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  “The wind is coming westerly, sir,” said Waring, “the enemy is no longer to windward of us.”

  “Thank you, Mr Waring.”

  “We could close the range, sir.”

  “So indeed we could.”

  “That corvette could be our pup-pup-prize within the hour!”

  Delancey knew exactly what Waring wanted. The first lieutenant was stuttering and red in the face, his fingers drumming on the quarterdeck rail. Delancey remembered that Waring had a wife and a large family in Sunderland, more than he could well maintain on lieutenant’s pay. And now the man had seen his chance to better himself. After a successful action, the enemy brig captured, Delancey would be posted into a frigate and Waring would become captain of the Merlin. There would be a useful sum in prize-money and a useful paragraph in the Gazette: “The corvette was taken by a boarding party led most gallantly by the first lieutenant, her colours being hauled down fifty minutes after the action began. I am more particularly indebted to . . . etc. etc.” Delancey was himself tempted, heaven knows, but his decision had been made.

  “Heave to, please.” The order was quietly given and it seemed for a long moment that the first lieutenant had failed to understand it.

  “Heave to, sir?” he asked stupidly.

  “If you please, Mr Waring.”

  To heave to meant to back the foretopsail, making the sails act against each other and so bring the ship to a standstill. In this instance it meant increasing the range and refusing battle, the correct movement for protecting the rear of the convoy.

  “Heave to, sir?” Waring had now taken in the full extent of the disaster. He looked to heaven for inspiration, looked at the helmsman, looked at young Stock, Delancey’s A.D.C., and finally, aghast, at his captain. His lips moved but he was lost for words.

  “You heard me, Mr Waring, HEAVE TO!” The first words were uttered quietly, the last two fairly barked. Stung into action, Waring bawled the necessary orders. There was a flurry of activity as the foreyard was backed. There was a similar flurry on board the Frenchman, her crew just visible and her captain probably surprised. Both the French corvette and the convoy were still going ahead, the Merlin relatively losing ground.

  The first lieutenant was plainly furious, muttering under his breath to the master’s mate, Langford, who was commanding the quarterdeck guns and who made no response of any kind. Delancey took no notice, watching the corvette to see what her reaction would be. He half expected her to follow suit but she held her course. Three minutes later the look-out hailed the deck. Another sail had been sighted, almost in the same direction as the corvette but some miles further away.

  “Mr Langford,” called Delancey, “take a spyglass and tell me what more you can see from the main topmasthead.” Stolid as he might be, the young man was up the rigging in a flash, quick as a cat. He reached the deck again in five minutes.

  “Another Frenchman, sir—a ship-rigged corvette—bigger than the one near to us. I glimpsed her for a moment and then she was lost again.”

  “Thank you, Mr Langford. Make sail, Mr Waring!”

  The foretopsail filled again and the sloop was once more under way.

  His face like a thundercloud, Waring went forward to the forecastle, his proper station in battle, ostensibly to check the gun crews, actually so as to splutter in disgust to anyone who would listen—in this case, the boatswain and young Topley. Mather, who had been in the waist of the ship, came aft at this moment and touched his hat.

  “Well, Mr Mather?” Delancey asked.

  “Beg pardon, sir, a man in my watch believes that the nearer corvette is the Malouine, the other the Mouche. He says that they work together.”

  “That I can well believe.”

  “I should guess, sir, that the Malouine’s guns are loaded with chain-shot, bar-shot and canister.”

  A ship normally engaged an opponent with round shot at close range, attempting to damage her hull, cause casualties and silence her guns. But when her captain had a different object, wanting to cripple his opponent and then break off the engagement, he would choose a longer range and would load with special ammunition designed to damage sails and rigging.

  “No doubt of it,” replied Delancey, thinking that Mather was a man after his own heart—a man quick to understand the situation and draw the right conclusion. How he would shape in battle remained to be seen. It was clear, in the meanwhile, that he could use his brains.

  Within the next hour or two the French corvettes forereached on the convoy and made off northwards while the crew of the Merlin stood down from their guns, put the ship to rights and resumed their ordinary routine. Delancey went below to write his report and Waring was free at last to express his disgust.

  It was Mather’s watch but Waring remained on deck, looking longingly towards the French corvettes, each no more than a blur on the horizon. He swore to himself and hit the gunwale with the palm of his hand.

  “I thought at one time, Mr Mather, that the corvette was as good as taken. We’ve lost our chance now!”

  Mather was pacing the quarterdeck, looking now at the binnacle, now at the sails and now at the men who were replacing a broken ratline on the main shrouds. He paused near Waring and replied in a tone of hardly veiled contempt (didn’t the man understand even now?).

  “There never was a chance. There was a trap, sir, and our captain refused to fall into it.”

  “A trap? What d’you mean?”

  “The Mouche followed the Malouine but so kept behind her that she was always hidden. If we had engaged the Malouine she would have fired at our rigging until we were crippled. After she had broken off the engagement, the Mouche would have sailed into the convoy, taking half of them before nightfall.”

  All this was so obvious to Mather that he wondered still that any explanation should have been necessary. It was like talking to a disappointed child. Waring had taken his hat off and was twisting it in his hand as if it had been an opponent’s neck. When he spoke it was with a splutter of indignation.

  “All very clever! The fact remains that we let the enemy escape. The crew must feel disgraced and those two corvettes will go on to play havoc somewhere else.”

  “But our task is to protect this convoy.”

  “Even if more valuable ships are afterwards taken in the Straits of Messina?”

  “We are not responsible for what happens in the Straits of Messina. We have been ordered to bring these ships safely into Leghorn and that is what we are doing.”

  “Obeying orders is all very well. There have been great admirals who could do better than that.”

  “When we are admirals, sir, we may do the same.”

  Alone in his cabin and alone with his thoughts, Delancey finished his report and signed it. There is a time to fight, he reflected, and a time to avoid fighting. He felt that he, personally, had passed a new test. Courage, he knew, is not enough. But what of his officers? So far from finding the answer, Waring had not even seen the problem. There still was this to be said for the man, that he had courage. He would have led the boarding party without thought of danger—all that was true. He had learnt his seamanship in a tough school, on board a collier out of the Tyne. He was a good man in some ways, but completely brainless.

  Mather, by contrast, had instantly grasped the situation. He might not be a first-rate leader—Delancey rather doubted whether he was—but he certainly had brains. The pity was that Waring was the senior. Langford was a useful man, he thought, and Northmore a promising boy. He was uncertain as yet about Topley but gave him the benefit of the doubt. As for the crew as a whole, they were shaping very well. He asked Teesdale, very casually, what the crew thought of the recent encounter.

  “Well, sir, there’s no gainsaying that they were disappointed at first, clearing for action, seeing the enemy and no action after all. Some of the younger men talked of running away and that. But the older men—seamen like Mike Garley and Nathaniel Taylor—properly put them in their place. They knew what
the French game was and the rest came to see it in the end.” So it was as it should be—the veterans were teaching the rest. Apart from that, hard work was showing results. There could be no doubt about it, the Merlin was becoming a smart ship.

  When he took her into Gibraltar the following week, once more under the eyes of so many critics, he thought that there was nothing to be ashamed of. If the Rear-Admiral should be watching, so much the better. In point of fact he had been watching, as became apparent when Delancey reported to him.

  It was to the same office he came, where the quills were still scratching and where the clerks, to all appearance, might not have moved from their desks since he saw them last. The same flag-lieutenant ushered him into the inner office from the window of which he could glimpse the Merlin at anchor.

  “I observe, captain, from the way you entered harbour, that you have a sense of style. Any adventures?” Delancey told him about the French corvettes.

  “Malouine and Mouche? Yes, I’ve heard of them. You did well to let them alone. The question is—where are they now?”

  “I’m told, sir, that they often cruise between Palermo and Tunis.”

  “That is probably correct and that is where you may well see them again. For the next eastward-bound convoy will be carrying supplies and stores to our squadron on the coast of Egypt, with some other vessels bound for Malta and Cyprus. The convoy will be under the command of Captain Doyle of the Lapwing and he will be glad to have the Merlin as whipper-in. I should send another sloop if I had another but I don’t.”

  “When do we sail, sir?”

  “As soon as the last three storeships arrive from England; in two or three weeks’ time.”

  Delancey made haste to call on Captain Doyle. The Lapwing he knew by sight, an old 28-gun 6th Rate, the smallest class of ship to justify a commander of post-rank. He found, however, that Doyle was in lodgings ashore, an elderly man who looked far from well. He was bedridden in a room above an apothecary’s shop, wearing a flannel nightgown and a nightcap, with a cup of tea at his elbow and an array of medicine bottles. Delancey repeated the instructions he had received.

  “Glad to have your help, captain. I’ll be happy, however, when this voyage is over. I think it will be my last. I began on the lower deck and it took me a lifetime to reach post-rank. I haven’t been very active of late and the chief physician here thinks that I should retire soon—or should indeed have retired already. These pains in my back give me trouble and I have headaches as well when at sea, with an occasional touch of fever. I’m like the Lapwing herself, almost worn out.”

  Delancey expressed his sympathy and went on to tell Doyle about the two French corvettes. Captain Doyle had a fit of coughing and managed to upset his teacup. When set to rights he resumed the conversation.

  “Yes, I sighted them once. But they would never come near a frigate. Let me once reach Gibraltar again, the convoy safe, and I’ll take the next passage home. Can you guess where I mean to retire?

  “In Ireland, sir?”

  “Well, I come from there, true enough. But my plan is to settle down near Bristol. I never married, you know, but my sister lives there. I want no more than a cottage, you understand, with a woman to do the housework and another to cook. I first went to sea fifty-five years ago. I feel that I’ve done enough and maybe too much.”

  Delancey expressed all the right sentiments and came away rather depressed. Any hopes he had of trapping the two corvettes could now be forgotten. Old Doyle was not thirsting for battle but for a well-earned rest. He looked quite unfit for service and Holroyd, the Lapwing’s first lieutenant, was trying to persuade him to stay ashore. Holroyd he had met before, a blunt and competent seaman with a strong Yorkshire accent, who had been disfigured by a facial wound. He had been the Lapwing’s real commander for months past. There was an element of self-interest in Holroyd’s advice but he was honestly worried about the old man, doubting whether he would survive another period at sea. Delancey thought that a bachelor’s retirement must be a lonely and miserable experience, one he would rather avoid. He must himself marry before it was too late; as soon, perhaps, as the war was over. As things stood, however, he had little or nothing to offer and the ending of the war, whenever that should be, would leave him with, if anything, less.

  Dining ashore at the gunner’s mess, Delancey met with Holroyd again. There was talk about Gibraltar’s strength as a fortress and its usefulness as a base. Its weakness lay in the fact that its harbour was all in view of the Spanish coast whatever happened there was clearly seen and quickly reported. A gunner captain asked whether that really mattered.

  “It matters in this way,” said Holroyd. “Suppose we are assembling an eastward-bound convoy, as we are at this moment, the number of ships, the date of sailing, the value of the cargoes, and the strength of the escort is reported to the Spanish. The next ship bound eastwards from Malaga takes full information to Palermo, which lies right in the path of the convoy. Then the French cruisers decide whether to intercept it or let it alone.”

  “How interesting!” said another gunner officer. “I had supposed that they cruised near a usual landfall and merely hoped for luck.”

  “No such thing, sir,” said Holroyd, “they act on intelligence and there is no lack of it from Gibraltar.”

  “But the convoy’s destination can be secret, surely?” objected the Major.

  “How can it be secret?” asked Holroyd. “The crews of merchantmen know where they are going and were told, indeed, before they signed on. I mustn’t tell you our route and am not supposed to know. But everyone along the waterfront can tell you, and your mess servants probably know already.”

  Coming away together, Delancey and Holroyd discussed the matter again. “A man-of-war’s destination could be made the subject of a false rumour,” said Delancey finally, and Holroyd agreed that this was possible. What rumour had he in mind? “Well, just by way of example, the Lapwing’s crew might think that their ship was going no further than Minorca.” There was a minute’s silence as they paced the quayside and then Holroyd replied, “I see what you mean, sir.” Holroyd could take a hint and needed no reminder. That the Lapwing would go no further than Minorca was soon a matter of common knowledge, known to everyone before the convoy sailed.

  After eight days at sea Delancey was surprised to see the Lapwing hove to while the convoy sailed on. When the Merlin thus came up with the frigate, Holroyd’s voice could be heard hailing Delancey:

  “Captain Doyle is sick, sir. I have taken over the command.”

  “Is he dying?”

  “Could be, sir. He should be in hospital, anyway.”

  “Very well, then. I am now the senior officer. Alter course for Port Mahon.”

  “Just this ship alone, sir?”

  “No, the whole convoy. Merlin will now replace you as leading ship. You will take station astern.”

  So the rumour turned out to be almost true. Captain Doyle was taken ashore at Port Mahon, Minorca, and Delancey sent for the masters of all the merchantmen.

  Chairs were set out round the mahogany table in the after cabin. Young Topley had pinned some charts to the bulkhead and stood by them with a pointer. Northmore guarded the doorway and announced each master by name. Teesdale had placed decanters and glasses on the sideboard. Holroyd had been among the last to arrive, his boat having furthest to row, and he took his place on Delancey’s right, Waring and Mather on his left. Delancey began by telling them that Captain Doyle had been sent to hospital.

  “I am now in command and am fortunate to have Mr Holroyd as second. I think it possible, though not certain, that we may be intercepted off Sicily by two French corvettes. On a recent occasion their plan was to engage the escort sloop with one corvette while the other would thus be free to attack the convoy. If they do that again, we have a surprise for them: the presence of the Lapwing. To make this a complete surprise, we must hide the frigate behind three of the largest merchantmen, the Cumberland, the Hopewell and Boyne.
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  “On the cabin table before me I have arranged corks to represent the convoy. The three ships I have named are here in the centre with the Merlin here to windward of them and the Lapwing to leeward—here. Here are the French, ready to fall into our trap. But all depends upon masking the Lapwing until the last moment. Can I rely on you, gentlemen?” There was a murmur of agreement and one skipper spoke up:

  “You might be interested to know, sir, that the story current in Gibraltar was that the Lapwing would go no further than here and would then turn back. So the frigate mayn’t be expected, anyway.”

  “That’s right,” said another skipper. “I heard that, too, strictly in confidence.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” said Delancey, glancing at Holroyd innocently. “Odd how these stories come to circulate. Are there any questions?” The conference broke up, the skippers having a glass of wine before they left, and the remainder of that day was spent in a hurried repainting of both men-of-war, the Lapwing made to look more like a merchantman and the Merlin merely made to look different, like another sloop of the same class.

  At daybreak the Merlin fired a gun and the convoy put to sea again, each ship gradually taking up her assigned position. The formation was far from perfect but Delancey realised that this was an advantage if the huddle in the centre was to look accidental.

  Five days later, on a sunny but cold afternoon with foam-capped waves and a strengthening north-easterly wind, a sail to windward was reported from the mast-head. The stranger was a corvette and Delancey had the feeling that it had all happened before. There were, however to be differences, the first of which would be his own failure to sight the other corvette. This time he was going to fall innocently into the trap, engaging the nearer corvette and failing to suspect the presence of the other. The light this time was less favourable to the French but he was going to be as unobservant as Waring had been on the earlier occasion. Steadying his telescope against the mizen shrouds, he looked carefully at the distant corvette. Yes, she was the same brig, no doubt of that.