by Seth Hunter
They could see the castle – more of a small fort of some antiquity – on the western and nearmost headland, with the Ottoman flag drooping listlessly from the flagpole. There were about a dozen cannon on the ramparts facing out to sea, though Spiridion doubted if they were less than 100 years old and had probably never been fired in anger. There seemed to be little for them to protect besides the ruins of ancient Canopus, a small distance inshore, and a few isolated clumps of palm, and nothing of any substance on the sea but a solitary coastal trader of a type Spiridion called a Scandaroon. There were a few fishing boats dragged up on to the beaches but no sign of any fishermen.
Directly ahead was a small island – shown on the chart as two adjoining islands with a narrow channel between and called by a single name: the Isle of Abukir. Between that and the headland was a line of breakers indicating a hidden spit of sand, cutting off access to the bay. The curving coastline beyond was broken by a small rivermouth which Spiridion said was the mouth of the Nile, or at least one of its many mouths in the Delta, and the current, though invisible, stirred up a great quantity of sand so that the waters closest to the shore were as murky as a millpond and almost as flat. And almost certainly not as deep, Spiridion had warned them. He also advised against placing too much trust in the chart – their only chart of the coastline in these parts – which had been brought from Algiers by Cathcart. The shoals were constantly shifting, he said, owing to the force of the winter gales and the volume of water being emitted from the Nile when it was in flood.
Apart from the coaster and the fishing boats there was little sign of life either at sea or ashore. Directly opposite the island, on the farther side of the bay, there was a distinctive hill like the hump of a camel, rising out of the flatness of the shore and topped by a substantial building of stone which Nathan thought was another fort but which Spiridion said was a caravanserai – a kind of hostelry for the caravans that trekked across the deserts between Alexandria and points East – Persia, India and beyond. In times past they had brought the silks and spices that made Venice the great trading power of the world, but now the caravanserai looked as deserted as the rest of that forsaken shore.
There seemed little point in lingering, the fort so moribund Nathan was reluctant to waste powder in a formal salute, but then, as he was about to give the order to wear away and begin trawling the coast closer to Alexandria, there was a shout from the lookout in the foretop and he followed the direction of his outstretched arm and saw the bare poles of a three-master just beyond the headland, previously masked by the bulk of the fort.
She was schooner-rigged with a green flag at her mizzen and thirteen gunports painted along her sides. And as Nathan studied her through his glass, conviction grew to certainty. She was the Meshuda.
Chapter Eighteen
Close Quarter Action
Nathan studied the schooner through his glass as the Swallow rode the gentle swell in the mouth of the bay. Their approach had provoked a bustle of activity on board the Meshuda, but no obvious signs of panic. She did not cut her cables and make a dash for the open sea. She did not waste powder and shot in a vain attempt to deter them at such a range. But her guns were run out and she swung at her anchor to follow the Swallow’s every move – a sure sign that she was moored on a spring cable. She had boarding nets rigged along both sides and her tops were crammed with men armed with muskets and swivel guns. She looked a tough nut to crack, but the real problem, from Nathan’s point of view, was the bay itself.
The schooner was moored in what looked like clear water about halfway between the headland and the mouth of the Nile. But according to Cathcart’s chart she was very close to a large sandbank, barely two fathoms under the surface and extending over much of the inner bay. Spiridion supposed that she must be in one of the channels created by the interplay of tide and current; such tide as there was in this part of the world. But to reach her would require a local pilot, or a much more accurate chart than the one they possessed. The Swallow’s draught was a mere fourteen feet, but even where they were now, well out to sea, they could see the seabed quite clearly beneath their keel.
The only alternative was to fire on her from long range, or attempt to cut her out with small boats – by night. Both of which raised serious tactical problems.
Nathan had been agreeably surprised by the range of the carronades. At the maximum elevation of 11 degrees, with a full charge of powder, they could hurl a 24-pound round shot to a distance of about 2,000 yards, almost as far as cannon of the same calibre. But they were woefully inaccurate. In the admittedly few live practices he had permitted – firing at a raft made of empty rum casks – they had come nowhere near to hitting the target at even half that range. Their chances of hitting the Meshuda from the outer reaches of the bay were minimal, and the schooner could fire almost as far and with much greater accuracy with her 6-pounders.
Then there was the question of the fort.
The Turkish Commander was unlikely to remain neutral while an unknown man-of-war attacked a Muslim vessel anchored peaceably in his own waters – especially as she was flying an Ottoman flag. And Murad Reis would hardly have told them he was conducting a survey for the French.
Nathan viewed the guns through his glass. They were probably culverins, he thought, firing an 18-pound shot. With the advantage of their height above the water they would easily reach him at 2,000 yards, and the effect on the thin timbers of the sloop, especially if the shot was heated, did not bear thinking about.
The only other approach – a night attack with the ship’s boats – was fraught with difficulties of its own. There was no chance of taking the Meshuda by surprise – not now – and according to Spiridion she carried a crew of well over 300, twice as many as the Swallow – veteran fighters, who specialised in boarding operations. Nathan’s own crew were fine enough sailors, but they were untrained and untested in battle. They would be cut to pieces.
‘We have to find some way of bringing her out,’ he said to Tully.
But he was damned if he could think of one.
Imlay, of course, had his own half-baked solution. ‘If it looked as if we were making an attack, prepared for battle, guns run out and all – might it not spur them into some kind of a response?’ he proposed. And before Nathan could make a sufficiently scathing reply, he went on: ‘Surely they would not wish to remain at anchor. They would cut their cable and try to find sea room. Just as you did – or intended to do – when you thought the Meshuda might catch us moored off the menshia in the Bay of Tripoli.’
‘This is true,’ Nathan conceded, ‘but unlike us in the Bay of Tripoli, the Meshuda is moored on a spring cable.’ He saw that this meant nothing to Imlay. ‘This enables her to swing at her mooring,’ he explained patiently. ‘She could cover any approach we make and hit us again and again with her broadside before we could bring our own guns to bear.’ And in case this did not impress him: ‘Besides which, if she lies where she is at present, she is covered by the guns in the fort. Between them they would pound us to pieces before we approached within a half-mile of her. And if we were to run aground, heaven help us. She would come out then all right, and we would be helpless to defend ourselves.’
But even as he spoke, the germ of an idea was forming in his mind. He rejected it at once. It was absurd. Tantamount to suicide. But it refused to be so lightly dismissed.
He leaned over the rail and peered into the translucent depths below the keel. He could see the seabed with remarkable clarity, the gently waving seaweed, the colourful fish darting to and fro, even a crab scuttling across the sandy bottom – a hermit crab, carrying its home on its back, like a barnacle with spider’s legs. It stirred a dim, half-forgotten memory from his time as a midshipman in the South Seas.
And suddenly he knew how it could be done.
He gave orders to take them out to sea, far out of the sight of prying eyes. Then he explained to Tully what he had in mind.
It was mid-afternoon before they headed back
into the bay – with the gun crews at the guns and the topmen in the tops and a solitary seaman in the bows swinging the lead. The wind remained steady from the west, blowing almost directly across the bay but still so mild as to scarcely ruffle the surface of the water. The only hint of a breaker was where the sea broke on the rocks between the islands and the headland, and a very small hint it was, like the lazy curling of a lip. But it showed how shallow the waters were thereabouts. Hopefully they were almost as shallow on the seaward side of the islands. Nathan’s plan depended on it.
At about 2,000 yards, seeing that the shoals had not deterred them, the fort fired a warning shot. It sank about a cable’s length off their starboard bow. Nathan gave the order for the gun crews to lie down beside the guns. But his prime concern was not the shot from the fort, not as yet.
‘Four fathoms five,’ sang out the seaman with the lead.
They were now almost directly in line with the fort, with the twin islands almost masking them from the guns.
‘Very well, Mr Cribb,’ Nathan nodded to the sailing master.
The Genoese and the Portuguese worked efficiently enough but Nathan was gnawing on his bottom lip as he watched them, willing them to work faster, and restraining an urge to bawl them out for their indolence or impudence, or both, for they still chattered away like parrots, even with the prospect of dying in the next few hours.
‘Four fathoms four,’ came the voice from the bows.
Up came the maintopsail. Up came the foresail and the foretopsail.
‘Four fathoms two.’
Down came the forestaysail and the mainstaysail.
‘Three fathoms five.’
They were almost past the islands now and the Meshuda was exactly where they had left her, with her guns still run out and her boarding nets rigged.
Nathan leaned over the starboard rail and peered down into the clear blue waters. Was he wrong? Had he stayed too far out? Then he saw the sudden swirl of sand and felt the slight tremor under his feet.
‘Port your helm!’
She was very sluggish answering, but round she came until the bowsprit was pointing almost directly at the mouth of the Nile, with the Meshuda lying at an angle of about 45 degrees off their starboard bow. Still coming round – too far now. He opened his mouth to instruct the helmsman.
‘Three fathoms three.’
Then she struck.
They had taken the precaution of doubling the stays, but the foretopgallant mast broke away at once, toppling almost elegantly forward across the bows and bringing down jib and staysails with it in a hopeless tangle of canvas and rigging. Nathan feared that the maintopgallant would follow, but it held and the Genoese were already hauling in the remaining canvas at maintop and mizzen with the waisters under Mr Lamb hacking away at the shambles in the bows.
The islands masked them from the fort but not from the Meshuda and she fired almost immediately – a rippling broadside that fell a little short of their bow, a single shot skipping up and ringing off the bower anchor.
Now came the real test. Was she going to stay there, potting shots at them at long range, or was she going to come out? It was all down to the vanity – or the courage – of one man. Peter Lisle, the former seaman turned Admiral of the Fleet.
‘Oh, he will come out,’ Spiridion had declared confi dently. ‘He is a corsair and a Scot, he will not be able to resist. Think of the glory, bringing you back in triumph into Tripoli.’
Nathan stared out across the bay towards the schooner, wondering what he might do in the same circumstances.
‘Start out the water,’ he said to Tully. If Lisle saw that they were trying to lighten the ship, it might convince him they truly were aground. If ditching the water did not wash, they might have to sacrifice a couple of guns.
Another broadside. This time two or three shots struck the hull, but they were firing at extreme range and the shot bounced harmlessly back into the sea.
Then Spiridion let out a shout. The canvas was mushrooming out from the Meshuda’s spars and stays, and through his glass Nathan could see the long teams on her decks hauling on the halyards.
‘She has slipped her cable,’ O’Driscoll announced, unnecessarily.
They watched as she began to move slowly off her mooring, heading away from them at first with the wind directly abaft, but then round came her bows and out she came.
Nathan fought down the sudden euphoria; there was a long way to go before he could allow himself to feel exultant. And for a few minutes indeed he thought she was steering clear of them, heading for the far side of the bay. He brought the glass up to his eye, focusing on the figures at her stern. He could not make out Lisle, among the group of officers – if they were officers, for they seemed to wear no particular uniform. He imagined the debate they must be having. To play safe and steer for the open sea, or take the prize that was so temptingly offered. He caught Spiridion’s eye but the Greek’s face was ex pression less. Confident, assailed by doubt? It was impossible to tell. Then he saw the ghost of a grim smile, and looking back towards the Meshuda he saw that her bows had come round and she was heading straight towards them.
His exultation was shortlived. An instant later, the two long nines at her bows opened fire – with remarkable accuracy at 1,000 yards or more. The first shots skimmed the water a few yards off his larboard bow, but the next smashed into the rail just abaft the mainmast, hurling lethal splinters about the gundeck. Nathan heard the screams and the groans of the wounded and watched them carried below to the tender mercies of Mr Kite. Others, beyond his torment, were thrown overboard without ceremony. But the men kept their nerve, waiting, silent and remarkably steady, beside the guns.
And the others, with their axes, poised and ready, in the waist.
Nathan could see Mr Wallace, the engineer from the Carron Company who was acting as their gunner, and it occurred to him that this was probably the first time he had been in action. He looked tense, but then so did they all, and beside him, among the starboard carronades, was the immensely reassuring presence of George Banjo, who had slipped easily into his old role of gunner’s mate.
On she came.
‘Stand by,’ he murmured to Tully, more like a prayer than an order. ‘Any moment now.’
From where he stood he could see along the length of her gundeck and it was crowded with men. So many, there must be ten to each gun and as many in the tops with their muskets and their swivels. He had doubted Spiridion’s figures, wondering how they could cram so many into such a small vessel, but somehow they had, and here they all were, standing by to fire their broadsides or to board. Or both.
And on she came …
Surely Lisle would not risk coming too close for fear of grounding. She would cut across their bows and rake the Swallow with her broadside until she struck, or was so knocked about there would be no fight left in her.
Nathan waited, with every nerve screaming at him to give the order. But he had to let her come so close there was no turning back: back into the shoals of the bay where he could not follow. Two hundred yards. One hundred … He could see the faces of the gunners at the long nines in her bow. They fired again – at point-blank range now, the long plume of flame almost scorching the Swallow’s rail. One shot came straight through it, showering the quarter-deck with splinters and striking the 6-pounder on the larboard side, knocking it clean from its mount. Another came so close to Nathan it thrummed the air about his ear, and as he looked round in clownish bemusement, he saw that it had taken off the head of one of the quartermasters behind him, the body still standing upright with the blood spurting from the severed neck, until the knees buckled and the corpse collapsed onto the deck like a puppet whose strings have been cut.
Nathan looked back at the advancing schooner.
‘Now,’ he said softly – almost resignedly, to Tully.
It had taken them the best part of the day to prepare, hove to in the heat of the midday sun just out of sight of the shore.
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��Just like a keelhauling,’ he had said to Tully, as if he did it all the time.
He had seen it done only once, in fact, when he was a midshipman in the South Seas – carried out on a Dutch ship, for it was illegal in the King’s Navy. A terrible business, the memory of which had stayed with him for days: the victim tied to a line and dragged under the keel and up the other side, emerging like some nightmare creature of the deep with the skin hanging in shreds from his back, lacerated by the barnacles on the ship’s hull.
But it was a lot easier to keelhaul a man than an 18-foot gig.
First they had dropped four cables over the bow, working them aft until they were hanging under the middle of the ship. Then they had hauled the gig up from the stern, tying more lines to the thwarts on both sides and opening the seacock until she filled with water. Then they dragged her under the keel, half the crew pulling on one side, the rest letting out the cables on the other – constructing a false keel that extended their own by a good few feet.
It took them four hours to make it secure. It took less than a minute for the axemen in the waist to cut it free.
Nathan felt the movement instantly as the Swallow shed her false keel, and the topsails, instantly loosed from the yard, flapped and filled. He was alive now, all dullness gone, as alive as his ship, rushing to the quarterdeck rail to shout encourage ment to his men as they leaped to their feet and bent over the waiting carronades.
Slowly but surely the wind brought their bows round to larboard, the Meshuda so close now Nathan could have thrown a stone and hit her bow. He had a moment’s doubt – thinking about the two women, hoping they had been stowed safely below the waterline, but it was too late to worry about that now.
He gave the nod to Tully. ‘Fire as you bear!’ and heard the command echoed down the length of the gundeck before he was deafened by the roar of the first carronade.
It is doubtful if anyone aboard the Meshuda realised the corvette had come free of the sands. The smoke was still wreathing about her bows as the first shot hit her. And as the wind continued to bring the Swallow’s head round towards the open sea, all twelve of her starboard carronades poured their fire into the schooner.
