Free Any Approaching Enemy: A Novel of the Napoleonic Wars by Jay Worrall Page B

horizon from the starboard rail but saw nothing. “What’s strange?” he called up.
    “It be hard to say, sir. She’s ship-rigged. Looks as though she has no topmasts at all. She’s sailing under her fore and main courses, not even a jib.”
    It took Charles a moment to digest this before it came to him:
Emerald.
He swore under his breath. He was not looking forward to a reunion with Pigott, not after ignoring his orders at the onset of the storm. He had a suspicion that having been in the right would earn him little gratitude. If only Bedford had decided to sail at dawn instead of waiting till noon, all of this could have been avoided.
    Emerald’s painfully abbreviated outline limped slowly over the horizon toward the rendezvous. Through his glass, Charles could see that not only had her topmasts been carried away, but her bowsprit was gone, and she carried a jury-rigged foremast. It appeared that all of her ship’s boats had similarly disappeared. Awkwardly,
Emerald
hove to a cable’s length from
Terpsichore
and ran her signal flags up to the mainsail yardarm:
Captains report on board. We would have to,
he considered as he descended to his gig.
Pigott has no way of coming to us.
    Charles ascended Emerald’s side steps after Bedford and before Bevan, as precedence demanded. Captain Pigott, a man with an unfortunately high forehead, a pinched nose, and close-set, watery blue eyes, was waiting as he gained the deck. “Ah, young Captain Edgemont,” he said, with a heavy emphasis on “young.”
    “Yes, sir,” Charles answered, smartly touching his hat.
    “Before you even start, I’ll have none of your excuses, damn your eyes,” Pigott pronounced. “I’ll not have any junior captains deciding which of my orders they choose to obey and which they don’t. I am most displeased. I intend recommending to Admiral St. Vincent that you be hauled before a court-martial. What have you to say to that?”
    “Sir—” Charles began, intending to be contrite.
    “Captain Pigott,” Bedford interrupted, “His Majesty’s Navy is of little use at the bottom of the sea. Edgemont did try to warn ye of the approach of the weather.”
    Pigott glared at Bedford. “I’ll have no excuses. No excuses. None.”
    Bevan took a step forward and touched his hat respectfully. “Begging your pardon, sir,” he said, “but Captain Edgemont is a proven officer with a distinguished record. Jervis himself promoted him to captain.” He hesitated, then added, “If there is to be an official inquiry, it will certainly include the nature of the orders he evaded and who issued them.”
    Pigott blinked at this. Turning once more to Charles, he said, “Well? What have you to say for yourself?”
    Charles took a deep breath, well aware that he was very junior to Pigott and that an inquiry before St. Vincent might not go as well as Bevan thought it would. “I was doing my duty as I thought best for the safety of my ship and the good of the squadron, sir,” he said directly. “I saw a danger that it seemed your lookouts had missed, and I acted accordingly. Of course, if you wish to request a court-martial, I shall willingly submit.”
    Captain Pigott looked around at the three junior officers and equivocated. “I don’t mean to be harsh, young man,” he said with deep condescension. “A stern warning may be all that is required, and I trust you will benefit by it. In this case, I’ll put your behavior down to youthful indiscretion. But I warn you in the strongest terms not to let it happen again.”
    “Yes, sir,” Charles answered, biting back any further thoughts.
    “Now, then,” Bedford announced loudly to change the subject. “Do ye know where Admiral Nelson and his three seventy-fours are?”
    “I do not,” Pigott answered tartly. “I had assumed them to be here.”
    “Nary a trace,” Bedford said. “I expect they’ve gone on directly to Toulon to see if the Frenchies are out.”
    “Nonsense,” Pigott replied. “I