by Chris Durbin
‘It’s too soon now, but I know the situation of the French commissariat. In a week they will start to be desperate. Without a threat, they’ll hold out for another month. By then the field army may have been pushed back by Prince Ferdinand, Emden may have attained strategic importance, and then they won’t be moved without a regular siege. Between a week and two weeks from today, if I may suggest, sir.’
Holbrooke knew there was another factor. If Holmes arrived before he acted, then with two frigates and another sloop, the commodore would have the force to make a serious attempt on Emden, not the bluff that Albach was proposing. He thought of telling the major but decided against it. There was still a possibility that he was being played and if that was the case, it was far better if he alone should know about it.
‘Very well, then you can expect me any time from the seventeenth. You will excuse me if I cannot give any more details yet, but you would well-advised to be ready.’
‘Thank you. Monsieur Serviteur, a glass of wine would be most welcome,’ said Albach in response to a proffered tray.
‘Then let us drink to a safe homecoming,’ said Holbrooke. ‘I fear that we may not meet again, but my best wishes go with you and your men.’
◆◆◆
23: Holbrooke’s Tide
Friday, Seventeenth of March 1758.
Kestrel, at Sea. The Ems Estuary.
They had landed Major Albach – at Knock, again – the day after the boat action in the Dollart. Holbrooke could guess how dangerous it was for the Austrian; the French knew very well that this was the second time that he’d been on board Kestrel, and must at the very least suspect that there’d been some collusion. This time the small French detachment at Knock saw the boat approaching and saw the flag of truce. There was only a corporal in command, and he frantically tried to wave the boat away, judging that he didn’t have the authority to treat with the enemy. But Lynton wouldn’t be denied, and the swivel gun in the bows was a powerful persuader against the five muskets that opposed them. The French very wisely retreated out of range and could only watch as Albach shook hands cordially with Lynton and set out to walk the seven cold miles to Emden without even greeting the French corporal.
Kestrel returned to her blockade and to a week of fair weather, the damp and blustery westerlies being replaced by steady light winds from the nor’east. The sky may have been clear, and the winds moderate, but the air was chilled, drifting down from Scandinavia and bringing sub-zero temperatures that persisted through the day and dropped even further at night. Rime was forming on the rigging where the morning mists condensed, turning the ratlines and horses slippery and making work aloft treacherous. Rafts of ice started to come down from the Dollart, jostling each other as they met the ripples of the estuary.
Holbrooke had taken steps to tighten the blockade of the Ems estuary, to raise the sense of siege within the city. He was confident that he’d made it uneconomical for the Dutch merchants and owners to risk their coasters at sea or between the islands, and now the fishermen and farmers of the Dollart knew the penalty for trading with the French. Kestrel stood boldly into the very mouth of the lagoon each day. So far did he penetrate that the garrison and citizens of Emden could clearly see their tormentor. Every night a boat was sent into the Dollart, but nothing was seen. There was no traffic of any kind on the half-frozen lagoon, and the boat’s only effect was to raise flocks of over-wintering wildfowl from their sociable gatherings.
◆◆◆
It was a Friday when Holbrooke made his move, on a flooding tide as dawn was breaking over the flat Groningen marshes and farmlands.
‘Steady as she goes,’ said Fairview to the quartermaster.
Kestrel was deep into the estuary, with the wind on her larboard beam. She’d been further but only on fleeting visits to assert her ability to close the sea and river-borne supply routes. Today was different. It was time to make a statement.
‘By the deep, four,’ called the leadsman, the icy water sloughing off his hands as he bounced the lead, feeling for the bottom, to make sure that he’d found the true depth.
‘This looks like a good spot, sir,’ said Fairview. ‘We can see right up the approach into the town.’
‘Very well, Mister Fairview, you may anchor the sloop here.’
With a few quiet words from the master and a disciplined rush to the rigging, Kestrel turned her bows into the nor’easterly wind, and her sails disappeared from the yards, each hauled into a bunt by a dozen pairs of hands.
‘Let go!’
The cable ran through the hawse-hole, and the sloop lay back to her anchor in four fathoms of water with the jetty at Knock bearing west-nor’west, five nautical miles. The flooding tide fought against the light breeze, each trying to assert its right to determine how Kestrel should lay, but the tidal stream was stronger, and her head turned gently to the nor’west. The garrison and citizens of Emden had a fine view of Kestrel, only four miles from their walls, with her starboard port-lids open and her eight guns run out, their black muzzles pointing menacingly towards the city.
‘That’ll do, Mister Fairview,’ said Holbrooke. ‘The anchor is to be at short stay in case we have to leave in a hurry. You may secure the cable on the windlass, there’ll be no great danger. If we should drag, it’ll only be into the centre of the channel.’
He turned to the first lieutenant. ‘The ship will remain cleared for action, Mister Lynton, with the guns loaded and run out, but the watch below may be dismissed.’
He was planting his artillery on the French commander’s front lawn.
‘Now then, Mister Varley, Mister Jackson. Away longboat and yawl.’
The boats were drawn up to the sloop’s starboard waist, and the crews scrambled into their places. The longboat had regained her two-pounder boat gun, a much more powerful weapon than the swivel and with at least a theoretical capability against targets on the shore. Each boat had a file of marines with Treganoc in the longboat and the sergeant in the yawl. This, however, was a show of strength and not a serious military expedition, because ostensibly the boats were on the most innocent of errands: they were going to sound the twin approaches to Emden Road. Having shown his sixteen guns – almost certainly more than Emden possessed – Holbrooke was now going to increase the garrison’s unease by flouting his ownership of the salt water, his ability to do whatever he wanted under their very noses. He could make a shrewd guess at the effect on the garrison’s morale, in line with Albach’s prediction. They’d been ignored by their own field army, they were short of provisions with no possible relief, and their options for withdrawal were narrowing with every day that passed. Without a man-of-war of their own, they had no answer to a naval blockade, even against a force as small as a sloop-of-war.
Holbrooke watched his two boats skim away across the smooth surface of the Dollart. The southern bulge of the lagoon was now choked with ice, and more was coming down from the river every day. However, there was a good, clear channel where the current from the Ems swept through the northern part of the Dollart, and the approaches to Emden Road were free. Fairview had told him that only once every five years was Emden completely iced in; he just hoped that this wasn’t the fifth year. The garrison had to be in real fear that Kestrel was only the forerunner of a serious amphibious assault force and that the soundings had a military purpose. They weren’t to know that Holbrooke had heard nothing from his commodore for over four weeks. This ruse was Holbrooke’s gamble. This was Holbrooke’s tide.
◆◆◆
The forenoon wore on. Emden looked peaceful enough, and so far, there’d been no attempt to interfere with the boats. Holbrooke had sent the yawl to the western entrance, where it was under his eye. If Jackson was threatened, he could hoist his lug-sail, and with a following wind he could run down to Kestrel in twenty minutes, and Holbrooke could see nothing that was likely to prevent him from achieving that. The only gate on the western side of the city was a small postern, large enough for infantry, but not for gun
s. The improvised horse artillery could conceivably come rushing out of the New Gate on the north side of the city walls, but it would be a long haul to bring the guns to a position to fire on the yawl, and they’d be spotted with plenty of time for Jackson to withdraw. And of course, the French guns had already suffered a bloody nose at Kestrel’s hands.
The longboat, however, was another matter. From the quarterdeck, Lynton and Treganoc were out of sight behind Nessa Island, presumably busy taking their soundings. The lookout at the main topmast head could just see the longboat’s mast behind the low-lying island. Holbrooke had quizzed Albach about the defences of the city, specifically asking whether there were any batteries established on the island or on the mainland bordering the approaches. Apparently, there were none, but that, of course, was a week ago. And if Albach’s plan was merely a ruse to lure Kestrel’s boats into range, then so far it had worked. A concealed battery could wreak havoc before the boats could withdraw out of range. A gun from Kestrel or either the longboat or the yawl was a signal for the boats to retreat to mother. The longboat would be at the furthest distance from Kestrel, but that was only six miles, and it was certain that a two-pounder gun would be heard. That was another reason for restoring the boat gun to the longboat.
The marine turned the glass and walked forward to strike six bells, an hour to the change of watch. The relief lookout scampered up the ratlines, taking the futtock shrouds around the maintop and then continuing up towards the topmast-head. He had a hand on the crosstree and was just about to swing himself up when the man who was about to be relieved hailed.
‘Sail ho! Sail coming up the estuary, sir, one point on the larboard bow.’
It was Able Seaman Shepherd, still doing his duty even with his relief only feet away.
‘What do you make of her?’ called Holbrooke, startled out of his peaceful pacing of the quarterdeck.
‘She’s a cutter, sir, she hasn’t set her tops’l. She’s spilling wind, it looks like she’s feeling her way up the channel.’
Then she’s a stranger to the Ems, thought Holbrooke, in which case she’s not likely to be Dutch. She must be either British or French. A cutter was no threat to Kestrel, but any larger man-of-war that was unfamiliar with the Ems Estuary may well send a cutter ahead to find the channel.
‘Weigh anchor, Mister Fairview,’ shouted Holbrooke. ‘Mister Varley, a gun, if you please. Another gun every two minutes until you see the longboat and yawl returning.’
This is what he’d most feared, that the commandant in Emden had passed a message – by land or by sea – to France and the response was either a man-of-war or a Dunkirk privateer. He needed the men from those boats to man Kestrel’s guns and line her gunwales with muskets before the parent to that cutter arrived. It occurred to Holbrooke at that moment that Albach’s mission could have been to take that message, not to negotiate for supplies for his men, as he’d claimed.
‘Yawl’s hoisted her sail, she’s running down on us, sir,’ said the master.
‘Deck there! The longboat’s under sail and coming around the south end of the island.’
That was Shepherd again, quite rightly holding his place at the topmast head while this crisis played out. His relief would be cursing him as he clung to the narrowing ratlines, waiting to take his place on the crosstree; there was only room for one at the topmast head.
Holbrooke was peripherally aware that the windlass was being worked furiously. Somewhere at a level below his concentration on the unfolding tactical situation, he could hear the pawl clicking, he could see a man lying back on the jigger as four more heaved down in unison on the handspikes.
‘Anchor’s aweigh!’ called Edney from the fo’c’sle.
‘Very well,’ replied Fairview through his speaking trumpet. ‘Cat her and ease back to the ring-stopper. Fake out the cable on deck, we may need to anchor again.’
‘Take us up the channel, Mister Fairview. I want to keep some distance from that cutter,’ he motioned forward where the sail was just becoming visible from the deck, ‘until we’ve recovered the boats.’
Kestrel’s head paid off to the east-southeast, and she started moving slowly up the channel. It was clear that she’d weather Reide Point on this tack, but every minute took her further into the shallows of the Dollart. It would be a bad affair if she were trapped in the lagoon by a superior force commanding the estuary, but he needed to buy time to recover the boats, and this heading had the twin effects of opening the distance from the presumed enemy and closing the gap to the longboat. Holbrooke studied the sail with his telescope. It was impossible to tell much about it, except that it was undoubtedly a cutter. Britain and all the European nations used cutters extensively; they were the lightest of scouting vessels and the carriers of dispatches. The problem was that most cutters had been built in commercial yards to no Navy Board-approved design, so until they had a closer look, there was no telling the nationality.
‘What do you make of her, Shepherd?’ called Holbrooke, as he watched the yawl closing them fast on their larboard beam. The longboat was still far away, but at least she was visible now that she’d cleared the island.
‘Could be one of ours, sir. She has a regular tops’l, although its furled and the yard has been sent down.’
Then probably British-built. Holbrooke could feel the relief flood the quarterdeck. But not so fast, he thought. There was little to tell between a British-built cutter on the King’s business and a British built French prize cutter. Kestrel was the tangible proof that the build of a ship didn’t always match her present ownership.
‘She’s broken out an ensign now, sir. She’s British alright. Looks just like Acrias that we saw in Harwich.’
That would make sense, Holbrooke thought, but he was determined that he wouldn’t drop his guard until he was sure that this was indeed Lieutenant Stretton’s cutter.
‘She’s lying-to, sir,’ said Fairview. Acrias – for Holbrooke was becoming ever more confident that it was indeed the British cutter – had backed her jib and was holding her position off Delfzijl.
‘We’ll recover the boats, Mister Fairview, but the ship is to remain cleared for action, and the men are to stay at their quarters. When you’ve got the boats under tow, you may reach down the channel towards Acrias.’
◆◆◆
Jackson came on board clutching his notebook with its soundings.
‘We were nearly a mile past the southern limit of the island, sir, when you recalled us. There’s a minimum of five fathoms in the centre of the channel, sir, and it looks like good holding ground, sand and mud.’
‘That’s good Mister Jackson. Did you see any activity?’
‘There are no vessels at all in the western approaches, but we didn’t get far enough north to see past the most western edge of the city into the Emden Road. There could be some lying further around to the west, but I saw no masts. Through the telescope, I could see that we were being watched from the walls, but they didn’t do anything, and there were only locals on the mainland.’
Holbrooke stared up into the western approach. He was a mile or two further away from the city than Jackson had been, but there was no sign of activity, and as Jackson had said, no vessels of any kind.
‘Thank you, Mister Jackson. Give your soundings to the master. Here comes the longboat.’
Holbrooke looked over the side. There was an excited air about the crew of the longboat that had been absent in the yawl. Lynton was running up the side before the bow oar had secured the painter and Treganoc was close behind. Lynton and Treganoc removed his hats and bowed formally.
‘We sounded up to seven cables from the city, sir. We found a patch of five fathoms just half-way up the side of the island, but it was six or seven otherwise. Thick mud with a lot of shells the whole way. I’ll give my soundings to Mister Fairview, sir.’
‘Very good. Did you see any activity?’ Lynton looked sideways at Treganoc, it was good to see that these two had become friends.
‘Yes, sir, we did. There are seven or eight boats, bigger than the longboat by about four feet I reckon, they’re barges really, with no masts, all lined up under the walls right around at the eastern side. I could see some masts inside the city, but they didn’t have yards crossed, and they looked like they’d been there a long time. Two or three pinks or suchlike I guess.’
Lynton exchanged another glance with Treganoc.
‘While Mister Lynton was busy with the soundings, I kept my telescope trained on the city. We were in sight for about three hours. When we arrived, there was no activity around the barges or along the walls. But that soon changed, and about thirty of forty French officers – there were a lot of flashes of gold, the Austrian uniforms are much less showy – gathered right above the barges. Within half an hour they were being manned…’
‘I thought we’d have to withdraw pretty quickly, sir, but I reckoned we could wait until they got underway,’ interrupted Lynton.
‘…and I expected them to come out and chase us. But no such thing. They appeared to be loading the barges as fast as they could. It was too far to see any details, but it looked like bales and barrels. Then I saw something interesting, sir. They’d rigged some sheers, and I saw – I’m certain of what it was – the barrel of a field gun being lowered into a barge.’
Both Lynton and Treganoc looked at Holbrooke expectantly.
‘Were they mounting it in the boat, Mister Treganoc? If the barges are four feet longer than the longboat, they’d take a four-pounder in the bows, just about.’
‘No, sir,’ Treganoc replied. ‘They were loading it into the barge, right into the bottom and then they piled some barrels on top. They weren’t mounting it to fire; I’d swear to that.’
Holbrooke paused. It was difficult to think on the quarterdeck with some much activity around him, but he needed to be on deck while they ran down the channel to meet Acrias.
‘May I offer an opinion, sir?’ asked Treganoc.
