Tide of War (40 page)

“Thank you, Mr. Pym.”

He applied his eye once more to the glass, thrusting a steadying arm through the shrouds. Yes, there she was. The chaste white figure at the bow and the broad red stripe along her gun ports. After journeying so far and for so long. And this time he was ready for her, except …

He snapped shut the telescope. “Send the word for Mr. Lloyd.”

The carpenter hurried aft, dragging his cap over his sweating pate.

“Mr. Lloyd, I believe we still have your virgin at our bow.”

“Aye, sir, which I was never instructed to remove.”

“I am aware of that and I do not blame you for it but it will never do, you know.”

“I had thought, sir, that they may take it a form of mockery, do you see?” explained the carpenter, “the way the Welsh archers would give the French the two fingers, you know, at the time of Agincourt.”

Nathan stared at him incredulously. The man had hidden depths.

“I am sorry, Mr. Lloyd, but we cannot charge into battle with a smirking whore at our bow. You must get rid of her, sir. Cast her into the sea and give us back our unicorn.”

It was easier said than done, even with the carpenter's mate sawing away from the beak and two hands out on the bowsprit pulling at the noose around her neck but at last she fell away and there was their unicorn, if not quite whole.

“The horn, sir, the horn,” exclaimed Nathan who had gone up forward to see the job done. “You must give him back his horn.”

“Oh, sir, but I do not know if we have the time, you see.”

The carpenter looked pointedly out towards the enemy, looming
large off their starboard bow. But under Nathan's fierce frown he scuttled off with his mate to the carpenter's store and came back a minute later with the object clasped to his bosom.

“You will be glad now that you cut it off at an angle,” Nathan assured him, as the carpenter leaned over the beak, holding the gilded horn in position while his mate hammered in the nails. “Perhaps a lick of paint to disguise the join.” He grinned into the carpenter's appalled countenance. “I am making game of you, Mr. Lloyd, you may return to your station.”

And Nathan returned to his at the quarterdeck where Mr. Holroyd begged his attention.

“Mr. Tully's compliments, sir, and he wonders if you would free the prisoners that are in irons, so that he may make use of them at the guns.”

Dear God, he had entirely forgotten them. It was to Tully's credit that he had not.

“By all means,” he said. “Find the master-at-arms and have them freed. Let us see if they may redeem themselves somewhat,” he remarked to no-one in particular. He doubted if it would count much in their favour at a court martial but it might save them from a hanging, if only by getting in the way of a round of French shot.

“Sir, beg pardon, sir, but there is something I think you should see …” Mr. Lamb now with his telescope.

Nathan took it from him and crossed over to the leeward rail.

“She is full of soldiers, sir. I thought you should know …”

“Quite right, Mr. Lamb.”

He could see them packed into the waist and crowded into her tops. French regular infantry and marines. Nathan wondered if they were the same marines that had been paroled in the Mississippi Delta, and with the thought he swung the glass up to the quarterdeck and there he was: Gilbert Imlay, large as life, standing a little apart from the huddle of officers on the weatherside and staring over towards the
Unicorn
as she bore down on them.

Nathan handed the glass back to the midshipman without comment and sought out the sailing master at the con.

“Mr. Baker, when we have run past her, we will wear ship and cross her stern.”

“Aye, aye, sir, wear ship it is, sir, to cross her stern.”

It was an obvious manoeuvre, even to Baker. It was worth conceding the weather gauge for that one raking broadside. But if it was obvious to Baker it must be obvious to their opponent. So what would they do about it?

Nathan stared intently at the approaching frigate. He had questioned the Channel Islander, Robin Tierney, very closely about his time aboard the
Virginie
and had learned a great deal about the workings of the ship. He knew every one of the senior officers by name and Tierney's assessment of their strengths and weaknesses. The overall strategy was the responsibility of Commodore Lafitte, but the man who sailed and fought the ship was her captain, a man called Bergeret. Jacques Bergeret. A former sailing master, like Tully. It was he who made the decisions that mattered in a situation like this.

So what would he do? Nathan wondered. Almost certainly, with all those soldiers available to him, he would try to board at the earliest opportunity.

A sudden stab of flame from the
Virginies
bow. Then another. The two separate explosions rolled over the water towards them, chasing the hurtling shot. Nathan marked where they fell, about a cable's length short of the
Unicorn
's bow and a little to starboard.

“Tell Mr. Clyde to fire as he bears,” he instructed Lamb absently. He was not to be distracted by a duel between their bowchasers, not when they would be exchanging broadsides a few minutes from now.

“What is the time?” he asked his clerk, Mr. Shaw, who stood at his side with his chronograph and his notebook.

“Eleven minutes past four o'clock, sir,” replied the clerk precisely but Nathan saw that his hands were shaking.

A hole suddenly appeared in their fore course. They were aiming
high as was the French style, hoping to disable him before he brought his broadside to bear. If they kept to their present course the two ships would pass each other at a distance of no more than a hundred yards, Nathan figured. And then, as he gazed out at her from the leeward rail, he saw her bows come round into the wind until they were pointing directly towards him.

He sought Mr. Baker's eye.

“Bring her a little further into the wind, Mr. Baker.”

“Aye, aye, sir, but she is already near as far as she will go.”

“Even so, I think she may take half a point.”

He watched the edge of the sails for the slightest sign of feathering, both ships now heading up into the wind as close as they could possibly sail.

What was she trying to do? She could not cross the
Unicorn
's bow for she could not come that far into the wind. And if she kept to her present course the two ships would collide. Was that what her captain intended? A head-on collision would cripple both ships. No, he was hoping Nathan would give way and forfeit the weather gauge—and if he did not …

He came to an instant decision. “Mr. Baker, prepare to wear ship.”

“To wear?” It was almost a wail. “Now, sir?”

Nathan turned a furious face upon him and saw the despairing glance Baker threw at Pym before he opened his mouth to issue the necessary orders.

“Gun crews to larboard,” Nathan roared, loud enough for them to hear him on the gun deck below. He heard his cry repeated in the waist and then the rush of feet, the creak of tackle and the screech of the carriages as they ran out the guns on the larboard side.

They were coming round, crossing directly ahead of the
Virginie's
bows at a distance of about a cable's length. Nathan glanced down the row of guns in the waist.

“Fire as you bear!”

The rippling crash of the broadside. The
Virginie
disappeared briefly in the black pall of smoke.

“And now they will rake us,” he distinctly heard Pym mutter in the background.

“Right about, mind you take us right about, Mr. Baker,” Nathan instructed the bemused sailing master in case he had it in mind to run downwind. But they were still coming round, the
Virginie's
bow pointing directly at their stern, the bowsprit barely fifty yards from them and closing. He could see the holes in her fore course, one of the bowchasers dismounted and by God, they had taken the head off her virgin …

“Gun crews to starboard,” Nathan roared but they were already on their way, running back to their former positions as the bows came round, the sails filling and cracking as they took the wind from the starboard quarter, and the
Virginie
coming up fast on the same side.

“Fire as you bear!”

The two broadsides crashed out together and Nathan could barely see for the smoke. He heard a scream of metal on metal and saw one of the quarterdeck 6-pounders knocked clear off her truck, the human screams of her crew as the shot ploughed into them. The starboard rail disintegrated into splinters, one of which, a foot long was sticking out of Shaw's throat. His chronograph and his notebook fell from his hands as he followed them to the deck. Nathan felt wind on his cheek and heard the crack of muskets from the French marines up in the rigging. A round of lead shot punched into the deck at his feet; another plucked at his sleeve. One of the helmsmen staggered back with blood pouring from his neck and another rushed to take his place. McGregor was red-faced and roaring, pointing his sword at the
Virginie's
tops and the marines next to him firing up. And Pym looked surprised as a French round took off his hat and the top part of his head.

Then the
Virginie
was past, her greater way taking her ahead of them as Nathan had known it would, with the
Unicorn
still completing her turn. He shouted in Baker's ear to make him understand they were to come as far into the wind as was possible, on exactly the same course as the
Virginie
had been.

“But stand by to wear again if she drops off from the wind.”

Would she? It was what Nathan would do. But the French frigate was holding to her present course with the
Unicorn
about half a cable's length behind her. Why? She could not be running from them, surely.

“Mr. Lamb?” He looked round for the midshipman.

“Here, sir,” Popping up from behind him like a pantomime demon with a crazed grin on his face. Instantly changed to horror as he stared at Nathan's chest. “Oh, sir, you have been hit.”

Nathan glanced down and felt his heart leap into his throat as he saw the spreading stain, and then raised his eyes to heaven as he remembered the little bottle of brown medicine McLeish had given him.

“Give me the glass.” He snatched it from Lamb's hand and sighted along the rail at the huddle of officers on the
Virginies
quarterdeck. They seemed to be arguing. He could see them waving their arms in the French manner, not that he had anything against that, he did a fair amount of arm waving himself when he was excited, perhaps it was the French in him. He saw that Imlay was involved in the dispute, if dispute it was. Could she be running for the Sea of Sirens? Hoping to carry out her mission of aiding the rebels. But she would have to leave him labouring in her wake and there was little chance of that—the two ships were just about matched for speed—and if she held to her present course there was a danger of running upon Cape Cruz. Besides, she had no sternchasers and not much in the way of weaponry on her quarterdeck either, for she had left her
obussiers
in the swamps of the Rigolets. The
Unicorn,
on the other hand, could fire with her bowchasers and—as she clawed into the wind—the most forward of the forecastle guns.

But the rational view must have prevailed, for Nathan saw the
Virginies
stern swing away from him as she fell off from the wind and he yelled to Baker to follow suit. The two ships wore together like two stately dancers and began to race downwind, hammering away at each other with their long guns and scarcely a hundred yards between them.

The
Unicorn's
crew had improved at their murderous trade. All along the crowded gun deck they toiled without ceasing, swabbing out the smoking muzzles, ramming in the paper cartridge and the iron shot, heaving at the tackle to run the heavy cannon back up to the open ports, the iron wheels of the trucks shrieking almost as despairingly as the wounded; and the two ships running so close at times the flame from the muzzles leaped across the space between, the burning wads striking the sides and falling back hissing into the rushing sea.

For the best part of an hour they ran on, the flash of the guns brighter now against the darkening sky, the swirling smoke splintered by the blood-red light of the setting sun so that at times Nathan had the impression he was watching demons stoking the fires of Hell. Sometimes a round would come straight through the gun ports, screaming off the metal surface, taking off a head or an arm or a leg, but it was the great jagged splinters that did the most damage, flying from the battered timbers and exploding onto the crowded decks. Both ships were firing double-shotted, mostly into the hulls, though the French had a few guns loaded with chain still in the hope of crippling them aloft. And with some success. First the
Unicorn
's mizzen topmast went and then their gaff, and then they lost the use of the mainsail when both leech-ropes were shot away.

Twice the
Virginie
steered towards them in the hope of boarding but each time Nathan saw her coming through the smoke and veered off. But with the damage the
Unicorn
had suffered aloft, he could not back his mizzen to slow down that headlong rush and cross her stern for one killer raking blow. Still, he could see the blows they had dealt her, the gaping wounds in her side where two or more gun ports had been knocked into one, the shattered lengths of rail and the blood running from her scuppers. Her mizzen too had gone by the board and a little after half past five her main topmast fell, instantly followed by the fore topgallant. The sudden loss of power allowed the
Unicorn
to shoot ahead of her and the wreckage dragged her round to starboard so that Nathan feared she would rake them. He leaped to
the helm and mimed the act of pulling it hard over and the two ships drew apart and for the first time in over an hour the guns fell silent.