Secrets of the Fearless Page 11

  They were rewarded less than a week after Nat had taken the satchel. The wind being fair and the day fine, the crew had been ordered to the upper decks to wash their clothes. Soon every available space was full of tubs of water, with men working over them, and the rigging was a-flutter with drying shirts and trousers. John, looking up from the tarry stains he was trying to scrub from his jacket, saw that the frigate, which had seemed to be sailing past, was in fact fast approaching, her bows slicing through the creamy foam. He slowed down, spinning out the job for as long as he could, while the frigate hove to alongside the Fearless and a launch was hoisted out to fetch her captain on board.

  He watched surreptitiously as the frigate’s captain, resplendent in gold braid and a fine cocked hat, was piped on to the quarterdeck, and saw him disappear into Captain Bannerman’s cabin. He emerged shortly after, a bundle of letters and papers under his arm, and was soon being rowed back to his own ship.

  A few moments later, as he bent over the tub, John became aware of a pair of black buckled shoes and two legs clad in white stockings and breeches. He looked up into the face of Mr Erskine.

  ‘Well done, boy. Keep scrubbing. Cleanliness for health and good seamanship, eh?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Mr Erskine seemed about to move on, but stopped, and said, ‘Do you take an interest in natural history, John?’

  ‘I – not much, sir.’

  ‘You should. The habits of birds, for example, are instructive to us all. You may have been aware that a rare . . . ah . . . an unusual foreign bird has been resting on this ship for some time.’

  ‘No, I – oh yes, sir. I know what you mean.’

  ‘This morning I observed that it left us and took up a new roost on the frigate that visited us just now. It will no doubt arouse great interest among the scientists when it reaches London.’

  John was trying not to laugh.

  ‘Will it, sir? How . . . how remarkable.’

  His voice had embarrassingly plunged again, and he said no more.

  ‘As you say, remarkable,’ said Mr Erskine, smiling pleasantly. ‘Carry on, John. Keep scrubbing.’

  The wind from the south was balmy, although it was only April, and the clothes dried quickly in the spring sunshine. Putting his clean trousers on, John noticed for the first time how short they had become.

  ‘They’ve shrunk,’ he said disgustedly to Tom, who was tying his still damp red neckerchief round his neck.

  ‘It’s not the trousers. It’s you. You’ve grown. Taller than me you are now. Only by a whisker, mind.’

  It was true, thought John, as he shinned up the ratlines to help take in a reef at the command of the bosun’s whistle.

  The ship had needed more careful handling these last few days. The long, straight, flat coast of south-west France, with its endless silvery beaches and low sand dunes, had been a mile or more away, as the Fearless had stood well out to sea. Now, though, Captain Bannerman was risking her in the treacherous shoals and sandbanks nearer into shore. Skilful navigating and constant vigilance were needed, and the sails had to be adjusted all the time.

  ‘What does old Sam think he’s doing?’ John heard a member of his gun crew grumble. ‘He’ll get us stuck fast in the shallows, if he don’t mind out, so Frenchy can come and take a pop at us.’

  ‘You shut your trap,’ Mr Stannard snapped at him. ‘Captain knows what he’s about. Tides, winds, sandbanks – they ain’t no mystery to him. He can see a lot further than the bottom of a glass of grog, which is more than can be said for you, my lad.’

  He was more irritable than usual, but then, thought John, everyone seemed on edge these days. The long boring task of patrolling was wearing down both officers and men. Discontent swirled about the ship. The fine weather, which should have cheered everyone up, seemed to make them more frustrated at being pent up on their crowded, floating prison, while they dreamed of long summer evenings with lightly clad girls at home.

  A crisis came a few days later when a sailor, ordered to clean up the lavatories, swore at a midshipman and refused to obey. All the ship’s hands were piped on deck. The marines, bayonets fixed, lined the upper decks and gangways, and their drummer rolled out a solemn rat-tat. The sailor was stripped to the waist and tied to a grating. Then, under the eyes of the whole crew, Mr Higgins flogged him till his back was flayed with cruel, bleeding stripes. Though this was not the first flogging John had witnessed, he flinched at every stroke, and thought he would be sick. He wanted to turn away, but the officers were moving about among the crew, listening out for rebellious murmurs and forcing everyone to watch. He shot a look at Kit, who was standing beside him. Kit’s face was so white that John was afraid he would faint.

  Everyone was subdued after the flogging. There was no laughter or cheery talk on the decks that night, but no more open complaints were heard.

  When John turned into his hammock, he found that he couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t get out of his mind the savage pleasure he’d seen on Mr Higgins’s face, or the limp body of the sailor, who’d fainted dead away when at last they’d cut him down. He felt overcome by sadness and thought, for the first time for weeks, of his father. Where was the Splendid now? Was Patrick still on board her and, if so, was he safe? When would they ever see each other again?

  He tossed and turned for a long time, then felt his stomach gurgle and knew he had to go to the lavatory. These were in the bows, at the very opposite end of the ship. He stumbled up the steps of the nearest companionway into the open air.

  The moon was up. Clouds moving slowly across the sky parted for a moment, and moonlight, cold and white, flooded the sea and the empty sands of the French coast nearby. The Fearless, riding quietly to anchor, her sails hanging loose, was a lonely thing in a quiet world, where the waves, crawling lazily towards the beach, were all that moved. The only sounds were the gentle whistle of the breeze in the rigging and the water slapping softly against the ship’s hull.

  John shivered. There was something eerie in the scene, some hidden menace that he didn’t understand. He walked quietly to the bows and relieved himself. He would be glad to get back to his hammock.

  Then, nearby, he heard soft music. Someone had started playing a fiddle. Looking round one of the ship’s boats that sat on the deck, he saw a group of sailors, the men of the night watch, sitting together, singing and talking to keep themselves awake.

  The moon had gone in now, the light had left the sea and the ship was in darkness, except for the lanterns that swung from the rigging. John was feeling his way back to his berth when something odd caught his eye. On the shore nearby, a light was flashing.

  John frowned. There were no villages along this part of the coast, no harbours and no ports. Who could be out there, on the empty sand dunes, at this time of night?

  On, off. On, off. On, off.

  The flashes were regular.

  It’s a signal, thought John, his pulses quickening. Someone’s signalling the Fearless. Who are they trying to alert?

  He looked along the side of the ship. There was a denser patch of shadow where the edge of the quarterdeck rose above the waist of the ship where he was standing. He peered into it. Was someone standing there? He couldn’t be sure. But then the dark mass in the shadow moved and John saw an answering flash as the shutter of a dark lantern was opened and closed, opened and closed.

  He gasped with excitement.

  ‘It must be Mr Higgins,’ he breathed. ‘He’s signalling to the French again!’

  He was about to creep forwards to try to see more clearly, when a hand came down heavily on his shoulder and another was clamped across his mouth.

  ‘Quiet,’ came a whisper in his ear. ‘He mustn’t see you.’

  He recognized Mr Erskine’s voice and his heart stopped jumping in his chest.

  ‘Go back to bed,’ the man said softly in his ear, ‘and not a word to anyone about what you’ve seen tonight.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Fearless had s
lipped further south than usual from the mouth of the Gironde, the broad river on whose banks lay the great city of Bordeaux, thirty-five miles to the south, but early next morning she was hastening back, beating northwards on a freshening wind to resume the blockade.

  John had been sent up to the fo’c’sle to help the sail-maker, who was sitting cross-legged on the deck, patching holes in the Fearless’s spare sails. The ship was rolling awkwardly, her sails half reefed, buffeted by the tricky currents that were even more treacherous at low water. John was just stretching out his hand for more thread, enjoying the warmth of the sun on his arm, when he heard the lookout at the masthead above call out, ‘Sail ho!’

  Captain Bannerman’s huge voice bellowed out at once from the quarterdeck.

  ‘You up there! At the masthead! What does she look like?’

  ‘A square-rigged vessel, sir,’ the reply came floating down.

  ‘Where’s she sailing to?’

  ‘Out from the river mouth. Out to sea, sir!’

  ‘A breakout!’ exclaimed the sail-maker. ‘A French ship making a run for it! So that’s why we’ve been lurking so far away. Making the enemy feel safe, luring him out, where we can nab him. That’s what Thundering Sam’s been at, you mark my words. He’s a canny one. We’ll see some action now, I don’t doubt.’

  He dropped the canvas he was holding and went across to the ship’s side to take a look. John followed, but however hard he screwed up his eyes, he could see nothing but the shining expanse of tide-ripped water sparkling innocently in the morning sun.

  ‘It’s too far away still,’ said the sail-maker, returning to his work. ‘Only visible from up aloft. We’ll see him all in good time. Here, boy, what are you doing with that needle?’

  News of the French ship’s break for freedom had spread like fire through the Fearless. Men from every part came crowding up on deck and stood staring out to sea, talking loudly.

  ‘Silence, fore and aft!’ Captain Bannerman roared.

  John looked across from the fo’c’sle, and saw the captain standing, four-square and stocky, his hands on his hips, gazing up at the lookout on the masthead high above, while a group of officers trained their bristling telescopes on the horizon.

  ‘Masthead! What do you see?’

  ‘A large man-o’-war, sir. Bearing away to the west.’

  The next command sent a shiver through John, and his heart started hammering in his chest.

  ‘All hands clear the decks for action, ahoy!’ bawled Captain Bannerman. ‘Beat to quarters!’

  The marines’ drums rolled. Whistles sounded.

  This can’t be happening, thought John. We can’t be going into a real battle. It must just be a practice, like every other time. But his sweating palms and tingling scalp told him otherwise.

  The ship, which had been relaxing a few moments earlier in the easy-going routine of a sunny morning, had leaped to life. Every one of the six hundred men on board raced to their tasks with well-practised, silent efficiency. Within seconds, the spare sails John had been working on were rolled up and they, along with the sail-maker and his mates, had disappeared below.

  John, darting below, found that already, in the last few seconds, the tables had been lashed up and everyone’s chests had been taken down into the hold. Davey was collecting the pewter plates from the rack on the wall and stowing them into a packing case. Kit was looping up the canvas screen so that the whole gun deck was one long space, from the bows to the stern of the ship. Tom, who was almost beside himself with excitement, was helping Jabez lift down the musket cases.

  ‘You stop that skitterin’ about now, Tom,’ Jabez said severely. ‘No use you’ll be to your king and country if you tires yourself out afore things hots up and the dashing about begins.’

  But his was almost the only voice to be heard, as the crew, with no need of spoken commands, made the ship ready for the action to come. The gun decks were miraculously empty. Nothing, no tables or benches, no personal possessions or pets, no boots or jackets or hats, cluttered the bare boards now. At the far end of the gun deck, where the small cabins for the officers were ranged on each side, the flimsy partitions were being knocked out and their clothing, books, washstands and instruments were all being swept away.

  John took all this in with a glance and leaped to his own task, which was to take down the canvas screens that surrounded Mr Tawse’s tiny cabin and carry them below.

  ‘What shall you do about ’Orace, Mr Barton?’ Davey was asking Jabez when came back. ‘What if the battle should frighten ’im out of ’is senses?’

  His voice wobbled anxiously.

  Jabez shot him a measuring glance.

  ‘You don’t want to go worrying about ’Orace,’ he said kindly. ‘The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. If so be that it’s time for ’Orace to give up ’is feathers as decorations in some fine lady’s ’at, ain’t nothing we can do to save ’im. You leave ’im be, Davey boy. ’Orace ’as been in more battles than you or I be ever likely to see, and ’e’ll live through many more.’

  ‘Fortune-teller told me I’d live till I was seventy and marry a beautiful dark-haired lady, Mr Barton. Do you think she was right about that?’

  ‘Zed that, did she? Then it stands to reason there ain’t no need for you to worry. Now you get over there and give Mr Tawse a hand with unpacking the cutlasses. And mind you don’t cut yourself in half. Mortal sharp, they be, every last one of them.’

  ‘John!’ Mr Tawse called out. ‘What are you thinking of, idlin’ about there? Get up on deck, find the bosun and inform ’im with my compliments that the cutlasses and muskets is all in order to be issued to the men.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ said John, glad of something to do.

  The eerie emptiness of the gun deck below was in sharp contrast to the busy, crowded action on the open decks above. The Fearless, skilfully navigated through the sandbanks near the coast, was out at sea now, leaning into the wind, surging through the water. Dozens of sailors were still working aloft, crowding on every inch of sail, as the Fearless went in pursuit of the enemy.

  John, darting about in search of the bosun, stopped in his tracks as he caught his first sight of the ship ahead. She was still only a small thing on the horizon, but even from this distance he could see that she was a great ship, a powerful, fighting man-o’-war, an opponent to be reckoned with.

  ‘How long before we catch her up?’ he asked the sailor nearest to him.

  The man shrugged.

  ‘Three or four hours, maybe. Captain, he’ll outrun her easy. First time in action for you, is it?’

  John nodded.

  ‘You’ll get through all right and tight. No time to think in a battle. You just have to do your best to be a hero and make your mother proud.’

  John nodded. There was no point in explaining that his mother was dead.

  Father would be proud, anyway, if he could see me doing well, or even if I just come out alive, he told himself.

  The idea of Patrick witnessing a battle almost made him smile. He’d drop his musket, fall over, or get excited and start quoting from ancient tales of old. He pushed aside the idea that the Splendid might have been in action too. There was too much to think about just now to start worrying about his father.

  The formidable figure of the bosun appeared through the crowd of men. John hurried up to him.

  ‘The master gunner’s compliments, sir, and the small arms are ready for issuing.’

  He was rewarded with a grunt and hurried back to report to Mr Tawse.

  It took only a short time to distribute the weapons to the men. The drill had been practised a hundred times before.

  ‘What now, Mr Tawse?’ John said, anxious for another task. Jabez answered instead.

  ‘You shift along to join your gun crews, boys. Be brave lads now, and do your best.’

  Before the boys had time to disperse, the bosun’s whistle twittered and the command ‘All hands on deck!’ echoed through the ship, shouted from ma
n to man.

  John and Kit hurried up together.

  ‘John, listen,’ Kit said, his dark eyes fixed on John’s with painful seriousness. ‘If anything should happen to me, if . . . Take my chest and what’s in it. And don’t be surprised at what you find. You might not . . . You’ll think . . .’

  He was struggling to find the right words, but before he could continue, Nat appeared beside them.

  ‘Are you ill, Nat?’ said John, noticing the sickly white colour of Nat’s face.

  ‘I’m scared. Real fearful,’ Nat said frankly.

  His small frame was shaking with shivers.

  ‘I’m scared too,’ said John, relieved to be able to confess it. He turned back to Kit. ‘And if I don’t make it, will you somehow get news to my father, on board the Splendid? Will you tell him . . . I don’t know what – that I was thinking of him now, and all the time since we parted. Something like that.’

  Nat beside him gave a mirthless laugh.

  ‘Ain’t no one to care if I lives or dies. Ain’t no one I can leave no message for.’

  They had reached the open space below the quarterdeck, where the whole crew was mustered. As the Fearless rose and fell on the long Atlantic swell, her expert crew using every trick to catch the wind and speed her on her way, John glimpsed the French warship ahead. She was a fearsome sight. Though still a mile or so away, the gap was slowly closing.

  Captain Bannerman appeared at the quarterdeck rail and silence fell, as everyone looked up at him expectantly.

  ‘Men,’ he began, his great voice pitched at a rich low tone, ‘we are about to go into battle. You have proved yourselves patient and diligent during these long months of blockade, and now you will be tested to the limits of your courage. Some of you are hardened warriors. Some of you have never fought before. But all of you must remember what we are doing here. The ship we are pursuing is our enemy. Those who sent her out to sea, and those whom you will fight, wish to conquer and subdue our great nation. Could we bear to see King George chased off his throne and Napoleon crowned at Westminster? No! Do we want our wives and children to be at the mercy of Napoleon’s rabble army? No! Then we will fight, and fight like tigers! You are the finest body of men that I have ever commanded, and I know that you will nobly do your duty.’