The Old Vengeful

Fortune—

including the good Dr Pike—' he pointed to the surgeon's box

'—the worst storm of the year started to blow up ... Is that the size of it?' He bent over the type-script again. 'Where is it, now? Ah . . . ' leaving the victor in a more desperate case than the vanquished, partially dismasted, and her remaining sails, spars and rigging much cut about' —that was because the French aimed for the masts, on the up-roll, and the British aimed for the hull, on the down-roll ... I'm getting the picture, you see . . . and that also accounted for the disproportionate casualties the French usually suffered, I suppose. Although your father is a bit imprecise on them—in fact, he's a bit vague about Number Seven's last voyage in general, wouldn't you say? Compared with the other chapters' He cocked a critical eyebrow at her.

'Oh, I wouldn't say that.' And yet there was a germ of truth in it, thought Elizabeth. 'It was maybe . . . more conjectural than the others—'

'Conjectural? All right, I'll settle for that: conjectural, then?'

'There was a reason for that.' He was smart, but not quite smart enough. 'Everything about that last voyage came from the Court of Inquiry, after the Fortune' was lost on the way home, on the Horse Sands off Portsmouth—in the same storm that drove the Vengeful ashore on the French coast ...

So it all comes from those four survivors' testimony, Paul.'

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'Oh . . .' His face changed, almost comically. 'Yes, of course

— I'm a bit slow, aren't I!' He hid his confusion in a further study of the type-script. 'Four survivors . . . one carpenter's mate . . . and three illiterate able seamen—yes . . . and it was the carpenter's mate who let slip about how rotten the Vengeful's timbers were—how one of the French 24-lb cannon balls went right through her, from side to side, just about the water-line—'

'You don't need to look—I remember it all.' She fired on the down-roll.

'You do?' He looked up, making no pretence of hiding his defeat. 'Tell me then, Elizabeth dear—?'

It was impossible to resist that look. 'I had to type that chapter out again because Father wasn't satisfied with the carbon copies, that's why I remember. . . When the French surrendered Captain Williams was dead, and his first and second lieutenants were both dying—the French captain was dead too ... and they had to put the prize crew on the Fortune

—and they didn't really have enough men left for that—'

'They should have abandoned the Vengeful—that would be the third lieutenant who was in command—?'

'He couldn't do that. He'd never have got his wounded off, not in that weather and with darkness so close.' Elizabeth shook her head. She could recall even now, from the typing and re-typing of that passage, how she had felt for poor young Lieutenant Chipperfield in the nightmare of his first command as Father had imagined it: the two battered dummy3

frigates, both holed below the water-line, the screaming wounded . . . nearly a third of his own crew and more than half the Frenchman's dead and injured . . . and the dismounted cannon rolling around the decks as the gale rose, and with night falling. 'All he had time to do was to get the prize-crew across, Paul. It was the only thing he could do.'

'It was still the wrong decision. He should have concentrated on saving one of them—instead of which he lost both.' He stared at her for a moment, and then through her as his own imagination began to work. 'But maybe you're right... It's all too bloody easy to sit here in quiet and comfort, sipping our sherry, and making all the right decisions—same with my war, the '14-'18 . . . all too bloody easy . . .'

It was very quiet on the terrace. Elizabeth felt the tranquillity of the evening all around her, not only in the silence itself but also in the peaceful protcctiveness of the old stone house and the great comforting curve of the downland ridge above them, in which the house nestled; and she could smell the evening smells, of honeysuckle and thyme and lavender.

But it was a false tranquillity—false both because their thoughts were concentrated on battle and sudden death, and pain and fear long ago . . . and because there were men on that hill, the child had said, and they recalled her mind to sudden death and fear and pain in the present.

She shivered, and found that he was looking at her again.

'Sorry—I was . . . thinking.' He straightened up. 'And for dummy3

thoughts there is drink! I'll have another—and will you change your mind?'

'I'll have a small sherry, Paul.'

'Good! So ... next morning the Vengeful had disappeared, and the prize-crew reckoned she'd gone down in the night, and it was all they could do to stay afloat anyway . . . there—

one small sherry! So they beat it as best they could for Portsmouth, only to come to grief themselves on the Horse Sands, which would have been in sight of home if it hadn't been midnight in another howling gale, poor devils . . . poor brave devils! Hence . . . one carpenter's mate and three seamen left to tell the tale.' He raised his glass in a silent toast. 'But the Vengeful didn't go down that night, did she!

She lasted three whole days, before she piled up on—where was it?'

'Somewhere among the rocks of Les Echoux, Father thought.

From where the survivors finally came ashore on the coast near Coutances, he thought they might have been making for one of the Channel Islands.'

'They had the damnedest luck too. If it hadn't been for the weather they might have made it. Instead of which . . . just another couple of forgotten epics. And two more for your statistics, Elizabeth—one French battle casualty and one English shipwreck. But two epics, nevertheless.'

She was glad that he'd got the point, which Father himself had been at pains to make, that the saga of the Vengeful and the Fortune deserved to be told for its own sake