Almost a Scandal (34 page)

Col was trying to remind her. Trying to let her remember she served—they both served—something far larger than themselves.

She nodded to him briefly—a quick tuck of her chin, no more. But Col saw it, and, she hoped, understood.

Nothing could be the way it was ashore. Or even before, when they had been becoming friends. They had been away only two nights, but already it felt as if it had been a lifetime.

Now, she could be nothing but Richard Kent, midshipman. And he was indisputably back to being Mr. Colyear, her superior officer.

“No.” The captain was shaking his head. “I am sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Kent, but it will have to be Mr. Gamage. He’s the most senior, and he’s made enough progress, Mr. Charlton has been telling me, that he should be able to navigate the sloop back to England successfully. And if he doesn’t”—he lowered his voice—“well, he’s the most expendable, though it gives me no pleasure to say it, despite the progress in mind and improvement in temperament.”

And yet Sally felt no relief, no easing of the cat’s-paw scratching up her stomach.

“And passage to England in the sloop may afford him the opportunity to sit for his exam. Yes.” Captain McAlden was moving back to the quarterdeck rail, searching out Gamage, impatient to be gone, his mind already engaged in the challenge of finding and rejoining Admiral Nelson’s Atlantic fleet somewhere off the coast of Spain. “Mr. Gamage?” The captain set his voice to carry across to the waist of the ship. “You’re being given command of this prize. Sail her to the first port you can make in England. Mr. Pike will write you your orders—here is Mr. Pike now. Get aboard her directly. Take three men.”

“Tunney, Marsan, and Griggs.” Col had the names at the ready.

“Mr. Pike, make it so. Take the sloop in to Plymouth,” he ordered Gamage. “You’ll get a better award for such a ship there, though some damn south-coast smuggler will undoubtedly buy her. But still, the men will get their money, and be happy.”

And it would also take longer to rejoin any ship that might bring Gamage back to them, Sally thought. But whatever the captain’s reasons, he did not share them with her, or voice them aloud. He merely shook Gamage’s hand. “Good luck to you, Mr. Gamage, and godspeed.”

Sally was sorrier than she might have thought to be only five days ago to see Gamage go, especially when both Will Jellicoe and Ian Worth came to the rail to shake his hand and see him off. It spoke well of the change in them all. But there were more changes yet to come.

And it was for the best. Best for the ship. Best for the midshipmen. And best for her and Col. Gamage could no longer hold his threat over them. They would be free to ignore each other in peace, now.

And so Mr. Gamage, who had given
Audacious
such trouble, for so long, was at long last gone. It was a new day. And they were bound for Spain.

Chapter Twenty

The land off the Spanish coast looked blue and low in the morning light, and it faded away into stretched dunes of sand to the south and the Cape Trafalgar. Nearer to the port of Cadiz, where the combined Spanish and French fleets had made their bolt-hole, the coast was rocky, and rose in sheer walls against which the waves ended abruptly.

That morning, they were again cruising the entrance to the Cadiz harbor, running south along the coast on the larboard tack in very light, easterly winds. The larger ships of the line, sailing with the main body of the fleet somewhere to the southwest, would have heavy work on such a day, but
Audacious
could still make good speed, sailing two points large with the wind on the larboard beam.

Captain McAlden—or perhaps it was Col who was feeling so reckless, or bored—had taken them nearer in than any other ship of the inshore squadron. With the wind off the land, they could sail so close to the shore that Sally could smell the distinct fragrances of sea lavender and honeysuckle that wafted out to her now and again over the briny stench from the salt flats, and could see the ripple of the tidemarks on the sands of the beach below the town.

In the blue-tinged morning light, the houses of Cadiz looked like sugar cubes stacked up upon each other—a crumbling, blazing white castle of a city, punctuated here and there by the spires of churches, and focused upon the elegantly tall lighthouse near the harbor mouth.

Indeed, Sally could well imagine her opposite number in the Spanish fleet stood atop the lighthouse just as she was, training his glass upon
Audacious,
and sending reports down to his superior on the number of sail offshore, and the rising swell.

Because while the surface of the sea was as calm and still as the mill pond upland of Falmouth, Sally didn’t like the long cadence of slowly rising swells that were pushing toward them from out of the west. It boded for a gale to be brewing somewhere out there in the deep Atlantic. Which meant the combined fleet of the bloody French and Spanish would undoubtedly continue to stay holed up safe and sound within Cadiz harbor, while the British frigate squadron would be left to claw their way off the bite of the lee shore.

Despite the favorable easterly wind, there would be no action today.

They would instead spend another day in drilling. Mr. Colyear would undoubtedly give them plenty of sail work, tacking back and forth across the harbor mouth, but it would be another few hours before the forenoon watch was to be called and the orders given to clear the ship for gun drill. And Cadiz, for all its spun-sugar picturesqueness, was not, after a long month of blockade, that interesting.

Sally lowered her glass, and let her eyes slide aft along the weather rail to where Col stood, as firm and steady as ever, canvassing the set of the sails, and trying to eke out another half-knot of speed from the ship. It was a strange thing to feel so connected to him, even at such a distance. As if the backstay ran directly from him to her heart. Even if he did not always wish it to be so.

With both Gamage and Mr. Rudge gone off on prizes, Col was shorthanded, and the remaining officers often had to stand watch on watch to keep
Audacious
to rights. Such a disposition of time rarely left them any time together, and alone, not at all.

Or perhaps that was how he wished it. Perhaps the result of their last rather cataclysmic joining was this polite estrangement, this chilly acquaintance. At least her work in
Audacious
kept her too busy for retreating into solitude. It was almost a pleasure to work so hard there was no time to think, no time to brood. No time to do anything more than collapse into her cot at the end of one watch, and drag herself out at the beginning of another.

Sally let the sigh trapped within her out, hoping Willis would merely think her bored beyond thought, instead of stupidly lovelorn.

“By God.”

The strange disbelieving excitement in Willis’s voice had Sally turning to find him all but hanging off the larboard shrouds, staring hard at the port. She didn’t waste time asking, but yanked open her glass and followed the direction of his gaze.

“Topsails, sir,” he explained before she could focus her eye. “More than one ship.”

“How many do you make?” she asked out of one side of her mouth, while she half turned her head to bawl at the top of her lungs, “Deck!”

The urgency of her voice sent a ripple of instant alarm through the ship.

“Four now. One after the other.” Willis’s tone was filled with solemn awe. “Jesus God, I think they’re finally coming out.”

And there they were, in the pinprick that was her glass’s view of the harbor. The forest of bare treetops that were the hidden fleet were blossoming with sail.

“Mr. Kent?” Colyear’s voice could be heard clearly without his speaking trumpet.

“Topsail yards being set. One ship of the line and four, no, six, lesser. The enemy are coming out.” Sally tried to shout the words clearly, but her voice was a scrawl of frantic excitement.

Captain McAlden materialized out of nowhere and was at the rail with a glass in his hand, confirming her report even as Willis called out higher numbers, as from his higher vantage point he could see more and more of the fleet set their sails.

“Two seventy-fours, moving, and at least five third rates.”

Seconds ticked by as McAlden kept the glass at his eye, and then he turned calmly and snapped it shut. He took in the sail, the sea, the weather, and the rolling swell. “Lay us on the starboard tack, Mr. Colyear.”

Everything else was drowned out as the orders to tack into the wind had the men springing to the sheets and braces, but in another few minutes Sally saw the signal
“Enemy have topsail yards hoisted”
flutter up the mizzen backstay to spread the news to the rest of the inshore squadron.

Good God Almighty. Were the enemy fleets really coming out at long last? She never would have picked such a day. There was a gale brewing. Did they think so highly of their sailing abilities—they who had holed up in port for months, with no sail or gun drill—that they thought to outrun or evade the entire British fleet? Did they not understand how hungry the British navy was for their ships, and their very lives? And in a gale that anyone who had weather eyes could see coming? Devil take every last one of them. Such obvious, irredeemable folly was inconceivable to Sally.

She kept her glass trained on the harbor and the slowly moving sets of sails blossoming toward the harbor mouth. As
Audacious
came about into the wind, there was a long moment of greater vision as the sails were hauled to the starboard tack.

“Lord, I make fifteen under way, Willis.”

“I make another twelve still making sail.”

Nearly every ship within the harbor had stirred. The entire fleet was putting to sea. “Deck! Twenty-seven ships making sail or under way!” she screamed, just as confirming calls from the mizzen, who had the clearest vision of the port laid out behind them as the ship came about, reached her ears.

Another set of signal flags soon flew at the mizzen.
“Enemy ships coming out of port.”

“Six more of the line. And maybe five frigates. All French, that lot, from the look of their sails.”

Sally swiveled her glass out to sea to sight the British frigate fleet commander’s ship, the
Euryalus.
Long moments passed as the other ship, some few miles out to sea, worked to read the flags hanging listlessly in the light breeze. And then finally,
Euryalus
ran up the flag in confirmation.

“Keep at it, Willis.” She slid down the backstay like a crazed monkey to make her report to the quarterdeck. “
Euryalus
is in receipt of our signal, sir. And Willis has the count at thirty-three of the line and five frigates. All French, the frigates.”

McAlden nodded in grim satisfaction. “Captain Blackwood will signal the admiral. In the meantime, keep track of each and every sail. Back to the tops, Mr. Kent. I want each and every ship of that fleet identified and assessed.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” Sally scrambled to comply. “Names and ratings, lads,” she called to the lookouts.

The names rolled off her tongue like incantations. In the van was
Formidable,
and
Rayo.
In the center,
Santissima Trinidad
,
Bucentaure,
and
Santa Ana.
Willis fed her the ratings—French 74, Spanish 112.

Sally’s head was full of calculations and comparisons to try and remember or guess which ships were still in Admiral Nelson’s fleet and how the number of guns would match up. Heady, terrifying work. Her voice was growing hoarse and raw from calling down to the deck in a voice loud and clear enough to be heard.

The rail below was filled with men taking a long look at the enemy they had tracked, and searched for, and awaited for so long. They watched with practiced, assessing eyes as the individual enemy ships maneuvered, and they made experienced judgments about the prowess of the enemy allies’ sailors and captains based on the set of their sails.

“Stand off,” Captain McAlden ordered, and Col was already moving to position the ship farther out, sailing upwind and giving the enemy searoom to lumber out of port and make sail to the northwest, while the signal flags relayed their information to Captain Blackwood in the
Euryalus,
who was in charge of the frigate fleet.

“Wear ship.”

“Fall off,” Mr. Charlton ordered the helm.

“Where are those frigates, Mr. Kent? I—” the captain was asking from the deck, but in the cacophony of orders and sails working, whatever else he had meant to say was lost.

“They’re wearing ship, sir.” Willis’s sharp eyes never left the enemy fleet.

“Deck!” she cried.

And then, even as Willis was still searching and counting sails and spars, Captain McAlden shucked his blue coat, handed it to the master, and swung out into the starboard chains. He climbed up the ratlines in his waistcoat and shirtsleeves to have his own look at the disposition of the enemy fleet. He was perhaps not as smooth as the younger and more agile topmen, due to the grave injury he had received some years earlier at Acre, but the devil and all his grinning imps, he was no laggard.

“Willis, prepare yourself for a visitor.”

The foretopman gaped. “Jesus God. Now I’ve seen it all.”

As soon as the captain made the foretop, Sally handed him her glass. “The frigates remain in their lee, sir, showing no indication of joining with us.”

“No,” the captain agreed. “For they think—quite wrongly—that we will take to our heels if they come out.” Captain McAlden closed the glass with a crack and Sally saw something she had never seen before—a full smile winding its way around the captain’s normally straight lips. It was a bit unholy, that smile, hooking off one side of his face and lighting his eyes like the glint of sun off snow.

It was altogether frightening. And undeniably exciting. The enemy fleet had come out, and sooner, rather than later, they were going to have one unholy hell of a battle.

Captain McAlden spoke as if he had heard her thoughts. “We will have no fight yet, Mr. Kent, but we will stay with them, and track them until they bring it to us, or Admiral Nelson’s fleet arrives to meet with them. Whichever comes first. In the meantime, Mr. Kent, I would be obliged if you would assist your colleague Mr. Jellicoe with the signals, as we will have more than a number of them today, as soon as we wear ship.” And then he was gone, down the backstay like a midshipman, calling out his orders to the deck. “Mr. Charlton, wear ship.”