their years. Hayden’s own midshipmen requested to be allowed to stay with the wreck and take their chances on the rafts, which Hayden allowed as he believed the odds of survival in the boat were little better given the power of the sea.

There was a muttering among the seamen gathered by the boat then, and a sailor jumped from the wreck, tumbling into the bottom of the barge. Angrily, Lacrosse ordered the man out but as he was seized upon by the oarsmen three more men leapt in all but atop him. Pushing and cursing began all around, and Hayden himself would have been knocked to the deck in the press but some unknown hand bore him up. At that instant, a great sea passed and the deck was felt to bow up beneath the men’s feet with a terrible rending sound and then suddenly men were shouldering one another aside and trampling over the fallen to throw themselves into the boat. Men distant from the boat were forced into the sea by the men behind pushing themselves forward and Hayden was pressed from all sides, thrown first this way and then that. The calls of officers were lost in the melee.

Franks was screaming to ‘push off, push off!’ but the men pouring into the boat – some by contrivance but many merely pushed by the men behind – made escape impossible. Of an instant the boat was overburdened and heeled heavily to leeward, throwing all the men aboard to one side, and then to the horror of everyone, the boat rolled slowly over, casting all aboard her into the roiling sea.

‘Hold fast to the ropes!’ Hayden shouted in French, taking hold of the stern line himself, but the boat was pulled away by the overwhelming force of the sea and the men were powerless to stop it. All let the rope go before they too were dragged into the water.

In the water men were trying to take hold of the capsized boat which now lay between them and the wreck. Frantically they attempted to crawl over one another, many a face pushed or pulled under by a frightened comrade. A few managed to make the wreck and were pulled from the sea by their fellows but most were swept away, the last sight of them a terrified countenance going under.

‘Mr Franks!’ Hayden called. ‘Franks!’

The only reply was the cries of the drowning men, all of whom were quickly swept beneath the sea, the boat – their only hope of survival – washing away, its bottom barely visible in the foam and spume.

The men on the wreck looked on in horror, not only because they had just witnessed a hundred men go to their deaths but because they had clearly seen the fate that awaited them and soon, too.

Lacrosse’s voice could be heard in the ensuing silence ordering the men back – an order obeyed but barely and with many a resentful and sullen look towards the capitaine. The British sailors found each other among the retreating Frenchmen, all present but their bosun.

Archer looked more distressed than Hayden had ever seen. The young man looked as though he would fall down on the deck and sob – as though he had lost a brother.

‘Mr Franks, sir …’ he said and then fought to master himself. ‘Mr Franks …’ he said again and put his hands over his face.

Gould stood a few paces distant, not nearly as distraught as Archer, but silent and awed. ‘Is he … lost, sir? Without question?’

‘I lost sight of him, Mr Gould, but certainly it would be a miracle if he survived. And I sent him …’ Hayden drew a quick, involuntary breath, ‘though I knew he did not wish to go …’

The British sailors all collapsed upon the deck. Hayden was grateful no others had been forced into the sea by the press and that only one had been lost. Surely a hundred French sailors had died – probably more.

For a long while no one spoke and then Smosh offered to lead them in prayer, which he did, speaking so plainly about Mr Franks and in a manner so heartfelt that all were affected. Hayden felt that if the quality of prayer spoken upon a man’s passing was heaven’s measure then certainly Franks would walk among the angels. He had been a less than accomplished bosun but he had been a good and loyal crewman and had made every effort to learn the trade in which he knew full well he was deficient. Poor Franks had no family, for his wife had born him no children and she had grown sickly and finally passed on, leaving Franks a near pauper to the debts owed the many physicians and surgeons who had ministered to his unlucky spouse. Hayden did not know how to take the measure of a man’s life but Franks’s existence had been hard, that was certain, though many could say the same. But, even so, Franks’s life had no leisure, little comfort, no recognition, and more heartache than deserved. In the great sea of British life Franks’s passing had made barely a ripple. That was the truth, hard and cruel as it was to say. And it was the fate of most, Hayden knew, and there was no reason to believe that he would be an exception. The anonymity of death was complete. Once the few souls acquainted with a man had passed he was a name on a stone – and a very great many could not even hope for that.

With these melancholy thoughts bringing him very low, Hayden looked out at the distant beach where so many had gathered to watch what transpired. He doubled over a moment in pain from hunger and thirst, as everyone did at intervals. And when this spasm passed he felt the loss of Franks and the absence of Mr Barthe. There was, among his remaining crew, no one with more experience than himself. All decisions must be made without any hope of drawing upon the experience of another. And the decision that must be made was when to launch the rafts.

The wind had not abated since sunset the previous day and the sea remained high, breaking in many places from the wreck almost into the shore. Hayden did not believe a raft would go far without overturning. Watching the progress of the capsized boat he could see that it was borne more south than shoreward and would in all likelihood take hours to drift ashore … if it did not find an undertow that carried it back out to sea. How long would a man last clinging to a raft that might be thrown over by every breaking sea? Not long enough to reach shore was the conclusion that Hayden came to. Again he wondered if these might be his last few hours.

Lacrosse sought him out then. The Frenchman looked done for, haggard and pale, as though he had been hungry for a year, not a few days.

‘I have come to beg your forgiveness, Capitaine Hayden,’ Lacrosse began. ‘I requested your officer take charge …’ he tried to swallow, ‘the unforgivable actions of my own crew caused his death … and the deaths of many others. I am sorrowful and I am ashamed.’

Hayden did not quite know what to say. ‘Your situation – your command – is all but impossible, Capitaine Lacrosse. To govern men who will not consent to be governed without the common means of discipline …’ Hayden shrugged. ‘It cannot be done. The failing is not yours.’

‘Vous êtes tres gentil, Capitaine Hayden.’ Lacrosse tried to work some moisture into his mouth. ‘Some of my crew have petitioned me to allow them to launch a raft. I have given my consent, though I spoke against this as I believe it is very unlikely they will succeed. They are determined to make the attempt, even so. What is your opinion, Capitaine? Will you launch the rafts you have built?’

Hayden shook his head. ‘I am of the opinion that we must wait until the very last instant for, like you, I do not think a raft can pass through the seas without being capsized.’ Hayden pointed. ‘I watched the boat drift south. I believe it will take some hours to go ashore. Men upon a raft will be thrown into the sea and I do not believe they can cling to the raft long enough to make it ashore. It is beyond human endurance. I would choose to stay with the ship until it begins to break up. We can only hope it will hold together until the gale moderates.’

Lacrosse nodded, his look pained and grim. ‘I fear you are right but these men are determined and I have chosen to allow it. If they reach shore … we will know that it can be managed. If they do not … may God preserve all of our souls.’

‘Yes,’ Hayden said softly. ‘Amen.’

Lacrosse gathered together the men who wished to launch the raft – seven men – and, exhorting the others to keep their distance, found a few more men to help with the launch. It was not easily managed nor efficiently done but the raft finally half slid and half tumbled into the sea. The seven crew, holding barrel staves as paddles, clambered aboard the swaying platform. The sea took them as they settled to their knees, throwing them at the side of the heeling ship, with a crash that nearly tumbled them all into the water, and then swept them away. Although they paddled madly their efforts appeared to be wholly ignored by the high-running sea. It tossed them up then sent them spinning down the wave face, catching them up and passing beneath. The men gave up paddling and instead clung to the raft, lying face down, instinctively keeping their weight low. Hayden could see the fear on their faces.

Like the capsized boat, the raft was carried more south than east. Every man aboard clung to that raft with their gaze, all of their hopes riding with the terrified occupants. Not a dozen waves had passed beneath the clumsy vessel before one broke upon it and Hayden watched as the men were hurled into the sea and the raft capsized. Perhaps three managed to scramble back aboard the overturned raft. They could be seen looking about for their companions but they were already lost.

The raft was barely three hundred yards away when it was thrown over again, and this time only a single man could be seen, clinging to the wreckage, as it crested the next sea. The others were gone. That man remained aboard as the raft drifted slowly south, and was soon too distant for anyone aboard the wrecked ship to distinguish the slight form of a man. Whether he remained aboard or not, no one could say.

Archer looked over at Hayden. ‘Well, sir, I doubt British seamanship can make a raft seaworthy or that our own crew would fare better.’

‘I am afraid I agree, Mr Archer.’

‘Then we are to risk our luck on the wreck and hope this gale takes off enough for us to launch rafts and bring them safely to shore.’

‘Yes,’ Hayden admitted. ‘It is the only course of action open to us, though I have tortured my mind in an attempt to discover anything else we might do.’

‘As have we all, Captain.’

A desperate silence descended upon the shipwrecked men, all of whom were wracked with spasms of pain from hunger and thirst and most of whom shivered with cold and controlled their limbs but poorly. Although knots of men sat, backs to the wind, heads bowed, most lay upon the deck, curled up against the wind trying to preserve the smallest spark of warmth. Many were now insensible, or nearly so, and unable to perform the smallest act that might preserve their lives. When the ship broke up, Hayden knew most of these men would be washed into the sea.

The screech of working timbers as the ship was prised apart by each passing sea had grown dreadfully loud. Some men covered their ears against it. The deck worked as the seas passed into the hull and then out again. Hayden could see it almost ripple from stern to stem with each sea. He found this more fascinating than frightening, which said much for his state of both mind and body. Like most, he was exhausted to the point of collapse and comprehended that his judgement was much reduced.

Sometime in the early afternoon a series of massive seas broke upon Les Droits de l’Homme and the upper deck began to tear free. A violent wrenching and rending was heard, and the timbers began to snap like kindling. In less than five minutes a section of the bow broke away and was driven over the reef and broken into two pieces. Upon these, swept by the seas, Hayden could see men clinging one to another, and scrambling as the section rolled to its natural trim.

‘Stay together!’ Hayden ordered his men. ‘Where is the doctor?’

‘He’s assisting the French surgeon,’ Archer informed. ‘They were aft, sir.’

Hayden forced himself up to his feet. ‘Dr Griffiths!’ he called over the sounds of the gale, the rending of timbers.

He spotted Griffiths, hurrying aft as best he could among all the men and over a sloping, slick deck.

‘Shall we launch the rafts, sir?’ Ransome asked.

‘No, Mr Ransome. The rafts will take us to our deaths without question. We must cling to a section of the wreck. It is a slim hope but the only one we have. Link arms. Let no man be torn away. Take hold of that French boy, Mr Hawthorne. He is the lad who helped me free all of you.’

Hawthorne found Pierre and bodily moved the boy into the centre of the British sailors, where the midshipmen had been sent as well.

‘Well, young Pierre,’ Hawthorne declared above the noise, ‘as a reward for saving us from drowning we are going to allow you to drown among Englishmen – a singular honour for a Frenchman. We do hope you are properly grateful.’

Despite the desperateness of the situation the British sailors laughed, earning them the oddest looks from the French sailors.

There was a rush to the rafts by the French sailors, and near battle broke out to launch these ungainly craft, and clamber aboard. Men were struck down by their mates and shoved into the sea. Several rafts were overset by men leaping aboard them without thought to the crafts’ stability. A large section of the stern broke away then – perhaps half the quarterdeck. Some men aft elected to stay with the larger centre of the wreck and leapt over the growing gap. Half of an hour was needed to rip the stern section loose, all the while the men aboard crying out and calling for God to preserve them. Finally it tore away entire and immediately commenced breaking into smaller sections. Hayden could see Lacrosse and his officers upon one of these, lying upon their bellies and clinging to whatever purchase could be found.

All about the ship flotsam floated up, some of it sections of the deck below. A large section of lower deck appeared aft and was pushed into the lee of the wreck. With only an instant to decide Hayden leapt to his feet. ‘Onto that section of deck!’ he called to his men and pointed. ‘All at once, now.’

He began dragging up the nearest man to him and then another pushing them towards the submerged rail. In a moment Hawthorne had taken a hold of this raft – perhaps twenty feet by a dozen. He could not hold it though and for a moment Hayden thought it would be swept away, but instead it washed back towards the wreck and in that instant the British sailors all tumbled aboard, as did a few Frenchmen, as well as their mascot, Pierre.

‘On your bellies!’ Hayden ordered. ‘Link arms and take hold of the edge.’ The men did as he said and linked legs wherever they could as well.

In a moment they were fifty feet from the wreck, which was breaking apart rapidly, the men aboard being cast into the sea or leaping for anything that might float and grasping hold with cramping hands.

Smosh lay near to Hayden; he was praying calmly, asking God to deliver them though they were unworthy sinners. For some reason this reference to their sins made Hayden want to laugh. ‘Grasp on, Mr Smosh!’ Hayden implored the priest. ‘Let no man slip away!’ A sea broke over them almost tearing Hayden free. His hands were weak from cold and seemed like claws, stiff and unwieldy. The raft was awash half the time, the men’s faces in the water as often as not.

Hayden could hear the men’s breath coming in short, terrified gasps. Looking up, he could see the last section of the ship collapsing down into the water, and then surging up in pieces, men being spilled into the frigid sea. Even over the howling gale he could hear their cries. This piece of deck might not make it ashore but he was certain that it afforded them a better chance than staying with the wreck. He had ordered everyone jump aboard because it was larger and heavier than any of the rafts that had been built. There was a slim possibility that it was too heavy to be thrown over in the breaking seas. That would be seen soon enough.

Seas began to mount up as soon as they reached soundings, but here along the relatively shallow coast they quickly became very steep, piled upon each other and broke violently and often. Each sea lifted the heavy section of deck and drove it both south and east towards shore. From Hayden’s vantage, staring out to sea, he had time to contemplate the long, irregular rows of waves rolling towards them. Some of these were low swells that merely lifted their raft and set it down into the trough, but successions of high seas would come – four or five at a time – that would angle the raft up so that it was all the men could do to stay aboard. Too often a sea would mount up too steeply and the top would topple off, breaking heavily upon the raft and its occupants, pressing them down so that they must hold their breath and cling to the edge of their vessel with all the strength that remained to them. When it seemed to Hayden that he could hold his breath no longer the raft would stagger up so that it was only half in flood, and a chorus of coughing and gasping would be heard all around.

‘Hold fast!’ someone would shout then, and another sea would throw itself upon them.

Sailors were strong men, who did hard labour every day, Hayden well knew. Their hands were especially strong from regularly hauling ropes and this was the only reason they had lasted even this long. To Hayden’s right lay Dr Griffiths, and to his left the French aspirant, Pierre. The boy looked frightened and was shivering uncontrollably.

‘Link your arm with mine,’ he instructed the boy in French and this was awkwardly done as the boy’s limbs would hardly obey. ‘Dr Griffiths, do the same.’

The surgeon linked elbows with Hayden. His face was blue-white and his lips bloodless. In their year of sailing together Hayden had never seen him look so frightened.

‘Another few waves like that last,’ the doctor said, ‘and I shall be gone.’

‘We will not let you go, Doctor.’ And then to the man upon Griffiths’s right, ‘Mr Hawthorne, hold fast to the doctor.’

‘I shall not release my hold upon you, Doctor, until we are standing upon the shore.’

Griffiths nodded his thanks.

‘Hold fast!’ came the call.

The raft began its vertiginous climb over a steep wall of grey-green water. It seemed to Hayden that it rose to a point of being almost vertical, though surely this was imagined. Even so, he was certain this time it would be thrown over – gravity would not be denied. The crest broke upon them but it was largely foam and comparatively harmless. The wave passed beneath then, and he tilted now the other way, though not so steeply – a wave’s back was never so steep as its face.

Two seas passed then, neither steep enough to cause alarm. Hayden could hear the men muttering, ‘Thank God’, and gathering their reserves to face the next onslaught. It came soon enough in a sea so steep that Hayden was certain it would throw them all into the ocean, but somehow their platform remained upright though it had turned about so that Hayden now looked towards the shore, which was closer than he had dared hope.

He hadn’t realized how much more difficult it was to be on the downhill side of the raft as it lifted to the seas, looking down into the trough. If he hadn’t been able to link legs with the man behind him Hayden was certain he would never have kept his hold of the raft.

Another sea threw itself upon them, slanting the raft impossibly up, then casting a deluge upon them. Up the raft went until it was nearly vertical, Hayden holding on with every bit of reserve he could manage, feeling his numb fingers beginning to slip – and then the raft dug its edge in so that Hayden was submerged to his waist, and then went over, so that he was entirely under green water.

The raft was torn from his hand, and Hayden was plunged into the cold Atlantic. His hold on the raft had been lost but he had grabbed the man to either side and now he kicked and struggled to find the surface. In a moment he pushed his face above the heaving surface, pulling Griffiths up as he did so. The young aspirant could swim, and he surfaced as Hayden did, looked about wildly, and then struck out for the raft, which floated not a dozen feet away.

‘Do not struggle, Doctor,’ Hayden called, turning the surgeon on his back. ‘Kick your feet but stay upon your back.’

A wave fell upon them, its massive weight driving them under. It took a moment for Hayden to get them to the surface again but he could feel Griffiths kicking and waving his arms rather ineffectually. The raft, by some act of providence, was nearer and in three strokes Hayden had hold of it. Pierre was already aboard, looking like a drowned pup, but he grabbed the doctor by the shoulders of his coat and pulled him awkwardly aboard and then gave Hayden a hand.

Around the raft, men were struggling to get back aboard; some appeared to be flailing about merely trying to stay afloat and Hayden, realizing that Ransome could not make it on his own, rolled back into the water and went clumsily after the lieutenant. It took longer than he thought and exhausted all his reserves to accomplish, but Hayden brought Ransome alongside the overturned raft, though he had no energy left to drag himself aboard and would not have made it had not hands reached out and pulled him up onto the planks.

Too exhausted to take hold, Hayden waited for the next wave to wash him back into the sea. ‘Sir!’ It was Gould shouting almost in his ear. ‘You must turn about and grasp on, sir, or you will be lost.’

With the help of Gould and Archer, Hayden managed to get himself around and tried to grip the planks with hands that more closely worked like claws and felt much the same.

‘How many did we lose?’ Hayden asked.

‘We are all here, sir, but for a Frenchman or two. I don’t know how, Captain, but we all got back aboard.’ He paused a moment, a look like pain crossing his face. ‘But we will not manage it again, God preserve us.’

Hayden tried to twist about and saw Smosh bleeding profusely from his scalp. ‘Mr Smosh, you are hurt, sir.’

The man nodded dumbly, clearly dazed and uncertain. The men either side had hold of him for he was unable to fend for himself.

‘Raft landed on him, Captain,’ Griffiths called. ‘But I’ll see him put to rights as soon as we have made shore.’

Shore, however, was no nearer. The raft was being driven slowly south but never seemed to draw nearer the beach, as though the waves drove it shoreward but some invisible current drew it with equal force out to sea.

‘Captain?’ Archer called, ‘I believe we have passed through the worst of the surf, sir.’

Hayden looked about and after a moment began to think Archer was not wrong. The waves now were smaller and though they broke often it was not with the violence of the seas they had just come through. Yet the raft remained too far from shore for any to swim; many no longer had the reserves to keep hold but lay near to senseless, the motion of the raft half rolling them one way then another.

We shall all perish from exposure to the elements if we cannot get ashore soon, Hayden thought, but even so his spirits lifted noticeably. Maybe they could survive!

‘What are these men about then?’ someone asked.

Hayden twisted around and on the beach south of them he could see a knot of men, perhaps a dozen of them, bearing something down to the surf line.

‘Is it a boat? Do they carry a boat?’ one of the midshipmen asked.

‘I do believe it is exactly that, Mr Hobson,’ Hayden replied.

‘But can they launch it?’

Hayden looked around. ‘I believe we have drifted inside a reef or perhaps a bar. The seas are breaking farther out.’ The seas the raft climbed now were not nearly so high, and though they did mount up and break almost as often as they had previously, they were less threatening. ‘I think we could bring a boat through such a surf,’ he announced. ‘And if these men are fishermen, I am sure they will manage it.’

‘I hope they are smugglers, sir,’ Hawthorne said.

‘Are smugglers notably better boatmen than are fishermen, Mr Hawthorne?’

‘No, sir, but they might carry some brandy aboard.’

A few men managed a truncated laugh and a few more shook their heads. Many lay still as the dead and Hayden feared they were exactly that.

The boat was soon skidding into the water, where men held it against the seas while the oarsmen clambered aboard. The men in the surf steadied the boat with difficulty against a series of waves and then, as one, gave it a great shove, the oarsmen setting to work that same instant. Quickly the boat gathered way, and then met the first sea, which flung it up until it was lost to Hayden’s view behind a wall of water. A moment later it appeared again, waterspidering over the high-running sea. Across the long trough it would gather way, the men leaning back into their oars. And then they would meet the onrushing sea, and the boat’s way would be all but lost so that when the sea finally rolled on beneath them, the boat would be dead in the water. The men would set to work again. In the stern of the squat little craft two men fed out rope, attached now and then to a small cask to buoy it up. These casks were swept off downwind and driven southwards by the seas. Hayden worried that they would make the boat impossible to steer in time, pulling her stern south, but the men appeared to know their business.

A high sea broke upon the raft but there was little weight in the crest – all foam and little green water. Looking around at the faces of the men stretched out upon the planks he thought that few would not live another hour. One by one they would be washed away by the seas. If this boat did not reach them, Hayden believed that he would die there, so close to his mother’s country – a British sea officer washed up upon the shores of Bretagne in a French captain’s coat.

He could not hold himself twisted around for very long, and lay back down, exhausted, gathering his reserves. When he felt the muscles in his back begin to unknot he forced himself up again. For a moment he could not find the boat, and then it rode up over a sea, its bow cast high. The men still bent to their work, driving the little craft over the hostile waters.

‘Will they reach us, sir?’ Gould asked, his voice dry and weak.

‘I-I think they might. They are certainly not holding back, I can tell you.’

‘They must not know we are English.’

‘Perhaps … but you might be surprised at how men will work to save their fellows in such circumstances – even their enemies. It is as though our misfortune has reduced us to the same state – men in grave danger and not Frenchmen or Englishmen – just men who all want the same thing – to live through this day.’

Hayden lay back down again, too exhausted to move. His hands would no longer answer and he could do no more than hook his wrists over the edge of the plank. His left hand was cut, and a thin trickle of blood, diluted by seawater, washed down his fingers, though he felt no hurt at all.

Gould took a turn twisting about to look for their would-be rescuers and then collapsed back upon the raft. The boy pressed his eyelids together and though it was impossible to distinguish tears from rain or spray, Hayden could see the boy’s shoulders shaking.

‘Are you injured, Gould?’ Hayden whispered.

The boy shook his head. ‘No, sir. The boat … it will never reach us, we are being swept past.’

Forcing himself up, Hayden turned as best he could. In a moment he found the boat, larger than it had been, but Gould was not wrong – the raft was being driven south more rapidly than the boat was making its way seaward. The two would not meet as the rowers had foreseen. Even as Hayden watched, the boat altered its course and began working its way south.

He remained in that position as long as he could until a wave broke over him and drove him almost across the raft, where he fetched up between two French sailors, who took hold of his legs lest he slide into the sea.

Hayden muttered his thanks, but the French sailors were concentrating on the men in the boat and shouting encouragement and pleading with the men to row. At that distance Hayden doubted the men’s entreaties could be heard but they did not seem aware of this.

Hayden was almost too thirsty to speak, his mouth so parched it stuck together and his tongue seemed swollen and drunken. Gathering himself, Hayden crawled on his belly back to his place between Gould and Archer.

‘Sorry, sir,’ Archer rasped, almost unable to speak. ‘We will take better hold of you.’

‘It is impossible, Mr Archer, to hold fast to anything when your fingers will not close and you have no feeling in your hands at all. Do not blame yourself.’

Archer only nodded gratefully.

‘Will the boat not reach us, sir?’ he asked then.

‘I cannot say. They might yet. We are drifting slowly and they are under oars. But they cannot turn directly south for fear of being rolled over and must quarter the seas, and are therefore coming after us crabwise. It will slow them considerably. We will soon know how great are their hearts, how strong their desire.’

‘Very great and immensely strong, I hope sir.’

Hayden passed again into a timeless torpor, a confused reverie where dream and reality mixed in ways he did not understand. The rough plank beneath his cheek was cold and slick but he hardly took notice. He could be lying upon a bed of boulders and he would hardly have cared.

A distant shout penetrated this strange state, but Hayden thought it only fancy. Then he heard it again, calling out in French.

‘Sir?’ Gould nudged his arm gently. ‘Sir? Did you hear that?’

Hayden roused himself, confused. The day was wearing on – late afternoon he thought. And the wind seemed to be taking off – now that the gale had done its job and destroyed Les Droits de l’Homme. Perhaps thirty yards away, he saw the French boat crest a wave, the men at the sweeps pulling hard, though their cadence had slowed noticeably since they began.

Hayden forced himself up to his knees, looking seaward to spot any large waves about to sweep down on them. But the sea was definitely going down, and though large waves remained they were not nearly so steep. It took all of his strength to remain there, upon his knees helplessly watching the boat chasing after them. For a while it appeared to gain and then he was not certain it was not falling behind. He dropped onto one thigh and buttock, bracing himself with his hands.

How utterly empty he felt, drained of desire, of strength and emotion. His thoughts were so spare – as though the noise of the mind had been drained away leaving only a single, clear voice, though tired and confused. He watched the battling boat with utter detachment, as if it were not him whose life was dependent upon these Frenchmen reaching the raft. As though he were not upon the raft at all. As though he had drifted free of it, free of all the bonds that held him to this world, to this life.