Sea Fever

by Sam Jefferson

  We got on pretty well till about two o’clock in the morning, when the man at the helm, unable to wake the other two seamen to fetch him a drop of wine, thought he might trust the brig to steer herself for a minute, while he quenched his thirst at the wine-cask: the vessel instantly broached to, that is, came with her broadside to the wind and sea, and away went the mainmast by the board. Fortunately, the foremast stood. The man who had just quitted the helm had not time to get drunk, and the other two were so much frightened that they got sober. We cleared the wreck as well as we could, got her before the wind again, and continued on our course. But a British sailor, the most daring of all men, is likewise the most regardless of warning or of consequences. The loss of the mainmast, instead of showing my men the madness of their indulgence in drink, turned the scale the opposite way. If they could get drunk with two masts, how much more could they do so with one, when they had only half as much sail to look after? With such a rule of three there was no reasoning; and they got drunk, and continued drunk during the whole passage.

  It was in this pickled state that the vessel approached Europa Point, the entrance into Algeciras Bay and the safety of Gibraltar. Marryat ordered the anchor to be attached to its hawser and made the fatal mistake of believing his men when they said it had been done. With the wind blowing fresh into the bay, the disabled vessel sped in at a fair pace amid urgent hails from the surrounding craft at anchor to shorten sail post haste. Unfortunately, his inebriated crew were unable to obey this order and the vessel ran on until she collided with a fishing smack. This brought down her foremast and solved the problem of shortening sail. Unfortunately the travails of the young midshipman were not yet over, for his next move was to give the order to let go the anchor, which was done smartly enough by his drunken crew, but it was soon clear that, although they had claimed to have tied the hawser onto the end of it, they not done so. The anchor therefore kissed the mud of Algeciras Bay, and no doubt held well, but the completely dismasted ship, now anchorless, drifted on until she finally came to a standstill by running afoul of a troop ship, whose crew were kind enough to assist, bringing the brig to rest.

  Thus ended a disastrous journey and Marryat must have awaited with some trepidation the arrival of the Imperieuse and Cochrane. Yet he needn’t have worried, for once Marryat had explained himself, his captain was very understanding and actually praised the boy for bringing the boat to safety in the face of such adversity.

  It was now 1808 and Marryat had been two years in the service. During that time he had seen more adventure than most saw in a lifetime and could count himself extremely lucky to be alive. Yet there was much more action to come, for in February of that year the French turned on their erstwhile allies, the Spanish, and attempted an invasion of the Iberian Peninsula. In the process, Britain gained a new ally, which Marryat recalled was greeted with disgust by many aboard Imperieuse, as it meant there was far less scope for capturing prizes. If this was a loss to some, it meant that the frigate’s work became much more varied and Cochrane was to distinguish himself again. His most notable achievement during this period was his service during the siege of Rosas, where he holed up his forces within a fort which was ‘little more than rubble’ and proceeded to play a key part in holding up the advancing French army for over a month. As Marryat noted: ‘In this instance a mere handful of seamen detained the whole French army for more than six weeks. In this long contest we lost only seventeen men of our ship’s company killed and wounded.’

  Marryat also draws a wonderful picture of Cochrane during this siege as he strolled through the battlefield apparently immune to the many sharpshooters who had been stationed to pick off the British within the fort. Despite the danger, Cochrane did not deem it necessary to increase his pace, to the dismay of Marryat:

  I felt bound in honour as well as duty to walk by the side of my captain, fully expecting every moment that a rifle-ball would have hit me where I should have been ashamed to show the scar. I thought this funeral pace, after the funeral was over, confounded nonsense; but my fire-eating captain never had run away from a Frenchman, and did not intend to begin then. I was behind him, making these reflections, and as the shot began to fly very thick, I stepped up alongside of him, and by degrees brought him between me and the fire. ‘Sir,’ said I, ‘as I am only a midshipman, I don’t care so much about honour as you do; and therefore, if it makes no difference to you, I’ll take the liberty of getting under your lee.’ He laughed, and said, ‘I did not know you were here, for I meant you should have gone with the others; but, since you are out of your station, I will make that use of you which you so ingeniously proposed to make of me. My life may be of some importance here; but yours very little, and another midshipman can be had from the ship only for asking: so just drop astern, if you please, and do duty as a breastwork for me!’

  Cochrane and his men finally quit their stronghold at the fort after most of the port of Rosas had been reduced to ruins and the Spanish forces in the town had surrendered. Nevertheless, the delay caused to the French army would play a key part in how the war played out, as it gave the Spanish a chance to galvanise their forces in Barcelona.

  Shortly after this dramatic event, the Imperieuse turned her back on the conflict and made her way home to England, dropping the hook in the familiar waters of Plymouth Sound in February 1809 and allowing all aboard a welcome respite from the rigours of war. But this was to be a mere prelude to the final piece of serious action that Marryat would see against the French: the battle of Basque Roads, a skirmish so bewildering that even though it ended in victory for the British, it forced Cochrane to resign his post and led to the Commander, Lord Gambier, being labelled as unfit for his post and court-martialled.

  The premise behind the conflict was simple enough: the French fleet had been able to gather together an impressive array of warships, which had joined forces at Rochefort. The size of the fleet gathered was seen as a threat to British national security, and the channel fleet, under the command of Lord Gambier, was despatched to blockade them into the Basque Roads, which is the entrance to Rochefort and was overlooked by the guns of the Ile d’Aix. It was a well-protected haven and the only real risk came from fire-ships being sent into the bay. In order to protect against this, the French had rigged up a boom across the channel entrance, made up of huge pieces of timber lashed together and anchored in place. Lord Gambier declared the barrier impassable. He was therefore happy to sit out to sea and maintain the blockade. This stalemate continued for several weeks, and many senior captains were incensed by Gambier’s somewhat passive approach. The decision was therefore taken by the Admiralty to dispatch the Imperieuse to the area and see if Cochrane and his men could find a means of breaching the boom and destroying the French fleet. Cochrane’s quick mind rapidly saw a way through.

  His plan was simple: he proposed to rip apart the barricade with thirteen ‘explosion vessels’, little more than very primitive floating mines. With the barricade blown, a stream of fire-ships would follow in and wreak destruction on the fleet trapped within. All Cochrane needed was a north-west wind, a favourable tide and the cover of darkness. All these factors conspired in his favour on the night of 2 April, and Marryat volunteered his services for a place in one of the explosion vessels. I can do no better than quote his own account of what ensued:

  The night was very dark, and it blew a strong breeze directly in upon the Isle d’Aix, and the enemy’s fleet. Two of our frigates had been previously so placed as to serve as beacons to direct the course of the fire-ships. They each displayed a clear and brilliant light; the fire-ships were directed to pass between these; after which, their course up to the boom which guarded the anchorage was clear, and not easily to be mistaken.

  I solicited and obtained permission to go on board one of the explosion vessels that were to precede the fire-ships. They were filled with layers of shells and powder, heaped one upon another: the quantity on board of each vessel was enormous. Another officer, three seamen, and my
self, were all that were on board of her. We had a four-oared gig, a small, narrow thing [nick-named ‘a coffin’ by the sailors], to make our escape in. Being quite prepared, we started. It was a fearful moment; the wind freshened, and whistled through our rigging, and the night was so dark that we could not see our bowsprit. We had only our foresail set; but with a strong flood-tide and a fair wind, with plenty of it, we passed between the advanced frigates like an arrow. It seemed to me like entering the gates of hell. As we flew rapidly along, and our ships disappeared in the intense darkness, I thought of Dante’s inscription over the portals: – ‘You who enter here, leave hope behind.’

  Our orders were to lay the vessel on the boom which the French had moored to the outer anchors of their ships of the line. In a few minutes after passing the frigates, we were close to it; our boat was towing astern, with three men in it – one to hold the rope ready to let go, one to steer, and one to bail the water out, which, from our rapid motion, would otherwise have swamped her. The officer who accompanied me steered the vessel, and I held the match in my hand. We came upon the boom with a horrid crash; he put the helm down, and laid her broadside to it. The force of the tide acting on the hull, and the wind upon the foresail, made her heel gunwale to, and it was with difficulty I could keep my legs; at this moment the boat was very near being swamped alongside. They had shifted her astern, and there the tide had almost lifted her over the boom; by great exertion they got her clear, and lay upon their oars: the tide and the wind formed a bubbling short sea, which almost buried her. My companion then got into the boat, desiring me to light the port-fire and follow. If ever I felt the sensation of fear, it was after I had lighted this port-fire, which was connected with the train. Until I was fairly in the boat, and out of the reach of the explosion – which was inevitable, and might be instantaneous – the sensation was horrid. I was standing on a mine; any fault in the port-fire, which sometimes will happen; any trifling quantity of gunpowder lying in the interstices of the deck, would have exploded the whole in a moment: had my hand trembled, which I am proud to say it did not, the same might have occurred.

  Only one minute and a half of port-fire was allowed. I had therefore no time to lose. The moment I had lit it, I laid it down very gently, and then jumped into the gig, with a nimbleness suitable to the occasion. We were off in a moment: I pulled the stroke oar, and I never plied with more zeal in all my life: we were not two hundred yards from her when she exploded. A more terrific and beautiful sight cannot be conceived; but we were not quite enough at our ease to enjoy it.

  The shells flew up in the air to a prodigious height, some bursting as they rose, and others as they descended. The shower fell about us, but we escaped without injury. We made but little progress against the wind and tide; and we had the pleasure to run the gauntlet among all the other fire-ships, which had been ignited, and bore down on us in flames fore and aft. Their rigging was hung with Congreve rockets; and as they took fire they darted through the air in every direction, with an astounding noise, looking like large fiery serpents.

  In actual fact, this daring plan was almost scuppered by the indiscipline of those manning the fireships. Marryat refers to having to row back through these ships as they exploded, because the sailors aboard had lost their nerve and abandoned their combustible charges far too soon, leaving them to drift out of control and miss their target. Fortunately, the French vessels within the anchorage panicked at this pyrotechnic display and promptly cut their anchor cables in a desperate attempt to escape the perceived danger. With wind and tide against them, they soon ran afoul of the mudbanks off Rochefort and by morning they were high, dry and helpless as they awaited the flood tide to refloat them. Cochrane saw the opportunity for total destruction of the fleet and proceeded to bring the Imperieuse in close in order to rake the French with gunfire. Unfortunately for the captain, repeated requests for backup from Gambier’s Channel Fleet, some 14 miles out to sea, were ignored and the Imperieuse was actually ordered to return to safety. All aboard the frigate knew that there were only a few hours before the French refloated and were anxious to destroy them in the meantime. To this end, Cochrane took the desperate measure of drifting within range of the French Batteries on the Ile d’Aix and then signalling that he needed help. This finally spurred Gambier to allow Cochrane two frigates, which worked with the Imperieuse to destroy several of the French ships. After a couple of hours, however, they were once more called off. As dusk fell the Imperieuse reluctantly returned to the main fleet and was promptly despatched back to England. All aboard were utterly infuriated at witnessing the opportunity to obliterate the French fleet being wilfully thrown away.

  Back home, the action was initially seen as a roaring success, but soon the outspoken Cochrane made it clear how much more significant the victory should have been. The upshot was that the Admiralty was compelled to court martial Gambier, but it was in the interests of nobody within the Royal Navy to humiliate this high ranking man and, in order to save embarrassment, the Admiralty took the pragmatic route and cleared him of any wrongdoing. In the circumstances, they also thought it wise to dispense with the services of the troublesome Cochrane, who went on to serve in the Chilean and Greek navies and was finally reinstated to the British Navy in 1832.

  Marryat’s final cruise with Cochrane was evidently as dramatic as anything he had seen before, and there is no doubt that during the three years Marryat worked for him he was well aware that he was rubbing shoulders with one of the greats. Marryat never felt anything other than devotion and admiration for the brilliant commander who became the template for several of his fictional captains in later novels. With Cochrane’s departure, some of the fire also left Marryat’s life, and the wistfulness for those three glorious years of intense action must have spurred him on in his evocative portrayals of a heroic era.

  Marryat’s time aboard the Imperieuse was also nearly up. His final act aboard was an abortive mission to the Dutch Scheldt that ended in embarrassment for the Admiralty and a bout of Walcheren fever (a combination of malaria and typhoid) for Marryat who was invalided home. This was the end of his service aboard the Imperieuse.

  It was now the summer of 1809 and, given the incident that had already been crammed in to Marryat’s short life, it is hard to believe that he had only just turned 18. By now he was a strongly built lad, certainly more capable of looking after himself than most. He had gone to sea a tearaway and a worry to his family, but the service was moulding him into a reliable officer and a sailor who feared very little. In his personal life there are clear hints that, with his sharp wit, good looks and gentlemanly demeanour, he was something of a ladies man. Sadly any romantic liaisons were carefully expunged from his records by Florence Marryat, his daughter and first biographer.

  He was not to receive his promotion to lieutenant until 1813 and spent most of that time in the Caribbean and the US. He initially returned to the Mediterranean aboard the Centaur, where he again distinguished himself by jumping overboard to rescue a man who had fallen from aloft. After this, he was solidly occupied on various duties protecting the colonies in the Caribbean and latterly playing a part in the American conflict of 1812, wherein the powerful American frigates cut quite a dash in a number of ship–to-ship battles that made the British Navy question – for the first time in many years – just how effective their officers and ships really were. While stationed in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Marryat yet again swam to the rescue of a man who was drowning in the harbour and for this he received a special commendation.

  The most notable incident of these years occurred while he was serving aboard the HMS Aeolus, a 40-gun frigate commanded by Captain Townshend. In September of 1811, the Aeolus was cruising along the American coast when she was caught up in a hurricane and received such a savage pounding that all seemed lost, for the vessel was pinned over on her beam ends by the sheer power of the wind, and for a time it looked certain that she should founder. It was while the ship and crew were trapped in this desperate corne
r that Marryat was able to exhibit every ounce of his uncommonly high stock of courage. The first crisis came when one of the anchors came adrift and proceeded to swing around madly, threatening to smash the bow of the ship in. Marryat was alert to the danger and was daring enough to venture forward into the maelstrom of water and order it to be cut away. On the forecastle he found the men ‘clinging to the rigging and crying like children’, realising that this was not the time for hysterics he headed back to find his captain. The ship still lay over on her side to an alarming extent and Townshend realised the masts must be cut away. I will leave Marryat to relate the reminder of the tale:

  The danger of sending a man aloft was so imminent, that the captain would not order one on this service; but calling the ship’s company on the quarter-deck, pointed to the impending wreck, and by signs and gestures, and hard bawling, convinced them that unless the ship was immediately eased of her burden, she must go down. At this moment every wave seemed to make a deeper and more fatal impression on her. She descended rapidly in the hollows of the sea, and rose with dull and exhausted motion, as if she felt she could do no more. She was worn out in the contest, and about to surrender, like a noble and battered fortress, to the overwhelming power of her enemies.

  No man could be found daring enough, at the captain’s request, to venture aloft, and cut away the wreck of the main top-mast, and the main yard, which was hanging up and down, with the weight of the top-mast and topsail-yard resting upon it. There was a dead and stupid pause, while the hurricane, if anything, increased in violence. I confess that I felt gratified at this acknowledgment of a danger which none dared face. I waited a few seconds to see if a volunteer would step forward, resolved, if he did, that I would be his enemy for life, inasmuch as he would have robbed me of the gratification of my darling passion – unbounded pride. Dangers, in common with others, I had often faced, and been the first to encounter: but to dare that which a gallant and hardy crew of a frigate had declined, was a climax of superiority which I had never dreamed of attaining.