‘Willingly, sir, if you do not think I should stand here, to show I do not care for those ruffians. But I bow to your superior knowledge of warfare. Will the Captain stay up there on the mast, in that exposed position?’
‘I dare say he will,’ said Stephen. ‘I dare say he is turning over the situation in his mind.’
Certainly he was. It was clean that his first duty, having reconnoitred the enemy, was to reach the China fleet and do everything possible to preserve it: nor had he the least doubt that he could outsail the Frenchmen, with their foul bottoms - indeed, even if they had been clean he could no doubt have given them a good deal of canvas, fine ships though they were: for it was they who had built the Surprise and he who was sailing her - it stood to reason that an Englishman could handle a ship better than a Frenchman. Yet Linois was not to be underestimated, the fox. He had chased Jack in the Mediterranean through a long summer’s day, and he had caught him.
The two-?decker, now so near that her identity was certain - the Marengo, 74, wearing a rear-?admiral’s flag - had worn, and now she was close-?hauled on the larboard tack, followed by the fourth ship and the distant brig. The fourth ship must be the Berceau, a 22-gun corvette: the brig he knew nothing about. Linois had worn: he had not tacked. That meant he was favouring his ship. Those three, the Marengo, Berceau and the brig, standing on the opposite tack, meant to cut him off, if the frigates managed to head him: that was obvious - greyhounds either side of a hare, turning her.
The last shot came a little too close - excellent practice, at this extreme range. It would be a pity to have any ropes cut away. ‘Mr Stourton,’ he called, ’shake out a reef in the foretopsail, and haul the bowlines.’
The Surprise leapt forward, in spite of her drag-?sail. The S?millante was leaving the Belle Poule far behind, and to leeward; he knew that he could draw her on and on, then bear up suddenly and bring her to close action - hammer her hard with his thirty-?two-?pounder carronades and perhaps sink or take her before her friends could come up. The temptation made his breath come short. Glory, and the only prize in the Indian Ocean . . . the pleasing image of billowing smoke, the flash of guns, masts falling, faded almost at once, and his heart returned to its dutiful calculating pace. He must not endanger a single spar; his frigate must join the China fleet at all costs, and intact.
His present course was taking Linois straight towards the Indiamen, half a day’s sail away to the east, strung out over miles of sea, quite unsuspecting. Clearly he must lead the Frenchmen away by some lame-?duck ruse, even if it meant losing his comfortable weather-?gauge - lead them away until nightfall and then beat up, trusting to the darkness and the Surprise’s superior sailing to shake them off and reach the convoy in time.
He could go about and head south-?east until about ten o’clock: by then he should have fore-?reached upon Linois so far that he could bear up cross ahead of him in the darkness and so double back. Yet if he did so, on offered to do so, Linois, that deep old file, might order the pursuing frigates to hold on to their northerly course, stretching to windward of the Surprise and gaining the weather-?gauge. That would be awkward in the morning; for fast though she was, she could not outrun S?millante and Belle Poule if they were sailing large and she was beating up, as she would have to beat up, tack after tack, to warn the China fleet.
But then again, if Linois did that, if he ordered his frigates northwards, a gap would appear in his dispositions after a quarter of an hour’s sailing, a gap through which the Surprise could dart, bearing up suddenly and running before the wind with all the sail she could spread and passing between the Belle Poule and the Marengo, out of range of either; for Linois’s dispositions were based upon the chase moving at nine on ten knots - no European ship in these waters could do better, and hitherto Surprise had not done as well. Berceau, the corvette, farther to leeward, might close the gap; but although she might knock away some of his spars, it was unlikely that she could hold him long enough for the Marengo to come up. If she had a commander so determined that he would let his ship be riddled, perhaps sunk - a man who would run him aboard - why then, that would be a different matter.
He looked hard over the sea at the distant corvette: she vanished in a drift of rain, and he shifted his gaze to the two-?decker. What was in Linois’s mind? He was running east-?south-?east under easy sail: topsails, forecourse dewed up. One thing Jack was certain of was, that Linois was infinitely more concerned with catching the China fleet than with destroying a frigate.
The moves, the answers to those moves on either side, the varying degrees of danger, and above all Linois’s appreciation of the position . . . He came down on deck, and Stephen, looking attentively at him, saw that he had what might be called his battle-?face: it was not the glowing blaze of immediate action, of boarding or cutting out, but a remoter expression altogether - cheerful, confident, but withdrawn - filled with natural authority. He did not speak, apart from giving an order to hitch the runners to the mastheads and to double the preventer-?backstays, but paced the quarterdeck with his hands behind his back, his eyes running from the frigates to the line-?of-?battle ship Stephen saw the first lieutenant approach, hesitate, and step back On these occasions,’ he reflected, my
valuable friend appears to swell, actually to increase in his physical as well as his spiritual dimensions is it an optical illusion? How I should like to measure him. The penetrating intelligence in the eye, however, is not capable of measurement. He becomes a stranger: I, too, should hesitate to address him.’
‘Mr Stourton,’ said Jack. ‘We will go about.’
‘Yes, sir. Shall I cast off the drag-?sail, sir?’
‘No: and we will not go about too fast, neither: space out the orders, if you please
As the pipes screeched All hands about ship’ he stood on the hammocks, fixing the Marengo with his glass, pivoting as the frigate turned up into the wind. Just after the cry of ‘Mainsail haul’ and the sharp cutting pipe of belay, he saw a signal run up aboard the flagship and the puff of a gun on her poop. The S?millante and the Belle Poule had begun their turn in pursuit, but now the S?millante paid off again and stood on. The Belle Poule was already past the eye of the wind when a second gun emphasised the order, the order to stand on northwards and gain the weather-?gauge, and she had to wear right round to come up on to her former tack. ‘Damn that,’ murmured Jack:
the blunder would narrow his precious gap by quarter of a mile. He glanced at the sun and at his watch. ‘Mr Church,’ he said, ‘be so good as to fetch me a mango.’
The minutes passed: the juice ran down his chin. The French frigates stood on to the north-?north-?west, growing smaller. First the S?millante and then the Belle Poule crossed the wake of the Surprise, gaining the weathergauge: there was no changing his mind now. The Marengo, her two tiers of guns clearly to be seen, lay on the starboard beam, sailing a parallel course. There was no sound but the high steady note of the wind in the rigging and the beat of the sea on the frigate’s larboard bow. The far-?spaced ships scarcely seemed to move in relation to one another from one minute to the next - there seemed to be all the peaceful room in the world.
The Marengo dropped her foresail: the angle widened half a degree. Jack checked all the positions yet again, looked at his watch, looked at the dog-?vane, and said, ‘Mr Stourton, the stuns’ls are in the tops, I believe?’
‘Yes, sir.’
