The Devil's Own Luck (2 page)

Cover painting:
Surcouf Makes Prize of the “Kent” on the “Confiance” in the Gulf of Bengal, 1800
by Louis Garneay, Musèe Saint-Malo. Courtesy of AKG London.

The paperback edition of this book was cataloged as:

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Donachie, David, (1944–

The devil’s own luck / by David Donachie.

p. cm. — (The privateersman mysteries ; no. 1)

ISBN 1-59013-003-0 (hc. : alk. paper)—ISBN 1-59013-004-9

(pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Ludlow, Harry (fictitious character)—Fiction 2. Great Britain—

History, Naval—Fiction. 2. Privateering—Fiction. I. Title

PR6053.O483 D4 2001

823’.914—dc21

2001026666

The e-book versions of this title have the following ISBNs: Kindle 9781-59013-573-0, ePUB 978-1-59013-574-7, and PDF 978-1-59013-575-4.

Visit the McBooks Press website at
www.mcbooks.com
.

To Vince and Tommy

CHAPTER ONE

HARRY LUDLOW
should have run as soon as he spotted the frigate’s topsails on the horizon, and got on with his proper business, the taking of French merchantmen for profit. Warships could be left to the Navy.

Now hull-up, she had been speedily identified as the
Verite,
a twenty-eight-gun frigate. Speedily identified because half the sailors aboard the
Medusa
were ex-Royal Navy, including Harry himself. Mind, they could not be sure that in a fit of revolutionary fervour the French had not renamed her. It was no great surprise to find the
Verite
in these waters. Given the recent activities of the
Medusa,
it was remarkable that they had not encountered something like her sooner. War had been declared two months before. Harry, working double tides, had got to sea before the fleet, cruising between the approaches to Brest, La Rochelle, and the Gironde estuary. He had taken a number of well-laden Frenchmen, and was already in profit from the enterprise.

Perhaps that was why he had decided to bait the
Verite.
He could outsail her in most instances. The
Medusa
was a fast-sailing schooner of graceful lines. Perhaps the Frenchman could best him in a really heavy sea. But given that as an exception, the
Verite
would have to catch him completely unawares to have a chance of taking or destroying him. Yet here he was, playing with her, deliberately not sailing at his best, drawing her on after him. And very likely, this was no chance encounter. The merchants of the coastal towns from Bordeaux to Brest would have complained loudly about their losses in ships and valuable cargo. Many voices would have been raised, insisting that something be done to rid them of this pest.

The proper course of action for a privateer was to get as far away as possible from such a potential threat. Harry had quite deliberately chosen to do the opposite. He was now the object of much curiosity, since he hadn’t bothered to explain what he was about.

His brother James had been the first to air his doubts, using the privilege of being both family and a shareholder in the
Medusa
to question the captain’s decision.

“A little sport?”

“We’re not out here for sport, Harry,” said James, putting aside his sketch pad.

Harry just smiled, not the normal reaction of a captain whose orders have been questioned.

“I’m not sure that it is entirely sport.” His brother’s question had taken him slightly unawares, forcing him to examine motives which, till that moment, had been instinctive.

“Then what is it?” There was no rancour in the question. James was no sailor and he readily acknowledged it. He would defer to his elder brother in all matters nautical. But he was no fool, and he was curious.

“I think she came out looking for us.”

“All the more reason to avoid her. If she gets within range she’ll blow us out of the water. Even I know that.”

“She won’t get within range.”

“She’s gaining on us now.”

Harry gave his brother an amused look, aware that even someone as inexperienced as James knew that the
Medusa
was not sailing at her best. Rigged as she was the
Medusa
could sail very close to the wind. Heading north, with a steady west-nor’-west breeze, she had more than an edge on the
Verite.
James had watched the crew ease the braces to loosen the mainmast sails so that they would not draw their best. Eased just enough to look, from a distance, as though the
Medusa
was really trying to get away. He had also done a quick sketch of the crew putting the kedge over the side, four barrels lashed together, with just enough ballast to keep them below the surface. This, acting as a drag on the ship, further reduced her rate of sailing. James, using the excuse of his inexperience at sea, was determined to make his brother explain. And not only for himself. He was the only one who dared ask, and it was plain from the looks Harry was getting that James was not the only one who had doubts.

“I confess that I’m an ignorant lubber, Harry. But I can smoke a risk as quick as the next man. And since you’re the one who’s always harping on about taking no chances at sea, it being such an unforgiving element, it seems a strange way to be going on.”

Much nodding of heads greeted this remark. The crew, especially after their recent successes, had a lot of faith in their captain. They knew him to be a “proper seaman,” equally at home on the quarterdeck of a hundred-gun ship as on a minnow like the
Medusa.
A man who had been at sea since before he was breeched, and who’d had charge of all classes of ship in all manner of weather. A man who’d survived the terrible carnage of a proper sea battle, for Harry, as a junior lieutenant, had taken part in the Battle of the Saintes. Their captain had spent more time afloat than he had on land. He was the type to be careful of his ship and his crew, and given that nothing could be sure at sea, they felt safe in his hands. A few reassuring words and all would be well. There was only one problem. He didn’t know what to tell them. Was his behaviour a hang-over from his Navy days, an ingrained desire to do battle with the enemy? Or was it the streak of unpredictability in his nature which had caused him so much trouble in the past, trouble which had placed him here, aboard the
Medusa,
rather than on the quarterdeck of a man-of-war?

James deserved an answer. Yet how to describe something made up from so many strands of experience? Harry was, quite literally, at home on water. He knew the elements, all his senses tuned to pick up the constant variations in the weather and the state of the sea. And he knew, just by looking at the
Verite,
a whole mass of things which would take for ever to explain. He knew that the plan he had yet to fully form had a reasonable chance of success. He had observed the way the frigate was handled. How to distil that into a simple reply?

“If she came out looking for us, we must find a way to discourage her.”

“Surely the fact that she cannot catch us will suffice for that?”

“Not so, James. How we must have hurt the French trade. Our name and activities here, I think, stung them into sending out a warship to either take us, or chase us away. I suppose we should take that as a compliment.”

“That still doesn’t explain why we are not doing everything in our power to avoid them.” James gave Harry a look that made it plain that he was not going to be fobbed off.

“I am not obliged to explain my actions, even to you, brother.” Harry said this quietly, with a smile. Not always a gentle man, he still felt the need to treat James with respect. How different his brother looked from the gaunt creature who had come aboard at the beginning of their voyage.

“You’re ready enough to explain everything else we do, why not this?” James picked up his sketch pad again, and with quick strokes started to draw Harry, an action which had one purpose. It allowed him to remain silent.

Harry’s smile grew even broader.

“I have obviously not explained fully, that aboard ship a captain’s word is law.”

“What about a brother’s word?”

“Such distinctions do not exist at sea.” Harry indicated the
Verite.
“But since I have brought you out to sea to make a sailor of you, I see no harm in continuing your education.”

“You’re wasting your time, brother, I’m only fit to haul on a rope. If Father was still alive, he would disown me.”

The idea of James, even now dressed in a smart buff coat, hauling on ropes, was absurd. Harry, yes. They were similar in appearance, if you excluded girth. Both handsome men with fair hair, Harry was broad and his face weather-beaten. His clothes, no matter what the quality, rarely made him look like a gentleman. James was pale, slim, and elegant, his movements refined. His natural milieu was the drawing-room of a grand house, not the quarterdeck of a ship. He behaved in a manner that befitted a rising artist, someone whose commissions were shown in the salons where the rich and influential gathered, a man who’d been proposed as a member of the Royal Academy.

When Harry was a boy, their father had been a senior naval captain. While the family was comfortable, they were not wealthy. He’d entered his eldest son on the books of his ship as soon as he could, committing him to following in his father’s footsteps. By the time James came along, their father had become an admiral. By the proper exercise of influence, he had secured for himself a three-year term of command in the West Indies, retiring from that with a substantial fortune. Admiral Ludlow then did the proper thing; bought a country estate, including a couple of parliamentary seats, and set himself up as a landed gentleman. His younger son had, quite properly, been kept away from a life at sea. For him, it had been tutors, school, and university. Gilded youth, some said. Had the recent scandal destroyed all that?

“If you look closely, James,” Harry continued, his glass trained on the frigate, “you will observe that the man who is in command of the Frenchman is lacking in sea-going experience. His crew are not much better. And he seems to have put to sea in something of a hurry.”

“How so?” James put aside his pad and raised his telescope to look at the frigate.

“First, his ship is not properly trimmed. He’s stowed his holds badly. She seems to be down at the head. The way he has rigged her sails is making this worse. It is a common mistake to assume that the more sails you set, the faster you will go through the water.”

James had a noncommittal look on his face. He knew that Harry, ten years his senior, would want him to say something intelligent, something that would demonstrate that Harry’s lengthy explanations, these last weeks, were having some effect. But for the life of him he could think of no observation that would please his elder brother.

“Observe how his bowsprit dips into the sea. He is overpressing her,” said Harry patiently. “That is, pushing her head down even more, increasing the drag on the bows, slowing himself quite considerably.”

“Perhaps he is playing with us.”

“Now that would be an interesting game!” Harry’s eyes lit up at the prospect.

“Which takes us back to my original question. You have yet to explain the purpose of the game.”

“The purpose?” said Harry, with feigned surprise. “Why, I intend that she should be taken or destroyed.”

“Then you had better pray for some assistance.” James indicated the guns on the deck. They were not enough to take or destroy a frigate.

“You know me, brother. I’m not much given to prayer. I’m happier with a fine calculation of chances.”

“A fine private calculation?”

Harry laughed out loud.

“James. You are incorrigible. Father was right to educate you. You would never have made a King’s officer.”

“You mean I would actually be able to uphold a family tradition. Now that would be unusual.” This time they both laughed. Few people could make a joke of Harry’s dismissal from the service. James was one of them.

They were more like friends than brothers. Perhaps it was the difference in age which had kept them from mutual jealousy. Harry, away at sea most of the time, had always been a hero to James. As a small boy, nothing pleased him more than his elder brother’s homecoming. Harry, perhaps because of the long separations, loved James, and was open in his affections. Naturally, as James grew older, his awe and hero worship had been replaced by insolence until he had reached an age where, despite the ten-year gap, they could behave as equals.

Equals with different skills. Harry had spent his life at sea, first in the Navy, and then, after his dismissal from the service, in the running of fast cargoes from the Indies. James, with his better formal education, could show away in Latin and Greek, and discourse wisely on philosophy. But his first love was art. He had studied under Reynolds, taking a basic ability to draw and turning it into a sought-after gift for painting.

Harry was as lost in a drawing-room as his brother was on a quarterdeck. Even his sister, Anne, who adored both her brothers, would blush for shame at some of Harry’s more blatant gaucheries. But home was in the country, and Harry compensated for the occasional
faux pas
with his daredevil attitudes. He rode harder to hounds than any of their neighbours, played effective, if unstylish, cricket, and always entered for the more physical competitions at the local fair.

Both had sadly neglected the duties that fell upon them as heirs to a great deal of land, wealth, and influence, leaving that task, after their father’s death, to their sister Anne’s husband. Arthur, Lord Drumdryan was a man with a title, but no money of his own. Their brother-in-law had happily taken it upon himself to ensure that neither their wealth nor their influence were in any way diminished by their frequent absence. He appointed the two members who sat for the parliamentary seats that Harry controlled, and corresponded regularly and fluently with whoever was in power. For this Arthur was rewarded with a life of luxury that he could otherwise never have attained. It was one of the few points of friction that existed between Harry and James. Affable Harry liked Arthur well enough. James, seeing instead a stiff pedant, couldn’t abide him.