the distant crack-crack of mallets
aboard a moored frigate. The church clock struck the
quarter-hour. Clouds slowly drifted, unfurling on the wide
blue sky. The moment was significant for both men. Both
men knew that if it passed unseized their immediate
convergence – here, today, upon the great stone wall – would
cease at once, and their lives in the service drift wide apart,
perhaps never to converge again. The Royal Navy was by its
nature deep and wide in its purpose and duty; oceans and
continents could divide and separate its officers over long
months and years in pursuit of that purpose, in compliance
with that duty; if they let the moment pass, a great deal might
be lost. They did not let it pass.
James took a breath. 'I have need of a senior officer to give
me assistance, sir, to advise me as Captain Marles would have
done in a commission I do not yet wholly understand. It
cannot be official, since the Admiralty I know will not
sanction a replacement – but I wish it.'
'I am your man.'
And so it was settled, very simply, there on the stone wall,
with a handshake.
'I thought it best to sail on the evening tide.'
'Not at first light?'
'No, sir. I wish to be at sea, waiting for her, at first light.'
The two officers stood aft of the pumps on the diminutive
quarterdeck of Hawk , one of them in the uniform of undress
coat and hat, the other in plain frock coat and plain dark hat.
Lieutenant Hayter – in uniform – continued: 'We must try
to make an interception at sea, I think, rather than attempt to
take her when she stands in to put her cargo ashore.'
'Ain't that when she will be the more open to being took,
though? When she is vulnerable?'
'From all I hear, Lark can never be thought to be vulnerable,
sir. At sea I can outgun her with my smashers, and – '
'Forgive me, James, but how d'y'know that?'
'Because I have ninety pound weight of iron broadsides,
sir, and Lark – '
'She may well have the same, mayn't she? Hey?'
'No, sir. No, I do not think so. A fast cutter like the Lark will carry four-pounders, probably. Six-pounders, at the
highest. Even if she carried eight six-pounders in each
battery, her weight of metal broadside could only be a little
more than half of my own.'
'Was not your instructions to take the Lark , though? Take
her, and never damage her at all? How will you manage that,
I wonder, if you go at her smashing with ninety-pound
broadsides? Hey?'
James had given Rennie all the information he had thus far
himself been given, and had told him his proposed strategy.
Rennie did not like the strategy. He felt that the Lark would
be nearly impossible to intercept at sea, fleet as she was; that
she could run up from France as quick as be damned, and
likely not even be sighted; that she would be taken, if she
could be found, only when close in to shore, in a bay or cove,
and her pursuer upward of her, with the wind gage, cutting
her off. But he had not felt himself able to say so, direct – until
now. And even now he could only demur, politely demur, and
say why. He could not countermand an order given by a
commanding officer at sea. In spite of his rank of senior post
captain he was rated as nothing and nobody here aboard the Hawk , not even as supernumerary, since he was not listed on
the ship's books. Officially he did not exist.
And yet James had asked for his assistance, his advice, his
opinion – had not he? Could not a senior post make a
suggestion or two, in least? He opened his mouth again, but
at that moment James stepped close to the tiller and said to
the helmsman:
'Luff and touch her, Alden Knott, will you. I will like her a
point closer, if she will answer.'
'Aye, sir.'
The helmsman put his weight on the tiller and brought the
cutter a fraction closer to the wind, so that she heeled to
larboard, on the point of sails a-quiver, but not beyond it,
cutting sweet and true into the westerly wind, the sea hissing
in a froth of lace along her wales and tumbling in on
aboard a moored frigate. The church clock struck the
quarter-hour. Clouds slowly drifted, unfurling on the wide
blue sky. The moment was significant for both men. Both
men knew that if it passed unseized their immediate
convergence – here, today, upon the great stone wall – would
cease at once, and their lives in the service drift wide apart,
perhaps never to converge again. The Royal Navy was by its
nature deep and wide in its purpose and duty; oceans and
continents could divide and separate its officers over long
months and years in pursuit of that purpose, in compliance
with that duty; if they let the moment pass, a great deal might
be lost. They did not let it pass.
James took a breath. 'I have need of a senior officer to give
me assistance, sir, to advise me as Captain Marles would have
done in a commission I do not yet wholly understand. It
cannot be official, since the Admiralty I know will not
sanction a replacement – but I wish it.'
'I am your man.'
And so it was settled, very simply, there on the stone wall,
with a handshake.
'I thought it best to sail on the evening tide.'
'Not at first light?'
'No, sir. I wish to be at sea, waiting for her, at first light.'
The two officers stood aft of the pumps on the diminutive
quarterdeck of Hawk , one of them in the uniform of undress
coat and hat, the other in plain frock coat and plain dark hat.
Lieutenant Hayter – in uniform – continued: 'We must try
to make an interception at sea, I think, rather than attempt to
take her when she stands in to put her cargo ashore.'
'Ain't that when she will be the more open to being took,
though? When she is vulnerable?'
'From all I hear, Lark can never be thought to be vulnerable,
sir. At sea I can outgun her with my smashers, and – '
'Forgive me, James, but how d'y'know that?'
'Because I have ninety pound weight of iron broadsides,
sir, and Lark – '
'She may well have the same, mayn't she? Hey?'
'No, sir. No, I do not think so. A fast cutter like the Lark will carry four-pounders, probably. Six-pounders, at the
highest. Even if she carried eight six-pounders in each
battery, her weight of metal broadside could only be a little
more than half of my own.'
'Was not your instructions to take the Lark , though? Take
her, and never damage her at all? How will you manage that,
I wonder, if you go at her smashing with ninety-pound
broadsides? Hey?'
James had given Rennie all the information he had thus far
himself been given, and had told him his proposed strategy.
Rennie did not like the strategy. He felt that the Lark would
be nearly impossible to intercept at sea, fleet as she was; that
she could run up from France as quick as be damned, and
likely not even be sighted; that she would be taken, if she
could be found, only when close in to shore, in a bay or cove,
and her pursuer upward of her, with the wind gage, cutting
her off. But he had not felt himself able to say so, direct – until
now. And even now he could only demur, politely demur, and
say why. He could not countermand an order given by a
commanding officer at sea. In spite of his rank of senior post
captain he was rated as nothing and nobody here aboard the Hawk , not even as supernumerary, since he was not listed on
the ship's books. Officially he did not exist.
And yet James had asked for his assistance, his advice, his
opinion – had not he? Could not a senior post make a
suggestion or two, in least? He opened his mouth again, but
at that moment James stepped close to the tiller and said to
the helmsman:
'Luff and touch her, Alden Knott, will you. I will like her a
point closer, if she will answer.'
'Aye, sir.'
The helmsman put his weight on the tiller and brought the
cutter a fraction closer to the wind, so that she heeled to
larboard, on the point of sails a-quiver, but not beyond it,
cutting sweet and true into the westerly wind, the sea hissing
in a froth of lace along her wales and tumbling in on
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