The wheel spun and, sluggishly, Tenacious traced her bowsprit back on target, and past. She steadied for a moment, and her opposite broadside thundered out across the calm seas. Again the gun-smoke, the close scatter of splashes – then the enemy’s mizzen topmast fell in a graceful curve.
‘Please, God . . .’ breathed Adams. It was by no means a decisive hit, but the complete absence of square sail on the mizzen might be enough to hamper the vessel, allowing them to close and engage.
Activity died down as every man stared forward, willing the chase to falter, but it was not to be. Sacrificing his wounded topmast, trailing in the water alongside, the French ship ruthlessly cut it loose and continued on as before.
‘O’ course, she won’t grieve over the topmast,’ Kydd said, glumly. ‘Going large, she c’n balance by tricing up the clew o’ the mains’l one side. She knows all she has t’ do is carry on and she’ll lose us.’
‘That may be so,’ Adams said, ‘but what happens when she wants to go by the wind? Close-hauled she’d be a cripple.’
‘And why would she do that?’ Bampton’s acid comment from behind was nearly lost in a general growl of dismay at the sudden crump of gunfire and smoke issuing out from their quarry.
‘She has stern-chasers,’ Adams remarked soberly. These guns, which could fire straight aft into a pursuer when there was no opportunity to return fire, would be a sore trial. At the next salvo Kydd heard the crack of the guns and, moments later, felt the slam of the passage of one ball over their heads. Several officers ducked automatically, then rose shamefacedly.
‘Marines, go below. Stand the men down into the waist, Mr Bryant,’ Houghton ordered. Although these were only light six-pounders banging away, a hit would kill.
They kept up the chase for another twenty minutes, falling astern the whole while until the first lieutenant approached the captain. ‘There’s no profit in this, sir – we shall have to give him best, I fear.’
Houghton glared at him. ‘Damned if I will! Observe – he cannot run to leeward for ever. On this course he stands to meet the Nantucket shoals off Cape Cod before long. He must choose then between hauling his wind and going east about the Cape to slip into the Gulf o’ Maine, or an easier passage west but directly into United States waters.
‘I want to box him into the coast. Therefore I shall desire Lynx to lie to his starb’d and persuade him that this is his better course.’ The little sloop would thus stand between the enemy and a refuge in the wider reaches of the Gulf of Maine – but it would be a foolhardy move for the French captain to take on the little ship knowing that just one lucky hit from any of the sloop’s sixteen six-pounders could deliver her straight into the clutches of the waiting bigger ship.
‘Aye, sir.’
Houghton smiled for the first time. ‘And when he has to bear away, he’s under our lee and then we’ll have him . . .’
In the early afternoon, the enemy was far ahead but, with Lynx faithfully to her starboard, the master was satisfied that they were irrevocably within the hook of the shoals, cutting off her escape to the east. ‘Tides o’ five knots or more around ’em. Steep too, so sounding won’t answer and if fog comes, it’s all up with the ship,’ he added, with feeling.
The wind dropped further until it was a ghosting calm, favouring the smaller vessel, which glided a little further and out of range before ceasing movement. The three ships lay becalmed in the grey dusk.
Kydd came on watch: the position of the chase the same. In the night hours there was a choice for their quarry – to attempt a repair by the light of bunched lanthorns, or not show any betraying light and hope to steal away in the night.
She chose the latter: were it not for the quick-witted commander of Lynx she might have succeeded. As darkness closed in, the little sloop rigged a makeshift beacon for Tenacious of a cluster of lanthorns in a box beaming their light secretly in one direction only.
Through the night Lynx stayed faithfully with the enemy, her beacon trained; Tenacious lay back in the blackness. When the wind came up some time after midnight and the privateer captain made his move, Houghton knew all about it.
Coming round to the west, the Frenchman clearly wanted to put distance between him and his tormentor before he struck for the open sea, but dawn’s grey light showed her the flat nondescript coast of an outlying island of New England to the north-east and two men-o’-war of the Royal Navy to seaward.
Houghton was on deck to greet the dawn, sniffing the wind’s direction. ‘We have him!’ he said, with relish. ‘He can’t show much sail forrard with this wind abeam and no square sail aft – we can try for a conclusion before noon, I believe.’ He looked at the group on the quarterdeck with satisfaction. ‘It will be a good day’s work for all today.’