“Stand on,” Chase ordered the quartermaster at the wheel, then ran for the main shrouds, followed by a half-dozen officers. Sharpe went more slowly. He climbed the rain-soaked ratlines, negotiated the lubber’s hole and trained his telescope north, but he could see nothing except a wind-broken sea and a mass of clouds on the horizon.
“The enemy.” Captain Llewellyn of the marines had arrived beside Sharpe on the maintop’s grating. He breathed the words. “My God, it’s the enemy.”
“And the Revenant will join them!” Chase said. “That’s my guess. They’ll be as glad of Montmorin’s company as Nelson is of ours.” He turned and grinned at Sharpe. “You see? We may not have lost her after all!”
The enemy? Sharpe could still see nothing but clouds and sea, but then he realized that what he had mistaken for a streak of dirty white cloud on the horizon was in fact a mass of topsails. A fleet of ships was on that horizon and sailing straight toward his glass so that their sails coalesced into a blur. God alone knew how many ships were there, but Chase had said that the combined navies of France and Spain had put out to sea. “I see thirty,” Lieutenant Haskell said uncertainly, “maybe more.”
“And they’re coming south,” Chase said, puzzled. “I thought the rascals were supposed to be going north to cover the invasion?”
“It’s French navigators,” Lieutenant Peel, the rotund man who had sung so beautifully at the concert, said. “They think Britain’s off Africa.”
“They can sail to China so long as we catch them,” Chase said, then collapsed his telescope and disappeared down the futtock shrouds. Sharpe stayed in the maintop until a squall of rain blotted the far fleet from view.
The Pucelle turned westward, but the fickle wind turned with her so that she had to beat her way out into the Atlantic, thumping the cold waves to spatter spray down the holy-stoned decks. The enemy fleet was soon lost to sight, but Chase’s course took the Pucelle past two more frigates which formed the fragile chain connecting Nelson’s fleet with the enemy. The frigates were the scouts, the cavalry, and, having found the enemy, they stayed with her and sent messages back down the long windy links of their chain. Connors watched the bright colored flags and passed on their news. The enemy, he reported, was still sailing south and the Euryalus had counted thirty-three ships of the line and five frigates, but two hours later the total was increased by one ship of the line because the Revenant, as Chase had foreseen, had been ordered to join the enemy’s fleet.
“Thirty-four prizes!” Chase said exultantly. “My God, we’ll hammer them!”
The last link in the chain was not a single-decked frigate, but a ship of the line which, to Sharpe’s amazement, was identified even before her hull showed above the horizon. “It’s the Mars,” Lieutenant Haskell said, peering through his glass. “I’d know that mizzen topsail anywhere.”
“The Mars?” Chase’s spirits were flying high to the heavens now. “Georgie Duff, eh! He and I were midshipmen together, Sharpe. He’s a Scotsman,” he added as though that were relevant. “Big fellow, he is, big enough to be a prize fighter! I remember his appetite! Never had enough to eat, poor fellow.”
A string of flags appeared at the Mars’s mizzen. “Our number, sir,” Connors reported, then waited a few seconds. “What brings you home in such a hurry?”
“Give Captain Duff my compliments,” Chase said happily, “and tell him I knew he’d need some help.” The signal lieutenant dragged flags from their lockers, a midshipman bent them on to the halliard and a seaman hauled them up.
“Captain Duff assures you, sir, that he will not permit us to come to any harm,” Connors reported after a moment.
“Oh, he’s a good fellow!” Chase said, delighted with the insult. “A good fellow.”
An hour later another cloud of sail appeared, only this one was on the western horizon and it grew from a blurred smear into the massed sails of a fleet. Twenty-six ships of the line, not counting the Mars or the Pucelle, were sailing northward and Chase took his ship toward the head of the line while his officers crowded at the quarterdeck’s lee rail and gazed at the far ships. Lord William and Lady Grace, both bundled in heavy cloaks, had come on deck to see the British fleet.