Free Enemy in Sight! by Alexander Kent Page B

descent.
    He said stiffly, “Before the light goes I will make a signal to Ithuriel. ” He beckoned to Gascoigne. “I’ve forgotten her captain’s name.”
    Gascoigne was still gaping as if he could not believe a captain could behave in such an odd manner. Then he opened his book and stammered, “ Ithuriel, 32 , Captain Curry, sir!”
    It would sound trite to wish him a good New Year, Bolitho thought, but it would be better than nothing.
    Stepkyne said, “Well, they’ve kept her smart enough, in spite of the damn weather.”
    Bolitho took Gascoigne’s big signal telescope and lifted it above the nettings. The frigate was on the Hyperion’ s larboard quarter now and he could see the huddled figures on her quarterdeck below the tattered remnant of her ensign. He blinked his eyes rapidly to clear them from strain. He was mistaken. He had to be.
    His voice was still calm as he snapped, “Make this signal, Mr Gascoigne. Hermes to Ithuriel. Good luck.”
    He ignored the startled look on the midshipman’s pale face and rasped, “That’s right. I said Hermes! ” Then he added, “Thank you, Mr Stepkyne.”
    Nobody spoke. Those standing near Bolitho even averted their eyes as if unable to watch his madness.
    Gascoigne said in a small voice, “She’s acknowledged, sir.”
    Bolitho looked away. “Lay her on the starboard tack, Mr Gossett. We will steer due west.” Then as the pipes twittered and the men ran to the braces he added harshly, “ Ithuriel is a thirty- two-gun frigate, gentlemen. That ship is a thirty- six! And only a Frenchman would fail to see we are not the Hermes! ”
    They were all staring at him now. “Mr Stepkyne saw it first, even though he did not recognise fully what he had discovered. She is too smart, too clean after weeks of blockade duty!”
    Inch said, “What does it mean, sir?” He seemed stunned. Bolitho watched the yards swinging and the sails filling again to the wind.
    â€œIt means, gentlemen, that Ithuriel has been taken. That explains how those people knew our recognition signals.” It was amazing how calm he sounded. He could not understand it, when every fibre in his body was crying out for them to understand, as he did. He saw Allday leaning against a nine-pounder, staring astern at the frigate as she sidled once more into the haze of spray and growing darkness. He would know how Bolitho felt. He had been aboard his ship, the Phalarope when she had been attacked by an American privateer. That, too, had been a British frigate taken as a prize.
    Bolitho asked slowly, “Why should the French bother with such a deception? They have taken a good frigate, so why keep it a secret?”
    Gossett said, “Seems to me, sir, that they got summat to ’ide.”
    Bolitho showed his teeth in a smile. “I believe so, Mr Gossett.” He looked up at the flapping pendant. “There is no time to inform the squadron, even if we could find them.” His tone hardened. “As soon as it is dark we will go about and work to a position north of the estuary again. I have no doubt the frigate’s captain, whoever he is, will anchor for the night. He will know it to be unlikely for another ship to come from the squadron for days, even weeks maybe.” He tried to keep the bitterness from his voice. If Pelham-Martin had concentrated his three frigates, and if possible the sloops as well in a tight arc around the patrol area and within visual distance of one another, this could never have happened. He continued in the same flat tone, “We will close the shore as near as we are able. When the first daylight appears I want to have the wind-gage.” He glanced coldly at the nearest guns. “This time I will do the talking first. And with authority!”
    As the banks of cloud closed across the horizon and plunged the sea into total darkness Bolitho still paced the