Any Approaching Enemy: A Novel of the Napoleonic Wars Read Online Free PDF

jib.”
    That would leave the foremast staysail as the only scrap of canvas flying. Charles thought of asking Eliot if it was sufficient, but decided the sailing master had probably already thought of that. Communicating the question would be too difficult anyway. “See to it, if you please,” he shouted back.
    Charles continued across the deck to the lee railing, where Winchester stood watch. Another midshipman—Sykes, he thought it was—sat in a bundle of sou’wester on the deck beneath the railing, huddled against the wind and wet. Charles nodded by way of greeting to his brother-in-law, who silently touched his hat in return, and settled against the railing to brace himself. The ship’s stern swooped upward, then fell precipitously as it proceeded rhythmically from wave crest to trough.
    He tried to warp his mind to the endless calculations of course, windage, currents, drift, and the eventual perils of the Sardinian coast but realized that it was all supposition leading nowhere very definite. It would be a miracle if their actual progress were in any direction other than backward and sideways. He didn’t even know where they were, except in the broadest terms: some distance south of Toulon and presumably still to the west of Sardinia; hopefully well to the west of the island.
    A rendezvous off the coast of France was specified in his orders, to be used if the squadron was dispersed. The seventy-fours would probably arrive first, since they would have been the least affected by the storm. There was also the possibility that the French fleet in Toulon would use the favorable northerly wind to up their anchors and set off for whatever purpose they had in mind. Admiral Nelson would know this, and Charles suspected that he would be in a state of high agitation while he waited for the smaller ships to rejoin him one by one before he could look into the port.
    When Winchester went below, he was replaced by Talmage, who took up his station by the weather rail, a respectable distance away. Charles stayed where he was, too tired to climb the inclined deck. There was nothing the first lieutenant could tell him that he didn’t already know. Alone, huddled in his rain gear with his back turned to the wind, he found his mind turning back to Penny. What would she think if she knew that
Louisa
was struggling for her life against surging seas and a howling gale, possibly to be driven against a rocky, reef-strewn lee shore? Actually, she probably wouldn’t be as troubled by his current situation as she had been after learning of the
Louisa
’s battles with the
Santa Brigida.
Even then, she hadn’t been concerned solely for his safety. One of her peculiarities was that she was of a Quaker family and held strong pacifist views. She had told him several times that she did not approve of his profession and had initially refused to marry him because of it. Charles sighed. That would work itself out in time, he told himself. She would adjust. Wives always adjusted to their husbands’ ways. He knew it to be true, everyone said so.
    His attention shifted as a master’s mate paused by the binnacle, clutched it for support, then bent and turned the half-hour glass. Charles saw that the man pulled the lanyard to ring the ship’s bell eight times. The ringing sound, if there was one, was instantly carried away on the wind. Eight bells, it must be the beginning of the middle watch: midnight. Charles realized that his limbs were cold and stiff from the long hours on deck, and he was almost stupid with fatigue. The wind may have abated a trifle; at least the song through the stays seemed a fraction of an octave lower.
    His joints complained as he pushed himself off the railing and made his way toward Eliot at his place beside the helm. Too tired to attempt communication, Charles took up a slate used for navigational computations and chalked on it:
    AM GOING BELOW. CALL IF WEATHER CHANGE.
    The master read it and nodded in acknowledgment.