C H A P T E R 6

Alain,” a soft voice crooned in his ear. He smacked his lips, trying to ignore it, sunk so deep in a well of turgid blackness, echoing, swirling fever-dream deepness, both unable and unwilling to move a single limb. “Alain, mon cerf formidable. Arise, mon coeur.”

“Oh, God,” he whispered. “What’s the time?”

“Almos’ six?” Phoebe cajoled softly but insistently. “Ze aspirant, M’sieur Spenloov, ’e sen’ down pour vous. ”

“God,” Lewrie reiterated, flat on his back, rubbing his eyes to pry them open. “There trouble, did he say?”

“Non, mon amour,” Phoebe assured him, with a gentle kiss on his lips. “’E say, eet eez ze ten minute après l’aurore. Ze dawn?”

“Uhmm,” Lewrie sighed, trying to will himself to rise. Once he had come below, he’d fallen into an exhausted sleep, almost face down in his soup, gone back on deck at midnight, and had left orders to be wakened around dawn, no matter. He’d barely gotten his shoes and coat off before tumbling, giddy-headed, onto the bed cot, putting his arms about her an instant before total, dreamless sleep had claimed him.

“ Maintenant, ze cinq minute ’ave pass.”

“Right, then,” he grunted, letting a leg fall toward the deck. He swung to a sitting position, head hung in weariness that a sleep of an entire night and day couldn’t cure.

“I ’ave ze café! Très chaud, et noir, ” Phoebe said, perkily.

I know she’s bein’ affectionate, supportive an’ all, he thought, but damme, it’s too bloody much cheerful, too early, for me!

She put the mug under his nose. His nostrils twitched, his eyes were, like a purloined letter, steamed open. He took the mug and took a sip.

“Bon matin, mon cheri,” she said fondly.

“Bon matin à tu, aussi, ma cherie,” he replied, trying to crack a matching grin. Damme, she call me a serf, just then? No, cerf. A stag? “Bon matin, ma biche,” he added. “My little doe.”

“Chatons, zey say ‘bon matin,’ aussi,” Phoebe crooned, pointing to the black-and-white he’d ended up adopting after all—though just how that had come about, he still wasn’t certain. The little bugger was just there, playing on the bedcot when he’d come off watch the day before. As was one of his whiter, lighter-marked sisters, whom Phoebe had also claimed. They were tumbling and pouncing each other all over the map table at that moment, too busy to say “bon matin.” Scattering rulers and dividers, almost upsetting the inkwell . . .

“Uhm, thanks for the coffee, Phoebe,” he said, as his thoughts began to trickle through his brain. “You must have gone forward, up to the galley? Very kind of you. Merci bien. ”

“ Pauvre Alain, eez . . . leas’ I do pour vous? ” She sat beside him almost prim, though swinging her heels girlishly as they hung above the deck. “Ver’ beau jour. . . nice day, I am s’ink. I weel non ’ave to worry concernant vous visou’ you’ cloak. Non as cloudy?”

“Good,” Lewrie hurried to finish his coffee. “I’m sorry, Phoebe, but I have to go. They’ll need me on deck. Thank you, though.”

“ Moi, need you, aussi, ” she chirped, full of good cheer, almost maternal. Yet seductive. “Wan we arrivons à Geebraltar, z’ough . . . Now, go. Speed oos zere. I let you’ navire ’ave you, until zen.”

With an offer like that, he could not depart without rewarding her with a passionate kiss and a grateful embrace. A moment’s dally with the kittens, and he was off.

“Morning, sir,” Mister Midshipman Spendlove reported crisply. “The dawn was at . . . half-past five, sir. Horizon clear. We logged six and a quarter knots, the last two hours, sir. Wind’s veered more southerly, too, so it doesn’t feel like a Levanter . . . I think, sir.”

“And you let me sleep twenty minutes past dawn, when I left orders to be summoned at that time, Mister Spendlove?” Lewrie glowered, still too testy to be approached.

“Uhm, sir . . . we tried to wake you, me and the, uhm . . . Mademoiselle Aretino both, sir,” Spendlove blushed.

Who the Hell’s that, Alan wondered? Damme, never even took time to discover her last name! Oh, well.

“My apologies for biting your head off, then, Mister Spendlove,” Alan sighed. “Bad as one of Hercules’s Twelve Labours, was it?”

“No error, sir,” Spendlove grinned shyly.

“Where away, the other ships?” Lewrie asked, turning back to business.

“One ahead, sir, she’s tops’ls down now. The horse transport down to loo’rd must have hauled her wind during the night, a point or so. She’s about another two miles off, almost hull down. The pair astern are about where they were last night, sir. Might have lost some ground on us.”

“Very well, Mister Spendlove. I’ll—”

“SAIL HO!”

“Christ!” he said instead, wishing his bladder wasn’t full.

“Deck, there! Two sail astern! Two points off th’ larb’rd quarter! Hull down! T’gallants, all I see!”

“You and the bosun have the deck, Mister Spendlove?” Lewrie enquired. “Pray, do you keep it a few minutes longer.” He took a telescope and went aloft the mizzen shrouds as high as the catharpings, to peer astern.

“Three sail! Deck, there, three sail astern!” the mainmast lookout shouted down. “Three sail, all three-masters! Two points off the larb’rd quarter!”

He could barely make them out, three sets of three t’gallants on the horizon, grayish-white sails bellied full of wind. Radical rose on a wave, giving him a slightly better view, then dipped once more, rising the horizon like a stage curtain. The strange ships rose and fell also. Too far off to determine their identity. But he could hazard a morbid guess. The ships around him had been at sea long enough for pale white canvas to go mildewed and tan. Royal Navy ships, wearing their working suit of sails, were usually amber or tan. These ships, though, had not been at sea much, hadn’t exposed their t’gallants to the weather. They were nearly new, and pale. Weather nowhere near boisterous enough for the heavy-weather suit to be hoisted aloft, too gusty for the tropical suit . . . these were ships which hadn’t been out of harbour in a while. And three, close together, travelling in a pack. Or a squadron.

He feared they were French.

“Bloody Hell,” he sighed to himself. “ Now what to do?”

He snapped the telescope shut, descended the ratlines, to land with a final short jump to the quarterdeck.

“Mister Spendlove, we’ll err on the side of caution. Dig into the taffrail lockers and prepare a flag signal for the other ships,” he directed. “First, Number Ten, followed by ‘Make All Sail,’ whatever that is, this month’s book. There’re Sea Officers aboard to read ’em.”

“Number Ten, sir?” Spendlove gasped, eyes wide.

“Aye, Mister Spendlove. ‘Enemy In Sight.’”

Short, bluff-bowed, undersparred . . . and terrified, the merchant-men and transports tried to make more sail. More than likely, they had one poor, overworked Royal Navy officer aboard, assigned to a civilian master, who possessed as few crewmen as he could scrimp and still work his ship, under Admiralty contract. They had guns, of course; no ship put to sea unarmed. But to work them, to really fight back . . . always sailing in large convoys or under close escort, they were there merely as afterthoughts for most merchant ships in European water. Supposed to man to something close to Admiralty standards, paid to, yet . . .

A prudent man would have let fall every reef, let fall every top-gallant, and sail off and leave them to their own devices. Yet those ships were so jam-packed, elbow-to-elbow with helpless civilians. Alan could not abandon them. There was precious little he could do for them, either. He couldn’t fight one enemy vessel, really, and certainly not three. Radical didn’t have the well-drilled crew to allow him freedom of maneuvre, to dance with the approaching foes. And, he observed most bitterly, even had he attempted to run away, he couldn’t. Radical wallowed! She couldn’t pass seven knots in a full gale. And the ships astern were gaining.

Within an hour the three ships had sailed their tops’ls above the horizon; within another hour, the first sight of their courses as well. Stuns’ls (which Radical lacked) spread snowy to either beam of their masts, stay’ls between topmasts glittered fresh as new-boiled bed sheets. The transports astern had caught up by perhaps no more’n a single mile, strain as they might, their own topmasts appearing to bend forward under the pressure of t’gallants and unreefed tops’ls. The horse transport down to leeward had made better progress, now head-reaching ahead of Radical ’s bows.

“Sail Ho!”

“God, not another one,” Alan groused. “Where away?”

“Fine on th’ starb’d bows!” came the wail. “Three-master! ’Er t’gallants only, f’r now!”

A fine trap they laid, Lewrie thought, massaging his brow in concentrated thought and fidgety frustration. Three to herd us, one downwind to beat back, and cut us off? Horse shit! Didn’t even know where we were ’til dawn, when they spotted us ahead of ’em.

“Horse transport’s hoistin’ an ensign, sir!” Spendlove cried in wonder. “And a private signal!”

“Of course, she’s closer to the new’un. Maybe . . .”

“Deck, there! Strange ship t’ loo’rd . . .” the lookout shouted with sudden glee. “Answerin’ . . . private signal . . . !” He called off a string of code flags, that month’s secret recognition between ships of the Royal Navy! Lewrie flipped through his slim signals book. They were correct! “Deck, there! White ensign! Royal Navy . . . frigate!”

White ensign . . . a ship of Admiral Lord Hood’s fleet would show it, since he was a full admiral of the most senior squadron. Or a frigate on independent service would fly it, instead of the blue or the red of a lesser admiral.

“Mister Spendlove! Hoist our own ensign. And Number Ten,” he roared, filled with immense relief. Help was at hand. If the strange frigate’s presence didn’t cow the French, then at least, should he be forced to engage, he would have more even odds.

“Number Ten, two-blocked, yonder!” the lookout bellowed. “She reads us, sir! D’ye hear, there?”

“Right, then,” Lewrie dared smile and clap Spendlove’s shoulder, glance at de Crillart and the rest of the military men who’d gathered together on the quarterdeck. “I think we’re going to be fine.”

“’Nother hoist, sir!” the lookout yelled, calling off a string of flags. “Private signal!”

Spendlove opened his book, thumbing through the many entries. He had a short list of those vessels known to be in the Mediterranean, those further separated into Rates. Scanning 5th Rates took another fumbling moment to find the right hand-lettered page he’d diligently copied out.

“ Cockerel, sir!” Spendlove informed them at last. “H.M.S. Cockerel frigate. Come to save us, sirs!”

A cheer went up from Cockerel ’s detached tars when that news was quickly circulated along the gangways, down to the waist and magazines. And for once, it didn’t sound the slightest bit derisive. Close-hauled though she laboured, within another hour, she could be up to them, with her thirty-two guns primed, loaded and run out. Just about the time the French squadron overhauled the fleeing merchantmen.

Lewrie began to consider coming about, then, to offer battle. He already flew a borrowed Royal Navy ensign, and Radical was a frigate, by God. At range-of-random shot, who was to say that she wasn’t a frigate in full commission, proper-manned and armed? And spoiling for a fight!

“Quartermaster, helm up a point, no more,” he ordered. “Give us a point free to leeward. Mister Spendlove, a signal to the ships astern of us. Direct them to pinch up aweather. We will interpose our vessel between them and the French.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Spendlove piped, seeing the plan at once, dashing aft for the flag lockers.

“Don’t s’pose those are friendly, Captain Lewrie?” Lieutenant Kennedy inquired, hoping against hope, and nervous about fighting aboard ship instead of on land, where he knew what he was doing.

“Slow as we are, sir?” Lewrie scoffed gently. “And tag-end of the fleet? Hardly.”

“Ve steel offer battaille, mon ami? ” de Crillart asked from the other side.

“If we have to, Charles,” Lewrie stated, turning to face him and the rest of the officers: Major de Mariel, the Chevalier Louis, and the senior gunner’s mates. “Hopefully, we will make a demonstration of force, more than anything else. With a Royal Navy frigate to aid us . . . that might be enough. Now, gentlemen. Raw as we are, hmm? Let’s not delay, and do things in a last-minute panic. Let us go to Quarters now. Uhm . . . aux armes, messieurs? ”

An agonizing quarter-hour passed, as the decks were sanded, the water butts and tubs filled, slow match ignited and coiled around linstocks, coiled around the upper rim of the tubs. The galley fire was extinguished, the coals thrown overboard. Women and children trooped below to the safety of the orlop, low near the water-line, to huddle in between kegs and casks, boxes and bales, their chests and luggage. At least Radical would have an overabundance of surgeons; the Royalists were mostly people of the upper or professional classes, so they had no less than four surgeons, two physicians, a dentist, and several of those worthies’ personal servants as surgeon’s mates, experienced with assisting their masters’ daily work. For loblolly boys to bear the wounded below, they had the least-useful older gentlemen, or the ones who simply could not grasp the fundamentals of artillery drill. And some few stocky older women, who were stronger than most of those men.

It was impossible to clear the mess deck, though, to empty that low-ceilinged cavern of junk. There were too many trunks and chests to carry below, out of harm’s way, too heavy to tote quickly. There might be clouds of dangerous splinters flying there, perhaps, but with people at least herded below to the orlop, Lewrie thought, the noncombatants would not have to face that danger.

The boats Radical possessed, and those extra cutters Lewrie had brought along from their ferrying days, already were astern, under tow. For the simple fact that he hadn’t had the labour available to retrieve them and stow them on the boat beams which spanned the waist. One less source of splinters, he thought grimly, though through no forethought of his own.

British troops of the 18th, the Royal Irish, to larboard along the gangways, Major de Mariel’s infantry and Louis’s light cavalrymen to starboard; red coats and black shakos on one side, and pale whitish-gray coats with black cocked hats, or blue-and-buff coats with plumed black-leather helmets on the other.

The bowsings for the guns were cast off, run-out tackles overhauled in neat bights. The guns were rolled back from the port sills, tompions removed, barrels checked for obstructions, touch holes cleared by the thrust of linstock ends sharp enough to puncture cartridge bags. Gun tools were thrust into shaky hands, and men stood atremble as if yesterday’s drills had never occurred with stiffened rope rammers, rope swabs, crow levers, wormers used to scrape out clogging scraps of powder and the buildup of gun soot after a few firings, or to draw shot.

Nine men to each eighteen-pounder, seven to serve each twelve-pounder, and six for the lighter eight-pounders; those were the required numbers in the Fleet, though guns could be well served with slightly less. Under the circumstances, they would have to be. Still not enough, even with all the volunteers, to man both larboard and starboard batteries at once.

“Ve load, mon capitaine? ” de Crillart called from the waist. He would be in charge of the gun deck, since most of the gun captains and volunteers were French. “ Mon maître-canonnier, ’e sugges’ ze chain-shot, d’abord. Non customary à l’anglais mais. . . ve are ver’ good vis it. Zey are mos’ esperience. Tak’ down ze reeging, crac! An’ ve are non ze maneuverable, n’est-ce pas? ”

“Aye, Charles,” Lewrie called back from the quarterdeck, thinking it made good sense to render a foe as clumsy as they already were, evening the odds. “ D’abord, the chain-shot, bar-shot, all of it.”

“Cartouches des poudre!” the grizzled master-gunner demanded, and a herd of boys emerged from the midships companionway hatch with wooden or leather cylinders which contained the powder bags. The artillery was charged, rammermen shoving the bags down the bores to thump against the rear of the breeches. From the shot-garlands, the gun captains picked shot. Blunt iron cylinders cast in two halves, linked by two bars between, with eyes hammered round each bar—elongating bar-shot, which would fly apart to their full extent upon firing. Longer, round-topped bundles of cast-iron rods, which would spread like spider legs to whirl through the air to rip away sails, rigging and light spars—that was multiple bar-shot. And chain-shot; loaded as what appeared to be solid iron balls, which became two hemispheres linked by a short chain. That, and the elongating bar-shot, were the heaviest, designed to take down a t’gallant or topmast above the fighting-tops, to shatter even the stout course-sail yards.

Alan had been on the receiving end of French artillery before, and had never been that impressed with the concept, never been aboard a ship really disabled by such ironmongery. But de Crillart and his master-gunner seemed confident about it.

“The enemy have hoisted their colours, sir!” Spendlove was quick to point out. All three ships had run up huge Tricolour flags, the one in the lead flying a smaller second one at her mainmast truck as well.

Lewrie lifted a telescope and went to the starboard rails. The lead ship was definitely a frigate, the other two . . . ? “Lieutenant de Crillart, could you join me on the quarterdeck for a moment?”

He loaned Charles the telescope.

“Don’t happen to know them, do you, Charles?”

“Non. I do not reco’nise,” de Crillart intoned soberly. “ Mais, ze frégate eez ze trent-deux. . . ze s’irty-two? She weel ’ave twelve-poun’ canon, an ze six-poun’ canon de chasse et canon de gaillard. . . quarterdeck? Ze ozzer two are ze corvettes. Vingt canon. . . twen’y, on’y . . . eight-poun’, I ’sink.”

“Only, the man says,” Lewrie snorted, flexing his fingers on the wire-wrapped leather hilt of his smallsword. “They’ll be up level with us in about half an hour. Range-of-random-shot? What’s that with bar-shot and chain-shot? A mile?”

“Oui. Vis you’ frégate out zere, z’ough, we not ’ave to bataille all at once. Mon Dieu, merci, ” de Crillart chuckled, though his mouth looked a touch compressed and white.

Alan took the telescope back, went to the mizzen shrouds again, and scaled them for a better view. Would they stay in a pack, he speculated? Or would the easy pickings encourage them to split up? Radical on a slowly converging course, to meet them on their windward, larboard beam, Cockerel downwind, but ready to slide along their starboard side, or cut across them to rake the leader . . . take us separately or together?

He couldn’t suggest tactics to Captain Braxton, he was senior on the scene. And if he knew who I was aboard this barge, Alan thought in secret glee, he’d be even less willing to listen. No, he’ll keep simplicity in mind, he’s a cautious man. Eager to make a grand showing after all these years, yet he’ll not do anything too rash, too risky. Pass them on the opposing tack, starboard to starboard, then tack around the stern of the last corvette in line, and rake her. Then line up behind Radical to make a battle line, he wondered? If Braxton thinks we truly are another Royal Navy frigate, he might.

Now . . . what would I do, were I the Frog commander, yonder?

Claw upwind, now, he was dead certain. Hold the wind-gauge on the British, and at the same time, sail nearer to those panicky merchantmen, threatening them. Force Cockerel and Radical to go about first to combine strength, then force them to beat up toward the three Frog warships to save the transports. All during that long, labouring approach, fire chain-shot and all, hoping to disable the British frigates before battle was really joined. The French would be faster, they almost always were, so they could out-foot them. And neither Cockerel nor Radical could point any higher to windward than they could, so it would turn into a long stern chase, with even more long range chain-shot. More chances to disable, then gobble up.

Hmm . . . he sighed to himself, rubbing his unshaven chin; maybe I ought to come about . . . go hard on the wind now? Be level with ’em, or hold the wind-gauge myself. Draw Cockerel to me. If Braxton wishes a name for himself, he’ll follow along.

“Mister Spendlove! Mister Porter!” he bellowed from his perch. “Hands to the braces! Lay her full-and-by on the larboard tack! Close-haul!”

“Aye aye, sir!”

“Deck, there! Cockerel ’s goin’ about!” the mainmast lookout screamed, his voice cracking. A tone of wonderment in his voice which drew Lewrie’s attention aloft first, before he turned to eye his former ship. Cockerel had been reaching across the wind, now out of the sou’-east, her bows pointing nor’east. To harden up close-hauled would lay her just a little north of due east, should she remain on the starboard tack, with the wind across her right hand first.

Sure enough, she was foreshortening in the ocular of his telescope.

Should have waited, should have waited, Lewrie fretted, growing uncertain of Braxton’s tactical skills. Harden up on the starboard tack first, then cross the eye of the wind to larboard tack, and beat up to me, cross their bows before they get anywhere near you . . .

This early tack would put him a couple of miles away, on the same course as Radical, but out of gun range. Damme! He’d done that before, hadn’t he—last year, that Frog convoy, and that big forty-four-gun frigate . . . ! Lay off and be safe. Appear like he was doing something positive but . . . avoid action? The shrouds swayed as Radical leaned to the force of the winds, decks and masts angling to leeward as she hardened up to weather. Lewrie had to take both hands to secure his perch, to slip his arms in around the stays and ratlines for a firmer stance for a moment.

When he raised his telescope again, Cockerel had just completed her tack across the wind, sails luffing and spilling, shimmering like a heat wave in the ocular, like bed sheets in a stiff spring breeze out on a line to dry, before her hands could wheel her yards about, haul taut on braces and sheets. And kept on turning!

“No, you bastard!” Lewrie muttered in surprise. “Close-hauled, at least, you . . . !” For a hopeful moment, he thought Cockerel was just clumsy and slow. Every ship usually fell too far off the wind for an instant upon tacking, before hardening back up to the proper course, as close to the wind as she might bear.

But, no. Cockerel kept on wheeling about, her yards going farther round until they were almost end-on to his view, courses, top’ls and t’gallants bellying taut and full, the profile of her low, sleek hull entirely presented. Cockerel had come about, aye—tacked since it was the quickest maneuvre—and was now sailing west-sou’west, not to join forces with him, not to stand off on a parallel beat, downwind and safe. She was running!

“Oh, you bloody man, you perverse, bloody man!”

Didn’t matter, he grumped; me aboard this tub, nor anyone else. least it ain’t personal, the . . . ah! He’d never know who he abandoned. Couldn’t care less!

All his plans in shambles, for the moment without a clue, faced with the prospect of fighting those three French ships alone once more. Let down by his own Navy.

“You filthy bastard!” he yelled, just for the temporary relief. “You bloody . . . coward!”