HMS DREADNAUGHT: A John Phillips Novel

by Richard Testrake

  A shout warned the gunners of their danger, and there was confusion as the surprised gunners tried to work out their best option.

  With a body of Marines marching at them with fixed bayonets, as well as a torrent of yelling seamen, most decided to drop their weapons and await events. A dozen gunners dropped off onto the skree below. Most made it, but at least one man injured his leg, and was left by himself at the bottom.

  The others spotted the barca-longa moored to the pier and made for it. Unfortunately for them, a seamen had been left behind to watch over the boat. Two men used a spar to boom the boat away from the pier, while another went to a swivel gun mounted on the bulwarks. There were four of these guns, each loaded with a handful of half inch pistol balls.

  Pointing the gun at a cluster of enemy soldiers eyeing the slowly opening gap between boat and pier, the gunner touched it off. Two men were down, with a couple more showing signs of injury. The seaman ran to the next gun and fired that too. Only one man fell this time, but the others raised their hands and surrendered.

  Actually, there was just nowhere for them to go. The battery now secure, Captain Wallace sauntered down the path to examine the situation. A deputation of French artillery soldiers appeared from the village, their hands high with a sergeant holding up a mostly white shirt on the point of a sword.

  Dreadnaught and the two sloops approached, and Phillips was pulled ashore in his gig. After a tour of the site, the guns were first spiked, then rolled down the slope.

  A group of civilians appeared on the road leading from the cliff top down to the village. They appeared to be local resistance fighters or Miguelettes, and Phillips and Wallace went to meet them along with a dozen Marines. They stopped at musket shot distance, and Phillips and Wallace advanced a few more yards by themselves, stopped and saluted.

  One of the apparent civilians, mounted on a pitifully thin horse came forward to meet them. Besides his peasant garb, he had a sash around him and carried a long homemade lance. Raising the lance to the vertical, he offered it as a kind of salute.

  Captain Wallace and the rider conversed, and Wallace turned to Phillips and reported. “This is Señor Garcia. He wished to know what we are doing here. I told him we are killing Frenchmen.”

  “He says he can save us some trouble. He wants us to give him our captives and their weapons. We may take the big guns, as they are too large for them to transport.”

  Phillips answered, “Tell him we thank him for the guns, but we do not need them either. If he does not want them, we will take them to sea and sink them so the French cannot use them again. The captives we are required to take to our admiral so he will know we have not been wasting our time. However, Señor Garcia may have whatever weapons or other items taken from the French he requires.”

  The Spaniards ran about the site salvaging all the former French property they could find. One of the finds was a store of French hard bread, similar to the Navy ship’s biscuit the men were used to.

  The Miguelettes appropriated the hard bread with alacrity, and Señor Garcia assured Captain Phillips this food would sustain the men for days. One of the bags the bread had been stored in contained many fragments and crumbs. Eyeing the leader’s painfully thin horse, Phillips emptied the sack on a smooth rock in front of the animal.

  The animal took an exploratory sniff, then inhaled the crumbled hard bread. The leader remonstrated about this waste of food, but Phillips said he would replace the bread. The ship’s jolly boat was waiting at the pier, and Phillips ordered the midshipman in charge to go out to the ship and bring back two bags of ship’s biscuit.

  The lad could not see why anyone onshore would want to eat ship’s bread with all the other resources of food available on land, but did as he was told.

  Señor Garcia assured Phillips that with all this French and British bread, he would be independent for more than a week. He said when the Miguelettes were short of food, sometimes they had to raid French supplies when it was not safe to do so, often losing people in the process.

  Now, they could pick and choose their targets better.

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  The squadron was a sorry sight when it reached Gibraltar. The third rate 80 gun ship HMS Caesar was anchored there, and after Dreadnaught had made her manners, hung out a signal for her captain to report to Rear-Admiral Sir Richard John Strachan in the Caesar.

  Phillips went aboard, and gave Strachan a synopsis of what he had been up to. He reported his maintenance problems with Grasshopper’s wounded mast, and the still present leak in Dreadnaught’s bow. He listed his prizes and their cargoes, and reported some men who had been killed or wounded, and requested replacements.

  Strachan looked grave and asked, “How is that ship-sloop of yours? What is her condition?”

  Phillips was able to report that Supérieure, other than needing a few men, plus water and firewood, was ready to sail.

  “Well then, Captain Phillips, I think we will keep her here, and send Dreadnaught and Grasshopper back to Portsmouth. Take on just what stores you really need, and you are free to depart.”

  While there, Phillips took the opportunity to ask Strachan if he knew the whereabouts of Limpet, the dispatch cutter. He mentioned his son was aboard her. Strachan thought a moment and said, “If I’m not mistaken, she is under Channel Fleet’s command. You had better ask Vice Admiral Gambier about her whereabouts.”

  Phillips replied that he probably would not be seeing Gambier for a while, and in any case was too much a coward to approach a vice admiral on the subject.

  Strachan grinned and advised him to check with the port admiral in Portsmouth. “Failing that, maybe Admiralty in London will have some information. As a dispatch cutter, she will be shuttling around all over Europe, so somebody will know where she is”.

  Grasshopper and Dreadnaught slowly made their way up the coast and into the channel. Had he been able to get a new main mast for the brig-sloop, he would have sent her on ahead, but as it was, he thought it better if the pair travelled together.

  When the pair moored in Portsmouth, the pumps were working throughout the day and night in Dreadnaught and water was still gaining. An emergency request to the dockyard brought some action, and she was eased into an empty dry-dock.

  After reporting to Admiral Montagu, Dreadnaught was ordered to have her stores landed, and the ship emptied. After paying off, the men were removed to other ships where they were needed, and the officers and warrants scattered to the winds. After some exertion on Phillip’s part, Lieutenant Watkins was given command of an old sloop of war and was promoted to commander.

  Phillips posted to London, where he paced the halls of the Admiralty, attempting to find what had happened to the dispatch cutter Limpet, or his son Timothy. With no information on either, he decided to return home. Dreading the reunion with his wife Sarah, he put off the trip as long as he could. Sarah had been upset enough with him then for taking her boy away from her. What would she say and do when she learned he had lost the lad?

  Finally, deciding he must take the bull by the horns, he bought an inside seat on the mail coach and set out for home. The coach set out along a harbor road before heading inland, and there, close to shore, he saw HMS Limpet. Her mast had been removed and her deck roofed over. She, along with some other non-rated craft nearby, was in ordinary.

  No longer needed, at that moment, she had been put in reserve, with just a few of the standing officers aboard to keep her maintained. Her crew would have been removed to other ships needing men.

  Phillips roared at the driver to stop, and he climbed over a portly drunk to get outside. Limpet was offshore, moored with several other vessels of like size, and he had no means of getting to her. He knew someone was aboard since smoke was curling up from a chimney pipe.

  Fretting impatiently, he saw a punt coming downstream, a man at the stern slowly working his skull oar from side to side.

  As it came abreast at no great distance, he called out to the boatman. “Sir,
I’ll give you a pound if you’ll take me out to that cutter and bring me back again.”

  The boatman made a few more sweeps with his skull, then turned and came ashore. The boatman looked at this middle aged man in the glorious uniform of a post captain of the Royal Navy and advised, “You can come aboard over the bow, if you wish, sir.”

  Phillips clambered aboard into the stench of decaying fish bait, and said, “I’d like to go aboard the cutter Limpet and see if I can find out about my son, who was midshipman aboard her.”

  “Well sir, she’s been here a month or more, her crew gone ‘cept for her carpenter. He’s aboard, I reckon, waiting for them to appoint a new captain.”

  The punt pulled up to the cutter with a clatter, and Phillips took the painter and made a few turns around her mooring cable. Several shouts brought a familiar face to the rail.

  With an effort, the man’s name came to mind. “Evans, it’s glad I am to see you. How are you getting along?”

  The two had a conversation, relating to each other the events that had occurred on both Dreadnaught and Limpet. Finally Phillips got around to the subject that had brought him aboard. “Do you remember Midshipman Phillips? He was my son you know.”

  “That I do, Captain. And as fine a lad as one might wish to meet, too.”

  “Would you know what happened with him? I am trying to locate the lad before I go home. My wife will be worried sick!”

  “Well sir, it was about a month ago. They came to pay us off, and remove all the stores. Captain Harrison told me to stay aboard and watch over the cutter. He said sooner or later, another officer and crew would come aboard again. Mister Phillips left with the captain. I don’t know where they went.”

  At least Timothy had somebody watching over him. It was likely that he had either gone with Harrison to another ship, or perhaps had gone back home. At least the lad probably wasn’t off on a voyage to India.

  The man in the punt was still waiting. He had a line in the water trying to catch something. The captain clambered into the boat and handed the man a pound note. Fumbling in his pocket, he produced a half crown. “Would you suppose this coin will buy me passage to a posting inn along the shore?”

  “It will indeed, yer honor, and I’ll have you there in an hour.”

  It was the next day before the next coach for London arrived. In the meantime, he had acquired some itchy little ‘friends’ from the inn’s bed. The road was good though, and it only took a dozen hours to make the trip into London.

  He wanted to look into the Admiralty, but first thought he would visit his house in town. It had not seen much use since his wife, in a tiff, had discharged all the servants, closed the house and gone to their home in the country. After some time and effort, he had located and hired back most of the servants, but the house had not received much attention from the family.

  Pounding on the door produced a frightened young woman who reported all the servants had gone to a hanging at Newgate. A notorious highwayman was being ‘turned off’ and it was expected he would provide a good show.

  Abigail reported she had seen young Master Timothy ‘weeks ago’ but had not seen him since, and did not know where he had gone. He could stay in the house until the servants returned, but there was the chance none would know the answer he was seeking.

  He used the facilities in the house to clean himself up, and set out in search of a nearby livery. He found one he had used before, and was able to hire a well sprung coach and four with driver. He arranged himself as comfortably as he could and they set out for the estate in Essex. Being early afternoon when they set out, they had to stay overnight on the road. The inn was as comfortable as they were likely to find, and next morning they got good horses. They had to make one more change of horses and then they were there.

  Henry was still the hostler, although a little stiff these days. He came out to hold the horses, and Phillips told him to put them up in the stable with a good feed and rub down. The driver would eat in the kitchen and leave the next morning to drive back to London. He would have a good lunch to carry along with him.

  In the meantime, Phillips wanted to know if Henry had seen Timothy lately. “Yes sir, he’s been here for weeks. For the past two days, he’s been over at the Norris place, doing something with Peabody.”

  That worthy had been Phillip’s valued man for several voyages. The first he had been a valued servant. On another, he had been the ship’s man-at-arms, or policeman. One of the strongest, most capable men Phillips knew, he could handle almost any situation.

  He had also impregnated a wealthy neighbor woman named Norris, and now had a son with her. He had not gone to sea with Phillips this last voyage, although speaking truthfully, Phillips and Timothy had left in rather a hurry, and had not discussed anything with him.

  The pressure off him now, Phillips had nothing to fear from Sarah. He asked Henry if she was in the house.

  “Ain’t here, Cap’n.”

  “Well, where is she, man?”

  “Ain’t for me to say, Cap’n.”

  Probably Sarah was visiting friends in the county. Henry seemed to be getting old. Maybe they should find something lighter for him to do.”

  Phillips had Henry saddle a grey gelding for him, and he set out for the Norris estate. The first person he saw as he rode in was Peabody, His greeting was, “Oh shit!”

  Then Peabody added, “Sir, I am sorry. I need to get Charlotte.”

  Wondering what was going on, Phillips followed Peabody to the house, where he met Charlotte Norris coming to the door.

  Her greeting was the same as Peabody’s.

  “Charlotte, is Timothy here, and is he all right?”

  “Oh, he is here and is just fine. He is down at the pond trying to catch some fish for supper. We have a different problem though.

  CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

  "John", Charlotte essayed, "Sarah is gone."

  “Gone, where did she go?”

  “Sarah was bored with the country life, so a few months ago she went to London. She met a man there, a cavalry lieutenant younger than she. She was bored and he was exciting. He squired her to some plays and a gala of some sort. He was due to go off to Spain, and she wanted him to stay with her. He told her he could buy a captaincy in another unit that would not be going, so she gave him two thousand pounds, and he left anyway.

  She was frightened of what you would do when you found the money was missing, so she went to a man that had previously asked her to go into keeping with him. She had refused before, but accepted this time.”

  Phillips listened grimly. “What does Timothy know about all this?”

  “I suspect he knows something. The servants all know, and they will talk. I have talked to Timothy about a lot of things that sons generally learn from their mother. We have not discussed this, however.”

  “What about my daughter, Abigail? Where is she?”

  “Abigail has been staying with me since right after you left. Sarah said she had not the energy to care for a ten year old. Your daughter is handling it well, She loves our child and calls it her baby. She has had too much excitement over the past few years, what with the episode in France, and the espionage situation with her mother. I expect she just wants things to quiet down.”

  “Charlotte, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your taking care of my children. I will notify Admiralty that I am not available for further assignments, and will stay home and care for my family.”

  “John, please do not burn your bridges yet. I love your children, both of them. Timothy talks incessantly about his adventures in the navy. You could be such a help to him. Why don’t you take him along with you on another commission? Abigail will be just fine here with me.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

  “Charlotte, I must do some thinking about this problem. Probably I should consult a solicitor and my bankers. Before I left on my last commission, I gave her access to a very large sum. At the time I felt guilty for leaving as I did, and I di
d not want her to go without should I not return.”

  “John, nothing you could have done would have stopped her. She wanted excitement, and she will probably get more than she bargained on. As it happens, I know the scoundrel she has moved in with. He is a gambler, and not a good one.”

  “He has borrowed every farthing possible against his estate. What he does not know, is that I have purchased the mortgage from the friend who loaned the money. Inside of a year, my solicitor will ask him to repay the loan. When he cannot, I will take title to the property. I believe I will let Peabody run the estate for me. He shows great promise in his management abilities.”

  “What about that cavalry officer of hers? Will he support her?”

  “Captain Hastings is on his way to Jamaica now. He did not want to go to Spain to fight, so bought a captaincy in a unit going to the Caribbean. He cheated himself on the commission, paying much more than the market price for a unit going to the fever islands. I seriously doubt Sarah will go to Jamaica, so she may be stuck with her gambler, unless you take her back. Besides, the officer only courted Sarah for her money. The only woman this sort will take on permanently is an heiress with a large dowry.”

  His mind in a turmoil, Phillips wandered down the path to the fishing pond. There was Timothy, teaching a younger neighbor boy to fish. Phillips also expected he was regaling the youth with his seagoing adventures.

  Timothy looked up at his father’s greeting, and casually said he had wondered how he was going to get back to Dreadnaught. Phillips sat down on the sward and told his son about the adventures the liner had been in since he left. Timothy did the same with the details of his travels on the dispatch cutter.