Ebb tide

mark five!' and they were over the bank and ahead of them they could just see the low stump of the brick tower daymark on the Naze of Essex. Drinkwater, his knees knocking uncomfortably, altered course a touch and looked astern. His plan had almost worked, but the big lugger had seen the trap just in time and bore away, to run north, round the extremity of the bank, losing ground to the escaping cutter. It was not so very remarkable, for the commander of so large a lugger would know these waters far better than Drinkwater, who was relying upon knowledge learned thirty years earlier in the buoy-yachts of the Trinity House. Nevertheless, they had increased their lead and every mile brought them nearer the English coast and the presence of a British man-o'-war out of Harwich to the north-west of them.

The wind had steadied now, a topsail breeze which, in the lee of the Longsand, drove Kestrel homewards with inspiriting speed. Drinkwater forgot his exhaustion in the joy of handling the little cutter and for a few moments scarcely thought about her pursuers until the anxious looks of the men on deck again drew his attention to them. He turned and looked over his shoulder.

The two enemy luggers were closer together now and were setting more sail, clear evidence that they were determined to overhaul Kestrel before she made it into Harwich harbour.

'They must know of the quality of our passengers,' he muttered grimly, for this was surely no mere retribution for the death of a handful of hussars or British insolence in the entrance to Calais. And then he recalled the man who had watched them from the extremity of the Calais jetty, and wondered who or what he was and whether he had anything to do with this determined pursuit.

Drinkwater had hoped that he might lure the larger of the two luggers over the Longsand so that she ran aground, and in doing so he had let Kestrel sag off to the west a little. With the flood tide now running into the Thames estuary from the north, he had to regain that deliberately sacrificed northing, sailing across the tide while the French luggers already had that advantage from their forced diversion round the seawards extremity of the shoal. There was, however, a further obstacle behind which he would feel safe. If he could hire the luggers on to the Stone Banks, to the east of the Naze, he could shoot north into Harwich through the Medusa Channel.

The idea filled him with fresh hope and he laid a course for the Sunk alarm vessel, lying to her great chain mooring and flying the red ensign of the Trinity House. She lay ahead, with her bow canted slightly across the tide under the influence of the strong southerly breeze. She was a fortuitous seamark and one which the Frenchmen might even attack if they were frustrated in their pursuit of Kestrel.

For another twenty minutes they ran on, the luggers still gaining slowly, though now heeled under a vast press of canvas. As the range closed, Drinkwater called the crew to their stations for action and Frey, blear-eyed and looking far worse than if he had never slept, staggered out on deck, followed by the boy Charles.

'Send the lad below,' Drinkwater began, but it was too late. The boy had seen the luggers and glimpsed the large tricolours, and his face betrayed his fear.

'It's to be a damned close-run thing, Frey. We might make it into the Medusa Channel, we might not, but I think you had better...'

'You keep the helm, sir, now you have it. I'll send two men aft to trim sheets, then I'll fight the ship,' and without another word Frey swung away to see to the loading of the swivels and the mustering of the men with their small arms.

Drinkwater leaned on the tiller and, as Jago and a man named Cornford came aft, he ordered a little weight taken in on the main-sheet. Kestrel dashed through the water and a gleam of sun came through the clouds to turn to silver the spray driving away from the lee bow, making a brief rainbow with its appearance. Looking astern, terns dipped unconcernedly in their wake, while a fulmar quartered the sea in a single swoop. The fulmar caught Drinkwater's eye, swept down and upwards, away across the dark, predatory shape of the luggers' sails, absorbed only in its ceaseless quest for food and quite unaware of the grim game of life and death being played by the men in the three vessels below.

The nearer and larger of the two luggers was driving a bow wave before her that rose almost under her gammon iron. Her sails were stiff as boards and, even at the distance of a mile, Drinkwater could see the three great yards which spread her sails bending under the strain. If only, he thought, if only one would carry away.

But they stood, as did the lighter topsail yards above them, and the Frenchman loomed ever larger as the distance between them shrank and their courses converged. Drinkwater stared forward again and saw the tall lantern mast of the Sunk alarm vessel also growing in size as they rapidly closed the distance. He was aiming Kestrel's bowsprit for the bow of the anchored vessel, hoping to draw his pursuer in close enough for him to lose his nerve and bear away again as the tide swept them down on to the alarm vessel. It was an old trick, learned, like so much else he had used recently, in the buoy-yachts a lifetime ago, to determine the position of the alarm vessel's anchor by sailing up-tide of her, when any prudent mariner would pass down-tide, under her stern.

Forward, Frey turned and stared aft, suddenly alert to the danger into which they stood. Seeing Drinkwater confidently aware of how close they were going to pass the alarm vessel, he relaxed and made some remark to the hands who looked aft and laughed. But Drinkwater was too tense even to notice. Every muscle he could command was strained with the business of holding Kestrel on her course without deviation, gauging the exact strength of the lateral shift of the racing hull under the influence of the tide, yet making allowances for the quartering sea which created a gentle see-sawing yaw. He could see the hull of the Sunk now and the men lining her rail as the three vessels closed, and at that moment, the first gun was fired. The shot passed across Kestrels deck, right under the boom and out over the port side, to be lost somewhere in the choppy seas on their port beam.

'God's bones!' Drinkwater blasphemed, as the wind of the shot's passing distracted him. The next second he was aware of a ragged cheer from the crew of the alarm vessel and the rash of a red hull and slimy green weed along a waterline that passed in a blur as the cutter dashed across the tide and was suddenly under the Sunk's high bow. Then there seemed a number of cries of alarm, of crashes and the thud of another gun, of a great rushing to starboard and more shots, of pistols and the starboard swivels all barking at once in a moment of packed incident in which he took no part, rooted as he was to the heavy tiller. All he saw as they tore past the alarm vessel was the great iron chain of the Sunk stretching down to the anchor in the seabed below them. Then they had run beyond the Sunk's bow and he relaxed, looking round to watch the strength of the tide as it bore them sideways and as the apparent motion made the alarm vessel seem to cross their own stern. He looked round for their nearer pursuer. She had been unable to pass up-tide of the alarm vessel and had been compelled to haul her wind and duck under the Sunk's stern. In doing so she had passed so close that she had exposed herself to one of the alarm vessel's carronades, mounted as a warning gun but loaded with an extempore charge of debris. The discharge of old nails and broken glass tore through the lugger's straining foresail as she bore up too much. As a consequence, her stern brushed the alarm vessel's hull and her mizen snagged it Her after rigging was torn away, dragging the whole mizen, mast, sail and yard with it. As she broke away from the Sunk, the lugger left white canvas fluttering from the stem of the alarm vessel and with it her tricoloured ensign. Of the second lugger, all that could be seen was the peak of her sails to the south-east as she reached across the wind, anxiously watching the fate of her consort.

'Harden in those sheets!' Drinkwater roared, pushing the tiller with all his might. 'Stand by to tack ship!'

Instantly Frey divined Drinkwater's intentions. 'Prepare those starboard swivels! Get those port swivels mounted over here!'

Kestrel dipped into the wind with a flogging of her sails and paid off on the other tack. Runners were set up and let go, the sheets shifted and slackened as Kestrel spun to port, swung off the wind and ran back towards her late tormentor. Confusion reigned on the deck of the chasse marée as Kestrel passed on the opposite tack, spattering her with small-arms fire and raking her with the swivels.

'Here, Jago!' Drinkwater tossed the seaman one of his pistols and Jago aimed and fired it into the throng of men struggling to bring their lugger under command again. Seeing the pitiful sight and the execution done to the lugger's decks, Drinkwater noted the mainsail had ripped badly so that she was almost immobilized.

'How I wish we had one decent gun,' be lamented to himself, but Frey had had all four swivels discharge into the enemy as they passed and the carnage was bad enough. The second lugger was a mile away now, and stood steadily south-eastwards. Drinkwater pursued her for a while and had the satisfaction of chasing her from the field before he turned back towards their erstwhile enemy. The larger chaste marée was