Sails on the Horizon: A Novel of the Napoleonic Wars (5 page)

“Lieutenant Charles Edgemont, sir, second on the
Argonaut
and acting commander,” Charles said with a tentative bow. “And this is Lieutenant Daniel Bevan, third and acting first.”

“Your servant, sir,” Bevan managed, touching his hat smartly.

“Captain Wood?” Nelson inquired.

“Killed by a sharpshooter, sir,” Charles replied.

“Pity,” Nelson said, “but, just between us, not all that much of a loss. Wood was a bit shy when it came to battle, if you ask me. Still, he met his end like a man. Your wounds are not serious, I trust?”

“No, sir. I’ll be fine, thank you.”

Nelson looked Charles straight in the eye and extended his hand. When Charles took it, the commodore said, “I came to congratulate you on your victory, Mr. Edgemont. It was most impressive and nobly won. I greatly admire such a display of tenacity and sheer bullheaded determination. I couldn’t have done more in your situation myself. If all England’s officers showed such selfless courage as you have displayed today, we would have no fear of any enemy.”

“Thank you, sir, we were just doing our duty,” Charles answered, emphasizing the “we” in an attempt to include Bevan.

“Nevertheless,” Nelson continued, his eyes keen, “uncommon heroism such as you have displayed must be recognized. If I may say so, I have some influence with the admiral, and I will press my recommendations to him on your behalf with as much determination as you have shown toward the Spanish fleet this day. England needs every fighting captain she can find.”

“Thank you, sir,” Charles managed, swallowing hard. He knew he hadn’t done anything heroic or determined, but he was afraid that saying so would just be taken for false modesty. Searching for the right words, he came up with, “On behalf of
Argonaut
’s officers and men, I am most grateful.”

“And one more thing,” Nelson continued. “I was blessed this afternoon with the boarding of both the
San Nicolás
and
San Josef.
By rights
San Nicolás
is yours. She was already much reduced when I reached her, and in fact she surrendered as soon as our guns came to bear. We only boarded her in order to use her forecastle to reach the
San Josef.
You may count her as a prize to the
Argonaut
with my heartiest approval.”

“Thank you, sir,” Charles said. He couldn’t think of anything else to add.

“Duty calls,” Nelson concluded with a second round of handshakes, this time including Bevan, and a bow. “I salute you, sir, and look forward to serving with you in the future.” Commander Berry likewise shook both their hands and briefly offered his own congratulations. Then the two men were gone.

Charles sat heavily back down on the hatch cover with a rising sense of anxiety. His superiors clearly thought he had done something out of the ordinary. What would happen when someone discovered he hadn’t?

“A few more visitors like this and we’ll own half the Spanish navy,” Bevan beamed, not sounding anxious at all.

Charles laughed weakly. Prize money. By God, he hadn’t thought about prize money. Even with a lieutenant’s share, three Spanish ships of the line would bring a pretty penny.

“You’re a certifiable hero, Charlie,” Bevan said, turning to leave. “But one of us has to keep the old
Argonaut
from going under. I should get back to work.”

“Just a minute,” Charles said. “How badly damaged is she, Daniel?”

“Well,” Bevan answered, turning serious, “we’ve been hulled more than a few times; don’t know how many holes yet, but the carpenter and his crew are working on them now. We’re down by the head, and there’s about six feet of water in the well. I’ve got every man available on the pumps, and we’re almost holding our own. As the holes are plugged one by one, we’ll start to make some headway. You know about the helm and the masts. All in all, we’re in pitiful shape.”

“The dead and wounded? How many do you reckon?”

“I’m not sure yet, exactly. I’d guess about four score killed outright, and maybe a hundred and a quarter or more wounded. A fair proportion of those will die soon, of course.”

Charles considered this.
Argonaut
had lost more than a third of her complement. But there were still enough to patch and man the ship if they didn’t have to fight her. “Two things,” he said carefully. “Heave the guns overboard; they’re no good to us now and the reduced weight will give us some grace with the pumps. You may also start the water if necessary. And, second, you and I are the only commission officers. What do you think about promoting one of the senior midshipmen to acting lieutenant?”

Bevan looked doubtful. “Can you do that? You’re just a lieutenant yourself. And it’s not going to help to appoint some young yahoo who doesn’t know a spinnaker from a spade.” Bevan, Charles knew well, had a low opinion of all the
Argonaut
’s midshipmen.

“Well,” Charles said seriously, “I don’t know if I can or not, but I’m going to. What do you think about—what’s his name, the one who was in charge of the guns at the end—Winchester something, I think.”

“Stephen Winchester? I don’t see him getting his hands dirty.”

“Who would you recommend?” Charles asked.

Bevan’s face assumed a pained expression as his mind ran down the list of potential alternatives. “All right,” he said at length. “I suppose he can’t sink the ship all by himself.”

The talk turned to other tasks necessary to restore a sense of purpose and routine to the running of the ship. Charles sent word to have the galley lit so the ship’s company could be fed. The watch list had to be reorganized to compensate for their reduced numbers and to ensure that the pumps would continue to be manned while the most critical repairs were being made. And it all had to be done without exhausting the crew.

Darkness shaded the eastern horizon when Bevan left to oversee the reorganization and repair of the ship. Feeling slightly more fit, Charles pushed himself slowly off the hatch cover and got to his feet with the idea of looking around to reassure himself that everything that needed doing was being attended to. He heard a loud splash as the first of the cannon was levered over the side. A third ship’s boat—he immediately recognized it as the admiral’s barge—pulled smartly from behind the bows of the captured
San Josef
and headed for the
Argonaut
’s side. A solitary officer, who Charles knew was the flag lieutenant on the
Victory,
climbed the side steps. He stayed only long enough to ascertain whether
Argonaut
would be serviceable to sail or be towed in the morning, and to deliver an envelope. Charles responded that he was confident the ship would be fit to be towed in the morning, but not ready to sail, even under the most limited jury rig, until the afternoon.

“Thank you, sir,” the flag lieutenant said, saluting. “I will report your situation to Admiral Jervis.” He offered his own congratulations and after a few pleasantries returned to his boat.

Charles inspected the envelope and was surprised to see that it was addressed to “
Lieutenant Charles Edgemont, Commanding,
HMS
Argonaut.”
He broke the seal and read:

HMS
Victory
February
14
th,
1797

Sir,

The fleet sails for Lisbon at four bells in the morning watch. If you are unable to sail under your own power, the frigate
Niger,
Captain Edward Foote commanding, will be alongside to take you under tow.

I expect your fullest report in writing and in person the inst. we reach port.

Your servant, &c,

J. Jervis

Charles folded the letter and put it in his jacket pocket. He felt tired and hungry now and his head still stung painfully. So the
Argonaut
was officially his. The admiral must have learned of his identity from Collingwood or Nelson. He, and he alone, was responsible for every one of the almost five hundred men still alive aboard her, for seeing that the repairs were carried out efficiently and competently, and for getting her to Lisbon, tow or no tow. There were no such things as excuses in the navy, not for a senior post captain, and certainly not for a junior lieutenant who hoped to keep his commission. For a moment he wished for the return of Captain Wood, cold, aloof, and autocratic in life, now laid out in his cabin. Wood had made it seem the easiest and most natural thing in the world to command a ship of the line, and Charles began to glimpse some of the pressure that made him the seemingly harsh and distant man he had been.

Would he become the same, frigid and aloof, should he ever come to command one of His Majesty’s warships? More important, would he ever have the abilities and judgment that the position required? Deep in his heart, Charles knew there was doubt. During his years in the navy he had experienced all of the many complex operations, from setting sails to arranging the holds, that were required to keep a large line-of-battle ship and her crew at sea for months at a time and to fight her when necessary. But could he be responsible for all of them at once, balancing one crisis against another? Would he have the instinct to know when to order the sails taken in just before a sudden squall or to judge the exact moment to cut across an enemy’s bow and rake her? It was all well and good for Nelson and Collingwood to congratulate him for
Argonaut
’s heroic stand, but he hadn’t been in command then. Besides, he knew he had been frightened half out of his wits during the battle, with the ship being pounded and men dying all around him. He should have struck the colors, surrendered the ship the moment he’d come on the quarterdeck. That would at least have saved the deadly raking by the Spanish frigate.

He bristled at the recollection of the
Santa Brigida
’s repeated broadsides into the
Argonaut
’s unprotected stern. If he ever did command a ship of his own, he would very much like to meet with her again. But to have any hope of striking back at the Spaniard he would need a ship to command. To have even the slightest chance of gaining such a command, he had to see to it that
Argonaut
reached Lisbon safely. He decided that he had better see for himself what damage she had suffered and what progress was being made to repair it. The most important thing in his life at that moment was that she be at least fit enough to be towed at dawn the next morning.

A little unsteadily at first, he made his way belowdecks, bending deeply so as not to hit his head on the low deck beams above, and headed aft. In the cramped, dimly lit tiller room, he found two men threading a three-inch cable painfully through several sets of blocks and pulleys. The cable would then be fished up through a chase to the upper deck, wound around the axle of the newly replaced helm, and fed back down into the tiller room, run through a second, identical set of blocks and pulleys on the other side, and reattached to the tiller head. “How long till the helm is rigged?” Charles asked the seaman nearest him.

“Not too long, sir,” the man answered, glancing over his shoulder. “As soon as I get this here pulley-block set”—he grunted and strained with his arms and shoulders at something over his head in the darkness—“we’ll send the cable topside. Maybe an hour, maybe an hour and a half, and she’ll be good as new.”

“Thank you, er—” Charles began, but couldn’t recall the man’s name or even if he had ever known it.

“Smith, sir, Todd Smith, carpenter’s mate. And this here’s Jimmy Bowan,” he nodded at the seaman farther back in the shadows.

“Thank you, Smith and Bowan,” Charles said. “I’m sure the helm is in good hands. Carry on.”

“Thank ye, sir,” Todd Smith answered while Jimmy Bowan shouted, “Goddamn you fishmonger’s doxie’s poxed whore’s arse; get through there!” He was trying to bend the heavy, stiff cable through the eye of the block. “Sorry, sir,” he added, nodding in Charles’s direction.

Charles grinned to himself and started forward in search of the ship’s carpenter to find out about the progress patching the shot holes in the hull. The unceasing sounds of the chain pumps rattled loudly in the dark, confined space between decks. He came upon numbers of hands, some hurrying on one errand or another, others in small gangs, carrying tools, timbers, or lengths of cable of various thickness, or other objects urgently needed for repairs. Everyone knew by now that Captain Wood had been killed, and how and where and what he looked like when he was dead. Firsthand reports, rumors, conjecture, and pure fiction all moved like lightning belowdecks. And every member of the crew now knew who Charles was—“The second who were the new captain. You know, the taller one what ’as dark hair like, not t’other one”—even if he didn’t know half of their names. Every one of them, when they came upon him, stopped with a surprised look at seeing him, then knuckled a fist to his forehead or nodded respectfully if his hands were full, and waited for him to pass. Yesterday they would have hurried around him with the briefest nod and a quick, “By your leave, sur.”

Charles passed through the lower gundeck. Here the wounded were laid out on the floor or in hammocks hung from the deck beams. The numbers shocked him. Even with the added space once occupied by the great guns, the deck seemed to be filled with prone or seated men, some still, others writhing in pain. Incoherent babble, cries for mothers or sweethearts, moans, and occasional screams competed in the thick, foul-smelling air. Charles recoiled from the sight of the blood-sodden bandages and shortened stumps where arms or legs had been removed. He hurried through the mass as quickly as he could, picking his way carefully around the injured men and stepping over those he could not avoid. Their presence, the reminder of the human cost of the battle paid in pain, limbs, and lives, unsettled him. It wasn’t that he saw his own mortality in their injuries—like most young men, he thought himself immune to crippling wounds or death—but he felt awkward to be whole in their presence and inadequate to do anything for them.