“Braces there!” He pointed into the purple shadows below the mainmast trunk. “Mr Collins, take that man’s name! He’s stumbling about like a whore at a wedding!”
Unknown voices mumbled out of the gloom, while from aft the wheel creaked obediently, Partridge’s white hair changing to yellow as he squinted at the lighted compass bowl.
“Heave! Lively with it!”
The men leaned back, angling their bodies to take the strain of the ship’s massive yards, while the marines clumped noisily and in perfect time on the mizzen brace. The hull tilted still further, the sails shivering and booming to the change of pressure.
Bolitho leaned over the rail, searching along the length of his command, his ears interpreting the varying groans from shrouds and rigging, the action automatic yet ever watchful.
“Lay her on the larboard tack, Mr Partridge.” He looked aloft, watching as Broughton’s flag and the masthead pendant licked out lazily and then pointed almost directly across the starboard bow.
“East by south, sir!” Partridge rolled to the other side of the compass as Bolitho came aft to stare down at the swaying card.
“Steady as you go.” He felt the ship responding, saw the huge, dark rectangles of canvas stiffening to the wind as she settled obediently on her new tack.
The light was going fast now. As it always did hereabouts. One minute a bright and seemingly everlasting sunset, and then nothing but the cream of spray beneath the counter, an occasional whitecap as the wind explored the edge of a deep trough in the sea’s face.
He heard Keverne bark, “The weather forebrace! In God’s name take in that slack, man! Mr Weigall, your people must do better than this!”
Voices echoed above the thrumming din of rigging and canvas, and he imagined the third lieutenant cursing Keverne’s uncanny eyesight, or shrewd guesswork, as the case may be.
Draffen had been watching in silence, and as the hands mustered once again at their various divisions he murmured, “I hope I will be aboard when you get a chance to show her real paces under sail.” He sounded as if he was enjoying himself.
Bolitho smiled. “There’ll be no such opportunity at night, sir. We may well have to reef tops’ls as it is. There is always a risk of collision when moving in close company.”
Keverne came aft again and touched his hat. “Permission to dismiss the watch below, sir.”
“Yes. That was well done, Mr Keverne.”
A voice called, “The Valorous is on station, sir!”
“Very well.” Bolitho moved to the weather side as the parties of seamen and marines hurried across the planking and vanished to their messdecks below. A cramped, teeming world where they lived between the guns they would serve in battle, with little more than a shoulder’s breadth to swing a hammock. He wondered what some of them were thinking of their new destination.
Draffen’s face glowed momentarily as he peered at the compass. Then he moved back to Bolitho’s side and fell in step with him as he began to pace slowly up and down below the empty nettings.
“It must be a strange feeling for you, Bolitho.”
“How so, sir?” Bolitho had almost forgotten that he was not alone in his usual restless pacing.
“To command a ship like this. One which you yourself took in battle.” He hurried on, exploring a theme which had obviously given him some thought. “In your shoes I would be wondering if I could defend a vessel when I had in fact seized her in the face of great odds.”
Bolitho frowned. “Circumstances must always play a great part, sir.”
“But tell me, as I am greatly interested. What do you think of her as a ship?”
Bolitho paused by the quarterdeck rail, resting his palms on it, feeling the wood shaking under his touch as if the whole complex mass of timber and rigging was a living being.
“She is fast for her size, sir, and only four years old. She handles well, and the hull has some fine factors too.” He gestured forward. “Unlike our own ships-of-the-line, her planking is continued right around the bow, so there is no weak bulkhead to receive an enemy’s fire.”
Draffen showed his teeth. “I like your enthusiasm. It is some comfort. But I imagined you would say otherwise. A born sea officer, a man from a long line of sailing men, I’d have laid odds on your despising the work of an enemy shipyard.” He laughed softly. “I was wrong, it appears.”
Bolitho eyed him calmly. “The French are fine builders. Line for line their hulls are faster and better than our own.”
Draffen spread his hands in mock alarm. “Then how can we win? How have we been victorious against greater numbers of the enemy?”
Bolitho shook his head. “The enemy’s weakness does not lie in his ships, or in his courage either. It is leadership. Two-thirds of their trained and experienced officers were butchered in the Terror. And they’ll not regain their confidence while they are bottled up in harbour by our blockade.” He knew Draffen was deliberately drawing him out but continued, “Each time they break out and engage our squadrons they learn a little more, grow steadily more confident, even if a sea victory is denied them. Blockade is no longer the answer, in my opinion. It hurts the innocent as much as those for whom it is intended. Clearcut, decisive action is the solution. Hit the enemy whenever and wherever you can, the size of the actions is almost immaterial.”
The officer of the watch was admonishing a defaulter who had been brought aft by a bosun’s mate, his voice grating in a fierce whisper.
Bolitho moved away with Draffen falling in step beside him.
Draffen asked, “But there will be a final confrontation between the two major fleets, eventually?”
“I have no doubts, sir. But I still believe the more attacks we can make on the enemy’s communications, his bases and trade, the more likely we are of a lasting victory on land.” He smiled awkwardly. “As a sailor it hurts me to say it. But no victory can be complete until your own soldiers have hoisted a flag on the enemy’s battlements!”
Draffen smiled gravely. “Maybe you will have a chance to put your theory into action very shortly. It will largely depend on our meeting with one of my agents. I arranged for him to make a regular rendezvous. It is to be hoped he has found it possible.”
Bolitho pricked up his ears. That was the first he had heard of anything about a rendezvous. Broughton had given him the briefest of detail so far. The squadron was to patrol off Djafou, out of sight of land, while the Coquette explored inshore for further information. Normal tactics. Normal and frustratingly dull, he had thought. Now with the prospect of gaining other, more
secret news of the enemy’s deployment, the whole face of the operation had changed.
Draffen said, “I find it slightly unnerving when I think of tomorrow. We might meet with an entire enemy fleet. Does that not upset you?”
Bolitho looked at him, but his face was in deep shadow. It was hard to tell if he was testing him again or merely making light of what was a very real possibility.
“I have lived with that prospect in fear, excitement or mere bewilderment on and off since I was twelve, sir.” Bolitho kept his voice equally grave. Then he grinned. “But so far I have never had any of my reactions taken into consideration, least of all by the enemy!”
Draffen chuckled. “I will go below and sleep easily now. I have taxed you too much as it is. But please keep me informed if anything unusual occurs.”
Bolitho stood aside. “I will, sir. You and my admiral.”
Draffen walked away laughing to himself. “We will talk further.” Then he was gone.
The midshipman of the watch hurried across the deck and reported to his lieutenant that the stern light had been lit. Through the mass of rigging Bolitho could see the Tanais’s own lantern shining like a firefly and playing across the ruffled water of her wake.
He heard the lieutenant say sharply, “It took you long enough, Mr Drury!” And then the boy’s mumbled reply.