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THE TWO ADMIRALS
“Denham will have a warm berth of it, sir, should he stand
on much longer,” said Greenly, when ten minutes more had
passed, during which the ships had gradually drawn nearer.
“I was hoping he might get between the most weatherly
French frigate and her line,” answered Sir Gervaise; “when I
think, by edging rapidly away, we could take her alive, with
the Plantagenet.”
“In which case we might as well clear for action; such a
man[oe]uvre being certain to bring on a general engagement.”
“No – no – I’m not quite mad enough for that, Master
Telemachus; but, we can wait a little longer for the chances.
How many flags can you make out among the enemy, Bunting?”
“I see but two, Sir Gervaise; one at the fore, and the other
at the mizzen, like our own. I can make out, now, only twelve
ships of the line, too; neither of which is a three-decker.”
“So much for rumour; as flagrant a liar as ever wagged a
tongue! Twelve ships on two decks, and eight frigates, sloops
and luggers. There can be no great mistake in this.”
“I think not, Sir Gervaise; their commander-in-chief is in
the fourth ship from the head of the line. His flag is just discernible, by means of our best glass. Ay, there goes a signal, this
instant, at the end of his gaff!”
“If one could only read French now, Greenly,” said the viceadmiral, smiling; “we might get into some of Mr. de Vervillin’s
secrets. Perhaps it’s an order to go to quarters or to clear; look
out sharp, Bunting, for any signs of such a movement. What do
you make of it?”
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JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
“It’s to the frigates, Sir Gervaise; all of which answer, while
the other vessels do not.”
“We want no French to read that signal, sir,” put in Greenly; “the frigates themselves telling us what it means. Monsieur
de Vervillin has no idea of letting the Plantagenet take any
thing he has, alive.”
This was true enough. Just as the captain spoke, the object
of the order was made sufficiently apparent, by all the light
vessels to windward of the French fleet, bearing up together,
until they brought the wind abaft their beams, when away
they glided to leeward, like floating objects that have suddenly struck a swift current. Before this change in their course,
these frigates and corvettes had been struggling along, the seas
meeting them on their weather-bows, at the rate of about two
knots or rather less; whereas, their speed was now quadrupled,
and in a few minutes, the whole of them had sailed through
the different intervals in their main line, and had formed as
before, nearly half a league to leeward of it. Here, in the event
of an action, their principal duties would have been to succour crippled ships that might be forced out of their allotted
stations during the combat. All this Sir Gervaise viewed with
disgust. He had hoped that his enemy might have presumed
on the state of the elements, and suffered his light vessels to
maintain their original positions.
“It would be a great triumph to us, Greenly,” he said, “if
Denham could pass without shifting his berth. There would
be something manly and seamanlike in an inferior fleet’s passing a superior, in such a style.”
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THE TWO ADMIRALS
“Yes, sir, though it might cost us a fine frigate. The count
can have no difficulty in fighting his weather main-deck guns,
and a discharge from two or three of his leading vessels might
cut away some spar that Denham would miss sadly, just at such
a moment.”
Sir Gervaise placed his hands behind his back, paced the
deck a minute, and then said decidedly –
“Bunting, make the Chloe’s signal to ware – tacking in this
sea, and under that short canvass, is out of the question.”
Bunting had anticipated this order, and had even ventured
clandestinely to direct the quarter-masters to bend on the
necessary flags; and Sir Gervaise had scarcely got the words
out of his mouth, before the signal was abroad. The Chloe was
equally on the alert; for she too each moment expected the
command, and ere her answering flag was seen, her helm was
up, the mizen-stay-sail down, and her head falling off rapidly
towards the enemy. This movement seemed to be expected
all round – and it certainly had been delayed to the very last
moment – for the leading French ship fell off three or four
points, and as the frigate was exactly end-on to her, let fly the
contents of all the guns on her forecastle, as well as of those
on her main-deck, as far aft as they could be brought to bear.
One of the top-sail-sheets of the frigate was shot away by this
rapid and unexpected fire, and some little damage was done to
the standing rigging; but luckily, none of immediate moment.
Captain Denham was active, and the instant he found his topsail flapping, he ordered it clewed up, and the main-sail loosed.
The latter was set, close-reefed, as the ship came to the wind
on the larboard tack, and by the time every thing was braced
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JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
up and hauled aft, on that tack, the main-top-sail was ready
to be sheeted home, anew. During the few minutes that these
evolutions required, Sir Gervaise kept his eye riveted on the
vessel; and when he saw her fairly round, and trimmed by the
wind, again, with the main-sail dragging her ahead, to own the
truth, he felt mentally relieved.
“Not a minute too soon, Sir Gervaise,” observed the cautious Greenly, smiling. “I should not be surprised if Denham
hears more from that fellow at the head of the French line. His
weather chase-guns are exactly in a range with the frigate, and
the two upper ones might be worked, well enough.”
“I think not, Greenly. The forecastle gun, possibly; scarcely
any thing below it.”
Sir Gervaise proved to be partly right and partly wrong.
The Frenchman did attempt a fire with his main-deck gun;
but, at the first plunge of the ship, a sea slapped up against her
weather-bow, and sent a column of water through the port,
that drove half its crew into the lee-scuppers. In the midst of
this waterspout, the gun exploded, the loggerhead having been
applied an instant before, giving a sort of chaotic wildness to
the scene in-board. This satisfied the party below; though that
on the forecastle fared better. The last fired their gun several
times, and always without success. This failure proceeded from
a cause that is seldom sufficiently estimated by nautical gunners; the shot having swerved from the line of sight, by the
force of the wind against which it flew, two or three hundred
feet, by the time it had gone the mile that lay between the vessels. Sir Gervaise anxiously watched the effect of the fire, and
perceiving that all the shot fell to leeward of the Chloe, he was
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THE TWO ADMIRALS
no longer uneasy about that vessel, and he began to turn his
attention to other and more important concerns.
As we are now approaching a moment when it is necessary
that the reader should receive some tolerably distinct impression of the relative positions of the two entire fleets, we shall
close the present chapter, here; reserving the duty of explanation for the commencement of a new one.
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CHAPTER XXII
“All were glad,
And laughed, and shouted, as she darted on,
And plunged amid the foam, and tossed it high,
Over the deck, as when a strong, curbed steed
Flings the froth from him in his eager race.”
Percival
The long twilight of a high latitude had now ended, and
the sun, though concealed behind clouds, had risen. The additional light contributed to lessen the gloomy look of the
ocean, though the fury of the winds and waves still lent to it a
dark and menacing aspect. To windward there were no signs
of an abatement of the gale, while the heavens continued to
abstain from letting down their floods, on the raging waters
beneath. By this lime, the fleet was materially to the southward of Cape la Hogue, though far to the westward, where the
channel received the winds and waves from the whole rake
of the Atlantic, and the seas were setting in, in the long, regular swells of the ocean, a little disturbed by the influence of
the tides. Ships as heavy as the two-deckers moved along with
groaning efforts, their bulk-heads and timbers “complaining,”
to use the language of the sea, as the huge masses, loaded with
their iron artillery, rose and sunk on the coming and receding
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THE TWO ADMIRALS
billows. But their movements were stately and full of majesty;
whereas, the cutter, sloop, and even the frigates, seemed to be
tossed like foam, very much at the mercy of the elements. The
Chloe was passing the admiral, on the opposite tack, quite a
mile to leeward, and yet, as she mounted to the summit of a
wave, her cut-water was often visible nearly to the keel. These
are the trials of a vessel’s strength; for, were a ship always
water-borne equally on all her lines, there would not be the
necessity which now exists to make her the well-knit mass of
wood and iron she is.
The progress of the two fleets was very much the same,
both squadrons struggling along through the billows, at the
rate of about a marine league in the hour. As no lofty sail was
carried, and the vessels were first made in the haze of a clouded morning, the ships had not become visible to each other
until nearer than common; and, by the time at which we have
now arrived in our tale, the leading vessels were separated by
a space that did not exceed two miles, estimating the distance
only on their respective lines of sailing; though there would be
about the same space between them, when abreast, the English
being so much to windward of their enemies. Any one in the
least familiar with nautical man[oe]uvres will understand that
these circumstances would bring the van of the French and
the rear of their foes much nearer together in passing, both
fleets being close-hauled.
Sir Gervaise Oakes, as a matter of course, watched the progress of the two lines with close and intelligent attention. Mons.
de Vervillin did the same from the poop of le Foudroyant, a
noble eighty-gun ship in which his flag of vice-admiral was fly-
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JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
ing, as it might be, in defiance. By the side of the former stood
Greenly, Bunting, and Bury, the Plantagenet’s first lieutenant;
by the side of the latter his capitaine de vaisseau, a man as little like the caricatures of such officers, as a hostile feeling has
laid before the readers of English literature, as Washington
was like the man held up to odium in the London journals, at
the commencement of the great American war. M. de Vervillin himself was a man of respectable birth, of a scientific education, and of great familiarity with ships, so far as a knowledge of their general powers and principles was concerned;
but here his professional excellence ceased, all that infinity
of detail which composes the distinctive merit of the practical
seaman being, in a great degree, unknown to him, rendering it
necessary for him to think in moments of emergency; periods
when the really prime mariner seems more to act by a sort
of instinct than by any very intelligible process of ratiocination. With his fleet drawn out before him, however, and with
no unusual demands on his resources, this gallant officer was
an exceedingly formidable foe to contend with in squadron.
Sir Gervaise Oakes lost all his constitutional and feverish
impatience while the fleets drew nigher and nigher. As is not
unusual with brave men, who are naturally excitable, as the
crisis approached he grew calmer, and obtained a more perfect
command over himself; seeing all things in their true colours,
and feeling more and more equal to control them. He continued to walk the poop, but it was with a slower step; and,
though his hands were still closed behind his back, the fingers
were passive, while his countenance became grave and his eye
thoughtful. Greenly knew that his interference would now be
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THE TWO ADMIRALS
hazardous; for whenever the vice-admiral assumed that air, he
literally became commander-in-chief; and any attempt to control or influence him, unless sustained by the communication
of new facts, could only draw down resentment on his own
head. Bunting, too, was aware that the “admiral was aboard,”
as the officers, among themselves, used to describe this state of
their superior’s mind, and was prepared to discharge his own
duty in the most silent and rapid manner in his power. All the
others present felt more or less of this same influence of an
established character.
“Mr. Bunting,” said Sir Gervaise, when the distance between
the Plantagenet and le Téméraire the leading French vessel,
might have been about a league, allowing for the difference
in the respective lines of sailing – “Mr. Bunting, bend on the
signal for the ships to go to quarters. We may as well be ready
for any turn of the dice.”
No one dared to comment on this order: it was obeyed in
readiness and silence.
“Signal ready, Sir Gervaise,” said Bunting, the instant the
last flag was in its place.
“Run it up at once, sir, and have a bright look-out for the
answers. Captain Greenly, go to quarters, and see all clear on
the main-deck, to use the batteries if wanted. The people can
stand fast below, as I think it might be dangerous to open the
ports.”
Captain Greenly passed off the poop to the quarter-deck,
and in a minute the drum and fife struck up the air which is
known all over the civilized world as the call to arms. In most
services this summons is made by the drum alone, which emits
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JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
sounds to which the fancy has attached peculiar words; those
of the soldiers of France being “prend ton sac – prend ton
sac – prend ton sac,” no bad representatives of the meaning;
but in English and American ships, this appeal is usually made
in company with the notes of the “ear-piercing fife,” which
gives it a melody that might otherwise be wanting.
“Signal answered throughout the fleet, Sir Gervaise,” said
Bunting.
No answer was given to this report beyond a quiet inclination of the head. After a moment’s pause, however, the viceadmiral turned to his signal officer and said –
“I should think, Bunting, no captain can need an order to
tell him not to open his lee-lower-deck ports in such a sea as
this?”
“I rather fancy not, Sir Gervaise,” answered Bunting, looking drolly at the boiling element that gushed up each minute
from beneath the bottom of the ship, in a way to appear as
high as the hammock-cloths. “The people at the main-deck
guns would have rather a wet time of it.”
“Bend on the signal, sir, for the ships astern to keep in the
vice-admiral’s wake. Young gentleman,” to the midshipman
who always acted as his aid in battle, “tell Captain Greenly I
desire to see him as soon as he has received all the reports.”
Down to the moment when the first tap of the drum was
heard, the Plantagenet had presented a scene of singular quiet
and unconcern, considering the circumstances in which she
was placed. A landsman would scarcely credit that men could
be so near their enemies, and display so much indifference to
their vicinity; but this was the result of long habit, and a cer-
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