Dead Man's Island

by David McDine

  He walked down to the beach intending to look for a boat that could take him out to the flagship and was confronted by an extraordinary sight.

  Among the many ships in the Downs anchorage he could see a frigate he guessed was HMS Medusa from the steady succession of all manner of boats circling around her.

  Anson was astonished. He had never seen the like before and could only imagine that Nelson’s fame had drawn sightseers from far and wide who had paid the Deal boatmen good money to take them out. It seemed that the world and his wife wanted to catch a glimpse of their great naval hero.

  *

  From his cabin in Medusa the object of their attention was writing to his lover, Emma, Lady Hamilton, complaining of the goldfish bowl scrutiny he was under from his admirers.

  Nelson had achieved undying fame through his great victories – Copenhagen and Aboukir, the Nile. He had sought fame and at first enjoyed it.

  But now …

  He wrote: “The Mayor and Corporation of Sandwich, when they came on board to present me with the Freedom of that ancient town, requested me to dine with them. I put them off for the moment but they would not be let off.”

  And he complained to Emma of the attention Medusa was receiving because of him: “Oh! How I hate to be stared at! Fifty boats, I am told, are rowing about her this moment to have a look at the one-armed man.”

  *

  On shore, as Anson approached a row of ships’ boats drawn up on the beach he grimaced on seeing a figure well-known to him in conversation with one of the coxswains.

  ‘Dear God, no! The last person on earth I wished to see.’

  It was his divisional captain – the portly, cherry-cheeked, be-whiskered social-climber and stealer of others’ glory, Captain Arthur Veryan St Cleer Hoare.

  With heavy heart Anson crunched down the beach and waited. Hoare, busily engaged in negotiating for a boat to take him out to the flagship, failed to notice his underling at first.

  But then, as the coxswain knuckled his forehead to settle the passage, Hoare turned and stared at Anson in astonishment.

  ‘What on earth are you doing here? I heard a rumour that you’d gone to France on some pretended mission or other.’

  ‘It was an official mission, sir, initiated by the commodore.’

  ‘Home Popham? But he’s gone!’

  ‘Nevertheless, sir, I acted under orders from Colonel Redfearn, his successor in intelligence matters.’

  ‘I was not consulted and did not authorise you to go, so it could not be an official mission.’

  Anson sighed. The last thing he wanted was to get into an acrimonious debate with this poltroon. ‘Look, sir, as a result of my reconnaissance over the other side I have information of the utmost importance. It affects the operation that’s about to take place and I must see Colonel Redfearn so that he can present my report to Lord Nelson or someone senior on his staff.’

  Hoare fumed. ‘Get back in your cot, Anson. Who do you think you are? I am your superior officer. You report to me. In turn I report to the admiral. That’s how it works. It’s called the chain of command.’

  ‘But Colonel Redfearn—’

  ‘Redfearn be damned! Hand me your report.’

  Anson struggled to keep his temper. ‘Look, if Lord Nelson attacks the French line of ships defending Boulogne it could well end in disaster. I believe they cannot be cut out because by now they are chained together. I have seen the chains.’

  ‘Chains fiddlesticks! Do you really think that Nelson is going to call off a raid of this magnitude just because one lily-livered junior officer thinks the Frogs might have chained their ships together? I hope they have. If they cannot manoeuvre they’ll be sitting ducks, well, sitting Frogs anyway, ha, ha!’

  Anson bridled at the suggestion of cowardice, but kept his cool. ‘It’s not only the chains. They have strong anti-boarding nets, too.’

  ‘Most helpful of the Frogs to give us climbing aids – it’ll make it all the easier for our men to board them, eh?’

  Anson despaired. The way Hoare had taken the news of the chains did not fill his ‘underling’ with confidence.

  The man clearly did not understand the importance of this intelligence. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to cut the French vessels out conventionally. Axes would be fine against ropes, but not metal. To Anson it was as simple as the paper-scissors-stone game he had played as a child. In the grown-up version that was about to be played out, using axe blades against iron would be like tackling stone with scissors.

  And if the assault boats went equipped only to cut hemp cables the whole raid could turn into a fiasco.

  Hoare had certainly misunderstood the netting. Far from helping boarders, it would catch them like fish in a trawl and they could be shot or stabbed as they tried to cut their way through.

  Did he need to spell this out to his superior officer? Anson thought that maybe he did. Hoare had never attempted to board an enemy ship, nor fought hand-to-hand.

  He ventured persuasively: ‘Look, sir, the point is that the boarders will need special equipment to cut their way through the netting – and to break the chains. If they don’t they will be snared like rabbits and easy prey for the defenders – and any that do get through won’t be able to break the chains to cut out the French ships. The whole operation will be in vain and many lives will be lost. It’s as simple as that. It’s all here in my detailed report, addressed to Colonel Redfearn.’

  Hoare sighed theatrically. ‘The point you are missing, Anson, is that what will be required is not special equipment but good old British guts!’

  ‘But you will be sure to give my report about the chains and netting to Colonel Redfearn?’

  ‘Enough, Anson. Give it to me. I have said I will pass on whatever needs to be passed to the admiral.’

  Anson had grave misgivings but reached into his jacket for his report and the package containing the French intelligence officer’s papers stolen by Crispin.

  ‘Then please also pass him this. It includes a sketch plan stolen from the French showing their defensive line and the types – and names – of all the vessels. It also shows the existing shore batteries and the new ones being built.’

  Hoare snatched the report and package from his hand and stuffed it down his own jacket.

  ‘Now, Anson, to more important matters. I have been asked to provide two fully-manned gunboats for the raid. Nelson has yet to be convinced of the usefulness of Sea Fencibles, so I intend to demonstrate it to him.’

  ‘Two from your division?’ Anson queried.

  ‘No, both from Seagate.’

  ‘None from Folkestone, Hythe, et cetera?’

  ‘No, I have decided to give Seagate the honour of providing both. You have the new gunboats and your men are accustomed to working them – the men from the other detachments are not.’

  Anson’s patience was now paper thin. ‘So if the raid goes wrong, as it surely will unless full account is taken of the netting and chains, the widows and orphaned children will be confined to one area – Seagate?’

  Hoare gave him an icy stare. ‘Once again you border on the insolent, Anson, and for a proper officer you are far too lily-livered and emotional about your men. They are mere harbour rats, ten a penny.’

  Anson seethed but held himself in check.

  ‘By the by, the admiral requires an officer to command each boat.’

  ‘So you will be coming yourself … sir?

  ‘Love to, of course, but I have bigger fish to fry, as you’ll hear. No, I have ordered Lieutenant Coney of the impress to command one of the Seagate boats and you’ll take the other.’

  Anson knew Coney well. He was a good man, despite the universal unpopularity of his job.

  ‘Did he not volunteer?

  ‘Volunteer? This is the navy, not a democracy. We do as we are told, not pick and choose like a bunch of amateurs!’

  Anson had heard that before, not least from a former captain, but coming from Hoare it grated.r />
  ‘Knowing Matthew Coney, I feel certain he would have volunteered if given the opportunity.’

  ‘Pah!’

  Hoare’s dismissive snort angered Anson and he snapped: ‘For someone given the opportunity to win glory you are surprisingly reluctant yourself!’

  Hoare spat: ‘Watch your tone – and have the decency to call me sir! As to glory, I have more than enough – the Seraphim affair when I saw off a Frenchman that far out-gunned me, and the battle, well, now the battles of Seagate as the townsmen are calling them. No, Anson, this is an opportunity for younger men yet to make their mark and win their spurs. I think I have earned my place alongside Nelson in his flagship to liaise and advise him on Sea Fencible matters, don’t you?’

  ‘I see … sir.’ The pause before ‘sir’ was long enough to make it sound insolent, which Anson fully intended it to be. ‘So you’ll be in Medusa?’

  ‘Alongside Nelson.’ Hoare smirked. ‘Wait ashore here and I’ll send you your written orders. Study them carefully and brief the men accordingly. I want no cock-ups from the Sea Fencibles while I am at the admiral’s side.’

  Hoare turned to the nearby boat and called to the coxswain: ‘Send one of your oarsmen to help me aboard.’

  The coxswain motioned a burly sailor to attend the captain. Hoare ordered him to bend over like a schoolboy about to be caned, and mounted him to be piggy-backed through the surf to the boat so that his boots did not get wet.

  Anson could scarcely believe what he was seeing. He shook his head in disgust, turned and walked away.

  *

  Later, back in his room at the Rose, Anson opened the sealed orders that had been handed to him after a long wait on the beach at Deal.

  Following his own mission to Boulogne with Hurel, there were no real surprises. He was only too conscious that, with Nelson commanding the anti-invasion forces, great things were expected of him as the hero of Copenhagen and Aboukir if he were to be the saviour of the nation.

  Anson was aware, too, that His Majesty’s ministers, believing that an army of 75,000 soldiers was encamped between Flushing and Le Havre, with more than 100 shallow-draught barges already available and twice as many more built or on the stocks, had allowed it to be leaked to the newspapers that they “fully expected the French would make an immediate descent upon the island.”

  It would not be sufficient merely to deter invasion. Nelson was expected to pre-empt it – and that meant carrying the fight to the enemy.

  After the largely ineffective bombardment of Boulogne it did not take a genius to fathom that the admiral would need to stage something far more dramatic.

  Hence a second attack on Boulogne, but this time cutting out the ships moored off-shore, as the orders stated: “… until the whole flotilla be either taken, or totally annihilated.”

  The plan was for boats from the ships of Nelson’s squadron and from the Sea Fencibles, to be formed into four divisions under the command of a captain, each of about fifteen boats armed with howitzers and carronades. A fifth division of large lugger-rigged flatboats would give supporting fire with eight-inch mortars.

  The main force was to launch a frontal attack on the moored ships – the sailors boarding with cutlasses, pikes and tomahawks, the marines armed with musket and bayonet.

  At the same time, two boats from each division were to pull through the enemy line to cut their cables. Any prizes that could not be brought out to sea were to be burned.

  37

  Wedding Bells

  The ivy-covered, flint-walled 12th century church of Saints Cosmos and Damian was bedecked with flowers within and a crowd of villages had already gathered outside, anxious not to miss the event of the year.

  There had not been such comings and goings there since the memorial service two years earlier for the rector’s son, the late Lieutenant Oliver Anson, Royal Navy, who had subsequently turned out not to be late after all but a prisoner in France.

  Even after his escape and return home the memorial plaque recording, prematurely as it turned out, his death in action on the Normandy shore had for whatever reason remained in the church.

  It was well known among parishioners that his unloving elder brother Gussie had cynically suggested that in the interests of economy it be left where it was, covered with a curtain, so that the date of death could be altered “when the time comes”.

  But today was not one for memorialising. It seemed that a good half of what passed for society in the county had headed there, along with many of the local yokels for whom such an event was a rare – and free – spectacle.

  Rich or poor, all were agog to witness the marriage of Squire Brax’s eldest daughter Charlotte to Richard, known as Dickie, captain of the local yeomanry troop but, more importantly, heir to the sprawling Chitterling estate consisting of a score of large productive farms, a great many smallholdings and hundreds of acres of valuable woodland.

  It was to be a joining of the county’s two wealthiest families and to all outward appearances it was a match made in heaven.

  The groom certainly thought so. He was getting a rich, exceptionally pretty – indeed voluptuous – wife who had already allowed him to sample the coming delights of the marriage bed, to his complete satisfaction.

  She had also made it quite clear to him that once the knot had been tied and she had presented him with the necessary heir and a spare she reserved the right to do her own thing with whom and whenever she chose. She had told him: ‘Don’t ever forget, I’m a Brax – not some mare you can tame with a bridle and bit! You’ll answer to my father if you annoy me.’

  Chitterling knew that was no idle threat. No-one thereabouts would willingly get on the wrong side of her fierce father, who was not only a rich and powerful man, quick to anger, but a tyrant who dictated his own version of the law as the local magistrate and enacted it in draconian fashion.

  On the upside, Charlotte had indicated to her future husband that she did not much mind what he got up to after they were wed. His womanising and gambling could continue as long as it did not come home to roost with her.

  There was only one cloud on the horizon. Charlotte heartily wished she was marrying someone else. Not anyone else, but one and the same naval officer whose memorial plaque graced the church where the wedding was about to take place: Lieutenant Oliver Anson.

  She had been instantly attracted to him on his return after escaping from France following the abortive cutting-out raid in Normandy and had made a play for him, successfully using all her physical charms to reel him in.

  He had succumbed – what man wouldn’t? And she had done her very best to force him to propose, but, in retrospect, she could admit to herself that she had rushed her fences and scared him off.

  The fact that his father, the Reverend Thomas Anson, was officiating at her marriage to someone else rubbed more salt into the wound.

  But she hid her chagrin and went along with the fiction of blushing bride eagerly marrying the man of her dreams. Except that in her case blushing was most definitely a thing of the past.

  Chitterling, despite never having faced anything more dangerous than an unarmed fox or pheasant, arrived on horseback and in full regimentals, accompanied by a fellow yeomanry officer who was to be best man.

  They were followed by a score or more from the groom’s own Pett Valley Troop of the South Kent Yeomanry, mainly drawn from the sons of his family’s tenant farmers.

  Resplendent in high-plumed helmet, the chubby-cheeked, red-faced groom, was showing the beginnings of a paunch only just restrained by his tightly-buttoned, elaborately-brocaded blue jacket and scarlet waist sash that was riding up slightly under the strain.

  His extravagant outfit was completed with vivid red stripes down his overalls, highly polished riding boots and spurs, and at his side hung a magnificently-hilted silver-sheathed, but as yet unused sabre.

  For the occasion he had abandoned the chestnut mount common to the Pett Valley Troop and instead drew envious glances with his mag
nificent grey, a wedding present from his father.

  Groom and best man stood, two peacocks showing off their finery, at the church porch posing like conquering heroes, with Chitterling acknowledging tenants and others he knew who had come to gape.

  Then, as Sergeant Sam Noad – an ex-regular dragoon and the only real soldier in the volunteer troop – lined up the men as an honour guard, the groom and best man strode into the church, spurs jingling, and marched noisily down the aisle to take position at the front.

  Once seated, Chitterling turned to peer back at the full pews, nodding and smiling to those he knew like a politician seeking votes.

  The Anson sisters were there with their mother, he noticed, but there was no sign of their naval brother. Pity, he thought, to the victor the spoils – and it would have been good to have been able to rub that jumped-up sailor’s nose in it for sniffing around Charlotte Brax when she was so obviously well out of his price range.

  The un-blushing bride-to-be arrived on her father’s arm attended by her younger sisters and swept up the aisle, every bit the swan followed by her cygnets.

  But for Charlotte there were no smiles to left or right.

  Acknowledging her soon-to-be husband, who with his best man had risen to his feet, with a nod, she stared ahead and remained so as they took the final steps to matrimony.

  Their responses were loud and matter-of-fact. This was no love match. A lust match perhaps, and certainly what amounted to a business merger between two great land-owning dynasties.

  Rings were exchanged, the rector declared them man and wife and Chitterling took his bride’s hand and led her like a prize mare down the aisle.

  As they swept out of the church under the crossed sabres of the Pett Valley Troop’s guard of honour, one of Chitterling’s men was cheeky enough to comment: ‘Good for you, Master Richard. Come mornin’ they’ll be another little trooper on the way for sure!’

  Chitterling guffawed, but his bride remained silent, appearing not to have heard the remark. But she had.