Tenacious (10 page)

Still the wind increased, hammering in from the north-west with a flat ferocity. At one in the morning a particularly savage squall shook and pummelled the ship. With a report like gunfire, the topsails blew to pieces and
Tenacious
fell off the wind until fore and aft sail were set to stabilise her.

The wind’s noise in the bar-taut rigging was a rising howl that tore at the reason; this was nature gone mad. Seas, driven up by the frenetic wind, caused an ugly roll, which threw serious strain on spars and rigging. Preventers and rolling tackles could help, but when squalls and rain clamped in there was nothing for it but endurance through the long night, with occasional half-glimpsed pinpricks of lanthorn light all that could seen of other ships.

Finally dawn came in a grey welter of cold spray and whipping wind. As the light extended, lookouts in the tops spotted other ships scattered around the gale-lashed seascape, calling
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their names down one by one as they recognised them. The vessels altered course to form up the squadron once more.

But which was the flagship? And there were no frigates. All that could be seen were two ships-of-the-line and another further off that must be Admiral Nelson. Yet there was something not right with the distant vessel. As they beat their way closer it became clear:
Vanguard
had lost her entire foremast as well as all her topmasts, and was surviving with scraps of sail on what remained.

With tumbled masts and no steadying canvas aloft, the ship rolled grievously, on every plunge showing her copper or sub-merging her lower gunports. Conditions on board would be in-describable, but she was still gallantly holding a course.

Houghton took a telescope, braced himself against the savage roll, and focused on the stricken vessel. The master moved up next to him. “A boat cannot live in these seas, Mr Hambly,”

Houghton said. “We can do nothing for them.”

“No, sir,” said Hambly, neutrally. “But on this board he stands into mortal peril, sir . . .”

“The land?”

“Corsica, sir. Dead to loo’ard an’ not so many miles.” The awesome force of the gale from the north-west had driven the squadron towards the craggy coast of Corsica to the south-east—

but how close were they?

“He must wear, o’ course.”

With the wind blast on the larboard side any sail that
Vanguard
could hoist would only impel them further towards that coast.

They must therefore bring the gale to the other side and let her drive before it. But with no possibility of setting any kind of sail forward there would not be the leverage to bring the big 74

round. She was trapped on her course.

“They’ll tack, then?”

“No, sir,” Hambly responded. “She wouldn’t a-tall get through

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the wind’s eye. I fear we’re t’ see a calamity very soon, sir.”

It was inconceivable: the greatest fighting admiral of the age, in his own flagship, beaten on to the rocks, then almost certain death—or, at best, survival and humiliating capture by the French.

“We have to do something, damn it!” Houghton rasped. The other two ships were lying tentatively on her beam; in these surging conditions it was too risky to get closer.

“Could stream rafts for survivors when . . .” No one took up Kydd’s thought and he resumed his sorrowful gaze at the doomed vessel. In all conscience they could stay with the ship only until that fatal last half-mile.

Then there was sudden movement on her decks. The rags of sail still up were brought in until the ship was bare. Without the steadying of high canvas she began a sickening wallow, the merciless wind nearly abeam. A flicker of paleness showed around her plunging bow.

“Ah!” All eyes turned to Hambly, who cleared his throat self-consciously. “Er, that is t’ say, it’s clear they have right seamen aboard
Vanguard.
That’s a sprits’l they’re setting an’ they’ll wear ship with that.”

A spritsail was an ancient sail from another age, one spread below the bowsprit and long since disappeared from modern warships. The effect of the diminutive sail, set so far forward, was immediate. Painfully,
Vanguard
began to pay off under the leverage, rotating slowly until the seas previously battering her from abeam now came under her stern. She gathered steerage way and, bracing the spritsail yard hard round, showed canvas on her mizzen, completed the turn and finally wore round. At last the threat of shipwreck was averted.

The quarterdeck of
Tenacious
erupted in shouts of admiration—now their flagship had a chance! Only one frigate could be seen: the others must have been blown to—who knew where?

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The storm showed no sign of calming and the last frigate fell away into the spindrift, then disappeared.

It was now a matter of enduring the jerking, bruising motion; a tedious, wearying period that stretched time and deadened the spirit. A second night drew in, but before the light faded a flutter of colour showed at the admiral’s mizzen.

“Mr Kydd!” Houghton handed over his telescope. The image danced uncontrollably and Kydd adopted a foul-weather brace, right elbow jammed firmly to his side, the other against his chest with his feet splayed wide. Without needing to refer to his pocket signal book he knew the hoist. “
Alexander
’s pennant,

‘pass within hail.’ ”

Then
Orion
closed cautiously, and finally it was the turn of
Tenacious.
Coming up slowly on the flagship’s leeward side they saw the damage—topmasts missing, foremast a splintered stump, lines of rigging tangling on the decks—it could not possibly be repaired at sea.

Without doubt the cluster of figures on her quarterdeck would include Admiral Nelson. Kydd clung to the shrouds listening as Houghton brought up his speaking trumpet and hailed, “Flag ahoy!” His voice was strong and well pitched, but it was nearly lost in the uproar of the swashing seas between the madly surging vessels.

“Do ye hear?” came distantly across from the flagship quarterdeck.

“I do, sir.”

“Have—you—charts—” Houghton held up a hand in acknowledgement “—of Oristano?”

Sardinia. So the admiral was seeking a dockyard in Sardinia under their lee. “Have we? Quickly, Mr Hambly.”

“No, sir, nothing more’n a small-scale o’ that coast.”

“Regret—no—charts.”

The remote figure waved once and the ships began to di-verge. The admiral had three choices: to chance unknown waters and a possibly hostile port in Sardinia; make a lengthy return to Gibraltar in his crippled ship; or, when the weather abated, transfer to one of the others and scuttle
Vanguard.

Darkness came and the long night brought no relief from the hammering northerly. Only when dawn’s cold light imperceptibly displaced the blackness was there a moderation in the welter of torn seas.
Alexander, Orion
and
Tenacious
came together once more.

“She’s signalling!” Kydd’s eyes were sore with salt spray as he tried to read
Vanguard
’s hoist. “To
Alexander:
‘prepare to take me in tow.’ ”

“Now we’ll see what they’re made of, I think,” said Bryant, wedging himself against the outside corner of the master’s cabin and calmly contemplating, across the chaotic, tumbling seas, the heroic feat of seamanship now demanded.

“Boats won’t swim,” said Kydd, similarly exercised.

“Can float off a keg wi’ a messenger line,” mused the master,

“if
Alexander
dare take a wind’d position.” This was where the main difficulty lay: to allow the keg to float downwind, or any like manoeuvre, implied placing
Alexander
upwind. The huge windage of the 74s at slow speeds would ensure they drifted in-exorably to leeward but it would be at differing rates for different ships and weather conditions. The consequences of the ship to weather drifting faster and colliding with the one to leeward, with all the inertia of one and a half thousand tons, was too horrific to think about.

Alexander
lay off, preparing her move. Any close manoeuvring was deadly dangerous in the wild seas and it would take extreme care to pass over the line safely. She wore round in a big circle and approached
Vanguard
from astern and to windward.

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Sail was shortened down to goosewinged fore-topsail and storm staysails, and she approached with the buffeting wind on her quarter. Closer, she eased the sheets of two of the three staysails and lined up for her run—she was clearly trying for a close glancing approach to
Vanguard
’s poop with one fleeting moment to get the line across.

The voluted beakhead of
Alexander
slowly approached the carved stern of
Vanguard.
As she did so, the scale of the independent plunging and rearing of the two ships was evident.

Alexander
’s bowsprit and its complex tracery of rigging speared closer. Then, in seconds, the situation changed. A chance convergence of wave crests into a larger one rose up on
Alexander
’s outer bow at the same time as its trough allowed
Vanguard
’s stern to slide towards her.

It looked as if the two ships would merge in splintering ruin but then the fo’c’slemen on the foredeck of
Alexander
boomed out the fore-topmast staysail to weather by main force and by small yards she yawed giddily and slid past.

Kydd strained to see any tiny thread of black rope against the white water indicating a line had been passed. There was none.

The 74 plunged past
Tenacious
on her way round once more and Kydd could see activity on both ships. But when the light line had been finally passed across from
Alexander
it would in turn bring aboard a heavier hawser, then probably one of the anchor cables roused up from the tiers in the orlop. At more than a hundred and twenty pounds for every fathom streamed it would be a fearsome task to manhandle.

This time
Alexander
came up to leeward of the stricken flagship, necessarily head to head to bring their fo’c’sles adjacent.

Kydd used his signal telescope to watch: he could make out a lone seaman in the forechains with his coiled, heaving line tensed, waiting.

The two ships closed,
Alexander
deliberately keeping well to leeward as she edged ahead. They began to overlap—the seaman started to swing his smaller coil in readiness—but even as he did so it became obvious that the windward vessel was catching more of the wind’s blast and drifting down fast on the more sheltered leeward.
Alexander
’s bowsprit sheered off rapidly.

Once more the big man-o’-war went round ponderously. Once more the seaman in the chains began his swing, and once more it proved impossible. Time wore on. In
Tenacious
hands were piped to dinner, and the heaving line was cast twice more. The afternoon watch was set—and on the next pass a line at last was caught on
Vanguard
’s foredeck.

Those watching in other ships dared not breathe as the dots of men on her fo’c’sle scrambled to bring in the line, but
Alexander
was falling away fast. Kydd knew what they had to do: a dark cavity in
Alexander
’s stern windows was where her cable would be led out, but first
Vanguard
must hold fast the precious light line while a stouter rope was heaved in from
Alexander
and manhandled through the hawse-hole, where it would be led to the main capstan.

Below in the sweating gloom this hawser would be heaved in, its distant other end seized to the main cable issuing out of
Alexander
’s stern windows as it was led from the giant riding bitts further forward.

It was now only a matter of time. Little by little the great cable, nearly two feet in circumference, was drawn across the foaming sea until
Vanguard
was finally tethered.

The weight of the seven hundred feet of heavy rope between the two ships formed a catenary, a graceful curve in the cable that acted as a giant spring in the towing, absorbing the shocks and fretful jibbing of the storm-lashed ships.
Alexander
showed small sail, then more, until reefed topsails gave her enough force
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to pull
Vanguard
in line and then, miraculously, begin a clawing, slewing motion ahead.

As if in respect to the feat performed in the teeth of its hostility, the wind moderated from a full gale to a sulky bluster, then later to a steady north-north-westerly. And foul for Oristano.

The ships, limping at no more than walking pace, could not lie close enough to the wind to overcome the current taking them south, and the only dockyard on the west of Sardinia was left astern.

“What now, do you think, Mr Hambly?” Houghton asked.

There seemed to be no avoiding a long and chancy tow back to Gibraltar.

Adams brightened. “Sir, when I was a mid in
Cruizer
we chased a corsair to Sardinia, and he disappeared. We found him in San Pietro Bay, south of here, in as snug a harbour as you’d find within forty leagues. I believe Admiral Nelson could lie there in perfect peace while he repairs enough to sail back to Gibraltar.”

“Mr Hambly, lay me within hail of the flagship.”

It was a notion clearly to Nelson’s liking and the tow was shaped more southerly. The winds diminished rapidly to a pleasant breeze, and with the sun now strong again and in the ascen-dant, wisps of vapour rose from the water-logged decks.

A distant lumpy blue-grey appeared from the bright haze ahead. “San Pietro island, sir,” Adams said smugly. “Our anchorage lies beyond.”