A Brig of War

waited for her 'friend' to approach. 'Duw', Nathaniel, tell them not to be so damned fast aloft.'

Drinkwater grinned and raised the speaking trumpet.

'Fore t'gallant there, take your time, you are supposed to be Frenchmen!' He could see from the attitudes of the men aloft who shouted remarks to their mates on the main topgallant that the business amused them. The obvious high spirits and exaggerated pantomime that followed this order spoke of a soaring morale amongst the hands at the prospect of action. Battle, conducted in such a spirit in such a breeze and in such brilliant sunshine could not fail to be exhilarating.

'That's better,' nodded Griffiths approvingly. 'Take station on the poop, Mr Drinkwater, when he is abeam I shall open fire then wear downwind. It means exposing the stern but I doubt he'll take advantage of it. Wave your hat as we pass, bach, do your best to look French.'

Rogers came aft and reported the larboard battery ready as directed.

Drinkwater wondered if the French squadron included a brig like themselves. If not then they were going to look decidedly foolish in a quarter of an hour. Astern of them Yusuf ben Ibrahim was dropping into Hellebore's wake. He would be mystified as to their intentions unless he guessed from the tricolour now snapping out over the quarter. Yusuf might ruin their deception but then he might also enhance it, appearing to the approaching Frenchman like his own captured dhows. Drinkwater shivered slightly in his shirtsleeves. He waited impatiently for the order to open fire. Drinkwater motioned to the men at the after starboard guns. 'Stand by to brail in the spanker there!'

He saw them grin, glad of something to do while their mates in the larboard battery went into action.

The dhows ahead had dropped back while the French corvette came on suspiciously, a private signal flying from her foremast. Drinkwater saw Mr Quilhampton instructed to hoist a string of meaningless bunting. As the enemy signal flew almost directly towards them a little confusion might be permitted. The two vessels were a mile apart now, the Frenchman broad on Hellebore's larboard bow. The brig had slowed without her topgallants and she lay in wait for her opponent, her guns still hidden and several of the lar-bowlines hanging casually in the rigging waving.

To the Frenchman the brig lay off his bow, supinely furling her upper sails, men congregating about her decks while he came down before the wind to pass close under the stranger's stern where he could take her if she ultimately proved to be an enemy. But no enemy, least of all a British captain, would lay so passively before a windward foe. It was a deception lent piquancy by the remoteness of their location, and the belief, briefly true, that Egypt was a possession of France.

Drinkwater saw the corvette take in her own topgallants, as if about to round to and hail her 'compatriot'. His heart was thumping with excitement. He knew in a moment the weeks of waiting, of struggling off the Cape, of listening to the sweaty moanings of the members of the gunroom, of solving the problem of the hands, of Dalziell and of Catherine Best, would all dissolve in the drug-like excitement of action. There was also the possibility that they might find a permanent solution in death. He felt dreadfully exposed as fear and exhilaration fought for possession of him. He remembered an old promise to Elizabeth that he would be circumspect and run no needless risk. The recollection brought a rueful smile to his face.

The gun crew waiting at the mainmast fiferails for his order nudged one another and grinned too, taking encouragement from Drinkwater's apparent eagerness, seeing in his introspection their own relief at imminent action. For them action meant an interruption of the endless round of drudgery, of hauling and pumping that was their life, an opportunity to throw off the fear of the lash, to swear and kill to their heart's content.

'Brail in the spanker!' Drinkwater nodded to the men watching him. The outhaul was started and the huge sail billowed, flapped and was drawn to the mast, by the helm, Griffiths corrected the rudder for that loss of pressure aft. Drinkwater took off his hat and waved it with assumed Gallic enthusiasm about his head.

'Dip the ensign,' he ordered and the quartermaster at the peak halliards lowered the tricolour a fathom. Perhaps, by such a refinement, if the enemy captain did not expect to see a French brig hereabouts, he might be fooled into thinking it was a new arrival paying her respects to an old Red Sea hand.

The enemy ship was very close now. Men could be seen on her topgallant yards looking curiously across at them and Drinkwater heard a thin cry of 'Bonjour mes enfants.'

From the main topgallant he heard the ever resourceful Tregembo yell back 'Vive la République,'

The cheer that erupted from the enemy was echoed by the Hellebores whose joy at achieving such a complete deception lent their mad excitement a true imitation of revolutionary fervour.

'Braces there,' growled Griffiths in a low and penetrating voice. Drinkwater saw a French officer on the quarter-rail bowing. He swept his own hat across his chest in response. 'Bonne chance!' he yelled across the diminishing gap between them. An angle of sixty degrees lay between the ships, with every one of Hellebore's guns levelled at that crowded rail.

'Colours!'

Griffiths threw aside the mask.

Above their heads Old Glory replaced the half lowered tricolour. The gunports snapped open.

'Fire!'

The gun captains jerked their lanyards as the crews leapt back to the deck and grabbed rammers, swabs and buckets. The charring of the port lintels was quickly extinguished as the men toiled to reload.

'Up helm! Braces there! Wear ship!'

Hellebore turned, pointing her vulnerable stern at the Frenchman but avoiding the ignominious possibility of failing to tack. Griffiths had gambled on his plan working and, had it not done so, he had only to stand on and carry himself swiftly out of range. But a single glance astern told the ruse had been complete. Details were obscure but amidships the corvette's rail was a splintered and jagged shambles. The human wreckage behind that smashed timber could be imagined.

'Aloft there, let fall! Let fall!' Tregembo and his mates slipped the topgallant gaskets and the sails fell in folds.

'Leggo bunt and clewlines there! Sheet home!'

Hellebore was before the wind and still turning, bringing the wind first astern and then round, broad on the starboard quarter. Drinkwater descended from the tiny poop. 'The advantage of surprise, sir,' he said.

Griffiths nodded, his mouth suppressing a grim smile of self-congratulation. 'Do unto others, Mr Drinkwater, before they do unto you… clew up the foresail, I intend to rake.'

'Aye, aye, sir. D'you intend boarding?' Griffiths shook his head.

'Too great a risk of heavy casualties. Flesh wounds'll be the very devil to heal in this climate. No, we'll stand off and pound him.' Griffiths nodded to the distant Ben Ibrahim. 'He's playing a waiting game.'

They clewed up the forecourse as they made to cut across the corvette's stern. She was still running before the wind though many ropes had been severed at the pin rails on deck. Smoke appeared from her guns now as she attempted to halt the Nemesis that bore relentlessly down upon her. Then they were suddenly very close to her, surging across her stern, masking her from the wind. Rogers was shouting and running aft, commanding each gun to fire as it bore into the corvette's stern. Drinkwater read La Torride a split second before it was blown to atoms, saw the crown glass windows of her cabin shatter and the neat carvings about her quarters disintegrate into splinters. A row of men with pistols and muskets fired at the British ship as she rushed past and the hat that he had so insouciantly waved but a few moments ago was torn from his head. He aimed his own pistols, his mouth pulled back in a grimace. Then Griffiths was putting Hellebore on a parallel course with the Frenchman.

'Starbowlines to larboard!' Drinkwater roared. As if eagerly awaiting the call the frustrated men from the starboard guns hopped nimbly across the deck to fling their weight on the tackles of the larboard six pounders.

La Torride fired her starboard battery as the brig overtook and a storm of shot poured across Hellebore's deck. Men were flung back clutching their heads and bellies. One stood staring at a vacant arm socket and from aloft a body fell on the deck with an obscene impact.

But the surprise of Hellebore's manoeuvre had robbed the French of their greater weight of metal. The sudden appearance of a British cruiser had utterly surprised them, the more particularly as they had known Blankett's squadron did not include a brig. To this psychological advantage the British had added