by David McDine
After the bright autumn sunlight it was dark inside and he paused to adjust to the dim light from the few high windows. The naval officer sitting behind the solitary desk rose from his chair and even in the gloom Anson recognised a face he knew well.
‘Armstrong? Good grief! What are you doing deserting your nice comfortable signal station?’
His friend beamed. ‘Welcome back to the land of the living! And I’ve not deserted, mon vieux, perish the thought. I’ve been posted at last!’
It was then that Anson spotted the shiny new epaulette on his friend’s shoulder – a captain’s epaulette.
Armstrong was the new divisional captain for the Sea Fencibles …
*
With much hilarity, they left Fagg in charge and adjourned to the Mermaid where Armstrong ordered the landlord to produce his very best bottle of wine and hang the expense.
The publican emerged from the cellar blowing a thick layer of dust from a bottle that no doubt pre-dated the war, the glint in his eye indicating great satisfaction as he worked out how much he could charge for it.
Armstrong tasted it, pronounced it excellent, and called on the landlord to produce a second bottle of the same, telling Anson: ‘Always keep some of your forces in reserve ready to join battle when required, mon vieux!’
The new divisional captain’s delight at his escape from his cliff-top signal station and longed-for promotion, and Anson’s heartfelt pleasure in having seen the last of the dreaded Hoare and welcoming his particular friend, promised a long and convivial evening.
But, as they reminisced and Armstrong regaled Anson with his plans for greater use of the several Sea Fencible detachments – including Seagate – now under his overall command, they did not notice a stranger enter the bar-room.
Short and thickset, with powerful shoulders, tattooed neck and a nose that had clearly been broken several times, he had the look of an old sailor washed up on an alien shore – not an unusual sight in the Channel ports.
And, with his coat collar turned up and his hat pulled down low over his scarred forehead, the landlord failed to recognise him as an old regular from a couple of years back.
The newcomer took a seat in a dark corner and signalled a serving girl to bring him a tot, raising two fingers to make it a double.
With the Mermaid’s best wine already taking effect, the brother officers were so engrossed in their convivial conversation that they failed to notice that they were under close surveillance.
After being ambushed and coshed by some of the men he had exploited, handed over still dazed to a press gang in Rye, and enduring a long absence as an unwilling inmate of one of His Majesty’s ships, Billy MacIntyre was back in his old stomping grounds.
He blamed Anson, who had uncovered his lucrative false payroll and blackmailing scams, for his fall – and for being pressed back into the navy to serve on the bottom rung of the ladder, unable to reveal his true rank and past service lest he be accused of desertion.
The late, but not lamented, bully-boy bosun of Seagate Sea Fencibles, was a deserter now sure enough, having taken the opportunity to disappear when the ship-of-the-line he was serving in docked at Chatham for repairs.
Unnoticed by the other drinkers, least of all the two officers who were reminiscing happily as the landlord uncorked their second bottle, he knocked back his rum and signalled for another.
And, while he waited, he fingered the razor-sharp knife in his belt and plotted revenge.
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Historical Note
Nelson’s two attacks on Boulogne in 1801 actually happened in much the way described in this story and the words attributed to him are all his own.
They come courtesy of the late, great Nelson expert and national newspaper naval and defence correspondent Tom Pocock, whom the author knew well during his time as an Admiralty – and later Ministry of Defence – information officer.
However, Lieutenant Anson, his family, friends, comrades in arms and enemies, are, of course, entirely fictional, as is Seagate, located in the author’s imagination somewhere to the west of Folkestone, and time-spans have been adjusted slightly to fit the story.
Armstrong’s lonely signal station at Fairlight in Sussex has long since disappeared, but the beach where Anson and Hurel landed, at Equihen-Plage, just south of Boulogne, is much the same as it must have been in 1801, although it is now used by sand yachting enthusiasts rather than smugglers.
The Sea Fencibles most definitely existed and would have played a key defensive role, especially along the Kentish coast, had the many-times-threatened French invasion taken place. Nevertheless, this Nelson-era ‘Dad’s Navy’ was involved in various skirmishes with French privateers and Nelson did encourage them to serve afloat.
Thanks are due, again, to Tracy-Leon Barham, Esquire, and Colonel Robert Murfin for their expert advice on weaponry and smugglers’ signalling devices of the day.
The hulks were only too real. An officer incarcerated in one on the River Medway later reported to the French Government that “it is in these floating tombs that prisoners of war are buried alive.” Many died and were buried on nearby mudflats – including the sinisterly named Dead Man’s Island, and recent erosion has exposed the remains of some of the unfortunates buried there.
Rochester’s Guildhall Museum’s display, where children are shown how to make straw-work boxes and fluffy rats – can give only an impression of the horrors of imprisonment aboard the hulks.
Small wonder that a good many of the prisoners sought to get away, often using the escape route centred on Whitstable that actually existed – again, much as described.
In 1801, Nelson was given command of Britain’s anti-invasion forces, assembled a squadron which first bombarded Boulogne, and later mounted a major boat attack in an attempt to cut out the French flotilla defending the port.
Adverse currents and Admiral Latouche-Tréville’s seaman-like precaution of chaining his vessels together foiled Nelson, who promptly accused the French of behaving dishonourably by doing so.
It did not take long for the French to celebrate what they claimed as a victory with a song that translated as:
“Off Boulogne,
Nelson poured hell-fire!
But on that day, many a toper
Instead of wine, drank salt water
Off Boulogne.”
Many, like Anson, initially considered the raid an ignominious defeat for the assault force. But, on reflection later, he revised his view.
The reality was that the Royal Navy’s ships continued to rule the waves and were masters of the Channel while the French remained locked up in their ports.
And the Naval Chronicle countered the enemy’s boasts with its own piece of doggerel:
“Baffled, disgraced, blockaded and destroyed …
The Gallic Navy a skeleton remains,
And as a scare-crow is now employed,
To frighten babies as it hangs in chains.”
It was true that the chains that had saved Boulogne enchained it still. And for the French the possibility of mounting an invasion of England was as remote as ever – for the present.
But Oliver Anson, distant kinsman many times removed of the great circumnavigator and reformer of the navy, will be called to action once again along with his oddball Sea Fencibles.
About the author
David McDine, OBE, is a Deputy Lieutenant of Kent and a former Royal Navy Reserve officer and Admiralty information officer.
He is the author of Unconquered: The Story of Kent and its Lieutenancy. His fiction output includes The Five Horseshoes, his debut novel in the Animal Man series, and more recently his popular historic naval fiction series featuring
Lieutenant Oliver Anson. His first novel in that series, The Normandy Privateer, and its prequel Strike the Red Flag, are also published by Endeavour Press.
