Any Approaching Enemy: A Novel of the Napoleonic Wars (4 page)

AM GOING BELOW. CALL IF WEATHER CHANGE.

The master read it and nodded in acknowledgment. Charles shuffled across the deck and down the ladderway to his cabin. Careful not to wake his steward, he sloughed his oilskins and his uniform coat, slipped off his shoes, and climbed into his bed otherwise fully clothed. By ten minutes after twelve, he was fast asleep.

At one o’clock he sat bolt upright. He could hear that the wind had risen to an eerie high-pitched whistle, and he could actually feel the vibration of the rigging through the deck.
Louisa
plunged raggedly and seemed to stagger each time the bow dropped before rising again. More seriously, something had come badly adrift, its banging sending rhythmic jolts the length of the ship. Attwater pushed his way through the curtain to the sleeping cabin with a small lantern. Charles was already frantically searching in the darkness for his shoes.

“You’re wanted on deck. The weather’s up,” Attwater announced.

On the ladderway to the quarterdeck, an insane wind grabbed at his flapping overcoat, filling it like a sail. He clutched tightly at the rail to keep from being blown overboard. He pulled his coat together with his fists and struggled onto the deck. Talmage came across to him immediately. “Mizzen topmast … carried away,” he yelled, and gestured upward. Charles could see the mass of loose halyards and stays snapping in the wind, the topmast section entangled below, swinging with the roll of the ship and hammering furiously against the still-standing lower mast.
Why
hasn’t Talmage dealt with it before now?

Angry but unable to express it, he yelled, “Cut—it—loose—over— side!”

Louisa
was being pounded mercilessly by the sea, burying her bow with each oncoming wave. She could not withstand this kind of punishment long. Eliot stood at his usual place by the wheel, and Charles started toward him. A vicious gust swept the ship, laying her over nearly on her beam ends. Charles clutched at the binnacle to keep from sliding down the sharply canted deck. For a moment he hung from the box with no purchase for his feet. He found Eliot’s sturdy form beside him, his hand clutching the back of Charles’s coat, the way a mother cat picks up a kitten by the scruff of its neck, and pulling him to his feet.

Charles took a speaking trumpet from its place in the binnacle, put the horn directly over the master’s ear, and shouted into the mouthpiece, “We will bear away and run before the wind.”

Eliot nodded vigorously.

Charles knew too well that turning the ship from lying to, with the bow taking the wind and waves head-on, and swinging to present her stern to the elements presented two significant perils. First, as she fell off with the wind, her vulnerable side would be exposed to the seas, where she would be in danger of being rolled over or swamped, either an ordeal from which she might not recover. Further, once she was around, she would immediately require sufficient speed to prevent the onrushing waves from sweeping over her from behind and driving her under, stern first. He saw that Winchester had arrived on deck and beckoned him to approach. Using the speaking trumpet as he had with Eliot, he found that he could speak almost normally. “We will wear ship and put her before the wind,” he said. “The instant she is around, set the main topsail, close-reefed, then haul down the staysail.”

“Aye-aye,” Winchester shouted and started forward.

Charles could neither see the seas nor gauge when to begin the turn except through the deck as
Louisa
’s bow began to rise. There was no point in waiting. “Hard aport!” he screamed at Eliot, too far away to hear; he windmilled his arm to signal his intent. He watched closely as the helm came over. Immediately, the ship’s head began to fall off, the turn accelerating as the wind caught the fore staysail sideways and pushed her around like a weather vane. The force came broadside on, heeling the ship more sharply.
Pray God we aren’t swamped.
They were in the trough between the waves, the next racing down on them.
Louisa
was turning, still turning, the wind beginning to come around to the stern quarter.

“Ease the helm,” he shouted at Eliot, “midships!” Knowing that his words could not be heard, he signaled with his arms. He squinted forward into the dark and made out the men on the mainmast yard sheeting home the reefed topsail. Turning aft, he could see the black menace of the next wave irresistibly rising. Charles held his breath. He thought he could feel the pull of the topsail as it began to fill. The wave closed on them, still closer, until it seemed to loom overhead and must crash down on them. He clutched reflexively at the railing.
Louisa
’s stern began to rise with the swell. A quantity of water burst over the taffrail, but in no great force.

Charles let out an explosive burst of breath. He breathed in again. She had gained enough way to mitigate the blow, and the crisis had passed; at least
this
crisis had passed. They were now running directly before the wind and still gathering speed, so that she slid back down into the trough, seemed to pause there, and then began to rise onto the back of the wave ahead. She would be safe for the moment, so long as they kept up just enough way over the sea to allow the rudder to bite and keep her from yawing. A glance at the compass told him that they were now steering directly south-by-east, with a following sea at what must be a prodigious speed, straight toward the unwelcome coast of Sardinia.

The howling scream from the wind became marginally less, as they were sailing with it on their backs rather than clawing into its teeth. Charles crossed the deck to the sailing master and shouted, “Put her head south-by-west.” Allowing for leeway, he calculated that this should put their true course at something close to due south, which would mean that if they hadn’t run aboard Sardinia already, they probably never would.

Charles’s legs ached from the constant struggle against the force of the wind, and from keeping his balance on the heaving deck. He leaned against the binnacle to rest for a moment and noticed Winchester and a number of the foremast topmen descending the shrouds. It must have been a fearsome ordeal with the wind threatening to tear them from the wildly gyrating yardarm, but the task had to be done, and their timely execution of it might have made the difference between safety and sinking. He pushed himself upright and started toward the ladderway to the waist of the ship. He met up with Winchester, returning at the break of the aftercastle, where they were sheltered a little from the wind.

“That was nicely done, Stephen,” he said.

Winchester nodded, looking worn. “Thank you,” he said. “The men deserve the credit. I tried yelling out the orders, but no one could hear anything up there.”

“You have my thanks all the same,” Charles insisted. “I will mention your name in my report.”

Winchester’s face cracked into a small smile. “You mention my name in every report. The Admiralty will become suspicious.”

“I’m doing my best,” Charles asserted. “The father of my nephews and nieces should be an admiral, at least. You need to pick up the pace if you want to get their lordships’ attention.”

“I’ll get to it presently,” Winchester answered. Then, as if to change the subject, he asked, “Are you going to turn in?”

“No, I thought I’d go below and speak to your topmen.”

“Why?” Winchester asked.

“I owe them my thanks for what they’ve done. We all do.”

Winchester raised his eyebrows. “I’m sure they’ll be grateful,” he observed doubtfully.

Charles continued across the waist, down through the main hatchway, and into the bowels of the ship. The wind ceased as soon as his head dropped below the level of the deck, a welcome change. This was the ship’s heart, he reflected as he made his way forward, where the crew lived, slept, and ate. The space was damp, scarcely ventilated, and dimly lit. He could make out dozens of hammocks, one almost touching another, suspended from the deck beams and swaying in unison with the ship’s movement. The powerful smell of unwashed bodies met his nostrils, competing with other, more noxious odors from the bilge farther below. The sounds of waves washing past
Louisa
’s hull and the groaning of her timbers reverberated loudly. He heard muted laughter and conversation coming from a more brightly lighted area near the bow.

Charles proceeded carefully, stooping as he walked to avoid hitting his head on the low ceiling beams. He soon found a group of men, about a score in number, sitting on the deck or on wooden crates. One had broken out a pack of cards and was preparing to deal them. Others sat in twos and threes, talking or lighting their pipes. Two lanterns swung from the ceiling above.

“God’s bones, it’s the cap’ain,” one of the men in the card game exclaimed and leaped to his feet. The man with the cards tried to scoop up the lot and hide them in his pocket while he rose to his knees, dropping seven or eight. Undecided whether to collect the errant cards or stand, he remained frozen where he was. Everyone else stood immediately.

“As you were, please,” Charles said. “Where’s Saunders, the captain of the foretop?” The men remained rigid, as erect as the deck beams would allow. Even the card dealer elected to rise to his feet.

“Here, zur,” a short, burly man Charles recognized as Bobby Saunders said, stepping forward apprehensively and knuckling his forehead. It wasn’t often that a ship’s captain arrived unannounced belowdecks, and when he did, it was usually for something unpleasant.

“Please be at your ease,” Charles repeated. “This is a friendly call, not an official one. I just wanted to tell you, all of you … to express my appreciation of your efforts in the rigging just now.”

This was met with uncertain stares all around. Charles thought he should say something more, so he added, “I am grateful and I want to show it. I intend to send a bottle of tolerable French claret around to each of your mess tables at supper in place of your usual spirits.”

There were murmurs at this and glances exchanged. Still, none dared speak.

“Dickie Johnson,” Charles called to a man who stood looking downcast at the edge of the group. “I understand that you have had your drink stopped for a week by Lieutenant Winchester for indiscipline.” Actually, Dickie had overslept his watch two days before, after having been observed drinking both his own and a messmate’s rations of spirits the night before.

“Yessur,” the man said shyly.

“I will make an exception for this one meal, Dickie, but you must serve out the remainder of your punishment after.”

“Yes, sur, thank you, sur.”

Charles looked around at the men and felt unreasonably pleased. He knew all their names and could remember when most of them had first come aboard in Portsmouth: a raw crew, many inexperienced and untrained. A few had been released directly from gaol into the navy as so-called sheriff’s quotamen. They had grown into capable seamen as he watched. “We’re not out of danger yet, so look lively,” he said to bring his visit to a close. “And don’t expect a bottle of wine every time you climb the shrouds.”

There were some smiles at this, but Charles knew that his presence was awkward for them. “Well, then,” he said, “if you will pardon me, I’ll return to my duties on deck.”

“Zur,” Saunders interjected.

“Yes?”

“Zur, if it ain’t too forrard”—the man glanced meaningfully at several of his mates—“some of us were wonderin’ if you’ve heard from Mizzus Edgemont and how she might be farin’.”

Charles was surprised at the question, then remembered that most of these men—most of his crew, in fact—had been present at the wedding. “She is doing very well, from what she writes,” he answered. “She mentions you men in her letters and often inquires after your well-being.”

This line of conversation seemed to put them more at ease; there were significant glances and whisperings all around.

“Well, zur, thank you, zur,” Saunders said. “If you would please write that we asked after her.”

“I will be sure to,” Charles answered.

“She’s uncommon fine, sir,” another seaman named Connley said boldly. “She spoke with some of us at the wedding party, she did, and asked us personal to take special care that no harm comes to ye.”

This was new information to Charles, but it was very like Penny to have done so. “I will be sure to pass on that so far you have all done excellent jobs.” An outburst of laughter filled the space, followed by a loud “Shut all yer fucking gobs, you sons of whores. We’re trying to sleep here,” from one of the hammocks.

“Sorry,” Charles called back. To the men before him, he said in a softer voice, “Thank you all again for your efforts. If you will excuse me, I must return to my duties.”

He made his way back between the hammocks and onto the deck, reminding himself to tell Attwater to deliver three bottles of his diminishing supply of claret to the men’s messes. Attwater, he suspected, was not going to like it.

Charles returned to the quarterdeck and stayed there as the dawn broke, revealing racing clouds that looked to be almost touching the mainmast truck but were probably a fair deal higher. The seas were tall gray ridges, angry white across their tops, stretching as far as the eye could see.
Louisa
rode almost disdainfully, as if aware that these elements had done their best to destroy her and failed. She rose gracefully to the top of each line of waves, accelerated as the full force of the wind found her, flicked her stern sideways just enough to be noticeable as she crested, then slid ladylike and triumphant down into the trough. The wind still blew fierce and steady, but with the daunted determination, Charles thought, of a fighter who knew in his gut that the match had been decided against him. He considered briefly whether there could be some separate god for the seas, a Neptune or Poseidon that contested for seamen’s fates. At that moment he could well believe it.

As soon as it was light enough, he took a sighting of the ship’s wake with a pocket compass and decided that she was making more or less due south, perhaps a point westerly. He sent a lookout into the tops with a glass, but no other sails were seen on the empty, ill-tempered sea.