Scarborough Fair - Chris Scott Wilson [26]
“Your name, lad?” Paul Jones asked, watching the boy’s Adam’s apple dance in rhythm to his butterflies.
“Mayrant, sir. Midshipman Mayrant.”
“How’s your signaling?
Mayrant raised his arm to show the code book clutched in his sweating palm. “Passable, sir.”
“I fervently hope it’s better than that. Run me up: Alliance, Vengeance AND Le Cerf TO STAND BY THE FLEET. Pallas TO ASSIST THE FLAGSHIP IN ENGAGING THE ENEMY.”
“Aye aye, sir.” The boy saluted then turned to the flag locker.
“If we’re going to return to port with damaged bulwarks and hastily patched rigging,” Paul Jones remarked, referring to the collision in the night, “then we might as well have been in action to justify it.” He produced a wry expression. “Set me a course to intersect the enemy’s and make sure the men are ready to clear for action. Do not make them stand to, yet. If they wait too long at their posts morale will ebb.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Dale went about his duty.
The commodore stood alone, eyes riveted to the naked horizon, almost willing the Royal Navy men-o’-war to close with Richard. But fear was there too. Fear his ship would fail him, or his men, or worst of all, that he would fail them. But he would never know until it happened. He had seen enough action in his career to realize one could never be certain of the outcome. One could only do one’s best and rehash it when it was all over. His reverie was broken as the first series of signal flags cracked open in the wind. Midshipman Mayrant had worked quickly. If the rest of the crew showed half the promise of the two midshipmen, he would be well pleased. Behind him, the sailing master, Cutting Lunt, was issuing a series of orders in a tone that demanded instant obedience. This was not the moment for laggardness. Down in the waist an unfortunate sailor who was slow off the mark was frozen by Cutting Lunt’s harsh yell.
“Lieutenant Stack! Take that man’s name! We’re going to war, not for a day’s fishing! When I say jump, you jump, you bugger, or be flogged like the bilge rat you are!” He grinned, turning away as a petty officer flailed a knotted rope across the sailor’s shoulders.
“Pallas acknowledges, sir,” Mayrant advised.
“The others?” Jones queried.
“All but Alliance, sir…Oh, she’s signaling now.” As he spoke, Richard listed below their feet, heeling onto her new course as the helm was put over.
“Man the braces there!” Cutting Lunt shouted.
Another voice cut through the din on the main deck. “When I say haul, I mean HAUL, you buggers! Set to it!” Underneath the bawling of the petty officers, the stamping of the scarlet-coated marines could be heard as Colonel de Chamillard began to drill them, terse barks of command instantly obeyed. Jones swept his gaze over the activities below, then peered at the gaily colored flags fluttering from Alliance’s signal lanyard.
“She’s acknowledging, sir.”
“Yes,” Jones muttered to the breeze, “last again.”
“Excuse me, sir, but she’s asking if she may assist.”
The commodore’s eyes were steely. “Signal she is to maintain her station AT ALL COSTS until ordered to the contrary.”
***
Captain Pierre Landais stood on his quarterdeck next to his signaling lieutenant. The Frenchman was small and wiry, much the same build as the American commodore, but his features were easily read, and his body could not disguise the tension twisting his muscles into useless knots. He had not learned to wear the bland mask of authority necessary when commanding men who looked to their captain for example and reassurance. Instead, he screamed and cursed every man who stood in his path and those who bore the misery of walking in his shadow. A lock of hair escaped Landais’s hat and fell across his forehead. On Paul Jones it would have appeared boyish, an excusable remnant of youth, but on the Frenchman it seemed merely unkempt. Anxiously he awaited the commodore’s reply to his signal. His fingers drummed on the rail. Still waiting, he watched Bonhomme Richard veer off course, her stern