The Two Admirals (49 page)

"It would be a great triumph to us, Greenly," he said, "if Denham could
pass without shifting his berth. There would be something manly and
seamanlike in an inferior fleet's passing a superior, in such a style."

"Yes, sir, though it
might
cost us a fine frigate. The count can have
no difficulty in fighting his weather main-deck guns, and a discharge
from two or three of his leading vessels might cut away some spar that
Denham would miss sadly, just at such a moment."

Sir Gervaise placed his hands behind his back, paced the deck a minute,
and then said decidedly—

"Bunting, make the Chloe's signal to ware—tacking in this sea, and
under that short canvass, is out of the question."

Bunting had anticipated this order, and had even ventured clandestinely
to direct the quarter-masters to bend on the necessary flags; and Sir
Gervaise had scarcely got the words out of his mouth, before the signal
was abroad. The Chloe was equally on the alert; for she too each moment
expected the command, and ere her answering flag was seen, her helm was
up, the mizen-stay-sail down, and her head falling off rapidly towards
the enemy. This movement seemed to be expected all round—and it
certainly had been delayed to the very last moment—for the leading
French ship fell off three or four points, and as the frigate was
exactly end-on to her, let fly the contents of all the guns on her
forecastle, as well as of those on her main-deck, as far aft as they
could be brought to bear. One of the top-sail-sheets of the frigate was
shot away by this rapid and unexpected fire, and some little damage was
done to the standing rigging; but luckily, none of immediate moment.
Captain Denham was active, and the instant he found his top-sail
flapping, he ordered it clewed up, and the main-sail loosed. The latter
was set, close-reefed, as the ship came to the wind on the larboard
tack, and by the time every thing was braced up and hauled aft, on that
tack, the main-top-sail was ready to be sheeted home, anew. During the
few minutes that these evolutions required, Sir Gervaise kept his eye
riveted on the vessel; and when he saw her fairly round, and trimmed by
the wind, again, with the main-sail dragging her ahead, to own the truth,
he felt mentally relieved.

"Not a minute too soon, Sir Gervaise," observed the cautious Greenly,
smiling. "I should not be surprised if Denham hears more from that
fellow at the head of the French line. His weather chase-guns are
exactly in a range with the frigate, and the two upper ones might be
worked, well enough."

"I think not, Greenly. The forecastle gun, possibly; scarcely any thing
below it."

Sir Gervaise proved to be partly right and partly wrong. The Frenchman
did
attempt a fire with his main-deck gun; but, at the first plunge of
the ship, a sea slapped up against her weather-bow, and sent a column of
water through the port, that drove half its crew into the lee-scuppers.
In the midst of this waterspout, the gun exploded, the loggerhead having
been applied an instant before, giving a sort of chaotic wildness to the
scene in-board. This satisfied the party below; though that on the
forecastle fared better. The last fired their gun several times, and
always without success. This failure proceeded from a cause that is
seldom sufficiently estimated by nautical gunners; the shot having
swerved from the line of sight, by the force of the wind against which
it flew, two or three hundred feet, by the time it had gone the mile
that lay between the vessels. Sir Gervaise anxiously watched the effect
of the fire, and perceiving that all the shot fell to leeward of the
Chloe, he was no longer uneasy about that vessel, and he began to turn
his attention to other and more important concerns.

As we are now approaching a moment when it is necessary that the reader
should receive some tolerably distinct impression of the relative
positions of the two entire fleets, we shall close the present chapter,
here; reserving the duty of explanation for the commencement of a new
one.

—"All were glad,
And laughed, and shouted, as she darted on,
And plunged amid the foam, and tossed it high,
Over the deck, as when a strong, curbed steed
Flings the froth from him in his eager race."

PERCIVAL

The long twilight of a high latitude had now ended, and the sun, though
concealed behind clouds, had risen. The additional light contributed to
lessen the gloomy look of the ocean, though the fury of the winds and
waves still lent to it a dark and menacing aspect. To windward there
were no signs of an abatement of the gale, while the heavens continued
to abstain from letting down their floods, on the raging waters beneath.
By this lime, the fleet was materially to the southward of Cape la
Hogue, though far to the westward, where the channel received the winds
and waves from the whole rake of the Atlantic, and the seas were setting
in, in the long, regular swells of the ocean, a little disturbed by the
influence of the tides. Ships as heavy as the two-deckers moved along
with groaning efforts, their bulk-heads and timbers "complaining," to
use the language of the sea, as the huge masses, loaded with their iron
artillery, rose and sunk on the coming and receding billows. But their
movements were stately and full of majesty; whereas, the cutter, sloop,
and even the frigates, seemed to be tossed like foam, very much at the
mercy of the elements. The Chloe was passing the admiral, on the
opposite tack, quite a mile to leeward, and yet, as she mounted to the
summit of a wave, her cut-water was often visible nearly to the keel.
These are the trials of a vessel's strength; for, were a ship always
water-borne equally on all her lines, there would not be the necessity
which now exists to make her the well-knit mass of wood and iron she is.

The progress of the two fleets was very much the same, both squadrons
struggling along through the billows, at the rate of about a marine
league in the hour. As no lofty sail was carried, and the vessels were
first made in the haze of a clouded morning, the ships had not become
visible to each other until nearer than common; and, by the time at
which we have now arrived in our tale, the leading vessels were
separated by a space that did not exceed two miles, estimating the
distance only on their respective lines of sailing; though there would
be about the same space between them, when abreast, the English being so
much to windward of their enemies. Any one in the least familiar with
nautical manoeuvres will understand that these circumstances would
bring the van of the French and the rear of their foes much nearer
together in passing, both fleets being close-hauled.

Sir Gervaise Oakes, as a matter of course, watched the progress of the
two lines with close and intelligent attention. Mons. de Vervillin did
the same from the poop of le Foudroyant, a noble eighty-gun ship in
which his flag of
vice-admiral
was flying, as it might be, in
defiance. By the side of the former stood Greenly, Bunting, and Bury,
the Plantagenet's first lieutenant; by the side of the latter his
capitaine de vaisseau, a man as little like the caricatures of such
officers, as a hostile feeling has laid before the readers of English
literature, as Washington was like the man held up to odium in the
London journals, at the commencement of the great American war. M. de
Vervillin himself was a man of respectable birth, of a scientific
education, and of great familiarity with ships, so far as a knowledge of
their general powers and principles was concerned; but here his
professional excellence ceased, all that infinity of detail which
composes the distinctive merit of the practical seaman being, in a great
degree, unknown to him, rendering it necessary for him to
think
in
moments of emergency; periods when the really prime mariner seems more
to act by a sort of
instinct
than by any very intelligible process of
ratiocination. With his fleet drawn out before him, however, and with no
unusual demands on his resources, this gallant officer was an
exceedingly formidable foe to contend with in squadron.

Sir Gervaise Oakes lost all his constitutional and feverish impatience
while the fleets drew nigher and nigher. As is not unusual with brave
men, who are naturally excitable, as the crisis approached he grew
calmer, and obtained a more perfect command over himself; seeing all
things in their true colours, and feeling more and more equal to control
them. He continued to walk the poop, but it was with a slower step; and,
though his hands were still closed behind his back, the fingers were
passive, while his countenance became grave and his eye thoughtful.
Greenly knew that his interference would now be hazardous; for
whenever the vice-admiral assumed that air, he literally became
commander-in-chief; and any attempt to control or influence him, unless
sustained by the communication of new facts, could only draw down
resentment on his own head. Bunting, too, was aware that the "admiral
was aboard," as the officers, among themselves, used to describe this
state of their superior's mind, and was prepared to discharge his own
duty in the most silent and rapid manner in his power. All the others
present felt more or less of this same influence of an established
character.

"
Mr.
Bunting," said Sir Gervaise, when the distance between the
Plantagenet and
le Téméraire
the leading French vessel, might have
been about a league, allowing for the difference in the respective lines
of sailing—"
Mr.
Bunting, bend on the signal for the ships to go to
quarters. We may as well be ready for any turn of the dice."

No one dared to comment on this order: it was obeyed in readiness and
silence.

"Signal ready, Sir Gervaise," said Bunting, the instant the last flag
was in its place.

"Run it up at once, sir, and have a bright look-out for the answers.
Captain Greenly, go to quarters, and see all clear on the main-deck, to
use the batteries if wanted. The people can stand fast below, as I think
it might be dangerous to open the ports."

Captain Greenly passed off the poop to the quarter-deck, and in a minute
the drum and fife struck up the air which is known all over the
civilized world as the call to arms. In most services this summons is
made by the drum alone, which emits sounds to which the fancy has
attached peculiar words; those of the soldiers of France being "
prend
ton sac
—
prend ton sac
—
prend ton sac
," no bad representatives of
the meaning; but in English and American ships, this appeal is usually
made in company with the notes of the "ear-piercing fife," which gives
it a melody that might otherwise be wanting.

"Signal answered throughout the fleet, Sir Gervaise," said Bunting.

No answer was given to this report beyond a quiet inclination of the
head. After a moment's pause, however, the vice-admiral turned to his
signal officer and said—

"I should think, Bunting, no captain can need an order to tell him
not
to open his lee-lower-deck ports in such a sea as this?"

"I rather fancy not, Sir Gervaise," answered Bunting, looking drolly at
the boiling element that gushed up each minute from beneath the bottom
of the ship, in a way to appear as high as the hammock-cloths. "The
people at the
main
-deck guns would have rather a wet time of it."

"Bend on the signal, sir, for the ships astern to keep in the
vice-admiral's wake. Young gentleman," to the midshipman who always
acted as his aid in battle, "tell Captain Greenly I desire to see him as
soon as he has received all the reports."

Down to the moment when the first tap of the drum was heard, the
Plantagenet had presented a scene of singular quiet and unconcern,
considering the circumstances in which she was placed. A landsman would
scarcely credit that men could be so near their enemies, and display so
much indifference to their vicinity; but this was the result of long
habit, and a certain marine instinct that tells the sailor when any
thing serious is in the wind, and when not. The difference in the force
of the two fleets, the heavy gale, and the weatherly position of the
English, all conspired to assure the crew that nothing decisive could
yet occur. Here and there an officer or an old seaman might be seen
glancing through a port, to ascertain the force and position of the
French; but, on the whole, their fleet excited little more attention
than if lying at anchor in Cherbourg. The breakfast hour was
approaching, and that important event monopolized the principal interest
of the moment. The officers' boys, in particular, began to make their
appearance around the galley, provided, as usual, with their pots and
dishes, and, now and then, one cast a careless glance through the
nearest opening to see how the strangers looked; but as to warfare there
was much more the appearance of it between the protectors of the rights
of the different messes, than between the two great belligerent navies
themselves.

Nor was the state of things materially different in the gun-room, or
cock-pit, or on the orlops. Most of the people of a two-decked ship are
berthed on the lower gun deck, and the order to "clear ship" is more
necessary to a vessel of that construction, before going to quarters
seriously, than to smaller craft; though it is usual in all. So long as
the bags, mess-chests, and other similar appliances were left in their
ordinary positions, Jack saw little reason to derange himself; and as
reports were brought below, from time to time, respecting the approach
of the enemy, and more especially of his being well to leeward, few of
those whose duty did not call them on deck troubled themselves about the
matter at all. This habit of considering his fortune as attached to that
of his ship, and of regarding himself as a point on her mass, as we all
look on ourselves as particles of the orb we accompany in its
revolutions, is sufficiently general among mariners; but it was
particularly so as respects the sailors of a fleet, who were kept so
much at sea, and who had been so often, with all sorts of results, in
the presence of the enemy. The scene that was passing in the gun-room at
the precise moment at which our tale has arrived, was so characteristic,
in particular, as to merit a brief description.