The Gathering Storm (23 page)

Presently, in the great cabin, Rennie addressed his hastily
summoned officers.

'We will take aboard the crew of the chasse-marée, then
scuttle her. When we slip on the tide early tomorrow, we
will set her crew adrift in a boat. Mr Hayter, you will take
a party aboard, and bore holes in her hull. As quick and quiet
as you can, if y'please. Mr Leigh, you will take charge of the
crew, and bring them into the ship. Mr Abey, you will observe
the activity of the searching boats, and report their movements
to me glass by glass.'

'Aye, sir.'

'Very good, sir.'

'Very good, sir.'

'Yes, Doctor?' As the surgeon appeared at the door. 'Come
in, come in.' And Dr Wing did come in, as the other officers
departed, and he made a detailed report, with a written
list.

Of the 260 souls of
Expedient
's original complement, fewer
than 100 remained. Of those coming under Dr Wing's interest,
the dead had been buried at sea, and the many wounded had
been taken ashore. In answer to Rennie's question:

'No, sir, I do not know where ashore, exact. There is a
good naval hospital here at Brest, I believe. We may hope
they have been carried there, but nothing is certain. The
navy here – indeed authority altogether – is sadly lacking in
direction and order. Take as an instance the shameful way
we were treated, tied hand and foot like common footpads,
nothing to eat or drink—'

'Yes yes, well well, we have all suffered considerable inconvenience
of late, Doctor. You will perhaps like to consider
the damage we ourselves have inflicted on the French. And
to reflect that we are all of us fortunate not to've been took
out on a public square and shot. A possibility still, if the
boats coming from the shore should find us.'

'Do you think they will find us, Captain?'

'I hope not. I hope not. With so broad a harbour to traverse,
so many ships, so little discipline ... perhaps they will grow
weary and desist. After all, they have got back their king,
have not they? I expect that counts for everything with them,
now.'

'You mean, sir, do you not – that they mean to execute
their king?' Quietly.

'Nay, I mean nothing of the kind, Doctor. We made our
best endeavours to bring him away, at great cost to ourselves.
Our ship is gravely damaged, and we can only hope to limp
home as it is. We cannot allow ourselves to dwell on the
present circumstances of the French king, nor speculate as
to his future, when it ain't in our hands. That is a matter
for the French, now.'

'Then – forgive me, sir – if it is only a matter for them,
why did we come here at all?'

Rennie glared at his surgeon, and for a moment was very
angry with him. Then he sighed, and shook his head.

'This is our fourth commission in
Expedient
, Thomas, and
I think Their Lordships know we will never shirk our obligation
to face hazard, in whatever form it may take. But I
tell you plainly – this commission is the most improbable of
success that I have ever been obliged to accept. I have done
my utmost – we all have – but I am not God Almighty, nor
even one of his saints, that can work miracles. I am only a
sea officer, mortal flesh and blood, my ship is but a little
wooden world, and we have both been nearly destroyed in
a cause that could never find a favourable end, that was
clearly doomed from the beginning.' A breath. 'Why did we
come?'

'Indeed ...'

'Because we was ordered. Because it was our duty. I will
always like to do my duty – if I am able.'

'Again, forgive me, but that don't quite answer the
question, sir.'

For a moment Dr Wing thought he had gone too far, and
that Rennie would turn on him in a fury, but now he saw that
Rennie's taut silence as he stood at the table was not scarce-contained
anger, but scarce-contained grief. A tear fell on his
cheek, and quietly:

'I cannot bring myself to look close at your list ... and
the names of all those we have lost. All those young lives,
gone for ever. Tom Makepeace, the best and most loyal of
men ... I wish to God I knew the answer to your question,
Doctor, I wish I did. Alas, I do not.'

An hour before dawn. The tide had turned, and was now on
the ebb. Very quietly, all hands under strict orders to remain
silent,
Expedient
slipped her moorings. She needed neither
wind nor towing boats to make headway, but could proceed
purely by the force of the receding water. At Brest, as everywhere
along this coast, the tides were extreme in their ebb
and flood. As she began to move there was no further sign
of the searching boats.

Expedient
was not in what her officers would call a
seaworthy condition. She had been battered, her masts and
rigging were far from sound, and her people were sadly few.
It could not be helped. With everything at stake she would
have to do. The crew of the sunken chasse-marée were now
placed bound and gagged in the vessel's boat, and released
to drift.

'They will be discovered soon enough, I expect,' Rennie
said to James as they watched the boat slowly spin and bob
in their wake, and drift away at an angle. 'Our task now is
to remain
un
discovered, hey?'

'Indeed, sir.'

Expedient
's mooring lay at some distance from the dockyard
and wall, but with many ships lying outside her. A
passage had been left clear of ships between her and the
western side of the roadstead, so that dockyard vessels might
come and go. This was the passage
Expedient
slipped through
now, gliding west across the harbour toward the narrow
entrance, the fort to the north, and the Pointe des Espagnols
to the south. They had a bare hour to accomplish their escape
before daylight rode up like a fiery enemy to pursue them.
Rennie had his carronades run out, with two-man crews
standing by. To James:

'We cannot fight our long guns so short-handed. We must
afford ourselves some protection, however, and our smashers
will provide it.'

'What will become of our wounded ashore, d'y'think?'

'Do not ask me that.' Quietly.

'I'm sorry, sir.'

'The only thing that should make us glad is that we are
tolerable well provisioned for an hundred souls – I am not
glad, though.'

'Nor I.' Thinking of Juliette, whom he now believed – in
his heart – was dead.

'But neither am I sad, James.' Lifting his chin. 'I am resolved.'

Expedient
reached the point immediately south of the fort,
and Rennie ordered topsails loosed and the beginning
southerly wind harnessed. He sniffed the wind, and the sea,
and began to believe – where before he had only allowed
himself to hope – that
Expedient
really would make her escape.
He squared his shoulders in the first faint greyness of dawn,
and felt the sturdy planking beneath his feet.

'My ship is under my legs again, and—'

BOOM BOOM BOOM

The guns of the fort, high on the cliff. Spray erupted white
to starboard, half a cable short of the ship.

'Christ Jesu ...' Rennie stared at the black wall of the cliff.

Further flashes there.

BOOM BOOM

'Mr Tangible! Courses and t'gan'sails! We must run for
our lives!'

'Hands to make sail! Topmen aloft!' And the calls.

'We will all bear a hand, Mr Hayter. Every man that is on
his legs.' Rennie, moving to take up a place on a halyard. 'You
too, Mr Loftus.' Beckoning his sailing master from his place
by the helmsman at the wheel. Spying a boy running forrard:
'You there, boy! Clap on to this fall! You ain't of a size, but
y'must pull your weight today, all the same.' And to the
carronade crews: 'Leave those smashers for now! Bear a hand!'

BOOM BOOM B-BOOM

Fountains of spray over the deck.

'They have got our range now, God damn and blast them,
the villains. Cheerly now, lads! Let us get clear of these
damned guns, and break for the open sea!'

'What a pity hhh it is a clear dawn hhh and not a grey
and gloomy one ...' James, heaving at a fall.

And now came a sound even more chilling than the crash
of guns. Rennie had sent a man into the main crosstrees as
his sole lookout, and now that man called:

'Two ships in pursu-u-u-uit! One mile astern of us!'

Rennie abandoned his position at the halyard, snatched
up a glass as he ran aft, and focused from the tafferel.
Silhouetted to the east against the fiery ingot of the rising
sun, the masts and sails of two ships of war. Frigates.

'Christ's blood ...' Whispered. 'How have they repaired
so soon? I thought I had damn near crippled them, as they
near crippled me.'

BOOM BOOM BOOM B-BOOM

Roundshot whirred past
Expedient
, and flung up spray to
larboard. The creaking and straining of yards, rigging and
timbers as the ship heeled with the lifting wind on the larboard
tack, heeled and pitched in the swirling suck of the tide, and ran
west under her canvas towers.

Rennie jumped up into the mizzen shrouds, careless of
his safety, and focused his glass ahead. Ten miles to the
open sea. Hooking an arm through a shroud he swung
round and peered at the following ships. Were they gaining?
By God, they were. Soon they would begin to fire chasers,
and attempt to smash his rudder. His already damaged
rudder, that was hanging on its pintles by mere good luck.
One accurate shot with a long nine and the ball would
render
Expedient
helpless. He would have to devise a
defence. A defence that would allow him time to reach the
open sea – say an hour.

'The best defence is to attack, ain't it?' In his head. 'Can
I attack while I am running away?'

He jumped down on his quarterdeck, and clamped the
glass under his arm. He paced and paced, back and forth
across the deck, head down, as his ship heeled and groaned
and quivered under him like a frightened animal. Presently,
to the helmsman as he went forrard past him:

'Just so, Whittle, hold her just so.'

To James, who now stood at the breast-rail, his crewing
work done:

'Mr Hayter, a word with you, if y'please.'

James came aft, and Rennie beckoned him close. 'I have
a notion to fire a carronade, James.'

James glanced astern. 'But they are far out of range of our
carronades, sir ...'

'They are gaining rapid, though.' Taking his arm and
guiding James to the lee rail. 'They are gaining, but we
cannot turn and face them.'

'Then how can we—'

'Listen, now. If we was to take a carronade off the gunport,
right out of its breeching rope, and fix it on the deck just
about – there – at the tafferel, how high could you elevate
its aim?'

'Well, sir, not overly high. You mean – to fire it through
one of the chase ports?'

'Nay, I do not. You will secure it with tackle rings, but
the essence of it is – hammocks.'

'Hammocks ... ?'

'Hammocks filled with sand, several of them together,
placed under the carronade carriage and elevating the muzzle
to fire in a high trajectory at those damned ships in pursuit.'

'Firing roundshot, sir? Thirty-two-pound roundshot?'

'No, no, no.' Impatiently. 'A mortar bomb, James. A lethal
projectile that will fall on one of those frigates and cripple
her, and deter the other.'

'We don't possess such bombs in the ship, I fear.' Shaking
his head.

'No, but we can
make
one, or even two. Mr Storey has
got in his stores four-pound grenades, has he not?'

'I think so, yes.' Beginning to see. 'Yes, I'm sure of it.'

'Very good. I want him to make me a stick of them, bound
together in a sleeve of canvas and tied up with stout chain,
the topmost grenade to have a long fuse.'

'Yes, I see, yes. A stick of say half a dozen, placed in the
elevated carronade, and fired in a high arc.'

'Exact. To fall on the leading frigate, at her fo'c's'le, and
explode with lethal effect.'

'Shall I send for Mr Storey, sir?'

'No, James, you will set about placing the carronade as I
described. I will speak to Storey myself.'

One glass by the bell, and the preparations in hand.
Expedient
now clear of the fort, but the two pursuing ships appreciably
nearer, the sun climbing in a great dazzle above them.

A droning whine and a spew of spray to larboard. Then
a distant

THUMP

The action had begun.

The 'bomb' carronade was in position, secured by a system
of fore-and-aft and thwartwise tackles to rings in the deck
and the tafferel, and supported by a mound of sand-filled
hammocks – clewed and tied off – to give the muzzle extreme
elevation, exactly like a mortar.

The frigates, one slightly astern and to larboard of the other,
had each commenced firing bow chasers in a steady rhythm.
Each pairing of nine-pounder shots came closer to striking
Expedient
, sending fans of spray over her decks as they struck
the sea. When the frigates had overhauled
Expedient
to within
a quarter of a mile, Rennie ordered the first of the grenade-bombs
loaded. Mr Storey had supervised the entire procedure
himself, and had made three bombs in all. He had calculated
everything – the height, parabola, distance, and timing required
for the fuse. Now he stood by the carronade to fire it, waiting
for Richard Abey to give the direct command.

Richard Abey lifted his hand high. 'On my signal ...' And
dropped his arm.

BOOM

A fluttering whine as the bomb flew up in a rush of smoke
and flame and fragments of wad, tumbled end over end in
a blur, higher and higher and smaller and smaller, then
dropped, trailing a corkscrew of smoke. The bomb fell out
of sight, and for a moment Rennie believed it had fallen into
the sea. Then there was a series of flashes at the bow of the
leading frigate, her bowsprit flew to pieces, and the forestay
snaked up in a great flailing curl.

CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-BANG BANG
-BANG

A moment of quiet, then the frigate's foremast shuddered,
tipped and went by the board. She lost way at once, slewed
in a half-turn and began to burn. Sails caught fire on the
fallen mast, and soon the whole head of the ship was
enveloped in fiery smoke.

On
Expedient
's quarterdeck the carronade had slewed to
one side with the force of the discharge, and one of the
hammocks had burst, spilling sand over the planking.

'Re-lo-o-oad!' Richard Abey.

Mr Storey and the carronade crew, aided by seamen of the
afterguard, righted the carronade, and another grenade-bomb
was loaded. Mr Storey aimed the squat gun as accurately as
he could, and stood by.

'Wait ...' Rennie, his glass focused on the second frigate,
which had now tacked to larboard and was preparing to fire
her starboard battery of guns.

'Wait ... very well, Mr Abey.'

'On my signal ...' And Richard Abey dropped his arm.

BOOM

The second bomb flew up, tumbling and spitting fuse
smoke, reached its zenith against the dawn, and began to
fall. A flickering flash, and the bomb exploded in mid-air.
The cracking thuds of the multiple explosion. The sea
stitched ragged all round the second frigate. Clouds of smoke
drifting high on the wind.

'Bugger the poxy thing!' Mr Storey. 'The fuse burned too
quick!'

'Wait ...' Rennie watched through his glass. Presently:
'Your bomb was not wasted, Mr Storey. The grenades
bursting above the ship have done great injury to the men
on her deck. They meant to fire a broadside at us, but they've
been interrupted in that purpose.' He lowered the glass.

'Shall I load the last bomb, sir?'

'Nay, Mr Storey, thankee. Your work is done for today,
and very well done, too. Neither frigate will wish to pursue
us now. They have had a nasty taste of Hades, and it has
discommoded them.'

'Very good, sir.' Touching his hat.

'Mr Hayter.'

'Sir?'

'We shall replace the carronade at the gunport, if y'please,
and rerig the breeching ropes. Thankee again, Mr Storey,
there is no need for you to oversee the work. Y'may go
below.'

'You wish me to take the last bomb with me, sir?'

'Indeed, Mr Storey, take it with you, and keep it as a
curiosity, hey?'

A glass. Another glass. And now
Expedient
was clear of
Brest and the immediate coast. She had left the frigates behind
and was heading into the Atlantic. Rennie had inspected his
ship, and thought that she could limp home to England safe
enough. He went aft to his quarterdeck in a relatively buoyant
frame of mind.

'Mr Hayter.'

'Sir?' James, dressed now in a version of his favourite
working rig, with a kerchief tied round his head. He wiped
his hands on a scrap of cloth. He was very dirty, having been
deep into the cable tier at the boatswain's request.

'What d'y'say to breakfast?' Thinking that his lieutenant
looked like the worst sort of ruffian in a gin-and-sawdust
drinking den.

'I should welcome it, sir, indeed.' He balled up the filthy
cloth and threw it over the lee rail.

'Then let us eat it together, hey?'

'I'll just wash my face and shift into my coat—'

'Never mind, never mind.' Magnanimously. 'I don't care
how you look, my dear James, when we have beat the French
at sea, and will not be troubled by them any more.'

But Captain Rennie had spoken too soon.

*

Expedient
at sea, west of Ushant, at 5 degrees and 29 minutes
west, 49 degrees and 29 minutes north, the wind from the
south-west. At four bells of the afternoon watch the ship
preparing to bear north for England, having tracked far enough
west into the Atlantic to be clear of all French difficulty.
Lieutenant Hayter the officer of the watch, his appointment
as replacement first lieutenant now confirmed by Rennie's
written warrant.

'De-e-e-e-ck!' The lookout in the main crosstrees. 'Sail
of ship two leagues due east, beating west toward us!'