The King's Shilling

by David Starr

  “Three sunk civilian ships? That hardly seems reason enough to dispatch the flagship of the Royal Navy. Something else is up,” says Bill.

  “There is more,” adds Captain Whitby, as if he heard Bill speak. “These ships carried supplies and food for the island of Malta. As you may know, Malta was freed from occupying French forces nearly ten years ago. Along with Gibraltar, the island is one of our only two territories in possession in the Mediterranean. Napoleon means to take it back, by invasion, starvation or both.”

  “Sorry, Trap,” whispers Bill. “I told you. Looks like you ain’t gonna be looking for your sister anytime soon.”

  “If Malta falls, Napoleon will own the eastern Mediterranean,” continues Captain Whitby, as I listen intently. “The Battle of the Nile, Trafalgar, the uprising in Spain: all our past victories will have been for naught. He will rebuild his naval forces unimpeded, threaten Gibraltar and our armies in the Peninsula, and even perhaps build up enough strength to launch an attack on Great Britain itself.”

  A hush falls over Cerberus as the captain speaks. “Incorruptible and Revanche are jewels in the crown of Boney’s Navy. Forty guns, seven thousand tons, one hundred and fifty feet of warship each. The safety of Malta, our position in the Mediterranean and the existence of the Empire is at stake as long as they sail. We have been tasked by the King himself to capture them if possible, or send them to the bottom if necessary. We will re-provision and make repairs at Gibraltar. Make sail! We are for the Mediterranean and war with Napoleon!”

  Chapter 24

  Cerberus’ regular crew return from the Russian gunboats, replaced by sailors from Caledonia. Our wounded are taken aboard the flagship, several dozen kegs of beer, rum, water and beef are loaded into our hold, food and drink enough to last until Gibraltar, and when we are ready, the helmsman adjusts our course.

  Instead of turning due west into the Thames, we are now heading southwest through the English Channel, Unicorn off our port bow, skirting the coastline of Kent and East Sussex.

  “What’s that o’er there?” I ask Bill as a long line of white rises above the distant English shore. We are on deck, Bill, Little Fred and I, waiting for our watch to begin. I can’t think of a time I felt more defeated and am trying to forget about my dashed hopes.

  “Dover. The White Cliffs. They’re a landmark of sorts, for sailors coming home — and leaving it. I wonder if we’ll ever see them again. Russian gunboats are one thing. The French are something else entirely.”

  “If we ever see them again,” I say. “Why does it seem that whenever the blasted British Empire has a problem I’m sent to help fix it?”

  “Come now, Trap,” encourages Bill. “Stiff upper lip as the proper gentlemen say. ’Tis only two ships we’re hunting. Surely Cerberus is equal to the task.”

  “Mayhaps. Mayhaps not.” Little Fred sombrely adjusts the newly acquired patch over the empty socket where his left eye used to be. Injured or not, neither he nor I have wounds serious enough to be excused from active duty. “Let’s not forget the French didn’t become masters of Europe without knowing how to win battles at land — and sea.”

  “No doubt Boney’s been knocked about,” says Bill, “but the French fleet ain’t no pushover. Besides, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more than two frigates waiting for us off the coast of Sicily or wherever else we’re sailing.”

  We make our way south, past the coasts of France and Spain. As we sail, the weather warms, and the sun beats down harshly onto the deck of the ship and the backs of the men.

  In response, most of us have taken to going shirtless on duty and off, thick clothes we wore in the cold waters of the Baltic tucked away in our chests. Our skin browns, glowing with a constant sheen of sweat.

  Below decks the air is stuffy, the heat insufferable. We sleep in the open air, in corners of the deck where we won’t get in the way of the duty watch.

  Bill, Little Fred and I have been reassigned. We are still responsible for a gun, but we now fire one of the 24-pound carronades on the forecastle, on the open deck in front of the foremast.

  The carronade is usually manned by the best gunners. Captain Whitby apparently counts us amongst that number for the work we did to sink the Russian ship. We have a new member of our gun crew as well.

  Young Peter, the powder monkey who fetched us shot back in the Baltic, has been promoted to sponger on our gun crew. He is but a lad, barely into his teens, but in the eyes of the Royal Navy he is a man and a sailor.

  “The carronade is a nasty piece of work, lads,” says Gunner Rowe as he trains us on the new weapon. “Easy to move up and down, and pivot left to right. You’ll be gun captain, Trap,” he tells me. “Your mates will help load and sponge.”

  “Aye, Gunner,” I say.

  “A sharpshooter like you will put it to maximum effect,” Rowe adds. “The carronade fires balls like the guns below, but when we meet the French you’ll be firing grapeshot and chains into the sails, the rigging and the bodies of anyone unfortunate enough to be in your line of fire.”

  * * *

  “That’s Portugal you see, lads,” says Lieutenant Wilson as a rocky brown coastline appears to the east a week later. We’ve sailed through the rough waters of the Bay of Biscay and now speed our way south, almost out into the wide open Atlantic.

  “As we speak, the British Army is meeting the French on the field somewhere over there. I’d not give up the sea for almost anything, but to fight alongside General Wellesley? That would be a remarkable experience.”

  “Sir, who’s General Wellesley?” I ask.

  “Wellesley’s the commander of British forces on the Peninsula,” Wilson says. “He’s an absolute genius at war. The Royal Navy can keep Napoleon at bay for years, but to truly defeat him, the Army will have to win on land, and there’s no better man to lead our forces to victory than Wellesley.”

  Fortunately, the land war is not our concern. And once we clear Cape St. Vincent, the southern tip of Portugal, we turn due east to enter the Mediterranean, with worried thoughts of French warships occupying our minds.

  The mood on board is mixed. The professional sailors take the new target in stride. War is their job — they sail to wherever the fight is and will do their duty with grim determination. Some even cheer the thought of going after Napoleon’s ships.

  Most of the pressed men, myself amongst them, however, are angry at the change of plans. The Baltic had been a short campaign, and many of us looked forward to ending our service. We all have our reasons to want off Cerberus. I don’t know how quite yet, but I will leave this ship anyway I can and make my way back to England.

  These thoughts swirl through my head as we continue east. “The Pillars of Hercules,” says Bill, as two large mountains appear in the distance, one on either side of the strait. “The Rock of Gibraltar to the north and Jebel Musa to the south. They mark the entrance of the Mediterranean. Africa and Europe, separated by less than eight miles.”

  The Pillars of Hercules.

  It is easy to see why the large stone crags have earned that name. As we sail through the Strait of Gibraltar, I can easily imagine that ancient hero, perched either foot on top of them, surveying the world from up high.

  The sails flutter for a moment as Cerberus changes direction, now sailing towards the Rock of Gibraltar. Within a few hours we enter the port. The day has been fiercely hot, and we are grateful when the sun dips behind the Rock and for the cooling wind that blows off the sea.

  Cerberus and Unicorn tie up alongside a long breakwater in the harbour. Above us, creeping up the brown hills, are a patchwork tangle of stone houses, packed tightly together on narrow streets. The harbour itself is just as crowded.

  At least three other frigates, one ship of the line and any number of smaller vessels, all flying the Union Jack, are berthed along the docks or at anchor in the harbour.

  “Right lads,” says Bosun Watson, once the victualling crew has been assembled. Fresh food and grog is on the dock. “Load
’em up and stow ’em below.”

  Empty kegs that once held water, pickled beef, beer and any number of other foodstuffs are quickly replaced by heavy sealed-oak casks full of the food, water and beer that will sustain us as we prowl the Mediterranean, seeking out the French vessels audacious enough to seize English merchant ships.

  “Trap! Get dockside and help those swabbies out!” says Watson after a barrel nearly slides out of the netting into the dirty water of the port. “The food’s bad enough in the Navy without letting it take a swim in the sea.”

  “Aye, bosun.” I walk gingerly down the gangplank. For the last three months I’ve been at sea, my legs have been accustomed to the swaying of the deck below me. To move about on wood that doesn’t rock below me is unsettling, and I nearly fall several times.

  “Avast!” laughs Watson, to the merriment of the crew. “Get your legs beneath you and see to the barrels! What kind of marksman can’t handle a little stroll portside?”

  I help the stevedores load the kegs and crates into the nets as the crew on Cerberus hauls them up with the davits, then carries them below decks.

  Within two hours we are resupplied, then the ship is turned over to the carpenters. Soon the entire side of Cerberus swarms with men swinging hammers and wielding saws. I watch them work until the whistle blows for dinner. We’ve eaten nothing but wormy and rancid food for the last months and I’m eager to have a dinner of fresh beef and biscuits, untouched by the weevils.

  “How long do ye think we’ll be in port?” I ask Bill.

  “As short a time as possible, I hope. I hate this damnable hot weather. I’d rather fight the entire French fleet than spend another night in this oven!”

  Chapter 25

  Yankee Bill gets his wish four days later. Fully victualled, and with the dockyard carpenters completing the repairs, we slip out onto the still waters of Gibraltar harbour, though we are two crewmen lighter.

  Two pressed men from the port watch who’d come aboard with me at Deptford have disappeared, vanishing sometime in the night. I had considered it myself, was even asked to join them, but Bill, like Tom when we sailed from London, counselled me out of it.

  “I’m glad you listened to reason and stayed aboard,” says Bill, after we’ve searched the ship fruitlessly from the bilge to the masts for the missing men. “It’s death to desert ship here. Gibraltar’s a pinprick of land, crawling with British sailors, soldiers and Royal Marines.”

  “What do ye mean?” I ask. “I thought pressed men weren’t executed fer leaving the ship?”

  “Not by the Royal Navy they ain’t,” Bill says. “A few lashes and its back on board, but a far worse fate is waiting for those who try to escape the Rock overland. They’d die of thirst, get picked up by the Spanish as spies or captured by the French and shot. Life on Cerberus ain’t grand, but believe me, Trap, there are far worse captains to sail for than Captain Whitby.”

  I take Bill at his word. Many of the crew have sailed on different ships, both navy and merchant. They have both tales and the scars of the cat to vouch for the cruelty of their former captains.

  “Eyes on the sea at all times,” says Lieutenant Wilson as Gibraltar disappears from sight behind us. “The French could be anywhere. This close to Africa, Barbary Corsairs plague these waters, too. They’d love to catch a frigate like us unawares, and I’d prefer not to end up in the slave markets of Tunis if I can help it.”

  “Who are the Corsairs, Sir?”

  “Pirates from the North African coast, Stuart,” Wilson says grimly. “Arabs for the most part, but more than a few Europeans sail in their ranks, seizing merchant ships then selling their crews into slavery. Worse than the French, the Corsairs are. I hope we see one. I’d like nothing better than to send them to Davy Jones’ locker.”

  * * *

  Two days out of Gibraltar, the Mediterranean belongs to Cerberus and Unicorn. We sail northeast right in the middle of the sea, far from both the European and African coast. We see no French warships or pirate vessels, nor do we lay eyes on any of the coast-clinging fishing and transport ships that ply the waters closer to shore. We are alone on the green sea, scudding towards Sicily and the last known location of the French frigates.

  Even with the wind, the heat is oppressive, as hot or hotter as it ever was in the desert wastelands above Fraser’s River, but at least we have an ample supply of water stored in the kegs below decks. I know how horribly thirst can burn the throat of a traveller who has run dry.

  Most of the crew wear nothing but our linen breeches and kerchiefs tied around either our necks or foreheads. Shoes have long been put aside, and we are all burned nut-brown by the sun.

  By mid-afternoon of our third day from Gibraltar, however, the temperature drops, the skies overhead darken and the wind slackens. It is an ominous sign, one I recognize from my trip across the Atlantic.

  Bosun Watson eyes the rapidly blackening sky as well. “Storm coming, Sir.”

  “Indeed it is,” says Lieutenant Wilson. “Make ready the ship.”

  “All hands! Reef the sails!” commands the bosun. “Batten hatches and secure the deck. Smartly now, lads! Weather’s fast approaching. Boney can wait for us to ride the gale out.”

  The topmen quickly scramble up the masts to pull in canvas. The wind is coming directly behind us, and only a few sails are needed to keep us moving and on course.

  “Grab a hammer, Trap,” says Bill, as he takes a handful of tarpaulins, nails and wooden slats from a chest on the deck. The hatches that lead to the gun decks are covered with a latticed hatch. In rough seas or when the rain falls heavily, our job is to cover the hatches with the tarps then nail them down with the wooden battens to hold them in place.

  “Nervous?” Bill asks me as we go about our work.

  “Aye.” I know first-hand the damage a storm can cause. I think back to the Sylph, to hours spent on the pump, trying desperately to keep the ship afloat. I remember poor old Francis, crushed by a falling spar, his body swept overboard.

  I saved Tom’s life that day. He had been caught in the webbing, dangling over the black Atlantic. My hand the only thing keeping him alive. Who could have known that day that we would sail together again, Tom and I, or that he would die on board Cerberus, fighting the Russians in service to his country.

  There is little time to waste on these sad memories, however. The storm is quickly upon us. It seems not as rough as the gale that engulfed the Sylph. I’m not sure if that’s because the storm is smaller or that Cerberus is a larger ship, able to better withstand the wave and wind that slam into our sides, tossing us about like a cork on the water.

  On the quarterdeck, Captain Whitby, Lieutenant Murray and Second Lieutenant Wilson stand beside the helmsman. Captain Whitby issues commands with a quiet confidence, seemingly unfazed by the tempest. This is the Royal Navy after all, and routines are carried on, regardless of the weather.

  Dressed in waterproof oilers, we take our turns on watch, manning the bilge pumps, replacing tarpaulins that blow off the hatches, and keeping our eyes on the rigging, the sails and the horizon, alert for any shredded canvas or broken line.

  When we are not on watch, we try our best to catch some snatches of sleep, though rest is almost impossible with the water streaming through gaps in the decking and our hammocks rocking violently with every roll.

  When we don’t sleep we stick to our regular tasks, including eating. With the storm, however, the cook has extinguished the fire, and serves us cold beef and biscuits, though most of us — including me — are too sick to eat much at all.

  “Masthead there! Off the starboard bow!” cries a lookout at dusk on the second day of the storm. He is scarcely heard above the wind that howls through the sheets and rigging, or the peals of thunder that ring across the black sky, illuminated by forks of crackling lighting.

  “Beat to quarters!” cries Bosun Watson as Bill and I make our way to the carronade. Below decks the gun crews will be scurrying to their cannons, preparing
to rain iron and death upon whoever sails ahead of us, should the order be given.

  “How on earth are we to fire a gun in this weather?” I ask. The rain is coming down in sheets, and the deck heaves up and down, left to right, with every wave. “A dinnae ken if I could aim a pistol in this storm, let alone a ship’s cannon.”

  “Hopefully we won’t have to, Trap,” Bill says. “It’s hard enough fighting the weather. Let’s pray it’s a fishing vessel.”

  Captain Whitby has his glass pressed firmly to his eye, trying to make out the nature of the distant sails that appear and disappear with every roll of the waves. “What do you see, Sir?” asks Second Lieutenant Wilson.

  “Frigate by the looks of it,” Whitby replies. “I’d stake my life on it.”

  “The Unicorn?” Since the storm began, we have been blown away from our sister ship and have lost sight of her.

  “I don’t think so.” Whitby’s eyeglass still trains on the distant ship. “Lines are wrong, sails are wrong. Whoever she is, that ship isn’t one of ours.”

  “Algerians, perhaps?” says Murray. “Look to the stern. Do you see a red triangle? It could be the Mashouda, the Barbary flagship. Do we go after it? These damned pirates have been plaguing these waters for years. This could be our chance to strike a blow at the very heart of the Barbary Coast itself!”

  “There’s a flag all right,” says Captain Whitby grimly, lowering the glass. “White with a red, white and blue canton in the corner. Not pirates, French for sure, and we’re gaining on her!”

  “Incorruptible or Revanche?” Not that it matters to Lieutenant Murray by the excitement in his voice. Nor does he care how fiercely the wind blows. He is a warrior and a patriot. He would follow the French into a hurricane if it meant striking a blow at the heart of Napoleon Bonaparte’s Navy.

  “I can’t read the name, Sir,” Second Lieutenant Wilson tells him, “but one of them for sure. Do we engage? In this weather? Sink or capture, the orders were. A French frigate would make a fine prize, but the seas are too rough to board her. We’d have to send her to the bottom.”