A Sea Unto Itself (43 page)

“Oh, my,” his friend said.

“Oh, my, what?” Charles answered, his tone carrying every indication that he did not wish to discuss the subject.

Bevan persisted, undeterred. “For starters, your shirttail is out, shirt undone, stock gone, holding your jacket. I take it you boarded and carried her successfully.”

“I did not,” Charles asserted hotly. “I resisted every approach. Well, almost every approach.”

“You fended her off? How quaint. What did she want?”

“How specific do you want me to be?”

“That, I can guess. No, what did she want in return?”

Charles had to think. “Nothing really. She said our foodstuffs would be delayed a few days. Something about it having to come down from the farms in mountains. She hoped we could remain in the harbor for a week or so.”

“So that you might enjoy her, ah, company?”

“That was the gist of it.”

“Charlie,” Bevan said seriously. “There’ll be no victuals from here. I’ve had the midshipmen keeping watch every minute. One horseman went galloping north along the coast yesterday, but no one has gone into the hills at all. They’d have to do that in order to request the provisions.”

Charles was silent for a moment. There was something seriously out of place. “Is everyone back from their time ashore?”

Bevan nodded.

“Roust out the hands. Do it quietly, it would be impolite to wake the town. It’s not too early to start up the sea for Jones.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The Brothers, the same two low-lying islands Charles had pointed out to Jones before selecting their rendezvous, lay fine off the port beam, froth-ringed lumps on the water under a searing mid-morning sun. It proved fortunate that Cassandra sailed from Massawa at the time she did. Contrary winds and sudden squalls had slowed their progress. Still, on Sunday, the eleventh of August, Charles felt they had time in hand to look into Koessir to see if the contents of the harbor had changed in any way.

“Daniel, I’ll have the topgallants taken in, if you please, and their yards struck to the deck.” Bare mast poles would be harder to see at a great distance than broad sheets of canvas. He wanted to look into Koessir; he would prefer not to be seen doing it. Bevan relayed the orders.

“Mr. Beechum, do you have a glass?” Charles said.

“I’ll just get one,” the lieutenant answered.

“Here, take mine.” Charles held out his own personal telescope, the same he had received as a gift from his wife when they were together at Liverpool, those many months before. It was the finest on the ship. Since he intended to remain at as great a distance as possible, its superior optics would be helpful.

“Oh, thank you, sir,” Beechum said.

“Get you up to the main topgallant mast, as high as you can go. Take careful note of what you see in the harbor. Mr. Sykes will accompany you as far as the crosstrees to pass your report down.”

“Yes, sir. I understand.”

“Signal as soon as you are satisfied, and we will stand out to sea again.”

“I’ll wave my arm, sir,” Beechum offered.

“That will do,” Charles said. “Mr. Sykes, you will relay Lieutenant Beechum’s intelligence onward by way of Misters Hitch and Aviemore.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” said Sykes. The younger midshipmen nodded agreeably. It was a complex business communicating quickly from the highest point on the ship down to the deck, one hundred and thirty feet below.

“Aloft then, all of you.” Charles nodded to Cromley, who had already been informed as to the coming maneuver. The master looked upward to see that the topgallant yards were well down their masts. He then ordered the helm to be put over. Cassandra stood in cautiously toward the Egyptian shore.

“You do know, don’t you,” Bevan observed. “With all this relaying, Beechum is going to report an enemy fleet in sight. Aviemore will happily inform you that enema heat is slight.”

Charles grinned. “I only want to know if Raisonnable is in the port. She has to be somewhere. As for the rest of it, I don’t think if of much importance.” As Bevan turned away, Charles’ smile faded. It was true, the French seventy-four had to be somewhere, but that somewhere did not have to include the Red Sea. He only knew for certain that she’d come into the Indian Ocean. She could have been bound for Mauritius, or Batavia, even off Annam where the French were said to have interests. There were dozens of possibilities. What if the lookout was wrong about seeing two sets of sail entering the Straits of Mandeb? He had, after all, been looking into the sun. What if Admiral Blankett and St. Legier in Cape Town and all the others were correct—that the French did not have, and had never had, any intention of invading India? In that event, if he was lucky, he would be replaced and never receive another command. If he were unlucky, and if Blankett cared to make a point of it, he would be dismissed from the service in disgrace, or worse.

Charles arched his head back and watched anxiously as Beechum climbed the mainmast, Sykes close behind. At the crosstrees at the foot of the topgallant mast section, the lieutenant paused and extended the telescope, pointing it forward. Apparently dissatisfied, he closed it again and resumed his progress upward, half shimmying and half pulling himself by the stays. There were no ratlines to climb or any platform to rest on this high in the mast. It must be dizzying to look down to the deck from there. At length, Beechum reached almost to the truck at the very top of the mast. He found a tenuous foothold on the collar to the stays, one leg and one arm wrapped tightly around the pole. Awkwardly, he pulled the glass to its full length and braced it to his eye.

Almost at once, Beechum half-lowered his instrument and bent his head downward, which he would have to do to speak to Sykes below him. Sykes shouted to Hitch on the topmast shrouds, Hitch to Aviemore at the tops. Charles heard Hitch’s voice, but couldn’t make out the words. He could guess though; it had to be something important. Aviemore immediately leapt for a backstay to ride down to the deck. “There’s a ship of the line off the harbor. The same what we saw afore,” the boy squeaked.

Charles felt a wave of relief wash over him, followed quickly by apprehension. “What’s her attitude?” he asked. “Has she any sails set?”

“I dunna know,” Aviemore answered. “I’ll just ask.” With that he ran toward the shrouds and scurried upwards.

That was enough, Charles thought. It was unlikely Cassandra’s bare poles had been seen and it was time to leave. He looked up for Beechum again to see him lower the glass, transfer it to the arm clinging to the mast, and wave. At that instant the foot on the stay collar slipped. The lieutenant gripped the mast section with both arms. The telescope came free, rotating lazily as it fell until it struck the topmast yard, then spun like a spoke on a wheel. Charles felt sick. It met the deck boards with a shattering crash.

“Oh, my,” Bevan said.

“Mr. Cromley,” Charles said. “We will wear ship immediately to stand away from the land. Daniel, get the topgallant yards back up and their sails bent on.” Then he went to retrieve the shattered pieces that had been his telescope. He was holding them regretfully when Beechum arrived back on deck.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Beechum said. “It was my fault.”

“I saw,” Charles answered. “I’m only pleased that you didn’t slip along with it. Please tell me what you saw.”

Beechum took a deep breath. “It was Raisonnable, sir. I’m sure of it. She’s at anchor just off the mole. I saw no sign that she’d spotted us.”

Charles was grateful for that. “And what else is in the harbor?” he asked.

“About the same as before, as far as I could tell. A mass of small bottoms. A few was coming or going.”

“Thank you,” Charles said. Once Beechum left, he gently unscrewed the eyepiece, still intact, from his instrument and slipped it into his pocket as a memento. The remainder he roughly folded in half and replaced in its wooden case.

*****.

A half moon showed through wispy clouds. Sufficient light filtered down for Charles to see the dark line of the coast off the rendezvous he had agreed to with Adolphus Jones sixty-three days before. The ship’s bell dinged five times in the middle watch. The eyes of the lookouts in every mast, and most of those of the watch on deck, were fixed on the shore. No one had seen any light. It was the third consecutive night Cassandra lay hove to, backing and filling, in the same patch of sea.

“Damnation,” Charles muttered, as he had at every turning of the glass and ringing of the bell since midnight.

“It doesn’t look like they’re going to be here,” Bevan said.

“We’ll wait,” Charles said. “We must give them every chance.”

“You know that it’s possible something else could have happened. They might have been discovered. Spying is a dangerous business, I’m told.”

“We’ll give them every chance,” Charles repeated. “We’ll stay a little past daylight to see if that tells us anything.” It really didn’t matter, he knew, whether the Joneses were delayed longer than expected, or were captured or killed, or even if they’d simply gotten lost. If for any reason they did not appear, Blankett would still have cause for court martial and Charles would have no defense. Blankett might still do it even if he returned with his quarry, but he didn’t think he would. In that case, a board of inquiry might well go harder on the short-sighted admiral who overruled Admiralty orders than on the disobedient captain attempting to fulfill them. The ship’s timbers creaked gently in the easy sea. They waited.

The first light of the day came hard and gray over the water, the land an indistinct wash to the south, the uneven outline of hills running northward. Charles stretched his arms and yawned. He was worn from the long night and the tension of waiting. His fingers tapped endlessly on the rail cap in front of him. The long, long journey from Chatham to Cape Town to Mocha and back and forth along the infernally hot sea had finally come to nothing. The bell rang twice for the morning watch. “Damnation,” he muttered.

“Deck there!” the lookout in the mizzen tops called down. “There’s some what’s moving about on the shore.”

Charles strained his eyes over the features of the land.

“Where away?” Bevan shouted up.

“Jus’ by that bit of a run.”

“Look, sir,” Beechum said. He had a ship’s telescope to his eye, pointed more or less toward a small spit of land where the hills trailed away into desert. There was a riverbed there, running down from the heights, exactly the place where Charles had arranged to take the Joneses off. It was just growing light enough for him to make it out. He saw nothing moving on the sandy beach.

“Is it Jones? There should be three of them.”

“No, sir,” Beechum said. “It’s soldiers. Here, look.”

Charles took the glass and raised it. He soon saw the figures of men with muskets in dark uniforms and shakos moving deliberately across the riverbed and fanning out in a line. They must be looking for something, and he could guess what.

The lookout shouted down, “Deck, them’s more sodgers to the south a league or so.” Charles swung the lens, transiting the shore. Immediately he picked out a small column of cavalry, about twenty, cantering up along a track from the direction of Koessir, a thin mist of dust rising behind. The newly risen sun glinted off weapons held aloft. Lancers, he decided. Then he saw a second unit, larger, riding a distance behind. He couldn’t tell how many; maybe a hundred.

“Brace the foresail around,” Charles said to anyone who might be listening. “Daniel, put a pair of leadsmen in the bow. Mr. Cromley, we will close with the land as near as we dare.” He tried to think of what he must do. The French weren’t searching for nothing. They had to have been given reason to believe Jones and his companions were in the area. He cupped his hands to yell up to the tops and the length of the ship, “There’s a guinea for the first man who spies a party of civilians along the shore.”

“Ten fathoms,” came the call from a leadsman. Cassandra began to move toward the shore, still a mile out.

“How close to you reckon we can come, Mr. Cromley?” Charles said.

“Half mile, if we’re lucky,” the master replied tersely. “Not more.”

“Stephen,” Charles called.

The lookout in the foremast bent over the edge of the tops to shout something down. Charles couldn’t hear what it was.

“Sir?” Winchester said.

Charles looked out at the approaching cavalry. They had closed noticeably. They would, he reasoned; horses are faster than ships, at least over short distances. “There’s been a change of plans,” he said. “Have the launch and a cutter hoisted out to port, if you please. We’ll tow them alongside for now. You may assemble their crews.”