A Ship for The King (31 page)

The binnacle light shone upon the crimson doublet of the Prince, illuminating from below his handsome face and in doing so, prefigured his appearance at an older age. White stood behind in the Prince's shadow with an air of frustration and deference.

‘Well done, Captain Faulkner.'

‘We have yet to run the gauntlet of the enemy, Your Highness. I have seen four of them. I hope that is all, but we cannot be too certain. Take a glass forward, Mr White.' He explained the approximate bearings of the enemy men-of-war that he had seen and White did as he was bid.

‘He is not a naval officer, I think, Captain, not at least until now.'

‘He is a good mercantile mate, Your Highness. You will find him competent enough and handy withal when an extra hand is required on the braces.'

‘I meant no criticism, Captain. I am merely keen to know from whom I may learn, rather than importuning you all the while.'

If Faulkner wished to end this discussion and pass orders to make more sail, it was abruptly terminated for him by a shout from White forward and the sharp report of a gun almost under their bows. Faulkner caught the bright, near-simultaneous double-flash of small-arms, from match and muzzle.

‘A guard-boat, God damn it!' exclaimed Faulkner, privately wondering why he had not thought of such an obvious precaution as he ran to the ship's side and peered into the darkness.

‘Bastards!' a voice roared and he caught sight of a ship's longboat bobbing astern, and then another match-lock was discharged and a lantern was being held up and waved as a signal to the off-lying ships.

‘Let fall the courses, Mr White! All hands make sail!'

The need for silence was over. From below came the squeals of startled women and this was followed by the boom of a culverin: one at least of the enemy ships was acknowledging the guard-boat's signal of alarm.

‘We may expect a chase,' Faulkner remarked to the Prince as he took his station alongside the binnacle. ‘I shall run to the southward of the Lizard as though for Jersey. We have some hours of darkness left and may yet throw them off the scent.'

‘Is there anything I might do?'

Faulkner looked at the Prince. He thought of requesting he silenced the women, until he realized they were already quiet. Then a thought struck him. ‘If you would care to take the helm with me, Your Highness, I can send these two men to help make sail.'

‘Certainly . . .'

They relieved the men at the helm and Faulkner leaned on the heavy tiller, explaining the techniques of maintaining a compass course. ‘The lubber's line marks the ship's head,' he said, ‘and while the compass card moves within the bowl, it is the ship's head and not the compass that moves.'

‘I understand.'

‘That is one part of your task, sir. The other is to maintain our momentum. Unless you are with a very vigilant officer-of-the-deck, merchant mate, or man-of-war's man, you will likely be the first to detect a shift of wind. Keep your eyes moving from compass bowl to the sails, and remark any shivering that suggests a shift of wind and the need for a tug on the braces. If nothing else it will stop one from falling asleep.'

He stood alongside the Prince for half an hour before asking whether he had had enough. ‘No indeed, I am game for another . . . what d'you call it?'

‘A trick, sir.'

‘Yes, I remember.'

‘Would you care to try it on your own, Your Highness?'

‘Why, yes, if I may.'

‘Very well. You will better feel the ship without my corrections. Call for help if you require it.'

‘I'm obliged to you, Captain Faulkner. This is vastly enjoyable, by God!'

‘The ship off the Lizard, sir . . .' White said.

‘Very well, stand by the braces. We'll put the wind on the larboard quarter and make him think we are for the eastwards . . .'

‘Aye aye.'

‘Your Highness,' Faulkner turned towards the Prince. ‘We shall have to alter course and show that fellow on the starboard bow a clean pair of heels. It will put the ship on her best point of sailing and though we run the risk of drawing all of the enemy after us, we cannot double the Lizard now and have little choice.'

‘Would we had yesterday's weather.'

‘Yes, indeed. Now bring her slowly to larboard on to a heading of east-south-east, remembering always that the ship's and the lubber's line are the same thing.'

‘Very well, Captain. It shall be done as you wish.'

The Prince stood another two hours at the wheel until he declared he had done his fair share. It was now well into the small hours of the following morning and Faulkner sent White below to get some sleep. ‘The chase will go on all night and probably most of tomorrow, if we have no luck tonight.'

‘I'll go and pray for rain,' White said phlegmatically, touching his hat to the Prince, who lingered a while before going below himself. Towards dawn Mainwaring came on deck and insisted upon relieving Faulkner.

‘The cabin is as crowded as a bed with fleas,' he said. ‘And your lady is as well provided for as possible,' he added in a low voice. Faulkner rolled himself in a cloak and, tucking himself beside a gun-truck, slept on deck.

‘By God he's a cool one,' Mainwaring heard one of the able-seamen remark as they coiled down the braces. ‘Givin' 'is Royal bloody 'Ighness a sodding lesson on steering while we's a runnin' from the crop-head bastards.'

Mainwaring smiled to himself in the darkness and gave himself to thinking how they might outsail the crop-heads astern.

Ten

Escape

The chase ran on through the night with the
Phoenix
edging down to the southward as she ran east, in the opposite direction to her intended course and confirming in the enemy's mind the purpose of reaching France. This notion troubled Mainwaring not least because it ensured the persistence of the chase. ‘It will be assumed,' he explained to Faulkner, who woke towards dawn, stiff and uncomfortable after his sleep on the deck, ‘that we indeed have the Prince on board and are making for a French port to set him ashore to attend his mother.'

Faulkner shook his head clear of sleep and sent for a glass of beer with which to swill his mouth and set himself to rights.

‘The wind is freshening,' he said, coming to his wits.

‘Aye, and it has backed again. My guess is that we are in for another blow. We are not yet far from the equinox. One day is rarely the same as its predecessor at this season . . .'

‘Stay,' Faulkner interrupted, holding out his hand in the dark. ‘Is that rain, I feel, or only spray . . .'

‘It's unlikely to be spray on this course . . . No, by God, you are right. It
is
rain!'

Faulkner was fully awake now. ‘Very well, let us haul her up on the starboard tack. We have an hour or two, and perhaps we may lose him. Call the watch! Stand to my lads! Fore and main braces there!' He waited until the men were at their stations. He could, perhaps should, have called all hands, but the men had laboured hard yesterday and there were just sufficient in the watch to handle the matter if he took a hand himself.

‘What's about?' He saw the Prince loom up on deck and seized the moment.

‘
Carpe Diem
, Your Highness. Be so good as to lend a hand here!' Faulkner led the way forward along the starboard side and, throwing a coil of rope off a belaying pin, unceremoniously grabbed the Prince's right hand and placed it on the pin. ‘Sir, can you cast this off when I give the word? Do it smartly and stand clear of that coil.' He turned to a seaman who arrived to tend the sheet and tack. ‘Watch your sheet runs clear and keep an eye upon His Highness's brace, d'you understand me?'

‘Aye, sir,' said the seaman, his face cracking in a grin.

Faulkner raised his voice as he ran forward to the starboard forebrace. ‘When you are ready, Sir Henry!'

Mainwaring gave the helm orders and shouted, ‘Let go and haul all!'

The men posted along the starboard rail let run the lee braces and sheets, allowing the majority on the larboard side to heave the yards round as the
Phoenix
came round on to the starboard tack. She heeled to the wind and her bow rose and then fell with a thump, sending a cascade of water up into the air from where the wind whipped it across the deck with a soft hiss. Faulkner leapt forward to help haul the fore-tack down to the bumpkin, before coming after to where Prince Charles and the seaman had been joined by others to haul the main-tack to the chess-tree.

Even in the darkness Faulkner could see the gleam of the Prince's wet doublet, and then the rain squall was upon them in earnest, cold and searching as it found its way under their clothes, setting them a-shivering and the ship bucking as the wind rose still further.

‘Shorten sail!' Mainwaring roared. ‘Clew up to'gallants!'

Faulkner resumed his station alongside Mainwaring. ‘Damn it, she is over-pressed,' Mainwaring said. ‘We must ease her or carry something away!'

‘Aye, after the topgallants, we'll take in the mainsail.' Faulkner raised his voice again. ‘Highness! Come here, sir!'

At the Prince's approach Faulkner grabbed the helm and indicated the Prince should do the same. ‘Be off with you and lay aloft,' he shouted in the ears of the relieved helmsmen. ‘Now, sir,' he said to the Prince, ‘we are on the wind, you will find it best to steer by the wind and therefore watch the windward luff of the main topsail. Keep it just a-shiver – that's the wind just passing along its after surface. If you have it full, you are wasting effort and pressing the ship over. The sails must work now, harder than before. We require forward motion, not a heeling list. The trick is to get a flat belly across the bunts . . . See, you can feel her responding . . .'

‘I see . . . This is a heavy job.'

‘Aye, we're full-and-bye, and carrying a little lee helm, preventing the ship from paying off . . . Once the men get the mainsail off her she'll stand her canvas easier and likely make more speed too. And with the topgallants off she might be the less easily espied,' he added hopefully.

Beside him the Prince digested this intelligence. Taking the occasional glance at his fellow helmsman, Faulkner thought that His Highness was indeed enjoying himself despite the cold and the wet. ‘The men will be earning their breakfasts,' he said, at which the Prince nodded assent.

‘And so are we, Captain Faulkner, and so are we, by God!'

They spotted the enemy ship only once more, a mere nick on the lightening horizon to the eastwards, actually in the act of cracking on sail having lost sight of their quarry ahead. It appeared that none aboard looked astern at where the sky was still dark, but the pale shapes of the
Phoenix
's straining topsails might have been seen as she dodged out of one rain squall and into the next.

Three days later they lay at anchor off the island of St Mary's, the small settlement of Hugh-town under their lee and in company with five other small ships and vessels which had been gathered in the King's name. The small squadron, now all under Mainwaring's flag, lay anchored comfortably enough, for to the westward, out towards the Atlantic Ocean from whence came the strong westerly winds, lay a litter of rocks, islands, reefs and bird-inhabited skerries that were, so men said, all that remained of the flooded land of Avalon. Only when the
Phoenix
had brought up to her anchor did the ladies emerge, and only then did Faulkner catch his first glimpse of Katherine Villiers. She came on deck with Lady Fanshawe in bright sunshine and the promise of a smooth landing on the island, and she was followed by a black maid whose hand held that of a toddling child, a boy by the plainness of his dress. He was introduced by the Prince to Sir Richard and Lady Fanshawe, and then to Lady Katherine Villiers. She wore a plain travelling dress, as damp-stained as Lady Fanshawe's after the privations of their adventures and the passage in the
Phoenix
. Having apologized for the primitive and crowded nature of their quarters to the Fanshawes, he repeated himself to her, looking into a face that – he realized with a shock – was still stunningly beautiful, at least to his eyes. She was pale, drawn and tired, but the dark shadows under her eyes seemed to act like the
kohl
the
nautch
-girls of the Indian coast were said to enhance their looks with, emphasizing depth and mystery.

‘It was less comfortable than the
Prince Royal
, Captain Faulkner,' she said.

‘It was all a long time ago,' he replied, but was afforded no further opportunity for conversation, for Lady Fanshawe interrupted to hasten her into the waiting boat. He followed them to the side where the men had canvas chairs ready to lower them into the boats, and for a brief moment they stood side by side.

‘I hope you will have a moment to walk with me, Captain.'

‘Tomorrow, ma'am. I shall walk ashore tomorrow, in the afternoon . . .' And then she was whisked aloft and lowered over the side.

The Prince of Wales and his entourage were destined to spend several miserable weeks in the Isles of Scilly, short of food and money, a burden on the islanders. For Faulkner, who was to spend a similarly depressing period at anchor offshore, nursing his ship through a series of gales, the walk with Katherine Villiers the following afternoon was to be a moment of pure delight.

She met him at the landing, having observed his boat put off from the ship from her lodgings. He walked up through the sand to where she stood, slim and elegant, despite her travel-wearied attire, a hat tip-tilted over her left ear and tethered by a ribbon as blue as that of the Garter.