‘O’ course! We’d be cruelly raked until our guns bear again.’
‘Undoubtedly. And additionally—’
‘With springs on th’ cables we c’n direct our fire as we please.’
‘Just so, Mr Kydd.’
With one signal – two flags – Nelson had levelled the odds.
‘Then you will oblige me, sir, in taking a cable through a stern chase gunport.’
‘Aye aye, sir. Making fast t’ the mizzen?’
‘Yes.’
Kydd saluted and left the deck, happy to have something of significance to do in this time of waiting. ‘Mr Pearce!’ he called to the boatswain. ‘We have a task…’
It was no trivial matter, rousing out the hundred-fathom length of twelve-inch stream cable from below, then ranging it along the gundeck from where it was seized round the fat bulk of the mizzen-mast, through the gunroom and out of one of the pair of chase ports. With the wake of the moving ship foaming noisily just feet below, the thick rope had to be heaved out of the stern and passed back along the ship’s side beneath the line of open gunports and to an anchor on the bows. The cable was kept clear of the sea by a spun-yarn at every third port ready for instant cutting loose, and at the bows it was bent on to the anchor.
Bryant approached the captain. ‘Ship cleared for action, sir.’ There was a taut ferocity about the first lieutenant, Kydd saw, almost a blood-longing for the fight. He wondered if he, too, should adopt a more aggressive bearing.
‘Very well, Mr Bryant. There will be time for supper for the men before we go to quarters, I believe – and everyone shall have a double tot, if you please.’
Kydd called Rawson over: ‘Go below an’ get yourself something t’ eat, younker – after you’ve seen y’ men get their grog.’ It would not be long before they went to quarters. The enemy was now in plain view, on the right side of a low, sandy bay fringed by date palms, and inshore of a guardian island no more than thirty feet high, their line stretching away into the distance. On the left were some higher sand hills, which Kydd knew from their rudimentary chart was the Rosetta mouth of the Nile with its distinctive tower. In the evening sun he picked up knots of people coming down to the water’s edge: there would be a big audience for the evening’s entertainment. He wondered if the famed General Buonaparte was watching, perhaps from the small medieval castle at the mouth of the bay.
He went below: the men were in spirits, rough-humoured as he remembered himself when he had been one of them, the old jokes about prize-money, the lottery of death, the exchange of verbal wills.
In the wardroom he stuffed his pockets with hard tack, an orange and a large clean cloth, then accepted his fighting sword and cross-belt from his servant. His uncle, who had provided the fine blade, was now unimaginably distant. He eased out the blued steel far enough to glimpse the Cornish choughs, then clicked it home again and buckled it on. Whose blood would it taste first? Or would he yield it in surrender to great odds?
As he left he felt a stab of foreboding – he was going out on deck and perhaps would never return. But he shook it off and as he reached the upper deck his eyes immediately searched out the waiting enemy.
‘This is a grave and solemn moment, Mr Bryant,’ admonished Houghton, breaking into the first lieutenant’s avid description of what he had once found in a captured French ship. ‘We shall mark it with due reverence. Pass the word for the chaplain.’ At length the man appeared. ‘I desire to see a short service before we open hostilities if you please, Mr Peake.’
‘A – a service?’
‘Yes, certainly. Do you not feel it wise to seek the blessing of the Almighty on our endeavours?’
‘You mean—’
‘Do I have to instruct you in your duty, sir? A rousing hymn to get the men in spirit, some bracing words about the rightness of our cause, doing our Christian duty, that sort of thing. And, of course, finish with a suitable prayer calling for a blessing of our arms on this day. Steadies the men, puts heart into them. Make it brief – we’ll be at the guns in an hour.’
As he hurried along the upper deck Renzi saw a figure he recognised, clinging to the bulwarks, head bowed. ‘Why, what’s this, Mr Peake? At your prayers, I see,’ he said. With most of the men below there were only a few curious pairs of eyes to gawp at them.
Peake lifted his face: it was a picture of misery. ‘I can’t do it, Mr Renzi,’ he said thickly.
‘Cannot do what, sir?’
‘The captain wishes me to – to speak words of violence, to incite men to acts of bloodshed, and this – this I find in all conscience I cannot do, sir.’