A Battle Won by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Action & Adventure, Historical, Naval, Naval Battles - History - 18th Century, War & Military, tpl, _NB_fixed, _rt_yes, Fiction
ISBN: 9781101442395
Google: CASgGIHKl20C
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2010-08-12T04:00:00+00:00

Twelve

A late-December dusk blew in from the east, carrying with it a fleet of aggrieved gulls, mourning and grumbling pitifully in the ruins of the recent gale.

“Fucking levanter,” Mr Barthe pronounced the wind. He lowered his night glass but continued to stare into the darkness. “Can you make out anything at all, Mr Wickham?”

Wickham, who stood at the forward barricade with a night glass pressed to his eye, answered softly, as though they approached the harbour of Toulon by stealth. “There are no ships in the roads, Mr Barthe.”

“What said you?”

“I do not believe there are ships anchored in the roads, Mr Barthe,” Wickham repeated, raising his voice only a little.

“Mr Wickham, either I am gone deef or you are whispering.”

Wickham raised his voice. “There are no—”

“… ships in the roads. Yes, yes. I heard that. Ah, Captain Hayden.” The sailing master touched his hat as Hayden mounted the forecastle. “There don’t appear to be any ships—”

“… in the roads, or so I have heard. The eastern gale has no doubt made that anchorage untenable. They have all shifted their berths to the inner harbour.”

“If I have learned anything of the bloody Mediterranean in winter, it is that this weather is not done with us yet,” Barthe offered. “A little calm means only that worse approaches. I am quite confident I can con us in, sir. The wind could not be better suited to such an endeavour, and there is moonlight enough.”

“If you are certain, Mr Barthe. With another gale in the offing and these confounding currents setting us first one way and then another, I do not mind telling you, I would rather be safely at anchor this night.”

“Then we shall be, sir. Mr Wickham has volunteered to see through the dark for us and it is an excellent, spacious plot of water, sir. I shall have us all sleeping sound within the hour, Captain Hayden. See if I don’t.”

“Then you are appointed pilot, Mr Barthe—take us in.”

This simple proposition, however, was not so easily effected, as the east wind and confounding currents conjoined forces, the wind dropping away to a mere breeze and the current setting them in the same direction. Several anxious hours saw them weathering Sepet Point and even dropping anchor once to hold them off the shore as the wind died away altogether. It was nearing midnight when a small but steady breeze, originating in the east even then, began making. At the same time, the current appeared to subside, and, setting sail, the Themis passed slowly over a glassy, dark sea toward the entrance of Toulon Harbour.

Eight bells sounded as they crossed the outer roads, echoed distantly by a more numerous chiming within the nearing city—twelve bells upon the land.

“Midnight,” Hawthorne announced. “Will this wind carry us in, do you think, or will it leave us wallowing in the roads?”

Hayden shrugged. “Despite all appearances, Mr Hawthorne, I am not the god of the seas. What the winds might or might not do is a mystery to me.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.