Winds of Folly (6 page)

He studied them through his glass as they came closer. Two brigs of sixteen guns or more and two small sloops about the size of
Bonne Aventure
. The fifth was lagging behind somewhat, and still too distant to tell what guns she carried, but she was schooner-rigged which would give her a considerable advantage sailing into the wind. Individually, or even combined, they were no match for a thirty-two-gun frigate, but they were unlikely to make their attack from the same quarter and
Unicorn
could not be everywhere at once. The schooner could run right past the convoy and attack from the south, and if Nathan took
Unicorn
after her it would take
a long time to beat back and engage with the others.

He wished now that he had sent young Lamb off in the gig to alert Fremantle to the danger, for if
Inconstant
could work out of the harbour she could run down on them with the wind on her quarter. But it would be no easy task to bring her safely through that mass of shipping and it would mean leaving the harbour undefended. Besides, Fremantle had asked him to guard the convoy, and if he looked into his heart Nathan suspected he would find a deep reluctance to admit he could not do so unaided.

‘Mr Perry, I believe we must tack to the north-east,' he informed the sailing master, ‘and lay her as close to the fort as you are able.'

The sailing master glanced towards the Fortezza Vecchia, the ancient fortress on the northern tip of the harbour, and then up to his sails, pursing his lips thoughtfully. Nathan knew what he was thinking. It would mean sailing perilously close to the wind, and if they were taken aback there would be hell to pay in such a crowded anchorage. But being Perry he made no verbal expression of dissent. Instead it was hands to the braces and the topmen swarming aloft to spread more canvas the instant the yards came around. But the frigate could not be so easily cozened. She was barely making steerage way and the wind, such as it was, was pushing them far too close to the harbour entrance. They would have to wear ship and come up on the starboard tack, and Nathan was not at all sure if he had sufficient sea room for the manoeuvre – already he was alarmingly close to the transports waiting off the mole.

‘We will have to use the boats,' he declared, trying to sound more positive than he felt and avoiding Perry's eye for he knew the master would have anticipated this problem long before he had.

They used the crews from the starboard guns, but it took a
good few minutes to haul the boats up from the stern and as many more to man them. Then there was the time-consuming business of rigging the cables through the hawsers with Duncan red-faced and roaring and Perry chewing upon his lower lip and Nathan wishing, not for the first time, that he had kept his mouth shut. But eventually they had the frigate in tow and the effect was felt immediately. Her head came round and she began to move across the crowded anchorage with some purpose. Nathan looked to the privateers. They were still holding to their course, close enough now for him to see the guns run out and the studding sails spread out like wings, aloft and alow: more geese than wolves but no less threatening.

There was the sharp report of a cannon and he jerked his head round to see the puff of black smoke from the fort. A warning shot, no more, but it was enough to make the corsairs bear off a little. Their course was now sou'-sou'-west, which was more or less where he wanted them, but he could not count on their holding to it for long.

A thin, piping voice at his ear and he looked around to behold a small, fat midshipman, his face shining with eagerness. ‘Mr Holroyd's compliments, sir, and he thinks he can reach them with the foremost guns.'

Nathan looked back at the privateers. But the range was extreme and the recoil would inevitably have an effect on the tow.

‘Thank you, Mr Anson,' he replied, ‘but I believe we must wait until we can give them a better show.'

The midshipman's face fell and for a moment Nathan thought he was going to argue the toss. He frowned as fiercely as the circumstance required and discipline prevailed; the boy ran back to instruct the lieutenant to hold his fire.

They were at the edge of the northern road now, and the corsairs about a mile further out to sea, still bending to
westward. Nathan guessed they would continue on this course until they drew level with the convoy and then make their move. But he did not wish to make his own move too soon, for if he shot too far ahead of them he would have a hell of a job beating back against the wind.

‘I think we may get the hands back from the boats,' he informed the first lieutenant; and to the sailing master: ‘Stand by to brace the yards round, Mr Perry, and let us go straight at 'em.' He glanced aloft. ‘And break out the battle pennant, Mr Duncan, why don't you? It is time we gave it an airing.'

Which was all very well and might have won a round of applause on the stage and even three hearty cheers from the more receptive audiences, but he was in a private agony of frustration until the last man was back aboard and they could finally wear ship.

Round she came, ponderously at first, but then as she took the wind on her quarter he felt her bite into the sluggish sea and a few spittles of spray came flying back from her bow. Hardly a charge, but at least they were moving in the right direction. Looking up, he saw the battle pennant doing its best to stream from the masthead, less of a spear pointing at the heart of the enemy than a long, quavering finger. He laughed aloud, more from nervousness and a sense of his own absurdity than exultation, but he saw Duncan and the other officers on the quarterdeck grinning back at him, and even some of the hands, too, and if they thought he laughed at the prospect of battle or imminent death then who was he to contradict them?

They were now on a parallel course to the five privateers and a little behind the third in line, and every minute that passed pushed the enemy further out to sea. If they did not turn soon they would sail right across the front of the convoy, shepherded by the frigate at their heels.

But they were not sheep. They would not come on such a hunt only to sail away unsated and the prey in sight. They would lose too much face with their men – and each other.

Further, further he hounded them out to sea. Then, at the very last moment, just when he was beginning to think they had missed their chance, they made their turn. First the two large brigs, then the smaller vessels. On a course that would bring them across the frigate's bows and into the heart of the convoy.

Still he let the
Unicorn
run on. He could sense the tension on the quarterdeck. Perry staring up at his sails, Duncan fixedly out to sea. No one would look directly at him. The first brig was just off his starboard bow at a distance of about five hundred yards. He had no need of the glass now to see her guns. They were only 6-pounders, he told himself, and they would be firing at extreme range. But the distance seemed to grow less, the black muzzles larger the longer he looked at them until, with a suddenness that made him flinch, a rippling line of fire and smoke erupted from stem to stern. His mind even registered that they were firing chain shot before he heard the peculiar whining, whirring sound of their approach, like angry, darting hornets – if two iron balls joined by a murderous length of chain could be thought to resemble anything as insignificant as a mere insect. They would do more than sting if they hit you, he reflected grimly – he had seen a man cut in two by them – but their real target was the rigging. They could cause mayhem aloft and leave a ship dead in the water. But they had fired too soon. Most of the rounds fell harmlessly into the sea – all but one, probably from the last gun to fire, that struck the bower anchor with a tortured screech of metal upon metal. And then another scream that was entirely human as the shattered fragments went spinning off into the crew of the starboard bow chaser, the only gun to have fired back.

Then, only then, did Nathan give the order to port the helm and they came heavily round to larboard and fired their own rippling broadside – thirteen 18-pounders and the four 6-pounders on the quarterdeck – the successive reports rolling down the gundeck towards him so that to his deafened ears it sounded like one long roar as if the air itself had been torn asunder by a giant hand.

He ran up the mizzen shrouds a little and when the smoke of the guns cleared, he saw the brig, still running on to the south-east, apparently unharmed. But then as he stared – astonished and appalled that every single round had apparently missed its target – the brig's foremast came toppling slowly down, like a giant tree in a forest, bringing spars and rigging with it, forestays, jibs and all, crashing down across the forecastle and into the sea, pulling her round by the head.

She was well within range of the big 18-pounders, and every shot of the second and third broadsides hammered home, bringing down mainmast and mizzen and tearing huge bites from her gunwale, for she was not built to withstand 18-pound round shot, and they left her a dismasted hulk, drifting away to the south.

Nathan backed the mizzen to let the second brig draw level. But she had no stomach for this kind of fight and he did not blame her. She fell off the wind and began to wear away to the south-west with the two smaller brigs behind her. But not the schooner. As he had predicted, she was making a dart for the south, right across the front of the convoy.

For a moment Nathan was tempted to follow and trust the other three had seen enough to deter them from taking any further part in the proceedings, but it was too great a risk. If they saw the frigate chasing off to the south they would resume their attack on the convoy, and the
Unicorn
would never beat back in time to prevent it. He could only hope that the
transports could fight the schooner off by themselves. Already several of them were firing at her as she crossed their bows, though their shot was dropping well short. He saw Perry looking towards him with a trace of anxiety, for if the
Unicorn
stuck to her present course she would plough straight into the convoy.

He nodded. ‘Wear ship, then, Mr Perry.'

Young Anson came aft with a damage report. Three men injured from the chain shot that had come aboard, only one seriously, but that was Mr Clyde, the gunner, with a head wound. Nathan sent to the surgeon to see how he did, but the news was not good. McLeish had stitched up the wound but the gunner was unconscious and it was too early to say what his prospects were. The gun, Anson reported cheerfully, was undamaged.

So they harried the enemy to the south-west for a good mile or so, concentrating their fire on the biggest of the three brigs, which was also the slowest, and reducing her to such an extent she came up into the wind and struck her colours. Nathan was unimpressed. He had no men to spare for another prize crew and if he left her as she was he had no doubt she would make good her escape, or even resume the attack, for she did not seem at all damaged aloft. He sent word to Mr Holroyd to load with chain and fire every gun into her rigging as they went past, quieting what little conscience he had in the matter by telling himself it would do no further injury to her crew – unless they got in the way of a falling block – and they were little better than pirates anyway.

They left the brig in a tangle of torn rigging and continued their pursuit of the two smaller craft, but Nathan was concerned not to stray too far from the convoy, and after one final discharge from the bow chasers he gave the order to wear ship once more.

Rather to his alarm, in his enthusiasm for the chase he had allowed the
Unicorn
to drop a good deal further to the south than he would have wished. They would have to sail very close to the wind to resume their station, and if anything it had shifted a little to the west, making the job far more difficult. Sure enough, as they braced the yards round on a course that would bring them back to the edge of the mole, the sails began to feather alarmingly and even to flap back against the masts.

‘We will have to take her off the wind a point,' the sailing master informed him glumly, ‘and come about on the other tack.'

‘Very well, Mr Perry, make it so.'

His dismay was increased when he heard the continuing sound of gunfire and he saw smoke drifting southward from the far side of the convoy. The schooner had done exactly what he had predicted and closed in on them from the south, for with her fore-and-aft rig she could sail a lot closer to the wind than
Unicorn
or any other square-rigged vessel.

Nathan consoled himself with the thought that the firing was unlikely to be coming from the schooner itself, for no privateer would wish to damage a potential prize. Sure enough, as
Unicorn
came up on the larboard tack, he saw her break away to the south with one of the transports hard on her stern. The crafty fox had snatched her from right under his nose.

For a moment Nathan wondered if he should let her go – one transport out of forty was not such a disaster, and he had no wish to be lured downwind while the two remaining predators resumed their attack. But only for a moment. He was damned if he would let them have even one of his charges. The schooner's one advantage was sailing into the wind. With the wind behind her she was no match for the
Unicorn
, especially with a cumbersome transport to slow her down.

So they fell off from the wind again and ran with her,
clapping on every sail they could carry, studding sails and all, and within minutes the transport hove to and they saw a boat drop away from her stern, presumably with the prize crew aboard. The schooner paused just long enough to pick them up and then continued her run to the south.

This time Nathan let her go.

They clawed their way back to the convoy, the transport lumbering in their wake, and though they made a cursed slow job of it, there proved to be no compelling need for haste. The privateers had had enough. The two that remained unscathed were hull down on the western horizon and their crippled consorts limping after.