A King's Cutter

by Richard Woodman

  Drinkwater looked at Griffiths. The elderly Welshman bore a countenance of almost stoic resignation in which Drinkwater perceived defeat. True, Kestrel might manoeuvre but it would only be out of form, out of respect for the flag. It was unlikely she would escape. Griffiths was an old man, he had run out of resolution; exhausted his share of good fortune. He seemed to know this as a beaten animal slinks away to die. To surrender a twelve-gun cutter to superior force would be no dishonour.

  As if to emphasise their predicament the new jolly boat, stowed in the stern davits, disintegrated in an explosion of splinters, the transom boards of the cutter split inwards and a ball bounced off the breech of No 11 gun, dismounting it with an eerie clang and whined off distorted over the starboard rail.

  ‘Starboard broadside make ready!’ Griffiths braced himself. ‘Mr Drinkwater, strike the colours after we’ve fired. Mr Jessup we’ll luff up and d’you clew up the square sails . . .’

  A mood of sullen resignation swept the deck like a blast of canister, visible in its impact. It irritated Drinkwater into a sudden fury. A long war Appleby had said, a long war pent up in a French hulk dreaming of Elizabeth. The thought was violently abhorrent to him. Griffiths might be exchanged under cartel but who was going to give a two-penny drum for an unknown master’s mate? They would luff, fire to defend the honour of the flag and then strike to the big frigate foaming up astern.

  Ironic that they would come on the wind to do so. Reaching the only point of sailing on which they might escape their pursuers. If, that is, the rocks were not there barring their way.

  Then an idea struck him. So simple, yet so dangerous that he realised it had been bubbling just beneath conscious acceptance since he looked at the notebook of old Blackmore’s. It was better than abject surrender.

  ‘Mr Griffiths!’ Griffiths turned.

  ‘I told you to stand by the ensign halliards . . .’

  ‘Mr Griffiths I believe we could escape through the rocks, sir. There’s a passage between the two islands . . .’ He pointed to the two islets on the starboard beam, the Iles de Bannec and de Balanec. Griffiths looked at them, uncertainty in his eyes. He glanced astern. Drinkwater pressed his advantage. ‘The chart’s old, sir. I’ve a more recent survey in a manuscript book . . .’

  ‘Get it!’ snapped Griffiths, suddenly shedding his mood with his age. Drinkwater needed no second bidding and rushed below, stumbling in his haste. He snatched up Blackmore’s old, stained journal and clambered back on deck where a pale, tense hope was alive on the faces of the men, Jessup had the hands aloft and the squaresails were coming in. A party of men was busily lashing the dismounted four pounder. Griffiths, now indifferent to the two ships closing ahead and astern like the jaws of pincers, was examining the gap between the two islands.

  ‘Here sir . . .’ Drinkwater spread the book on the companionway top and for a minute he and Griffiths bent over it, Drinkwater’s finger tracing a narrow gutway through the reefs. A muttering of Welsh escaped the old man and then Drinkwater made out: ‘Men ar Reste . . . Carrec ar Morlean . . .’ He pronounced it ‘carreg’ in the Welsh rather than the Breton, as he stared at the outlying rocks that strewed the passage Drinkwater was suggesting, like fangs waiting for the eager keel of Kestrel.

  ‘Can you get her through?’ he asked shortly.

  ‘I’ll try, sir. With bearings and a lookout at the cross trees.’

  Griffiths made up his mind. ‘Put her on the chart.’ He called one of the seamen over to hold the book open and stand by it. Drinkwater bent over the compass, his heart pounding with excitement. Behind him a transformed Griffiths rapped out orders.

  ‘Mr Jessup! I’m going through the rocks. D’you attend to the set of the sails to get the best out of her . . .’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Jessup bustled off and his action seemed to electrify the upper deck. Men jumped eagerly to belaying pins, stood expectantly beside sheets and runners, while the helmsmen watched their commander, ready at a word to fling their weight on the great curved ash tiller.

  There was a crash amidships and the pump trunking flew apart, the wrought arm bending impossibly. Yet another ball thumped into the hull and a glance astern showed the frigate huge and menacing. No more than two miles ahead of them the corvette, her main topsail to the mast, lay in their track. Drinkwater straightened from his extempore chart table.

  ‘East, nor’ east, sir, upon the instant . . .’

  Griffiths nodded. ‘Down helm! Full and bye! Heads’l sheets there! You there!’ he pointed at Number 12 gun’s crew,’ . . . ‘a knife to that preventer backstay.’ Kestrel came onto the wind, spray bursting over the weather bow. Drinkwater looked into the compass bowl and nodded, then he ran forward. ‘Tregembo! Aloft there and watch for rocks, tide rips and runs . . .’ and then, remembering the man’s smuggling past from a gleam of exhilaration in his eye, ‘The tide’s in our favour, under us . . . I need to know bloody fast . . .’

  ‘Aye, aye, zur!’ The windward shrouds were bar taut and Drinkwater followed half way up. Though fresh, the wind had little fetch here and they ought to see tidal runs on the rocks. He bit his lip with anxiety. It was well after low water now and Kestrel was rushing north eastwards on a young flood.

  ‘Run, zur, fine to starboard . . .’ Tregembo pointed. ‘And another to larboard . . .’ Drinkwater gained the deck and rushed aft to bend over the chart. Four and a half fathoms over the Basse Blanche to starboard and less than one over the Melbian to larboard.

  ‘Can you lay her a little closer, sir?’ Griffiths nodded, his mouth a tight line. Drinkwater went forward again and began to climb the rigging. As he hoisted himself alongside Tregembo, his legs dangling, a terrific roar filled the air. The glass, the Dollond glass which he had just taken from his pocket, was wrenched from his hand and his whole body was buffetted as it had been in the breakers the night they picked up Major Brown. He saw the glass twinkle once as the sunlight glanced off it, then he too pitched forward, helpless as a rag doll. He felt a strong hand clutch his upper arm. Tregembo hauled him back on the yard while below them both the little telescope bounced on a deadeye and disappeared into the white water sluicing past Kestrel’s trembling side.

  Drinkwater drew breath. Looking aft he saw the big frigate turning south, away from them cheated of her prey, the smoke from her starboard broadside drifting away. Across her stern he could see the letters of her name: Siréne. She would give them the other before standing away to the south south eastward on the larboard tack.

  Drinkwater turned to Tregembo. ‘Thank you for your assistance,’ he muttered, annoyed at the loss of his precious glass. He stared ahead, ignoring the corvette obscured by the peak of the straining mainsail and unaware of the final broadside from Siréne.

  White water was all around them now, the two green-grey islets of Bannec and Balanec, rapidly opening on either bow. The surge and suck of the tide revealed rocks everywhere, the water foaming white around the reefs. Ahead of them he could see no gap, no passage.

  Hard on the wind Kestrel plunged onwards, driven inexorably by the tide which was running swiftly now. Suddenly ahead he could see the hummock of a black rock: the Ar Veoe lay dead in their path. Patiently he forced himself to line it up with the forestay. If the rock drew left of the stay it would pass clear to larboard, if to the right they would clear it to starboard but run themselves into danger beyond. If it remained in transit they would strike it.

  The dark bulk of the Men ar Reste drew abeam and passed astern.

  Ar Veoe remained in transit and on either hand the reefs surrounding the two islets closed in, relative motion lending them a locomotion of their own.

  Twisting round Drinkwater hailed the deck; ‘She’s not weathering the Ar Veoe, sir!’ He watched as Griffiths looked at the book. They had to pass to the east of that granite stump. They could not run to leeward or they would be cast onto the Ile de Bannec and irrevocably lost.

  The gap was lessening and the bearing remained unaltered. They would have to ta
ck. Reaching for a backstay Drinkwater slid to the deck. Ignoring the smarting of his hands he accosted Griffiths.

  ‘She’s setting to loo’ard. We must tack, sir, immediately . . . there is no option.’ Griffiths did not acknowledge his subordinate but raised his head and bawled.

  ‘Stand by to go about! Look lively there!’

  The men, tuned now to the high pitch of their officers, obeyed with flattering alacrity. ‘Myndiawl, I hope you know what you’re doing,’ he growled at Drinkwater, ‘get back aloft and when we’ve sufficient offing wave your right arm . . .’ His voice was mellow with controlled tension, all trace of defeat absent, replaced with a taut confidence in Drinkwater. Briefly their eyes met and each acknowledged in the other the rarefied excitement of their predicament, a balance of expertise and terror.

  By the time Drinkwater reached the crosstrees what had been the weather rigging was slack. Kestrel had tacked smartly and now her bowsprit stabbed south-east as she crabbed across the channel, the tide still carrying her north-east. Drinkwater had hardly marshalled his senses when instinct screamed at him to wave his right arm. Obediently the helm went down and beneath him the yard trembled with the mast as the cutter passed through the wind again.

  Kestrel had barely steadied on the starboard tack as the hummocked, fissured slab of the Ar Veoe rushed past. The white swirl of the tide tugged the weed at its base and a dozen cormorants, hitherto sunning their wings, flapped away low over the sea. On either side danger was clearly visible. The Carrec ar Morlean lay on the starboard quarter, the outcrops of the Ile de Bannec to larboard. Kestrel rushed at the gap, her bowsprit plunging aggressively forward. The rocks drew abeam and Drinkwater slid to the deck to lay another position on the makeshift chart. Griffiths peered over his shoulder. They were almost through, a final gap had to be negotiated as the Gourgant Rocks opened up to starboard. Cannon shot had long since ceased and the hostile ships astern were forgotten as the beginnings of relief showed in their eyes. The Gourgants drew astern and merged with the seemingly impenetrable barrier of black rock and white water through which they had just passed.

  ‘Deck there!’ It was Tregembo, still aloft at his post. ‘Rock dead ahead and close zur!’ Griffiths’s reaction was instinctive: ‘Up helm!’

  Drinkwater was half way up the starboard shrouds when he saw it. Kestrel had eased off the wind a point but was far too close. Although her bowsprit swung away from the rock the run of the tide pushed her stern round so that a brief vision of rending timber and a rudderless hulk flashed across Drinkwater’s imagination. He faced aft and screamed ‘Down helm!’

  For a split second he thought Griffiths was going to ignore him; that his insubordination was too great. Then, shaking with relief he saw the lieutenant lunge across the deck, pushing the tiller to larboard.

  Kestrel began to turn as the half-submerged rock rushed at her. It was too late. Drinkwater was trembling uncontrollably now, a fly in a web of rigging. He watched fascinated, aware that in ten, fifteen seconds perhaps, the shrouds to which he clung would hang in slack festoons as the cutter’s starboard side was stove, the mast snapped like celery and she rolled over, a broken wreck. Below him men rushed to the side to watch: then the tide took her. Kestrel trembled, her quarter lifting on the wave made against the up-tide side of the rock, then swooped into the down-tide trough as the sea cast her aside like a piece of driftwood. They could see bladder wrack and smell bird droppings and then they were past, spewed out to the northward. A few moments later the Basse Pengloch, northern outpost of the Ile de Bannec, was behind them.

  Shaking still Drinkwater regained the deck. ‘We’re through sir.’ Relief translated itself into a grin made foolish by blood trickling from a hard-bitten lip.

  ‘Aye, Mr Drinkwater we’re through, and I desire you to pass word to issue grog to all hands.’

  ‘Deck there!’ For a second they froze, apprehension on their faces, fearing another outcrop ahead of them but Tregembo was pointing astern.

  When he descended again to return the borrowed telescope to Griffiths Drinkwater said, ‘The two frigates and the corvette are still hull up, sir, but beyond them are a number of tops’ls. It looks as if we have just escaped from a fleet.’

  Griffiths raised a white eyebrow. ‘Indeed . . . in that case let us forget Flora, Mr Drinkwater, and take our intelligence home. Lay me a course for Plymouth.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ Drinkwater turned away. Already the excitement of the past two hours was fading, giving way to a peevish vexation at the loss of his Dollond glass.

  Chapter Six

  January–December 1794

  A Night Attack

  What neither Griffiths nor Drinkwater knew was that the frigates from which they had escaped off Ushant had been part of Admiral Vanstabel’s fleet. The admiral was on passage to America to reinforce the French squadron sent thither to escort the grain convoy safely back to France. The importance of this convoy to the ruined economy of the Republic and the continued existence of its government had been brought to British notice by Major Brown.

  Vanstabel eluded pursuit but as spring of 1794 approached the British Admiralty sent out the long awaited flying squadrons. That to which Kestrel was attached was under the command of Sir John Borlase Warren whose broad pendant flew in the 42-gun frigate Flora. Warren’s frigates hunted in the approaches to the Channel, sometimes in a pack, sometimes detached. Kestrel’s duties were unimaginatively recorded in her log as ‘vessel variously employed’. She might run orders from Flora to another frigate, returning with intelligence. She might be sent home to Falmouth with dispatches, rejoining the squadron with mail, orders, a new officer, her boats full of cabbages and bags of potatoes, sacks of onions stowed between her guns.

  It was a busy time for her company. Their constant visits to Falmouth reminded Drinkwater of Elizabeth whom he had first met there in 1780 and the view from Carrick Road was redolent of nostalgia. But he enjoyed no respite for the chills of January precipitated Griffiths’s malaria and while his commander lay uncomplaining in his cot, sweating and half-delirious, Drinkwater, by express instruction, managed the cutter without informing his superiors.

  Griffiths’s recovery was slow, interspersed with relapses. Drinkwater assumed the virtual command of the cutter unopposed. Jessup, like all her hands, had been impressed by the acting lieutenant’s resource in the escape from Vanstabel’s frigates. ‘He’ll do all right, will Mr Drinkwater,’ was his report to Johnson, the carpenter. And Tregembo further enhanced Drinkwater’s reputation with the story of the retaking of the Algonquin in the American war. The Cornishman’s loyalty was as touching as it was infectious.

  Unbeknown to Warren, Drinkwater had commanded Kestrel during the action of St George’s Day. Fifteen miles west of the Roches Douvres Warren’s squadron had engaged a similar French force under Commodore Desgareaux. At the time Warren had with him the yacht like Arethusa commanded by Sir Edward Pellew, Concorde and Melampus, with the unspritely Nymphe in the offing and unable to come up in time.

  During the battle Kestrel acted as Warren’s repeating vessel, a duty requiring strict attention both to the handling of the cutter and the accuracy of her signals. That Drinkwater accomplished it shorthanded was not known to Warren. Indeed no mention was even made of Kestrel’s presence in the account published in the Gazette. But Warren did not diminish his own triumph. Commodore Desgareaux’s Engageante had been taken, shattered beyond redemption, while the corvette Babet and the beautiful frigate Pomone were both purchased into the Royal Navy. Only the Resolue had escaped into Morlaix, outsailing a pursuit in which Kestrel had played a small part.

  ‘No mention of us sir,’ said Drinkwater dejectedly as he finished reading Warren’s dispatch from the Gazette.

  ‘No way to earn a commission is it, eh?’ Griffiths commiserated, reading Drinkwater’s mind as they shared a bottle over the newspaper. He looked ruefully at his subordinate’s set face.

  ‘Never mind Mr Drinkwater. Your moment will yet come. I
met Sir Sydney* Smith in the dockyard. He at least had heard we tried to cut off the Resolue.’ Griffiths sipped from his glass and added conversationally, ‘Diamond is at last joining the squadron, so we will have an eccentric brain to set beside the commodore’s square one. What d’you think of that then?’

  Drinkwater shrugged, miserable with the knowledge that Elizabeth was not far from their mooring at Haslar creek and that the addition of Diamond to the squadron opened opportunities for Richard White. ‘I don’t know, sir. What do you predict?’

  ‘Stratagems,’ said Griffiths in a richly imitated English that made Drinkwater smile, cracking the preoccupation with his own misfortune, ‘stratagems, Sir Sydney is the very devil for audacity . . .’

  ‘Well gentlemen?’ Warren’s strong features, thrown into bold relief by the lamplight, looked up from the chart. He was flanked by Pellew, Nagle of the Artois and the irrepressibly dominating Smith whose bright eyes darted restlessly over the lesser officers: Flora’s first lieutenant and sailing master, her lieutenant of marines and his own second lieutenant who was winking at a slightly older man, a man in the shadows, among his superiors on sufferance.

  ‘Any questions?’ Warren pursued the forms relentlessly. The three post captains shook their heads.

  ‘Very well. Sir Ed’d, then, leads the attack . . . Captain Nagle joins me offshore: the only problem is Kestrel . . .’ They all looked at the man in the shadows. He was not so young, thought Sir Sydney, the face was experienced. He felt an arm on his sleeve and bent his ear. Lieutenant Richard White whispered something and Sir Sydney again scrutinised the acting lieutenant in the plain blue coat. Warren went on: ‘I think one of my own lieutenants should relieve Griffiths . . .’ Smith watched the mouth of the man clamp in a hard line. He was reminded of a live shell.