The Distant Ocean Page 11

  ‘Gentlemen, we at last have some intelligence of the enemy,’ he announced, when all his guests were attentive. ‘May I present Captain Franklin of the Chester Castle. He is the senior East India Company officer aboard the two vessels we have just encountered.’ Captain Franklin rose from his chair and shook each of the three officers by the hand.

  ‘Delighted, I am sure,’ he said in a strong northern accent, as the commodore introduced his subordinates to him.

  ‘Might I prevail on you to share the particulars of your unfortunate encounter with the enemy once more, Captain Franklin?’ said Montague.

  ‘Certainly, Sir George,’ he replied, turning towards the others. ‘We were six weeks out from the Coromandel Coast, bound for home, when we sighted a warship yesterday morning, shortly after dawn. With all the attacks that have been made of late on company ships, we were aware of the risk of such an encounter, which was why I was sailing in company with the Madras. The warship proved to be an enemy vessel, and she came on very boldly to close with us.’

  ‘Can you say what manner of ship it was that attacked you?’ asked Clay.

  ‘I can furnish you with her exact particulars, sir. She was the Prudence, a thirty-six gun French national frigate. Once in range, she stood off us and fired broadside after broadside into our rigging, I presume because she did not want to damage our hulls excessively.’

  ‘Undoubtedly,’ said the commodore, looking at his steward with a frown. ‘A coaster if you please, Thomas. Before Captain Sutton’s glass marks that table. Pray continue, sir.’

  ‘We returned as brisk a fire as we were able, but matters were looking very ill for us. We may have been two against one, but our people are not man-of-war’s men. But then we enjoyed a stroke of good fortune. The Madras discharged a particularly well directed broadside, which brought down the Prudence’s foremast so that she stopped dead in the water, and in all of the confusion we were able to make good our escape.’

  ‘That was pluckily done,’ said Windham. ‘Do you know what became of the enemy?’

  ‘We were some distance away before she was able to cut herself free of the wreckage. The last we saw of her she was back underway, making off towards the north.’

  ‘Was she returning to Reunion for a refit?’ asked Clay.

  ‘I think not,’ replied Franklin. ‘At least not directly. From the course they were on when I last saw them I would judge that they were making for the Madagascar coast, which was near at hand. I imagine they were in need of shelter to effect some repairs before returning across open water to their base.’

  ‘Thank you, Captain Franklin,’ said Montague. ‘Do you have any observations, gentlemen?’

  ‘This crippled frigate would seem to be a heaven sent opportunity to eliminate at least one of our three opponents, Sir George,’ said Clay. ‘She cannot have gone far, and even if she has contrived to rig some manner of jury mast, she will be slower than normal until she can have it replaced properly. I would be happy to go and hunt her down, with every prospect of success, if she is where Captain Franklin suspects.’

  ‘I don’t think that sending the Titan after the Prudence is a sound idea at all, Sir George,’ said Windham. ‘I know how Captain Clay thirsts for glory, but — ’

  ‘I do no such thing,’ protested Clay, but Montague held up his hand.

  ‘Please, Captain Clay, let him finish,’ he said.

  ‘This Prudence is the lesser of our three adversaries,’ continued Windham. ‘We have yet to locate the two superior forty-gun frigates. For all we know they may be closing with us now. Surely that is the danger that the larger Titan and Black Prince are needed to counter? I would recommend that you send Captain Sutton and me after this ship with our sloops. We should be able to defeat a damaged frigate between us.’

  ‘Captain Sutton, you have been very quiet,’ said Montague. ‘What is your view of this opportunity?’

  ‘I am obliged to agree whole heartedly with Captain Windham, Sir George,’ said Sutton, avoiding his friend’s eye. ‘He speaks a deal of sense in this matter.’

  ‘I see,’ said the commodore, glancing between the two officers. ‘I must say it is very refreshing to find you two gentlemen in agreement for once. I am not sure what has occasioned the change but let us take it as a good omen. In that case I shall go ahead and send the Rush and Echo to deal with the Prudence. I will naturally remain with the convoy to see it on its way to Bombay.’

  ‘And what role do you see for the Titan, Sir George?’ asked Clay.

  ‘Perhaps you would afford your protection to Captain Franklin here?’ said Montague. ‘See that his ship and the Madras are brought safely through to Cape Town without any further onslaught from the enemy. Would that be acceptable?’

  ‘I would not want to be thought of as thirsting excessively for glory by my fellow captains,’ said Clay. ‘Perhaps my acceptance of such a lesser role with good grace will help to refute such accusations.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ muttered Windham in a whisper that only Sutton heard.

  ‘Excellent,’ said Montague. ‘That is resolved then. Let us all drink to the health of our two gallant young sloop commanders and wish them every success in battle.’

  Glasses were raised around the cabin, and good wishes exchanged. Montague looked over at his captains and wondered at the strange change in the mood amongst his command. Now it is Clay and Sutton that are barely conversing, he sighed to himself, while I cannot remember when I last saw young Windham so happy. How very odd.

  *****

  It was early afternoon the following day and John Sutton was sat at his tiny desk, trying to work. The fierce sun had been beating down on the low deck above his head for hours now, and had raised the temperature in the little cabin to an alarming extent. All five of the window lights that ran across the back of the space had been open for most of the day, but in spite of this his linen shirt still stuck to his torso, and his dark hair was plastered down across his forehead. With a sigh he picked up the purser’s indent he was meant to be studying and tried to give it his full attention. A few moments later he felt his concentration slide away from the page of numbers and towards the open windows once more. Beyond them he could see deep blue water, the sparkle of sunlight, and almost filling his vision the bow of the Echo as she followed along close behind the Rush.

  It was a pleasing picture. He could admire the contrast between the black of the hull and the startling white of the bow wave that foamed up where sea and ship met. When he raised his gaze a little, he could see the elegant curved line of the head rails that framed the sloop’s figurehead. The carving was of a slim woman in a flowing blue robe with both hands cupped around her open mouth. Now he could study it properly, he realised the shipyard’s carver had not got the arms quite right. Instead of calling she had the look of someone who was trying to cover her mouth.

  ‘The Puking Wench, we calls her, sir,’ said Chambers, his steward, in his gravely Deptford voice. He had just come into the cabin from the quarter galley and had noticed where his captain’s attention was fixed. Sutton looked again at the figurehead, saw instantly what the sailor meant, and choked back a laugh. As if to destroy the image completely, a pair of pale buttocks now appeared between the head rails next to the figurehead as one of the crew of the Echo took his place on the seat of ease.

  ‘Deck there!’ came the lookout’s hail through the open skylight above his head. ‘Ship ho! A point to larboard.’ Sutton closed the account book with relief and sat drumming his fingers on the cover. If Chambers had not been present he would have leapt up and paced the deck, but under his eye he did his best to maintain the nonchalant dignity of a commanding officer. Fortunately he did not have long to hold the pretense. A few moments later there was an enthusiastic knock at the cabin door.

  ‘Come in,’ he called, once he had picked up his pen and flipped open the book once more. A gangly teenage midshipman with a mop of sandy hair above his hazel eyes burst through the door.

  ‘Mr Apple
by’s compliments, and there is a ship in sight around the next headland, sir,’ he announced.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Croft,’ said Sutton, with exaggerated calm. ‘Please tell him that I will be up directly.’ He waited at his desk for a little longer, counted to fifty, and then rose to pull on his coat. At the moment when he had one arm in and the other out a further hail came from above.

  ‘Deck there! She’s a warship for certain, sir! Them spars is altogether too heavy for any merchantman!’ He left the cabin, shrugging on the coat as he came, and ran up the ladder way onto the quarterdeck. The little space was crowded with a handful of officers, all with their telescopes trained towards the sighting. The two sloops were sliding along a barren coastline of yellowy brown rock covered in scrubby grey-green bushes. Beyond the bow, the land rose up to a line of rocky cliffs that jutted out into the ocean to form a headland. Standing proud above the top of this promontory was the main and mizzen topgallant masts of a large ship, seen side on. Where the foremast should be, nothing was visible.

  ‘Now, Mr Appleby, what have you found?’ said Sutton. He came over to stand between his portly sailing master and the much slimmer figure of Lieutenant Wise. In response the officer of the watch pointed towards the masts.

  ‘Either those be the masts of the largest bomb ketch as ever set sail, sir,’ he replied in his broad West Country accent, ‘or that be a frigate as has lost its foremast. You will not find any other vessel on the seven seas with such a peculiar rig.’

  ‘Let us hope it is the latter,’ said his captain. ‘What does the coastline do beyond that cape?’

  ‘According to the chart it tapers back into an inlet about half the size of Plymouth sound, sir,’ replied Appleby. ‘When we round yonder headland, we should have that Prudence tucked up like a trout against a river bank.’

  ‘Let us hope so,’ said his captain. He looked towards the rocky shore as it slid past. Opposite him the dead skeleton of a tree stood proud against the skyline. Several large, dark birds were perched in the branches like vultures, eying the ships as they sailed by.

  ‘They are some manner of fish eagle, sir,’ said the lieutenant. ‘With a glass one can see the prodigious size of their talons and the absence of feathers on their lower legs.’

  ‘You are quite the natural philosopher, are you not, Mr Wise?’

  ‘I would not go so far, sir, but I have always had a fondness for the study of birds,’ he replied. ‘These are quite unique to my experience. They may even be nondescript.’

  ‘When the French are beat, I shall let you go ashore and shoot one, so that you can present a paper on it to the Royal Society,’ said Sutton. ‘Wise’s Fish Eagle, it will sound rather fine, will it not?’

  ‘As we are speaking of birds, perhaps we should not be so swift to count our chickens, sir,’ said Appleby, slapping a large, fat hand down on the wooden quarterdeck rail. ‘We wouldn’t want to go a jinxing matters by talk of victory too early, now.’ Sutton saw out of the corner of his eye a number of pigtailed heads bob in agreement as various members of the afterguard reached for the rail too. He resumed his inspection of the coast.

  ‘Tell me, Mr Appleby,’ he said after a while. ‘I had always imagined Madagascar might be rather lusher. More like to the islands of the Indies. Are we not almost in the tropics? This place is barely above a desert.’

  ‘The island is green enough, for the most part, sir. It is only this southern end and the east side that is barren.’

  ‘I see,’ said Sutton. ‘And is there anything significant set down on the chart I need to worry about in this bay of yours?’

  ‘There are no hazards marked, although as there is but a single sounding for the whole inlet, I would not rely on that. These waters are visited by plenty of Arab slavers, but Royal Navy ships have not come here since the time of the pirates. I took the liberty of ordering a leadsman into the bow to take soundings as we approach the bay.’

  ‘A good precaution,’ agreed Sutton. ‘Kindly reduce sail and set him to work. Take us around the end of that headland and let us see what we have caught in this bay of yours.’

  The two sloops worked their way steadily forwards, the Rush still leading and the Echo following in her wake. With metronomic precision the man stood in the fore chains whirled the heavy lead weight around in a wide circle and then hurled it forwards. He let the sequence of leather and cloth markers run through his hand and called off the depth as the ship passed over the weight and the line went vertical.

  ‘By the mark fifteen!’ he called, as he hauled the dripping line in for the next cast.

  ‘Plenty of water here,’ commented Sutton, watching the angle of the bay start to open.

  ‘By the deep twelve!’ yelled the leadsman. The Rush stood on farther and Sutton looked towards the far side of the bay through his telescope. He could see a little collection of huts by the shore. Two thin native boats had been dragged up the beach, and a baggy fishing net hung drying on poles. Villagers were watching the new arrivals with interest, pointing towards them, while small children ran and splashed in the shallows.

  ‘And a half ten!’ bellowed the man in the fore chains. The ship moved onwards, revealing more and more of the inlet. Then they cleared the end of the headland and suddenly the French frigate was in sight.

  She was moored close to the shore, under the shelter of the cliffs. The water was calm there, and her long, black hull with its broad white stripe lay deep on its broken reflection. A big main and mizzen mast soared upwards, but where her foremast should be was an ugly stump that protruded six feet above the forecastle, the top jagged. Lashed against it was a thinner spar that was in the process of being rigged. All along her side the gun ports were open, and her big eighteen-pounder cannon were run out. A tricolour stirred limply from her mizzen halliard in the little sea breeze that had penetrated the bay. Sutton focused on the anchor cable that dipped into the water just in front of her. Running from it he could see a second cable that stretched along the ship’s side and disappeared in through a gun port towards the rear.

  ‘She has a spring cable mounted,’ reported Wise. ‘See, she’s taking a turn on it now.’ As Sutton watched, the second cable grew stiff and the hull creaked around to keep the frigate’s guns facing towards the two new arrivals.

  ‘She seems to be prepared for us,’ he grunted, still looking the Frenchman over.

  ‘By the deep nine!’ yelled the leadsman, by way of reply.

  ‘At least there do seem to be plenty of water, sir’, said Appleby. ‘I believe I can see them Frogs starting to rig boarding netting now. They have no intention of letting us surprise them.’

  ‘Heave to, if you please Mr Appleby, and then signal to the Echo for her captain to come across. Mr Wise, when he is aboard, bring him down to my cabin, and let us make plans for our victory.’ Sutton headed down the companion ladder, his face impassive as he tried not to smile at the shock his second gratuitous mention of winning had caused the more senior mariners within hearing.

  Fifteen minutes later the three men were gathered around Sutton’s little cabin table. Now that they were in the confined waters of the bay, the temperature was even hotter. Wise drew out a huge, bright blue handkerchief and mopped at his thin face. By contrast the captain of the Echo seemed to be unaffected by the heat. He leant forward over the chart, his eyes darting about him and his fingers drumming on the table top.

  ‘Will this be the first time that you have commanded a ship in action, Captain Windham?’ Sutton asked.

  ‘Yes sir,’ replied Windham. ‘But it shall not be the first time I have been in a battle, as you will recall. That was the occasion on which my uncle was killed.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Sutton. ‘So what do we make of our situation? My initial thought before we arrived was that we would cut the Prudence out after dark. But now I see her disposition, I am less certain.’

  ‘I would urge us not to attempt that, sir,’ said Lieutenant Wise. ‘We will have no element of surprise, and toni
ght is a full moon. She would see our boats coming as clear as day. Taking a merchantman is one thing, but fighting our way onto the deck of a man-of-war against a crew of trained men is quite another.’

  ‘Do you have any suggestions to proffer, Captain Windham?’

  ‘You are the senior officer, sir,’ he replied. ‘I am sure that any scheme you suggest will be satisfactory.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Sutton. ‘The Echo is equipped like the Rush with carronades, I collect?’

  ‘Yes sir, we have twelve-pounders,’ replied Windham. ‘She carries nine per side.’

  ‘And the Rush has eight. I find them to be excellent quick firing weapons, but with a worryingly short range. We will need to get in very close before they will answer against the Prudence.’

  ‘That should not present too many issues against a ship that is at anchor with cliffs behind her,’ offered Windham. ‘She cannot stand off and use the superior range of her cannon.’

  ‘True, but she will give us a few lusty blows as we approach,’ said Sutton. ‘The key to our victory will be to make certain that she cannot defeat us separately. We should both approach her at the same time, but from two different directions. That way her captain will only be able to point those big guns of hers at one of us.’

  ‘What if the Echo was to wait here, while we headed towards that village we saw?’ suggested Wise. ‘Then we could close from that side, and the Echo from this. When the Prudence turns her broadside towards one of us, she will also be turning her stern or bow towards the other.’

  ‘And then that ship will have the opportunity to rake her,’ said Sutton. ‘Even a sloop, if well positioned so as to fire down her whole length, should be able to bring matters swiftly to a resolution.’