Winds of Folly (10 page)

There was no immediate threat.
Unicorn
had been stationed well to the rear of the convoy, and provided none of the lumbering transports stopped dead in the water, there was little risk of a collision. It was the privateers that gave him more cause for concern. He stood up and made his way to the stern rail. Ghostly shapes formed and dispersed in the haze but he could not tell if they were real or imagined. A gun went off over to starboard, roughly in the direction he had last seen
Inconstant
. Fremantle firing a warning – but of what? That there was fog? They all knew that, save those fortunate enough to have a cabin that was not occupied by whores. Again. Nathan saw the flash this time but was no more enlightened. He gazed into the impenetrable gloom beyond the
Unicorn
's stern. He did not seriously think the corsairs would attempt something in this, but still, it was wise to be ready for any eventuality. Reluctantly he gave the order to beat to quarters.

The drum roll sounded strangely muffled in the liquid air but it had the desired effect. In a trice the upper deck was transformed into a scene of apparent Bedlam as the sleeping watch emerged from below and above 200 men ran or were chivvied to their allotted stations. Nathan observed this exercise with an expression of aloof detachment, his hands firmly clasped behind his back, very much as the supervisor of Bedlam itself must observe, he thought, as the lunatics went about their own unfathomable exercises. No matter how often he had seen it happen – in action or in practice – it always gave him a
feeling of immense wonder that such Chaos could resolve itself into Order, and without any visible effort on his part. There was a time when he had been intimately involved in the operation, a junior officer barking his orders, herding his division into their correct pens – although even then they had known their place and function far better than he. But now … Provided he just stood there and did not say anything to disrupt it, it would all happen as if according to some divine plan. Gunports thrown open, tompions removed from the mouths of the guns, the lead aprons from the touch holes. Quoins thrust under the breeches to depress the barrels. The guns themselves, already primed and loaded, run out with a fiendish squeal of protest from the truck wheels – despite all the cook's slush that had been lavished upon them, Nathan noted with a perverse satisfaction. Spare shot and cartridge brought up from below. Powder horns and wads, lanterns, handspikes, sponges and worms neatly laid out beside them, like a surgeon's instruments in the cockpit. Matches and match tubs between every two guns in case the flints failed. Nothing missed. Everything in its place, even at night and in a fog. Wonderful. And the same impressive discipline would be transforming the lower deck …

By God, he thought, the whores!

He had completely forgotten them – but now he came to think of it, there had been certain sounds from below that might have alerted him to their presence: sounds not unlike the squealing of the gun trucks but less mechanical, more persistent. More
determined
. He was about to call for Gilbert Gabriel when that worthy appeared before him with a more lugubrious expression than was normal even for his countenance. What, he demanded, was he to do with the persons that was below decks, for they refused to be moved and was getting in the way of the guns.

Nathan looked about him and encountered the wary eye of Mr Lamb who hastily looked away. But no, tempting as it was, the midshipman was too junior for such a task. He raised his voice for Mr Holroyd and begged him, if he could be spared from his present duties, to present his compliments to Signora Correglia and inform her that he was obliged to clear the ship for action and that for their own safety she and her companions must retire to the orlop deck.

‘And take a pair of Marines with you to enforce their compliance should they become obdurate,' he added callously, for in the circumstances he was prepared to brook no dissent.

He was considerably relieved, however, if not a little surprised, when Holroyd reported that his instructions had been carried out to the letter and his charges consigned to the orlop deck, the which – being below the waterline – could be considered the safest place in the ship: unless she was unexpectedly to founder, of course, in which case it was as bad a place to be as anywhere upon the planet.

This minor crisis being averted for the moment, Nathan turned his mind to more compelling matters, for the fog pressed in ever more closely and a palpable air of tension fell upon the ship.

‘Strict silence, Mr Duncan,' he enjoined the first lieutenant sternly, for a certain amount of muttering had come to his ears. ‘We must hear what we cannot see.'

And so, after a necessary interlude of abuse, strict silence it was, only the creaking of ropes and timbers and the steady slap of water upon the hull defying Nathan's command as the
Unicorn
crept on through the murk with every eye straining to discover substance and form in such an ethereal world.

Nathan, who was of an inventive disposition, had often considered the possibilities of deploying some kind of beacon or guiding light that would assist in navigating a vessel through
such conditions, or give some warning of the presence of other ships, be they friend or foe. Unhappily, he had yet to discover a means of suspending it in the air, or directing it with sufficient force to pierce the miasma that surrounded them. But now he considered the possibility of towing it at their stern. It might not succeed in entirely dispelling the gloom but it would surely serve to betray any movement in the vicinity. A simple tar barrel might suffice, or a vat of tallow. He wondered if Mr Clyde, who shared his talent for invention, might be disposed to rig up such a device, or provide an alternative form of illumination, but then he recalled that Mr Clyde was dead and he had yet to appoint a replacement. George Banjo was the obvious choice but it would mean appointing him over the head of the gunner's mate, Dodds, a reliable enough individual but somewhat lacking in imagination.

Nathan was still considering these issues when the darkness was disturbed by a series of bright orange flashes a little off their starboard bow. For a fraction of a second he thought that someone had forestalled him in providing the very illumination he desired, but then he realised it was gunfire. More to the point, it was directed at
him
– and with startling accuracy, given the violent mayhem that suddenly exploded all around him. Splintered timber, a shriek of tortured metal, a loud thud as of a giant hand knocking upon the hull, and the scream of a man whose arm, Nathan saw, had been taken off at the elbow; he was standing beside his gun with the stump leaking on to the deck like some macabre pump, spurting blood.

Nathan's reaction to this assault was more indignant than alarmed. The damage he saw at once was superficial – though the man with the severed arm might conceivably entertain another view – and it was clear, even in the immediate aftermath of the attack, that their assailant carried no great weight of broadside. Nathan was more concerned with how she had
managed to locate them in such a fog while remaining invisible from his own decks – apart, of course, from that brief eruption of flame. The only rational explanation was that the frigate's position had been betrayed by the lights she carried at her stern and masthead, or even the red glow from the slow matches that burned beside each gun as a precaution against the failure of the flintlocks. He ordered them instantly dowsed but they endured another broadside before this could be accomplished, and this time Nathan brought their own guns to bear, more as an angry retort than in hopes of hitting anything.

‘Shall we close with them, sir?' Duncan prompted him when the last gun had fired.

But Nathan was thinking hard. The corsairs had been shadowing the convoy all day long. They knew the
Unicorn
was bringing up the rear. Why fire at her, and bring attention to themselves – unless it was to lure her out of position. The frigate was stationed slightly to windward of the convoy and their attacker was at least another quarter-mile or so off their starboard beam. It was far more likely that an attack would come from the opposite quarter. He crossed to the larboard rail and glared into the fog. Nothing. Nothing he could see, at any rate. If he got it wrong it would look as if he was running away, putting distance between himself and his attacker. Certainly it must have crossed Duncan's mind – he could tell by the look on his face when Nathan gave the order to veer to larboard.

Minutes passed. They were now sailing diagonally across the stern of the convoy – if it was where Nathan imagined it to be. God help him if it wasn't, he thought. In another minute he would have to give the order to beat back against the wind and hope to God the wolves were not yet among the sheep.

They almost ploughed straight into her. At the very last second someone up forward let out a shout and Nathan bawled
at the quartermaster to port his helm an instant before he saw the ghostly shape of her sails in the fog. More shouts – in French – from the gloom ahead. He saw the white faces peering out at him across the rail, the scurrying figures. A glimpse of the open gunports, the black muzzles of the guns run out. A flash of flame from a musket or swivel gun. And then the
Unicorn
's bowsprit slowly came round and they emptied their entire larboard broadside into her at point-blank range.

Nathan backed the mizzen and they lay off her at a distance of twenty or thirty yards. She was a brig of no more than three or four hundred tons, and even in the murk they could see the havoc they had wrought. The 18-pound shot had torn through her thin timbers, carrying away whole lengths of rail and leaving gaping holes in her hull, and as for her crew – the shouts of alarm as they saw the frigate bearing down on them had turned into screams of agony and frantic pleas for mercy. She was still flying her colours but Nathan forbore to fire into her again. Instead he brought the
Unicorn
alongside and sent Holroyd off with a boarding party.

‘Put the survivors into the boats,' he told him, ‘and then fire her.'

Holroyd looked at him in bemusement. Crippled though she was, she might still fetch a few thousand in a prize court once the damage was repaired: a good 100 guineas might find its way into Holroyd's pocket and a lot more for the Captain. But Nathan had other uses for her.

He stood off her at a distance of about a cable's length and watched her burn. Here was his beacon, his guiding light in the fog. And there was his quarry – two of them trying to creep past her stern. He gave them each a broadside before they veered to leeward and vanished into the gloom, but he had seen the 18-pound shot tear through the rigging of one and make a shambles of the stern of the other as she turned
away, and he suspected they would have no stomach to resume the attack. Still, he kept the
Unicorn
hove to off the burning vessel until she sank beneath the waves, and then followed slowly in the wake of the convoy for the rest of the long, grim night with the men standing to at the guns and the lookouts straining their eyes in the fog. It was only when it dispersed a little before dawn, and there was no sign of a single sail – no convoy, escorts or enemy – in the several miles of ocean thus revealed to him, that Nathan finally gave the order to stand down.

He lowered himself into the canvas chair Gilbert Gabriel had provided for him on the quarterdeck and closed his eyes. He was desperately tired but he had the satisfaction of knowing that he had made the right decision for once – and every man in the crew must know it, from Duncan down.

Nathan's moods tended to the extreme. He was either plunged into a pit of self-loathing or floating upon a cloud of self-esteem that he would have considered excessive in the heroes of Antiquity. In this latter mood he would bask in the imagined approval of all his acquaintance, even going so far as to dwell fondly upon the terms they might employ in praise of his sagacity, valour, generosity, or whatever other quality he had displayed.
‘How in God's name did he know they were there?'
he imagined Duncan exclaiming in wondrous tones to Holroyd, and Holroyd shaking his head in mute reverence at such godlike perception. Alas, he had learned that such periods were invariably followed by a sharp reminder of his human failings. The ship had been put back to her normal state: the guns secured, the bulkheads restored and the hammocks returned to the lower decks before he once again remembered his passengers. His consideration for their welfare was somewhat secondary to the realisation that while they were confined in the orlop deck there was nothing to stop him
moving back into his cabin. He could inform the Signora that the constant threat of attack made it imperative for them to remain in a place of safety.

He passed the word for Gilbert Gabriel and had begun to state this intention – and of partaking of his breakfast there – when something in the fellow's manner alerted him.

‘What?' he said.

‘They've already moved back in,' reported Gabriel, with grim satisfaction, ‘and asked me to bring them coffee and warm rolls as soon as the galley fires is lit.'