Rob wondered if he should have thrown the cannons overboard to lighten her load. But if by some miracle they did get through, he would need every gun he had to take a sloop up against a frigate.

  The sloop came to a standstill. For a moment Rob felt weightless, as if his body had not caught up. Then the first wave of despair crashed over him. He had failed.

  A gust of wind snapped the sails. With a creak of her timbers, the ship rocked forwards again. On deck, no one dared move. Slowly, she tilted on her keel and slid into the water so gently she barely made a ripple. The mud was left behind. The sloop gathered pace as the wind stiffened. Rob could see water on either side as the channel widened at last.

  ‘Two fathoms five,’ called Thomas.

  Scipio gave one last gesture ahead and dropped down out of the rigging. Rob was so relieved he embraced him.

  ‘That was a tight squeeze.’

  ‘I tell you we go through.’

  ‘You did.’

  Now that Rob no longer had to concentrate on his course, he could see they had come across the spit of land into Seabrook Bay. To his right was the Perseus, tacking this way and that like a caged animal as Tew tried to keep her in deep water. Dead ahead, he saw the stern of the privateer.

  From this distance, it was obvious how badly outmatched the sloop was. The frigate towered over Rob’s small vessel.

  ‘She won’t know if we’re friend or foe,’ said Angus.

  ‘Then let us remove all doubt.’

  Rob hauled down the American flag. He slit the fabric with his knife, cutting out the Union flag in the corner so that it was all that remained.

  ‘Run up our colours. Then clear for action.’

  ‘She’ll come at us with all she’s got,’ warned Angus.

  ‘Of course. We need to distract her so Perseus can get out of the bay.’

  The response from the Rapace was immediate. The privateer’s sails braced around as she altered course, trying to train her broadside on the sloop. Rob gripped the wheel again, barking orders to keep the sails trimmed as he followed the frigate. As long as he stayed behind her, she could not bring her guns to bear.

  He looked over at the Perseus. Tew had seen what was happening. He could not know that Rob was aboard the sloop, but he had seen the flag. The Perseus was coming about, ready to sail out of the bay to attack the privateer. If Rob could keep the French ship off her station long enough, the Perseus and the Rapace would be able to engage on equal terms.

  The frigate fired a shot from her stern chaser. The ball landed with a splash barely ten yards off their beam. Rob had not meant to come so close. The freed slaves worked with a mighty will, but they were inexperienced sailors. Their only time at sea had been packed in the hold of a slave ship. They could not work the ropes and sails as well as a trained crew.

  ‘Steady,’ he murmured.

  The frigate was coming around again. If Rob could not bring the sloop past her stern in time, they would be doomed.

  ‘The Perseus!’ cried Angus. The shock in his voice made Rob look up.

  The Perseus had stopped. She sat in the middle of the bay, riding high in the water, rocking on her beam ends. The wind filled her sails, but her hull didn’t move.

  ‘She’s run aground,’ Rob realised in horror.

  The tide had moved out faster than the ship could escape. She was helpless.

  A cannon sounded, deafeningly close. In the moments that Rob had been distracted by the Perseus, the privateer had come about and was now bearing down on them. Her bow chasers were already in range. In a minute they would be facing her broadside.

  The tables had turned. They were trapped between the privateer and the shore, and the Perseus could do nothing to save them.

  Rob put the wheel over.

  ‘Ready about,’ he called. ‘We’ll make for shore.

  ‘Against this tide?’ said Angus doubtfully. ‘We’ll end up stranded like the Perseus.’

  Rob handed him the wheel. ‘Hold our course until we can go no further.’

  It had become a question of who blinked first. The privateer had a deeper draught; the sloop was in shallower water. Whoever turned would be left vulnerable. Whoever did not would end up as helpless as the Perseus.

  É

  tienne had studied every manual of tactics and naval theory until he could recite them by heart, but nothing in their pages had prepared him for this. Surely it must be witchcraft: how else to explain it? The sloop had sailed across dry land, and now she was heading for the shore as if hell-bent on her own destruction. He half expected her to rise out of the sea and fly.

  ‘Monsieur?’ said the first lieutenant. His face was drenched with sweat. ‘We cannot follow. Do we come about?’

  Maybe it was sorcery. Maybe Étienne was bewitched. Taking a frigate under full sail hard up against a lee shore, in unfamiliar waters and in the teeth of an ebbing tide, was madness. If she struck bottom, her keel would be ripped out. Her masts would topple like dominoes. Étienne’s beautiful ship would become a hulk.

  He knew the lieutenant was right. He had to come about or lose his ship. He readied to give the order – but somehow, the words would not come. From his mother, he had learned a ruthless and dispassionate single-mindedness, that when in sight of a target all that was required was willpower to conquer it. It was a simple matter – winning was all. Glory and adulation and his mother’s approval would follow. Changing course would be admitting defeat. He could not do that.

  ‘Fire our bow chasers.’

  The first lieutenant swallowed nervously. ‘The guns will not depress enough. At this range, the shot would fly over the target.’

  ‘Fire them anyway!’ Étienne raged.

  The world had gone dark. He barely noticed the men around him, the ship beneath his feet or the shore ahead. Like a falcon fixed on its prey, all he saw was the sloop as a single bright point.

  Something knocked the hull, a thud that sent vibrations ringing through the ship. Every man on deck froze as they waited to see what it meant. They stared at each other uncertainly. Étienne kept rigid discipline on his ship and to disobey an order was inconceivable. But the most loyal man was starting to think that if they did not take matters into their own hands, Étienne would drive them to destruction.

  The ship surged on. The knock might have been a sandbar, or it might have been a piece of flotsam in the water. It might even have been a gunner dropping a cannonball on deck. It did not slow the Rapace.

  The sound had shaken Étienne out of his trance. The pupils of his eyes dilated from pinpricks to wide open pools as he took in the shore rushing towards them. He had not realised how close they had come. The water was shallow and he could see the bottom over the rail. If they did not turn now, they would drown. He had to give the order.

  Still, he could not utter the words.

  The first lieutenant glanced at Étienne. His hand closed around the hilt of his sword. Did he have the courage to use it on his own captain?

  ‘Shall I give the order, mon Capitaine?’

  Étienne did not move. Then, almost imperceptibly, he nodded.

  ‘S

  he’s going about,’ cried Thomas.

  ‘Thank God,’ said Rob.

  The privateer had left it perilously late. She heeled over so hard Rob could see the weed trailing off the bottom of her hull.

  ‘Hard alee!’ he called.

  He had left it late, too. He heard the keel scrape the bottom as the sloop came about. If she hadn’t been tilted so far over by the sudden manoeuvre, she might have stuck fast. The boom thumped over; the freed slaves raced to brace the sails. Then they were moving again, away from the shore and towards the safer water in the middle of the bay, with the French frigate dead ahead.

  The hunter had become the hunted. The sloop was chasing the Rapace out of the shallows. Rob had the advantage, and he would make it tell.

  ‘Take us across her stern,’ he ordered. ‘We will rake her.’

  The sloop’s brass six-pounders were not big cannons. The frigate would be armed with eighteen- or even twenty-four-pounders. But against the privateer’s unprotected stern, the sloop’s guns would be enough. At that distance, the cannonballs would smash through the windows and fly the length of the gun-deck, taking out any man or gun in their path. A single broadside would wreak devastating damage.

  Angus organised the men into makeshift gun crews. He did not have enough to service all the guns, so he had them load and aim each gun in turn under his direction.

  ‘Fire,’ said Rob.

  The deck shook as Angus touched the linstock’s flame to the first cannon. Then again, as he moved down the line, and again, and again. Each gun fired in turn as the sloop crossed the privateer’s wake. By the time the last shot died away, the frigate’s stern was a tangle of twisted wreckage. The ruin in the tight confines of the deck would be much worse.

  Rob had no illusions he was safe. Even wounded, the frigate had the strength to land a mortal blow on the sloop.

  ‘Come about,’ he ordered. ‘We will repeat the attack.’

  They did not have to reload. Turning about brought the starboard guns into action for the first time. Again Angus fired the cannons in turn. The shot tore through the gaping wound at the back of the ship. The hole was so big Rob could see through to the deck within, glimpse upended guns, smashed timbers and broken men. He had no sympathy.

  ‘Reload the larboard guns. We will come about for another go.’

  He was determined that the French frigate would become nothing but a heap of splinters. He had wrested the advantage, and he would make it tell.

  Angus and Hargrave supervised the reloading, while Scipio directed the men on the braces.

  ‘Keep us close behind her,’ Rob warned. ‘If we give her space to come about, she will blast us out of the water.’

  He could see the gap between the two ships widening. The frigate was gaining headway. Soon she would have room to turn and bring her guns to bear on the sloop.

  But there were no men on the frigate’s guns. They had left them, climbing into what was left of the rigging to put on more sail. Rob waited for her to turn, but she never did.

  ‘She’s heading out to sea,’ said Angus in disbelief. ‘We’ve chased her off.’

  The raking fire that Rob had poured down her decks must have done even worse damage than he’d hoped. Altering course only to avoid a sandbar, the frigate gained the mouth of the bay under full canvas. For a moment, Rob thought about giving chase. Then sense took hold. In the shallow waters of the bay, the sloop’s manoeuvrability gave her an advantage. Out on the open ocean, the frigate would have the space she needed to make her armament deadly. And Rob had to consider the Perseus.

  ‘Make fast the guns,’ he ordered. He summoned Scipio and gave him the wheel. ‘Take us as close to the Perseus as you can.’

  He realised the men were watching him, expectant. The battle had ended so suddenly, they were unsure what had happened.

  ‘We won,’ he told them. He forced himself to forget his cares for a second, so the crew could see his delight. He owed them this moment. ‘The pride of the Yankee navy, and we sent her away with her tail between her legs.’

  The men cheered. Black and white alike embraced each other, shouting huzzahs and taunts after the fleeing frigate. Rob sought out Scipio and clasped his hand.

  ‘You saved us all,’ he said. ‘I am glad we fought together.’ He looked around the bay that hugged them close. The frigate might have gone, but there were other enemies nearby. ‘We are not safe yet.’

  Across the bay, the Perseus was still stuck fast in the mud. The crew had started to throw provisions overboard to lighten the ship. Rob sailed the sloop as near as he dared and dropped anchor amid a stream of casks and spare timber bobbing away from the frigate.

  Rob took the canoes across to the Perseus, with Scipio and his men. The freed slaves scanned the frigate’s decks anxiously, hoping that their wives, sisters and children might have escaped aboard. There was no sign of them, though Coyningham’s party had evidently come back unscathed. Bracewell’s strongbox stood on deck by the mainmast.

  Rob remembered the tall slave girl, Phoebe, and hoped she was safe.

  Something Hugo Lyall had said about slaves ran through his head.

  It is the best life they could hope for. If we did not feed and clothe them, and direct their labour, they would starve to death.

  It had rung false then, but Rob had been unable to argue. Now that he had seen the reality of life on a plantation, it sickened him to think that Hugo could have lied so blatantly, that all their high living in London had been paid for by such cruelty. Did he really believe it? Did Sophie believe it, too? He could see her on the Perseus’s deck, her hair blowing in the breeze. Surely she did not know what torture was meted out on her uncle’s plantation. How could he tell her?

  Tew pushed through the crowd of cheering men to greet Rob.

  ‘Lieutenant Courtney,’ he said, and even his composure could not hide the true emotion in his voice. ‘Once again, you show a most remarkable talent. Seeing you fend off that frigate in a mere sloop is a sight I shall not soon forget. Like watching a terrier savage a mastiff. The Admiralty will not credit it when I put it in my despatches.’

  Rob blushed. Once again, he found the hardship of battle much easier to handle than the glory that came with it.

  ‘We would not have managed without the men from the plantation.’ He found Scipio, lurking by the rail, and tugged him forwards. ‘This man showed us the hidden channels through the swamps so we could reach you in time.’

  Tew thrust out his arm and shook Scipio’s hand, though there was unease in his manner that Rob did not understand. There were three Negroes in the Perseus’s crew, and Rob had never seen Tew treat them differently from any other man. ‘I am in your debt, sir. If you wish to volunteer, it would be an honour to have you join my crew. I am sure Mr Bracewell would not begrudge it.’

  ‘Mr Bracewell has nothing to do with it,’ Rob said. ‘I distributed the governor’s certificates, as you ordered me. Scipio and the others are free men.’

  Tew looked uncomfortable. Perhaps he had not told Bracewell about the certificates. Scipio spoke first.

  ‘My family,’ said Scipio. ‘Women, children. They come?’

  ‘A group of Negroes from the plantation reached the bay. We were able to bring them aboard before the frigate arrived.’

  Scipio arched his eyebrows. ‘Where?’

  ‘They are below,’ said Tew. ‘But I must tell you—’

  ‘Deck there!’ a lookout interrupted from the masthead. ‘Rebels on shore.’

  Whatever Tew meant to say was forgotten as every man rushed to the side. The beach, which a moment earlier had been empty, was now filled with rebel soldiers forming up.

  ‘Their muskets are out of range,’ said Coyningham complacently.

  ‘They have more than muskets.’

  Rob pointed. A team of horses had emerged from the forest, pulling a field gun on a carriage. Another team followed, then more and more. The crews unharnessed them and began to dig the cannons into position on the beach.

  The Perseus was bow-on to the beach. Apart from her two bow chasers, she could not bring her guns to bear against the American cannons. Stuck on the sandbar, she would be at their mercy.

  ‘We could try to storm the beach,’ suggested Rob. ‘Drive them back before they entrench the guns.’

  Tew shook his head. ‘There are too many of them. They would slaughter us before we got out of the boats.’ He raised his voice. ‘Back the sails. Throw the guns overboard.’

  ‘We will want the cannon when we get out of the bay, if the French frigate is still there,’ muttered Coyningham.

  ‘We will not need them if those rebel guns start firing,’ retorted Tew.

  ‘I will have the sloop try to pull us off,’ said Rob.

  The men ran to their tasks. Rob fastened a hawser to the frigate’s stern and had his men run it back to the sloop. Hargrave and Angus manned the Perseus’s bow chasers and peppered the beach with shot. Using blocks and tackles, the rest of the crew lifted the spare anchor out of the hold and jettisoned it, along with every scrap of furniture aboard. The yards were braced around to catch the wind and drive the ship backwards, while the sloop set all her canvas to try and haul the frigate away.

  It was not enough. The sails filled, but the Perseus did not budge.

  A sudden crunch from behind Rob made him start. He turned, to see Crow two feet away. He did nothing to help, but stood watching while he chewed on his cone of sugar.

  ‘If you wants to lighten the load some more, you could throw the darkies overboard.’ He spat a wad of brown saliva onto the deck. ‘’Course, Mr Bracewell’d have somethin’ to say about the loss. Terrible dear, those slaves was.’

  Rob needed a moment to control his emotions so he did not knock Crow to the deck.

  ‘They are free men, now.’

  Crow raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s not what I heard.’

  A gun boomed from the bow, followed by a cheer from the men on deck. On the beach, one of the American guns was now a smashed pile of wood and metal. Hargrave had scored a direct hit.

  ‘That will buy us a little time,’ said Tew.

  Hargrave fired again. But the Americans were wise to the threat. They moved their guns where the bow chasers could not reach them.

  ‘Lower the boats,’ said Tew. ‘They can help pull us.’

  ‘We do not have enough men to man them,’ objected Coyningham.

  ‘Then we will use the freed slaves.’

  ‘But Mr Bracewell said—’

  ‘If Bracewell wishes to object, he will find himself in the water along with the other dead weight.’ Tew called down the companionway. ‘We need more hands. Every man, woman or child who is strong enough to pull an oar, come on deck now.’

  The freed slaves emerged, blinking into the sunlight. Rob divided them between the Perseus’s boats, seasoning each group with a core of sailors who could show the others what to do. He watched them with a lump in his throat. Some were no bigger than his sister Susan, six or seven years old; others were older than his grandmother. But they took their seats in the boats and listened as the coxswains told them what to do. Many looked frightened, but there was a fierce determination in every face as they gripped the oars.