"And why, may I ask, did you perform this-this dastardly act?" he inquired harshly, still hiding his mouth with his hand.
"I wished to send them to--to a lady," mumbled Septimus, blushing a rich tomato colour. Then he looked up and met the captain's eye. "I wish, sir," he added, "to claim them as spoils of war."
"Oh, you do?" Again Captain Sainsbury had difficulty in speaking. "Hum. I must confess I see no use in returning them to their—er--owner. Now attend to me, Mr. Quinn. You are under my serious displeasure. You will report to Mr. Pyke for extra duty every day for a week. That is all."
"Aye aye, sir." Septimus saluted and turned to go.
"And…"
"Yes, sir?"
"Next time you go ashore, you will leave smoke-bombs and knight-errantry behind you--and scissors."
Mr. Quinn, vastly relieved at being let off so lightly, returned to the midshipmen's berth to continue the formal letter he was composing to Miss Philippa Barry to accompany a handsome pair of French moustachios "which, I am informed, you have expressed a desire to possess". But he was puzzled as well as relieved. For as he had closed the main cabin door behind him he had heard a curious noise from within. The Althea's crew declared that their captain seldom smiled and never laughed. Had it not been for this, Midshipman Quinn would have sworn that Captain Sainsbury, alone in his cabin, was roaring with merriment.
Chapter SIX
Captain Septimus
THE ARMED BRIG Blanche was as French as her name and as daring as a Frenchman might be expected to be. For, with Nelson and his warships only fifteen miles away to eastward, off Toulon, the Blanche had ventured out of her small home port of Quelles to carry a full cargo of fruit and vegetables to the market in Marseilles. On this brilliant morning of September 25th 1803 she was scudding along before a fresh breeze almost out of sight of the land on her starboard beam. Her decks were gleaming, for she had been washed-down at sunrise, and gleaming also were the four small six-pounder cannon that stood in their lashings two on either side of the deck. The owner and captain of the Blanche liked to see things clean and shining, for she was a girl.
Jeanne Terray was her name, and she was sixteen years old. When her father had died, leaving the brig to his only daughter, Jeanne had left her studies in Toulon (where she had learned, among other things, to sing and to speak English) and had taken charge of the little vessel. The grey-haired mate, Joseph Lebas, looked after the navigation and other sea matters, but Jeanne ordered the brig's voyages and arranged her cargoes. She was an outspoken young lady and declared that she didn't care whether Napoleon Bonaparte or King Louis ruled France so long as the Blanche was permitted to voyage as she wished; which shocked Joseph, who was an ardent supporter of Napoleon. As for the English, Jeanne snapped her slim fingers at them.
"You run a risk, mademoiselle," Joseph had warned her when they left Quelles. "There's a rumour that an English frigate is raiding along this coast."
"Bah!" the girl had replied with a toss of her long black hair.
"I can talk to this English ship if she crosses my course!"
"Your English, mademoiselle, may not convince a real English man."
"I didn't mean I'd talk English, fool!" she had snapped at him. "I meant I would talk with those."
And she had pointed to her four small guns.
This morning Jeanne was standing on the low poop of the little vessel, sniffing the keen salt air. With her black locks bound beneath a red handkerchief, her blue shirt and loose grey trousers, she looked like a handsome pirate. The Blanche, she noticed, was not really moving very fast through the water in spite of the flurry of foam she was making in her progress westward. That was because she was carrying as much cargo as her holds would contain. She had just made this observation when the lookout high on the brig's stumpy mainmast hailed her.
"Captain Jeanne! Sail right ahead! Looks like a warship--a frigate!"
Joseph, who had heard, came running aft, his plump face pale and anxious.
"We must run for the land, mademoiselle!" he cried. "This can only be the English frigate I warned you of!"
Jeanne hesitated. Her impulse was to hold on her course, and fight if she had to. But that would be the sheerest foolishness--and besides, there were men in her crew whom she had known from her childhood.
"Put her on the larboard tack," she snapped at the helmsman. The Blanche wallowed round and turned her bows northward, heading for the coast that was no more than a thin brown line on the horizon. There was, she remembered, no port or coastal defences on that section of coast, but presumably the English ship --if she was English--would not dare to come any nearer to an enemy shore.
It soon appeared that Jeanne was mistaken. The vessel ahead, now in plain view from the deck, had altered course to steer diagonally in towards the land. More than that. She was heading so as to cross the brig's course and intercept her, and she was obviously a very fast sailer.
"Joseph!" shouted Jeanne. "Hoist the spritsail-quickly!"
It was the one sail unset, that small square of canvas that could be set on the bowsprit, and it would make little difference to the speed of the heavily laden brig, but the brig's captain was not the girl to leave anything untried that could help her in the race. The mate repeated the order. Two of the nine seamen who formed the Blanche's crew jumped to obey. Joseph came up to her, wringing his hands.
"We'll never get clear," he moaned. "If only we were nearer Marseilles--there's a fort there--"
"Stop whining, man!" she told him. "We're not near Marseilles, so that's that. We'll have to stand on our own feet. Take off the lashings and have the guns run out."
"But-"
Jeanne stamped her foot in its heavy seaboot. "Do as I say! Do you think I've had the men trained in gunnery for nothing?"
Joseph, shaking his head miserably, trotted for'ard. The girl stared across the sparkling blue of the Mediterranean to where the intercepting vessel flew like a swallow across the waves. There was no doubt now that she was a British frigate, with main, royal, and topsails set in a pyramid of gleaming white canvas. She was a lovely sight even to Jeanne's wrathful gaze--wrathful because she held that these waters were hers, to trade in as she wished without interference from Englishmen--and she was certainly making twice the speed of the Blanche. So swiftly were the two ships drawing together that the frigate seemed to grow larger every few seconds. She was near enough now for the girl captain to see the British colours go sailing up to her yardarm. There was no possibility of escape for the brig.
Down on the deck the two six-pounders on the larboard side were loaded and ready, their three-man crews standing by with a smoking linstock each. Jeanne set her jaw firmly. She was no admirer of Napoleon Bonaparte, but this was a matter of France against England. She would fight.
Even as she opened her mouth to shout to the gunners to stand by, a single puff of white smoke burst from the flank of the English ship. A cable's length ahead of the brig a shining fountain of white water rose from the blue surface. That was the signal to heave-to. Ignoring Joseph's spread hands and imploring face, Jeanne folded her arms and ordered her helmsman to hold his course. The penalty, she knew, was that the next shot from the frigate would be aimed at her. Again she found she was mistaken. A second puff of smoke resulted in another fountain exactly the same distance ahead of the Blanche and a moment later a third ball performed just the same feat. After which the rapidly-closing frigate ceased fire.