The French Admiral (11 page)

Trust the bullocks to show great calm, Alan thought with secret delight, nudging David to turn and witness Peck's behavior.

“If he had a beard, he'd be eating it,” Avery japed softly.

“Signal from
Solebay,
sir!” Forrester screeched. “‘Enemy in sight'!”

“Oh, shit,” Alan whispered.

“Oh,” Treghues said, getting to his feet, but otherwise showing no emotion. “Mister Avery, repeat that signal, will you.”

“Aye, aye, sir!”

“Can you see any ships from the masthead?” Treghues bawled, his hands cupped around his mouth.

“No, sir!” Forrester replied, his voice breaking with the effort. “Lots of bare trees, sir!”

“Damned foolishness,” Treghues sniffed.

“Settlers here 'bouts strip pine trees, sir,” Monk commented, going to the captain's side. “Then they fires the slash 'round the base ta smoke the tar out while they're still standin'. Mayhap that's what they sees.”

“Perhaps,” Treghues said, nodding. “Has the signal been acknowledged?”

“Aye, sir,” Avery answered.

“Very good,” Treghues said. Judkin, his steward, came on deck to bring Treghues a mug of something to drink and he sipped at it thoughtfully, looking up at the rigging. “Mister Railsford, we shall stand on to the capes as long as
Solebay
does, but I would admire if you reduced sail. Get the stuns'ls off her to begin with.”

“Aye, aye, sir. Topmen aloft! Trice up and lay out to take in stuns'ls!”

“Might as well strip down to all plain sail,” Treghues said casually. “Get the royals off her, too.”

“Aye, sir,” Railsford agreed, anxious to be doing something other than stand around and fidget, and glad for some hard toil to take the men's minds off the possibility of battle as well.

“Signal from
Solebay,
sir!” Forrester howled.

“Speak, thou apparition!” Treghues barked back, almost in good spirits, making Alan wonder just what it was that was in that drink and wanting some if he did not have to sell his soul to the devil to get it.

“Enemy is French, sir!”

“Well, I sincerely doubt it would be the Prussians!” their captain erupted, which brought a welcome bout of laughter to the decks to loosen the tension.

“De Barras, do you think, Mister Monk?” Alan asked their sailing master as he sharpened a piece of charcoal for a marker.

“That lot from Newport?” Monk surmised, speaking heavily. “Mayhap. They sailed 'round the 25th, so they'd have plenty o' time ta get here by now. Iffen they is, we're gonna have 'em fer breakfast.”

“Sir!” Forrester shouted down once more. “The count is 28 sail of the line!”

“God's teeth, Mister Monk,” Alan said. “It's the entire French Navy!”

“Repeat the signal, whether it is accurate or no, Avery.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

As they closed with the coast,
Solebay
continued to feed them news. There was a large group of ships anchored in Lynnhaven Bay, identified for certain as warships. There were three flagships present, one the gigantic three-decker first-rate of over one hundred guns, de Grasse's reputed flagship, the
Ville de Paris.
But as of yet, none was stirring.

Having gotten as close as they dared to the entrance,
Solebay
finally hauled her wind and came about back toward them, which required
Desperate
to tack as well in order to retire toward the tops'ls of their own fleet on the north-east horizon.

“This shall be a grand opportunity,” Treghues said, almost capering like a young seaman about the quarterdeck. He was so energetic he reminded Lewrie of the Treghues he had known when he first signed aboard. Still, it sounded more like a good opportunity to get a lot of men killed. But, Alan realized, Treghues was odd enough to regard his own crucifixion as a blessed event.

“The tide is making, and with this nor'easter breeze, they'll not make it out past the Middle Ground or the Cape without a lot of short tacking. Some will run aground or foul each other.” Treghues explained the situation happily. “We have but to fall on their van and chop it to bits as they emerge, throwing the rest into total confusion.”

“We have trapped them,” Forrester said, once more restored to the deck and the presence of his mentor. “It shall be a glorious day!”

“Indeed it shall, my boy. We shall shatter a French fleet, snap up their transports and all their artillery, crush them between Cornwallis and ourselves, and eliminate the French either on land or sea in the Americas. Not only will this rebellion finally be confounded, but the Indies shall lie open to us with one stroke.”

Desperate
came within sight of the fleet later that morning, and it was impressive to see those nineteen great beasts rocking along under all plain sail in perfect alignment.
London
signaled for an early meal so that galley fires could be doused long before battle was joined, and
Desperate
's crew tumbled down to their mess deck with a hearty appetite. In honor of the occasion, Treghues relented in his firm instruction concerning Avery and Lewrie, and they were allowed the last of the fresh bread and some not-quite-rancid butter to accompany their salt pork and peas, washing it down with a glass or two of wine for the first time in days. They toasted victory noisily.

But it took time, time to move that line of ships across the sea at six knots, time to align the formation perfectly, with the thrilling signal flag for “Form line of battle” flying from
London.
Still in the lead,
Solebay
reported that the French were scurrying to ferry their crews back aboard from duties ashore, and were cutting their cables and making sail. As the tide began to ebb and flow outward, they began to get under way, now not so limited in their ability to make the open sea. The French van was not in any particular order; it looked like a panicky scramble to escape the confines of the bay before being penned into it.

Alan was still yawning, this time from lack of sleep and the fumes of the wine he had imbibed with his dinner. He longed, though, to have the use of a telescope to see just how disordered the French were. Even from the deck it did not resemble a fleet so much as an informal regatta of small boats all trying to beat their way into the same narrow channel. Some of them were moving, some were dead still with their sails hanging limp as old rags, winded by the more weatherly vessels and unable to gain enough air to do much more than maintain steerage-way. To everyone, it looked as if the French were offering their van up for destruction.

“God,” he muttered, “this is going to indeed be glorious, and I can't see a tenth of it. This is going to be worth all the canings and cant, all the humbug and the stupidity!”

Desperate
was to windward, almost due east of the capes, and even without a glass, they were close enough on the disengaged side of the fleet to see that
Alfred,
one of Hood's ships in their own van, was just about to enter the passage between Cape Henry and the Middle Ground.

“Signal from the flag, sir,” Avery called.

“Damme, what is this now?” Monk cried with as much pain in his voice as if he had just been run through.

“‘Wear together to the port tack due east'!” Avery shouted, unable to believe what he was seeing.

“Goddamn my eyes, that can't be the signal!” Railsford bustled to read the hoist himself.

“I should think you should know my feelings best about people who blaspheme, Mister Railsford,” Treghues said, chiding him harshly.

“Sorry, sir, but this puts me beyond all temperance.”

“He's letting them come out!” Alan fumed, beside himself with the sense of a sterling opportunity lost forever.

“Of course he is,” Treghues said. “Admiral Graves is not rash enough to put his own ships in peril on the Middle Ground. He is letting at least their van exit the passage, where we shall fall upon them. Why fight in the mud flats and shoals around the Middle Ground?”

“Because that is where the enemy is, sir,” Alan observed, without thinking, lulled by Treghues's too-good mood of the morning.

“Ah, you alone know better how to handle fleets, I see,” the captain said with a bitter relish, back to his usual self once more. “You are criticizing the officers appointed over you by the Admiralty and the King, but then, you always know best, do you not, Mister Lewrie?”

Hang it, Alan thought. I'll not knuckle under this time. Why should I run in fear of having my honest say, when asked, even if it doesn't please? After a moment's reflection, however, and the realization that he was responding to one of God's prime loonies, he tempered that rash resolve.

“Would it not be better to bear down on him at this instant, sir, and smash his van now?” Alan asked, trying to couch his complaint as a question to be answered in the reasonable tone with which it was offered. “Once the van is in disorder, the center will have to bear away and end up on the Middle Ground or the shoals around Cape Henry, would they not, sir?”

“And violate the Fighting Instructions?” Treghues asked contemptuously. “One never breaks the unity of the line of battle until the foe is flying. To bear down we must needs break the line, wind our own ships as they are doing, and overlap our fire. With you in command, we would lose the fleet. How foolish and precipitate you are.”

“Impatience o' the young, sir,” Monk chortled, trying to defuse the captain's evident anger.

“Thoughtlessness of the headstrong,” Treghues countered. “But Mister Lewrie does a lot without considering the consequences, do you not, Mister Lewrie?”

“I have never done anything without forethought, sir.” Alan spoke back gently, trying to allay the hell he was expecting to catch. Damme, there was never a truer word spoken! How often can I damned near get my arse knackered since I was out of swaddles without scheming and planning to get anything out of life?

“You are swaggering deuced close to open insolence, sir!”

“I truly mean no disrespect, sir,” Alan said.

“Do you not, sir!”

“The fleet is coming about, sir,” Railsford reminded Treghues, who was lost in the passion of his pet.

“Very well, hands to stations to wear to larboard,” Treghues said, reluctant to leave the subject, but forced to by duty.

The next two hours, until about four in the afternoon and the start of the first dogwatch, were almost heartbreaking to witness. The fleet took up the new course due east, Hood's strong division now the rear of the battle line, with Drake's few ships as the van, backing and filling. Given the grace period, the French were beginning to sort themselves out into a line-ahead of their own, the van now in perfect order. Their center was beginning to exit the bay, and the milling rear division was also sorting itself out of chaos as well.

Desperate
was by then near the head of the British line, with the ships of Admiral Drake, almost on the beam of
Shrewsbury,
the leader. She backed and filled as well to maintain rough station well in sight of the divisional flag in
Princessa
and in sight of
London
far to the rear. Finally, when it seemed hours too late, Graves signaled to bear down and engage the opposite ships. But for some reason he left the signal for “Form line of battle” hoisted as well.

This resulted in all ships turning slightly to starboard to bear down on a bow-and-quarter-line oblique approach, what Clerk's booklet told Alan was named a “lashing approach.” Since the fleets were converging at a slight angle already, the vans would come together first, then the centers, and the rear divisions in both fleets would remain out of contact or gun range 'til late in the day, unless something was ordered to change it.

It was a daunting prospect to see all 28 enemy ships in one ordered line-ahead, a line much longer than theirs, with many more guns ready to speak thunders; a line that they could not match ship for ship as usual practice, for the French could bring more ships from the rear to double on them once they were engaged.

Alan was on the gun deck with his men when the first ships tried firing at the range of random shot. He could not see anything below the bulwarks and the gangways, aching as he was to witness what would transpire. All he could see were masts and sails and then growing clouds of powder smoke as more and more ships began to trade broadsides.
Desperate
was at quarters, the men swaying easily by their light nine-pounder guns, which in this battle would be as useful as spit wads at thirty paces. No matter how stiff the discipline, everyone craned his neck for a view, or took little excursions atop the gun barrels or the gangways when the officers were not watching them. Even upwind of the fighting, though, Alan scented the powder smoke and saw the grimy gray-tan wall of smoke climbing higher than the liners' masts and crosstrees. Hiding himself behind the thick trunk of the mainmast, Alan furtively scrambled up on the jear bitts, his favorite vantage point, so that his head was above the line of the bulwarks and hammock nettings. The sight that met his eyes filled him with awe.