He smiled, but did not see Galbraith’s quick answering grin.
The ship was moving steadily and, apparently, unhurriedly, with courses and staysails clewed up or furled. It seemed to open up the sea on either beam, and Adam had seen several of the unemployed seamen clambering up to seek out the enemy. To watch and prepare themselves as best they could. He considered it. The enemy. There were two of them, one large, a cut-down man-of-war by her appearance, the other smaller, a brig.
It was still so peaceful. So full of quiet menace.
Who were they? What had prompted their mission to Algiers?
He saw Lieutenant Massie by the foremast, ready to direct the opening shots, his own little group of midshipmen, messengers and petty officers waiting to pass his orders, and to close their eyes and ears to all else around them.
He turned away from the rail and saw the Royal Marines stationed across the deck, scarlet ranks moving evenly to the ship’s motion. Cristie, and Lieutenant Wynter, Midshipman Bellairs and his signals party, the helmsmen and master’s mates. A centre. The ship’s brain. He glanced at the tightly packed hammock nettings, slight protection for such a prize target.
He raised his eyes and saw more marines in the fighting-tops. He had always thought of it when facing an action at sea. The marksmen, one of whom he knew had been a poacher before enlisting, not out of patriotism but rather to avoid prison or deportation. They were all first-class shots.
He looked at the horizon again, the tiny patches of sails against the hard blue line. He would think even more of it now, since Avery had described those final moments, so quietly, so intimately. He bit his lip, controlling it. All these men, good and bad, would be looking to him. Aft, the most honour. He touched the old sword at his hip, remembering the note she had left with it. For me. He had seen Jago’s searching glance when he had come on deck. The old sword, the bright epaulettes. What had he thought? Arrogance, or vanity?
Jago was climbing the quarterdeck ladder now, his dark eyes barely moving, but missing nothing. A man he might never know, but one he did not want to lose.
Jago joined him by the rail and stood with his arms folded, as if to show his contempt for some of those watching. Like Lieutenant Massie, or the sulky midshipman named Sandell. Sandell, as he insisted on being called.
Jago said, “The first ship, sir. Old Creagh thinks he knows her.”
So casually spoken. Testing me?
The face formed in his mind. Creagh was one of the boatswain’s mates, and would have been carrying out a flogging if Unrivalled had turned back instead of forcing her passage into the teeth of the storm. A lot of people might be thinking that, and cursing their captain for his stubborn refusal to give way.
“One of Mr Partridge’s mates.” He did not see Jago’s quiet smile, although he sensed it.
“He swears she’s the Tetrarch. Served in her some years back.”
Adam nodded. Like a family. Like the men who served them, there were bad ships too.
Tetrarch was a fourth-rate, one of a rare breed now virtually erased from the Navy List. Classed as ships of the line, they had been rendered obsolete by the mounting savagery and improved gunnery of this everlasting war. The fourth-rate was neither one thing nor the other, not fast enough to serve as a frigate, and, mounting less than sixty guns, no match for the battering she must withstand in the line of battle. Ship to ship. Gun to gun.
Tetrarch had been caught off Ushant some three years ago. Attacked and captured by two French frigates, she had not been heard of since.
Now she was back. And she was here.
Jago said, “Cut down, she is.” He rubbed his chin, a rasping sound like an armourer’s iron. “But still, she could give a fair account of herself. And with that other little bugger in company.”
Adam tried to put himself in the enemy’s position, assessing the distant vessels as if he were looking down on them. Like impersonal markers on an admiral’s chart. The brig would be sacrificed first. She had to be, if the bigger ship was indeed loaded with supplies and powder for others still sheltering in Algiers, enjoying what Bethune had called the Dey’s one-sided neutrality. After losing La Fortune to such a calculated trick, they would be doubly eager to even the score.
On a converging tack, both close-hauled, but the enemy would have the wind’s advantage. And there was not enough time to replace the fore-topgallant sail.
Galbraith had joined him, his face full of questions.
Adam asked, “How long, d’ you think?”
Galbraith looked up at the masthead pendant, flapping and drooping. How could the wind have change so completely?
He answered, “An hour. No more.” He hesitated. “She has the wind-gage, sir.”
“It’s the little terrier which concerns me. We shortened sail in time last night. But our lady will be hard put to lift her skirts in a hurry!” He studied the set of each sail, the yards braced round. The wind would decide it. “I want to hit them before they can do too much damage.”
The men at the quarterdeck nine-pounders glanced at one another. Too much damage. Not just timber and cordage, but flesh and blood.
Adam walked to the compass box and back again. “Our best shots must be all about today, Mr Galbraith.” He smiled suddenly. “A guinea for the man who marks down the captain. Theirs, not ours!”
Some of those same men actually laughed aloud. Captain Bouverie would not approve of such slack behaviour aboard Matchless.
He turned aside. “Be watchful of powder. The decks will soon be bone dry. One spark…” He did not need to continue.
He took a glass and held it to his eye; it was already warm against his skin.
Three ships, drawing together as if by invisible warps. Soon to be close, real, deadly.
I must not fail. Must not.
But his voice sounded flat and without emotion, betraying nothing of his thoughts.
“Load in ten minutes, Mr Galbraith. But do not run out. Let the people take their time. Gunnery is God today!”
If I fall. He had his hand on his pocket and could feel the locket there, carefully wrapped. Who would care?
He thought suddenly of the old house, empty now, except for the portraits. Waiting.
They would care.
It was time.
Galbraith glanced quickly at his captain and then leaned over the quarterdeck rail.
The final scrutiny. There was always the chance of a flaw in the rigid pattern of battle.
Decks sanded, particularly around each gun, to prevent men from slipping in the madness of action on blown spray or blood. Nets had been spread above the deck to protect the gun crews and sail-handling parties from falling debris, and impede any enemy reckless enough to try and board them.
The gunner and his mates had already gone to the magazine to prepare and issue charges to the powder monkeys, most of whom were mere boys. With no experience to plague them, they were less concerned than some of the older hands, who would look for reassurance at familiar faces around them, every man very aware of the two pyramids of sail, so much nearer now, although seemingly motionless on the glistening water.
Galbraith shouted, “All guns load!”
Each eighteen-pounder was an island, its crew oblivious to the rest. Just as during the constant drills when they had roundly cursed every officer from the captain downwards, they were testing the training tackles, casting off the heavy breeching ropes, freeing the guns for loading. That too was a routine, a ritual, the bulky charge taken by the assistant loader from the breathless powder monkey, to be eased into the waiting muzzle and tamped home by the loader. No mistakes. Two sharp knocks to bed it in, and a wad tamped in to secure it.
Experienced gun captains had already selected their shots from the garlands, holding each ball, weighing it, feeling it, making sure it was a perfect shape, for the opening roar of battle.
It had all been done deliberately and without haste, and Galbraith knew why the captain had ordered them to take their time, for this first attempt at least. Now there was a stillness, each crew grouped around its gun, every captain staring aft at the blue and white figures of discipline and authority. As familiar as the guns which were their reason for being, in the company of which they greeted every dawn, and which were constant reminders of a ship’s hard comradeship.