out her identity without revealing Royal Duke's own?
Hoare resolved upon a nocturnal version of the simple old ruse by which a ship flew false colors. As long as she hauled them down and replaced them before firing, honor was observed.
'Hail 'em-in French, Mr. Clay,' he said.
'In French, sir?'
'In French, Mr. Clay.'
'Aye, aye, sir,' he said with a resigned shrug. 'Kell vessow?' he shouted.
The awful sound he made in copying Hoare's whispered French delighted Hoare. Though his bellow was enviable, his accent was appalling, but it did as Hoare had hoped and must have left the Frenchman wondering for a precious few seconds, which was just what Hoare wanted.
The stranger gave no reply. Instead, he bore off and laid a course to cross Royal Duke's bows and rake her from ahead-or, more likely, to board. This could only be a tactic of the lookout Quill's privateer, packed as full of Frogs as a keg of sardines.
'Bear away, Mr. Clay, and hoist our colors.'
'Aye, aye, sir.' Clay relayed Hoare's first order to the helmsmen. There were two of them now, as was normal practice when going into action, neither of them more than two feet from Hoare. They would have heard his initial order, but, as they had been taught, refrained from complying until they heard Clay's clear command. There being no signal midshipman at hand, Clay bent the Union Jack to its halliard himself and ran it up to Royal Duke's gaff.
Hoare watched, watched, waited, eyes fixed on the other ship, judging their relative positions, courses and speeds, counting seconds with snap, snap, snap of his fingers as he had been taught when still a junior mid. Having the inner one of the double curve the two vessels were drawing across the midnight sea, Royal Duke visibly fore- reached upon the Chasse-maree, while each of the two closed upon the other. By the time they were abeam, both were sailing on a broad reach, the Frenchman taking some of Royal Duke's wind and commencing to draw ahead. By the nature of things, she was heeling toward the brig; in daylight, Hoare would have had a clear view of her cargo of privateersman. As it was, Hoare could hear the sound of the many men aboard her, as they nerved themselves to board.
He shut one eye. Thrusting two fingers into his mouth, he gave the shrill, piercing whistle that on this occasion his gun crews knew meant 'Fire!'
Mr. Clay's command, unneeded, was drowned in the near-simultaneous crack of Royal Duke's larboard battery-all four laughable four-pounders. Hoare opened his shielded eye. The faint afterglow of the burning powder sufficed to give him a brief picture of the broadside's effect on the Chasse-maree.
Of the four chain shot, one must have gone astray, but the other three had done their duty, and more. One had struck the fore lugsail yard near where it met its mast, and left the sail drooping, useless. A second had struck the forestay, leaving the already weakened foremast unstayed forward, and the lugger herself without a rag drawing forward of her undamaged mainsail. The third ball must have struck in the neighborhood of her steering position, for Hoare could see a mass of heaving confusion about her wheel and could imagine cries of pain and rage. Her colors-the Tricolor, thank God-still flew.
It had been an absolute freak of luck, Hoare knew. Even at so close a range-point-blank musket shot and no more-he would have been overjoyed to see even two shots from his landlubber-manned popgun crews even hit the enemy. Well…
'Rule Britannia, and take no prisoners!' he felt impelled to shout. Being unable to shout, he successfully suppressed the impulse, thanking himself fleetingly for his muteness. Such a command would have doomed Royal Duke's gentle little crew, their ship, and its cargo of secrets.
As it was, Hoare could have asked for no better. Wheel or no wheel, nothing could have prevented the Frenchman, with no foresail to keep her off the wind, from losing way and falling into the wind, where she hung. There she lay, helpless against a second, raking broadside, as Royal Duke continued on course.
'We have her!' Mr. Clay roared, pounding his little fist on Royal Duke's rail.
'Steady as you go! Reload!' Mr. Clay roared into the reddened darkness. The four gun crews commenced to scuttle about the darkened deck, preparing to reload.
'Cease fire, Mr. Clay!' Hoare ordered. 'Secure from quarters, and resume our original course!'
'Sir! I protest!'
'Do as I've ordered, sir!' Hoare croaked, as forcefully as his scarred throat would allow. 'Do not dismiss the watch below. I'll explain when we have stood down.'
Grumbling audibly, the gun crews secured their popguns, closed the ports on both sides of the brig, and returned the rounds of chain shot to their waiting-grooves.
'A word in your ear, Mr. Clay.' Hoare bent to that ear so he could be heard, and conducted his seething officer to the slight lee offered by Royal Duke's coach-house coaming.
'Think, sir. What would have been the outcome if our people were to give battle against more than thrice our number of enraged, experienced, greedy privateersman? Why, we would have been overwhelmed within minutes, and our survivors under hatches.'
'I had not…'
'I know, Mr. Clay. You were carried away by the rage of battle. I understand, and I honor you for it. No one, no one, could doubt your courage. But there's more, sir-a truly compelling reason why I turned away when I did. You… will remember at least as well as I the Admiralty's original stricture against our going to sea at all under our own control, and their lordships' reasons for the prohibition… With that in mind, how, pray, would you explain even a victory when you gave your report to our masters? 'You,' I say, for… I assure you that honor would not permit me to survive long enough to give it myself.' Hoare meant this with all his heart. His demeanor must have showed it, for his little lieutenant hung his head.
'I did not think, sir. I… as you say, I was carried away by the heat of battle.'
'Now, Mr. Clay,' Hoare went on, 'I must do my best to persuade our people that my refusal to do battle was not mere poltroonery… but was in the best interest of the service. And I must ask you, once again, to act as my mouthpiece… whatever your true feelings may be.' With that, he had Mr. Clay summon the Royal Dukes to the purely imaginary break of the quarterdeck.
A child could have sensed the feelings that radiated from them as they stood there in the dark of the night- shame, scorn, thwarted greed. Given a lead, there would be shot rolling about the deck, the private signal that was so often the precursor of mutiny. These people had wanted to conquer, kill, and loot. The urge to violence was all the greater, perhaps, for the memory of the contemptuous laughter from the observing men-o'-war in Portsmouth harbor, when they made their first feeble, laughable attempt to handle Royal Duke. 'The Dustbins' had been the least insulting of the watchers' mocking appellations. Now, their own commander had thwarted them. During the next few minutes, Hoare must explain himself convincingly, or his command was dead and rotting.
So, without rodomontade, he set out, with Clay's big voice at his side booming out his words, to tell his people why he had turned tail in the face of the enemy instead of leading them into what they had been sure was certain, easy victory. First, though, he praised them for the calmness and order with which they had mustered in the dark and delivered the first broadside Royal Duke had ever delivered in anger. Then he asked them, as he had Clay, what outcome they, a mere thirty-odd, could have expected from battle against a hundred enemies-enemies who were not cowed but enraged.
'I ask you this,' he said, 'now that the thing is over and you've had a chance to cool down.'
'We coulda taken 'em,' came a voice; there were mutters of agreement.
'They'd'a made mincemeat of us, ye lubbers.' Hoare recognized Bold's deep voice.
'Aye.' That was Slopey, the brig's Oriental; Hoare had yet to determine if he was Chinese or Japanese. They all looked alike to him.
Now he reminded them of the vast treasure of vital knowledge they themselves had created and bore with them, and confessed to his own madness at having put their creation at risk. In all truth, now that the encounter was past, the thought of his recklessness appalled Hoare, and he said as much.
His offer to hear questions resulted in a few of them. Most had to do with what he thought of the crew's behavior, especially that of the individual questioners. He repeated his praise. One remark he found tough to handle.
'Ogle, sir, private of marines.'
