Tide of War (9 page)

I am a man of many parts,
he had told Nathan once, on a journey from Paris to Le Havre. Nathan had seen several of them: the urbane man of letters, the romantic frontiersman forever seeking new challenges and new horizons, the war profiteer and the resolute, if not quite reliable, man of action … But above all he was a gambler with an eye to the main chance, an improviser who would make use of any situation, or individual, to his own advantage.

Nathan began by making some general observations about the
Speedwell
's progress and her present position on the charts.

“That is indeed gratifying,” Imlay acknowledged, though dully. Possibly it was not a subject on which he could engage with any degree of complacency.

“I suppose there have been times when you wished you had never left London,” remarked Nathan. “Or even Paris.”

“That thought had occurred to me once or twice over the past few days,” Imlay acknowledged dryly, “though there have been times when I have been uneasy in Paris, as you know.”

“Indeed.” Imlay had been in hiding for long periods during the Terror. “But surely not under the current regime. I was under the impression that some of them were friends of yours.”

“ I would not go so far as to say they were friends,” Imlay replied, “though I was able to do them a small service at the time of the coup.”

“You helped them seize power,” Nathan pointed out bluntly.

“You are surprised I did not stay to take advantage of their gratitude?”

“A little.”

“Well, the thought did occur to me, but I had affairs of my own to attend to in London.”

Nathan was about to ask after his wife and child when he became aware of a lingering presence on the periphery of his vision, hesitant but clearly requiring attention, his lips moving in rehearsal.

“Yes, Mr. Place?”

“Mr. Tully's compliments, sir, and he would be obliged if you could spare a few moments in the maintop to view a sail that is causing him some disquiet.”

“ I did not wish to trouble you unnecessarily,” said Tully, handing him the glass, “but she has altered her course since sighting us and I do not at all like the look of her.”

Nathan trained the telescope upon the distant sail. She was hull up on the western horizon and, as Tully had intimated, on a converging course.

“What on earth is she?” he said, for he had never seen such a strange rig.

“She is a polacca. Square rigged at the main, lateen sails fore and aft. Parker was took by one off the south coast of Ireland on a Boston trader. They are very much favoured, he says, by the Barbary pirates, especially for a distant cruise. Would you like to speak with him, sir?”

He raised his eyes to the topmast where Ismael Parker was waiting respectfully.

“You have seen her like before then, Parker?” Nathan prompted him when he came dropping down like a species of ape.

“Aye, sir, and hoped never to again. She took us off Kinsale Head and we were like to have been pulling oar still or taken for the slave markets in Algiers save for a British frigate that came up on her and they threw us over the side by way of a distraction. I was one of the lucky ones that could swim.”

Nathan nodded as if in sympathy though it was their present plight that occupied him more. The Barbary pirates operated from ports in North Africa—most notably Algiers and Tunis—and their normal cruising was the Mediterranean but he had heard tales of
their atrocities in more distant waters, even as far north as Iceland. They were crewed almost entirely by Moors and Turks but with Christian slaves at the oars. Christians were much in demand, too, as house servants, he had heard, all along the Barbary coast. Many of the Italian states paid them bribes and they were wary of major powers that had a strong navy but the American traders, not having any navy at all, suffered more than most from their attentions. It was said that Americans now formed a sizeable minority among the slaves of the region.

Nathan raised the glass once more to his eye. She was noticeably closer. He could make out the strange overhangs at bow and stern—and the gun ports along her side. If they kept to their present course and the
Speedwell
did not alter hers they would be in range within the hour.

“What guns do they carry? Normally speaking. And crew?”

“Well now, the ship that took us, sir, she carried twenty-four, mostly 6-pounders, with swivel guns at prow and stern. And a crew of three to four hundred.”

“As many as that?” Nathan took the glass from his eye. This was a far bigger crew than a frigate in most navies.

“Aye, sir, not counting slaves. They go for boarding, do you see, sir. They'll not use the guns ‘less they have to.”

This made sense. They would not wish to damage a potential prize and with so big a crew they could board even an East Indiaman with impunity, unless she could keep them at a distance with her own guns. Not much chance of that in the
Speedwell
's case with three 4-pounders to each puny broadside and the single 6-pounder at the stern. Better to try and outrun her.

“And fast?”

“Very fast, sir. Built for speed, you might say. And with that rig they can sail as close to the wind as I have ever seen.”

“And with the wind on the quarter—as fast as us?”

“I'd not like to say, sir. That is, I'd not like to stake my life on it, nor any man's.”

No. That was Nathan's job.

“What do you think?” he asked Tully, when Parker had been dismissed. It was Nathan's job but he was not above seeking advice on how to do it, not from Tully at least.

“ We could run for the Azores.” Tully stated the obvious, the only course that would give them any kind of a fighting chance.

“You think we have the legs on her?”

“If we start the water, ditch the guns …”

Even then, they both knew it would be a damned close thing. And every mile would take them far off their present course with a substantial risk of being stuck for days, even weeks, in the Azores Highs.

“Load the guns with chain shot,” he instructed Tully. “And tell Whiteley to arm his marines.”

A flicker of surprise. Tully would never question an order but Nathan gave him the answer all the same.

“We cannot fight her,” he admitted, “but if she comes close enough we might be able to cross her stern, then make a run for it.”

At least they would be running in the right direction. And he might damage her rigging enough to give them a flying start—if she did not damage them more.

Tully nodded and was gone. But there had been another question in his eyes and it lingered in Nathan's mind.

Would she come close enough without firing on them?

He could not count on it. Run, his more cautious voice urged him.
Run to the south and use the sternchaser when she comes within range.

He slid down the backstay to the deck. The men were loading the guns under the supervision of Solomon Pratt who had once been a gunner in the British Navy, Nathan had always suspected, and knew what he was about, though he complained a lot. He complained now when Tully told him to load the guns along both sides. Where was he to find the crew to fight both sides?

And now here was Imlay, out of his chair, his face creased with concern.

“How can I be of assistance?”

You may stay below until we are took, was Nathan's initial thought, after which you will doubtless persuade them to drop you off at a convenient port in return for a substantial ransom to be paid at some future date. But of course he said no such thing but proposed that Imlay put himself at the service of Lieutenant Whiteley and his marines who were now below deck, hopefully preparing for battle. They would be useful in a close encounter but against three hundred … ?

“Mr. Place.”

“Sir?” The boy had lost some colour but appeared steady enough considering the future he faced on the Barbary Coast. Not quite the career Mrs. Place had in mind for him when she had brought him to Shoreham but steady employment, for all of that, and a good-looking lad could go far, Nathan had heard, in the seraglios of the beys. “Compliments to Mr. Whiteley …” Was there ever a circumstance where you did not begin every blessed sentence with this courtesy? “And beg him to arm ten of his marines with grenades, upon a short fuse.”

He caught Tully's eye.

“I mean to bring us right across her stern,” he said, “as close as we can get. You will take the con and I will take the guns. And as soon as we are past, bring her back upon our present course.”

Tully nodded as if it were as simple as that.

“We will keep the marines out of sight until the last minute,” Nathan said, thinking aloud. And then it came to him. By God. He almost laughed with the sheer reckless wantonness, the absurdity of it. But what could they lose by it?

Quite a considerable amount, in fact. Best not to think on it.

“Mr. Tully?”

“Sir?”

Nathan nodded to himself as the calculations raced across his brain.

“I want every man below deck.”

Tully stared at him.
Was he mad?
Very probably, Nathan thought.

“When I was on the
Hermes,
” he explained, “off the Mosquito Coast, in ‘89, we sighted a schooner without a single soul on deck. Just a cat.”

Tully inclined his head attentively as if he had nothing better to do than listen to one his captain's anecdotes whilst a heavily armed Barbary corsair bore down on them with three hundred hostile Moors already calculating their share of the spoils.

“The wheel was lashed, the sails set and she was moving at three or four knots,” Nathan continued amiably. “But not a soul to be seen. We came alongside, very close, and put a party aboard her. They came back very fast. They had found the crew. Dead, every one, below deck—with the yellow fever.”

Tully appeared to have grasped the point of the story. “But how will we steer the vessel,” he enquired, “if we are all below decks?”

“We will steer by the tiller ropes,” Nathan proposed. “You and I will keep a watch from the launch with a tarp thrown upon us and devise some means of signalling so that they will know when to turn.” He looked into Tully's face. “So what do you think? Is there anything I have overlooked?”

He meant this to be ironic.

“I think it is a pity,” said Tully, “that we do not have a cat.”

“Closer,” murmured Nathan softly. “I need you closer.”

He was crouched with Tully in the bottom of the launch with the tarp over their heads, but he did not mean his companion. He meant the polacca which was about a cable's length to leeward. She was bigger, far bigger than Nathan had thought when he saw her through the glass. He could see her people lining the rail and up in the rigging. So many people. Dark faces and beards, turbaned heads. Officers in flowing white. And he could see her guns: twelve 6-pounders in her waist, more of a lesser calibre on the quarterdeck. One broadside at this range and they would be food for the fishes.

A flash and a bang. Nathan flinched. But it was just one shot, fired from high in her forecastle. He did not see where it went. He took it to be a shot across the bows, commanding them to heave to.

“She is using her mizzensail as a rudder,” Tully murmured in his ear, as if they might hear him on the polacca. “A giant rudder to keep
her bows up into the wind. If she loses it, she will fall off to leeward. It will give us a few hundred yards at least.”

Nathan had to think about this. Tully always seemed at least one step ahead of him. But even when he worked it out he could not see what difference it would make, unless they could bring the mast down.

He could see her officers staring towards them from the quarterdeck. If she was going to fire into them it would be now. His whole body was tensed for the flash and roar of her guns. The thin planks of the launch all that stood between him and …

A sudden squeal in his ear. Nathan almost jumped. He turned his head. Tully had got hold of a rat. He was holding it by the neck, between finger and thumb, close to his face.

Nathan stared at it, took in its red eyes and its sharp teeth, then at Tully in bewilderment. Had he gone mad?

“We have no cat,” said Tully, “but perhaps this will do as well.” With a flick of the wrist he tossed it through the gap in the tarp.

Nathan watched it drop to the deck, pick itself up, and make a dart for the scuppers. He looked back at the pirate. She was closer. He could discern features clearly now. The ring in a man's ear, a scar, the jewel on the hilt of a sword, catching the sun …

“Now!” He jerked the lanyard leading over the far side of the launch and down to young Coyle below deck. For what seemed an age there was no response.
What in God's name was keeping them?
And then he felt the lurch to leeward, almost a jolt, as the tiller bit and the bows came round and dug into the trough. He saw the alarm on the faces of the Moors as the unmanned craft came swinging towards them, heard their shouts … And then he was throwing back the tarp and springing down on to the deck and sprinting for the nearest gun.

It was already primed and loaded, the muzzle raised so high it was jammed up against the top of the gun port. He pushed it open and thrust his head out. They were crossing the polacca's stern, so close that for a moment Nathan thought he had misjudged and they were
going to crash into her. He froze with tension as the
Speedwell
's bowsprit caught in the mizzen shrouds but it ripped through and now they were directly astern of her. Faces glaring down from the overhanging poop. There was a crash of musketry and a screech of metal on metal as something struck the breech of the gun by his hand and shot off past his ear. Tully was at the helm, struggling to bring the barque back on her former course, for already the sails were beginning to feather and there was a serious danger she would be taken aback. The hands were already pouring up through the hatches, the marines among them, back in their scarlet coats, and Whiteley barking out orders as they fanned out along the rail.