Under Wellington's Command: A Tale of the Peninsular War by G. A. Henty (best pdf ebook reader txt) 📗

I should think that we are pretty nearly north of Finisterre, which may lie a hundred and twenty miles from us; and I suppose we are two or three times as much as that from England. The wind is pretty nearly due east again now, so we can point her head either way. We must be nearly in the ship course, and are likely to be picked up, long before we make land. Which do you vote for?"

"I vote for the nearest. We may get another storm, and one of them is quite enough. At any rate, Spain will be the shortest, by a great deal and, if we are picked up, it is just as likely to be by a French privateer as by an English vessel."

"I am quite of your opinion, and am anxious to be back again, as soon as I can. If we got to England and reported ourselves, we might be sent to the depot and not get out again, for months; so here goes for the south."

The sail was hoisted, and the boat sped merrily along. In a couple of hours their clothes were dry.

"I think we had better put ourselves on short rations," Terence said. "We may be farther off than we calculate upon and, at any rate, we had better hold on to the mouth of the Tagus, if we can; there are sure to be some British officials there, and we shall be able to get money, and rejoin our regiment without loss of time; while we might have all sort of trouble with the Spaniards, were we to land at Corunna or Vigo."

No sail appeared in sight during the day.

"I should think we cannot have come as far west as we calculated," Terence said, "or we ought to have seen vessels in the distance; however, we will keep due south. It will be better to strike the coast of Spain, and have to run along the shore round Cape Finisterre, than to risk missing land altogether."

That night they kept regular watches. The wind was very light now, and they were not going more than two knots an hour through the water. Ryan was steering when morning broke.

"Wake up, Terence!" he exclaimed suddenly, "here is a ship within a mile or so of us. As she is a lugger, I am afraid she is a French privateer."

Terence sprang to his feet. The light was still faint, but he felt sure that his companion was right, and that the vessel was a French privateer.

"We have put our foot in it now, and no mistake," Ryan said. "It is another French prison and, this time, without a friendly soldier to help us to get out."

"It looks like it, Dicky. In another hour it will be broad daylight, and they cannot help seeing us. Still, there is a hope for us. We must give out that we are Spanish fishermen, who have been blown off the coast. It is not likely they have anyone on board that speaks Spanish, and our Portuguese will sound all right in their ears; so very likely, after overhauling us, they will let us go on our way. At any rate, it is of no use trying to escape; we will hold on our course for another few minutes, and then head suddenly towards her, as if we had only just seen her. I will hail her in Portuguese, and they are sure to tell us to come on board; and then I will try to make them understand by signs, and by using a few French words, that we have been blown out to sea by the gale, and want to know the course for Santander. As the French have been there for some time, it would be natural enough for us to have picked up a little of their language."

In a few minutes they altered their course and sailed towards the lugger, which also soon turned towards them. When they approached within the vessel's length, Terence stood up, and shouted in Portuguese:

"What is the bearing of Santander?"

The reply was in French, "Come alongside!" given with a gesture of the arm explaining the words. They let the sail run down as they came alongside. Terence climbed up, by the channels, to the deck.

"Espagnol," he said to the captain, who was standing close to him as he jumped down on to the deck; "Espagnoles, Capitaine; Poisson, Santander; grand tempete," and he motioned with his arms to signify that they had been blown offshore at Santander. Then he pointed in several directions towards the south, and looked interrogatively.

"They are Spanish fishermen who have been blown off the coast," the captain said to another officer. "They have been lucky in living it out. Well, we are short of hands, having so many away in prizes; and the boat will be useful, in place of the one we had smashed up in the gale. Let a couple of men throw the nets and things overboard, and then run her up to the davits."

Then he said to Terence: "Prisoners! Go forward and make yourself useful;" and he pointed towards the forecastle.

Terence gave a yell of despair, threw his hat down on the deck and, in a volley of Portuguese, begged the captain to let them go. The latter, however, only waved his hand angrily; and two sailors, coming up, seized Terence by the arms and dragged him forward. Ryan was called upon deck, and also ordered forward. He too remonstrated, but was cut short by a threatening gesture from the captain.

For a time they preserved an appearance of deep dejection, Terence tugging his hair as if in utter despair, till Ryan whispered:

"For heaven's sake, Terence, don't go on like that, or I shall break out in a shout of laughter."

"It is monstrous, it is inhuman!" Terence exclaimed, in Portuguese. "Thus to seize harmless fishermen, who have so narrowly escaped drowning; the sea is less cruel than these men. They have taken our boat, too, our dear good boat. What will our mothers think, when we do not return? That we have been swallowed up by the sea. How they will watch for us, but in vain!"

Fortunately for the success of their story, the lugger hailed from a northern French port and, as not one on board understood either Spanish or Portuguese, they had no idea that the latter was the language in which the prisoners were speaking. After an hour of pretended despair, both rose from the deck on which they had been sitting and, on an order being given to trim the sails, went to the ropes and aided the privateersmen to haul at them and, before the end of the day, were doing duty as regular members of the crew.

"They are active young fellows," the captain said to his first mate, as he watched the supposed Spaniards making themselves useful. "It was lucky for them that they had a fair store of provisions and water in their boat. We are very short handed, and they will be useful. I would have let them go if it had not been for the boat but, as we have only one left that can swim, it was too lucky a find to give up."

The craft had been heading north when Ryan had first seen her, and she held that course all day. Terence gathered from the talk of the sailors that they were bound for Brest, to which port she belonged. The Frenchmen were congratulating themselves that their cruise was so nearly over, and that it had been so successful a one. From time to time a sailor was sent up into the cross trees, and scanned the horizon to the north and west. In the afternoon he reported that he could make out the upper sails of a large ship going south. The captain went up to look at her.

"I think she is an English ship of war," he said, when he descended to the deck, "but she is a long way off. With this light wind we could run away from her. She will not trouble herself about us. She would know well enough that she could not get within ten miles of us, before it got dark."

This turned out to be the case, for the lookout from time to time reported that the distant sail was keeping on her course, and the slight feeling of hope that had been felt by Terence and Ryan faded away. They were placed in the same watch, and were below when, as daylight broke, they heard sudden exclamations, tramping of feet overhead, and a moment later the watch was summoned on deck.

"I hope that they have had the same luck that we had, and have run into the arms of one of our cruisers," Terence whispered in Portuguese to Ryan, as they ran up on deck together.

As he reached the deck the boom of a cannon was heard, and at the same instant a ball passed through the mainsail. Half a mile away was a British sloop of war. She had evidently made out the lugger before the watch on board the latter had seen her. The captain was foaming with rage, and shouting orders which the crew hurried to execute. On the deck near the foremast lay the man who had been on the lookout, and who had been felled with a handspike by the captain when he ran out on deck, at the first alarm. Although at first flurried and alarmed, the crew speedily recovered themselves, and executed with promptitude the orders which were given.

There was a haze on the water, but a light wind was stirring, and the vessel was moving through the water at some three knots an hour. As soon as her course had been changed, so as to bring the wind forward of the beam, which was her best point of sailing, the men were sent to the guns; the first mate placing himself at a long eighteen pounder, which was mounted as a pivot gun aft, a similar weapon being in her bows. All this took but four or five minutes, and shot after shot from the sloop hummed overhead.

The firing now ceased, as the change of course of the lugger had placed the sloop dead astern of her; and the latter was unable, therefore, to fire even her bow chasers without yawing. It was now the turn of the lugger. The gun in the stern was carefully trained and, as it was fired, a patch of white splinters appeared in the sloop's bulwarks. A cheer broke from the French. The effect of the shot, which must have raked her from stem to stern, was at once evident. The sloop bore off the wind, until her whole broadside could be seen.

"Flat on your faces!" the captain shouted.

There was a roar of ten guns, and a storm of shot screamed overhead. Four of them passed through the sails. One ploughed up the deck, killing two sailors and injuring three others with the splinters. Two or three ropes of minor importance were cut, but no serious damage inflicted.

The crew, as they leapt to their feet, gave a cheer. They knew that, with this light wind, their lugger could run away from the heavier craft; and that the latter could only hope for success by crippling her.

"Steady with the helm!" the captain went on, as the pivot gun was again ready to deliver its fire. "Wait till her three masts show like one.

"Jacques, aim a little bit higher. See if you cannot knock away a spar."

The sloop was coming up again to the wind and, as she was nearly stem on, the gun cracked out again. A cheer broke from the lugger as her opponent's foretop mast fell over her side, with all its hamper. Round the sloop came, and delivered the other broadside. Two shots crashed through the bulwarks, one of them dismounting a gun which, in its fall, crushed a man who had thrown himself down beside it. Another shot struck the yard of the foresail, cutting it asunder; and the lugger at once ran up into the wind.

"Lower the foresail!" the captain shouted. "Quick, men! and lash a spare spar to the yard. They are busy cutting away their topmast, but we shall be off again before they are ready to move. They have lost nearly half a mile; we shall soon be out of range. Be sharp with that gun again!"

The sloop had indeed fallen greatly astern while delivering her broadsides; but her commander had evidently seen that, unless the wind sprang up, the lugger would get away from him unless he could cripple her; and that she might seriously damage him, and perhaps knock one of the masts out of him by her stern chaser. His only chance, therefore, of capturing her was to take a spar out of her. He did not attempt to come