had not been heard of since.
Now she was back. And she was here.
Jago said, “Cut down, she is.” He rubbed his chin, a rasping sound like an armourer’s iron. “But still, she could give a fair account of herself. And with that other little bugger in company.”
Adam tried to put himself in the enemy’s position, assessing the distant vessels as if he were looking down on them. Like impersonal markers on an admiral’s chart. The brig would be sacrificed first. She had to be, if the bigger ship was indeed loaded with supplies and powder for others still sheltering in Algiers, enjoying what Bethune had called the Dey’s one-sided neutrality. After losing La Fortune to such a calculated trick, they would be doubly eager to even the score.
On a converging tack, both close-hauled, but the enemy would have the wind’s advantage. And there was not enough time to replace the fore-topgallant sail.
Galbraith had joined him, his face full of questions.
Adam asked, “How long, d’ you think?”
Galbraith looked up at the masthead pendant, flapping and drooping. How could the wind have change so completely?
He answered, “An hour. No more.” He hesitated. “She has the wind-gage, sir.”
“It’s the little terrier which concerns me. We shortened sail in time last night. But our lady will be hard put to lift her skirts in a hurry!” He studied the set of each sail, the yards braced round. The wind would decide it. “I want to hit them before they can do too much damage.”
The men at the quarterdeck nine-pounders glanced at one another. Too much damage. Not just timber and cordage, but flesh and blood.
Adam walked to the compass box and back again. “Our best shots must be all about today, Mr Galbraith.” He smiled suddenly. “A guinea for the man who marks down the captain. Theirs, not ours!”
Some of those same men actually laughed aloud. Captain Bouverie would not approve of such slack behaviour aboard Matchless.
He turned aside. “Be watchful of powder. The decks will soon be bone dry. One spark…” He did not need to continue.
He took a glass and held it to his eye; it was already warm against his skin.
Three ships, drawing together as if by invisible warps. Soon to be close, real, deadly.
I must not fail. Must not.
But his voice sounded flat and without emotion, betraying nothing of his thoughts.
“Load in ten minutes, Mr Galbraith. But do not run out. Let the people take their time. Gunnery is God today!”
If I fall. He had his hand on his pocket and could feel the locket there, carefully wrapped. Who would care?
He thought suddenly of the old house, empty now, except for the portraits. Waiting.
They would care.
It was time.
Galbraith glanced quickly at his captain and then leaned over the quarterdeck rail.
The final scrutiny. There was always the chance of a flaw in the rigid pattern of battle.
Decks sanded, particularly around each gun, to prevent men from slipping in the madness of action on blown spray or blood. Nets had been spread above the deck to protect the gun crews and sail-handling parties from falling debris, and impede any enemy reckless enough to try and board them.
The gunner and his mates had already gone to the magazine to prepare and issue charges to the powder monkeys, most of whom were mere boys. With no experience to plague them, they were less concerned than some of the older hands, who would look for reassurance at familiar faces around them, every man very aware of the two pyramids of sail, so much nearer now, although seemingly motionless on the glistening water.
Galbraith shouted, “All guns load!”
Each eighteen-pounder was an island, its crew oblivious to the rest. Just as during the constant drills when they had roundly cursed every officer from the captain downwards, they were testing the training tackles, casting off the heavy breeching ropes, freeing the guns for loading. That too was a routine, a ritual, the bulky charge taken by the assistant loader from the breathless powder monkey, to be eased into the waiting muzzle and tamped home by the loader. No mistakes. Two sharp knocks to bed it in, and a wad tamped in to secure it.
Experienced gun captains had already selected their shots from the garlands, holding each ball, weighing it, feeling it, making sure it was a perfect shape, for the opening roar of battle.
It had all been done deliberately and without haste, and Galbraith knew why the captain had ordered them to take their time, for this first attempt at least. Now there was a stillness, each crew grouped around its gun, every captain staring aft at the blue and white figures of discipline and authority. As familiar as the guns which were their reason for being, in the company of which they greeted every dawn, and which were constant reminders of a ship’s hard comradeship.
And yet despite the toughness of such men, Galbraith knew the other side of the coin. Like the seaman who had been lost overboard, without even a cry. Later there would be a sale of his few possessions, before the mast, as they called it, and messmates and others who had barely known him would dip into their purses and pay exorbitant prices so that money could be sent to a wife or mother somewhere in that other world.
He turned and looked at his captain, speaking quietly with the master, gesturing occasionally as if to emphasise something. He gazed at the oncoming vessels. The moment of embrace. There would be more possessions to bargain for if today turned sour on them.
He blinked as a shaft of sunlight glanced down between the braced yards. The smaller vessel had tacked, widening the distance from her consort. The terrier, the captain had called her. Ready to dart in and snap at Unrivalled’s vulnerable stern and quarter. One shot could do it: a vital spar, or worse, damage to the rudder and steering gear would end the fight before Unrivalled had bared her teeth. He looked at the captain again. He would know. His first command had been a brig. He had been twenty-three, someone had said. He would know…
The enemy had the advantage of the wind, and yet Captain Adam Bolitho showed no sign of anxiety.
“We will load both broadsides and engage first at full range, gun by gun. Tell the second lieutenant to sight each one himself. We will then luff, and if the wind is kind to us we can rake the enemy with the other full broadside.”
Galbraith dragged his mind back to the present. Extra hands at the foremast ready to set the big forecourse, until now brailed up like the others. With the fore-topgallant sail missing, they would need every cupful of wind when they came about. And even then…
Adam called, “Open the ports!”
He imagined the port lids lifting along either beam, could see the water creaming past the lee side. Unrivalled was leaning over, and she would lean still further when they set the forecourse. He had guessed what Galbraith was thinking. If the wind deserted them now, the enemy ships could divide and outmanoeuvre him. He touched his pocket again. If not, the long eighteen-pounders on the weather side, at full elevation, would outrange the others. He smiled. So easily said…
Cristie had told him something about the Tetrarch which he had not known. She had been in a state of near mutiny when she had been attacked by the French frigates. Another bad captain, he thought, like Reaper, in which the company had mutinied against their captain’s inhuman treatment and had joined together to flog him to death. Reaper was back with the fleet now, commanded by a good officer, a friend of Adam’s, but he doubted that she would ever entirely cleanse herself of the stigma.
And Tetrarch might be the same. Her armament had been reduced in order to allow for more hold space, but she could give a good account of herself.
He looked up at the black, vibrating shrouds, the soft underbelly of the maintopsail, seeing it in his mind even now. Anemone torn apart by the American’s heavy artillery. Men falling and dying. Because of me.
He squared his shoulders, and felt his shirt drag against the ragged scar where the iron splinter had cut him down.
It was enough.
He said, “Run out!”
Every spare man, even the Royal Marines were on the tackles, hauling the guns up the tilting deck to thrust their black muzzles through the ports. The enemy was faceless, unknown. But it would be madness to show
