Free Tenacious by Julian Stockwin Page B

becoming necessary in the increasingly boisterous conditions,

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    even with the half-moon’s occasionally cloud-dimmed light.
    “Keep the men on deck, Mr Kydd,” Houghton said, drawing his coat round him.
    In less than an hour it had worsened. The moon was now all but obscured by lower-level racing scud and the topsails bellied and tautened to iron-like rigidity. “I’ll trouble you to close-reef the tops’ls,” Houghton ordered.
    Men crowded into the weather shrouds and began climbing. It was murky and indistinct—Kydd knew they were going as much by feel and familiarity with their aerial world as sight. They would be deadly cautious, transferring hold from one hand, one foot to another only when it felt secure. Slamming wind gusts could shake the hold of the unwary and send them, helpless, to their death. When they reached the tops and eased out on the yard they would no longer even be free to hold on—balancing on a thin footrope with empty space beneath, they had to lean over and, with both hands, fist the maddened canvas into submission, then secure the points with a reef knot.
    Still the wind increased, hammering in from the north-west with a flat ferocity. At one in the morning a particularly savage squall shook and pummelled the ship. With a report like gunfire, the topsails blew to pieces and Tenacious fell off the wind until fore and aft sail were set to stabilise her.
    The wind’s noise in the bar-taut rigging was a rising howl that tore at the reason; this was nature gone mad. Seas, driven up by the frenetic wind, caused an ugly roll, which threw serious strain on spars and rigging. Preventers and rolling tackles could help, but when squalls and rain clamped in there was nothing for it but endurance through the long night, with occasional half-glimpsed pinpricks of lanthorn light all that could seen of other ships.
    Finally dawn came in a grey welter of cold spray and whipping wind. As the light extended, lookouts in the tops spotted other ships scattered around the gale-lashed seascape, calling 6

Julian Stockwin
    their names down one by one as they recognised them. The vessels altered course to form up the squadron once more.
    But which was the flagship? And there were no frigates. All that could be seen were two ships-of-the-line and another further off that must be Admiral Nelson. Yet there was something not right with the distant vessel. As they beat their way closer it became clear: Vanguard had lost her entire foremast as well as all her topmasts, and was surviving with scraps of sail on what remained.
    With tumbled masts and no steadying canvas aloft, the ship rolled grievously, on every plunge showing her copper or sub-merging her lower gunports. Conditions on board would be in-describable, but she was still gallantly holding a course.
    Houghton took a telescope, braced himself against the savage roll, and focused on the stricken vessel. The master moved up next to him. “A boat cannot live in these seas, Mr Hambly,”
    Houghton said. “We can do nothing for them.”
    “No, sir,” said Hambly, neutrally. “But on this board he stands into mortal peril, sir . . .”
    “The land?”
    “Corsica, sir. Dead to loo’ard an’ not so many miles.” The awesome force of the gale from the north-west had driven the squadron towards the craggy coast of Corsica to the south-east—
    but how close were they?
    “He must wear, o’ course.”
    With the wind blast on the larboard side any sail that Vanguard could hoist would only impel them further towards that coast.
    They must therefore bring the gale to the other side and let her drive before it. But with no possibility of setting any kind of sail forward there would not be the leverage to bring the big 74
    round. She was trapped on her course.
    “They’ll tack, then?”
    “No, sir,” Hambly responded. “She wouldn’t a-tall get through

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    the wind’s eye. I fear we’re t’ see a calamity very soon, sir.”
    It was