Under Enemy Colors (31 page)

“Do you think they know we’re here?” Landry whispered, his voice breaking.

“We will know if a six-pound ball cuts you in half,” came the sailing master’s voice out of the dark and liquid night.

“We will fire a broadside,” Hart announced suddenly.

“But Captain,” remonstrated Barthe, “we can’t be sure it is even a French ship.”

“We are in French waters,” Hart contended, “it can be nothing else. Mr Landry, prepare to fire the larboard battery.”

“But where is our target?”

“Helmsman,” Hart ordered, “give her a spoke to starboard. Our target will be directly abeam. Now jump to it.”

Hawthorne heard Landry stumble forward to give the orders.

“The sky grows hazy, Mr Hayden,” Philpott observed. A damp, cold mist washed slowly over the rail at that moment.

Hayden glanced up to find the stars reduced to blurs. “As if we weren’t having enough trouble finding our quarry.” He leaned close to Philpott and whispered so that only the lieutenant could hear: “Under any other circumstances I would put the men into boats and attempt to board that ship in the offing, but there is no way to know if they have infantry aboard. I must say, it seems unlikely. How many men could the garrison on Belle Île spare?”

Philpott nodded in the darkness. “That is the question. There were a goodly number aboard the French frigate: no fewer than an hundred, I should think. They can’t have reinforced four transports and the brig as well. It seems a defensible risk. I will lead the boarding party, gladly.”

Hayden was impressed with the younger man’s pluck. There was no hesitation there. This was no Captain Hart in the making.

“If I am to send men to fight a shipload of French infantry I will lead them myself. You will assume command of the
Lucy
in my absence.”

Philpott nodded, genuinely disappointed, Hayden thought.

“I shall put all your own men from the
Themis
in the boats, and as many as I think we can spare.”

“Mr Hayden?” came Wickham’s whisper from above. “Is that a ship to starboard? Do you see? Half a point aft of amidships.”

Hayden went to the rail and peered into the thick night. “Can you make her out, Philpott?”

The lieutenant’s answer was lost in an explosion of long guns, and Hayden was hurled to the deck. For a moment he lay, dazed, debris spread both over and around him. Propping himself up on an elbow, he shook his head.

“Mr Philpott?” he whispered, then looked up at the ruined rigging. “Wickham, there?”

“I’m here, sir,” Wickham called down, “but I think the rigging is badly damaged, sir.”

“I’m sure it is. Are you whole, Mr Wickham? Can you climb up and extinguish the lanterns?”

“I can, sir.”

Hayden searched the shadowed deck with his eyes. “Mr Philpott?”

Someone moved a few feet away, and Hayden scrambled over and found Philpott on his back, limbs writhing unconsciously. He saw another shape rise up a few feet away—the helmsman, he guessed. “Find the surgeon,” Hayden ordered. “Mr Philpott has been wounded.”

A moment later, Wickham appeared at his side.

“Are you injured?” he asked the middy.

“A splinter or two. Not worth a surgeon’s attention.”

Hayden forced himself to stand, dizzy. “Those were not the brig’s six-pounder guns,” he declared. “Look at the ruin they made of us…”

A second broadside roared, but only a single shot struck forward. The rest screamed off into the darkness, holing the sea some distance off.

A man began to cry out in pain.

“Silence that man,” Hayden ordered. “Quiet on the deck.”

“Mr Hayden…?” Philpott tried to sit up but was unable to.

“Carry Mr Philpott below,” Hayden whispered to two men who appeared out of the darkness.

“No…” Philpott breathed. “No. I don’t believe I’m injured. Just…dazed.” In the blackness Hayden could make out the lieutenant’s pale hands brushing limbs and torso, searching for wounds. “I appear to be whole, as remarkable as that seems.”

The two men helped him to his feet, where he stood a moment, wavering like a stalk of wheat in the wind, but then he found his balance. “What in hell’s name was that?” the man managed.

“Eighteen-pounders,” Hayden whispered. “Or so I would judge.”

“Where did a French frigate come from?” Wickham asked.

“It’s not French,” Hayden said firmly. “I’ll wager it’s the
Themis
.”

Someone cursed in the darkness, and low muttering spread forward.

“Then we should hail her,” Philpott said quickly.

“No,” Hayden answered just as quickly. “If we’re wrong it would invite another broadside.”

Guns boomed again, lighting up the water two hundred yards away, illuminating for an instant the rigging of a ship. The report rolled across the water, like a wave, but the shots were aimed some distance ahead of the
Lucy
now.

“What do they shoot at?”

“Phantoms,” Hayden said. “Shadows. We must not show a light that any can see.”

“But we are much damaged and the starlight is quickly fading.”

A little breeze from the east touched them then, backing the rolling sails.

“Asleep at last,” Philpott whispered, looking up as the sails pushed against the mast and rigging.

Hayden went to the helm, spinning it quickly. “We are caught aback, Mr Philpott. We must shift our yards.”

“What course shall we make?”

“I should still like to catch us a Frenchman—north toward L’Orient.” He stared off into the darkness. “Send men aloft to survey the damage. We shall make what repairs we can. Is there water in the hold, Mr Wickham?”

“I will go down and see for myself, Mr Hayden.” And Wickham disappeared toward the companionway.

Sailors padded quickly around the deck, throwing aside torn sails and broken gear. Others went aloft as fast as darkness would allow. Whispers began to seep down from above.

“Fore-topsail brace, larboard side, shot away.”

“Main topsail hanging in her gear, Mr Philpott.”

“Main starboard shrouds in a hell of a mess, sir,”
whispered the bosun.

“Will they stand, Mr Plym?” Philpott asked.

“May’est, in this little breeze, sir.”

“We’ll jury-rig what we can, Mr Plym. Reeve a new fore-topsail brace, to begin. That sail will be needed.”

“Lash the main topsail yard to the rigging,” Hayden whispered up to the men. “Let’s not have it coming down on our heads.”

The yards were braced around and the sails filled. The ship seemed to hover, like a gull on the wind, and then began to make headway. In a moment there was a burble of water along her hull—three knots, or so Hayden guessed. He kept glancing up nervously at the main, expecting it to go over the side at any moment.

Wickham popped out of the after companionway. “We’re making no water, Mr Hayden, as far as the carpenter can tell.” He came and stood by the wheel. “But we’ve one sizeable hole in the hull, three feet above the water line.”

“Tell the carpenter to show no lights while he makes his repairs, even if we have to hang some old sails over the side.”

“I already did, sir. He grumbled, but I explained that if our light were seen he’d have a few more holes to bung, maybe in his gut.”

“Well said. Now take yourself out to the end of the jib-boom with a night glass, if you please. See if there is a brig or a transport somewhere before us. It wouldn’t do to collide with one in the dark.”

Wickham jogged forward, disappearing in a few paces. Hayden could no longer see the bow of his own ship, for the stars sank into cloud and the fog was growing thicker by the moment. The breeze now was off the shore—almost due east—perfect for the Frenchman trying to make L’Orient before the British ships could overhaul them. Hayden took off his waistcoat and half-covered the binnacle, smothering what little light there was. He could only just make out one of the compasses now, but was steering by the wind largely, anyway.

“Now, if my waistcoat doesn’t catch fire,” he muttered.

One of the midshipmen appeared, his arm in a sling. “We have a bit of coloured glass we can slip into the binnacle, Mr Hayden. I’ll put the other light out. Can’t be seen at ten yard, then.”

“Yes. Do that. How fares your arm?”

“A few stitches. The doctor says not to use it for a week. Be right as rain, I’m sure.”

Overhead, he could hear men working in the rigging. A line was carried aloft to haul up cables to replace the main shrouds that had been shot away. The men were working in almost complete darkness, but knew their little ship from keel to truck. Monkey fists thudded to the deck and crewmen fastened to these the materials needed for repairs, the bundles disappearing up into the darkness.

A shadow with Mr Philpott’s voice appeared. “Shall I have you relieved at the helm, Mr Hayden?”

“If you please, Mr Philpott.”

A quartermaster’s mate took the helm, and Hayden fetched his waistcoat from the binnacle, where the middy had shipped a piece of smoke-stained glass to dim the compass light.

“Where is the frigate that fired upon us?” Hayden asked. “Can any see her?”

The lookouts all reported that she had been lost in the darkness and fog. A distant glow, bearing north-west by north, was almost certainly a light upon the Île de Groix.

“Are you familiar with these waters?” Hayden asked Philpott.

“Moderately so. Presently, we are in open water, perhaps six leagues south of L’Orient. The glow in the north-west is the light on the southern tip of the Île de Groix. There are sizeable fortifications there. To the east, the coast forms a long arc tending north then curving round to the west. But then, you likely know all this.”

“On such a close night it is reassuring to hear another agree with one’s own perceptions. If we do not catch a Frenchman in the next two hours, Mr Philpott, I fear we shall be forced to give up this business.” Hayden searched the sky for a moment. “It seems we are in for a change of weather. This land breeze will die away and I would expect a wind from the south-east—perhaps a small gale. A little sea room would be welcomed.”

Hayden made his way forward along the darkened deck. A distinct
thud
sounded a few feet ahead, followed by many curses and much muttering by the men on deck. It was a mallet fallen from above, it appeared.

“You up there!” one of the waisters hissed. “Drop another like it and I’ll be up to pound your little toes to flats. Do you hear?”

“Captain on deck,” a man near Hayden announced, and the argument died away.

Hayden stepped carefully among the men working in the waist, and in a moment was on the forecastle. They seemed to have sailed out of the fog—or perhaps the land breeze was driving it back. “Wickham?” he whispered.

“Here, Mr Hayden,” came the middy’s voice from somewhere out in the dark.

“Any sign of our quarry?”

Wickham came in along the bowsprit, landing nimbly on the deck, his natural agility unhampered by the darkness.

“Can you see in the dark, Wickham?”

Wickham chuckled. “Not quite, sir, but I flatter myself that I manage better than most. I think there is something in the distance. Do you see? Half a point to starboard and perhaps a third of a league distant…”

Hayden tried to part the darkness, first with his naked eye, then with his night glass. “A lantern,” Hayden said. “Is it a lantern?”

“That’s what I thought, sir. It blinks in and out as though obscured from time to time by sails or rigging.”

“Or men upon a deck,” Hayden said.

“That would likely mean she’s coming our way, sir.”

“Precisely so.”

“Is it the
Themis
, do you think?”

“I don’t know, Wickham. If it was the
Themis
that fired on us, Hart was not carrying two lanterns high on the main mast, so perhaps this is he.”

“He’s turned back, then.”

“So it would seem, unless a ship from L’Orient could have been carried here on this wind.”

“It’s been blowing two hour, sir. At four knots that’s eight miles.”

“Slip back along the deck. Tell everyone to make not a sound. Enemy ship in the offing. Ask Mr Philpott to alter course to the west.”

Wickham reached out and grabbed his shoulder. “Ship dead ahead!”

Hayden whirled around. “Go, take the helm. Not a word of English from anyone.”

Hayden cupped his hands to his mouth and called out,
“Navire droit devant! À tribord toute!”
*

From out of the darkness came shouts in French, and as the
Lucy
veered to larboard, the bow of a large ship loomed over them. Hayden began cursing the ship in his most colourful French.