A Middy of the King: A Romance of the Old British Navy

by Harry Collingwood

The rain came swooping down upon us with the tail-end of the squall, and for a quarter of an hour it was so thick that we could see nothing a couple of ships’-lengths outside the bulwarks. Then it cleared away, the clouds dispersed, the stars came out, the wind dropped to a moderate breeze, and presently the moon, with nearly half her disc in shadow, crept up above the horizon, flooding the heaving waters with ruddy gold that quickly changed to silver as the satellite climbed high enough to clear herself of the vapours that distorted her shape and imparted to her the colour of burnished copper.

But where was the brigantine? Ahead, abeam, on our quarter we looked, but nowhere could we discern the faintest trace of her. We had lost sight of her a bare quarter of an hour, and in that brief space of time she had contrived to vanish as completely as though she had gone to the bottom in deep-water, leaving not so much as a fragment of floating wreckage to furnish a clue to her fate.

The skipper was as much puzzled as he was annoyed, and in his perplexity he turned to the master.

“What do you think has become of her, Mr Trimble?” he demanded. “She cannot have gone ashore and broken up so completely in a quarter of an hour that no sign of her would remain. We should see something at least in the nature of wreckage to give us a hint of what had happened. Yet I see nothing; although if she had been stranded, either purposely or by accident, her wreck ought to be away in there somewhere about abreast of us. And there are no off-shore dangers, are there?”

“The nearest that I know of are The Monks, away out here, some twenty-five miles to the nor’ard and east’ard of us,” answered the master. “The coast inshore of us is, of course, a bit rocky, but there is nothing, so far as I know, in the nature of hidden dangers to cause the wreck of the brigantine. No, sir, it is my belief that there is some snug little secret cove, known to the skipper of that brigantine, and that he took advantage of the rain squall to slip into it, in the hope of dodging us.”

“Ah!” said the skipper, “yes; that is, after all, the only feasible explanation of his disappearance. He is neither ahead nor astern nor to seaward of us; therefore he must be hidden somewhere inshore. Mr Galway,”—to the first lieutenant—“we will shorten sail, if you please, with the ship’s head off the land, remaining in sight of the coast until daylight, when we shall perhaps be able to discover the hiding-place of that brigantine.”

This was done, and during the remainder of the night the Europa, under her three topsails, jib and spanker, stood off and on, never going farther from the shore than a distance of six miles, and very gradually working her way back to—as nearly as we could guess it—the spot where we had lost sight of the brigantine. As the night wore on all traces of the recent storm passed away; the sky cleared, the moon and stars beamed down upon us in tropical splendour, affording us an ample sufficiency of light to enable us to maintain an effective watch upon the coast, and ensure that the stranger did not creep out from her place of concealment and give us the slip. The terral, or land wind, overpowered by the recent squall, once more resumed its sway and piped up strongly, bringing off to us the warm, fragrant odour of land and vegetation.

At length the day dawned, the sun soared into view above the eastern horizon, and with the coming of the light some half-dozen of the best telescopes in the ship were brought to bear upon the line of coast that lay about five miles distant on our port beam. I happened to be the lucky possessor of an exceptionally good instrument—a present from my father—and I had not been long at work with it when I discovered what was unmistakably a small indentation in the coast-line, sheltered and all but concealed by two headlands which approached each other so closely that, viewed from a distance, they appeared almost to overlap. I immediately directed the first lieutenant’s attention to the spot, at the same time handing him my glass, and he presently picked it up. He agreed with me that it was undoubtedly a cove, or tiny bay of some sort, but was rather of the opinion that it was too small to afford shelter to a vessel of the dimensions of the missing brigantine. Nevertheless, since it was the only opening that we could discover, and was, moreover, about the spot where the stranger had disappeared, it was determined to give the place an overhaul, and the helm was accordingly eased down, the yards braced in, and we began to work in toward it. Then the fighting boats’ crews were told off to overhaul the boats and prepare them for service, yard and stay tackles were got aloft for the purpose of hoisting out the launch, the boat-guns were slung all ready for lowering over the side as soon as the boats should be brought alongside, ammunition boxes were brought on deck, and, in short, every preparation was made for a boat expedition; after which all hands were piped to breakfast.

By the time that this meal was finished the frigate had worked in to within about a mile from the shore, at which point she ran into a calm, the land-breeze having died away. The boats were then got into the water and brought to the gangway, the guns were lowered down and secured to platforms in the bows of the launch and the two cutters, shot was passed down and stowed on the bottom-boards on either side of the keel, the ammunition boxes were stowed in the stern-sheets, and then, all else being ready, those who were to take part in the expedition were mustered for inspection prior to being dispatched on what was likely enough to prove a dangerous errand. But little recked any of us of possible danger; on the contrary, if an onlooker had judged only by the satisfied smirk which our countenances wore, it might have been supposed that we were all bound ashore for a day’s holiday in the woods.

The expedition was to be under the command of Mr Gadsby, the second lieutenant, who would go in the launch; the first cutter was to be commanded by Mr O’Donnel, the boatswain, and the command of the second cutter was entrusted to me. We mustered fifty altogether, including marines; and when at length, after having been carefully inspected by the first lieutenant, we were given the word to shove off, the men who were left behind sprang into the rigging and sped us on our way with a hearty cheer.