The Flying Squadron (35 page)

The blazing Indiaman was broad on their larboard beam and dropping astern. The French frigate was making off to the north, leaving the remaining Indiaman and
the schooner to their fate.
Sprite
had worn round under
Icarus's
stern and was engaging the jury-rigged schooner.

‘Good man, Sundercombe,' Drinkwater muttered, seizing the speaking trumpet as they bore down on the
Icarus
. Men were swarming on her forecastle and he could see the glimmer of lanterns as they sought to clear away the tangle of fallen gear. Drinkwater leapt up on the rail, clasping the mizen rigging with one hand and the speaking trumpet with the other.

‘
Icarus
ahoy Captain Ashby . . .'

‘Sir?'

‘Secure what you can here. Those are two captured Indiamen, by the way, with prize-crews aboard. Then rejoin the convoy. Keep
Sprite
under your orders. I'm going in pursuit of that frigate.'

‘He's a Frenchman, Captain Drinkwater, did you know?'

‘Yes. Are you manageable?'

‘Aye, I've a forecourse, I think . . .'

‘Good luck.'

‘And you.'

They waved, their ships rolling in the swell, and Wyatt brought
Patrician
on to a course parallel with the retiring French frigate. She was ahead and to starboard of the British ship and both had the fresh trade wind blowing on their starboard quarters.

‘It's going to be a long night, James,' Drinkwater remarked.

‘It's already nearly ten,' Quilhampton said after consulting his watch.

‘Moonrise in three hours.'

They set every stitch of canvas the spars could stand, started the mast wedges and ran preventer stays up to the topmast caps, setting them up with luff tackles. Never had the
Patrician
's crew been so hard driven since, those who remembered it afterwards claimed, they had been in the Pacific. There was, Drinkwater knew, little doubt of the outcome if the masts and spars and canvas and cordage stood the strain. The French frigate was a fast ship, but slightly smaller than the British, of a lighter build and,
though well handled, unable to match the hardiness of her pursuer.
Patrician
was a
razée
, a cut-down sixty-four gun line-of-battle ship, heavy, but able to stand punishment and, in a strengthening wind, in her element with a quartering sea. Moonrise found the distance between the two ships significantly lessened. Patches of cloud came and went across the face of the full moon, adding to the drama and excitement of the night, and periodically Lieutenant Gordon, pointing the guns himself, tried a shot at the enemy's top-hamper, seeking to cripple him as he fled.

And periodically too, the enemy fired back, though both commanders knew the issue would not be so easily settled, that their scudding ships, heeling and scending under their press of sail, were uncertain gun-platforms, that the angle between them was too fine for more than a lucky shot to tell, and that either luck on the part of one, or disaster for the other, would bring the matter to a conclusion before daylight.

Luck, it seemed, first favoured the French. A shot from a quarter gun struck
Patrician
's waist, felling an entire gun's crew with a burst of lacerating splinters, sending men screaming like lunatics in antic dances of pain and killing three men outright. A second shot struck
Patrician
just below the starboard fore chains, carrying away a stay-rod. But for the preventer rigged an hour earlier, the shroud above might have parted and the entire foremast gone by the board. As it was the carpenter was able to effect repairs of a kind. Half an hour later a third shot hulled the pursuing British frigate and she began taking water. Once again the carpenter and his mates were summoned. They plugged the shot hole and the pumps were manned, but it shook the Patricians' confidence and the men murmured at their inability to hit back.

‘I wonder if Metcalfe would have managed anything?' Moncrieff superciliously asked no one in particular. ‘He
was
a damned good shot . . .'

The remark provoked in Drinkwater's mind's eye an image of Thurston falling from the rigging, which was so vivid he started and became aware he had been half-asleep on his feet. ‘Metcalfe . . . ?' he said, stupidly and shaken, ‘Oh, yes, he was, wasn't he . . .'

‘He's done it!' Quilhampton's cry was echoed round the ship. Gordon had fired his foremost gun, loaded with bar shot, as the
Patrician's
stern had fallen into a trough. The rising bow had thrown the shot high, almost too high. But the crazy, eccentric hemispheres had, with the aid of centrifugal force, extended the sliding bars and the spinning projectile had struck the enemy's fore topgallant mast. For a moment the pallid oblongs of its two sails leaned, suspended in a web of rigging, flogging as the wind caught their underbellies, and then they sagged slowly downwards.

Patrician
closed on her quarry; after hours of seeming inactivity her quarterdeck was again seething with officers bawling orders.

‘Lay her alongside, Mr Wyatt, and shorten sail. Don't overshoot.'

They were too late for such precise niceties of manoeuvring, the night had grown too wild and they were too tired for fine judgement.
Patrician
overran the French ship, loosing off a rolling broadside and receiving fire in return. The British gunners, so long inactive, with news of the fallen topgallant to cheer them, poured more fire into the enemy. On board the Frenchman, the gunners served their cannon gallantly, but the chaos of fallen spars which just then broke free of the restraints of the upper rigging and crashed down through the boat booms, caused their rate of response to slacken as they confronted blazing gun-muzzles forty yards from their ports.

‘Let fly sheets! Let her head fall to starboard! Stand by, boarders!'

The two ships closed, the
Patrician
slightly ahead. Between them the water ran black and silver where the moonlight caught it. The slop and hiss as the outward curling bow waves met and intermingled threw spray upwards to reflect the stabbing glare of the gunfire. The night was full of noise, of wind in rigging, of rushing water, of the cheers and shrieks and shouts of four hundred men, the concussions of their brutal cannon and the stutter of Moncrieff's marines as their muskets cleared the way for the mustering boarders.

‘He shows no inclination to edge away,' Quilhampton
called, drawing his sword, and then the night was split by a man's voice, a bull-roar of defiance:

‘What ship is that?'

‘That's no frog . . .' Quilhampton began.

‘No, I know,' Drinkwater moved to the rail and leaned over the hammock netting.

‘His Britannic Majesty's frigate
Patrician
, Nathaniel Drinkwater commanding. Is that you, Captain Stewart?'

‘Aye . . . how in hell's name . . . ?'

Stewart's voice was drowned in the discharge of Gordon's starboard battery. ‘Fate,' Drinkwater muttered as he turned. ‘Pass word to Frey to have his larbowlines ready to board. Now, Mr Wyatt, lay us alongside.'

‘Aye, aye, sir!'

‘Come, James, death or glory, eh?' Drinkwater said, sensing the puzzlement in Quilhampton by the odd stance of the one-armed officer. He drew his sword. The gap between the two ships closed and then they collided. Drinkwater clambered up on the rail, fighting to get his legs over the hammock nettings and gauge when to leap. He dropped into the mizen chains. Below him the bulging topsides of the ships ground together, their rails separated only by the extent of the rounded tumblehome. A quarterdeck 18-pounder went off beside him. He was deafened and the heat seared his stockings. He remembered he had forgotten to change his clothes before going into action, as was customary. If he was wounded, his dirty linen might infect him.

The two ships rolled inwards, the gap narrowed and he flung himself across. A hemp shroud struck him, he grabbed it with his left hand, felt his right foot land on something solid and he steadied. Momentarily he paused, balancing, then gathered himself and leapt down on to the enemy's deck. Off balance he stumbled, a lunging pike missed him and he recovered his footing in time to parry a cutlass slash. He seemed surrounded by figures menacing him in a terrible surreal silence. The moonlight gleamed on naked steel, a pistol flashed noiselessly, then another and he was surrounded by struggling men. Slowly his hearing returned as he hacked and slithered, hardly knowing friend from foe. A sword blade struck his right
epaulette and sent half a dozen heavy gold threads past his ear. He cut savagely at his assailant and felt his sword blade bite. A cry, distinct now, struck his ears. He heard again shouts and whoops, the bitter supplications of the dying and the raving of men engaged in murder. He felt the weight of his anonymous attacker roll against his legs. In a split-second of detachment he thought: ‘Christ, this is a sin mightier than lying with Mistress Shaw,' and then he heard the bull-roar again.

‘Captain Drinkwater. Where in the devil's name are you?'

‘Here, damn you! Here!'

Why had he not held his tongue? Why had he identified himself so that, it seemed to him, even in the confusion the contending parties drew apart, exposing him to Stewart?

But Stewart had seen Drinkwater jump aboard and had kicked or thrust aside those of his friends obstructing his passage. He bore a cavalry sabre and whirled it down in a slashing cut. Drinkwater drew back and lunged over the top of Stewart's extended arm. The tip of his hanger caught the American's right bicep, though it failed to penetrate. Stewart recovered and sought to riposte, but the darkness and the confusion helped neither man. Drinkwater was jostled aside. A small, wiry man advanced on Stewart. He was inside the American officer's guard in a second, his tomahawk raised. The weapon caught the moonlight as it fell.

‘No!' Drinkwater roared, but he was too late. The sabre fell to the deck and Stewart stood swaying, the dark blood gushing from his neck. ‘Caldecott,' Drinkwater cried in recognition, and his coxswain turned. Just then the moon came clear of the clouds and illuminated the baleful scene. Caldecott's face was a mask of hatred. His teeth were drawn back in a snarl, his eyes glittered with a feral madness as he sought another victim. Appalled, Drinkwater stepped aside, let him pass, and then with a groan Stewart fell against him. Drinkwater let go his hanger and it dangled from its martingale. He grabbed the falling Stewart, felt the dead weight of him as his head lolled back, the mouth agape.

Drinkwater stood in the moonlight and held Stewart in his arms as the American died. His mind was filled with the thoughts of the likeness Stewart bore to his sister, and he was sickened to his soul. Mercifully a cloud obscured the moon and the noise of fighting drowned the howl of his anguish.

‘How are you, sir?'

‘Oh, well enough, James. It was only a scratch or two, you know.'

‘Pym said you were lucky . . .'

‘Pym talks a lot of nonsense. How's Tucker?'

‘The fever broke last night. He's weak, but will mend.'

‘For God's sake, tell Pym not to bleed the poor devil.'

‘I doubt he'll take my advice . . .'

‘Pour yourself a glass and sit down. I'll have one too, if you please.'

Drinkwater swung round and stared astern. The convoy was in good order, the recaptured Indiamen in their places, the prizes secure in the centre of the mass of ships. He had left a brace of Yankee schooners at large in the South Atlantic, but, under the circumstances, he did not think they would pose a great threat now the East India convoy was safe. He took the glass Quilhampton handed him. ‘I believe I owe you an explanation . . .' Drinkwater smiled over the rim of his glass.

‘I confess to still being a little mystified, particularly about
Sybille
and this fellow Stewart you mentioned . . .'

‘I didn't
know
about
Sybille
, James, I guessed. Oh, I had some clues, some evidence to suppose, were I in the same position, I would do the same thing . . .'

‘I understand about the privateers seeking to waylay the East India fleet. The French have done it before, it is an obvious move, but there was something else, wasn't there?'

‘You may have heard stories, James, about my excursion in
Sprite
to the Potomac. I went to contact a woman, a potential source of intelligence. Ah, I see by your face you have heard . . .'

‘Well, there
were
some rumours, sir.'

‘There are always rumours aboard ship,' Drinkwater went on, unaware of Quilhampton's relief at learning his
friend's liaison with the American lady had so rational an explanation after the innuendoes he had heard. ‘She was able to give me certain information about Captain Stewart which confirmed what I had already guessed and deduced from information I had gleaned from Stewart and what I had been told in London.

‘There was something about Stewart, whom I had met earlier, when
Patrician
was in the Potomac, before you joined us. I had a feeling about him; he practically challenged me, an odd notion unless one nursed a secret in which one had a great deal of confidence. Then luck threw something my way, quite by chance and so circumstantial that I did not know what it was until I recalled the matter much later. The woman dwelt in her father-in-law's house. His name was Shaw. When I first met him, Shaw was a veritable cooing dove, opposed to war. A day later, when we met in different circumstances and I needed his help, he seemed to have cooled. When I left you and shipped in the
sprite
, I returned as you now know to contact the woman, Captain Stewart's sister and Shaw's daughter-in-law. I saw old Shaw working on some papers. I was at the time apprehensive at the prospect of shinning up a drain pipe at my time of life and chiefly concerned with avoiding detection. I think, having been rebuffed by Shaw, I was instinctively suspicious of him. I didn't take much notice at the time and it was only weeks afterwards that I remembered what I had seen through a crack in the curtains . . .'