the Black Lugger

A black night and cold, even for the first month of the year with a chill wind whipping across the Channel from France. A night to be indoors by a good fire with a mug of hot punch, not gadding about off the Sussex Downs in support of the Revenue service fighting a futile war against the smugglers. Nathaniel Peake, master and commander of the brig sloop Nereus, bent his bum against the nearest of her sixteen guns with his coat collar turned up and his chin thrust deep into his muffler and cast an anxious eye at the familiar hump of Seaford Head off the larboard bow. Even on such a dirty night, with a scrap of a moon dodging in and out of ragged clouds, he could make out the line of surf at its foot. He had the sailor's healthy respect for a lee shore and in his mind's eye he saw the rocks where in times past he had clambered with his shrimp net when the tide was out.

"We must hug the coast and take them by surprise," he had been instructed by the Revenue Collector, Mr. Swales, who had joined them at Shoreham: a stout burlesque of the breed with an opinion of his own competence that Nathan was inclined from sheer prejudice to doubt.

It was a coast Nathan knew well. Beyond the headland was Cuckmere Haven where he had first set foot in salt water, bawling not in fear — as he was later told — but for his nanny to loose her hold upon him so that he might venture farther. Here, too, he had sailed his first boat and set a course for America till a slack wind and a stern tutor recalled him to his responsibilities. And one summer's night when the household thought him safe in bed he had crouched at the top of the cliff and watched the smugglers landing contraband: the fleet of small boats in the haven and the long line of ponies and tub-men straggling along the Cuckmere with their illicit booty.

They'd be there tonight if the information laid before the Collector was correct; some of the same men in all probability for it was only ten years since Nathan's last sighting of them. He imagined sweeping them with grape or shot and shook his head at the absurdity of the notion. Yet not so impossible before the night was out.

He crossed to the weather side of the little space he liked to think of as his quarterdeck — though the Nereus was flush-decked like all the vessels of her class — and gazed across the sea towards the black bank of cloud that masked the proper enemy to the south. France and England had been at war for much of the century and would be again before it was out, if you could believe what you read in the newspapers. Yet there had been peace for ten years, the whole time Nathan had been in the Navy, with precious few enemies to fight save some unfortunate aborigines in the South Seas and importunate pirates in the Caribbean ... and of course the smugglers.

There was a flash of lightning from the clear sky to the east and a thin crack that was a far cry from thunder. A moment's pause and then a veritable barrage. Nathan came off the rail and arched his brow at Mr. Collector Swales as if to enquire if this was all part of his plan, knowing full well that it was not. The gentleman relieved himself of an oath and stamped his feet upon the deck, possibly under the impression he was travelling post and could thereby induce a faster turn of speed. Nathan met the questioning eye of his first lieutenant, Mr. Jordan, and instructed him to beat to quarters though he was not impatient for battle with men with whom he was at least half in sympathy and had probably known since childhood, smuggling being a way of life on the Sussex coast. To his certain knowledge many of his own father's labourers were employed in the trade, earning more in a few hours carrying tubs of contraband brandy and tobacco than they could earn in a week on the farm.

Nathan made his way forward through the rush of men and took up a new mooring at the foremast shrouds so that he might see what was afoot the moment they cleared Hope Point.

Not far now and closing fast. Their consort, the little Customs cutter Badger, was already turning, almost jibing as she rounded the point. Then she veered abruptly to windward so that she lay broadside to the shore with her own guns run out: four little 4-pounders that would scarce scare a bum-boat but might play the very devil on that open stretch of shore. Nathan could see it clear in his mind's eye: the steep bank of shingle and the wide flat marshland beyond and the cliffs of the Seven Sisters sweeping down to Beachy Head ...

Then they were round the point, the moon suddenly clear of the scudding clouds and the white cliffs making a perfect reflector for the spectacle on shore. As great a shambles as Nathan could have predicted though it surprised him that the mistake was so elementary.

The dragoons had come down on the wrong side of the river.

Either that or the lookout — the spots-man — had signalled the incoming boats to switch the landing. Whatever the cause, the troopers were stranded on the west bank of the Cuckmere and the smugglers were on the east. Even in the dark Nathan could see them fleeing along the shore towards the gentle slope of Haven Brow: above a hundred of them and half as many ponies with the dragoons riding their horses into the river and blazing away with their carbines with not a hope in hell of hitting anything. And a fleet of small boats fleeing along the foot of the cliffs towards Beachy Head ...

And there, a mile or so farther to the east but silhouetted against the white backdrop of the Sisters, was the black lugger ...

"The Fortune," cried the Collector, fairly dancing in his agitation and pointing. "There is our prize, sir."

The Fortune had been the main topic of his discourse since leaving Shoreham: a big, fast lugger with ten 6-pounders and a crew of more than a hundred which made her more than a match for any of the Revenue cutters on the station and was the main reason for a naval presence. She had been fitted out in Newhaven ostensibly as a privateer during the American War but was now known to be wholly engaged in smuggling (as in all probability she was then): her normal practice being to run the contraband over from one of the French Channel ports and transfer it to the tub-boats off the Sussex coast.

In which occupation she had clearly been disturbed and was now fleeing out to sea with all the sail she could carry — and the little Customs cutter snapping at her heels. No chance of catching her of course, much less of engaging her as an equal, but if the lugger lost a single spar it would be enough for the Nereus to come up and make an end of it. Unhappily, her skipper was of the same opinion and as the Badger closed on him he came even farther into the wind and fired a rippling broadside on the roll with a greater approximation to thunder than anything Nathan had heard thus far.

He had been staring straight at her and was momentarily blinded by the sudden eruption but when he could see again it was to observe the Badger taken aback with her topmast down and a shamble of headsails and rigging on her foredeck. Nathan had already brought the brig as close to the wind as she could sail but he had to fall off to avoid a collision and he came up on the cutter's lee and called out did she need assistance. The skipper replied with a string of oaths indicating that Nathan would be better occupied with...