A Sea Unto Itself (34 page)

“No, it won’t,” Charles said patiently. “The place needs to be a distance from the town, at least thirty miles, and along an unpopulated part of the coast.”

“God’s balls,” Jones grumbled. “All right, choose anyplace you like.”

“Would you prefer it be north or south of the port?”

The American tugged at his beard thought. “How long will I have to wait?”

“If all goes well, one night. We’ll do it in the small hours, sometime in the middle watch.”

“To the north then,” Jones answered.

Charles saw Cromley and Bevan coming onto the quarterdeck together. He signaled for them to approach. “Topgallants and topsails aloft, if you please,” he ordered. “In three hours we will wear to the west and close with the shore.”

As Cassandra resumed her way northward, Charles kept Jones on deck to impress upon him the procedure he must follow if he wished to be taken off. “I will call for you on the night of the twelfth of August. That’s sixty days from today. You do have a calendar, don’t you?”

The American nodded.

“Listen to me closely,” Charles said. “You will show a light at midnight and leave it burning until you are taken off. It should be shielded to landward and on both sides. It’s only to be visible from the sea.”

“All right,” Jones said, showing no concern whatsoever.

“When we see it, there will be an answering signal. This means that we have put out a boat. Do not extinguish your own light, the boat will need it to find you.”

“Yes, yes. I’m not stupid, you know.”

“Of course,” Charles said. “Have you any questions?”

“We shall probably have dromedaries.”

“The camels will remain behind,” Charles said firmly.

Jones gazed outward at the Brothers, now sliding behind to port. “What if we—or you, for that matter—are unable to attend the rendezvous at the appointed time? What have you dreamed up then?”

“I will return the following two nights to look for your beacon.”

“And if it’s longer?”

“I hope you have good camels.”

At two bells in the forenoon watch, Cassandra’s bow fell off to put the wind on her beam, and she started toward the still unseen coast. Charles ordered lookouts all the way to the crosstrees and on all three masts in the event they should be discovered by a French warship. It would not do to be pinned against a reef-strewn shore, especially by the large Raisonnable. If she appeared and took up his wake, he would have to circle around and beat to the south—all the way to Mocha if necessary. If he stayed to windward, he would be forced into the narrow waters of the Gulf of Suez where nothing could save them.

“Land hoy!” the watch in the mainmast shouted down. “Straight on the bow.”

“Send a midshipman up each of the masts,” Charles said to Bevan. “Remind them to keep an eye out for enemy sail.” Having two pairs of eyes at each station could do no harm. He was acutely aware that the approaches to Koessir and the port itself lay just over the horizon.

Cassandra ran easily across the low chop, the yards braced well around, under the strengthening late morning sun. Her wake bubbled and churned behind, leaving a ragged line as the water’s surface moved with the currents. Before noon a point of gray-tan land could be seen from the deck. Thankfully, the lookouts above remained silent. The point slowly neared, revealing a small inlet with an arid plain spreading southward toward Koessir and a chain of smallish rock-strewn hills hugging the coastline to the north. Looking through his glass, he saw a dry ravine at the end of the hills descending to meet the sea. A few palm trees sprouted along its banks. It looked a suitable place to land a small boat, Charles thought. He spoke to Bevan again, “Start a lead going forward. And send someone for Jones and Winchester.”

Charles saw Stephen Winchester crossing the deck first. The leadsman in the forechains began to call out the depths. “By the mark twenty-two,” Charles heard clearly, and breathed somewhat easier. It was still about three miles to the shore. If the seabed shelved at all gradually, they would be able to approach quite close to the landing place.

“You sent for me, sir?” Winchester asked.

Charles handed his lieutenant the glass. “In two months’ time I'll be sending you with a ship’s boat to collect Jones and his people from this shore. It’ll be in the dark of night. Take a look at that small inlet forward and tell me if you're comfortable with it.”

Winchester raised the telescope to his eye and trained it landward. Jones appeared on the ladderway and started toward them. “Twenty and a half,” called the leadsman. Charles stared intently at the slowly closing coast. He could see a line of surf breaking at about a half mile from the point, with calmer waters beyond. There would be coral there, he guessed, the outcroppings a few feet beneath the surface. The jollyboat should be able to clear that in calm seas. He glanced upward into the masts high above to reassure himself that the lookouts were attentive to their duty. From where he stood he could easily see the figures in the mizzen and mainmast crosstrees; they seemed alert enough. He was becoming nervous about their exposed position in the broad light of day so close to the French-occupied port and about what traffic might by happenstance pass within sight.

“What do you want?” Jones announced himself without preamble. Winchester lowered his glass at the sound.

“Are you comfortable with it, Stephen?” Charles asked.

Winchester nodded. “There’s a channel through the reef up to that ravine, I’m sure of it.”

“What’s this about?” Jones demanded a second time. “I’m a busy man, you know.”

Charles looked at Jones, irritated at his tone. How busy could he be, cooped up with two women in a single cabin? Then he took a guess. “I apologize for disturbing you,” he said, suppressing a smile. “Do you see that ravine there, just where the line of hills ends?”

“Do you mean the wadi?”

“Wadi?”

“Yes, the wadi,” Jones snapped. “It’s the bed of a stream; only runs in the wet season.”

“I see,” Charles said, not caring what it was called. “There’s a point that runs into the sea just beside it. That’s where we’ll take you off.”

Jones frowned. “It’s a bit far from anyplace, isn’t it?”

“You want me to sail into Cairo for you?”

Before Jones could respond to this, Charles heard a shout from the mizzenmast, but couldn’t decipher the message. The word, “sail,” caught his ear and he arched his head back to see Aviemore leap out onto the shrouds to hurry down. “Make sure that Mr. Jones understands where he is to be taken off, and be certain that he will be able to find it from the landward side,” he said hurriedly to Winchester, then turned to go to the rail and await Aviemore’s descent. As he passed Daniel Bevan, he said, “Put her on the wind, a full suit of canvas. We will make to the north.”

The young midshipman came sliding down the topmast backstay at such a speed that Charles was certain he would break something when he collided with the deck. Instead, at the last minute the boy braked with thighs and feet against the heavy cable to light as soft as a bird. “It’s a ship, sir,” he said excitedly.

“Thank you, Mr. Aviemore,” Charles said. “What can you tell me of her?”

“Sir? She’s a ship; three masts anyway. Not very large.”

“Her course?” Charles prompted.

“Oh. She’s tending away from us, but aiming to the land, like.”

Charles thought it likely she had been making for Koessir. “Can you tell me if she’s a ship of war?” That was his central concern.

Aviemore put a finger to his lips in concentration. “I don’t rightly know. I already said she had three masts. Wilson, he could tell you, possibly.”

John Wilson, Charles knew, had been the lookout in the mizzen crosstrees. “Just one more thing,” he said. “Did she alter her course or do anything else to indicate she might have seen us?”

“Not that I seen.”

“Thank you, Mr. Aviemore. You may go.” Charles clasped his hands behind his back to walk up the windward side of the quarterdeck, turn, and stride down again. It was possible Cassandra’s topgallants had not been spotted at that distance, or that the ship they’d seen wasn’t a threat to him. Aviemore had said she had three masts, which ruled out most of the local Arab craft. The boy’s description of “not very large” could mean anything, but she was not likely the French frigate or seventy-four. If his presence was reported to the French at Koessir, Cassandra would be well away before any chase could be mounted, and sunset would be in less than an hour. He looked up to see that they had worn around to put the Egyptian coast on the port beam. The topmen in the fore and mainmasts were hurrying to their places along the lower yardarms, fifty feet above the deck, preparing to loose the huge mainsails.

“Daniel,” Charles called. He ceased his pacing and crossed to speak with his lieutenant.

“Aye?” Bevan answered.

“If you would be so good as to call all of the lookouts down, I wish a word with them. A single replacement up the mainmast should suffice for now.”

“Aye, aye.”

Charles saw Cromley standing beside the quartermaster at the wheel. “Set the course for Cape Mohammed at the head of the sea,” he directed. “We will enter the Gulf of Suez in the morning, God willing.”

“Yes, sir,” the master said, touching the brim of his hat.

Charles watched, paying attention with only part of his mind, as the courses dropped like giant curtains, to belly out as the wind filled them and the sheets hauled tight. He felt the movement of the deck quicken beneath his feet. Midshipman Sykes mounted the ladderway, hurrying forward. “Captain, sir,” he said.

“Yes, Mr. Sykes.”

“You asked to speak to the men on watch aloft. I’ve assembled them on the gundeck. Do you wish me to bring them here?”

“I’ll come down, thank you.” In the shade under the break of the quarterdeck three seamen stood passing a ladle from a butt of drinking water among them. They straightened as Charles approached. Charles recognized them as John Wilson, Samuel Tate, and Tim Giles, all topmen. “Do you mind if I have a drink?” he said.

“‘Ere, sur. I’ll do it,” Giles said, dipping the ladle and holding it out.

Charles drank half its contents and handed the remainder back. They were only weeks from Mocha and the water was still reasonably clear. “Wilson, I know you saw that sail off the port beam as we were headed toward the land. Did the rest of you get a look at it?”

The three heads nodded. “Aye, zur,” Tate spoke out.

“What manner of barkey did you make her out to be?”

“A polacre, zur,” said Tate immediately. “Her masts be all of one piece, wif no tops or such.” Giles, who had been in the mainmast nodded in agreement.

Wilson, from the mizzen, the shortest of the three masts, assumed a wounded expression as if Tate had stolen his place at the front of the stage. “No, she weren’t no such thing,” he protested vehemently. “Yer both addled.”

“What were she then?” Tate demanded. “If she weren’t no polacre, what?” Turning to Charles he added, “He’s a sodding blind bugger. Always has been.”

“Ah . . . ,” Charles began.

“A xebec is what she be, ye son of a whore. And what ye were birthed out of her arse,” offered Wilson, his face reddening.

Tate forced a loud, derisive laugh. “Ye wouldn’t know a xebec from a sow’s teat, which be where ye were suckled. She ain’t had no lay-teen sail.”

“Thank you,” Charles interrupted loudly. “Remember what I said about fighting.”

“Oh, they won’t be no brawling,” Giles said calmly. “They know they’ll get no leave if they do. It’s just a manner of speaking with them. It’s two to one she’s a polacre, sur. Couldn’t be no xebec, I’m sure.”

“I see,” Charles said. “Thank you for the drink and for reporting so, er, positively.” He turned and left, the sounds of Wilson’s continued observations on his mate’s ancestry following him to the ladderway. He knew of only one polacre in the Red Sea, and that one far south at Massawa. It was not impossible there was another. On his quarterdeck, the sun almost touching the now distant Egyptian coast, he glanced skyward to see wispy mare’s tails feathering the sky, tinted orange in the last of the light.

“There’ll be your change in the wind,” Cromley said conversationally, following the direction of Charles’ gaze.

“Mares’ tails signaling a shift in the weather is an old wives’ tale,” Charles answered. Satisfied that everything was in good order, he went below for his supper.