He turned to Jack Evans, who was lurking a few feet downwind.
‘You too, Evans. Aloft the pair of you. See what a breath of wind feels like aloft!’
There was no argument, naturally. The two boys climbed the ratlines with the men, who kept silence, kept their faces clear of expression, slowed down their easy, barefoot pace so as not to show up the clumsy overfed boys in their heavy tarpaulins and leather shoes. They stopped at the top, so as not to get in the way as the men swarmed out along the yards. William was almost overawed at their agility. At the way they swung like monkeys, their feet gripping foot-ropes, their clenched stomachs holding them to the big, swaying yard as their free hands flew at the reef-points and earrings. His sickness, and the sickness of fear, were still with him, but he felt proud also, proud and brave.
Then he saw Jesse Broad. He saw the man he knew as a captured smuggler, the man who had tried to run, the man who had saved the life of that dreadful boy, the man he had seen flogged at the gangway and who had smiled at the last stroke. Through the torn shirt he saw the seaman’s back. It was black and blue, swollen like a bolster. The man was doubled across the yard, his face clenched in pain or concentration, his fingers hidden by the sail’s belly he was working at.
William Bentley saw blood well through the torn and soaking shirt. The nausea flooded through him anew. His stomach dropped. He raised his eyes past the handsome head, away from the awful, savaged back. He stared out across the wild grey waters.
And he saw the ship. She was close, not above a couple of miles, to his unpractised eye. So close he could not understand why the cry had not gone up. She was close, and she was a ship of war. She was to windward, towards the coast of France. And for a sovereign, for a King’s ransom, she was French!
He filled his lungs and roared, his head swimming with excitement.
‘Sail ho! On deck there! A sail, a sail!’
The cry rose thinly from the captain’s speaking trumpet: ‘Where away? Aloft there! Where away?’
‘Broad on the larboard bow! Broad on the larboard bow! A ship of war! A ship of war!’
The Welfare took a mighty plunge then, and shook the sea from her foredeck like a dog. The second part of Jesse’s prayer had been answered.
Twelve
If the new ship was a Frenchman, there could be only one, inevitable, consequence. Even if the Welfare had been an unarmed merchantman, desperate not to fight, she would have been hard put to escape; the distant ship was well before the frigate’s beam, and she was running free. But Welfare was a ship of war, and British, and to every person on board who was not too sick to think, the situation was clear. A ragged cheer went up from the men on the yard, exhausted as they were, and William Bentley found himself cheering with the rest of them. From the deck, a faint hullabaloo arose.
William, who had a good theoretical knowledge of single-ship actions, and who spent many hours working out moves and tactics in the midshipmen’s berth, alone and with the others, weighed up the situation. His sickness was waning fast, being replaced by an almost unbearable excitement. He turned his face to Evans, who was clinging to the mast beside him.
‘By God, Jack!’ he said. ‘Now we’ll see something!’ Jack’s face was flushed where before it had been sallow, almost green.
‘Do you not think we ought to get on deck, Will? We must stand to our positions!’
‘Orders, Jack, orders.’
‘Perhaps your Uncle Daniel has forgot us!’
William turned his eyes to the men on the yards and screamed at them impatiently: ‘Move, you lubbers, move! Cannot you see there is action to be had!’
‘How will we engage do you think?’ Evans asked. His high voice carried well in the howling noise of the rigging, and Bentley had to strain hard to match him.
‘Difficult, difficult. She is to windward of us, has the wind abaft the beam, and can lay down the terms. But in this tempest she will be hard put not to merely fly past us. Can you see what she is carrying?’
The two boys stared across the heaving waters. The ‘enemy’ dipped and plunged in the distance, sometimes almost disappearing into the troughs.
‘Close-reefed topsails I think,’ said Evans doubtfully.
William watched as their own sails grew larger. It seemed an odd tactic, now, to increase the area. In weather like this Welfare would need to be as handy as possible, especially to meet a vessel coming down the wind. Even more so if the fellow didn’t want an encounter and had to be chased; and that was always possible with the French, according to everything he had ever heard. The men on the yard were hesitating too, as if expecting the order to take in the reefs once more, or even add to them. It occurred to him that the view from the deck must be considerably less than theirs up here, and on an impulse he cupped his hand to yell at the quarterdeck.
‘On deck there! On deck there! She’s under close-reefed topsails only, and closing fast.’
There was a short pause, filled by the roaring wind and clapping of canvas. Then the voice of his uncle, distorted by his speaking trumpet. It rose to the heights of the mast as if slowly; an eerie effect.
‘Has he made any sign yet? Has he seen us?’ A pause. ‘Any colours? Any change of course?’
William and Jack Evans strained their eyes. The distance was definitely closing. Had the windward vessel changed course?
‘She’s coming round, Will, she’s coming round! Oh my God, there’s going to be a fight!’
William wasn’t so sure. The ship looked just the same to him.
But he knew Jack’s eyes were keener. ‘Are you sure? Has he altered?’
‘Aye, aye!’ squeaked Evans. ‘Oh, he’s changing all right!’
William roared down to the deck as hard as he could, and another cheer rose slowly upwards seconds after his words.
‘On deck there! On deck there! He’s making for us! He’s seen us! He’s bearing down for us! The devil’s on for a tussle!’
His mind was racing, back to tactics once more. With this sea running the gun action would be difficult indeed. The lee ports could certainly not be opened; they were under water half the time. And then the weather ones – well, they were pointing to the sky by the same token. They would either have to go head to wind to get her on an even keel for a minute or two, or be stern to wind at just the moment the Frenchman ranged alongside. But then they’d be completely exposed as they wore, and he had the wind gage in any case. Obviously paper tactics and his sketchy knowledge of seamanship would not suit here; if he was controlling this action, he realised with a thump, he would not know how to begin.
Evans was having the same trouble.
‘How will he lay her, Billy?’ he asked. ‘We cannot rake the dog like this, our shot would be over his trucks. We’d pepper the clouds!’
‘Whatever else, Jack,’ Bentley shouted, ‘we’ve got to get some canvas off her. He’ll run rings round us else.
The press is too great.’ The gap was narrowing. Still the seamen on the yards were at sixes and sevens. They must be wondering what to do; when the order would come to closereef. Maybe Uncle Daniel was planning to clew them up of a sudden when Johnny Crapaud was in range, then shake out and sail her. William could see the master and the captain at the weather rail, heads together. Mr Robinson, that indifferent man, was waving an arm about in animation.
‘’Tis damn near time to beat to quarters,’ Jack said in his ear. His voice was doubtful. William did not reply. With the sea-sickness on board, with the general lubberliness of the people, with the badness of the weather and the closeness of the enemy, he secretly thought it was time and a lot more.
The guns were shotted already, but all ports were closed and caulked, all tampions were in, every mess between every pair was full of groaning, useless men. Partitions were up, mess tables were in position. He looked into the wind. Although a very short time had passed since the first sighting, the weather frigate was noticeably closer. He could see what Jack had seen. She was making to intercept them.
‘Is she carrying colours yet?’ Evans replied after a long moment.
‘Not yet. But hell’s teeth, Will, when do you think your unc—’ He broke off. William flushed.
‘Shut your mouth,’ he said viciously. But he said it to himself. Then the penetratingly thin voice warbled up from below. A sudden stronger gust carried the first part of it away.
‘…or I’ll flog every last son of a whore of you!’
Aha! The word to close-reef. William watched the men.
They did nothing. They must not have heard either. He was about to repeat what he guessed was the order, when Captain Swift’s voice rose once more, full of venom even at that distance.
‘Get that canvas set, God damn you! Shake out those reefs I say!’ It was unbelievable. Bentley and Evans exchanged glances. Shake them out? Another order rose from the deck, not directed upwards this time, but still audible.
‘Tacks and braces! Tacks and braces there, you buggers! Man the sheets!’
The master had gone to the helm. The men laid to the spokes with a will. All over the decks others scrambled, to man the topsail halyards, to brace the yards as the frigate altered course. There was a thunderous clapping as the canvas bellied and flapped during a series of sail and helm manoeuvres done at double-quick time. The men on the yard clung on for dear life as they were flung about, then they were all round the two boys, then at other parts of the rigging, then away like lightning towards the deck. Jack Evans was pink around the gills. They felt like a couple of hopeless lubbers. Collapse of the young gentlemen.
‘I say,’ he shouted miserably. ‘Had we better get down off here?’
It was no moment to wait for orders. Captain Swift would have forgotten all about them, anyway. William went down the ratlines lost and unhappy. He glanced to windward, which was now over the larboard quarter. The French ship had not altered, as far as he could see. Doubtless her commander was as surprised by the frigate’s latest move as were all on board her.
He picked his moment carefully, to avoid the seas that still combed the deck. The knots of seamen standing about had on sullen, closed expressions, and an air of depression had replaced the cheeriness. Disbelief, too. Not one of them apparently who could believe they were really attempting to run. It must be some ploy on the owner’s part. Swift might be a hard man, even a tyrant. But no one had ever caught him playing the coward.
As was his duty, William reached the quarterdeck.
The first and second lieutenants were there, studiedly looking away to starboard at nothing in particular. Captain Swift was alone, high on the weather side, his lips grim. Mr Robinson looked incuriously at the two midshipmen, then returned his gaze to the masts. At a signal, William approached his uncle.
‘On whose instruction have you left your post?’
He jumped. His uncle’s eyes were cold and savage. His voice had a cutting edge that was almost palpable.
‘I…I am sorry, sir, I—’
‘Sorry you will be, damn it, and sooner than you think, Mr Bentley. And your friend, too. Why sir, did you abandon your position?’
Swift’s face was white. The muscles in his cheeks worked. He was consumed with rage.
‘I…am sorry, sir,’ said William. ‘I shall return immediately. I…misunderstood.’
The captain turned away. There was silence for several seconds. William wondered if he should go aloft. He dared not ask.
‘Take that fool Evans with you and keep an eye on the Frenchman. I want to know everything about him. Every move he makes. Is that understood?’
‘Aye aye sir.’
‘Then jump, boy, jump!’
William leapt smartly away. He motioned to Jack, and they raced along the deck to the main shrouds. The decks were clear of heavy water now, with wind and sea almost astern. When they reached the topgallant yard Jack panted: ‘What did he say?’
‘To shut up and watch,’ returned William. ‘So get to it, instant, or I think we may be flogged like common sailors. In Uncle Daniel’s eyes we have done wrong. So use yours now, Jack. Use them.’
And almost immediately Jack Evans picked out men scrambling aloft in the Frenchman. Within minutes her fore topsail began to blossom as the reefs were shaken out. There was going to be a chase.