His senior petty officer did not look as if the retention of a pittance of their expected prize-money would satisfy him, but he did as he was bade, turning away with the sketchiest of hand salutes.
La Vigilante surely would be lost, Hainaut thought as he went forward to the helm and the compass binnacle cabinet. He waved off the ship's boy who had come to snuff the night lanthorn, long enough to produce a Spanish cigaro from a waist-coat pocket and lean into the cabinet to puff it alight off the flame. Lt. Pelletier would not come ashore to bolster his reputation with praise, alas. Pelletier and Digne would be exchanged, sooner or later, but that might be months in the future. In the meantime, though, whatever he, Jules, would say would be Gospel.
A modest and self-deprecating description of his own part… with a praiseworthy display of anger that he could do no more to save them, perhaps a show of shame that there, was nothing he could do, and play the part of the innocent man who chides himself as guilty… hmmm. Hainaut thought that would redound to his continuing good credit. Well-meaning people would surely clap him on the shoulder and say that he had no reason to scathe himself. Mere bad luck, n'est-ce pas? And, Hainaut calculated, with even more capable officers in British or American prison hulks, there would be more ships in need of captains than there were men to command them. Mohican surely must be his, after all!
Now, had he a full crew and the weight of metal to match against the upstart Americans, if not that British frigate, then who knew what he could have accomplished, if only…
"Oh, if only," he whispered, beginning to rehearse, and script, how he would wring his hands in anguish once he stepped ashore. Jules Hainaut stood looking outboard, puffing on his cigaro, secretly savouring the richness of South American tobaccos, but trying on the opening "scene" and facial expressions to evince frustration and bitter sadness for his first small "audience," his own prize crew.
Yes, some good could come of this disaster, after all; good for him all round, had he the wit and panache with which to play it, Jules Hainaut smugly thought.
"Allo!" the mainmast lookout shrilled to the deck again.
"What?" Hainaut barked back in instant irritation, with a scowl on his face; he quickly amended his tone of voice and expression to one more suitable and… tragically heroic. "Our friends have a chance?"
"The anglais frigate, Lieutenant… I see her before. She is that Proteus! That 'Bloody' Devil!"
"Ah, mon Dieu" Hainaut gawped in true shock, a sinking feeling in his innards. "Then they are truly lost, quel dommage. Merci" he had wit to shout to the lookout.
"A great pity, indeed, m'sieur Lieutenant," the petty officer said, shaking his head in fearful awe. "How can that salaud be everywhere, as if he reads our minds, as if…?"
"Perhaps he does, Timmonier," Hainaut suddenly responded, with a suspicious frown-then a wry and rueful grimace of understanding. "Perhaps this was not mere bad luck, but… betrayal! We must get word back to Guadeloupe that this devil ship and that cochon Lewrie have struck again, as if by a miraculous coincidence. No, this cannot be credited. He must have been told our every move by a traitor."
Poor Pelletier, and poor Digne, Hainaut thought, scowling over this chilling explanation for all their troubles of late. It is all up with them-Pelletier must have had the shortest captaincy in history, and Digne in his borrowed lieutenant 's coat… he'll still owe a tailor for the uniform he ordered, if he survives British captivity.
Quel dommage … I never liked them, anyway.
"We've the angle on them, by God, sir!" Lt. Catterall exulted as they watched the sails of the French ships, the slivers of hulls on the horizon, heave up high enough to be seen with a glass. "Sharp eyes, the Oglethorpe had aloft, t'spot 'em so quick on the false dawn."
"Sharp eyes, indeed, sir," Captain Lewrie agreed, "we'll be up with them in another half hour. Do you concur, Mister Winwood?"
"Uhm… the Oglethorpe, in a half hour, Captain. Proteus, not a quarter-hour later, I'd estimate," the Sailing Master answered after a long ponder, in his usually mournful "mooing" cautiousness.
"Then we'll take at least one prize, thanks be to God," Lewrie chuckled, "unless Sumter overtakes us."
"Can't share out equally, though, sir," Lt. Langlie speculated. "All three ships will be 'in sight' at the time of capture, but we've no formal alliance with the Americans which allows for sharing. And there is the strong possibility that those French prizes yonder are the missing American merchantmen they reported, so… might not Captains McGilliveray and Randolph demand that we return the re-taken ships to their custody, Captain?"
"Damn my eyes, Mister Langlie," Lewrie said, turning on him, in mock anger, "but you've a quibblesome bent before your breakfast, or your coffee. Do I ask my man Aspinall to fetch us all a pot, will you let me keep just one?"
"Well, sir, I hardly…" the well-knit young man began to… quibble, but stopped, red-faced among his fellow officers' mirth.
"I know there's no profit for us this morning, Mister Langlie," Lewrie went on, awarding him a wider grin, "and indeed I shall return what American ships are possibly re-taken to our… cousins. Is there any actual profit in our gesture, perhaps it'll come later, in a real alliance 'twixt our countries against the Frogs, d'ye see, sir. Best all round, really, if we don't even take public credit for assisting the Yankees. But their President Adams, their naval Secretary, and their Congress will learn of it, eventually. As will Admiralty, and the Crown. Secret gratitude from the Americans, and tacit approval by His Majesty's Government may be all we may expect."
"Yet the mightiest oaks, from little acorns grow, do they not, sir," Lt. Adair, his always-clever Scots Third Officer slyly drawled.
"They do, indeed, Mister Adair," Lewrie said with a glad nod.
Those French ships would have been so easy to miss in the grey murk of predawn, but for a very sharp-eyed lookout on USS Oglethorpe in truth. Proteus had been half an hour into the Morning Watch, with her people's and her officers' attention engaged mostly in-board, half-past 4:00 a.m. and the summons for "All Hands" that began a ship's day.
And it had been then that a sharp-eyed lookout of their own had spotted Oglethorpe, at the very edge of vision ten miles aloof, up to windward at the tip of their patrol line and pencil-sketched in black against the East'rd sky. He had discerned the tiny square blocks of a signal hoist in the space 'twixt her main and mizen masts, and her new course as she foreshortened, turning more Sou'easterly to investigate something. Almost as easy to miss, had Proteus'?, lookout blinked, was a tiny ruddy ember that winked into a brief life when she fired off a starboard, lee, bow-chaser to draw their attention.