Seizing a sharp tomahawk, I made signs to the captain that I would attempt to cut away the wreck, follow me who dared. I mounted the weather-rigging; five or six hardy seamen followed me; sailors will rarely refuse to follow where they find an officer lead the way. The jerks of the rigging had nearly thrown us overboard, or jammed us with the wreck. We were forced to embrace the shrouds with arms and legs; and anxiously, and with breathless apprehension for our lives, did the captain, officers, and crew gaze on us as we mounted, and cheered us at every stroke of the tomahawk. The danger seethed passed when we reached the catharpings, where we had foot room. We divided our work; some took the lanyards of the top-mast rigging; I, the slings of the main yard. The lusty blows we dealt were answered by corresponding crashes; and at length, down fell the tremendous wreck over the larboard gunwale. The ship felt instant relief; she righted, and we descended amidst the cheers, the applauses, the congratulations, and, I may add, the tears of gratitude of most of our shipmates.
The work now became lighter, the gale abated every moment, the wreck was gradually cleared away, and we forgot our cares. This was the proudest moment of my life, and no earthly possession would I have taken in exchange for what I felt when I once more placed my foot on the quarter-deck. The approving smile of the captain – the hearty shake by the hand – the praises of the officers – the eager gaze of the ship’s company, who looked on me with astonishment and obeyed me with alacrity, were something in my mind, when abstractedly considered, but nothing compared to the inward feeling of gratified ambition – a passion so intimately interwoven in my existence, that to have eradicated it the whole fabric of my fame must have been demolished. I felt pride justified.
So the ship was saved and Marryat’s bravery was once more displayed to all. In 1812 he was sent home from America in order to sit his examination for commission as lieutenant. In January of the following year he was appointed second lieutenant aboard HMS Espiegle, commanded by Captain Taylor and bound for the Americas. Marryat made haste from his father’s home to Spithead, where he observed his new ship ‘a most beautiful vessel. She mounted 18 guns, and sat on the water like a duck’. It was a proud moment for Marryat; the reward for many years of danger and hardship, but his elation was to be short lived. Even as he surveyed his new vessel he noted with surprise that she flew a pennant signifying that punishment was being carried out aboard. On alighting her deck, he found that one of her crewmembers was receiving an extremely severe flogging for what he discovered was a minor offence, and he eyed Captain Taylor with concern. His worries proved to be well founded, for the skipper soon proved himself a crass, uncouth bully and tyrant. What must have grated most with Marryat was that he was a coward, as demonstrated shortly after arrival on the opposite side of the Atlantic, when Taylor, through a mixture of bad seamanship and indolence, completely failed to catch the USS Hornet, a sloop of war which attacked and sank the HMS Peacock within sight of the Espiegle. Taylor was ashore at the time and delayed his departure to such an extent that he seemed to deliberately allow the Hornet to escape. When the Espiegle finally started out in apparent pursuit of the Hornet, it was soon clear that the course set meant the two vessels were actually slowly diverging away from each other. On this occasion, Marryat felt he had to speak up and asked Taylor if he should consider changing course; he was told in no uncertain terms to hold his tongue.
Shortly after this, Marryat again found himself in the drink rescuing another hapless colleague who had fallen in the water. Unfortunately for Marryat, the Espiegle was moving at pace when the incident happened and Captain Taylor handled her clumsily in his reluctant efforts to retrieve both crewmember and second lieutenant. By the time a boat arrived, Marryat had been compelled to let the drowning seaman slip from his grasp and was all but finished himself, having resigned himself to death when he was fished out. Shortly after the Espiegle’s arrival in Barbados, Marryat was invalided out of the ship after bursting two blood vessels in his lungs. This was doubtless a result of the overexertions he had endured during his failed rescue attempt, but it did at least mean he escaped from the tyranny and incompetence of Captain Taylor. Marryat was doubtless delighted when, shortly after his departure, Taylor was court martialled and dismissed due to his brutal treatment of his crew and the complete failure of his half-hearted pursuit of the Hornet.
After the incompetence and brutality of the loutish Captain Taylor, Marryat now experienced incompetence of a more refined nature, for shortly afterwards he joined the company of the HMS Newcastle, a 58-gun frigate commanded by Lord George Stuart, who Marryat later recalled:
… had a very good opinion of himself; proud of his aristocratic birth, and still more vain of his personal appearance. He had been many years at sea, but, strange to say, knew nothing, literally nothing, of his profession. Seamanship, navigation, and everything connected with the service, he was perfectly ignorant of.
Although this man was not a coward, he must have been utterly infuriating to work for, for he had a cold aristocratic bearing, which didn’t ride well beside his complete lack of knowledge of the sea. He was also a very vague man, as illustrated by the following recollection:
One day he went on deck, and actually gave me the following very intelligible order: ‘Mr What’s-his-name, have the goodness to—what-do-ye-call-’em – the – the thingumbob.’ ‘Ay, ay, my lord!’ said I. ‘Afterguard, haul taut the weather main-brace!’ This was exactly what he meant.
His chilly indifference to his officers was very nearly the end of Marryat. While cruising off the American coast in the winter of 1814, Stuart despatched Marryat ashore to retrieve his gig (or thingumbob, as he referred to it), which had broken adrift and floated into Boston Bay, enemy territory, where it had naturally been seized. This was a far from necessary mission, but Marryat was obliged to take it up. He did, however, ask for his party to be armed, which Stuart refused, stating that it was all a misunderstanding and the townspeople would give his gig back once they realised their mistake. Marryat rightly deduced this might not be the case and covertly armed his company before they headed out into the lacerating cold. On arriving in Boston Bay, they were met with a hostile reception. There was no sign of the gig and Marryat determined to ‘cut out’ some shipping anchored off. This was successfully achieved, the original crew was split between the two seized vessels, and the pair of boats headed offshore back to the Newcastle. The weather worsened to an onshore gale with blizzard conditions and one of the prizes and her eleven crew were driven ashore and lost. Marryat and his men were compelled to anchor in this vulnerable spot and, after a night of extreme privation, all aboard knew they had little option other than to run the boat ashore and surrender, or die where they were. They chose the former but just as they were within striking distance of the shore they were saved by a wind shift, which drove them helplessly offshore again. Salvation was some distance away, however, for the Newcastle had not even bothered to await their return. On finally chasing down the frigate, Marryat immediately went below to report the various mishaps and the unfortunate death of eleven seamen.
I was mad with hunger and cold, and with difficulty did we get up the side, so exhausted and feeble were the whole of us. I was ordered down into the cabin, for it was too cold for the captain to show his face on deck. I found his lordship sitting before a good fire, with his toes in the grate; a decanter of Madeira stood on the table, with a wine-glass, and most fortunately, though not intended for my use, a large rummer. This I seized with one hand and the decanter with the other; and, filling a bumper, swallowed it in a moment, without even drinking his lordship’s good health. He stared, and I believe thought me mad. I certainly do own that my dress and appearance perfectly corresponded with my actions. I had not been washed, shaved, or ‘cleaned,’ since I had left the ship, three days before. My beard was grown, my cheeks hollow, my eyes sunk, and for my stomach, I leave that to those fortunate Frenchmen who escaped from the Russian campaign, who only can appreciate my sufferings. My whole hag
gard frame was enveloped in a huge blue flushing coat frosted like a plum-cake with ice and snow.
As soon as I could speak, I said, ‘I beg pardon, my lord, but I have had nothing to eat or drink since I left the ship.’ ‘Oh, then you are very welcome,’ said his lordship; ‘I never expected to see you again.’ ‘Then why the devil did you send me?’ thought I to myself.
With such remarkable commanders as these, it is a wonder a diligent and headstrong officer like Marryat was able to stick with the service. What is perhaps unsurprising is that he was once again struck down with the same respiratory problem that had afflicted him aboard Espiegle and was invalided back to Britain in February 1815, where he made a full recovery.
In June of the same year, he achieved the rank of captain. Finally he had scaled the peak that his years of diligent service merited. Yet it was to be something of a pyrrhic victory for Marryat: the Napoleonic Wars, which had propelled his career along with such speed, ended abruptly with the Battle of Waterloo just days after he received his promotion. Given that the conflict with the US had also been settled, the British Government suddenly found itself with an utterly bloated navy. If Marryat was hoping for a ship, he was going to have to compete with the 800 or so out-of-work captains who were currently laid up on half pay with little prospect of getting to sea again. It would be five years before Marryat was given his coveted first command – and he could count himself fortunate to gain that, for unemployment was still high within the navy. In this prolonged interval between ships, Marryat was not idle ashore, publishing his signalling codes, which provided a universal set of flags for merchant vessels to communicate both to the shore and also with other ships. This system proved to be a big success and was still widely in use as late as the 1880s.
He was already entertaining himself by reminiscing over his life as a midshipman, and lampooning some of its absurdities in a popular series of caricatures entitled The Midshipman’s Progress, or the life of Mr Blockhead, engraved by his friend, George Cruikshank. Marryat was far from an accomplished artist, but his caricatures had enough vigour and wit to chime with the British public and they became very popular. In addition to this, Marryat had married the rather dour Catherine Shairp in 1818. This union with a somewhat puritanical Scotswoman might seem to indicate that he was preparing to settle down. In direct contradiction of this he became increasingly close to London’s bohemian set, who loved his ready wit and general swashbuckling air. Marryat also had the sailor’s traditional inability to look after his money and, being a wealthy man, he was boundlessly generous. It is likely that this combination of rambunctiousness and wastefulness made his wife supremely relieved to see him embark aboard the HMS Beaver, although she was probably alarmed that he had been despatched to St Helena, where she would be engaged in patrolling the waters of Napoleon Bonaparte’s last home.
The Beaver was supposed to ensure that no insurgents were able to gain access to Bonaparte as he sat in exile on this lonely Atlantic island. There was still a fear that someone might smuggle him away to create further mischief, but the reality was that Napoleon was on his last legs. On 5 May 1821, he passed away. There was something rather poetic about the fact that Marryat, veteran of so many battles of the Napoleonic era, should be on hand when he died, and it is a shame his personal thoughts on witnessing the end of this little man, who had made such profound shockwaves throughout Europe, have not been preserved. Nevertheless, Marryat’s somewhat dubious artistic skills were now brought into action again and his rendering of Napoleon on his deathbed is still extant. Marryat returned to Britain in command of the HMS Rosario, bringing with him the dramatic news of Bonaparte’s death.
His next assignment was less exotic and closer to home, working to try and curb the rash of smugglers who operated along the British coastline. This could often be exciting work, involving epic chases and plenty of detective work, but Marryat plainly did not relish the task. This was probably because it involved going to war with fellow countrymen and sailors who were noted for their fine seamanship. If this was the case, he wasn’t detained too long in the process, for in 1822 the Rosario was found no longer fit for service and Marryat was back ashore on half pay. He must have looked back dewy eyed at his glory days with Cochrane at this point and wished he could be employed in some slightly more active service. In the meantime, he used all of his years of experience within the navy to publish two pamphlets, which were widely respected at the time. One was on methods of preventing smuggling and the other looked at serious reforms to the navy and in particular turned the spotlight on the unpopular policy of impressment.
While he was busy with this, he was further buoyed by news that he had been given command of the 28-gun frigate HMS Larne, which was to be despatched to Burma in order to help put down the uprising in this troublesome corner of the empire. Eight years after gaining his position of captain, Marryat was set to return to the battlefield. In reality, his role was limited but heroic, providing support for the British troops as they waged a war with the Burmese over control of territories inland of Rangoon. Marryat’s main task was patrolling steamy swamps and rivers and involved frequent skirmishes with Burmese war canoes, and a number of epic battles focused on the fortifications that lined the Irawaddy river. In the course of one such battle, victory came only at the price of 76 British lives, giving some indication of the intensity of the fighting.
Marryat was acquitting himself very well, but in the sweaty, tangled mangrove swamps of Rangoon and its environs, the British were very vulnerable to disease and it was to be this that finally defeated Marryat. Midway through the campaign he wrote this letter to his brother, which brings across some of the suffering he and his crew endured:
The Larne, with the remnants of a fine ship’s company, is at last removed from the scene of action, where perhaps, in the course of five months they have undergone a severity of service almost unequalled. I should still have been there, but the men had been on salt provisions since February last, and the scurvy broke out and made such ravages that it was impossible to stay longer without sacrificing the remaining men. I am not ill, but my head is so shattered with the fever which I have had, that it swims at the least exertion, and I am obliged to lay my pen down every four or five lines.
Despite this, Marryat returned to the battlefield for another stint and it would be several months more of this sweltering purgatory before he finally made his departure for home. This strenuous piece of action was to be his last real engagement with enemy forces, for with Napoleon gone and Britain fully established as the world’s leading power, peace and prosperity were the prevalent forces throughout the world, and Pax Britannica was only to be shattered on a large scale with the outbreak of World War One, many years distant. In the meantime, naval officers would have to satisfy themselves with more mundane tasks, and this was the fate to which Marryat resigned himself when he took command of the Ariadne, a 28-gun frigate, in 1828. He had now attained the rank of post captain and, if his career prospects looked rosy, his fortunes looked all the better. Following the death of his father in 1824 he had inherited £250,000, a sum of money that would make you the equivalent of a multi-millionaire in today’s terms. To add to his cup of happiness, he had a growing family, based in his plush home in London, and a lively group of friends from the bohemian set.
Yet it is clear that he was not satisfied and that, with so many adventures and achievements behind him, Marryat was starting to yearn for something else. Perhaps it was a pining for the golden days of his youth, when adventure had been a daily occurrence that made him turn to his writing desk and pick up his pen.
He had started making up some vague plans for a novel many years earlier when he was serving aboard HMS Beaver off St Helena. Slowly but surely these plans distilled into what was to become his first novel, entitled The Naval Officer; Adventures in the life of Frank Mildmay. He completed the final chapter aboard HMS Ariadne and the book was published anonymously in 1829. The novel essentially recounted his own naval
adventures, drawing heavily on his experiences under Cochrane and some of the later, less competent captains. Interwoven with this was a portrayal of Frank Mildmay, a young tearaway and relentlessly vindictive philanderer who still somehow triumphs in the end. He is one of the first anti-heroes to be portrayed in modern fiction and his creation was a brave step by Marryat, with unforeseen repercussions. The problem was that by interweaving his own adventures with fictional romantic conquests and acts of spitefulness on the part of Mildmay, it was easy to assume that this was a straightforward confessional autobiography of a cad and a bounder. The book may have been published anonymously, but the events related – including the Basque Roads adventure – were too high profile for Marryat not to be identified. Although the action scenes were often compelling, the book also rambled somewhat, and generally received a mixed reception.
In later years Marryat sought to clarify matters, explaining that although the ‘sea adventure’ scenes in the book were ‘materially true’, the hero of the book was fictitious, Marryat owning that, ‘Had I run the career of vice of the hero of the Naval Officer at all events I should have had sufficient sense of shame not to have avowed it.’ He also defended the slightly chaotic writing style by explaining that this was his ‘first attempt’ at a novel and that, ‘It was written hastily and before it was complete I was appointed to a ship. I cared much about the ship and little about the book.’
The ship in question was the Ariadne and if Marryat cared for her to start with, he was to become disillusioned, finding the life of a captain in peacetime relentlessly dull. His first task was to endeavour to find a submerged rock that had been reported off Ireland, or as he later put it in more forceful terms: ‘Searching for a rock in the Atlantic which never existed except in the terrified or intoxicated noddle of some master in the merchant navy.’ He made use of this time to make a start on his next novel, The King’s Own. This new account was more fictitious than the last but still drew very heavily on his own experiences and the stories he had heard from others. He was also developing the clear, conversational style that would run through all of his novels. To read a Marryat naval tale is like sitting down in a low-beamed tavern and listening to some old mariner spin a yarn, frequently deviating from the original storyline, and heading down some amusing and dangerous cul-de-sac. His books were peppered with his unique brand of lacerating wit and endless adventure. The Kings Own is a particularly salt-stained example of his work, for at one point he actually transports you aboard the Ariadne and to his writing desk, where he sits, his ship being tossed by a gale, and he clinging to his table attempting to write, his feet hooked into the table’s lashings to keep him from pitching over, and a river of water streaming across the deck above him. Such moments let you know you are in the hands of a real sailor. The King’s Own was also innovative for its time in that it does not have a happy ending. Marryat was already starting to make waves in this new forum.
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