An Ill Wind

by David Donachie

  Toby Burns’s chest was heaving, yet he knew it was not from much in the way of exertion, for the beach was not that deep nor the sand soft. Out of sight, he wondered what to do next: to follow the soldiers in the hills, now through the trees and out of sight, was one option; the other was to stay here.

  ‘You all right, lad?’

  The voice made him jump and he looked around in alarm to see a red-coated officer, senior by his rank badges, in his hand a walking stick, looking down at him.

  ‘Just getting my breath, sir. I am supposed to see how the attack progresses and report back about the need for support.’

  ‘I think we have that already, boy,’ the redcoat said pointing out into the bay.

  The seventy-four-gun ship-of-the-line, HMS Fortitude, accompanied by the frigate Juno, thirty-two, had got into position and were in the process of using springs on their anchors to swing their sides round to bombard the tower. The gunners in the fortress had not waited: already shot were peppering the sea around the warships.

  ‘Don’t take much puff to walk, boy, even uphill, so why don’t you come with me?’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Toby lied, falling in behind the bullock as he strode off, dashing slightly to get close so that the man’s body would shield him from danger, vaguely noticing as he passed them the abandoned French positions: dead artillery men and the odd dismounted cannon, though most, surrounded by various accoutrements, seemed to have just been abandoned. There was also a number of crumpled redcoats and they passed some wounded going in the opposite direction, en route to attention.

  ‘A poor lot we have fought this day, don’t ye know.’

  The boy was thinking even a damn fool could get lucky. ‘The attack seems to have been a success, sir.’

  ‘It will be that, lad, when we have that tower.’

  The sound of a broadside filled the air and, looking out to sea, although they could not espy the ships screened by the trees, they could see the billowing clouds of smoke rising into the air. Moving on, they were now passing mixed French and British wounded, mostly sat against trees, their heads lowered in despair. There was also the odd body, all in blue coats.

  ‘Regular soldiers, boy,’ the redcoat exclaimed before stopping suddenly and demanding of him, ‘What is your damned name?’

  ‘Burns, sir, Midshipman.’

  A tree suddenly splintered by Toby Burns’s shoulder as a musket ball hit it, making him jump sideways and cry out in alarm. His redcoat merely turned and glared at the now visible outline of the tower, sure that was where the shot had come from.

  ‘Damned impertinence,’ he cried, before looking back at Toby. ‘Mustn’t react, Mr Burns, it only encourages them. Coolness under fire, young sir, an absolute prerequisite.’

  The only thing the youngster could think of was that the man who had fired was busy reloading for another attempt, so he was glad when his companion strode off in the direction from which that shot had come and he was quick to get his body between himself and possible harm. Still trending uphill, they finally came to clear ground and what had obviously been a defensive redoubt, to see French soldiers being taken prisoner. Another red-coated officer, seeing Toby’s companion, rushed to meet them, stopping to raise his hat, his face alight with joy.

  ‘We have the position, Colonel Moore. I have sent the men ahead to clear it right through but I reckon the resistance to be broken.’

  ‘Their commander?’

  ‘No sign of him, sir, he’s taken to his heels and fallen back to the tower.’

  They were above the tower now, though still too far off for muskets, and so were presented with a clear sight of the whole bay and the battle going on between ship and shore, and it was far from clear to Toby Burns who was winning. The round shot was not denting those outer walls, if anything it was bouncing off them to ricochet ineffectively into the surrounding rocks. Occasionally a huge cannonball would hit right on the face and that would chip at the stonework, but it did not in any way look as if it was creating a breach: stone flew but no cracks appeared. Also obvious was the brazier sitting in the tower top, right by the two long cannon: they were firing red-hot shot, which could be deadly to wooden ships.

  The boy did not know the half of it and had he been aboard either vessel he would have known the true meaning of terror. That red-hot shot had hit the hull of HMS Fortitude on half a dozen occasions, lodging in the scantlings to start fires which must be extinguished by cutting the balls out of the hull, a task that was full of risk to those employed. Three of the ship’s lower-deck thirty-two pounders had been dismounted, leaving six men killed, and some fifty were already wounded so that in the cockpit the ship’s surgeon was hard at it with his saw, knives and a needle and thread.

  Their fire was having practically no effect: the fortress being round meant the cannonballs could rarely strike with any consequence and, on a stationary vessel they were more at risk than the defenders. Broadside after broadside had ripped out to hit at those walls, some missing completely, for, even anchored, the ship was subject to the tide and the swell while enough returned shot had missed the hulls to either hiss into the sea or slice through the rigging, setting that alight so that the fire engine was in constant use.

  Toby Burns saw the springs let go so that both frigate and ship-of-the-line swung on their single anchors, thus reducing the size of the target they presented. Soon those same anchors were being plucked from the water, this as sails were sheeted home to take the ships out of range, Fortitude trailing smoke from smouldering wood as she did so: the bombardment had failed. Aboard Hotham’s flagship, Captain Holloway was required to work hard to keep off his face a smirk, certainly as long as his admiral was in plain view.

  ‘A poor showing,’ said Moore, ‘but damned brave.’

  ‘Quite, sir,’ the other officer replied, though the look on his face implied he disagreed.

  ‘I must report back to the shore, sir,’ Toby cried, ‘to say you have achieved your object.’

  Colonel Moore let the tip of the walking stick touch his gold-edged, tricorn hat. ‘Then, young sir, you’d best be off, but tell whoever you are to report to we overlook the tower. A pair of cannon up here and we could make their lives warm.’

  If the defenders on the tower at Mortella Point were cheered by their success, and thought themselves impervious to either ground assault or bombardment from the sea, they reckoned without the Royal Navy or the ingenuity of Colonel John Moore. Toby Burns, given he knew the man in command and the route to the redcoats’ camp, was employed as a messenger, running back and forth, convinced that every bush and boulder hid a Frenchman, but through his offices a plan was hatched.

  Next day they saw a stream of boats coming inshore, as well as near to a hundred sailors, to rig uprights and pulleys onto which were winched cannons and their trunnions, those brought in on a hatch cover lashed to empty barrels. More triangular stanchions were erected ashore, with yet more lines and blocks, this while a path was cut through the trees by the soldiers, the wood being taken up to where Colonel Moore was waiting. He had been examining the tower for some time and a notion of how to subdue it had come to him.

  ‘It seems a great pity to me, gentlemen,’ he eventually said to the assembled officers, ‘to waste all this firewood. It will make a bonny fire, I think.’

  All day the sailors toiled, roving and rigging, hauling and lifting, creating a run of lifting gear that raised those two-ton lumps of metal up the steep hillsides, until finally they were ready to be put in the emplacements the bullocks had made ready. Also brought ashore, requested by Colonel Moore to the mystification of his naval contemporaries, was the equipment to heat shot, the long-handled carrier that could be lifted onto the fire and held there until the cannonball glowed.

  Prior to heated shot, the range had been tried and established with round shot, but it was clear that, even plunging on to the fortress, the place was so sturdily built that little damage would be done, certainly not enough to entirely overcome def
enders who could shelter inside. Any break in the bombardment brought them rushing out to fire cannon now elevated to the maximum, which posed great danger to the sailors manning the British cannon and the redcoats who were alongside them, though it also exposed them: it was seen a pair were not swift enough when the British fire recommenced, and they paid the price, being cut in half by a volley.

  ‘Heated shot, sir?’ asked the officer commanding the party of sailors who had provided the men to both haul and work the guns – Lord Hood’s nephew, also called Samuel, captain of HMS Juno. ‘Against stonework?’

  Colonel Moore smiled and handed over his telescope. ‘I bid you, sir, look upon the parapet of yonder tower and tell me what you see.’

  Sam Hood took the glass and did as he was asked and it was clear that, whatever it was Moore had in mind, it was not immediately obvious.

  ‘Our French friends,’ the Colonel pointed out, ‘have lined the outer and inner parapet with a material called bass junk, the object of which is to defray shot and stop stone from shattering, which would send debris flying in all directions to the detriment of the men manning the guns. I believe, if I were to employ a naval expression, it would be a sort of “gammoning” and it extends all the way down to the flooring.’

  Sam Hood, still looking through the telescope, smiled. ‘Would I be right in thinking this bass junk is flammable?’

  ‘It will not burn, sir, but it smokes like the devil.’

  ‘Then I look forward to seeing the effect of your heated shot, sir.’

  Normal round shot was employed to clear the fortress gunners, who were through the trapdoor before the first ball landed, this so they would not see the heated shot. Loading that was a tricky affair, a task for men who knew their game, and not for the bullocks. Two sailors, each with a pair of handles, carried the red-hot shot to the cannon, not delaying, for that would obviate the purpose, but with care, given they were surrounded by powder in cartridges and barrels, which had only to be touched by those cannonballs to blow the whole encampment to perdition.

  Loading had to be quick, any false tipping and the ball would miss the cannon muzzle, and it needed solid oak, slow to fire, to drive the ball home, with both the men tasked to load the ball and the man tasked to drive it down to its furthest seat getting well clear immediately their work was done, lest the heat conduct to the powder and set the whole thing off prematurely. The man on the flintlock did not hesitate either: the gun had been pre-aimed and he pulled the flintlock lanyard as soon as there was clear daylight before the muzzle.

  The first ball flew over the top of the tower, leading Colonel Moore to speculate on the scientific possibility that the nature of the ball, allied to the amount of powder used, was affected by the heat. Range dropped, the process was repeated again, this time the ball dropping into the top of that crown roast to roll until stopped by the parapet.

  ‘A few more, I think,’ the redcoat colonel said, ‘will do the trick.’

  And it did: soon the whole top of the round tower was wreathed in smoke and it was obvious that the colder air of the interior was drawing in through the trapdoor that led to the next floor down, and in time, Moore had surmised, the whole building would be full of dense smoke making it impossible for those inside to breathe.

  In the hope that his stratagem would work, the colonel had placed a company of his soldiers in the rocks leading to the base of the tower. The doorway, twenty feet in the air and unassailable even with ladders, was suddenly flung open and smoke began to billow out, followed by coughing and spluttering Frenchmen, the signal that the notion had worked sent to a ship, then passed on to those working the guns.

  ‘I think we have our fortress, Captain Hood. You may tell Admiral Hotham the upper reaches of the Bay of San Fiorenzo are his.’

  It wasn’t over: there was a redoubt named Convention, of twenty-one heavy cannon, which was easy to see held the key to the town, one that to assault over open ground would be murderous in casualties. Again the navy did the impossible, transporting guns along paths meant for donkeys, sometimes wide enough for only one man, often with a drop of five hundred feet to one side, never once losing a tar or equipment as they manhandled tons of metal along on ropes and pulleys, using the very rocks as stationary points, to set up a battery that overlooked Convention from the one angle at which it was vulnerable. Once employed they destroyed it in two hours; the whole anchorage and the tiny port was now in British hands.

  At a dinner to celebrate, Colonel John Moore, returning a toast from Sir William Hotham, named Captain Sam Hood and his men as heroes, and then he added that Midshipman Toby Burns had done sterling service as a runner and, if the admiral did not mind the temerity of a soldier suggesting a course of action to a sailor, the lad deserved a mention in whatever despatch was sent back to London.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  There was no way of knowing how much time had passed before the loss of the tow was discovered, only that the line which had attached them to the stern of the pinnace was slack enough to be hauled in. It looked as though the two men on the oars had, like John Pearce and every other soul in the boat, fallen into a troubled sleep, which not only allowed the cutter to drift but also meant they had failed to turn the sandglass and wake a relief. He also had cause to curse himself for failing to note the miscreants were a pair who had probably got into the spirit store, this established when dawn broke and not only their bleary eyes told a tale, but their rank breath as well.

  Shouting proved pointless when, on the crest of several waves, no sign of a sail could be seen. Pearce felt even worse when presented with the end of a piece of rope which showed no signs of fraying: if anyone could tie a secure knot a sailor could, even the most useless sod. Yet he could not say what he suspected: that the knot might have been loosened, given the propensity of Jack Tar to see evil in any unexplained event.

  Sailors were the most credulous folk he had ever met in his life: put the wrong foot on the ship first and it was doomed, any number of birds sighted promised perdition, so that sometimes it seemed there was a superstition for every waking hour, which on a ship at sea was twenty-four. There had been mutterings too, he suspected, about Emily Barclay. Every ship in King George’s Navy had women aboard, even where captains were strict about their presence, some even going to the length of disguising themselves as males. It would be the status of a woman like Mrs Barclay that made her an object of nautical misgivings.

  Looking at the faces in the crowded boat he surmised there were no natural navigators present, this allied to his own knowledge of his lack of ability in the subject: they were in the middle of the Bay of Biscay and they might as well be in the middle of the moon. Nor did he have the instruments necessary to even try for a course that would take them home; there was, in short, no choice but to set the prow towards the point at which the sun had risen, albeit that was partly guesswork given the dense overhead cloud.

  ‘Which would be where?’ asked Michael O’Hagan quietly, his head lowered to make sure the question did not carry.

  Pearce, too, dropped his head. ‘The coast of France.’

  ‘Holy mother of God,’ Michael hissed, ‘do you so love the place you cannot stay away?’

  ‘I have no choice. My sextant went down with the ship and even if I had thought to fetch it I am not sure I can remember all I need to know about fixing a course by starlight, as Mr McGann taught me.’

  ‘Holy Christ, we need sight of that sainted man now. Are we not on the same line as he would sail to and from Gibraltar?’

  There was brief flash of hope then: McGann’s postal packet ran the route from England to the Straits on a regular basis. It was he who had taken John Pearce to the Mediterranean in the first place, carrying the letter to Lord Hood, which had occasioned him being entrusted with the reply he now had in his coat pocket. When Michael called him sainted he was not far wrong, for McGann was one of the kindest and wisest persons Pearce had ever met, that is till you got him ashore and near a tankard of ale
, from whence he became a burden.

  ‘Michael, we have been drifting all night. I have no idea where we are in line of longitude. All I could do is probably establish our latitude, which would not be much help if we are in the middle of the ocean with nothing but oars to propel us. We are not well supplied and drifting in the hope of the sight of a sail could see us all expire. We must make for land.’

  ‘Where there are heathens waiting to lop off our heads.’

  ‘Savin’ your presence, Lieutenant, we would be obliged to be knowing what it is you and Paddy are a’whispering about.’

  Pearce looked up into a sea of eyes, all on him, and they included Charlie and Rufus, though they, at least, were not full of suspicion. These men were part of the crew of HMS Grampus, on which he had been a supernumerary with no actual duties; they did not know him at all and therefore had no loyalty to anything other than his rank, which would be tenuous in the extreme if they thought he had no idea of what he was doing. The bargain between officers and hands was simple: blue coats got respect because of their knowledge, and sometimes from the fear of their power in the article of punishment, but it was a covenant easy to rupture when neither were present.

  Odd that he should think of his father at that point, for here was the very notion over which they had disputed often, once Pearce junior had become old enough to form his own opinions. Adam Pearce maintained there was a basic good in people, not Christianity, in which he did not believe, but in their innate nature, the caveat being that a lack of the necessary means to exist in comfort – food, warmth and security – allied to a dearth of education, was what often rendered them little better than beasts.