The Two Admirals (58 page)

"Captain Blewet is ordered to keep company with you, sir; and as soon as
it is dark, I intend to send you into Plymouth under the frigate's
convoy. Is she a nice ship, hey! Daly?"

"Why, Sir Gervaise, she's like a piece of broken crockery, just now, and
one can't tell all her merits. She's not a bad goer, and weatherly, I
think, all will call her. But she's thundering French, inside."

"We'll make her English in due time, sir. How are the leaks? do the
pumps work freely?"

"Deuce the l'ake has she, Sir Gervaise, and the pumps suck like a nine
months' babby. And if they didn't we're scarce the boys to find out the
contrary, being but nineteen working hands."

"Very well, Daly; you can haul aboard your main-tack, now; remember,
you're to go into Plymouth, as soon as it is dark. If you see any thing
of Admiral Bluewater, tell him I rely on his support, and only wait for
his appearance to finish Monsieur de Vervillin's job."

"I'll do all that, with hearty good will, sir. Pray, Sir Gervaise,"
added Daly, grinning, on the poop of the prize, whither he had got by
this time, having walked aft as his ship went ahead, "how do you like
French signals? For want of a better, we were driven to the classics!"

"Ay, you'd be bothered to explain all your own flags, I fancy. The name
of the ship is the Victory, I am told; why did you put her in armour,
and whip a kedge up against the poor woman?"

"It's according to the books, Sir Gervaise. Every word of it out of
Cicero, and Cordairy, and Cornelius Nepos, and those sort of fellows.
Oh! I went to school, sir, before I went to sea, as you say yourself,
sometimes, Sir Gervaise; and literature is the same in Ireland, as it is
all over the world. Victory needs armour, sir, in order to be
victorious, and the anchor is to show that she doesn't belong to 'the
cut and run' family. I am as sure that all was right, as I ever was of
my moods and tenses."

"Very well, Daly," answered Sir Gervaise, laughing—"My lords shall know
your merits in that way, and it may get you named a professor—keep your
luff, or you'll be down on our sprit-sail-yard;—remember and follow the
Druid."

Here the gentlemen waved their hands in adieu as usual, and la Victoire,
clipped as she was of her wings, drew slowly past. The Druid succeeded,
and Sir Gervaise simply gave Blewet his orders to see the prize into
port, and to look after his own foremast. This ended the field day; the
frigate luffing up to windward of the line again, leaving the
Plantagenet in its rear. A few minutes later, the latter ship filled and
stood after her consorts.

The vice-admiral having now ascertained, in the most direct manner, the
actual condition of his fleet, had
data
on which to form his plans for
the future. But for the letter from Bluewater, he would have been
perfectly happy; the success of the day having infused a spirit into the
different vessels, that, of itself, was a pledge of more important
results. Still he determined to act as if that letter had never been
written, finding it impossible to believe that one who had so long been
true, could really fail him in the hour of need. "I know his heart
better than he knows it himself," he caught himself mentally exclaiming,
"and before either of us is a day older, this will I prove to him, to
his confusion and my triumph." He had several short and broken
conversations with Wycherly in the course of the afternoon, with a view
to ascertain, if possible, the real frame of mind in which his friend
had written, but without success, the young man frankly admitting that,
owing to a confusion of thought that he modestly attributed to himself,
but which Sir Gervaise well knew ought in justice to be imputed to
Bluewater, he had not been able to bring away with him any very clear
notions of the rear-admiral's intentions.

In the mean while, the elements were beginning to exhibit another of
their changeful humours. A gale in summer is seldom of long duration,
and twenty-four hours would seem to be the period which nature had
assigned to this. The weather had moderated materially by the time the
review had taken place, and five hours later, not only had the sea
subsided to a very reasonable swell, but the wind had hauled several
points; coming out a fresh top-gallant breeze at north-west. The French
fleet wore soon after, standing about north-east-by-north, on an easy
bowline. They had been active in repairing damages, and the admiral was
all a-tanto again, with every thing set that the other ships carried.
The plight of le Scipion was not so easily remedied, though even she had
two jury-masts rigged, assistance having been sent from the other
vessels as soon as boats could safely pass. As the sun hung in the
western sky, wanting about an hour of disappearing from one of the long
summer days of that high latitude, this ship set a mizzen-top-sail in
the place of a main, and a fore-top-gallant-sail in lieu of a
mizzen-top-sail. Thus equipped, she was enabled to keep company with her
consorts, all of which were under easy canvass, waiting for the night to
cover their movements.

Sir Gervaise Oakes had made the signal for his fleet to tack in
succession, from the rear to the van, about an hour before le Scipion
obtained this additional sail. The order was executed with great
readiness, and, as the ships had been looking up as high as
west-south-west before, when they got round, and headed
north-north-east, their line of sailing was still quite a league to
windward of that of the enemy. As each vessel filled on the larboard
tack, she shortened sail to allow the ships astern to keep away, and
close to her station. It is scarcely necessary to say, that this change
again brought the Plantagenet to the head of the line, with the
Warspite, however, instead of the Carnatic, for her second astern; the
latter vessel being quite in the rear.

It was a glorious afternoon, and there was every promise of as fine a
night. Still, as there were but about six hours of positive darkness at
that season of the year, and the moon would rise at midnight, the
vice-admiral knew he had no time to lose, if he would effect any thing
under the cover of obscurity. Reefs were no longer used, though all the
ships were under short canvass, in order to accommodate their movements
to those of the prize. The latter, however, was now in tow of the Druid,
and, as this frigate carried her top-gallant-sails, aided by her own
courses, la Victoire was enabled not only to keep up with the fleet,
then under whole top-sails, but to maintain her weatherly position. Such
was the state of things just as the sun dipped, the enemy being on the
lee bow, distant one and a half leagues, when the Plantagenet showed a
signal for the whole fleet to heave to, with the main-top-sails to the
masts. This command was scarcely executed, when the officers on deck
were surprised to hear a boatswain's mate piping away the crew of the
vice-admiral's barge, or that of the boat which was appropriated to the
particular service of the commander-in-chief.

"Did I hear aright, Sir Gervaise?" inquired Greenly, with curiosity and
interest; "is it your wish to have your barge manned, sir?"

"You heard perfectly right, Greenly; and, if disposed for a row this
fine evening, I shall ask the favour of your company. Sir Wycherly
Wychecombe, as you are an idler here, I have a flag-officer's right to
press yon into my service. By the way, Greenly, I have made out and
signed an order to this gentleman to report himself to you, as attached
to my family, as the soldiers call it; as soon as Atwood has copied it,
it will be handed to him, when I beg you will consider him as my first
aid."

To this no one could object, and Wycherly made a bow of acknowledgment.
At that instant the barge was seen swinging off over the ship's waist,
and, at the next, the yard tackles were heard overhauling themselves.
The splash of the boat in the water followed. The crew was in her, with
oars on end, and poised boat-hooks, in another minute. The guard
presented, the boatswain piped over, the drum rolled, and Wycherly
jumped to the gangway and was out of sight quick as thought. Greenly and
Sir Gervaise followed, when the boat shoved off.

Although the seas had greatly subsided, and their combs were no longer
dangerous, the Atlantic was far from being as quiet as a lake in a
summer eventide. At the very first dash of the oars the barge rose on a
long, heavy swell that buoyed her up like a bubble, and as the water
glided from under her again, it seemed as if she was about to sink into
some cavern of the ocean. Few things give more vivid impressions of
helplessness than boats thus tossed by the waters when not in their
raging humours; for one is apt to expect better treatment than thus to
be made the plaything of the element. All, however, who have ever
floated on even the most quiet ocean, must have experienced more or less
of this helpless dependence, the stoutest boat, impelled by the lustiest
crews, appearing half the time like a feather floating in capricious
currents of the air.

The occupants of the barge, however, were too familiar with their
situation to think much of these matters; and, as soon as Sir Gervaise
assented to Wycherly's offer to take the tiller, he glanced upward, with
a critical eye, in order to scan the Plantagenet's appearance.

"That fellow, Morganic, has got a better excuse for his xebec-rig than I
had supposed, Greenly," he said, after a minute of observation. "Your
fore-top-mast is at least six inches too far forward, and I beg you will
have it stayed aft to-morrow morning, if the weather permit. None of
your Mediterranean craft for me, in the narrow seas."

"Very well, Sir Gervaise; the spar shall be righted in the morning
watch," quietly returned the captain.

"Now, there's Goodfellow, half-parson as he is; the man contrives to
keep his sticks more upright than any captain in the fleet. You never
see a spar half an inch out of its place, on board the Warspite."

"That is because her captain trims every thing by his own life, sir,"
rejoined Greenly, smiling. "Were we half as good as he is, in other
matters, we might be better than we are in seamanship."

"I do not think religion hurts a sailor, Greenly—no, not in the least.
That is to say, when he don't wedge his masts too tight, but leaves play
enough for all weathers. There is no cant in Goodfellow."

"Not the least of it, sir, and that it is which makes him so great a
favourite. The chaplain of the Warspite is of some use; but one might as
well have a bowsprit rigged out of a cabin-window, as have our chap."

"Why, we never bury a man, Greenly, without putting him into the water
as a Christian should be," returned Sir Gervaise, with the simplicity of
a true believer of the decency school. "I hate to see a seaman tossed in
the ocean like a bag of old clothes."

"We get along with that part of the duty pretty well; but
before
a man
is dead, the parson is of opinion that he belongs altogether to the
doctor."

"I'd bet a hundred guineas, Magrath has had some influence over him, in
this matter—give the Blenheim a wider berth, Sir Wycherly, I wish to
see how she looks aloft—he's a d—d fellow, that Magrath,"—no one
swore in Sir Gervaise's boat but himself, when the vice-admiral's flag
was flying in her bows;—"and he's just the sort of man to put such a
notion into the chaplain's head."

"Why, there, I believe you're more than half right, Sir Gervaise; I
overheard a conversation between them one dark night, when they were
propping the mizzen-mast under the break of the poop, and the surgeon
did
maintain a theory very like that you mention, sir."

"Ah!—he did, did he? It's just like the Scotch rogue, who wanted to
persuade me that your poor uncle, Sir Wycherly, ought not to have been
blooded, in as clear a case of apoplexy as ever was met with."

"Well, I didn't think he could have carried his impudence as far as
that," observed Greenly, whose medical knowledge was about on a par with
that of Sir Gervaise. "I didn't think even a doctor would dare to hold
such a doctrine! As for the chaplain, to him he laid down the principle
that religion and medicine never worked well together. He said religion
was an 'alterative,' and would neutralize a salt as quick as fire."

"He's a great vagabond, that Magrath, when he gets hold of a young hand,
sir; and I wish with all my heart the Pretender had him, with two or
three pounds of his favourite medicines with him—I think, between the
two, England might reap some advantage, Greenly.—Now, to my notion,
Wychecombe, the Blenheim would make better weather, if her masts were
shortened at least two feet."

"Perhaps she might, Sir Gervaise; but would she be as certain a ship, in
coming into action in light winds and at critical moments?"

"Umph! It's time for us old fellows to look about us, Greenly, when the
boys begin to reason on a line of battle! Don't blush, Wychecombe; don't
blush. Your remark was sensible, and shows reflection. No country can
ever have a powerful marine, or, one likely to produce much influence in
her wars, that does not pay rigid attention to the tactics of fleets.
Your frigate actions and sailing of single ships, are well enough as
drill; but the great practice must be in squadron. Ten heavy ships, in
good
fleet
discipline, and kept at sea, will do more than a hundred
single cruisers, in establishing and maintaining discipline; and it is
only by using vessels
together
, that we find out what both ships and
men can do. Now, we owe the success of this day, to our practice of
sailing in close order, and in knowing how to keep our stations; else
would six ships never have been able to carry away the palm of victory
from twelve—palm!—Ay, that's the very word. Greenly, I was trying to
think of this morning. Daly's paddy should have had a palm-branch in its
hand, as an emblem of victory."