Any Approaching Enemy: A Novel of the Napoleonic Wars by Jay Worrall Page B

asked.
    “It’s not impossible,” Charles answered.
    Charles climbed through
Louisa
’s entryport in a cheerful frame of mind. Winchester was at the side to meet him. “How did it go?” he asked.
    “Better than anyone had any right to expect, Stephen,” Charles answered. “Send the hands aloft. All plain sail; full-and-by. Course north-by-east.”
    “Toulon?” Winchester asked with a smile.
    “Toulon,” Charles answered with a larger one. “And better yet, signal to
Pylades,
if you please,
Keep station to leeward.
Daniel’s coming with us.”
    “Bribery?” Winchester asked.
    “Closer to blackmail,” Charles answered.

THREE
    “DECK THERE. LAND HO, DIRECT FOR’ARD THE BOW.” A thin mist clung to the water’s surface like soft down in the early light. Charles collected his glass from the binnacle. He went down from the quarterdeck and walked forward along the waist. Near the bow of the ship, he mounted the starboard railing and started to climb the ratlines fastened across the foremast shrouds. Two thirds of the way up, he stopped, hooked his elbow through the ropes, and raised the telescope to his eye. In the distance, the dark speck of Cape Sicie, resting on the soft white carpet, danced in his lens. He lowered the glass and arched his head back to speak to the lookout in the tops, fifteen feet above. “How far would you say, Tom?”
    Thomas Stutters’s head appeared over the edge of the platform. “Good morrow to ye, Cap’in, sir,” he said conversationally. “Hard to tell wif the fog. I’d say three, four leagues, near enough.”
    “Thank you,” Charles said, “and a good morning to you, too.” He swung around sideways on his perch until his eyes fell on
Pylades,
a seemingly ethereal craft ghosting over the sea-mist, two cable lengths away. After a moment a familiar figure in the brig’s foremast shrouds came to his attention. “Hello, Daniel,” he hollered across the gap and waved his arm. Daniel Bevan looked out and waved back. Satisfied, Charles glanced forward, saw that the distant heights of France had turned golden in the first rays of the sun, and descended to the deck.
    The vapor quickly burned off with the rising warmth of the day.
Louisa
and
Pylades
glided under the ragged bluffs of the cape, far enough out not to invite any cannon fire from the batteries along the shore. The land fell away and then ran roughly eastward for another five miles to a second headland at Cape Cepet, which marked the entrance to the outer roads of the great naval port of Toulon, with its backdrop of rugged sandstone hills liberally speckled with the new greens of spring.
    Charles had posted lookouts at all three mastheads and scanned the sea’s surface himself with his eyes and his glass. He found no sign of Nelson or the other two British seventy-fours or, indeed, warships of any kind.
Louisa
sailed as close as he dared across the four-mile-wide mouth of the harbor, carefully skirting the squat forts with their rippling tricolor flags on either side of the entrance. A few ships lay anchored in the road, small merchantmen of different types and nationalities, but no warships or troopships or any activity remarkable enough to excite interest. When they had progressed far enough to see into the military harbor, he found it relatively empty. A number of craft lay moored to the quays, some with standing masts but few with their yards crossed.
    Charles snapped his telescope closed with a sinking feeling. Two things were abundantly clear—Nelson was not at Toulon, and neither was the French fleet.
    “Mr. Beechum!” he shouted.
    “Yes, sir.” The midshipman came running from the forecastle, breathing heavily.
    “Send this signal to
Pylades: Captain report on board.
”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Daniel Bevan arrived from over the side within the quarter hour. “What do you think?” Charles asked without preamble.
    “There’s no squadron, that’s a fact,” Bevan answered. “Maybe they did go to