Dead Reckoning (33 page)

Your obliged servant,

Richard Delancey

The enclosed note was written by the captain's clerk in his own (as opposed to his copperplate) handwriting.

This comes to inform you, sir, that French agents have set up a signalling post from which they warn French ships away from the island. Their signal mast is on the hills behind Port Louis and this map will show you where it is.

Wellwisher

Delancey made a hurried sketch to indicate roughly where
the place was. He left it to the commandant to decide for himself why there should be a corpse on the site. No harm would be done if these soldiers were given something to think about.

He had hardly finished this task before young Lewis reported the arrival of the storeship's boat. Delancey went on deck to meet the gaze of a reproachful Sevendale.

“Are all your men on board? Good. Well done! Tanner, give this letter to the boat's coxswain and tell him to deliver it to naval headquarters, with a guinea for his trouble. Mr Topley, we shan't need the launch, after all. Hoist it inboard. Mr Ledingham, take your telescope to the foretop and tell us what you can see of the French. Give the order, Mr Topley, for all hands to make sail. Mr Lewis, make this signal and fire a gun: “Enemy in sight, am going in chase.” Where are your prisoners, Tanner? Untie them but put them in irons. Mr Sevendale, the marine shore party is to splice the mainbrace and is excused any further duty until tomorrow.”

Close-hauled, the frigate was soon under way, with the enemy just in sight and Mauritius already more distant. Delancey watched the shore through his telescope and was rewarded eventually by the Commodore's signal of acknowledgement and “Good luck” spelt out. He knew now, with tremendous relief, that he was at last on his way home. More fortunate still, he had a superb frigate, fully manned, with the enemy ahead of him and a chance to come into Portsmouth in a blaze of glory. There could be no certainty about it but the frigate he was pursuing must have been slower, for some reason, than the other two, and it should therefore be possible to overtake her. It only remained to train his crew to such a standard in gunnery that they would be more than a match for any French frigate—and indeed in this case a match for two of them.

Next day Delancey called a conference of his officers and told them first, the story of Fabius, so far as it was known to him.

“In the ordinary way it would have been difficult to deal with him, if only for lack of time. Luckily he solved the problem for me by trying to escape. So I shot him dead and may hope that any further French ships which approach Mauritius, not knowing that it has capitulated, will fall into our hands. On the day we sailed some seamen were inclined to blame the marines for delaying us. I tell you this story so that all on board will know that the marines did very well and are not to be blamed for any delay. We are now in chase of a French frigate which I suspect is the
Clorinde
of 40 guns. The ship with her is probably the
Fidèle
which is either a small frigate or large corvette. I shall be disappointed if we fail to take them both.”

“But—forgive me, sir—the Frenchmen are no longer in sight!” Contact with the enemy had been lost during the night and Northmore evidently assumed that the situation would have been different had his captain not wasted time ashore.

“They are no longer in sight,” Delancey admitted, “but that is of no consequence. The point is that we know where they are going. They have made a passage from France to Mauritius without calling anywhere. They have found Mauritius closed to them. So they must be short of water and must find some in a matter of weeks. So they are heading for Tamatave in Madagascar. What else could they do? We have about eight hundred miles to sail and perhaps ten days in which to perfect our gunnery. After that, we may expect to engage the
Clorinde
and the
Fidèle
and compel them both to haul down their colours. So we all know what we have to do.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” said Northmore, “might we know, sir, what tactics you intend to pursue?”

“Well, I shall assume, first of all, that two frigates will hardly refuse battle against one. I must also suppose that we shall be on the same tack and that the
Fidèle
will be ahead of the
Clorinde.
In this way the French might try to prevent me from cutting off their weaker ship. If I then accept the challenge and close with the
Clorinde,
the
Fidèle
may escape, which is the very thing I must prevent. My aim must be to deal with the
Fidèle
first, crippling her before the real action begins. I shall fail in this, however, if my intention is too soon apparent. Nor should I succeed without men enough to man both batteries, which fortunately I have. It is possible, though not certain, that these French ships may be carrying troops to reinforce the garrison of Mauritius, which will make them more formidable at close quarters. I need hardly tell you that the action I expect may involve us in heavy but unavoidable loss. Apart from any tactical advantage we may secure, all will depend upon accurate and rapid gunnery. Between here and Madagascar we shall practise each day, being fortunately able to spare the powder.”

“Sir,” said Topley anxiously, “if our first object is to cripple the
Fidèle,
we shall, I suppose, load at first with canister and chain or bar shot. Does this mean that we shall pass the
Clorinde
without returning her fire?”

“I hope that we shall not have to do that but the men should be warned that such a necessity may arise.”

“Would it be possible, sir,” asked Northmore, “to steer between them?”

“It would indeed, and we should end with one of them on either beam—not a promising situation to be in.”

“Should we assume, sir,” asked Sevendale, “that the captain of the
Clorinde
is aware of our pursuit?”

“Undoubtedly. He saw us as we came out of Port Louis and
he could see that we were alone. I doubt whether he could have identified us beyond knowing our class.”

“I am wondering, sir, what you would have done had you been in his place?”

“Well, I should in any case have made for Tamatave. The alternative would be the Seychelles but he would rightly assume that these will now be in our hands. He must have water before he does anything else. If he has troops on board, as I think very probable, his water shortage will be desperate. He can never risk being crippled in action while his water supplies are all but exhausted. As for his tactical alternatives, I should in his place be planning an attack; but I doubt very much whether he thinks as I do. He will defend himself, I believe, and with the
Fidèle
ahead of the
Clorinde.
If I engage the
Clorinde
the
Fidèle
will try to take up a raking position across our bows.”

“And good luck to her!” exclaimed Northmore. “We should teach them not to try that!”

“I think we might, Mr Northmore,” Delancey admitted, “but let us not underrate our opponents. That was Captain Pym's mistake—or, anyway, his chief mistake—at Grand Port. We have been defeated once and we must not be defeated again. To ensure victory we need, above all, to improve our gunnery. We can do that in two ways. First, we shall have target practice for all first and second gun-captains, teaching them the need to aim and elevate correctly. Rapidity of fire is nothing if the shots all miss the target. Second, we shall mark out a half-circle round each gun and paint in the degrees. Gun-captains will then be trained to aim on a given bearing.”

“What purpose will that serve?” asked Topley.

“To help us fire when blind. If there is a dead calm or very light wind the space between two opponents must tend to fill
with smoke. The point is reached—and I have known this—more especially at night—when everyone is firing into the void. But an officer in, say, the maintop, using a fixed compass dial, can take a bearing on the enemy's main topmast, rising above the smoke, judge the distance, and send these figures down to the officer commanding the main battery. He will then order his gun-captains to aim on that bearing at a given elevation. I do not promise a perfect result from that method but we should do better than the other side.”

As from this day the gun-drill was relentless. A wooden target was suspended from a fore yard-arm stunsail boom and a cannon mounted on the quarter-deck. Practice continued until every first and second gun-captain could hit the target with two shots out of three. Later, an old cask with a small tricolour on a broomstick was hove overboard and the ship manoeuvred so as to put the target on the beam at musket-shot distance. Time was taken to see how long it took to hit the cask, the guns firing in succession. Once that time for this was reduced to something within a minute, practice was resumed against a cask at half-cannon-shot and finally at extreme range. No fewer than five gun-captains had by then been replaced, others being promoted and others again rewarded.

Some days later two casks were heaved overboard at four hundred yards interval. The frigate then bore up, sailed in a circle, and steered between the two casks with both batteries manned and in action. This was a tricky operation at best and had to be repeated six times before a good standard of accuracy could be achieved. Guns had so far been firing in succession but now the exercises involved the firing of broadsides, guns fired theoretically together. They were never in fact simultaneous and some officers considered that such a practice, if possible, would
put too much strain on the ship's timbers. So the volley was usually scattered, with a few seconds between the shots, which were sufficiently together even so to make the ship heel over. Accuracy might be reduced but the moral effect was, of course, the greater.

In the ordinary way Delancey was thought a humane captain, reluctant to punish, interested in his men's welfare, but he seemed at this stage to have changed in character. He had become a martinet from whom it was almost impossible to gain a word of praise. He seemed to rage round the gun-deck, finding fault with everything and making it clear that no one's best was good enough. “The old man was never like this before,” said Topley to Northmore in a confidential tone of voice. “We can none of us do anything right.”

“Can't you understand?” snapped Northmore. “We are soon to be in action with the odds against us. It is not enough to be good—we have to be exceptional. The captain hates losing men in action and blames himself afterwards for the few he has lost. So he gives us all hell now in the hope of saving bloodshed later on. The best way to save your own men's lives is to blow your opponent out of the water, and that, by God, is what he means to do.”

This explanation of Delancey's conduct was soon shown to be correct. Two days before the frigate would sight Madagascar, provided the wind held, Delancey ceased to rage and began to praise. “Well done!” he said to the gun-crews. “This is the best frigate in her class and we have the best crew this side of the Cape!” All was now sweetness and light—provided that there were no mistakes—and men basked in a new atmosphere of encouragement. For the French they now felt a measure of pity, as for men who would never know what had hit them. Delancey's
aim was now to give them encouragement, show them that they were bound to win. Sailors' memories are short and they soon forgot all they had been through, taking a new pride in being the invincible crew of a crack frigate, the best of her class. What chance had the enemy, even with two frigates? The
Minerva
was a ship that could beat the world. So satisfied was the captain that he cancelled all further drills and gave the men what amounted to a day's rest, no more being done than the essential working of the ship. There was time for skylarking and a little ceremony when a prize was given to the best gun's crew of all.

Delancey had his officers to dinner and told them that the worst was over and that the training was always more arduous than the battle. Towards sunset the officer of the watch was hailed from the masthead, “Sail on the larboard bow!” Telescopes were levelled and a tiny patch of white was glimpsed for a moment in the light of the setting sun. It was gone again as the sun neared the horizon but Ledingham, as acting lieutenant, reported to Delancey that the enemy should be in sight at daybreak. He found the captain writing at his desk and somewhat preoccupied. He merely nodded when given the news, going on to sign what he had written and sprinkle it with sand. Looking up with a smile, he said:

“Thank you, Mr Ledingham. You did well to tell me and you have come at exactly the right moment. I shall want you and another officer to witness my Will . . .”

T
HE ENEMY ships were duly sighted at daybreak, almost a day's run from the coast of Madagascar.

“Will they have seen us, sir?” asked Lewis.