The Two Admirals

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"You are always ready for battle, Greenly," the vice-admiral said,
smilingly, in conclusion; "when there is a necessity; and always just as
ready to point out the inexpediency of engaging, where you fancy nothing
is to be gained by it. You would not have me run away from a shadow,
however; or a signal; and that is much the same thing: so we will stand
on, until we make the Frenchmen fairly from off-deck, when it will be
time enough to determine what shall come next."

"Sail-ho!" shouted one of the look-outs from aloft, a cry that
immediately drew all eyes towards the mizzen-top-mast-cross-trees,
whence the sound proceeded.

The wind blew too fresh to render conversation, even by means of a
trumpet, easy, and the man was ordered down to give an account of what
he had seen. Of course he first touched the poop-deck, where he was met
by the admiral and captain, the officer of the watch, to whom he
properly belonged, giving him up to the examination of his two
superiors, without a grimace.

"Where-away is the sail you've seen, sir?" demanded Sir Gervaise a
little sharply, for he suspected it was no more than one of the ships
ahead, already signaled. "Down yonder to the southward and
eastward--hey! sirrah?"

"No, Sir Jarvy," answered the top-man, hitching his trowsers with one
hand, and smoothing the hair on his forehead with the other; "but out
here, to the forward and westward, on our weather-quarter. It's none o'
them French chaps as is with the County of Fairvillian,"--for so all the
common men of the fleet believed their gallant enemy to be rightly
named,--"but is a square-rigged craft by herself, jammed up on a wind,
pretty much like all on us."

"That alters the matter, Greenly! How do you know she is square-rigged,
my man?"

"Why, Sir Jarvy, your honour, she's under her fore and main-taw-sails,
close-reefed, with a bit of the main-sail set, as well as I can make it
out, sir."

"The devil she is! It must be some fellow in a great hurry, to carry
that canvass in this blow! Can it be possible, Greenly, that the leading
vessel of Bluewater is heaving in sight?"

"I rather think not, Sir Gervaise; it would be too far to windward for
any of his two-deckers. It may turn out to be a look-out ship of the
French, got round on the other tack to keep her station, and carrying
sail hard, because she dislikes our appearance."

"In that case she must claw well to windward to escape us! What's your
name, my lad--Tom Davis, if I'm not mistaken?"

"No, Sir Jarvy, it's Jack Brown; which is much the same, your honour.
We's no ways partic'lar about names."

"Well, Jack, does it blow hard aloft? So as to give you any trouble in
holding on?"

"Nothing to speak on, Sir Jarvy. A'ter cruising a winter and spring in
the Bay of Biscay, I looks on this as no more nor a puff. Half a hand
will keep a fellow in his berth, aloft."

"Galleygo--take Jack Brown below to my cabin, and give him a fresh nip
in his jigger--he'll hold on all the better for it."

This was Sir Gervaise's mode of atoning for the error in doing the man
injustice, by supposing he was mistaken about the new sail, and Jack
Brown went aloft devoted to the commander-in-chief. It costs the great
and powerful so little to become popular, that one is sometimes
surprised to find that any are otherwise; but, when we remember that it
is also their duty to be just, astonishment ceases; justice being
precisely the quality to which a large portion of the human race are
most averse.

Half an hour passed, and no further reports were received from aloft. In
a few minutes, however, the Warspite signalled the admiral, to report
the stranger on her weather-quarter, and, not long after, the Active did
the same. Still neither told his character; and the course being
substantially the same, the unknown ship approached but slowly,
notwithstanding the unusual quantity of sail she had set. At the end of
the period mentioned, the vessels in the south-eastern board began to be
visible from the deck. The ocean was so white with foam, that it was not
easy to distinguish a ship, under short canvass, at any great distance;
but, by the aid of glasses, both Sir Gervaise and Greenly satisfied
themselves that the number of the enemy at the southward amounted to
just twenty; one more having hove in sight, and been signalled by the
Chloe, since her first report. Several of these vessels, however, were
small; and, the vice-admiral, after a long and anxious survey, lowered
his glass and turned to his captain in order to compare opinions.

"Well, Greenly," he asked, "what do you make of them, now?--According to
my reckoning, there are thirteen of the line, two frigates, four
corvettes, and a lugger; or twenty sail in all."

"There can be no doubt of the twenty sail, Sir Gervaise, though the
vessels astern are still too distant to speak of their size. I rather
think it will turn out _fourteen_ of the line and only three frigates."

"That is rather too much for us, certainly, without Bluewater. His five
ships, now, and this westerly position, would make a cheering prospect
for us. We might stick by Mr. de Vervillin until it moderated, and then
pay our respects to him. What do you say to _that_, Greenly?"

"That it is of no great moment, Sir Gervaise, so long as the other
division is _not_ with us. But yonder are signals flying on board the
Active, the Warspite, and the Blenheim."

"Ay, they've something to tell us of the chap astern and to windward.
Come, Bunting, give us the news."

"'Stranger in the north-west shows the Druid's number;'" the
signal-officer read mechanically from the book.

"The deuce he does! Then Bluewater cannot be far off. Let Dick alone for
keeping in his proper place; he has an instinct for a line of battle,
and I never knew him fail to be in the very spot I could wish to have
him, looking as much at home, as if his ships had all been built there!
The Druid's number! The Caesar and the rest of them are in a line ahead,
further north, heading up well to windward even of our own wake. This
puts the Comte fairly under our lee."

But Greenly was far from being of a temperament as sanguine as that of
the vice-admiral's. He did not like the circumstance of the Druid's
being alone visible, and she, too, under what in so heavy a gale, might
be deemed a press of canvass. There was no apparent reason for the
division's carrying sail so hard, while the frigate would he obliged to
do it, did she wish to overtake vessels like the Plantagenet and her
consorts. He suggested, therefore, the probability that the ship was
alone, and that her object might be to speak them.

"There is something in what you say, Greenly," answered Sir Gervaise,
after a minute's reflection; "and we must look into it. If Denham
doesn't give us any thing new from the Count to change our plans, it may
be well to learn what the Druid is after."

Denham was the commander of the Chloe, which ship, a neat
six-and-thirty, was pitching into the heavy seas that now came rolling
in heavily from the broad Atlantic, the water streaming from her
hawse-holes, as she rose from each plunge, like the spouts of a whale.
This vessel, it has been stated, was fully a league ahead and to leeward
of the Plantagenet, and consequently so much nearer to the French, who
were approaching from that precise quarter of the ocean, in a long
single line, like that of the English; a little relieved, however, by
the look-out vessels, all of which, in their case, were sailing along on
the weather-beam of their friends. The distance was still so great, as
to render glasses necessary in getting any very accurate notions of the
force and the point of sailing of Monsieur de Vervillin's fleet, the
ships astern being yet so remote as to require long practice to speak
with any certainty of their characters. In nothing, notwithstanding, was
the superior practical seamanship of the English more apparent, than in
the manner in which these respective lines were formed. That of Sir
Gervaise Oakes was compact, each ship being as near as might be a
cable's length distant from her seconds, ahead and astern. This was a
point on which the vice-admiral prided himself; and by compelling his
captains rigidly to respect their line of sailing, and by keeping the
same ships and officers, as much as possible, under his orders, each
captain of the fleet had got to know his own vessel's rate of speed, and
all the other qualities that were necessary to maintain her precise
position. All the ships being weatherly, though some, in a slight
degree, were more so than others, it was easy to keep the line in
weather like the present, the wind not blowing sufficiently hard to
render a few cloths more or less of canvass of any very great moment. If
there was a vessel sensibly out of her place, in the entire line, it was
the Achilles; Lord Morganic not having had time to get all his forward
spars as far aft as they should have been; a circumstance that had
knocked him off a little more than had happened to the other vessels.
Nevertheless, had an air-line been drawn at this moment, from the
mizzen-top of the Plantagenet to that of the Warspite, it would have
been found to pass through the spars of quite half the intermediate
vessels, and no one of them all would have been a pistol-shot out of the
way. As there were six intervals between the vessels, and each interval
as near as could be guessed at was a cable's length, the extent of the
whole line a little exceeded three-quarters of a mile.

On the other hand, the French, though they preserved a very respectable
degree of order, were much less compact, and by no means as methodical
in their manner of sailing. Some of their ships were a quarter of a mile
to leeward of the line, and the intervals were irregular and
ill-observed. These circumstances arose from several causes, neither of
which proceeded from any fault in the commander-in-chief, who was both
an experienced seaman and a skilful tactician. But his captains were new
to each other, and some of them were recently appointed to their ships;
it being just as much a matter of course that a seaman should ascertain
the qualities of his vessel, by familiarity, as that a man should learn
the character of his wife, in the intimacy of wedlock.

At the precise moment of which we are now writing, the Chloe might have
been about a league from the leading vessel of the enemy, and her
position to leeward of her own fleet threatened to bring her, half an
hour later, within range of the Frenchmen's guns. This fact was apparent
to all in the squadron; still the frigate stood on, having been placed
in that station, and the whole being under the immediate supervision of
the commander-in-chief.

"Denham will have a warm berth of it, sir, should he stand on much
longer," said Greenly, when ten minutes more had passed, during which
the ships had gradually drawn nearer.

"I was hoping he might get between the most weatherly French frigate and
her line," answered Sir Gervaise; "when I think, by edging rapidly away,
we could take her alive, with the Plantagenet."

"In which case we might as well clear for action; such a man[oe]uvre
being certain to bring on a general engagement."

"No--no--I'm not quite mad enough for that, Master Telemachus; but, we
can wait a little longer for the chances. How many flags can you make
out among the enemy, Bunting?"

"I see but two, Sir Gervaise; one at the fore, and the other at the
mizzen, like our own. I can make out, now, only twelve ships of the
line, too; neither of which is a three-decker."

"So much for rumour; as flagrant a liar as ever wagged a tongue! Twelve
ships on two decks, and eight frigates, sloops and luggers. There can be
no great mistake in this."

"I think not, Sir Gervaise; their commander-in-chief is in the fourth
ship from the head of the line. His flag is just discernible, by means
of our best glass. Ay, there goes a signal, this instant, at the end of
his gaff!"

"If one could only read French now, Greenly," said the vice-admiral,
smiling; "we might get into some of Mr. de Vervillin's secrets. Perhaps
it's an order to go to quarters or to clear; look out sharp, Bunting,
for any signs of such a movement. What do you make of it?"

"It's to the frigates, Sir Gervaise; all of which answer, while the
other vessels do not."

"We want no French to read that signal, sir," put in Greenly; "the
frigates themselves telling us what it means. Monsieur de Vervillin has
no idea of letting the Plantagenet take any thing he has, _alive_."

This was true enough. Just as the captain spoke, the object of the order
was made sufficiently apparent, by all the light vessels to windward of
the French fleet, bearing up together, until they brought the wind abaft
their beams, when away they glided to leeward, like floating objects
that have suddenly struck a swift current. Before this change in their
course, these frigates and corvettes had been struggling along, the seas
meeting them on their weather-bows, at the rate of about two knots or
rather less; whereas, their speed was now quadrupled, and in a few
minutes, the whole of them had sailed through the different intervals in
their main line, and had formed as before, nearly half a league to
leeward of it. Here, in the event of an action, their principal duties
would have been to succour crippled ships that might be forced out of
their allotted stations during the combat. All this Sir Gervaise viewed
with disgust. He had hoped that his enemy might have presumed on the
state of the elements, and suffered his light vessels to maintain their
original positions.

"It would be a great triumph to us, Greenly," he said, "if Denham could
pass without shifting his berth. There would be something manly and
seamanlike in an inferior fleet's passing a superior, in such a style."

"Yes, sir, though it _might_ cost us a fine frigate. The count can have
no difficulty in fighting his weather main-deck guns, and a discharge
from two or three of his leading vessels might cut away some spar that
Denham would miss sadly, just at such a moment."

Sir Gervaise placed his hands behind his back, paced the deck a minute,
and then said decidedly--

"Bunting, make the Chloe's signal to ware--tacking in this sea, and
under that short canvass, is out of the question."

Bunting had anticipated this order, and had even ventured clandestinely
to direct the quarter-masters to bend on the necessary flags; and Sir
Gervaise had scarcely got the words out of his mouth, before the signal
was abroad. The Chloe was equally on the alert; for she too each moment
expected the command, and ere her answering flag was seen, her helm was
up, the mizen-stay-sail down, and her head falling off rapidly towards
the enemy. This movement seemed to be expected all round--and it
certainly had been delayed to the very last moment--for the leading
French ship fell off three or four points, and as the frigate was
exactly end-on to her, let fly the contents of all the guns on her
forecastle, as well as of those on her main-deck, as far aft as they
could be brought to bear. One of the top-sail-sheets of the frigate was
shot away by this rapid and unexpected fire, and some little damage was
done to the standing rigging; but luckily, none of immediate moment.
Captain Denham was active, and the instant he found his top-sail
flapping, he ordered it clewed up, and the main-sail loosed. The latter
was set, close-reefed, as the ship came to the wind on the larboard
tack, and by the time every thing was braced up and hauled aft, on that
tack, the main-top-sail was ready to be sheeted home, anew. During the
few minutes that these evolutions required, Sir Gervaise kept his eye
riveted on the vessel; and when he saw her fairly round, and trimmed by
the wind, again, with the main-sail dragging her ahead, to own the truth,
he felt mentally relieved.

"Not a minute too soon, Sir Gervaise," observed the cautious Greenly,
smiling. "I should not be surprised if Denham hears more from that
fellow at the head of the French line. His weather chase-guns are
exactly in a range with the frigate, and the two upper ones might be
worked, well enough."

"I think not, Greenly. The forecastle gun, possibly; scarcely any thing
below it."

Sir Gervaise proved to be partly right and partly wrong. The Frenchman
_did_ attempt a fire with his main-deck gun; but, at the first plunge of
the ship, a sea slapped up against her weather-bow, and sent a column of
water through the port, that drove half its crew into the lee-scuppers.
In the midst of this waterspout, the gun exploded, the loggerhead having
been applied an instant before, giving a sort of chaotic wildness to the
scene in-board. This satisfied the party below; though that on the
forecastle fared better. The last fired their gun several times, and
always without success. This failure proceeded from a cause that is
seldom sufficiently estimated by nautical gunners; the shot having
swerved from the line of sight, by the force of the wind against which
it flew, two or three hundred feet, by the time it had gone the mile
that lay between the vessels. Sir Gervaise anxiously watched the effect
of the fire, and perceiving that all the shot fell to leeward of the
Chloe, he was no longer uneasy about that vessel, and he began to turn
his attention to other and more important concerns.

As we are now approaching a moment when it is necessary that the reader
should receive some tolerably distinct impression of the relative
positions of the two entire fleets, we shall close the present chapter,
here; reserving the duty of explanation for the commencement of a new
one.

CHAPTER XXII.

----"All were glad,
And laughed, and shouted, as she darted on,
And plunged amid the foam, and tossed it high,
Over the deck, as when a strong, curbed steed
Flings the froth from him in his eager race."

PERCIVAL

The long twilight of a high latitude had now ended, and the sun, though
concealed behind clouds, had risen. The additional light contributed to
lessen the gloomy look of the ocean, though the fury of the winds and
waves still lent to it a dark and menacing aspect. To windward there
were no signs of an abatement of the gale, while the heavens continued
to abstain from letting down their floods, on the raging waters beneath.
By this lime, the fleet was materially to the southward of Cape la
Hogue, though far to the westward, where the channel received the winds
and waves from the whole rake of the Atlantic, and the seas were setting
in, in the long, regular swells of the ocean, a little disturbed by the
influence of the tides. Ships as heavy as the two-deckers moved along
with groaning efforts, their bulk-heads and timbers "complaining," to
use the language of the sea, as the huge masses, loaded with their iron
artillery, rose and sunk on the coming and receding billows. But their
movements were stately and full of majesty; whereas, the cutter, sloop,
and even the frigates, seemed to be tossed like foam, very much at the
mercy of the elements. The Chloe was passing the admiral, on the
opposite tack, quite a mile to leeward, and yet, as she mounted to the
summit of a wave, her cut-water was often visible nearly to the keel.
These are the trials of a vessel's strength; for, were a ship always
water-borne equally on all her lines, there would not be the necessity
which now exists to make her the well-knit mass of wood and iron she is.

The progress of the two fleets was very much the same, both squadrons
struggling along through the billows, at the rate of about a marine
league in the hour. As no lofty sail was carried, and the vessels were
first made in the haze of a clouded morning, the ships had not become
visible to each other until nearer than common; and, by the time at
which we have now arrived in our tale, the leading vessels were
separated by a space that did not exceed two miles, estimating the
distance only on their respective lines of sailing; though there would
be about the same space between them, when abreast, the English being so
much to windward of their enemies. Any one in the least familiar with
nautical man[oe]uvres will understand that these circumstances would
bring the van of the French and the rear of their foes much nearer
together in passing, both fleets being close-hauled.

Sir Gervaise Oakes, as a matter of course, watched the progress of the
two lines with close and intelligent attention. Mons. de Vervillin did
the same from the poop of le Foudroyant, a noble eighty-gun ship in
which his flag of _vice-admiral_ was flying, as it might be, in
defiance. By the side of the former stood Greenly, Bunting, and Bury,
the Plantagenet's first lieutenant; by the side of the latter his
capitaine de vaisseau, a man as little like the caricatures of such
officers, as a hostile feeling has laid before the readers of English
literature, as Washington was like the man held up to odium in the
London journals, at the commencement of the great American war. M. de
Vervillin himself was a man of respectable birth, of a scientific
education, and of great familiarity with ships, so far as a knowledge of
their general powers and principles was concerned; but here his
professional excellence ceased, all that infinity of detail which
composes the distinctive merit of the practical seaman being, in a great
degree, unknown to him, rendering it necessary for him to _think_ in
moments of emergency; periods when the really prime mariner seems more
to act by a sort of _instinct_ than by any very intelligible process of
ratiocination. With his fleet drawn out before him, however, and with no
unusual demands on his resources, this gallant officer was an
exceedingly formidable foe to contend with in squadron.

Sir Gervaise Oakes lost all his constitutional and feverish impatience
while the fleets drew nigher and nigher. As is not unusual with brave
men, who are naturally excitable, as the crisis approached he grew
calmer, and obtained a more perfect command over himself; seeing all
things in their true colours, and feeling more and more equal to control
them. He continued to walk the poop, but it was with a slower step; and,
though his hands were still closed behind his back, the fingers were
passive, while his countenance became grave and his eye thoughtful.
Greenly knew that his interference would now be hazardous; for
whenever the vice-admiral assumed that air, he literally became
commander-in-chief; and any attempt to control or influence him, unless
sustained by the communication of new facts, could only draw down
resentment on his own head. Bunting, too, was aware that the "admiral
was aboard," as the officers, among themselves, used to describe this
state of their superior's mind, and was prepared to discharge his own
duty in the most silent and rapid manner in his power. All the others
present felt more or less of this same influence of an established
character.

"_Mr._ Bunting," said Sir Gervaise, when the distance between the
Plantagenet and _le Temeraire_ the leading French vessel, might have
been about a league, allowing for the difference in the respective lines
of sailing--"_Mr._ Bunting, bend on the signal for the ships to go to
quarters. We may as well be ready for any turn of the dice."

No one dared to comment on this order: it was obeyed in readiness and
silence.

"Signal ready, Sir Gervaise," said Bunting, the instant the last flag
was in its place.

"Run it up at once, sir, and have a bright look-out for the answers.
Captain Greenly, go to quarters, and see all clear on the main-deck, to
use the batteries if wanted. The people can stand fast below, as I think
it might be dangerous to open the ports."

Captain Greenly passed off the poop to the quarter-deck, and in a minute
the drum and fife struck up the air which is known all over the
civilized world as the call to arms. In most services this summons is
made by the drum alone, which emits sounds to which the fancy has
attached peculiar words; those of the soldiers of France being "_prend
ton sac_--_prend ton sac_--_prend ton sac_," no bad representatives of
the meaning; but in English and American ships, this appeal is usually
made in company with the notes of the "ear-piercing fife," which gives
it a melody that might otherwise be wanting.

"Signal answered throughout the fleet, Sir Gervaise," said Bunting.

No answer was given to this report beyond a quiet inclination of the
head. After a moment's pause, however, the vice-admiral turned to his
signal officer and said--

"I should think, Bunting, no captain can need an order to tell him _not_
to open his lee-lower-deck ports in such a sea as this?"

"I rather fancy not, Sir Gervaise," answered Bunting, looking drolly at
the boiling element that gushed up each minute from beneath the bottom
of the ship, in a way to appear as high as the hammock-cloths. "The
people at the _main_-deck guns would have rather a wet time of it."

"Bend on the signal, sir, for the ships astern to keep in the
vice-admiral's wake. Young gentleman," to the midshipman who always
acted as his aid in battle, "tell Captain Greenly I desire to see him as
soon as he has received all the reports."

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