From this sleep he was aroused after a very late and scrappy dinner by the signal midshipman, a tall thin dark conscientious youth who instantly said in a voice trembling with excitement, 'Mr Grimmond's duty sir and two sail to windward dne is Jason and t'other a French two-decker.'
'Very good, Mr Meares. I shall be on deck directly: in the meantime make the private signal and our number. But first pray pass me my sou'wester.'
On deck all eyes were fixed to windward, staring into a particularly heavy downpour. For a moment Jack saw nothing, but then the rain swept over them and beyond, the veil lifted, and there on the larboard quarter lay the two ships, steering south-east with the wind at west, racing along in a white turmoil of their own making.
The position was clear: the French ship was certainly running for Brest and the Jason was certainly in chase. Whether the Jason would ever come up with her was another matter: they were at least two miles apart, much too far for the Jason's bow-chasers to reduce the Frenchman's speed by knocking away a spar; and the Jason, right in the Frenchman's wake, had already spread all the canvas she could possibly bear with safety, probably even more, whereas the chase still had a reef on her topsails. The Jason's only hope was chancing upon an English cruiser, or the blockading squadron in with the land. The Ariel was not cruising; nor was she a cruiser at all where an enemy line-of-battle ship was concerned; but by instantly putting her head south-eastwards and by carrying a press of sail she might cut the line between the chase and Brest at some time in the late afternoon; she might possibly delay her long enough for the Jason to come up. On the other hand, there were his transports: there were his direct orders...
'Jason signalling, sir,' said Meares, his telescope to his eye. 'Enemy in sight and she gives the bearing.' Jack smiled: he had seen some foolish signals in his time, but few as inept as this. 'Again, sir: haul your wind on the starboard tack. And now chase to the south-east.'
'Acknowledge,' said Jack.
'Again, sir: make more sail.' And five miles away a puff of smoke appeared momentarily on the Jason's leeward quarter as she emphasized the order with a gun.
Jack smiled once more: Middleton - and Middleton had the Jason now - had always been very talkative. Yet Middleton was junior to him. Middleton could not know it - he could not know that for the moment the Ariel, a sloop, was commanded by a post-captain - but in fact Jo Middleton had no right to be giving orders. This was no time for formalizing, however; it was a time for decision, instant decision: if he were to act at all it must be now. In this heavy sea the Ariel could not sail as fast as a two-decker. In order to cross the enemy's line or even to reach a point within the short range of the Ariel's carronades before nightfall he would have to take advantage of every cable's length of advance he possessed. Even at this point, even at the point the Frenchman had already reached, the angle was critically fine.
These thoughts passed through his mind with great rapidity as he stood mechanically assessing the speed and course of the ships far to windward, the strength of the south-west wind, the scend of the sea, the possibility of useful intervention: before the remote thump of the Jason's gun reached them his decision was clear in his mind. He was only sorry he had no time to send Stephen and Colonel d'Ullastret aboard the transports. He said, 'All hands to wear ship,' and he noticed a general look of pleasure on the quarterdeck, nods and grins exchanged. Fulfilling these young men's expectation of him had formed no part of his calculations; but he was glad they were pleased. He reached for the azimuth compass, carefully took the bearings of both ships, and said, 'Mr Meares: to Jason, steer south twenty-seven east. Then alphabetical, Aubrey. Another hoist, and keep it flying: Enemy in sight, chase to south-west.' That should cut Middleton's cackle; but infinitely more important than that, it might win him half a mile or so. There was a strong likelihood that the Frenchman could read the signal, and in any case the sight of the Ariel wearing out of the line would almost certainly make him head farther south for a while. At this distance and in this visibility the Ariel, though clearly a single-decked ship, might be a frigate, even a heavy frigate with a bite worse than her bark; furthermore, her signal to friends beyond the Frenchman's horizon might be true - it might bring half the off-shore squadron pelting down.
'Mr Grimmond,' he said, 'lay me under the Mirza's lee,' the Mirza being the senior troop-carrier. Then, with the Ariel's maintopsail backed, he took a speaking-trumpet and roared through the wind, 'Mr Smithson, rendezvous in the Bordeaux stream - if I am not there report to the senior officer Santandero - go easy - carry nothing away - no royals, no kites.'
'Never you fear for us, sir,' called Smithson, waving his capable right hand. 'Good luck to you.'
The transports knew perfectly well what was afoot, and they gave the Ariel a hearty cheer as she filled and passed down the line.
'Course south-east by east a half east,' said Jack with the French ship firm in his glass. 'Shake out the foretopsail reef.' Through the murk and the flying spray he caught the movement as the chase braced up, bringing the wind before the beam as he had expected, veering southward from the danger, perhaps the very serious danger, in the north-east. But even so, it would be a near-run thing, he reflected as he stared at the white sails under the low grey sky: the chase must be making nine or even ten knots, and if he failed to cross her forefoot - if he merely fetched her wake - his intervention, brief as it must necessarily be, would prove of little use. Little use, but quite as dangerous.
'Mr Meares,' he said, 'pray be so good as to ask Jason for her position, and repeat it to the transports.'
A long pause, caused partly by the difficulty of seeing flags through five miles of haze and rain in a thin grey light and partly by hesitancy aboard the Jason.
'No observation three days,' said Meares at last. 'Estimate 49?27'N. 7?10'W. Chronometer five hours twenty-eight minutes past noon.'
As he checked the difference between Stephen's watch and the Jason's - a pretty wide variation - Jack smiled again: Middleton was no scientific sailor - board 'em in the smoke was more his line - but he or his master could not be very far out in the longitude, and that meant the Frenchman had no possibility of fetching La Rochelle with this wind. It was Brest or Lorient for him, unless he chose to run for Cherbourg, through a Channel filled with English squadrons.
A fine ship, he thought, gazing over the ocean; she was as close-hauled as she could be, yet she was throwing an enormous bow-wave half down her side. The Ariel would have to spread more canvas if she were to come up with any time and space for manoeuvre; and a ship of the Ariel's size needed plenty of both if she wore to do anything at all to a seventy-four. 'Pass the word for the bosun,' he said; and when the dripping bosun came plunging aft from the forecastle, 'Mr Graves, let us get light hawsers to the mastheads as briskly as we can.'
'Hawsers to the mastheads, sir?' cried the bosun, amazed.
'Yes, Mr Graves,' said Jack pleasantly, ducking under the perfect deluge of sea-water that came over the weather-rail. 'I should like to see them all set up before the last dog-watch. I doubt we shall beat to divisions today.'
