Frederick sat back, glass in hand, sucking strands of beef from the gaps in his teeth. Atkinson was a younger son – like him – his only future his career; employment as post captain in the frigate he captured would send him home with a good ten thousand in his pocket, and halfpay of perhaps nine shillings a day when not appointed to ship or dockyard. A thousand would buy a respectable house and thirty good, enclosed acres of Home Farm; nine thousand in the 4 Per Cents gave an income of seven pounds a week in addition; a man could marry and raise his children comfortably on twenty nine shillings a day. A long war and Atkinson would be employed frequently, perhaps half of it at sea, there being normally two fit captains for each ship in commission, or had been in the American War. Depending on his luck he could hoist his flag a rich man – although he might spend the rest of the war on convoy and blockade and never see action again. But he had to make the first step, and, without influence, that could only be done by successful combat with a ship his superior in rate and power, and that could be bloody indeed, his promotion bought with his juniors’ deaths.
Horley, giggling over his wine, showed no evidence of thought at all, proposed a toast. “A Frog for breakfast, gentlemen!”
They drank, as courtesy insisted.
North and then west around the island, the sea empty, beating ten miles offshore against the wind before dark and then lying to before closing the shore under topsails alone to welcome first light.
“All hands! Clear for action, normal dawn routine, but silent, Mr Horley. I want the boats towing astern, their crews ready. Mr Harris, small arms for the boarders to be ready to hand. Mr Thomas, load grape. Mr Paston, charts to be ready for prize masters, our position pricked, course plotted for Antigua, allowing for probable winds, your mates and the midshipmen to have all explained, to be ready to go at a moment’s notice.”
Atkinson looked round the three officers. “Questions? No? Good! This routine is to be followed every morning from now forth, except I specifically vary it. Sidearms, gentlemen!”
Frederick took his pistols from the stand in his cabin, slowly stripped and cleaned them, painstakingly loaded each – powder, patch, ram, ball, wad, ram again, priming powder in the pan, hammer carefully laid flat. His father had had them built for him as a gift to mark passing for lieutenant. They were heavy, twelve gauge, the ball weighing – he calculated, sixteen divided by twelve – one and one third ounces, carefully cast and perfectly spherical. The pistols were rifled, six lands, three quarters of a turn, could hit a man-sized target at thirty yards; they were too good for the rough and tumble of a boarding where you would expend your single round and then beat the next man over the head with the empty barrel. He strapped the holsters to his belt, easing the eight inch barrels to comfort against his hips, stepped on deck a few minutes before quarters.
“A pretty pair of pistols, Mr Harris,” Atkinson commented. “Who made them?”
“Our local gunsmith, sir, in Waltham, Dick Makepeace, who was an armourer, Dragoon Guards, before setting up shop back at home. I understand he loves his pistols, although he has call for very few indeed – fowling pieces almost all that he handles.”
“Good, heavy weapons, Mr Harris – they look right. May I suggest that you reverse them? Butt forward, crossdraw, right hand to left and left to right. Much quicker, the locks can never snag in your clothing and the barrels are pointing away from your parts – shoot too soon and you’ll blow none of yourself away, sir!”
Atkinson watched as Frederick obediently swapped the holsters, helped him settle them. “Elbow radius, that’s the key, sir – your arm straight by your sides, reach across from the elbow at almost right angles, your hand falling naturally onto the butt – no need to look, to fumble about – just raise your arm as you straighten it and fire as if pointing a finger. You can point at anything, Mr Harris – and if the barrel is following the finger line, then you can hit anything, too.”
Frederick was unconvinced, but the Captain was second only to God, and that subordination was debatable on his own quarterdeck.
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir!”
A silent rush to quarters, no pipes, whispered roars of ‘Rise and Shine’; ludicrous, exaggerated tiptoes much in evidence – there were those who could be waggish even before the sun rose.
The carronades were cast loose, barrels run out; the chase guns followed nearly a minute later. Lookouts ran aloft, the swivels in the tops were manned, the marines stumbled silently to their stations, their boots unsuited to anything other than noisy cadences, the sail handlers stood waiting looking at the clean sweep of deck. Simple Simon was led to the waist to stand, staring vacantly at nothing; the commissioned and warrant officers took post. A sliver of sun rose to larboard, the island dark on the starboard quarter, a pair of topsails appeared, drawing out from a plantation wharf, Porson whispering.
“Offshore breeze, most dawns, sir, in the islands.”
Frederick nodded, smiled his thanks, called quietly to Brown to be ready.
“Courses!” Atkinson bellowed, shattering the tableau.
Athene leaned, picked up speed, swooped down on the trader, a fat, heavily laden brig with a crew of five very surprised men. One round from the larboard nine pounder, carefully wide, and she lay to the wind, sails flapping.
“Mr Gleeson! Take your three and run her down to Antigua.”
Eighty tons of sugar – a very profitable half hour’s labour, one that instantly persuaded the crew that the owner knew exactly what he was doing, was a good one to follow.
Continuing their patrol of the coast they came to a fishing village with a small quay and a single godown, mangrove swamps to the south, higher ground rising north and a four hundred ton ship tied up. There was a brown stone wall, six or seven feet high, dry laid, half hidden by cut palm fronds, a few yards back from a forty foot bluff looking out over the half-mile wide bay. There was the faintest wisp of smoke showing blue behind.
“Why build a wall there, gentlemen?” Atkinson asked.
They nodded – there was no agricultural explanation they could imagine. Paston squinted through his long brass telescope, adjusting the focus repeatedly. “Three, perhaps four, darker patches, sir, embrasures, I do believe. Naughty little Froggies who would hide the evidence of their malice from us! For they have digged a pit before me …”
“Yet it shall be they who fall in, Mr Paston! Mr Horley! Note well and observe, if you please! Do you see the gulley on the north of the bluff? It might well serve to take you up quietly without any grapnels or clambering. My Smith will lead the way and seek out any poor souls on sentry-go – he is good at that. Circle round the battery, come in behind it – use the grenadoes – take the guns and, if possible, turn them to cover the village and any militia there might be there. Our flag when you have possession and I shall bring Athene in to take the prize.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Both boats, you in the teak boat, senior master’s mate, Mr Ricketts in the other. Mr Woodgate with you to act as your runner. Full boarding parties. Number them, feed them, get them below to sleep the rest of daylight away; do the same yourself.”
Athene carried on down the coast, made a westing when out of sight, crept back before moonrise, sent the boats away with two miles to row, the bluff, notched by its gulley, clearly visible.
“Let us trust that no landsman saw us to be a ship of war when we sailed past this morning, Mr Harris – for if they did they may well be expecting a visit tonight, which could inconvenience Mr Horley more than a little.”
Frederick said nothing – there was nothing sensible to say. The loblolly boy came on deck, knuckled his forehead to him.
“Surgeon died ten minutes ago, sir, his mate reports.”
“A release from great pain, Mr Harris. Had he been my dog I would have shot him weeks ago to put him out of his misery – why is it that we treat humans so much less kindly?”
“I do not know, sir. The poor man suffered much and bore it well.”
&nbs
p; “All any of us can do, Mr Harris. Forty five minutes passed. They must be ashore by now.”
They waited, all preparations made and nothing to do except glance at their watches, keep a sharp lookout and cringe in anticipation of a sentry’s musket or, much worse, a sudden organised volley out of ambush.
The watch changed. Nobody left the deck.
“Two hours and a quarter, Mr Harris …”
Five more minutes of mounting certainty of disaster: Horley had lost his way; the boats had grounded offshore on a reef; the gulley had been blocked, was insurmountable; the landing party had been quietly surrounded, been invited to surrender.
“There they goes!” A dozen voices rose as the grenadoes flickered white, their flat bangs following distantly a few seconds later.
“Close the harbour, Mr Paston! Leadsmen!”
Musket flashes, the deeper crash of the musketoons from the battery in a brief fight.
“Look, sir, downhill!” Paston called.
Musketry spilling down to the village, a flight and hot pursuit in the darkness.
“Hold there, man. No further!”
Atkinson swore as a flurry erupted at the edge of the mangroves and a few shots tidied up a cable and more further south.
“He let his men go into the swamp!”
The Athene dropped anchor half a cable offshore at dawn, the wharf too small to accommodate her as well as the prize. Horley had his men formed up to welcome them.
“He’s lost a few, sir.”
“Not too many, Mr Harris – landings always take some casualties, they are the price we pay.”
Horley came aboard in a small boat taken off the mud and smelling strongly of fish; he had not been prepared to wait for the boats rowing down from the bluff.
“Beg to report, sir, that the battery was taken and prize secured in accordance with your orders, sir.” Horley was full of pride, had, in his own eyes, made his point that an officer’s function was to fight, that all else was secondary to this; he had triumphed.
“Well done, sir! Details?”
“Your Smith led us up the gulley, sir, very efficiently, too; he located a pair of sentries in a stone box at the top, knifed them in absolute silence and took us to the battery. Smith scouted it while we waited, then showed me the best place to attack from. Four eighteen pounders, sir, siege guns on wheels, sir, not naval carriage guns.”
Atkinson nodded – it was an important point because it meant they were Army, with soldiers to man and protect them. That suggested a large garrison on the island, was intelligence the Admiral must have.
“Eighty men, sir, we guessed, gun crews and infantry.”
Gunners plus a company of foot; certainly army, not naval.
“A group of them retreated in good order, sir, so I felt it wisest to chase them, stop them reforming and coming back.”
“I might well have done the same, Mr Horley. What are your figures?”
“We lost Ricketts and Woodgate, sir, in the same volley at the edge of the swamp. Besides that two seamen killed and five wounded, two of them body shot.”
The two would certainly die; the others might not get gangrene.
“French?”
“So far counted are forty three bodies, sir, almost all from the two sleeping barracks where we threw the grenadoes, sir. Low stone walls, about three feet high, open sides above and quite a high thatch roof, the men on pallets, sir. We took thirty prisoners, most of them more or less wounded.”
“So ten or so escaped, Mr Horley?”
“We think so, sir.”
“’I’, Mr Horley, not ‘we’.”
“Yes, sir. The warehouse contains tobacco in bales on one side, flour and rice in sacks on the other. The prize is part laden with tobacco, sir. Slaves in the cabins at the back are the longshoremen, sir.”
“Very good, Mr Horley. My report will certainly commend your efforts. Mr Porson! Slaves to be rousted out and to assist you to load the prize, if you please. They will sail with us, of course; I expect we shall press those who are capable of meeting our needs.”
“They are worth a good eighty pounds a head, sir,” Horley demurred.
“Naval custom is that slaves are freed when taken, Mr Horley. It is a custom I most certainly will not see broken.”
Horley did not agree, was by now sufficiently wise not to argue.
“Search the village for warlike stores, sir?”
“No.” Atkinson had no intention of allowing his men out of sight amongst the village women – there could only be one result of that. “It is not our business to be persecuting civilians, sir. War is for those who fight it, solely.”
A working party led by the purser descended on the godown a little later and sacks of rice and flour were rapidly transferred to the boats and so into Athene’s hold.
“Rice will boil up as an extra for the men on dried peas and cheese days, sir; I shall buy molasses and stir it in to make a sweet, sticky pudding – they will love it, sir. The flour I shall mostly exchange for ration bread and will serve to persuade the Master Victualler to allow us an additional bullock or two when we touch Antigua. Some of the flour will go to the market and we’ll get bananas and pineapples and shaddocks for the messes.”
Atkinson was impressed, pleased that the men would benefit, so much so that he forbore to enquire how much would line Leyland’s pocket.
They sailed in company in mid-afternoon, leaving unintentional devastation behind them. Frederick had been detailed to slight the battery, had been enthusiastic in his performance. The magazine had been stone-built, a double-doored barn with thick walls and light roof, containing powder for fifty rounds for each gun as well as the infantry’s reserve cartridges. It amounted to the better part of twelve hundredweights of powder, a significant amount.
Frederick had turned the eighteen pounders, had had them wheeled to the open doors. Three charges in each, three balls rammed home and the barrels filled with rocks, jammed tight. A length of quickmatch to each touch hole and joined to five minutes worth of slowmatch, and one fast running seaman to set a light. He joined his mates on the quay as four distinct explosions were closely followed by a fifth, much larger, bang. Parts of the magazine could be clearly seen rising high into the air as rocks bounced down the hillside and fire swept into the dry brush. Venturing up immediately afterwards Frederick found the guns shattered, barrels split open like tulips, and the magazine gone, nothing left of wall or building. Below him holes in the thatch of half of the huts in the village showed how far rocks had been thrown; cries and wails could be heard quite plainly, but he preferred not to investigate.
The loss of Ricketts and Woodgate left Athene short of prize masters so the fully-loaded Egalite tagged along under Midshipman Ball and six seamen and plans were recast.
“Island hopping to Antigua, gentlemen,” Atkinson announced. “We may pick up more trade, but we are short-handed and cannot really continue to cruise. The Admiral will welcome us, nonetheless.”
Two days later at sick call a dozen men attended rather than the normal one or two; each had a high temperature, a throbbing headache, the shakes and dizziness; the sickbay was instantly extended, extra hammocks slung. The surgeon’s mate reported immediately to Atkinson.
“I’ve dosed each with Peruvian bark, sir, and bled them a pint for the fever. Each was in the landing party, sir, those who chased the French.”
“Has Mr Horley come to you, Isaacs?”
“No, sir.”
Isaacs, in duty bound, tapped at Horley’s door and was told to bugger off. Mr Horley did not like Jews, would not trust himself to one’s care, in any case, was not ill, had no more of a headache than normal, he was subject to headaches, knew how to look after himself, thank you.
Isaacs returned to his bay with no further comment, turned to the careful nursing of his fevers; the men shook, sweated, lost a stone each in weight and returned to duty in four days, weak but recovering rapidly. The quinine of the Jesuit’s bark destroyed the
Falsiparia parasite of malaria and prevented the illness from assuming one of its deadly forms, but Horley shook, sweated and fell into delirium, the parasites multiplying in his weakening body, settling into his kidneys, finally destroying their ability to function, creating the symptoms erroneously known as Blackwater Fever. Horley was in coma when his servant plucked up courage to disobey his strict order and called Isaacs back; they buried the First at sea, in sight of Antigua, thirty two pound shot at head and heels ensuring he would not float in on the tide.
“Mr Harris, I shall ask the Admiral to appoint another lieutenant and will beg that he will make a deserving midshipman or masters’ mate to the post: that will leave you as premier. You lack the experience and knowledge to fill the post, as of yet, but you have the ability and the men respect you and I value your many qualities. Mr Paston and I will assist you to learn the job; Porson will do all he can – which will be a great deal – and the petty officers will go out of their way to make the ship work. It has already been put to Smith that the people would be very unhappy to see you superseded, know that you will fill the post most excellently.”
“Thank you, sir. I will work my hardest to deserve your trust, and not to let the men down.”
“Good! Ready the ship for entering harbour, Mr Harris!”
Frederick ran to the quarterdeck, rehearsing his orders, his smile rapidly disappearing as he realised the burden he was taking and just how unfit he was to accept it. He knew ‘what’ to do, reasonably well, but he was not at all certain ‘how’, and certainty, calm, cool, immediate decision, was demanded of his new function.
“To Hell with it!”
Frederick squared his shoulders, grinned. “Mr Porson, stations for entering harbour, if you please. Mr Aston, you will take over foremast and anchor parties, I believe.”
The surviving master’s mate touched his hat and trotted off, entirely competent.
The Friendly Sea (The Duty and Destiny Series, Book 1) Page 8
