The Two Admirals

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"Yes, sir, they do keep the line uncommonly well, considering that the
tides run in streaks in the channel. I _do_ think if we were to drop a
hammock overboard, that the Carnatic would pick it up, although she must
be quite four leagues astern of us."

"Let old Parker alone for that! I'll warrant you, _he_ is never out of
the way. Were it Lord Morganic, now, in the Achilles, I should expect
him to be away off here on our weather-quarter, just to show us how his
ship can eat us out of the wind when he _tries_: or away down yonder,
under our lee, that we might understand how she falls off, when he
_don't_ try."

"My lord is a gallant officer, and no bad seaman, for his years,
notwithstanding, Sir Gervaise," observed Greenly, who generally took the
part of the absent, whenever his superior felt disposed to berate them.

"I deny neither, Greenly, most particularly the first. I know very well,
were I to signal Morganic, to run into Brest, he'd do it; but whether he
would go in, ring-tail-boom, or jib-boom first, I couldn't tell till I
saw it. Now you are a youngish man yourself. Greenly--"

"Every day of eight-and-thirty, Sir Gervaise, and a few months to spare;
and I care not if the ladies know it."

"Poh!--They like us old fellows, half the time, as well as they do the
boys. But you are of an age not to feel time in your bones, and can see
the folly of some of our old-fashioned notions, perhaps; though you are
not quite as likely to understand the fooleries that have come in, in
your own day. Nothing is more absurd than to be experimenting on the
settled principles of ships. They are machines, Greenly, and have their
laws, just the same as the planets in the heavens. The idea comes from a
fish,--head, run, and helm; and all we have to do is to study the fishes
in order to get the sort of craft we want. If there is occasion for
bulk, take the whale, and you get a round bottom, full fore-body, and a
clean run. When you want speed, models are plenty--take the dolphin, for
instance,--and there you find an entrance like a wedge, a lean
fore-body, and a run as clean as this ship's decks. But some of our
young captains would spoil a dolphin's sailing, if they could breathe
under water, so as to get at the poor devils. Look at their fancies! The
First Lord shall give one of his cousins a frigate, now, that is moulded
after nature itself, as one might say; with a bottom that would put a
trout to shame. Well, one of the first things the lad does, when he gets
on board her, is to lengthen his gaff, perhaps, put a cloth or two in
his mizzen, and call it a spanker, settle away the peak till it sticks
out over his taffrail like a sign-post, and then away he goes upon a
wind, with his helm hard-up, bragging what a weatherly craft he has, and
how hard it is to make her even _look_ to leeward."

"I have known such sailors, I must confess, Sir Gervaise; but time cures
them of that folly."

"That is to be hoped; for what would a man think of a fish to which
nature had fitted a tail athwart-ships, and which was obliged to carry a
fin, like a lee-board, under its lee-jaw, to prevent falling off dead
before the wind!"

Here Sir Gervaise laughed heartily at the picture of the awkward
creature to which his own imagination had given birth; Greenly joining
in the merriment, partly from the oddity of the conceit, and partly from
the docility with which commander-in-chief's jokes are usually received.
The feeling of momentary indignation which had aroused Sir Gervaise to
such an expression of his disgust at modern inventions, was appeased by
this little success; and, inviting his captain to sup with him,--a
substitute for a dinner,--he led the way below in high good-humour,
Galleygo having just announced that the table was ready.

The _convives_ on this occasion were merely the admiral himself,
Greenly, and Atwood. The fare was substantial, rather than scientific;
but the service was rich; Sir Gervaise uniformly eating off of plate. In
addition to Galleygo, no less than five domestics attended to the wants
of the party. As a ship of the Plantagenet's size was reasonably steady
at all times, a gale of wind excepted, when the lamps and candles were
lighted, and the group was arranged, aided by the admixture of rich
furniture with frowning artillery and the other appliances of war, the
great cabin of the Plantagenet was not without a certain air of rude
magnificence. Sir Gervaise kept no less than three servants in livery,
as a part of his personal establishment, tolerating Galleygo, and one or
two more of the same stamp, as a homage due to Neptune.

The situation not being novel to either of the party, and the day's work
having been severe, the first twenty minutes were pretty studiously
devoted to the duty of "restoration," as it is termed by the great
masters of the science of the table. By the end of that time, however,
the glass began to circulate, though moderately, and with it tongues to
loosen.

"Your health, Captain Greenly--Atwood, I remember you," said the
vice-admiral, nodding his head familiarly to his two guests, on the eve
of tossing off a glass of sherry. "These Spanish wines go directly to
the heart, and I only wonder why a people who can make them, don't make
better sailors."

"In the days of Columbus, the Spaniards had something to boast of in
that way, too, Sir Gervaise," Atwood remarked.

"Ay, but that was a long time ago, and they have got bravely over it. I
account for the deficiencies of both the French and Spanish marines
something in this way, Greenly. Columbus, and the discovery of America,
brought ships and sailors into fashion. But a ship without an officer
fit to command her, is like a body without a soul. Fashion, however,
brought your young nobles into their services, and men were given
vessels because their fathers were dukes and counts, and not because
they knew any thing about them."

"Is our own service entirely free from this sort of favouritism?"
quietly demanded the captain.

"Far from it, Greenly; else would not Morganic have been made a captain
at twenty, and old Parker, for instance, one only at fifty. But,
somehow, our classes slide into each other, in a way that neutralizes,
in a great degree, the effect of birth. Is it not so, Atwood?"

"_Some_ of our classes, Sir Gervaise, manage to _slide_ into all the
best places, if the truth must be said."

"Well, that is pretty bold for a Scotchman!" rejoined the vice-admiral,
good-humouredly. "Ever since the accession of the house of Stuart, we've
built a bridge across the Tweed that lets people pass in only one
direction. I make no doubt this Pretender's son will bring down half
Scotland at his heels, to fill all the berths they may fancy suitable to
their merits. It's an easy way of paying bounty--promises."

"This affair in the north, they tell me, seems a little serious," said
Greenly. "I believe this is Mr. Atwood's opinion?"

"You'll find it serious enough, if Sir Gervaise's notion about the
bounty be true," answered the immovable secretary. "Scotia is a small
country, but it's well filled with 'braw sperits,' if there's an opening
for them to prove it."

"Well, well, this war between England and Scotland is out of place,
while we have the French and Spaniards on our hands. Most extraordinary
scenes have we had ashore, yonder, Greenly, with an old Devonshire
baronet, who slipped and is off for the other world, while we were in
his house."

"Magrath has told me something of it, sir; and, he tells me the
_fill-us-null-us_--hang me if I can make out his gibberish, five minutes
after it was told to me."

"_Filius nullius_, you mean; nobody's baby--the son of nobody--have you
forgotten your Latin, man?"

"Faith, Sir Gervaise, I never had any to forget. My father was a captain
of a man-of-war before me, and he kept me afloat from the time I was
five, down to the day of his death; Latin was no part of my spoon-meat."

"Ay--ay--my good fellow, I knew your father, and was in the third ship
from him, in the action in which he fell," returned the vice-admiral,
kindly. "Bluewater was just ahead of him, and we all loved him, as we
did an elder brother. You were not promoted, then."

"No, sir, I was only a midshipman, and didn't happen to be in his own
ship that day," answered Greenly, sensibly touched with this tribute to
his parent's merit; "but I was old enough to remember how nobly you all
behaved on the occasion. Well,"--slily brushing his eye with his
hand,--"Latin may do a schoolmaster good, but it is of little use on
board ship. I never had but one scholar among all my cronies and
intimates."

"And who was he, Greenly? You shouldn't despise knowledge, because you
don't understand it. I dare say your intimate was none the worse for a
little Latin--enough to go through _nullus, nulla, nullum_, for
instance. Who was this intimate, Greenly?"

"John Bluewater--handsome Jack, as he was called; the younger brother of
the admiral. They sent him to sea, to keep him out of harm's way in some
love affair; and you may remember that while he was with the admiral, or
_Captain_ Bluewater, as he was then, I was one of the lieutenants.
Although poor Jack was a soldier and in the guards, and he was four or
five years my senior, he took a fancy to me, and we became intimate.
_He_ understood Latin, better than he did his own interests."

"In what did he fail?--Bluewater was never very communicative to me
about that brother."

"There was a private marriage, and cross guardians, and the usual
difficulties. In the midst of it all, poor John fell in battle, as you
know, and his widow followed him to the grave, within a month or two.
'Twas a sad story all round, and I try to think of it as little as
possible."

"A private marriage!" repeated Sir Gervaise, slowly. "Are you quite sure
of _that_? I don't think Bluewater is aware of that circumstance; at
least, I never heard him allude to it. Could there have been any issue?"

"No one can know it better than myself, as I helped to get the lady off,
and was present at the ceremony. That much I _know_. Of issue, I should
think there was none; though the colonel lived a year after the
marriage. How far the admiral is familiar with all these circumstances I
cannot say, as one would not like to introduce the particulars of a
private marriage of a deceased brother, to his commanding officer."

"I am glad there was no issue, Greenly--particular circumstances make me
glad of that. But we will change the discourse, as these family
disasters make one melancholy; and a melancholy dinner is like
ingratitude to Him who bestows it."

The conversation now grew general, and in due season, in common with the
feast, it ended. After sitting the usual time, the guests retired. Sir
Gervaise then went on deck, and paced the poop for an hour, looking
anxiously ahead, in quest of the French signal; and, failing of
discovering them, he was fain to seek his berth out of sheer fatigue.
Before he did this, however, the necessary orders were given; and that
to call him, should any thing out of the common track occur, was
repeated no less than four times.

CHAPTER XXI.

"Roll on, thou deep and dark-blue ocean--roll
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin--his control
Stops with the shore;--upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed."

CHILDE HAROLD.

It was broad day-light, when Sir Gervaise Oakes next appeared on deck.
As the scene then offered to his view, as well as the impression it made
on his mind, will sufficiently explain to the reader the state of
affairs, some six hours later than the time last included in our
account, we refer him to those for his own impressions. The wind now
blew a real gale, though the season of the year rendered it less
unpleasant to the feelings than is usual with wintry tempests. The air
was even bland, and still charged with the moisture of the ocean; though
it came sweeping athwart sheets of foam, with a fury, at moments, which
threatened to carry the entire summits of waves miles from their beds,
in spray. Even the aquatic birds seemed to be terrified, in the instants
of the greatest power of the winds, actually wheeling suddenly on their
wings, and plunging into the element beneath to seek protection from the
maddened efforts of that to which they more properly belonged.

Still, Sir Gervaise saw that his ships bore up nobly against the fierce
strife. Each vessel showed the same canvass; viz.--a reefed fore-sail; a
small triangular piece of strong, heavy cloth, fitted between the end of
the bowsprit and the head of the fore-top-mast; a similar sail over the
quarter-deck, between the mizzen and main masts, and a close-reefed
main-top-sail Several times that morning, Captain Greenly had thought he
should be compelled to substitute a lower surface to the wind than that
of the sail last mentioned. As it was an important auxiliary, however,
in steadying the ship, and in keeping her under the command of her helm,
on each occasion the order had been delayed, until he now began to
question whether the canvass could be reduced, without too great a risk
to the men whom it would be necessary to send aloft. He had decided to
let it stand or blow away, as fortune might decide. Similar reasoning
left nearly all the other vessels under precisely the same canvass.

The ships of the vice-admiral's division had closed in the night,
agreeably to an order given before quitting the anchorage, which
directed them to come within the usual sailing distance, in the event of
the weather's menacing a separation. This command had been obeyed by the
ships astern carrying sail hard, long after the leading vessels had been
eased by reducing their canvass. The order of sailing was the
Plantagenet in the van, and the Carnatic, Achilles, Thunderer, Blenheim,
and Warspite following, in the order named; some changes having been
made in the night, in order to bring the ships of the division into
their fighting-stations, in a line ahead, the vice-admiral leading. The
superiority of the Plantagenet was a little apparent, notwithstanding;
the Carnatic alone, and that only by means of the most careful watching,
being able to keep literally in the commander-in-chief's wake; all the
other vessels gradually but almost imperceptibly setting to leeward of
it. These several circumstances struck Sir Gervaise, the moment his foot
touched the poop, where he found Greenly keeping an anxious look-out on
the state of the weather and the condition of his own ship; leaning at
the same time, against the spanker-boom to steady himself in the gusts
of the gale. The vice-admiral braced his own well-knit and compact
frame, by spreading his legs; then he turned his handsome but
weather-beaten face towards the line, scanning each ship in succession,
as she lay over to the wind, and came wallowing on, shoving aside vast
mounds of water with her bows, her masts describing short arcs in the
air, and her hull rolling to windward, and lurching, as if boring her
way through the ocean. Galleygo, who never regarded himself as a steward
in a gale of wind, was the only other person on the poop, whither he
went at pleasure by a sort of imprescriptibly right.

"Well done, old Planter!" cried Sir Gervaise, heartily, as soon as his
eye had taken in the leading peculiarities of the view. "You see,
Greenly, she has every body but old Parker to leeward, and she would
have him there, too, but he would carry every stick he has, out of the
Carnatic, rather than not keep his berth. Look at Master Morganic; he
has his main course close-reefed on the Achilles, to luff into his
station, and I'll warrant you will get a good six months' wear out of
that ship in this one gale; loosening her knees, and jerking her spars
like so many whip-handles; and all for love of the new fashion of
rigging an English two-decker like an Algerian xebec! Well, let him tug
his way up to windward, Bond-street fashion, if he likes the fun. What
has become of the Chloe, Greenly?"

"Here she is, sir, quite a league on our lee-bow, looking out, according
to orders."

"Ay, that is her work, and she'll do it effectually.--But I don't see
the Driver!"

"She's dead ahead sir," answered Greenly, smiling; "_her_ orders being
rather more difficult of execution. Her station would be off yonder to
windward, half a league ahead of us; but it's no easy matter to get into
that position, Sir Gervaise, when the Plantagenet is really in earnest."

Sir Gervaise laughed, and rubbed his hands, then he turned to look for
the Active, the only other vessel of his division. This little cutter
was dancing over the seas, half the time under water, notwithstanding,
under the head of her main-sail, broad off, on the admiral's
weather-beam; finding no difficulty in maintaining her station there, in
the absence of all top-hamper, and favoured by the lowness of her hull.
After this he glanced upward at the sails and spars of the Plantagenet,
which he studied closely.

"No signs of _de Vervillin_, hey! Greenly?" the admiral asked, when his
survey of the whole fleet had ended. "I was in hopes we might see
something of _him_, when the light returned this morning."

"Perhaps it is quite as well as it is, Sir Gervaise," returned the
captain. "We could do little besides look at each other, in this gale,
and Admiral Bluewater ought to join before I should like even to do
_that_."

"Think you so, Master Greenly!--There you are mistaken, then; for I'd
lie by him, were I alone in this ship, that I might know where he was to
be found as soon as the weather would permit us to have something to say
to him."

These words were scarcely uttered, when the look-out in the forward
cross-trees, shouted at the top of his voice, "sail-ho!" At the next
instant the Chloe fired a gun, the report of which was just heard amid
the roaring of the gale, though the smoke was distinctly seen floating
above the mists of the ocean; she also set a signal at her naked
mizzen-top-gallant-mast-head.

"Run below, young gentleman," said the vice-admiral, advancing to the
break of the poop and speaking to a midshipman on the quarter-deck; "and
desire Mr. Bunting to make his appearance. The Chloe signals us--tell
him not to look for his knee-buckles."

A century since, the last injunction, though still so much in use on
ship-board, was far more literal than it is to-day, nearly all classes
of men possessing the articles in question, though not invariably
wearing them when at sea. The midshipman dove below, however, as soon as
the words were out of his superior's mouth; and, in a very few minutes,
Bunting appeared, having actually stopped on the main-deck ladder to
assume his coat, lest he might too unceremoniously invade the sacred
precincts of the quarter-deck, in his shirt-sleeves.

"There it is, Bunting," said Sir Gervaise, handing the lieutenant the
glass; "two hundred and twenty-seven--'a large sail ahead,' if I
remember right."

"No, Sir Gervaise, '_sails_ ahead;' the number of them to follow. Hoist
the answering flag, quarter-master."

"So much the better! So much the better, Bunting! The number to follow?
Well, _we'll_ follow the number, let it be greater or smaller. Come,
sirrah, bear a hand up with your answering flag."

The usual signal that the message was understood was now run up between
the masts, and instantly hauled down again, the flags seen in the Chloe
descending at the same moment.

"Now for the number of the sails, ahead," said Sir Gervaise, as he,
Greenly, and Bunting, each levelled a glass at the frigate, on board
which the next signal was momentarily expected. "Eleven, by George!"

"No, Sir Gervaise," exclaimed Greenly, "I know better than _that_. Red
above, and blue beneath, with the distinguishing pennant _beneath_, make
_fourteen_, in our books, now!"

"Well, sir, if they are _forty_, we'll go nearer and see of what sort of
stuff they are made. Show your answering flag, Bunting, that we may know
what else the Chloe has to tell us."

This was done, the frigate hauling down her signals in haste, and
showing a new set as soon as possible.

"What now, Bunting?--what now, Greenly?" demanded Sir Gervaise, a sea
having struck the side of the ship and thrown so much spray into his
face as to reduce him to the necessity of using his pocket-handkerchief,
at the very moment he was anxious to be looking through his glass. "What
do you make of _that_, gentlemen?"

"I make out the number to be 382," answered Greenly; "but what it means,
I know not."

"'Strange sails, _enemies_,'" read Bunting from the book. "Show the
answer, quarter-master."

"We hardly wanted a signal for _that_, Greenly, since there can be no
friendly force, here away; and fourteen sail, on this coast, always
means mischief. What says the Chloe next?"

"'Strange sails on the larboard tack, heading as follows.'"

"By George, crossing our course!--We shall soon see them from deck. Do
the ships astern notice the signals?"

"Every one of them, Sir Gervaise," answered the captain; "the Thunderer
has just lowered her answering flag, and the Active is repeating. I have
never seen quarter-masters so nimble!"

"So much the better--so much the better--down he comes; stand by for
another."

After the necessary pause, the signal to denote the point of the compass
was shown from the Chloe.

"Heading how, Bunting?" the vice-admiral eagerly inquired. "Heading how,
sir?"

"North-west-and-by-north," or as Bunting pronounced it
"nor-west-and-by-loathe, I believe, sir,--no, I am mistaken, Sir
Gervaise; it is nor-nor-west."

"Jammed up like ourselves, hard on a wind! This gale comes directly from
the broad Atlantic, and one party is crossing over to the north and the
other to the south shore. We _must_ meet, unless one of us run
away--hey! Greenly?"

"True enough, Sir Gervaise; though fourteen sail is rather an awkward
odds for seven."

"You forget the Driver and Active, sir; we've _nine_; nine hearty,
substantial British cruisers."

"To wit: six ships of the line, one frigate, a _sloop_, and a _cutter_,"
laying heavy emphasis on the two last vessels.

"What does the Chloe say now, Bunting? That we're enough for the French,
although they _are_ two to one?"

"Not exactly that, I believe, Sir Gervaise. 'Five more sail ahead.' They
increase fast, sir."

"Ay, at that rate, they may indeed grow too strong for us," answered Sir
Gervaise, with more coolness of manner; "nineteen to nine are rather
heavy odds. I wish we had Bluewater here!"

"That is what I was about to suggest, Sir Gervaise," observed the
captain. "If we had the other division, as some of the Frenchmen are
probably frigates and corvettes, we might do better. Admiral Bluewater
cannot be far from us; somewhere down here, towards north-east--or
nor-nor-east. By warring round, I think we should make his division in
the course of a couple of hours."

"What, and leave to Monsieur de Vervillin the advantage of swearing he
frightened us away! No--no--Greenly; we will first _pass_ him fairly and
manfully, and that, too, within reach of shot; and then it will be time
enough to go round and look after our friends."

"Will not that be putting the French exactly between our two divisions,
Sir Gervaise, and give him the advantage of dividing our force. If he
stand far, on a nor-nor-west course, I think he will infallibly get
between us and Admiral Bluewater."

"And what will he gain by that, Greenly?--What, according to your
notions of matters and things, will be the great advantage of having an
English fleet on each side of him?"

"Not much, certainly, Sir Gervaise," answered Greenly, laughing; "if
these fleets were at all equal to his own. But as they will be much
inferior to him, the Comte may manage to close with one division, while
the other is so far off as to be unable to assist; and one hour of a hot
fire may dispose of the victory."

"All this is apparent enough, Greenly; yet I could hardly brook letting
the enemy go scathe less. So long as it blows as it does now, there will
not be much fighting, and there can be no harm in taking a near look at
M. de Vervillin. In half an hour, or an hour at most, we must get a
sight of him from off deck, even with this slow headway of the two
fleets. Let them heave the log, and ascertain how fast we go, sir."

"Should we engage the French in such weather, Sir Gervaise," answered
Greenly, after giving the order just mentioned; "it would be giving them
the very advantage they like. They usually fire at the spars, and one
shot would do more mischief, with such a strain on the masts, than
half-a-dozen in a moderate blow."

"That will do, Greenly--that will do," said the vice-admiral,
impatiently; "if I didn't so well know you, and hadn't seen you so often
engaged, I should think you were afraid of these nineteen sail. You have
lectured long enough to render me prudent, and we'll say no more."

Here Sir Gervaise turned on his heel, and began to pace the poop, for he
was slightly vexed, though not angered. Such little dialogues often
occurred between him and his captain, the latter knowing that his
commander's greatest professional failing was excess of daring, while he
felt that his own reputation was too well established to be afraid to
inculcate prudence. Next to the honour of the flag, and his own perhaps,
Greenly felt the greatest interest in that of Sir Gervaise Oakes, under
whom he had served as midshipman, lieutenant, and captain; and this his
superior knew, a circumstance that would have excused far greater
liberties. After moving swiftly to and fro several times, the
vice-admiral began to cool, and he forgot this passing ebullition of
quick feelings. Greenly, on the other hand, satisfied that the just mind
of the commander-in-chief would not fail to appreciate facts that had
been so plainly presented to it, was content to change the subject. They
conversed together, in a most friendly manner, Sir Gervaise being even
unusually frank and communicative, in order to prove he was not
displeased, the matter in discussion being the state of the ship and the
situation of the crew.

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