Any Approaching Enemy: A Novel of the Napoleonic Wars (20 page)

Jones shook his head. “Another time, perhaps. I must return to the port before I am missed. There are French agents everywhere. I can answer both of your questions, though, at least to some degree.”

“What do you know?” Charles said.

Jones took a breath. “The French force I informed you of landed at Alexandria in Egypt ten days past. They have already taken the city and occupy the surrounding countryside. I expect they will be in Cairo by now.”

“How do you know this?” Charles asked, somewhat suspicious that anyone could have such recent intelligence.

“I watched as they landed with my own eyes, sir,” the American answered, as if offended by his word being doubted. “I sailed from Egypt in a native dhow only five days ago to inform the British consul here. Unfortunately, he is not in residence at present.”

“You mentioned knowing the whereabouts of my squadron,” Charles prompted. This was his central concern. He could pass any information about the French to Nelson.

“Only this,” Jones said, rubbing at a small scar on his chin. “A squadron of English seventy-fours were seen looking into Alexandria only two days before the French arrived. They were too early, and where they’ve gone since, I have no idea.”

“I see,” Charles said, disappointed to still not know where he could find Nelson.

“Possibly you do not,” Jones said emphatically. “Your Admiral St. Vincent must be informed of the French landing as soon as possible. I cannot emphasize this strongly enough. Their presence so near to India cannot be allowed to stand. Those colonies are already in rebellion; even a small modern force acting in concert might tip the balance. It is vital to the war, to England, to the world, that this force be destroyed, or at the very least isolated. Do you understand?”

Charles nodded. “I understand full well, sir,” he said. “What can you tell me about the disposition of the enemy, so that I may put it in my report?”

“Their warships were at anchor off Alexandria when I saw them last,” Jones said. “They are a strong assemblage. Here, I’ve written it down for you.” He fished in a pocket of his garment and came up with a scrap of paper.

Charles glanced at the hastily scribbled list and whistled under his breath.

L’Orient, 124
Le Franklin,
80
Le Guillaume Tell,
80
Le Tonnant,
80
L’Aquilon, 74
Le Conquérant,
74
Le Généreux,
74
Le Guerrier,
74
L’Heureux, 74
Le Mercure,
74
Le Spartiate,
74
Le Timoleon,
74
Le Peuple Souverain,
74
Artémise, Diane, Félicité, Justice
—frigates

“You will have to return to Gibraltar, in any event,” Jones continued. “I doubt the squadron you are seeking is sufficient to engage them.”

SEVEN

“I DON’T KNOW, SIR, I’M SURE, ” SAID SAMUEL ELIOT, RUBBING at the back of his neck. “It’s Egypt, that’s a fact, but exactly where along the shore, I can’t say. There ain’t no landmarks that I know of.”

Charles looked out at the line of surf, a featureless, dun-colored landscape beyond. A single miserable village of a dozen mudbrick huts with reed-thatched roofs lay huddled among a few scrawny palm trees set back from the shore, three weathered fishing boats pulled up on the beach in front.

“Don’t look like much, does it?” Midshipman Sykes observed. Beechum, standing beside him, shook his head disparagingly.

Louisa
and
Pylades
had departed Acre two days earlier, sailing to the southwest to pick up the Egyptian shore, with the intention of looking into Alexandria and see with their own eyes the French presence there before proceeding westward with their precious intelligence. The wind had turned variable, sometimes from the north, sometimes west of north. At present it blew fitfully along the coast from due west.

“Have we any charts?” Charles asked.

“Naught, sir,” Eliot answered. “Nothing for this far into the Mediterranean. Nobody does. The navy don’t have much call to come this way. I have some small maps with broad features; no use for taking bearings on anything.”

“All right, in general terms, do you reckon that we are to the east of Alexandria?” Charles asked.

“Aye,” Eliot offered readily, “I think that’s safe. It’s how far to the east, I don’t know.”

“We are agreed, then. Put her on the starboard tack, we’ll make to the west. Mr. Sykes, please make the appropriate signal to
Pylades.
Mr. Beechum, make sure that the lookout in the masthead keeps a sharp eye.”

“Aye-aye, sir.”

“Yes, sir.”

The boatswain blew on his call. The cry “All hands to tack ship” passed up and down the decks. The men trundled up from below, some to the ratlines and aloft, others to the braces. Charles listened as Eliot bellowed out the orders. The wheel spun, and the yards were hauled and lowered; the ship slowed as her head turned. The main and mizzen topsails flogged as they lost their bellies, snapping and shivering. The foretopsail laid back against the mast, pushing her bow to swing through the eye of the wind. “Midships,” Eliot commanded. “Meet her.” The lines were hauled and the sails filled. Gracefully,
Louisa
laid over on her new course, her canvas braced up tight against the breeze.

On the starboard tack, the ship sailed away from the shore, some ten miles out, came about, and angled back in again, all the while progressing slowly westward. The day passed, and they tacked and tacked again. The lay of the land transformed to great inland saltwater lagoons filled with all manner of brilliantly colored birds, separated from the sea by thin ridges of palm-dotted sand. Increasingly widespread stands of marsh grasses grew about their rims. The coast itself began to tend northward, and the salt marshes became more extensive until they appeared as a great unbroken sea of reeds.

“What do you make of it?” Charles asked Eliot late in the afternoon.

“I’m thinking we’ll soon come upon the first of the great mouths of the Nile,” the master said. “We’re in the ancient land of the pharaohs.”

Before nightfall, they saw a town a few miles inland from the sea with what seemed a broad curving ribbon of gold meandering southward.

“That would be Damietta,” Eliot said, “and that what has the sun reflecting off is the Damietta mouth of the Nile River. A hundred miles will find us off Alexandria.”

“We will stand out and look in on the port of Alexandria tomorrow, Mr. Eliot,” Charles said. He noticed his wife standing by the rail, looking out over the sight. He went and stood beside her, a fertile smell from the land reaching them, until the blood-orange sun settled on the horizon and, by degrees, slipped beneath it.

Half an hour before the first hint of dawn,
Louisa
cleared for action and stood southwest for the dark Egyptian shore. The men were called quietly to their battle stations, the gunports opened, and the cannon run out. As had become her custom, Penny dressed quickly and went below to the officers’ wardroom, where Attwater would bring her breakfast. Slowly, imperceptibly, the sky to the east lightened. All lanterns, except the shaded light in the binnacle that lit the compass dial, had long since been extinguished, but Charles fancied he could make out the base of the mizzenmast where it rose through the deck, then the foot of the main course farther forward. He stared over the railing to starboard into the darkness and saw nothing. No, not nothing, a patch of light, or at least less dark, hovered in the distance. That would be
Pylades,
her white sails aloft above the sea.

“Deck!” the lookout from the tops called down. “There’s a second sail off the port bow. I can’t tell nothing else.”

Charles’s heart quickened. He moved quickly to the larboard rail and looked forward but could see nothing except black. “How far away?” he yelled upward.

“Can’t tell, sir. Sorry. It’s still too dark. I can only just see the shade of her canvas. I can’t tell nothing else.”

“Can you tell how many masts? Is she a warship?”

“Don’t know, sir.”

Beechum, standing nearby, offered in a timid voice, “I believe that’s what he meant when he said he can’t tell anything else, sir.”

“Yes, thank you, Mr. Beechum,” Charles said with a small laugh. “I believe you to be correct. Do you have the watch?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then we shall run down on her and see what we shall see. It’ll be light enough soon.”

The horizon slowly brightened, the Egyptian coast a low black line under a still-dark, star-speckled sky. Charles saw her sails, then the dark line of her hull underneath, under a mile distant.

“Deck there. She’s a French corvette, I’m pretty sure.”

Charles thought that looked about right. A corvette was a common type of ship with the French, larger than a brig but smaller than a frigate; probably eighteen or twenty guns; probably six-pounders, possibly eights. As he watched, she braced her yards around to wear away.

“She’s seen us,” Winchester said from behind him.

“Indeed she has, Stephen,” Charles said, his eyes still on the corvette. The wind was light, what there was of it still from the west, the sea almost a flat calm.

“We’ll never overhaul her in these airs.”

“We’ll get a bit of a breeze as the land heats up,” Charles said. “But we don’t want to catch her. We want to see where she goes.”

Whatever was to occur, he considered, he had best settle in for a long stern chase. “House the guns and stand the men down from quarters. It would be a good time to send them to their breakfast.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed
Pylades
drawing ahead in determined pursuit of the corvette. “Mr. Sykes! Where is Mr. Sykes?”

Beechum answered, “Mr. Sykes is forward, sir. Shall I fetch him?”

“No,” Charles said. “Signal to
Pylades,
please,
Maintain station to
starboard.
”

As the light increased, more features of the land and sea became visible. Ahead was a low-lying peninsula projecting several miles into the sea. After a short time, Charles noticed the corvette sending men into her rigging.

“She’s going to tack to weather the point,” Winchester observed.

“And we shall do the same. See to it, if you please.”

Winchester called out the orders.
Louisa
’s bow swung through the wind and settled on the starboard tack, directly taking up the corvette’s wake. The land to port, closer now, appeared as sandhills with groves of date and palm trees. There was a town visible, the thin smoke of early-morning cooking fires filtering into the sky, and a broad river running placidly to the point.

Charles approached Eliot. “Do you make that to be Rosetta?” he said. He had a picture of the general lay of the coastline from the map in his atlas.

“Aye,” Eliot answered. “That’ll be the Rosetta mouth. Other side of the point will be Aboukir Bay, then Alexandria. We should be able to see the French there by noon.”

Charles saw Penny approaching across the deck. “Good morning to thee, Samuel Eliot,” she said cheerfully, coming to a halt beside him.

“Good morning, Mrs. Edgemont,” Eliot answered, lifting his hat.

“What is that ship?” she asked Charles, pointing forward.

“She’s French,” Charles answered, “a small warship.”

“Art thou attempting to catch it?”

“No,” he said. “We are only following. I want to see where she goes.”

“Thou wilt not shoot at it?”

“Not unless she shoots at us first.” Charles guessed she was worried that he intended to attack the smaller ship. He might have, under different circumstances, but not today. He tried to reassure her. “I plan to follow this ship to see if she leads us to the French fleet at Alexandria. As soon as I can confirm that the fleet is there, we will turn away. I don’t intend that we stand and fight anyone.”

“Thou said that at Malta,” she said doubtfully, then fell silent.

The corvette neared the end of the point, her tightly braced sails golden in the just-risen sun and slightly ethereal in the hazy air. A small white bow wave churned along her side. She was reaching on them, he knew, making slightly better speed into the gentle wind than the heavier
Louisa.
It didn’t matter, Charles decided, so long as he could keep her in sight.

“Oh, look,” Penny said. “They have flags. Aren’t they pretty.”

Charles noted the signal flags running up her halyards with a feeling of alarm.

“The corvette’s telegraphing, sir,” Beechum reported at the same time. “Can’t see who to.”

“Mr. Beechum,” Charles said urgently, “take a long glass up to the masthead, to the crosstrees if you have to. Take Sykes with you to report back. I want to know what’s on the other side of that point.” Beechum left at a run without replying.

“Stephen, we will beat to quarters,” Charles ordered. He looked up and saw Beechum climbing the ratlines. He also saw the lookout already in the mainmast top lean out over the side.

“There’s a frigate making for the headlands on t’other side, sir,” the lookout called down. “She’s a thirty-two, I think. You might see her masts from the deck.”

Charles looked across the narrowing peninsula.
Louisa
lay about a half mile from the shore and a farther mile to the end of the point. He saw nothing he could identify as a ship’s masts.

“There,” Winchester said, a telescope to his eye, “just behind the town.” Charles had not even noticed that his first lieutenant had come onto the deck. The marine drummer reached the forward rail and started his long roll.

“What’s happening?” Penny asked above the din.

Charles opened his glass and looked in the direction Winchester indicated. Almost immediately, he picked out the set of topgallant sails, coasting behind the palms toward the point. He lowered his glass and tried to gauge the distances. The French frigate was a good mile farther from the Rosetta Point, but had the wind behind her, while
Louisa
and
Pylades
were braced tight and struggling into it. He thought they would still reach the point first, but not by any comfortable margin. The Frenchman might lay off the wind and meet him broadside to broadside, or she might stand on if her captain thought Charles would bear away.

“Charlie,” Penny repeated, “what’s happening?”

What should he do? The corvette, he noted, had rounded the end of the land, making for the safety of her companion. The drummer ceased his drumming. Talmage had gone into the waist to command the gundeck. The gunports opened; the port side cannon rumbled loudly on their trucks.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, pulling on his arm.

“There are two French warships joining on the far side of that spit of land,” Charles said. “I fear they mean to attack us.”

“Why dost thou not turn away?”

“I will in a minute. I want to know if there are other ships in the bay first,” he said. “I would be grateful if you would go below.” He looked up to the mainmast crosstrees and saw Beechum with his glass trained out into the distance over the weather beam.

Ahead lay the point where the Rosetta branch of the Nile emptied into the sea. He looked at the sandy beach beneath the dunes. There were men there, some, he thought, on horseback. He took up his long glass and raised it to his eye. In the lens, he saw that the figures wore the dark blue uniforms and plumed vermilion shakos of the French army. Scanning along the beach, he found more infantry with their officers on horseback. That was enough. He now knew for a certainty where the expeditionary force from Toulon had gone. He saw Sykes starting down from Beechum’s place on the crosstrees.

Louisa
began to come abreast of the point, and Charles could see the slow, muddy mouth of the great river, nearly a mile across, and the sails of the corvette wearing around behind the frigate, both approaching from beyond a low sand island three quarters of a mile away.

“We will bear away, Mr. Eliot,” he said. “Put her across the wind.”

“Aye, sir,” Eliot answered, and signaled to the helmsmen at the wheel. “Hands to the braces,” he roared. Charles could feel on his cheek that the wind was light and fitful, still westerly but with increasing impetus off the land.
Louisa
’s bow slowly swung until it pointed directly away from the coast, and the two French ships, toward the vast empty sea.

“Mr. Beechum’s respects, sir,” Sykes reported breathlessly.

“Yes?” Charles said.

“He says he can’t see very far into the bay. He says there’s a power of mist in the air, sir.”

“Very well,” Charles said, “you may—”

Two closely spaced bangs of distant cannon fire sounded over the water. Charles turned in time to see a small cloud of gray-black smoke hovering on the leading French frigate’s bow. He scanned the sea surface and saw two plumes of water spout up, one a hundred yards to port and only slightly astern, the other farther off.

“Mr. Sykes, signal
Pylades
to make all possible sail.”