Dewey Lambdin - The French Admiral

It was so large a problem that his own paled in comparison, and he knew that he was looking forward to the battle with a certain relish, at that time in the uncertain future when upwards of thirty massive warships would come up within pistol shot of each other and begin to blaze away with every gun available.

Alan had seen single-ship actions since being almost press-ganged into the Navy, and such events as a fleet battle happened too rarely to be missed. He knew he had an extremely good chance to survive it, if it did occur, since frigates would not stand in the line of battle, but would be in the wings, repeating signal hoists and ready to rush down and aid some crippled larger ship. This battle, if it came soon, would truly decide the fate of the rebellion. Without the French fleet, there wasn't a ship on the coast that could stand up to the Royal Navy, and the blockade of their coast could check the last imports and exports that kept their miserable efforts in the field. This would be the crushing blow, and when it was over, everyone on the losing side would sue for peace, and Alan could go home to England. Maybe not to London, not as long as his father was alive. But he could take off naval uniform and begin to live the life of a gentleman once more, so he had a personal stake in victory and frankly, could not even begin to imagine any other result.

Then, no matter what career was open to him after getting out of the Navy—which had treated him so abominably—he could brag for the rest of his life that he had, by God, been there! Sword in hand, making every shot count, eye-to-eye with the Frogs, pistoling mounseers right and left, or whatever else his imagination could do to enliven an observer's role as the tale grew with the telling.

I'll probably bore some people to tears with it. He laughed. There I was, hanging upside down from the clew garnets, four third-rates on either beam! Harro for England and St. George and pass the bloody port if you're through with it! And the best part of it all is, I'll be safe as bloody houses for a change, instead of scared fartless.

Unwinding his limbs from his precarious perch, Alan clambered down to the starboard bulwarks along the gangway and jumped the last few feet to move back aft to the quarterdeck, where Treghues, Railsford, and Monk were plying their own telescopes to survey the immense power spread before them.

"Still fourteen of the line, sir," Alan said to Railsford.

"Be more than that when we reach New York." Railsford grinned at him. "Admiral Graves can add at least seven more, plus frigates. We shall have this Count de Grasse on a plate, mark my words."

"Mister Railsford, signal the flag there was no sign of the French at Charlestown."

"Mister Forrester!" Railsford bellowed.

"Sir?" Forrester called, running from the taffrail flag lockers.

"Signal 'negative contact.' Make sure Princessa or one of the repeating frigates replies with a matching signal."

"Aye, aye, sir."

The signal system, even with special contingencies included by Admiral Rodney before he departed the Indies, was meager almost to the point of muteness. Many signals were guns fired either to windward or leeward, ensigns hoisted from various masts, perhaps a certain colored fusee burning after dark. There were only so many signal flags, and each had a meaning mostly laid down in the Fighting Instructions, so anything that did not do with bloody battle took some ingenuity to convey. Usually it resulted in such confusion that ships sidled down to speak to each other at close range anyway, and captains developed their lungs by shouting and bawling at each other through speaking trumpets, making their choler permanent.

Today was no exception. A red ensign hoisted from the windward foremast, and a blue signal flag at the gaff of the spanker was not understood as 'negative contact'; negative something, maybe, but what? The nearest frigate, the Nymphe , hoisted another flag that stood for "interrogative." Nymphe then lowered the interrogative and raised another which ordered Desperate to close with her. Since Nymphe was commanded by a post-captain and Desperate , as a sixth-rate, boasted only a commander, they had to yield their advantage to windward and come down to her, which would result in a long hard beat back to their assigned position once the message had been passed and understood.

"Play with your fancies: and in them behold upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing; hear the shrill whistle which doth order give to sounds confused," Mr. Dorne, their nattily attired surgeon, was emoting as roundly as Garrick in Drury Lane. "Behold the threaden sails, home with the invisible and creeping wind, draw the huge bottoms through the furrowed sea, breasting the lofty surge!"

Oh Christ, he must have aired his wig again, Alan thought.

" Henry the Fifth !" Railsford barked with glee. "Quite appropriate!"

"Oh, do but think you stand upon the rivage and behold a city on th' inconstant billows dancing; for so appears this fleet majestical, holding due course for Harfleur." Dorne ran on, now striking an oratorical pose, to the amusement of the assembled officers. Even cherubic Lieutenant Peck of the marines was smiling as though in fond memory, but being a marine, Alan was not sure that grin had anything to do with Shakespeare. Probably thinking on the last orange-vending wench he fondled in a theatre.

"Sounds most powerful like it, indeed sir," Monk agreed.

"Now you tell me, Captain, that the Bard did not do some time in the sea service," Dorne crowed.

"Follow, follow, grapple your minds…" Treghues began with some enthusiasm, but then stumbled and groped, not so much to remember the verse as to wander off the subject entirely, as though something else had caught his attention. He raised his telescope to look at Nymphe once more.

"Follow, follow, grapple your minds to sternage of this navy," Forrester recited, unable to resist the temptation to toady with his betters or show off his excellent education. "And leave your England as dead midnight still, guarded with grandsires, babies and old women, either past or not arrived to pith and puissance, for who is he whose chin is but enriched with one appearing hair that will not follow these culled and choice-drawn cavaliers to France?"

"Hah, hah, young sir, a scholard lurks!" Dorne shook with pleasure. "You are most familiar with him, I grant you."

"Aye, sir." Forrester beamed, trying to put on an air of modesty. "Especially Henry the Fifth , and that passage, which deals with the Navy."

"And when do you get enriched with that one appearing hair, Forrester?" Carey asked, with all the carrot-headed innocence that only the youngest midshipman could get away with.

"You would do well to grapple your mind to your duties and making something of yourself, young sir," Treghues said, shutting off their open enjoyment of Carey's dig. "Better indeed to emulate Forrester than be japing and frivolous! Or you shall never live long enough to grow that one appearing hair in my ship."

Poor Carey flinched as though he had been slapped in the mouth, and his eyes welled up in an instant. "I am sorry, sir," he quavered, on the edge of losing all control. Carey spun away and almost ran to leeward to be as alone as a completely humiliated and hurt thirteen-year-old boy can be on a ship.

Had discipline allowed, the assembled officers and warrants might have given an orchestrated chorus of groans at the harshness with which Treghues had chastised Carey for such a harmless remark. Even Treghues realized that he had gone a little too far, for he barked at them to be about their business and not stand about like cod's-heads.

Poor little get, Alan thought. Still, it's better him than me for a change, and he has been getting away with a lot lately.