The shadow of the eagle

iron rain!'

'Mind your manners,' McCann responded morosely and then found himself confronted by Lieutenant Ashton.

'Silence there!' Ashton ordered, obstructing the marine. 'Well, McCann, what the deuce are you doing down here?'

McCann recognized provocation in Ashton's voice. 'Checking the sentries, sir, on the orders of Lieutenant Hyde.'

Are you, indeed ...?'

'If you'll excuse me, sir ...'

Ashton drew aside with deliberate slowness. 'Off you go, Sergeant Yankee.'

McCan paused and confronted the urbane Ashton. With difficulty he mastered his flaring anger, though his eyes betrayed him, allowing Ashton to add insolently, 'Have a care, Yankee, have a care.'

McCann turned and almost ran aft up the companionway, gasping in the sunlight and fresh air, as if he had escaped the contagion of a plague-pit. He had no idea why Ashton had staged the unpleasant little scene, but it crystallized all the pent up venom in McCann's tortured soul. As for Ashton, idling away the time before Andromeda resumed the action, he felt little beyond a petty amusement that might have been nothing more than the result of mere high spirits and the elation of a man carried away by the excitement of the morning, if it had not had such fatal consequences.

As Andromeda slowly overhauled the Gremyashchi, Drinkwater strove to make some sense out of the situation. Astern of the British frigate, L'Aigle and Arbeille were coming up hand over fist, though they would not reach Andromeda before she herself was in range of the Russian. It was clear Rakov, who could have brought Drinkwater to battle within a few moments by reducing sail, was content to trail his coat, drawing the British after him, in the hope that he could pin Andromeda long enough for the two French ships to come up and overwhelm her.

In short, it seemed to the anxious Drinkwater that, having won a brief advantage, he was now allowing himself to be drawn into a trap which could have only one consequence. His alternative was to put the wind a point abaft the beam and escape on Andromeda's fastest point of sailing. Within this tactical debate there lurked a small political imperative. Rather than run, Drinkwater considered whether to back his hunch, or not. If he proved right, then he might yet extricate his ship from what otherwise seemed her inevitable humiliation. There was something about Rakov's trailing away to the north that did not quite square with the setting of a trap. Drinkwater could not quite put his finger on his reason for thinking thus, beyond an intuition; perhaps that first raking broadside of Andromeda's had had an effect, and perhaps the damage had been more moral than physical.

Captain Count Rakov had been sent with his ship to prevent Drinkwater from thwarting the Tsar's plan. That much was obvious; but what were Rakov's rules of engagement? It was inconceivable that having chased Andromeda out to the Azores, he did not have any! But was Rakov empowered to destroy a British man-of-war? Such an event would at the very least cause a rupture between London and St Petersburg and might be a casus belli, touching off a new European war. As matters stood, the exchange of fire between Gremyashchi and Andromeda could be written off as 'accidental', an unfortunate misunderstanding which both governments regretted profoundly.

Drinkwater lowered his glass, his mind made up. He was lucky, damned lucky. As things stood at that precise moment, he had enough room to call Rakov's bluff.

'Mr Birkbeck!'

'Sir?'

'Wear ship! I want to pass between those two Frenchmen. Mr Marlowe! Mr Hyde! D'you hear?'

'Aye, aye, sir!'

'Mr Paine, be so kind as to let the officers on the gun-deck know my intentions.'

The cries of acknowledgement were followed by a flurry of activity as Andromeda gave up her chase and prepared to turn to bite her own pursuers. While his action with Gremyashchi could be dressed up as a regrettable incident, L'Aigle and Arbeille both now flew an outlawed flag. 'Mr Protheroe,' he called to an elderly master's mate who ran up and touched his fore-cock. 'Be so kind as to make a log entry to the effect that the frigate of which we are in pursuit has been determined to be unequivocally Russian, we have broken off the chase and intend to proceed to compel the two privateers formerly in company with her and sheltering under her colours, to strike the former French tricolour which they promptly hoisted when the Russian frigate stood away from them.' Poor Protheroe looked confused and nodded uncomprehendingly. 'Write it down, man, quickly now ...'

Flustered, Protheroe finally complied and Drinkwater repeated his formal explanation. If he fell in the next two or three hours, posterity would have that much 'fact' to chew upon.

'I have it, sir,' Protheroe acknowledged. Such a veneer of legality would suffice. But if Rakov followed him round to close the trap, Drinkwater would know the worst. Birkbeck was looking at him expectantly.

'Ready, Mr Birkbeck?'

'Aye, sir.'

'Very well. Carry on.'

'Up helm!' Birkbeck sang out, and the shadows of the masts, sails and stays once more waltzed across the white planking as Andromeda answered her rudder and turned about.

All four ships were now reaching across the north-westerly wind, the Russian heading north-north-east, with the Arbeille and L'Aigle on a similar course, but some three miles to the southward of the Gremyashchi. Between them Andromeda now headed back to the south, her course laid for the gap between the two French ships. At the same moment Drinkwater saw the folly of this move Birkbeck made the suggestion to pass downwind of the leeward ship, the weaker corvette Arbeille, a suggestion Drinkwater instantly sanctioned, it having occurred to him simultaneously.

'You know my mind, Mr Birkbeck, but feint at the gap and make them think they have us.' Drinkwater could hardly believe his luck. On a reciprocal course it was not unreasonable for an arrogant British officer to take his ship between two of the enemy and while it exposed her to two broadsides, it allowed the single ship the opportunity to fire into both enemy ships at the same time and thus double her chances of inflicting damage. But by suddenly slipping across the bow of the leeward ship, he would place the Arbeille in the field of fire of L'Aigle and thus deprive Contre-Amiral Lejeune of the heavier guns of the bigger vessel.

Drinkwater ran forward to the waist and bellowed below. Frey's face appeared, then that of Ashton. 'Starboard guns, Mr Frey: double shot 'em and lay them horizontally; zero elevation!'

'Aye, aye, sir!'

Ashton looked crestfallen. 'You'll get your turn in a moment or two, Mr Ashton, don't you worry.'

They were rushing down towards the enemy now and Drinkwater resumed his station, casting a look astern at the Gremyashchi; she remained standing northwards. Rakov was detaching himself. At least for the time being. A sudden, sanguine elation seized Drinkwater, the excitement of the gambler whose hunch is that if he stakes everything upon the next throw of the dice, all will be well. It was a flawed, illogical and misplaced confidence, he knew, but he dare not deny himself its comfort in that moment of anxious decision.

But then he felt the unavoidable, reactive visceral gripe of fear and foreboding. There were no certainties in a sea-battle, and providence was not so easily seduced.

CHAPTER 17 Sauce for the Goose