Chapter 31: Lost in a Gale

September 1813

The weather, being inclement already, took a turn for the worse on the next day. Thomas was quite happy about this since it would make things easier for Rourke and his volunteers. Thomas spent the day performing his various duties, mostly at his desk with young Mr. Leeds in attendance, but he was also able to take his meals in the presence of his female companions. The thought of Mirabel returning to England was weighing on his mind nevertheless and the resentment it created certainly contributed to his decision to put his reckless plan into effect.

That night, one bell into the middle watch, Thomas mustered his band of volunteers in the waist. All of them wore thin, tight fitting clothes that had been stained dark. Their faces, hands and feet were blackened using tallow mixed with soot, and they all looked at the small barrel in front of them.

“Men, we shall fix this barrel to the xebec’s rudder, well below the water line. They will not notice it until they loosen sails and make speed. Then, the pressure of the water will push the sail out of the barrel and the sail will form a drogue and slow them down. You understand this?”

The men nodded, clearly pleased with the prospect of playing such a prank on the corsairs.

“Now, McClellan, have you the drill?”

Able Seaman McClellan showed the one-inch hand drill that was secured to his wrist by a laniard.

“Mr. Rourke, you and Morten will drag the drogue along. Will it sink slowly?”

“Yes, Sir Thomas. I blew up the wine tube inside just so it will barely sink.”

“All right then! The watch officer of the Marygold transport has been instructed to let us approach from the North. We’ll slip into the water and round her stern. From there, we’ll dive for the xebec. Have you all the breathing tubes ready?”

The men nodded. They had practised staying submerged in the water and breathing through a bent copper tube. Perhaps that was too much, seeing that the water was choppy and the sky cloudy, not permitting moon light or even the glimmer of stars to give them away. Yet, Thomas was determined to leave nothing to chance.

They all tumbled down into the jolly boat that had been left tied to their starboard side. The oar shafts had been wrapped in rags to avoid noise and the men handled them expertly, making silent progress and keeping the Marygold between them and the xebec. Going slowly, it took ten minutes to get there, and they tied the jolly boat to the transport’s chains. Then, one after the other, they slipped over the side and into the water.

The water was cold, but not very cold as they slowly made their way to the ship’s stern. Thomas then pulled his breathing tube from his belt and adjusted its seat. He and McClellan went first, swimming submerged towards the xebec. They had seen its shape before the weakly lit city and made their way in a seemingly endless time span. They reached the stern without being challenged and set to work.

With Thomas steadying the drill’s tip, McClellan worked the hand crank. Drilling under water effectively silenced the sound of the drill biting into the waterlogged wood of the rudder. It was a mere minute in Thomas’s estimate before the drill broke through on the far side, leaving a one-inch hole perhaps a half fathom under the waterline. Both men rested now whilst McClellan stowed the drill away in his belt. Their eyes well adapted to the dark now, they saw two thin tubes making their way towards them. Those belonged to Rourke and Morten who dragged the sail-filled barrel along with them.

As planned, Rourke handed the end of the line holding the barrel to Thomas who threaded it through the hole in the rudder and then tied a bulky knot into it, preventing it from slipping back through the hole. Satisfying himself that the knot would hold, Thomas signalled for his party to return to the shelter of the Marygold.

The return went faster since McClellan, Rourke and Morten had dropped their burdens into the sea, and soon they rounded the Marygold‘s stern. Pulling himself up and into the jolly boat, Thomas noticed how tired he had become, but the exhilaration of their success revived him. In the dark, he heard the men snigger among themselves over the prank and he shrugged it away.

With the wind now favouring them, they made it back to the lee side of Unicorn where they climbed up to the deck, still dripping water onto the planks. Thomas peeled himself out of the wet clothes and entered his cabin quietly and stark naked. He found the lights still burning and Mirabel watching him with a curious smile.

“I missed you, dear,” she stated with a hint of questioning in her tone.

“We paid a visit to our corsair friends and left them a little gift by which to remember us,” Thomas explained with a boyish grin.

“Pray, tell me more!” Mirabel prodded.

“Well, a xebec is a fast sort of vessel, perhaps faster than a frigate and even than a post packet.” Mirabel’s eyes widened. “We affixed a drogue to their rudder to slow them down a little.”

“A drogue?”

“Well, something like a sea anchor. If it unfolds as planned, it may even damage rudder and rigging. Anyway, if they behave and stay anchored until Sunday, I’ll send them a note to warn them. If they try to slip away or try to follow the Primrose, they’ll have a surprise coming.”

“Won’t they raise a complaint?”

Thomas shrugged. “They may, but then again, what can happen? A rebuke from the Foreign Office? For what? Slowing down a pirate ship?”

“What about Ousmane?”

“What about him? He’s a charge d’affairs, little more than a shipping agent. They may send me a note of disapproval. Even if the worst comes to pass and they’ll recall me, what will happen? I’ll be able to live at home with my wife and run for Parliament. That’s hardly a bad proposition, is it?”

Mirabel smiled at him. “I’d love for you to return soon, dearest. I have not left yet, but I know how badly I shall miss you.”

“Admittedly, my foul mood over having to send you home contributed to my attitude towards the corsairs. Let us hope for a speedy conclusion of this war. From what I hear from The Convent, Wellesley is set to march into Southern France come the spring, and Boney has to fend off the Prussians and the Russians in the East. Things might be over by next year.”

“What about the American war?”

“Once we’ve beaten Boney, what reason is there to continue the fighting? They went to war over some idiots pressing Americans into the Navy. They got the worst of it too, with most of their ships lost or blockaded. I believe that war will be over as soon as we’re rid of Boney.”

“From your mouth to God’s ears,” Mirabel said solemnly. “Just be careful in the remaining weeks and months.”

“Oh, I shall. Let’s go to bed though. You must be cold sitting here all night.”

Sleeping with wet hair was not too comfortable, but Thomas was sufficiently tired, and he slept over four hours before he woke up. A grey morning was dawning over a wind-swept anchorage. To the west, beyond Algeciras, conditions looked even worse, and Thomas worried a little. If the weather would not improve, the Primrose had to sail into the teeth of what looked like a northwesterly autumn gale beyond the Strait, a rough crossing in other words. As against that, the sturdy packet ship was built for exactly this sort of weather on the wintery Atlantic, whilst the rather frail xebec and her crew of Berbers would think twice about venturing through the Strait. Still, for Mirabel and Florence’s sake, he hoped for the storm to abate.

Most of the repairs were finished over the day, even if the paint would not dry. At least, the last missing deck planks were fitted and caulked, and the last gun port was closed. Come the evening, Mr. Darby reported Unicorn ready to sail, and Thomas ordered her upper masts and yards brought up. He had secured permission from the port admiral to undertake a day-long run through the Strait, accompanying the Primrose on her western course until Cape Sagres, ostensibly to test the repairs in the rough Atlantic waves. Thomas could not envision a xebec venturing out into the open Atlantic, beating up against a gale with her lateen sails, so Primrose would be free of any pursuit by then.

That evening, the wind was further strengthening until a full gale was raging even in the protected Bay of Algeciras. Captain Colbert sent flag signals to the effect that he would wait out the weather in Gibraltar, rather than risking his ship and his passengers, and Thomas was relieved. They had a quiet dinner in the cabin whilst Florence dined with the wardroom. Obviously, Mr. Darby’s court was making progress.

Shortly after midnight, Thomas was awakened by a knock on the door of the chart room. A thoroughly wet Mr. Jameson announced that the xebec had gone anchor up and was heading out of the bay on a southwesterly course. In no time at all, Thomas was dressed in his foul weather gear and running up the foremast rigging. Up in the mast head, he peered through his glass at the dark shadow of the Algerian ship as she was beating slowly against the western gale. She was heading for the Strait all right he could see, her captain trying to use the shelter of the Spanish coast line.

Fortunately, a full moon was lighting up the cloud cover, allowing Thomas to watch the vessel some 4 miles away as she rounded the Cabo de Faro at the mouth of the bay. Here, the gale caught her from athwart, laying her over. A second later, it looked as if a giant’s hand jerked the ship to a stop, and both her foremast and mainmast broke like toothpicks.

In his glass, in spite of the salty spray covering the lens, he saw how the drama unfolded. The wreckage of her masts must have smashed parts of her hull and was already giving her a strong list to port. Waves were crashing over her raised starboard side, as she lay dead in the water with ever increasing list, and suddenly her hull was gone entirely, sunk in mere minutes after her dismasting. For a minute or two, Thomas saw the tilted mizzen mast over the waves until that sunk below the waves too.

He was a little shaken when he carefully climbed down the windward shrouds and to the foredeck. There was Hearns, looking grave as well.

“Is there anything we might so, Sir Thomas?” he asked hesitantly.

Thomas shook his head. “She’s gone. We could never launch boats in this weather, even if we knew where to search. They should have never weighed anchor in such a night.”

“Yes, Sir, ‘twas a madness in that gale,” Hearn concurred. “Sir, do you think it was the drogue that wrecked them?”

Thomas affected a shrug. “That would be hard to tell. They may have struck a submerged rock, or the drogue may have deployed, or perhaps they stuck their bows into a breaker. I’ll report the wreck to the port admiral. Have my gig cleared, Mr. Hearn.”

By some inexplicable miracle, Bartleby was waiting for him with a dry shirt, breeches and an older uniform coat. Wrapped in his oilskins and donning his southwester, Thomas had himself rowed to the shore. A few minutes later saw him waiting in Admiral Clements’s anteroom whilst a sleepy lieutenant endeavoured to wake his superior. It took a few minutes for Clements to appear, wearing a great coat over his shirt, his feet in felt slippers and his head adorned with a night cap.

“What’s so important, Captain?” he asked with a trace of annoyance.

“The Algerian xebec sunk whilst trying to leave the bay, Sir,” Thomas answered matter-of-factly. “I watched them head south-west, for the Strait, when they must have run aground on the rocks south of Algeciras. They sank in less than five minutes. The weather being as it is, I could not send boats, Sir.”

The importance of this report settled on Clements and he sat behind his desk, obviously trying to understand the ramifications.

“That fellow Ousmane, d’ye think he was on board?”

“I have no information as to that, Sir. I did not know that they were about to weigh anchor, didn’t think they’d be foolhardy enough to try in this gale. Given that I was suspicious of them, I had my lookouts keep an eye on them. I was alerted when they were already under way.”

“Well, this may be a grave affair, Captain. Give me a few minutes to get dressed. We’ll have to wake and inform His Excellency. Still, damn convenient for you, Captain, isn’t it?”

“It takes away the threat from the Primrose packet to be sure. The irony is that Captain Colbert is not even sailing tomorrow. He decided to wait out the gale.”