The Two Admirals (47 page)

"Roll on, thou deep and dark-blue ocean—roll
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin—his control
Stops with the shore;—upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed."

CHILDE HAROLD.

It was broad day-light, when Sir Gervaise Oakes next appeared on deck.
As the scene then offered to his view, as well as the impression it made
on his mind, will sufficiently explain to the reader the state of
affairs, some six hours later than the time last included in our
account, we refer him to those for his own impressions. The wind now
blew a real gale, though the season of the year rendered it less
unpleasant to the feelings than is usual with wintry tempests. The air
was even bland, and still charged with the moisture of the ocean; though
it came sweeping athwart sheets of foam, with a fury, at moments, which
threatened to carry the entire summits of waves miles from their beds,
in spray. Even the aquatic birds seemed to be terrified, in the instants
of the greatest power of the winds, actually wheeling suddenly on their
wings, and plunging into the element beneath to seek protection from the
maddened efforts of that to which they more properly belonged.

Still, Sir Gervaise saw that his ships bore up nobly against the fierce
strife. Each vessel showed the same canvass; viz.—a reefed fore-sail; a
small triangular piece of strong, heavy cloth, fitted between the end of
the bowsprit and the head of the fore-top-mast; a similar sail over the
quarter-deck, between the mizzen and main masts, and a close-reefed
main-top-sail Several times that morning, Captain Greenly had thought he
should be compelled to substitute a lower surface to the wind than that
of the sail last mentioned. As it was an important auxiliary, however,
in steadying the ship, and in keeping her under the command of her helm,
on each occasion the order had been delayed, until he now began to
question whether the canvass could be reduced, without too great a risk
to the men whom it would be necessary to send aloft. He had decided to
let it stand or blow away, as fortune might decide. Similar reasoning
left nearly all the other vessels under precisely the same canvass.

The ships of the vice-admiral's division had closed in the night,
agreeably to an order given before quitting the anchorage, which
directed them to come within the usual sailing distance, in the event of
the weather's menacing a separation. This command had been obeyed by the
ships astern carrying sail hard, long after the leading vessels had been
eased by reducing their canvass. The order of sailing was the
Plantagenet in the van, and the Carnatic, Achilles, Thunderer, Blenheim,
and Warspite following, in the order named; some changes having been
made in the night, in order to bring the ships of the division into
their fighting-stations, in a line ahead, the vice-admiral leading. The
superiority of the Plantagenet was a little apparent, notwithstanding;
the Carnatic alone, and that only by means of the most careful watching,
being able to keep literally in the commander-in-chief's wake; all the
other vessels gradually but almost imperceptibly setting to leeward of
it. These several circumstances struck Sir Gervaise, the moment his foot
touched the poop, where he found Greenly keeping an anxious look-out on
the state of the weather and the condition of his own ship; leaning at
the same time, against the spanker-boom to steady himself in the gusts
of the gale. The vice-admiral braced his own well-knit and compact
frame, by spreading his legs; then he turned his handsome but
weather-beaten face towards the line, scanning each ship in succession,
as she lay over to the wind, and came wallowing on, shoving aside vast
mounds of water with her bows, her masts describing short arcs in the
air, and her hull rolling to windward, and lurching, as if boring her
way through the ocean. Galleygo, who never regarded himself as a steward
in a gale of wind, was the only other person on the poop, whither he
went at pleasure by a sort of imprescriptibly right.

"Well done, old Planter!" cried Sir Gervaise, heartily, as soon as his
eye had taken in the leading peculiarities of the view. "You see,
Greenly, she has every body but old Parker to leeward, and she would
have him there, too, but he would carry every stick he has, out of the
Carnatic, rather than not keep his berth. Look at Master Morganic; he
has his main course close-reefed on the Achilles, to luff into his
station, and I'll warrant you will get a good six months' wear out of
that ship in this one gale; loosening her knees, and jerking her spars
like so many whip-handles; and all for love of the new fashion of
rigging an English two-decker like an Algerian xebec! Well, let him tug
his way up to windward, Bond-street fashion, if he likes the fun. What
has become of the Chloe, Greenly?"

"Here she is, sir, quite a league on our lee-bow, looking out, according
to orders."

"Ay, that is her work, and she'll do it effectually.—But I don't see
the Driver!"

"She's dead ahead sir," answered Greenly, smiling; "
her
orders being
rather more difficult of execution. Her station would be off yonder to
windward, half a league ahead of us; but it's no easy matter to get into
that position, Sir Gervaise, when the Plantagenet is really in earnest."

Sir Gervaise laughed, and rubbed his hands, then he turned to look for
the Active, the only other vessel of his division. This little cutter
was dancing over the seas, half the time under water, notwithstanding,
under the head of her main-sail, broad off, on the admiral's
weather-beam; finding no difficulty in maintaining her station there, in
the absence of all top-hamper, and favoured by the lowness of her hull.
After this he glanced upward at the sails and spars of the Plantagenet,
which he studied closely.

"No signs of
de Vervillin
, hey! Greenly?" the admiral asked, when his
survey of the whole fleet had ended. "I was in hopes we might see
something of
him
, when the light returned this morning."

"Perhaps it is quite as well as it is, Sir Gervaise," returned the
captain. "We could do little besides look at each other, in this gale,
and Admiral Bluewater ought to join before I should like even to do
that
."

"Think you so, Master Greenly!—There you are mistaken, then; for I'd
lie by him, were I alone in this ship, that I might know where he was to
be found as soon as the weather would permit us to have something to say
to him."

These words were scarcely uttered, when the look-out in the forward
cross-trees, shouted at the top of his voice, "sail-ho!" At the next
instant the Chloe fired a gun, the report of which was just heard amid
the roaring of the gale, though the smoke was distinctly seen floating
above the mists of the ocean; she also set a signal at her naked
mizzen-top-gallant-mast-head.

"Run below, young gentleman," said the vice-admiral, advancing to the
break of the poop and speaking to a midshipman on the quarter-deck; "and
desire Mr. Bunting to make his appearance. The Chloe signals us—tell
him not to look for his knee-buckles."

A century since, the last injunction, though still so much in use on
ship-board, was far more literal than it is to-day, nearly all classes
of men possessing the articles in question, though not invariably
wearing them when at sea. The midshipman dove below, however, as soon as
the words were out of his superior's mouth; and, in a very few minutes,
Bunting appeared, having actually stopped on the main-deck ladder to
assume his coat, lest he might too unceremoniously invade the sacred
precincts of the quarter-deck, in his shirt-sleeves.

"There it is, Bunting," said Sir Gervaise, handing the lieutenant the
glass; "two hundred and twenty-seven—'a large sail ahead,' if I
remember right."

"No, Sir Gervaise, '
sails
ahead;' the number of them to follow. Hoist
the answering flag, quarter-master."

"So much the better! So much the better, Bunting! The number to follow?
Well,
we'll
follow the number, let it be greater or smaller. Come,
sirrah, bear a hand up with your answering flag."

The usual signal that the message was understood was now run up between
the masts, and instantly hauled down again, the flags seen in the Chloe
descending at the same moment.

"Now for the number of the sails, ahead," said Sir Gervaise, as he,
Greenly, and Bunting, each levelled a glass at the frigate, on board
which the next signal was momentarily expected. "Eleven, by George!"

"No, Sir Gervaise," exclaimed Greenly, "I know better than
that
. Red
above, and blue beneath, with the distinguishing pennant
beneath
, make
fourteen
, in our books, now!"

"Well, sir, if they are
forty
, we'll go nearer and see of what sort of
stuff they are made. Show your answering flag, Bunting, that we may know
what else the Chloe has to tell us."

This was done, the frigate hauling down her signals in haste, and
showing a new set as soon as possible.

"What now, Bunting?—what now, Greenly?" demanded Sir Gervaise, a sea
having struck the side of the ship and thrown so much spray into his
face as to reduce him to the necessity of using his pocket-handkerchief,
at the very moment he was anxious to be looking through his glass. "What
do you make of
that
, gentlemen?"

"I make out the number to be 382," answered Greenly; "but what it means,
I know not."

"'Strange sails,
enemies
,'" read Bunting from the book. "Show the
answer, quarter-master."

"We hardly wanted a signal for
that
, Greenly, since there can be no
friendly force, here away; and fourteen sail, on this coast, always
means mischief. What says the Chloe next?"

"'Strange sails on the larboard tack, heading as follows.'"

"By George, crossing our course!—We shall soon see them from deck. Do
the ships astern notice the signals?"

"Every one of them, Sir Gervaise," answered the captain; "the Thunderer
has just lowered her answering flag, and the Active is repeating. I have
never seen quarter-masters so nimble!"

"So much the better—so much the better—down he comes; stand by for
another."

After the necessary pause, the signal to denote the point of the compass
was shown from the Chloe.

"Heading how, Bunting?" the vice-admiral eagerly inquired. "Heading how,
sir?"

"North-west-and-by-north," or as Bunting pronounced it
"nor-west-and-by-loathe, I believe, sir,—no, I am mistaken, Sir
Gervaise; it is nor-nor-west."

"Jammed up like ourselves, hard on a wind! This gale comes directly from
the broad Atlantic, and one party is crossing over to the north and the
other to the south shore. We
must
meet, unless one of us run
away—hey! Greenly?"

"True enough, Sir Gervaise; though fourteen sail is rather an awkward
odds for seven."

"You forget the Driver and Active, sir; we've
nine
; nine hearty,
substantial British cruisers."

"To wit: six ships of the line, one frigate, a
sloop
, and a
cutter
,"
laying heavy emphasis on the two last vessels.

"What does the Chloe say now, Bunting? That we're enough for the French,
although they
are
two to one?"

"Not exactly that, I believe, Sir Gervaise. 'Five more sail ahead.' They
increase fast, sir."

"Ay, at that rate, they may indeed grow too strong for us," answered Sir
Gervaise, with more coolness of manner; "nineteen to nine are rather
heavy odds. I wish we had Bluewater here!"

"That is what I was about to suggest, Sir Gervaise," observed the
captain. "If we had the other division, as some of the Frenchmen are
probably frigates and corvettes, we might do better. Admiral Bluewater
cannot be far from us; somewhere down here, towards north-east—or
nor-nor-east. By warring round, I think we should make his division in
the course of a couple of hours."

"What, and leave to Monsieur de Vervillin the advantage of swearing he
frightened us away! No—no—Greenly; we will first
pass
him fairly and
manfully, and that, too, within reach of shot; and then it will be time
enough to go round and look after our friends."

"Will not that be putting the French exactly between our two divisions,
Sir Gervaise, and give him the advantage of dividing our force. If he
stand far, on a nor-nor-west course, I think he will infallibly get
between us and Admiral Bluewater."

"And what will he gain by that, Greenly?—What, according to your
notions of matters and things, will be the great advantage of having an
English fleet on each side of him?"

"Not much, certainly, Sir Gervaise," answered Greenly, laughing; "if
these fleets were at all equal to his own. But as they will be much
inferior to him, the Comte may manage to close with one division, while
the other is so far off as to be unable to assist; and one hour of a hot
fire may dispose of the victory."

"All this is apparent enough, Greenly; yet I could hardly brook letting
the enemy go scathe less. So long as it blows as it does now, there will
not be much fighting, and there can be no harm in taking a near look at
M. de Vervillin. In half an hour, or an hour at most, we must get a
sight of him from off deck, even with this slow headway of the two
fleets. Let them heave the log, and ascertain how fast we go, sir."

"Should we engage the French in such weather, Sir Gervaise," answered
Greenly, after giving the order just mentioned; "it would be giving them
the very advantage they like. They usually fire at the spars, and one
shot would do more mischief, with such a strain on the masts, than
half-a-dozen in a moderate blow."

"That will do, Greenly—that will do," said the vice-admiral,
impatiently; "if I didn't so well know you, and hadn't seen you so often
engaged, I should think you were afraid of these nineteen sail. You have
lectured long enough to render me prudent, and we'll say no more."