A Falcon Flies (84 page)

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nable to endure the company of his junior officers a moment longer, stifled and filled with a sense of helplessness by his inability to prevent the tall American clipper from romping away from him, desperate for some activity to help his nerves from fraying further, Clinton Codrington had taken his telescope and gone forward into
Black Joke
's bows.

Oblivious to the spray that splattered over him, soaking the thin linen shirt and chilling him so that his teeth chattered even in the brilliant sunlight, Clinton clutched for a hand-hold in the ratlines, balancing on the narrow bulwark and staring ahead through eyes that swam not only with the stinging spray and wind, but as much with humiliation and frustration.

Just perceptibly,
Huron
's tower of canvas was sinking below the irregular watery horizon, by sunset she would be gone. She and Robyn Ballantyne. His chance had come and he had missed it. His spirits could sink no lower.

To add to his suffering, his streaming eyes were playing him false, and what he could still make out of the clipper became distorted, changing shape as he still stared after her. Then the hail from the look-out high above him broke the grip of his despair,

‘Chase is altering!' Clinton could not yet believe the high-pitched shriek from the masthead. ‘She's coming about!' The hail was almost incoherent with excitement and surprise.

Clinton whipped the telescope to his eye, and once again doubted his eyesight.
Huron
's masts had been almost dead in line, but now they showed individually. She was coming about, already
Huron
was almost broadside, and Clinton stared. For a few moments more the orderly mass of sails retained their perfect snowy shape, and then the pattern began to break up. The ponderous belly of the mainsail wobbled and trembled, then began to flutter and shake like a pennant in the gale, it spilled its wind and collapsed like a bursting paper bag and lashed itself in a petulant fury around its own mainmast.

Huron
was a shambles. Through the glass Clinton could see her beginning to tear herself to pieces, sails ripping, yards tumbling – her foremast sagging out of true, and he still could not believe it was happening.

‘She's taken full aback.' He heard Denham's triumphant yell, and other voices took up the cry.

‘She fast in irons!'

‘We've got her, by God, we've got her now!'

Though his vision blurred and the wetness running down his cheeks was not all splattered spray, Clinton went on staring incredulously through the telescope.

‘There is smoke, she's on fire!' Denham again, and Clinton picked up the fine pale mist of smoke spreading away from her; and at that moment a fresh burst of spray over the bows drenched the lens of his telescope, and he lowered it.

He took a silk bandanna from his hip pocket, and wiped his face and eyes of spray and the other wetness, then he blew his nose noisily, stuffed the handkerchief back into his pocket, jumped on to his deck and strode back to his quarterdeck.

‘Mr Ferris,' he said crisply, ‘please send up a flag hoist under
Huron
's name and make the following “I am sending a boarding party to you.”' The pale sapphire eyes shone with a zealot's intensity. ‘“If you resist I shall fight you.”'

It was a long message, and while Ferris called for the pennants from the flag locker, Clinton turned to Denham. His voice shook with passion.

‘Please clear the ship for action, Mr Denham – and we'll run out our guns now.'

Above the gale Clinton heard the clatter of the opening gunports, the rumble of the gun carriages, but all his attention was concentrated ahead upon the crippled slave ship.

He saw and understood the desperate attempts that her Captain was making to get her before the wind. He knew what a feat it had been to take down that tangled mast of canvas and rope in such a short time, yet he felt no admiration, only cold fighting fury.

Huron
was showing only a storm jib.

St John was clearly trying to break the grip of the gale upon her for she was fast ‘in irons' – her bows to the wind, and he was attempting to bring her round, but the tall ship that was usually so compliant and obedient was baulking, resisting him, and every minute
Black Joke
was swarming down upon her, closer and still closer.

‘She's got serious structural damage,' Denham gloated aloud. ‘I'd hazard a guess that she's lost her rudder.'

Clinton did not answer him, he strained ahead, half exultant, half fearful that St John's efforts would succeed and he would watch helplessly as
Huron
turned her stern to him once more, and went plunging away at the speed which
Black Joke
could never hope to match.

Then, as he watched, it happened.
Huron
swung her long, low length nearly broadside to him, beam on to the wind once again, and hung there for infinite seconds, then she shuddered and shook herself free of the gale's grip and went through the eye of the wind. Instantly the scraps of sail on her foremast snapped open, she came around presenting her stern to
Black Joke
and was sailing again.

Even in his bitter chagrin, Clinton could at last feel admiration for that barely credible feat of seamanship, but beside him his officers were struck dumb, paralysed with disappointment to see their prey slipping away from them once more.

More sails bloomed upon her tall bare masts, and the gap between the two ships was no longer narrowing; instead, it began to widen once more; slowly, infinitely slowly,
Huron
was forging away, and the night was coming.

‘She's streaming a warp behind her,' Denham lamented quietly.

‘It's a small ship's boat,' Ferris corrected him. They were already close enough to make out such details,
Huron
was only three or four nautical miles ahead of them, all her hull was in plain sight and they could even make out the tiny human figures on her decks with the naked eye. ‘Damned clever, what!' Ferris went on with professional interest. ‘Who would have believed it would work. Like as not the damned Yankee has the legs of us still.'

Clinton's chagrin turned to anger at his junior's unnecessary commentary.

‘Mr Ferris, instead of chattering like a washerwoman, will you not read the signal
Huron
is flying?'

Huron
's signal flags were blowing almost directly away from the watchers on
Black Joke
's deck, making them difficult to spot and interpret, and Ferris, who had been fixing all his attention on the towing whaler, started guiltily, and then dived for his signal book and began busily scribbling on his slate.

‘
Huron
sends under our name, “Stay clear of me, or I will fire upon you.”'

‘Good.' Clinton nodded and drew an inch of bare steel from the scabbard of his cutlass to make sure the weapon was free before thrusting it back to the hilt. ‘Now we all know where we stand!'

But, slowly, inexorably,
Huron
, even partially crippled, and steering only by the sails on her foremast, was drawing away from them, and she was still far out of random cannon shot.

‘
T
he fire has taken hold in the steering-gear under the doctor's cabin.' The third mate came hurrying back on deck to make his damage report. ‘I got her out of there.' He jerked a thumb as Robyn came up on deck clutching her black leather valise into which she had hastily crammed her journals and other small valuables.

‘It's got through into the cable tier and the lazaretto, it will be into the sternquarters in a minute.' The mate's arms and face streamed with oily sweat, and the soot had blackened them like a chimney sweep.

‘Put the hoses in through the poop companionway,' Mungo told him calmly. ‘And flood the stern section abaft the main hold.'

The mate hurried away and within seconds there was the tolling clangour of the pumps as a dozen men threw their combined weight on the handles and the canvas hoses filled and stiffened, ejaculating solid jets of seawater down the stifling ladderways where already the air was trembling with heat like a desert mirage. Almost immediately hissing clouds of white steam began to boil from the ports and stern lights.

Satisfied, Mungo turned away, shot one glance over the stern to make sure that the gunboat was still falling away behind the limping clipper, then let his gaze linger a moment longer on the thick hawser that was secured to the port stern stanchions and ran through the fairlead to the bobbing whaler that
Huron
was dragging half a cable's length astern. The whole complex arrangement of the wind and sails and drogue was critical and unstable, the slightest change might upset it. He decided he could not risk hoisting another square inch of canvas, nor could he send a party below to rig a jury tackle on the useless rudder until the fire was brought under control.

He lit a cheroot, frowning with concentration over the simple and familiar task, and then he raised his eyes to look directly at Robyn for the first time since she had come up on deck.

For a second they stared at each other, and then Robyn looked astern at the ugly little gunboat that was still plugging along after them.

‘I keep making the mistake of trusting you,' Mungo said beside her.

‘I only made that mistake once – with you,' she replied, and he inclined his head slightly, accepting the riposte.

‘How did you get into the steering gear,' he began to enquire, then snapped his fingers irritably at his own oversight. ‘Of course, the inspection hatch. Yet, your ingenuity, Doctor, has been of no avail. Your friends still cannot hold us and as soon as it is dark, I will have the rudder cables repaired.'

For the last minute Mungo had been studying her face, oblivious to the sea and the ship and the gale. He did not see the fresh squall racing down upon
Huron
.When it struck, there was no helmsman to hold her. She saw the flash of alarm in his eyes, the realization of danger. His voice, as he yelled an order down the length of the deck, had for the first time the crack of fear in it.

‘Get the sails off her, Mr Tippoo. Quick as you can!'

For the squall had upset the nice balance of
Huron
's drogue and sail. The ship lunged forward sharply, the long bellied length of cable trailing astern lifted itself above the broken surface of the sea, straightening and coming under such strain that the seawater spurted from the hemp cords in tiny feathery jets.

The empty whaler, with her tarpaulin cover still lashed down over her in an attempt to keep her dry, was at that instant canted steeply over the crest of a breaking swell. The shattering impact transmitted by the taut cable to her bows pitched her forward and heaved her clear of the crest, so that for a moment she was airborne, like a leaping porpoise and then she struck bows first and was snatched below the surface.

For an instant
Huron
staggered to the enormous increase in drag upon the trailing cable, and then the whaler disintegrated in a boiling flurry of white disturbed water. Her broken planking popped to the surface and the cable freed of its wearying weight flicked high in the air like the tail of an angry lioness. Without restraint,
Huron
gibed fiercely, spinning once more across the wind, and this time being blown flat, her tall bare masts swinging over almost parallel to the sea's surface.

The lee rail dug deeply into the sea, and the water came aboard her in a sweeping torrent, like a bursting dam wall.

It caught Robyn and hurled her against Mungo St John's chest; if it had not done so, she would have been carried overboard, but he caught her to him and held her as they were tumbled down the steeply canted deck – and then
Huron
was righting herself again, the water cascading off her in silver spouts.

She wallowed helplessly, taking the gale-driven seas on her beam, her desperate rolling accentuated by the pendulum of her high bare masts, but at least that drenching wall of sea water had poured into her hull through every opening and had extinguished her fires on the instant.

Mungo St John dragged Robyn by the wrist across the flooded deck, sloshing and slipping knee deep with loose tackle slithering and floating around them.

At the break of the poop he stopped, both of them panting for breath, their clothing and hair streaming sea water, the deck heaving and dropping crazily under them so he had to cling to the weather rail for support. He stared across at
Black Joke
.

The race was run. The gunboat was crowding down upon them exultantly, so close that he could see the cannon protruding from her open ports and the heads of the gunners above the bulwarks. Her challenging flag hoist still flew in her rigging, gaudy and gay as Christmas decorations. She would be up to the wallowing clipper in minutes, long before Mungo could ever hope to get his ship sailing again.

Mungo shook the water from his sodden dark locks like a spaniel coming ashore, and he filled his lungs.

‘Mr O'Brien, a pair of slave cuffs here,' he bellowed, and Robyn, who had never heard him raise his voice, was stunned by the volume of sound that came up out of that muscular chest. She was still dazed and confused as she felt the cold kiss of iron on her wrists.

Mungo snapped the cuff on her left wrist, took two swift turns of chain around
Huron
's rail and then snapped the second cuff on her right wrist.

‘I have no doubt your friends will be delighted to see you – in the cannon's mouth,' he told her, his face still set with anger, the rims of his nostrils white as bone china. He turned from her, running his fingers through his dark curls, throwing the hair back from his forehead and eyes.

‘Mr O'Brien, muskets and pistols to every hand. Run out the guns and load with ball, we'll change to grape as the range closes.' The mate shouted his orders as he ran, and the crew scattered from the futile task of attempting to bring the clipper under control. They stumbled across the wave-swept deck, dodging fallen and broken tackle, hurrying to arm themselves and to man
Huron
's guns.