‘Carry on, Mr Pullings. Check all breechings and shot-?racks. You may shake out a reef in the maintopsail if the breeze slackens. Call me if you find any change.’
He went below, pulled on his shirt and breeches and lay down on his cot, leafing through Steel’s Navy List: but he could not rest, and presently he was on the quarterdeck again, pacing the lee side with his hands behind his back, a glance over the dark sea at every turn.
Two ships, perhaps three, tacking by signal: they might be anything - British frigates, French ships of the line, neutrals. But they might also be enemy merchantmen, slipping out by the dark of the moon: a hint of incautious light as the second rose on the swell made merchantmen more probable; and then again, it was unlikely that men-?of-?war should straggle over such an expanse of sea. He would get a better idea as the sky lightened; and in any case, whether they tacked or not, he would have the weather-?gage at dawn - he would be up-?wind of them.
He watched the side, he watched the wake: leeway she was making, of course; but it was distinctly less. Each heave of the log showed a steady three knots and a half: slow, but he wanted nothing more - at this point he would have reduced sail if she had been moving faster, for fear of finding himself too far away by morning.
Far over the sea on the Polychrest’s quarter a flash lit up the sky, and more than a heartbeat later he heard the boom: they were tacking again. Now he and the unknown were sailing on parallel courses, and the Polychrest had the weather-?gage at its most perfect: she was directly in the eye of the wind from the leading ship of the three - the third was a certainty now, and had been so this last half hour.
Eight bells. It would be light before very long. ‘Mr Pullings, keep the watch on deck. In main and mizen topsails. Mr Parker, good morning to you. Let the galley fires be lit at once, if you please: the hands will go to breakfast as soon as possible - a substantial breakfast, Mr. Parker. Rouse up the idlers. And then you may begin to clear the ship for action: we will beat to quarters at two bells. Where are the relief midshipmen? Quartermaster, go cut down their hammocks this instant. Pass the word for the gunner. Now, sir,’ - to the appalled Rossall and Babbington - ‘what do you mean by this vile conduct? Not appearing on deck in time for your watch? Nightcaps, dirty faces, by God! You are unwashed idle lubbers, both of you. Ah, Mr Rolfe, there you are: how much powder have you filled?’
The preparations went smoothly ahead, and each watch breakfasted in turn. ‘Now you’ll see summat, mates,’ said William Screech, an old Sophie, as he rammed down his meal - cheese and portable soup. ‘Now you’ll see old Goldilocks cut one of his capers over them forringers.’
‘It’s time we see summat,’ said a landsman. ‘Where are all these golden dollars we were promised? It has been more kicks than ha’pence, so far.’
‘They are a-?lying just to leeward, mate,’ said Screech. ‘All you got to do, is to mind your duty and serve your gun brisk, and bob’s your uncle Dick.’
‘I wish I was at home with my old loom,’ said a weaver, ‘golden dollars or no golden dollars.’
Now the galley fires were dowsed in stench and hissing: the fearnought screens appeared at the hatchways: Jack’s cabin vanished, Killick hurrying his belongings to the depths and the carpenters taking away the bulkheads: the gun-?room poultry went clucking below in their coops: and all this while Jack stared out over the sea. The eastern sky was showing a hint of light by the time the bosun came to report a difficulty in his puddening - did the Captain wish it to be above the new clench or below? This question took no great consideration, but when Jack had given his answer and could look over the side again, the stranger was there as clear as he could desire: on the dull silver of the sea her hull showed black as it rose, something under a mile away on the starboard quarter. And behind her, far to leeward,
the two others. They were no great sailors, that was clear, for although they had a fine spread of canvas abroad they were finding it hard to come up with her: she had hauled up her courses to let them close the distance, and now they were perhaps three parts of a mile from her. One seemed to be jury-?rigged. Tucking his glass into his bosom, he climbed to the maintop. At the first glance he took, once he had settled firmly and had brought the leading ship into focus, he pursed his mouth and uttered a silent whistle. A thirty-?two, no, a thirty-?four gun frigate, no less. At the second he smiled, and without taking his eye from the telescope he called, ‘Mr Pullings, pray come into the top. Here, take my glass. What do you make of her?’
‘A thirty-?two, no, a thirty-?four gun frigate, sir. French, by the cut of her jib. No. No! By God, sir, she’s the Bellone.’
The Bellone she was, in her old accustomed cruising-?ground. She had undertaken to escort two Bordeaux merchantmen as far as twenty degrees west and forty-?five north, and she had brought them successfully across the Bay of Biscay, not without trouble, for they were slow brutes, and one had lost her fore and main topmasts:
she had stood by them, but she had no sharper sense of her obligations than any other privateer and now she was keenly interested in this odd triangular thing bobbing about to windward. Her contract had no stipulations against her making prizes during her trip, and for the last quarter of an hour, or ever since she had sighted the Polychrest, the Bellone had been hauled a point closer to the wind to close her, and the Bellone’s captain had been doing exactly what Jack was at now, staring hard through his glass from the top.
The Bellone. She could outrun any square-?rigged ship afloat, on a wind; but for the next ten or twenty minutes Jack had the initiative. He had the weather-?gage, and he could decide whether to bring her to action or not. But this would not last long: he must think fast - make up his mind before she could shoot ahead. She had thirty-?four guns to his four and twenty: but they were eight and six pounders - she threw a broadside of a hundred and twenty-?six pounds, and with his three hundred and eighty-?four he could blow her out of the water, given the right conditions. Only eight-?pounders: but they were long brass eight-?pounders, beautiful guns and very well served - she could start hitting him at a mile and more, whereas his short, inaccurate carronades, with their scratch crews, needed to be within pistol-?shot for any certainty of execution. At fifty yards, or even at a hundred, he could give her such a dose! Near, but not too near. There was no question of boarding her, not with her two or three hundred keen privateersmen, not with this crew. Nor must he be boarded, Lord above.
‘Mr Pullings,’ he said, ‘desire Mr Macdonald to get his men’s red jackets off. Fling sailcloth over the guns in the waist. Drabble it about all ahoo, but so that it can be whipped off in a flash. Two or three empty casks on the fo’c’sle. Make her look like a slut.’
How neatly the roles were reversed! This time the Bellone had not been preparing herself for a couple of hours; her decks would not be clear fore and aft; and she would still be in a state of doubt - it was she who would be taken by surprise.
Taken: the word rang like a trumpet. He hurried down to the quarterdeck, his mind made up. ‘Mr Parker, what are you about?’
‘These mats are to protect my gold-?leaf, sir,’ said the first lieutenant.
