a sail bearing something north of her.’
it was just as he had feared: Linois had sent the brig northwards early in the night, and now she was reporting the presence of the Surprise, if not of the China fleet, to her friends over the horizon.
The long-?drawn-?out ruse had failed, He had meant to draw Linois so far to the south and west during the night that the Surprise, doubling back towards the China fleet in the darkness, would be far out of sight by morning. With the frigate’s great speed (and how they had cracked on!) he should have done it: yet he had not. Either one of the French squadron had caught the gleam of her sails as she ran northwards through the pursuing line, or Linois had had an intuition that something was amiss - that he was being attempted to be made a fool of - and had called off the chase, sending the brig back to his old cruising-?ground and then following her with the rest of his ships after an hour or so, crowding sail for the track of the China fleet. Yet his ruse had not failed entirely: it had gained essential time. How much time? Jack set course for the Indiamen and made his way into the crosstrees: the accursed brig lay some four leagues off, still carrying on like a Guy Fawkes’ night, and the farther sail perhaps as much again - he would scarcely have seen her but for the purity of the horizon at this hour, which magnified the nick of her topgallants in the line of brilliant sky. He had no doubt that she was one of the frigates, and that the whole of Linois’s squadron, less the corvette, was strung out on the likely passage of the Indiaman. They could outsail the convoy; and with this unvarying monsoon there was no avoiding them. But they could not outsail the convoy by a great deal: and it would take Linois the greater part of the day to concentrate his force and come up with the China fleet.
The senior captains came hurrying aboard the Surprise, headed by Mr Muffit, their commodore. The signal flying from the frigate’s maintruck and the commodore’s energetic gathering of the stragglers had given them a general idea of the situation; they were anxious, disturbed, grave; but some, alas, were also garrulous, given to exclamation, to blaming the authorities for not protecting them, and to theories about where Linois had really been all this time. The Company’s service was a capable, disciplined body, but its regulations required the commodore to listen to the views of his captains in council before any decisive action; and like all councils of war this was wordy, indefinite, inclined to pessimism. Jack had never so regretted the superior rigour of the Royal Navy as he did during the vague discourse of a Mr Craig, who was concerned to show what might have been the case, had they not waited for the Botany Bay ship and the two Portuguese.
‘Gentlemen,’ cried Jack at last, addressing himself to the three or four other determined men at the table, ‘this is no time for talking. There are only two things for it: we must either run or fight. If you run, Linois will snap up your fleet piecemeal, for I can stop only one of his frigates, while the Marengo can sail five leagues to your three and blow any two of you out of the water. If we fight, if we concentrate our force, we can answer him gun for gun.’
‘Who is to fight the guns?’ asked a voice.
‘I will come to that, sir. What is more, Linois is a sear out of a dockyard and he is three thousand miles from the isle of France: he is short of stores, and single spar or fifty fathom of two-?inch rope is of a hundred times more consequence to him than it is to us - I doubt there is a spare topmast in his whole squadron. In duty he must not risk grave damage: he must not press home his attack against a determined resistance.’
‘How do you know he has not refitted in Batavia?’
‘We will leave that for the moment, if you please,’ said Jack. ‘We have no time to lose. Here is my plan. You have three more ships than Linois reckoned for: the three best-?armed ships will wear men-?of-?war pendants and the blue ensign -,
‘We are not allowed to wear Royal Navy colours.’
‘Will you give me leave to proceed, sir? That is entirely my responsibility, and I will take it upon myself to give the necessary permission. The larger Indiamen will form in line of battle, taking all available men out of the rest of the convoy to work the guns and sending the smaller ships away to leeward. I shall send an officer aboard each ship supposed to be a man-?of-?war, and all the quarter-?gunners I can spare. With a close, well-?formed line, our numbers are such that we can double upon his van or rear and overwhelm him with numbers: with one or two of your fine ships on one side of him and Surprise on the other, I will answer for it if we can beat the seventy-?four, let alone the frigates.’
‘Hear him, hear him,’ cried Mr Muffit, taking Jack by the hand. ‘That’s the spirit, God’s my life!’
In the confusion of voices it became clear that although there was eager and indeed enthusiastic support, one captain even beating the table and roaring, ‘We’ll thump ‘em again and again,’ there were others who were not of the same opinion. Who had ever heard of merchant ships with encumbered decks and few hands holding out for five minutes against powerful men-?of-?war? - most of them had only miserable eighteen-?pounder cannonades - a far, far better plan was to separate: some would surely escape
- the Dorsetshire was certain she could outrun the French -could the gentleman give any example of a ship with a 270 lb broadside resisting an enemy that could throw 950 lb?
‘Whisht, Mr Craig,’ said Muffit before Jack could reply. ‘Do you not know Captain Aubrey is the gentleman who commanded the Sophie brig when she took the Cacafuego, a 32-gun frigate? And I believe, sir, Sophie threw no great broadside?’
‘Twenty-?eight pounds,’ said Jack, reddening.
‘Why,’ cried Craig. ‘I spoke only out of my duty to the Company. I honour the gentleman, I am sure, and I am sorry I did not just recollect his name. He will not find me shy, I believe. I spoke only for the Company and my cargo; not for myself.’
‘I believe, gentlemen,’ said Muffit, ‘that the sense of the council is in favour of Captain Aubrey’s plan, as I am myself. I hear no dissentient voice. Gentlemen, I desire you will repair aboard your ships, fill powder, clear away your guns, and attend to Captain Aubrey’s signals.’
Aboard the Surprise Jack called his officers to the cabin and said, ‘Mr Pullings, you will proceed to the Lushington Indiaman with Collins, Haverhill and Pollyblank. Mr
Babbington to Royal George with the brothers Moss. Mr Braithwaite, to the brig to repeat signals: take the spare set with you. Mr Bowes, can I persuade you to look to the Earl Camden’s guns? I know you can point them better than any of us.’
The purser flushed bright with pleasure, and chuckled: if the Captain wished, he would certainly abandon his cheese and candles, though he did not know how he should like it; and he begged for Evans and Strawberry Joe.
‘That is settled, then,’ said Jack. ‘Now, gentlemen, this is a delicate business: we must not offend the Company’s officers, and some of them are very touchy - the least sense of ill-?feeling would be disastrous. The men must be made to understand that thoroughly: no pride, no distance, no reference to tea-?waggons, or how we
