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  Comino, in the foreground, was bleak and windswept, crowned by an old derelict castle. There was talk, he had heard, of using it for the safe custody of prisoners of war. In the other direction the waves were crashing on the rocky shores of Malta, beyond which rose the brown deserted hills. Through his telescope he could see two horsemen at a landing place, one of them presently boarding a small boat which headed now for the Lion (64), which lay at anchor further to the south. Captain Ball, commanding ashore, had watchers posted on the cliffs and would have the latest news about Perrée signalled to Lord Keith but sent by mounted messenger to the Lion. There were two other men-of-war in the strait, anchored further to the eastward, the Gannet and the Sirena perhaps five miles away.

  Half an hour later came the expected signal for the captain of the Merlin to report to the Lion. The gig soon swept alongside the larger ship and Delancey was received with ceremony. The boatswain’s pipe was heard, some boys manned the side and the first lieutenant met him with a salute at the entry port.

  As he had approached and now, as he looked about him, Delancey could see that the Lion was splendidly maintained and manned; a crack ship with every rope in its place and not so much as a blister on the paintwork. Manley Dixon was among the finest officers afloat, so Delancey had been told, and he could well believe it. There had been no previous meeting, however, and each had some interest in the other. Once in the forecabin, Delancey was greeted by a vigorous well-built man with piercing eyes, very much the seaman and as obviously a man of breeding and intelligence.

  “Good-morning, captain. Pray be seated and join me in a glass of Marsala. And allow me to congratulate you on the appearance of your sloop. She looks like a smart frigate in miniature, ready for anything but handled like a yacht.”

  “Thank you, sir. I am fortunate in my officers but would not venture to compete in smartness with the Lion.”

  “Thank you in turn. It is, however, the enemy with whom we now have to compete. I expect you heard the gunfire this morning? I have since had a letter from Captain Ball. He tells me that a big French transport, the Ville-de-Marseilles, has been captured, with two thousand troops aboard. The other ships have dispersed and their flagship is being pursued towards Sicily and will undoubtedly be taken. She is assumed to be the Généreux, flying the flag of Rear-Admiral Perrée . . . I hope you find the Marsala drinkable?”

  “It is some of the best I have tasted, sir.”

  “Ninety-seven is reckoned a good year. Well, the attempt to relieve Valletta has failed. On the basis, however, of intelligence obtained by you from a prisoner of war, we suspect that the convoy may have sailed in two divisions. Should it have done so, when are we to expect the second division?”

  “Tonight, sir. I can’t swear, of course, that my guess is correct; nor would it be surprising, for that matter, if the enemy plans had been changed. For all we know, the ships needed may have been lacking. But if a second division is to profit from the situation created by the first, it must arrive before the pursuit is over; and that means, tonight.”

  “I agree. And what plan would you expect the enemy to adopt?”

  “With the wind backing nor’ easterly, my guess is that he would approach Grand Harbour from the north, keeping close under the land.”

  “And so into the arms of Lord Keith?”

  “Of whose presence he may not be aware. He would also reckon to be covered by the shore batteries for the last mile or two.”

  “That’s true. But one question remains. Which side of Gozo? Through this strait or round the north?”

  “Had I to do it, sir, I should pretend to go one way and actually go the other.”

  “Yes, but which?”

  “Damned if I know!”

  “Look at it again then from our point of view. If we had only the one ship, where should we station her?”

  “Just to windward of this strait, ready to intercept the enemy in either direction.”

  “Very well, then. The enemy, knowing that, must conclude that we shall be watching the strait. So his convoy will pass north of Gozo.”

  “After making a feint in this direction?”

  “Something like that. Here, then, is my plan: the Lion will stay in or near this strait. The Merlin will cruise to the north of Gozo, the Gannet further to the east, the Sirena to the south.” Manley Dixon had the chart in front of him and marked it in pencil. “What I have now to arrange is a code of signals. You and I will have the island of Gozo between us but we shall be able to see each other’s rockets. White flares will mean nothing. If we locate the enemy—one red rocket. Then, to describe the enemy’s strength one blue for each man-of-war and one green for each transport. Two red if I want you to join me. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We neither of us know if your guess is correct. Should we sight the enemy tonight, however, their convoy must represent the last French effort to save Valletta. When it fails—if it has not already failed—Vaubois will ask for terms. Before they capitulate, though, the French will try to save the Guillaume Tell but without, I think, the least prospect of success. You can tell your men that the fate of Valletta may well be decided tonight. Have they fought a night action before?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then exercise them beforehand and make certain they know what they are doing. All sorts of things can go wrong and it is all too easy to fire at your own side. You will look foolish in the morning if it turns out that you have sunk the Gannet.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  On his way back to his ship, Delancey gave thought to all that Manley Dixon had said. His men had never fought at night and he realised now that they had been trained almost entirely in daylight. It was partly a matter of routine and partly a matter of checking mistakes more easily. Exercising the great guns and small arms normally took place immediately after Divisions (Four Bells in the Forenoon Watch or 10.00 a.m.) or else after dinner at 1.30 p.m. To fix an unusual hour and one after dark would have interfered with other duties and would have been impossible, of course, after hammocks had been piped down. And yet a night action was quite likely, bringing with it problems of its own. Too little thought was given to this and he had himself been as much to blame as anyone else.

  On board his own ship again, he explained the situation to Mather and Stirling and added that he would clear for action at nightfall, inspect the guns and talk to the gun captains. It was far from certain that the enemy would appear, but the result of the action, if there was to be one, would be terribly important. A single vessel breaking the blockade and entering Grand Harbour would have a big effect on the morale of the garrison of Valletta, suggesting to them that what could be done once might be done again. That could be enough to prolong the siege for another thirty days. No single enemy craft, therefore, not even the smallest, must be allowed through.

  The order to clear for action was given after the crew’s supper and there followed a careful inspection of the men and the equipment. Each gun had a crew of nine, numbered off so that each man knew exactly what he had to do. Number One was responsible for the priming wires, tube boxes and vent bit, Number Two for the vent plugs and spar breeching and so down to Number Nine, who had the powder box. The gun would be virtually out of action if the spike and mallet were lost or if Number Six was without his sponge, rammer or worm. Nor was it merely a question of keeping the gun in action. Half a dozen possible mistakes could result in blowing up the whole equipment and leaving the crew dismembered, blinded or dead.

  Delancey made his rounds with Topley at heel as his A.D.C., explaining to the youngster how vital it was to have everything in its proper place, from the lantern to the shot grimmet. When he was finished with the guns, Delancey went on to inspect the magazine, of which the gunner had the key, and made sure that the carpenter had the sounding iron and shot plugs, that the riggers had their stoppers and tackles. There was a great deal to do, from extinguishing the galley fire to sanding the decks, and it all had to be done i
n a matter of minutes. When Delancey was satisfied with the ship’s state of readiness, he collected the gun captains round him and gave them some words of warning:

  “You all know that the French are besieged in Valletta. The fortress is too strong for us to storm, so we are starving them out. They made this morning what may have been their last attempt to break the blockade. Their convoy was intercepted by Lord Keith and Lord Nelson, their ships were chased off and probably made to haul down their colours. It seems possible, however, that a second convoy may be following the first, hoping to find the coast clear. We don’t know that this is their plan but we think it possible. But they won’t find the coast clear. They will be confronted, in fact, by the Lion, by the Gannet and, above all, by the Merlin. If they attempt to enter Grand Harbour it must be tonight. In that event we shall intercept them and that means a night action.

  “As you can see for yourselves, it is a dark night, moonless and overcast. It is not going to be simple to see the target. Under such conditions it is easy to waste ammunition, firing at nothing. Our only remedy is to fire at the flashes of the enemy’s guns. You will all be on your own so far as that goes, and I rely upon each of you to aim carefully, taking your time. It is useless to fire into the darkness, hoping that the enemy will be there. That is what we might expect the French to do, but we must be wiser. We shall use flares at first, enough of them to distinguish friend from foe. After that we must rely upon good eyesight, careful aim and steadiness under fire. If you have questions to ask, now is the time for them.”

  “Begging your pardon, sir,” said an oldish gun captain called Dyer. “Shouldn’t we do better to close with the enemy and deal with him at half-pistol-shot range? That way, we couldn’t miss, not even in the dark!” Some of the others murmured agreement with this, one of them adding: “Aye, sir, close range is what the Frenchies don’t like!”

  “Least of all,” said a third called Philips, “if we load with nails and bolts and bits of hoop iron!” There was some laughter at this and scattered applause. “That’s the way to give them a belly-ache!”

  “Listen, men,” replied Delancey, “and take heed of what I say. First, I won’t fight at close range and I’ll tell you why. Any ships sent to relieve Valletta will have troops on board, scores or even hundreds of them. Come to close range and we shall have muskets against us in numbers we can’t match. So I shall keep out of musket shot. There are risks enough in battle without adding that one. Second, I’ll have no firing of scrap metal. Why not? Because these fragments may wedge the cannon-ball. What happens then? You burst the gun. Oh, I know what the old seamen say! But it’s a fool’s trick, really, and I’ll not allow it.”

  “Can you tell us, sir, whether we shall have men-of-war to beat or merely transports?” The question came from one of the younger men called Gilling.

  “I’ve no means of knowing but I should guess that there might be both. If I have a choice, I’ll take the transports, since they are of more value, probably, to General Vaubois.”

  There were no more questions and Delancey dismissed the gun captains, telling them to pass on the information to their gun crews. Looking along the deck, he could see each group collected under a lantern, the warm light revealing the sunburnt faces. He could have addressed them all together but the way he had done it had given more authority to the gun captains. He had tried to make them feel that it was their battle and he knew that this was the fact.

  The Merlin was cruising north of Gozo, alone in the darkness, her position verifiable only from a few scattered lights ashore. The only sails seen at sunset had been those of Maltese fishermen. The sloop was cleared for action but the men had been told to lie down between the guns and take what rest they could. As time passed men on the look-out strained ever harder to pierce the darkness and Delancey, pacing the quarterdeck, came near to exhausting his patience. Mather joined him and they discussed for a while the likelihood of action before daybreak.

  An hour or so passed and then, suddenly, the sky was lit beyond Gozo and there was the distant boom of a gun. There was another flare soon afterwards revealing the hills of Gozo in sharp silhouette. It might, of course, be some trading polacre that the Lion had sighted. Ten minutes later, however, a third flare was the prelude to some more persistent firing, four or five shots in succession. Then there followed what Delancey had been waiting for, a single red rocket.

  “Mr Langford—a white flare, please.” The shores of Gozo were lit for an instant and Delancey glimpsed a sail off the island’s north-westerly point.

  “Mr Mather. Beat to quarters!” The drum beat urgently to bring the men to their guns.

  “Pass the word for Mr Stirling.”

  When both lieutenants were there Delancey told them what little he knew.

  “One enemy sail has been sighted from the Lion. My guess is that there are others and that some of them will prove to be transports, more important to the enemy than their men-of-war. They must be prevented, at all costs, from entering Grand Harbour.”

  “With respect, sir,” urged Stirling, “couldn’t we leave the merchantmen to the Sirena and the Gannet?”

  “I wish we could. But the Gannet is rather distant and a Neapolitan frigate is a doubtful quantity. She is or appears to be in tolerable order but her crew, I would guess, have never been under fire. What is her accuracy of shooting at night? We don’t even know that her men can hit anything in daylight, or have ever, for that matter, fired her guns at all.”

  The conversation died away but there was a further flare from the Lion’s direction, to which the Merlin replied in kind. With night-glasses already focused in the right direction, Delancey and the other could now distinguish three sail where one had been seen before.

  “A schooner in the lead,” said Mather, “followed by two ships, one a corvette, the other a merchantman.”

  “Agreed,” said Delancey. “A red rocket, please, Mr Langford. Pause for one minute and then let us have a blue and two green.” The rockets soared and burst overhead, conveying their message to Delancey’s senior officer. From the Lion’s direction there came, in reply, a single green rocket.

  “Now, gentlemen,” said Delancey, “we have the complete picture. The convoy comprises a corvette and three merchantmen or transports. Of the three, one should fall to the Lion and the other two to us.”

  Despite the problems which were going to face him—and he had already begun to foresee them Delancey had a certain feeling of satisfaction. He had formed a theory about the French plan for the relief of Valletta and he had been proved right. Their convoy had sailed in two divisions and here was the second division, already more or less trapped. Whoever commanded it must know by now that he had been seen. What would he decide to do?

  Chapter Five

  THE FALL OF VALLETTA

  DELANCEY’S plan was to wear when abreast of the convoy and then close on the leading vessel, the schooner. But the next flare revealed the enemy’s response to his expected move. The three vessels had begun to scatter, the schooner heading nearer the coast, the leading merchantman coming closer to the wind and the corvette holding her course as if to challenge the Merlin. The purpose of the manoeuvre was clear enough. If Delancey fought the corvette the other two would race for Grand Harbour under every scrap of canvas they could spread. If the Gannet intercepted one of them it would be the schooner and the other and larger vessel might still get through.

  “Damnation!” said Mather, softly. “We are made to take our pick.”

  “Could we cripple one and take t’other?” asked Stirling.

  “What—at night?” was Delancey’s reply. He needed to say no more because the task of shooting down an opponent’s mast, difficult enough in daylight, was plainly impossible in the dark when the gunners had little or nothing to aim at.

  “Not even if we closed the range?” asked Stirling.

  “Against a ship carrying infantry? It would be madness. Haul close to the wind, Mr Mather, and aim to intercept the merchantman
on our starboard bow.”

  Delancey left the quarterdeck, with young Topley at heel, and made a tour of the main deck, having a final word with each gun captain. “Aim at the flash,” he said to each of them, “but if you can’t see anything, don’t waste your shot.” He asked himself, meanwhile, whether he had made the right decision. The enemy had wanted him to fight the corvette, which was enough in itself to make him decide against it.

  But could the French be more subtle than that, guessing that he would turn aside from the challenge? The merchant ship was certainly bigger but what if the corvette were laden with the more vital supplies, the more important men: medical stores, mortars, explosives, artillerymen, engineers and staff? In that event he himself could be made to look too clever and perhaps too cowardly. Anyway, he had made his decision and he knew that, in war, any decision is better than an inability to decide.

  Back on the quarterdeck and peering once more into the darkness, he had now to wrestle with a problem in mental arithmetic. At the time of lighting his last flare the enemy transport had been, he guessed, about six miles away. What was his own speed? There was a stiff breeze blowing but he was close to the wind . . . call it, seven knots. Allow the enemy the same speed—no, five knots, more likely—and interception should take place in half an hour, say, after the last flare. That had been fifteen minutes ago. He must give it another five minutes. To light his next flare too soon would be a mistake, revealing his plan before it was too late for the French to change theirs. To leave it too late, on the other hand, would be worse still for he might cross his opponent’s wake without firing, or even collide with her and see his crew massacred by small-arms fire.

  Straining his eyes afresh he could see nothing in the darkness except the foam on the nearer waves. He forced himself to wait another three minutes. It was, however, the Frenchman whose nerve failed first. A flare was lit on board the corvette, now on the Merlin’s port quarter, and the momentary light revealed the French transport, less than half a mile away on the port bow, nearer than Delancey had expected and crowding all the canvas she had.