Apparently they did, for Royal Stilwell moved closer to shore, ready to come down on us if they saw us running.
As the sun descended, the mist on the far horizon was turned briefly to gold, and then the winter’s dark descended. Flames sprang up from the summits of the two wooden towers that served as lighthouses. The tide slapped against the sides of the ship. I supped in the cabin with Kevin, Oakeshott, and the pilot, Foster, a lank, longshanked man who would guide us to the sea if all went well.
After supper, I put on my overcoat and went on deck with a long glass, and saw that the cabin lights of Royal Stilwell were just visible. At night, it was impossible to tell how close the lights were, but the ship seemed close in, two or three miles. I went below, into the warmth, and shared a bottle of wine with Kevin.
Shortly after midnight, the ship swung as the tide shifted, and I took a night glass aloft to the maintop. Royal Stilwell was easy to find, with some lights burning in its stern cabin, though it took some time to accustom myself to the inverted image displayed in the glass. I watched the enemy ship as it paced back and forth in the channel, like a sentry before a gate, and I studied it as it made its maneuvers, how the configuration of the masts and lights changed as it wore from one heading to the other.
“Stand by!” I called to the quarterdeck below, and I saw Kevin’s face briefly illuminated as he lit a lantern. I returned my eye to the night glass.
In two or three minutes, I saw Stilwell’s stern cabin lights disappear as she wore around, and gaps appear between the masts. “Make the signal!” I called, and Kevin ran to the larboard side of the ship and began to swing the lantern back and forth along the side of the ship, keeping it below the bulwark where the enemy would not see it.
Very quickly the flames in the lighthouses went out, and two more fires were lit, fifteen hundred yards to the north, over half a league away.
The two lighthouses were arranged so that they were in line with the safe channel that ran through the sand banks offshore. The inland light was taller than the other, so that if a ship were in the channel, they would see one light atop the other; and they might also judge how far they were out of the channel by the separation of the lights. Because the sandbanks shifted, and the safe channel with them, the towers had been lightly built of wood, so that they could be moved at need.
My plan had been to make false lights to lure Royal Stilwell into danger, and to this end I secured the cooperation of the Lord Governor, Sir Andrew de Berardinis, who had been inclined to douse the lights as soon as the enemy ship appeared, but who I persuaded to keep them lit. It had taken two days to measure the ground for the new lights, and to build them safely on carts—because building new towers on shore would be seen as suspicious—and then to work out with protractors and chains the sites on shore where the new lights would be placed.
I had waited until the tide began to ebb, because the time between the start of the ebb, and the moonrise at three in the morning, would have been the ideal time for Meteor to try to slip out to sea. I also wished the old lights doused, and the new ones lit, while Royal Stilwell was wearing ship, or going about, or some other maneuver, for I knew that every eye on the ship would be fixed on the sails, the tacks and braces, the sheets, the whipstaff, or the compass, and none paying any attention to the lights on shore, which were fixed, and which they had no reason to think would not remain fixed, and continue to provide unshakable confidence to mariners.
I watched as the new fires kindled, then returned to the night glass. My eye was still dazzled by looking into the light, and then it took a moment to locate Royal Stilwell again, but I found the great high-charged galleon in time to see the gaps between its masts narrow almost to nothing, and then the ship came on, sailing on a bearing that took her southeast, across the channel, with the wind right abeam.
In a few moments, I saw that Royal Stilwell wore early, as if her master thought she might have gone farther south than intended, and I saw the stern lights swing into view as she came on her new tack. The ship sailed on northwesterly, and then I saw some maneuvering that was difficult to follow in the dark, and then quite suddenly the ship was ablaze with light as lanterns and torches were kindled in the darkness. The lights ran back and forth over the ship, and some were lowered to the waterline.
“I think she’s run aground!” I called, for in the darkness I still could not be certain, and a cheer came up from below.
The lights marked the Stilwell plainly, and as there was no longer any reason for me to remain aloft in the cold maintop, I came down the shrouds and joined my friends on deck, where I was warmed by a glass of hot whisky punch.
The ebb tide tugged at the ship. Moonrise did not make the situation any clearer, save that Royal Stilwell did not move, and that the lights continued moving up and down her sides. I thought she was probably aground, but there remained the possibility that she had anchored until daylight revealed a path out of the sandbanks. I went to my hammock for a brief rest, but I was far too excited to sleep, and rose before dawn.
Before sunrise, the anchor was hove short and Meteor cleared for action. The ship’s boats were trailed astern so that an enemy shot would not turn them into deadly splinters. The crew stood by the guns, and a rank of royal soldiers, loaned us by the Lord Governor, stood on the quarterdeck with their hackbuts.
Cheers rose from the crew as the dawn revealed that Royal Stilwell had run clean aground, and that she had been completely stranded by the falling tide. The great galleon had toppled over to starboard, and her main topmast and bonaventure mizzen had gone over the side. Waves broke white over her larboard bow, and great sheets of spray seemed to cover nearly the entire ship. Her boats were sculling about in the water, but they were clearly unable to affect the situation.
Our seamen manned the capstan, and began their stamp about the deck. Meteor lurched as the anchor broke free of the river bottom, and close-hauled under the spritsail and lateen mizzen, with the spritsail yard cocked up almost to the vertical, we made slow headway against the incoming tide until we were clear of the river mouth. Then the helm was put up, and the crew manned the tacks and sheets and set the topsails. The yards were braced around hard, the sails filled with a noise like present thunder, one after the other; and then we were on our way, close-hauled on the larboard tack, the bone of foam growing white beneath the bow as we gained way.
The pilot, Foster, went up to the foretop to better see the sandbanks, which at this point was scarcely necessary, for the tide had so fallen that the reefs were all visible as vague brown forms beneath the water, with the sea frothing white over them. We steered confidently for blue water, and in ten minutes Meteor would range up under Royal Stilwell’s stern.
“Load the guns!” Oakeshott cried. “Grape on top of roundshot!”
Meteor’s guns were a miscellaneous collection of weapons, almost a history of artillery, from the old iron breechloaders on the forecastle, welded iron bars hooped together like barrels, to modern demiculverins, three on each side, that took pride of place in the middle of the lower gundeck. Meteor carried thirty-two guns in all, but half of these were small pieces, minions, falcons, and falconets, that were known commonly as murderers or mankillers. The minions, which shot a four-pound ball, were old fieldpieces mounted on carriages with large wheels; but the smaller of these weapons were mounted on swivels and were fixed above the bulwark.