Fletcher's Fortune

by John Drake

  Beneath our feet the waves beat in the stern windows and made a clean sweep down the gundeck, annihilating the Great cabin, the day cabin and the Master’s cabin, together with the ship’s chronometers and charts, as the flood drove all before it, as far as the fo’c’sle. On its way, it tore loose a gun and set it plunging murderously with every roll of the ship.

  The ship staggered under the blow. But worse was to follow: the wind got up still stronger and drove the ship onward so she buried her bows in the waves ahead. With the huge pressure of the wind in her sails and the intolerable weight of water aboard, she didn’t rise to the waves as she should, but crashed bodily through them. Her timbers groaned and shrieked in their every joint, and we said our prayers all the harder.

  Then Captain Bollington was bawling something at Lieutenant Williams and the Lieutenant was nodding. He turned to me with a smile and shouted into my ear.

  “Are you with me, Fletcher?” says he. (Holy Jesus, what a question! What did he expect me to say ... “No”? or “Perhaps”? Or “Not just at the moment, thank you”?)

  “Aye aye, sir!” says I, weakly. He beckoned me to follow and the Captain took my place at the wheel. Judging his moment as the vessel rolled, Mr Williams threw himself bodily at a hand-line and hauled himself along. I did my best to copy him but I hadn’t his sea-legs or his agility. He looked back and smiled.

  “Come on, Fletcher,” said his lips, though the wind blew the sound away. He looked so confident and so much better at the thing than I could ever be, that I shook my head in admiration. He must have seen that, ’cos he laughed with all the gaiety of a child at his birthday party. And then, while I was hanging on with all my strength in imminent fear of being washed away, would you believe it but he actually let go the line with one hand and clapped me on the arm.

  “Come on, Fletcher!” he cried. “We’ll show ’em, you and I!” He wasn’t one bit afraid and was undoubtedly enjoying himself. I’d never seen such a display of reckless disregard for fear. But more was coming, for we’d the loose gun to deal with.

  17

  On the main deck, we found the Bosun with a team of men at the pumps. Every hand who could be brought to the work was heaving away at the cranks to drive out the water that had come aboard. They were souls in torment: clenched teeth, closed eyes, straining like cart-horses. They had the same look of desperate agony on their faces that you see in runners as they flash through the last yards of a race, fighting to be first past the post. And well might they strain, for the life of every man-jack of us hung on their work. If they didn’t clear the ship of the tons of water now sloshing neck-deep in the holds, and if they didn’t do it fast, then she’d never rise to the waves again and the wind would just drive her under. That’s if the ship’s fabric didn’t come apart first, under the impact of her collisions with the waves.

  Lieutenant Williams said something to the Bosun and Mr Shaw pointed forward. There was Lieutenant Haslam and a couple of men with ropes trying to catch the loose gun. Haslam was clumsy and was having trouble saving himself, let along stop the gun. Mr Williams grinned at me and beckoned again. He was struggling with the nettings on the weather rail. He hauled us out a hammock apiece: a sausage of canvas, as long as a man and pulled into a hard cylinder by marline hitches.

  “Under the wheels, Fletcher,” says he. “Catch it when it’s still and jam these under the trucks.” I nodded.

  Imagine the most dangerous game in the world: boxing on a tightrope over a chasm, or a blindfolded pipe-smoking competition in a powder magazine. Think along those lines and you’ll get some idea of what it was like to trap a broken-loose eighteen pounder on the deck of a man o’ war in a gale of wind.

  Everything moves in every direction. Everything is wet and slippery. Everything is underfoot: ring-bolts, tackles and gear just waiting their chance to trip you up and lay you out for the lumbering gun to roll upon. Everything is in league with the gun, and the gun itself is an elemental force: too heavy to be stopped once it’s under way. Your only chance is that the gun is too slow to gather speed and you are nimble, except that on that occasion, my fingers were too cold to feel and my shoulders ached with hours at the wheel. Particularly the right shoulder.

  “At my command now!” cries Lieutenant Williams, and Mr Haslam gratefully gave way. “Steady, steady, steady,” says Williams, agile as a panther and always closer to danger than any of us. Suddenly, the gun ground up against the mainmast and we leapt forward but I stumbled on something, my knees and elbows smashed into the deck and I felt the quivering of the planks as the gun rumbled back towards me with the next roll of the ship. But someone was hauling me clear; there was a wild scream as a man’s leg went under the grinding wheels and the monster crashed into another gun, jamming its long nose into the tackles. And that was the end of its fun. Lieutenant Williams leapt in and jammed his hammock under its rear wheels.

  Once stopped, it was relatively easy to lash the loose gun to its brother. It meant a double strain on the lashings holding the tame gun, but that was only one of the smaller threats facing the ship at that moment. So Lieutenant Haslam did what he could for the man the gun had crushed and Lieutenant Williams and I dragged ourselves back to the quarterdeck where I relieved the Captain at the wheel. The Lieutenant studied the ship’s motion.

  “I believe she’s easier, sir,” says he.

  “Indeed she is,” says the Captain, “and the wind’s dropping too.” It was a steady blow now. Fiercely strong but it didn’t come in gusts as before and there was no doubt that Phiandra was riding the waves as her builders had intended. We were saved for the moment. At least we thought we were.

  For soon the dawn came and the morning light showed us the most terrible thing a sailor can see. We discovered we’d been blown along at a tremendous rate and were far, far closer to France than our officers had thought. They’d thought we were still in open sea, with room to manoeuvre. But we weren’t. France had reached out its arms in the night to catch us, and a long black line of cliffs was in plain sight from the quarterdeck. They were all around us in a great bay and as the daylight strengthened we could see the white waves pounding the rocks at the foot of the cliffs. I looked at the other seamen manning the wheel and saw the dread in their eyes.

  You who’ve grown up in an age of iron-built steamers cannot imagine the horror of that moment. Nowadays, should a ship find herself embayed on a lee shore, she’ll go full ahead on her engines, and a turn of the wheel’ll send her forging out to sea with her funnels puffing merrily (and her Captain taking sherry with the passengers most like). She can go straight into the eye of the wind if she wants.

  Well, you couldn’t do that under sail. Captain Bollington instantly put down the helm and tried to sail her out close hauled. But it was no good. She’d never clear the northernmost headland of the bay and the Captain, Lieutenant Williams and Mr Golding, the Sailing Master, were in urgent conference, hunched against the wind and spray, shouting to be heard.

  “I says we must wear ship,” says Mr Golding. “If we tries to tack her in these waves, her weather bow’ll go under. She’ll never come through the wind and we’ll be thrown all aback and cast ashore.”

  “No!” says Lieutenant Williams. “It won’t do. We haven’t the sea room. A cable’s length of leeward and we’re lost. We must tack!”

  “I agree with you both,” says the Captain. “We can’t wear and I doubt we can tack. Summon all hands to make ready an anchor at the lee cathead and pass a spring from the aftermost gun-port. I shall attempt to tack and if that fails, I shall clubhaul.”

  Lieutenant Williams and Mr Golding hesitated a second and looked at each other.

  “You’ll clubhaul, sir?” says Golding, and you could see the fear on his face.

  “Unless you have a better suggestion!” says the Captain, and Golding licked his lips.

  “Aye aye, sir,” says he, and the ship was thrown into furious activity in an instant. All hands were put to work, every man and boy from the c
ook to the Sicilian bandsmen, to work the desperate feat of seamanship that the Captain was going to attempt. After all, there was no point sparing anyone. If this wasn’t done quite perfectly correctly, then we should all drown together.

  So two hundred and fifty of us blundered about in the narrow confines of a creaking, rolling frigate, intent on a back-breaking task and in immediate fear for our lives. We brought up the great, awkward bulk of a cable and laid it out on deck. We secured it to the ring of our best bower anchor at the lee cathead and the Bosun and his mates stood ready to let go the anchor at an instant’s notice. We led a hawser from the capstan out through the aftermost gunport on the lee side and forward, to be secured to the same anchor ring. And I was stood by number sixteen gun-port and given an axe to cut the hawser on command.

  When all was ready Captain Bollington put down the helm and tried to bring her head through the wind. But the sea wouldn’t have it. The headsails were laid flat aback, the ship staggered horribly and wind and water came roaring over the weather bow; not just spray but green seas rolled across the fo’c’sle.

  “Let go!” cries the Captain, and the Bosun knocked out the clamp that held the anchor. The cable sprang up like a live thing and shot smoking over the side, with men leaping clear. One touch of a running cable will skin you to the bone or drag you down after the anchor. Phiandra swayed deeply as the anchor bit into the bottom and the cable pulled at her head, and her motion entirely changed as she fell downwind, swinging to her anchor. This was the moment when we lived or died.

  The hawser was shorter than the cable and was supposed to perform the whole purpose of the manoeuvre, which was to drag Phiandra’s lee quarter bodily round into the wind to leave the ship on her new tack, free to sail clear of the bay.

  Number sixteen port where I was waiting with my axe, was under the quarterdeck, so I couldn’t see what play of wind, cable and hawser were doing, but by God I could feel the ship moving under me! And I could see the anxious faces of those around me who knew what these movements meant far better than I did. Then the very fibres of the hawser squeaked and stretched as the colossal load came on. If it parted now we were lost. For a moment the ship hung at the bottom of the triangle of cable and hawser. Everything quivered like a bowstring.

  Then, “Slip the cable!” cries the Captain, from the quarterdeck and Phiandra’s bow jumped to leeward as the Bosun’s team did their work and the pull of the anchor vanished. A second’s delay then, “Cut!” cries the Captain.

  “Cut!” says I and swung my axe. But my right shoulder was still aching and made me miss with the first swing. I wrenched the blade from the deck and tried again. Bump! The hawser was gone and Phiandra was heeling to the wind and coming round, round, round, as the yards were swung to fill the sails on the new tack.

  Then we held our breath as she gathered way and raced for the open sea at such a speed that the slightest touch on the rocks would smash her to splinters. Finally she thrashed past the breakers with no more than yards to spare, and made her escape. I didn’t know at the time what a desperate thing the Captain had done, nor what a magnificent feat of seamanship he’d performed. It was only in later years that it really sunk in, from the silence that fell over any audience of seamen when I told the tale. They all knew what clubhauling was, but none of ’em had seen it done.

  After that, the gale blew for a few hours more and I had to take my place at the wheel again, but finally it subsided and we had more work to do in repairing our rigging and sorting out the shambles below. The stern windows were a gaping hole, spars were sprung and lines parted everywhere. And down in the hold, shattered water-butts slopped side by side in foul bilge water, with the ruined remains of biscuit, flour, raisins and salt meat.

  One after another, the ship’s specialists came before the Captain with their tale of woe. His face grew longer and longer with each one. Finally he could stand it no more. In his turn, Mr Morris, the carpenter, came to report. And Captain Bollington thoroughly lost his temper.

  “Damn your blasted eyes!” says the Captain. “What do you mean ‘unstepped’?” The carpenter turned his hat in his hands and sighed. He was half dead with lack of sleep. He explained again.

  “She be unstepped, sir. The foremast, sir. I done what I could, sir, but she needs to come out for it to be done proper like. An’ I can’t do it afloat. What she needs is ... ”

  “Damn you, you bloody lubber!” cries the Captain. “D’ye dare to tell me you can’t make it good? Is that it? God damn you for an idle, useless landsman! Damn me if I won’t have the Warrant off you! Are you telling me she must go into dock for repairs?”

  The carpenter dared not reply, but Mr Williams intervened.

  “Begging your pardon, sir,” says he. “But even if we could make shift with an unstepped mast, there’s half our food and water spoilt.”

  “Yes, sir,” says Lieutenant Seymour, “and the charts are gone and our ... ”

  “Damn you both,” says the Captain, in a rage, rounding on the two Lieutenants. He pointed accusingly at the wretched carpenter, “Do you take his part against me? Damn you all, I say! I am determined to fall upon the French with the utmost despatch, and you cowardly lubbers will have me put in to port for repairs! Do you not see that the instant we drop anchor in England, some rogue of an Admiral will take away my commission?”

  “But sir,” says Williams, “the foremast is unstepped ... ”

  “Do you argue with me?” roars the Captain, and flung down his hat. “Dammit, you puppy, I’ll break you for that. Damn! Damn! Damn!” And this formidable man, who’d just saved our lives with his seamanship, stamped his hat into the deck and turned his back in a sulk. He simply couldn’t face the idea of returning to Portsmouth and running foul of some officer powerful enough to extinguish his independent command. For this could so easily happen. Frigates were useful and all admirals were short of them.

  “Have it your own way,” says he to the weather rail. “Take her in if you must.” And he stood there for hours, ignoring us all, as Lieutenant Williams supervised the work of putting the ship to rights and feeding the crew. The Captain wouldn’t even take part in setting course for home, but left that entirely to the Lieutenants and Mr Golding.

  I was sent to join the Bosun again and helped drive the men to splicing and mending of the rigging. Everyone was still wet so I didn’t notice for some time that the wet running down my right arm wasn’t water, and that it had a connection with my aching shoulder. Finally, the Bosun noticed blood running off my fingers on to the deck and sent me below to find the Surgeon.

  “Off! Off!” says Mr Jones. “Bare the wound! Let the dog see the rabbit.” And he hauled off my jacket and shirt to find the source of the Nile that was streaming down my arm.

  “Ouch!” says I, as he found what he was after.

  “Tch! Tch!” says he. “And how did you do this, my man?”

  “Don’t know, sir,” says I. “It must have happened during the storm. I was too busy to notice, I suppose.”

  “Yes,” says he, “a common enough phenomenon in men who are excited or impassioned. Hmm ... something sharp and narrow has pierced your shoulder ... here!”

  “Ouch!” says I, again, as he probed the wound and pondered on its cause.

  “Some fragment of splintered timber, I should imagine, driven like a spear by the force of the tempest. As neat as if it were incised! Hmm ... well, whatever, ’tis a clean wound and judging by the size and strength of you, I doubt it’ll kill you.” So saying, he put in a couple of stitches and bound me up tight to stop the bleeding. “Come and see me tomorrow, or at once if the bleeding does not stop.”

  But it did stop and the wound healed fast. I thought no more of it, especially as others were hurt far worse than me. The man whose leg had been smashed by the gun survived Mr Jones’s amputation and then died from the gangrene a week later. And the quartermaster who’d collapsed at the wheel was drowned sitting upright, when the great wave came over our stern. Next day I s
aw him go over the side, sewn in his hammock with a round-shot at his feet. Our Chaplain read the funeral service and all hands stood to attention.

  After that, once Captain Bollington had finished moping, and once he’d swallowed his disappointment, and once he’d accepted that Phiandra really was too storm-damaged for adventures against the French, and that she really could not be repaired at sea, he brightened up and had the wit to touch on precisely the thing to make all hands strive from the depths of their souls to get the ship safely to Portsmouth.

  “Now lads,” says he, to the assembled crew. “I am resolved to exert every influence at my command to ensure that on our return to Portsmouth every man shall be paid in full ... ”

  “Three cheers for the Cap’n!” cries the Bosun who, thanks to me, had his own (business) reasons for seeking a quick return to harbour. The men cheered merrily. Given this Captain’s powerful connections they felt they’d actually get some of their money.

  “Furthermore,” says the Captain, “as our stay in harbour may be prolonged, I see no reason why the wives should not be brought aboard ... ”

  This met with thunderous, spontaneous cheering that put the previous effort to shame. At first I was puzzled. But Sammy explained later, and when we reached Portsmouth after a couple of weeks of slow, painful sailing, I received the most intensive education that ever a young sailorman was given, on the subject of “wives”.