Dead Reckoning (31 page)

“Fellow seamen,” he said, “I am very sorry to hear of the shipwreck which has brought you here. I understand that your ship, the
Active
of Salem, went ashore here during the recent gale. I am glad, on the other hand, that no lives were lost and that you were all able, as I should guess, to save your personal gear. I have been told that ship and cargo were a total loss. Who is the ship's master?”

Hodges stepped forward.

“And the first mate?”

Calvert raised his hand.

“Good. Now, I realize that most of you will be American citizens, neutral in the present war. It often happens, these days, that the crew of an American ship will include some British
seamen, men we describe as deserters from the Royal Navy. Attempts are sometimes made to identify these men. Let me assure you at once that I shall make no such attempt. So far as I am concerned, you are all American, with papers to prove it. This being so, you might expect that I would offer you all a passage to Mauritius as distressed seamen, and bring your plight to the notice of the American Consul at that port. Unfortunately, I cannot do that. My frigate is not designed to carry passengers in any number. In the ordinary way, I could report your presence here and hope, for your sake, that some arrangement could be made for your rescue. I learn, however, from the resident magistrate that the food supplies here are very limited. Hospitable as our local friends are, they cannot be your hosts for very much longer. At first I could think of no solution to the problem. It now occurs to me that our difficulties would be at an end if you were all to enter on board my frigate, the
Minerva,
perhaps the finest ship of her class in the world. You would be assured of fair rations, good treatment, and the pay suitable to your rank. If you were all to suppose that joining the
Minerva
meant serving in the Royal Navy until the end of the war, you might well hesitate. I can assure you, however, that the
Minerva
is bound for Mauritius and then for England. She will then be paid off. The Americans here, the majority of you, will then use their papers to prove their nationality and will be exempt from any further service.

“Now, I have made you all an offer. But I want, above everything, to treat you fairly. While I can offer you good berths in a happy ship, I must not pretend that life will be easy. The French have been swept from the Indian Ocean but our passage home must take us near the French coast. I must be ready at all times to meet the enemy. The
Minerva
could always outsail a bigger
ship and can as certainly overwhelm any ship in her own class. But an action is not improbable and we must be ready for it. So the choice lies with you, to go or stay. Be clear, however, about this; I take all or none. Now I shall leave you to think it over or take a vote. In ten minutes from now I shall ask Mr Hodges what you have decided to do.”

Delancey walked away and conferred in the hut with Hudelet and Flacourt.

“What will they decide to do?” asked Hudelet when the offer had been explained to him.

“They will enter on board the
Minerva.
” replied Delancey at once. “What else can they do? Now, about the details. I propose that all the boats saved from the wreck go to you, Monsieur Flacourt, as a farewell gift. I also propose, however, that most of the gunpowder shall be delivered to my ship before nightfall.”

“But, surely, sir,” protested Flacourt, “you have all the gunpowder you need.”

“Not for the amount of target practice this crew is going to have,” said Delancey grimly. “Do you agree or shall we take the boats?” The argument ended, leaving only the details to discuss. Then Delancey returned to the meeting and asked Hodges what the men had decided.

“We'll all enter, sir,” said Hodges. Turning to the men he then called “Three cheers for Captain Delancey!” The cheers were given and seemed even to have been expected, for all boats instantly pushed off from the frigate and made for the shore. Delancey did not wait for them but said good-bye to Hudelet and Flacourt and took Hodges and Calvert with him to the boat in which he had come.

“I find all this quite astonishing, sir,” said Topley. “We are
going to have a full crew—something unknown in these waters since the war began!”

“We have certainly been fortunate,” Delancey agreed. “We have completed our task, establishing the fate of the
Falcon,
and can presently sail for home.”

“What I can't understand, sir, is how an experienced officer like Captain Railton could have wrecked his ship on Mamelle Island—or how indeed he came anywhere near the place.”

“Oh, I know the answer to that. We are lucky again in that the only two men to survive are the surgeon and the captain's steward. Mr Robertson assures me, and Ned Potter agrees, that Captain Railton was insane.”

“That explains a lot, sir. The best of our good fortune is that these Americans have agreed so readily to enter!”

“I think that Hodges must have persuaded them—isn't that right, Mr Hodges? I regret to say that I can't offer you a master's vacancy on board the
Minerva.
Would you agree to act, for the time being, as second boatswain? As for you, Mr Calvert, I learn from Mr Hodges that you were once a carpenter before you became a deck officer. Would you agree to act, for this one voyage, as assistant carpenter?” Neither of them made any difficulty and it was clear that the petty officer appointments would be simpler still.

A fortnight later the
Minerva
dropped anchor in Port Louis but very near the harbour entrance and well away from the other men-of-war. She flew a yellow flag and Delancey reported to Commodore Beaver (the Admiral having gone) that he had some cases of fever among some men recently entered. He proposed to allow no shore leave for fear of spreading the infection. The Commodore then readily agreed that the
Minerva
should sail for
home as soon as possible. She would need some supplies, however, which would be sent to her, and there must be a court of inquiry into the loss of the sloop
Falcon.
In the circumstances, this was very much of a formality because the evidence of the two survivors was quite sufficient to establish the truth. That Railton had been insane was readily accepted but no senior officer wished to lay stress on it. It was enough to take Robertson's word for it that the man had been seriously ill and was unfit for duty. Delancey's evidence fixed the date and place of the disaster. These were the essential facts, they were duly recorded, and the case was closed.

The
Minerva,
meanwhile, was completing her stores and water for the homeward voyage, but still kept in a state of isolation. Among the few officers allowed ashore, Delancey was just leaving naval headquarters one day when he was breathlessly hailed by a young officer on the senior naval officer's staff, “Captain Delancey, sir, the Commodore requests you to have your ship ready for sea as soon as possible. Enemy ships have just been sighted from the signal station.”

T
HE SIGHTING of the enemy came as a surprise to many, but not to the Commodore nor to Delancey. When news reached France of the Battle of Grand Port Napoleon's instinct would be to follow up the victory. It would be obvious to him that Hamelin should be reinforced. He would issue orders to that effect and the Minister of Marine would realize their urgency. The likelihood was that the frigates would sail almost at once and that they would be the fastest and best ships available. Later would come the news that Mauritius itself had fallen. It would then be too late to recall the frigates which would be half-way to the Cape and crowding all the canvas they had. Once in the Indian Ocean, they would approach Mauritius with caution, alert for a possible blockading squadron.

They would look to the signal station and there, sure enough they would see the signal in their own secret code which meant “There is no enemy ship in sight.” The British signalmen did not possess the whole code, as Delancey knew, but that was a signal they could make and certainly would; and he could himself claim some credit for the signal. All being well, the French frigates would identify themselves and enter harbour. At some point (but at what point?) they would realize that they had been trapped but it would then be too late. They would be under the guns of the batteries on the Ile aux Tonneliers and Fort Blanc. For the leading frigate escape would be impossible but what if
they were far apart? In that event the first ship might find means to warn the others. They would go about and vanish in a cloud of spray.

To provide against this eventuality, Commodore Beaver had stationed two frigates, the
Phoebe
and
Galatea,
to windward, so that they could cut off the French retreat. If the French ships came anywhere near the harbour mouth they would not easily escape.

Having issued his orders to prepare the
Minerva
for sea, Delancey went ashore again to report progress. He was shown at once into the inner office where he found the Commodore in an irritable mood. Beaver looked haggard, grey-faced and thin, a sick man who would never give up. His office was in a turmoil, with orders being scribbled and with messengers coming and going.

“Well, Delancey—did you receive my message?”

“Yes, sir. We could sail this evening but we should not be provisioned for more than a month. The lighters are alongside but we shall not be properly supplied until the end of the week, not even if we work round the clock.”

“Well, it can't be helped. If a French frigate enters harbour you must be ready to take possession of her. Now, as you are here, I had best tell you what the position is. We had guessed that Napoleon would try to reinforce his squadron here and we now know, from intelligence sources, that three of his frigates are on the way, the
Renommée, Clorinde,
and
Néréide,
all of their largest 40-gun class. There is supposed to be a corvette with them called the
Fidèle
but I am puzzled about her—the only
Fidèle
we know about is a small frigate. Three sail have now been sighted but we think one of them is a much smaller vessel, a storeship or a prize. If they are engaged by the
Phoebe
and
Galatea,
you should sail and join in the action. Our signal station above the town will do everything possible, however, to lure the Frenchmen into the harbour.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“We should know the result of our deception plan in about an hour.”

The climax came sooner than that. The Commodore had placed look-out men on the roof and one of them came in now to report:

“Beg pardon, sir. The Frenchmen have gone about and are steering eastwards.”

“Damnation! What made them take fright? Could we have been using an out-of-date code?”

“There is another possibility, sir,” said Delancey. “They could have received another signal from the shore, a signal of warning to contradict ours.”

“Another signal? Made by whom?”

“Made by an agent of theirs still on the island.”

“Have they such an agent?”

“Yes, sir, I believe they have.”

“I give you then the task of finding him, and I hope you succeed before that third frigate appears. If they lost touch with each other, the third one might be no better informed and possibly less suspicious than the other two. In the meanwhile, these first two will be pursued by
Phoebe
and
Galatea
and we shall hope to have you provisioned before anything else happens.”

Back on board the
Minerva,
Delancey took a telescope up to the maintop and began a careful study of the landscape behind Port Louis. There were two mountain peaks, La Pouce and Pieter Both, which he ruled out as likely to be veiled by cloud. At a lower level there were numerous hill features to be seen from
out at sea. The trouble was that they were too numerous. He took bearings on several of the more promising and then plotted them on the map, comparing that again with the town plan. It would clearly take days to explore all the possible locations and he presently called Sevendale into consultation. Should he send out several parties? He decided, in the end, to keep the marines together.

“But what about our cases of fever, sir? Aren't we still in quarantine?”

“Our fever patients are recovering,” Delancey assured him solemnly. “I think the danger is less. And the need to find this signal station is urgent, with that third frigate on her way. We shall land at daybreak tomorrow and set to work, moving from left to right, covering each possible hill feature. The party will be armed and rations for the day will be issued before we go ashore. I shall be accompanied by Midshipman Ledingham, as A.D.C., and by my coxswain. The military commandant has been told of our mission and has given his approval. We should be on board again by nightfall.”

Orders are often easy to issue, sometimes arduous to execute. In this instance the day was hot, the hills were steep, the going was rough, and the result, by evening, was exactly nothing. The same party went ashore on the next day, continuing to search and with as little success. Features which seemed promising from a distance turned out to be covered by jungle. Others were accessible but had no view of the sea. Some, viewed from below, looked hopeful but had somehow vanished by the time they were reached. Remembering how Fabius had treated prisoners in Borneo and Bourbon, remembering the murder he had committed in Ireland, Delancey would not easily abandon the search. He became increasingly anxious, however, as it went on, for the
likelihood was that the third frigate would appear before he had located the signal station.