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

Author:Jay Worrall [Worrall, Jay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Action & Adventure, Historical, Naval - 18th century - Fiction, onlib, Sea Stories, War & Military, _NB_fixed, _rt_yes, Fiction
ISBN: 0345476492
Google: msMNHDBFZ1wC
Amazon: B000S1M4WI
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2007-12-18T05:00:00+00:00

“You will have to return to Gibraltar, in any event,” Jones continued. “I doubt the squadron you are seeking is sufficient to engage them.”

SEVEN

“I DON’T KNOW, SIR, I’M SURE, ” SAID SAMUEL ELIOT, RUBBING at the back of his neck. “It’s Egypt, that’s a fact, but exactly where along the shore, I can’t say. There ain’t no landmarks that I know of.”

Charles looked out at the line of surf, a featureless, dun-colored landscape beyond. A single miserable village of a dozen mudbrick huts with reed-thatched roofs lay huddled among a few scrawny palm trees set back from the shore, three weathered fishing boats pulled up on the beach in front.

“Don’t look like much, does it?” Midshipman Sykes observed. Beechum, standing beside him, shook his head disparagingly.

Louisa and Pylades had departed Acre two days earlier, sailing to the southwest to pick up the Egyptian shore, with the intention of looking into Alexandria and see with their own eyes the French presence there before proceeding westward with their precious intelligence. The wind had turned variable, sometimes from the north, sometimes west of north. At present it blew fitfully along the coast from due west.

“Have we any charts?” Charles asked.

“Naught, sir,” Eliot answered. “Nothing for this far into the Mediterranean. Nobody does. The navy don’t have much call to come this way. I have some small maps with broad features; no use for taking bearings on anything.”

“All right, in general terms, do you reckon that we are to the east of Alexandria?” Charles asked.

“Aye,” Eliot offered readily, “I think that’s safe. It’s how far to the east, I don’t know.”

“We are agreed, then. Put her on the starboard tack, we’ll make to the west. Mr. Sykes, please make the appropriate signal to Pylades. Mr. Beechum, make sure that the lookout in the masthead keeps a sharp eye.”

“Aye-aye, sir.”

“Yes, sir.”

The boatswain blew on his call. The cry “All hands to tack ship” passed up and down the decks. The men trundled up from below, some to the ratlines and aloft, others to the braces. Charles listened as Eliot bellowed out the orders. The wheel spun, and the yards were hauled and lowered; the ship slowed as her head turned. The main and mizzen topsails flogged as they lost their bellies, snapping and shivering. The foretopsail laid back against the mast, pushing her bow to swing through the eye of the wind. “Midships,” Eliot commanded. “Meet her.” The lines were hauled and the sails filled. Gracefully, Louisa laid over on her new course, her canvas braced up tight against the breeze.

On the starboard tack, the ship sailed away from the shore, some ten miles out, came about, and angled back in again, all the while progressing slowly westward. The day passed, and they tacked and tacked again. The lay of the land transformed to great inland saltwater lagoons filled with all manner of brilliantly colored birds, separated from the sea by thin ridges of palm-dotted sand. Increasingly widespread stands of marsh grasses grew about their rims.

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