A King's Cutter

by Richard Woodman

  He hurled the bottle from him and it shivered to pieces against the far bulkhead.

  ‘Damned witchery,’ he repeated, heading for the companionway. Up and down he strode, between the taffrail and the gigs, the anchor watch withdrawing from his path. From time to time he paused to look in the direction of Kijkduin. Santhonax had to be at Kijkduin. Had to be, to feed the cold ruthlessness that was spreading through him. If his chance lay in the coming hours he must not lack the resolution to grasp it.

  Vice-Admiral De Winter ordered his fleet to sail on the morning of October 8th. The frigate that Drinkwater had watched the previous afternoon stood seawards at first light, catching up the yacht in her wake. Kestrel weighed too, standing seawards down the West Gat, firing her chasers and flying the signal for an enemy to windward. Black Joke caught the alarm, wore round and stood in her grain, hoisting the same signal.

  For an hour Kestrel ran ahead of the Dutch fleet as ship after ship rounded the battery at Kijkduin, turning south for the Schulpen Gat. The cutter, diverging towards Trollope, observed them, her commander making notes upon a tablet.

  They rejoined the squadron at noon, closing the commodore for their orders.

  ‘What d’you make of them?’ Trollope called through his speaking trumpet.

  ‘Twenty-one ships, sir, including some ship-sloops and frigates, say about fifteen of the line. There are also four brigs and two yachts . . . I’d say his whole force excepting the transports . . .’

  ‘So Ireland’s out.’

  Drinkwater shook his head. ‘No sir, they could come out next tide or wait until he’s dealt with us, sir.’ He saw Trollope nod.

  ‘Take station on my lee beam. I’m forming line, continue to repeat my signals. Good luck!’

  ‘And you sir.’ He exchanged a wave with Burroughs, then turned to Hill.

  ‘Mr Hill, our station is the commodore’s lee beam. Do you see to it.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  ‘You may adjust sail to maintain station and watch for any signals either general to the squadron for repeating, or particular to us.’

  Drinkwater felt a great burden lifted from his shoulders. It was good to be in company again, good to see the huge bulk of Russell a cannon shot to windward. He suddenly felt very tired but there was one thing yet to do. ‘Mr Jessup!’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Call the hands aft!’

  ‘Now my lads,’ began Drinkwater, leaping up onto the breech of one of the three pounders when they had assembled. ‘I’m not one to bear a grudge, and neither are you. We are now in the presence of an enemy force and disobedience to an order carries the penalty of death. I therefore rely absolutely upon your loyalty. Give me that and I promise I will move heaven and earth to have you paid the instant we return to Sheerness.’ He paused and was pleased to find a murmur of approval run through the men.

  ‘Carry on, Mr Jessup, and pipe up spirits now . . .’

  Drinkwater jumped down from the gun. ‘Mr Hill, you have the deck. Call me if you need me.’ He went gratefully below, passing through the cabin where light through the skylight had exorcised the spectres of the preceding night.

  ‘Spirit ration, Mr Thompson,’ said Jessup to the purser. James Thompson nodded and indicated the guns of Russell half a mile to windward. They were a dumb but powerful incentive to obedience.

  ‘He chooses his moments for exhortatory speeches, don’t he, Mr Jessup?’

  Jessup had only the vaguest idea of what an exhortatory speech was, but the significance of Russell, surging along, sail set to the topgallants as she stood south to maintain station with De Winter, was not lost on him.

  ‘Aye, Mr Thompson, he’s a cool and calculating bastard,’ muttered Jessup, unable to keep the admiration out of his voice.

  Captain Trollope formed his squadron into line with the sloop Martin ahead and to larboard, keeping De Winter in sight as he edged south along the coast. Then, as the day wore on and his rear cleared the Schulpen Gat De Winter altered more to the west.

  Trollope’s main body consisted of the Beaulieu, a frigate of forty guns, following by the faithful fifty Adamant and his own Russell. In her wake came the smaller frigate Circe of twenty-eight guns. Kestrel and Active, cutters, lay to leeward of the line and Black Joke had long since been sent to Duncan to inform him the enemy was out.

  Towards evening the wind fell away then backed round to the south west. De Winter tacked in pursuit of Trollope who drew off, while the Dutch, unable to catch the British, stood south again, confirming Drinkwater’s theory that they intended to force the Straits of Dover.

  During the following two days the wind hauled more steadily into the west and De Winter’s fleet began to beat to windward, closing the English coast in the vicinity of Lowestoft with Trollope just ahead, covering his communications with Yarmouth.

  ‘What d’you make of it, Nat?’ asked Appleby confidentially at dinner. ‘D’you still hold to your idea that they’re bound for Brest then Ireland?’

  Drinkwater nodded, wiping his mouth with the crumpled napkin. ‘He’s covering Duncan while the troopships and storeships get out of the Texel. They’ll get south under the cover of the French coast and then De Winter’ll follow ’em down Channel.’

  Appleby nodded in uncharacteristic silence. ‘It seems we’ve been wasting our time then,’ he said.

  On the morning of the 10th October Trollope despatched Active to find Duncan with the latest news of De Winter. At this time De Winter had learned from a Dutch merchant ship that Duncan had left Yarmouth and had been seen standing east. Alarmed for his rear De Winter turned away and, with the wind at north west stood for the Dutch coast in the vicinity of Kampenduin.

  Meanwhile Duncan, having left Yarmouth in great haste on seeing Black Joke making furious signals for an enemy at sea while still to seaward of the Scroby Sands, had indeed headed east for the Texel.

  Trollope, though inferior in force, had hung onto the windward position chiefly because the shallow draughted Dutch ships were unable to weather him. He was still there on the morning of the 11th when officers in the Dutch fleet saw his ships throw out signals from which they rightly concluded Duncan was in sight with the main body of the British fleet. De Winter headed directly for the coast where he could collect his most leeward ships into line of battle and stand north for the Texel in the shallow water beloved by his own pilots. About twelve miles off the coast De Winter formed his line heading north under easy sail and awaited the British.

  Admiral Duncan, having first reconnoitred the Texel and discovered the troop and storeships were still at their moorings, collected Diligent and turned south in search of his enemy. During the forenoon Trollope’s detachment rejoined their admiral. Duncan’s ships were indifferent sailors and he had neither time nor inclination to form line. De Winter’s fleet was dropping to leeward into shoal water by the minute and the old admiral accepted their formal challenge with alacrity. Duncan hoisted the signal for ‘general chase’ and the British, grouped together into two loose divisions, Duncan’s to the north and Onslow’s slightly advanced to the south, bore down on the Dutch.

  The increase in the westerly wind with its damp air had brought about a thickening of the atmosphere and the battle that was now inevitable seemed to be marred by disorder amongst the British ships. Just before noon Duncan signalled that his intention was to pass through the enemy line and engage from leeward, thus denying the Dutch escape and ensuring all the windward batteries of the British ships could be used. The signal was repeated by the frigates and cutters. At noon they hoisted that for close action.

  Thirty minutes later Onslow’s Monarch opened the action by cutting off De Winter’s rear between the Jupiter and Harlem, ranging up alongside the former, raked by the heavy frigate Monikendaam and the brig Atalanta forming a secondary line to leeward of the Dutch battleships. Amid a thunder of guns the battle of Camperdown had begun.

  Kestrel, in common with the other cutters as a repeating vessel, was not a target.
Stray shot might hit her but in general the conventions of a fleet action were observed. The British cutters and Dutch yachts were expected to render assistance to the wounded where they could be found clinging to fallen spars and continue to repeat their admirals’ signals. Kestrel had formed part of Onslow’s division and Drinkwater found himself in a confusing world of screaming shot, choppy seas and a strong wind. Smoke and mist enveloped the combatants as gun flashes began to eclipse the dull daylight.

  Within minutes Drinkwater had lost sight of Monarch behind the Dutch line and he altered to the north to maintain contact with Russell, but Trollope, too, cut through the line and Kestrel found herself passing under the stern of the Dutch seventy-four Brutus, bearing the flag of a rear-admiral at her mizen.

  Through the rolling clouds of smoke a brig was seen to leeward and her commander did not extend the courtesy or disdain of his bigger consorts. Shot whistled about Kestrel and a shower of lancing splinters from the starboard rail sent one man hopping bloodily below in agony to where Appleby had his gruesome instruments laid out on the cabin table.

  ‘Down helm!’ roared Drinkwater, his eyes gleaming with concentration now the final, cathartic moment of action had arrived. ‘Haul the sheets there!’ The cutter bore away from her overlarge opponent and headed north, passing Brutus as the latter turned to assist De Winter ahead, now being pressed by several British ships tearing pell-mell into battle.

  Suddenly ahead of them loomed a Dutch sixty-four, fallen out of line with her colours struck. For a moment Drinkwater contemplated putting a prize crew on board for it seemed unlikely that her antagonist, Triumph, engaged to larboard by a frigate and the seventy-four Staten General, had had the opportunity. But a sudden crash shook the cutter. One of the crew of Number 12 gun fell dead, cut clean in half by a ball that destroyed the jolly boat and the handsome taffrail. The brig which had fired on them had set her topgallants and was coming up fast in pursuit.

  Drinkwater looked wildly round him. ‘Down helm! Harden in those sheets there, put her on the wind, full and bye! Down centre plates! And throw that,’ he indicated the faintly twitching lumps that a moment before had been a living man, ‘overboard, for God’s sake!’

  Kestrel pointed up into the wind, escaping as she had done off Ushant, heeling to the hardening of her sails. Spray whipped over the rail and tore aft. Drinkwater looked astern.

  ‘Well I’m damned,’ he said aloud and beside him Hill whistled. The brig, unable to continue the chase so close to the wind had come up with her consort, the surrendered sixty-four Wassanaer. Seeing her shameful plight the brig opened fire into her. In a few moments the Dutch tricolour jerked aloft again and snapped out in the wind.

  ‘This ain’t like fighting the Frogs, Mr Drinkwater. Look, there’s hardly a mast down, these bloody squareheads know how to fight by Jesus . . . The bastards are hulling us. Christ! There’ll be a butcher’s bill after this lot . . .’

  Russell loomed up ahead and Kestrel wore round in her wake.

  ‘Ahead of you, sir,’ Drinkwater bellowed through the speaking trumpet, ‘a seventy-four. Yours for the taking . . .’ He saw Trollope wave acknowledgement.

  For a moment or two they kept pace with the battleship, huge, majestic and deadly, as she ran down her quarry. Her sides were already scarred by shot, several of which could be clearly seen embedded in her strakes. Seamen grinned at them from a jagged hole where adjacent gunports had been amalgamated. Thin streaks of blood ran down her sides.

  ‘Spill some wind, Mr Hill. We’ll drop astern.’ Russell drew ahead, driving off the brig with one, apocalyptic broadside. Wassanaer surrendered again.

  Kestrel crossed Russell’s wake. To larboard two or three ships lay rolling, locked in a death struggle. One was the Staten General.

  Suddenly, from behind the hard-pressed Dutchman, leapt a small but familiar vessel. Her bowsprit stabbed at the sky as her helm was put over and her course steadied to intercept the British cutter. At her masthead flew the black swallowtail pendant.

  Drinkwater had no idea how Santhonax had persuaded De Winter to allow him the use of the yacht. She flew the Dutch tricolour from her peak but there was no mistaking the significance of that sinister weft at the masthead. Drinkwater thought of the corpse of Major Brown, of the hanged mutineers of the Culloden, of the scapegoats of the Nore and of the collusion between Capitaine Santhonax and the red-haired witch now in Maidstone Gaol. He was filled with a cold and ruthless anger.

  ‘Larboard battery make ready!’

  The yacht was on the larboard bow, broad-reaching to the north east and closing them. For a few minutes they both ran on, lessening the range.

  ‘Ease her off a point,’ then in a louder voice, ‘fire when you bear, Mr Bulman!’

  Almost immediately the first report came from forward and Number 2 gun recoiled inboard, its crew fussing about it reloading. A ragged cheer broke from the Kestrels as they opened a rolling fire. Holes appeared in the yacht’s sails. She was trying to cross Kestrel’s bow to rake and Drinkwater had a sudden idea.

  ‘Down helm! Headsail sheets! Hard on the wind!’ Kestrel turned, presenting her bow for the raking broadside but at a time of her own choosing and too quickly for Santhonax to take full advantage. Only two balls from his broadside came near and they struck harmless splinters from the starboard gig. ‘Starboard guns! Starboard guns!’

  Traveller held his hand up in acknowledgement, as if coolly assuring his commander that no last minute manoeuvre would rob Jeremiah Traveller of his moment. He had all the quoins out and the guns at full elevation as they made to cross the yacht’s stern.

  But Santhonax rose to the occasion. The yacht turned now, spinning to starboard so that the two vessels passed on opposite courses at a combined speed of nearly twenty knots. Doggedly they fired gun for gun, time permitting them one shot from each as they raced past. Drinkwater saw huge sections of the yacht’s rail shivered into splinters. Jemmy Traveller had double shotted his guns.

  Then the whine of shot, the impact, thumps and screams of the yacht’s fire turned Kestrel’s deck into a shambles of wounded and dead men who fell back from their cannon. Aft, Drinkwater laid his pistol at a tall man near the yacht’s tiller and squeezed the trigger. The ball missed its mark and the fellow coolly raised his hat and smiled. Drinkwater swore but he was cold as ice now, lifted onto a terrible, calculating plane that was beyond fear. He had surrendered to providence now, was a hostage to the capricious fortune of war and had long forgotten his earnest promises to Elizabeth. Elizabeth was of another world that had no part in this dull and terrible October afternoon. For this was not the Nathaniel known to Elizabeth, this was a man who had taken the French lugger and quelled incipient mutiny. This was an intelligent man butchering his fellows, and doing it with consummate ability.

  ‘Up helm! Stand by to gybe!’

  There was a scrambling about the decks as Jessup, aware of Drinkwater’s intentions, whipped the shocked men to their stations. He had not yet felt the pain of the splinter in his own leg. Kestrel swung round in pursuit of the yacht, heeling violently as her huge boom, barely restrained by its sheet, flew across the deck. The unsecured guns of the starboard battery rolled inboard to the extent of their breechings and those of the larboard thumped against the rail, their outboard wheels in the water that drove in through the open gunports. They steadied after the yacht. Across her stern they could see her name; Draaken. Shot holes peppered her sails as they did their own, and frayed ropes’ ends streamed to leeward from her masthead.

  Drinkwater never removed his eyes from his quarry, gauging the distance. It was closing, the yacht with her leeboards sagging down to leeward as Kestrel came up on her larboard quarter. He was aware of, rather than saw, Jessup clapping a set of deadeyes on a weather shroud, wounded in the action, that had parted under the sudden strain of that impetuous gybe. And beneath his feet there was a sluggishness that told of water in the hold. Even as his subconscious mind identified it he heard too the clanking of the
pumps where Johnson was attending to his duty.

  ‘Mr Traveller!’ There was no answer, then Jessup called ‘Jem’s bought it, sir . . .’ There was a pause, eloquent of eulogy for a friend. ‘I’ll do duty if it’s the starboard guns you’ll be wanting . . .’ There was a high, strained quality of exaggerated emphasis in Jessup’s voice, also present in his own. He knew it for the voice of blood-lust, a quality that made men’s words memorable at such moments of heightened perception.

  It’s the starboard battery I want, right enough Mr Jessup,’ he confirmed, and it seemed that a steadying influence ran along Kestrel’s deck. The wounded had been pulled clear of the guns from where Meyrick and his bearers could drag the worst of them below, to Appleby.

  The surrounding battle had ceased to exist for Drinkwater. His whole being was concentrated on overhauling the Draaken, attempting to divine Santhonax’s next move. Jessup came up to him.

  ‘I’ve loaded canister on top o’ ball, sir, in the starboard guns, an’ the larbowlines will be ready to board.’

  With an effort Drinkwater directed his attention to the man beside him. There was the efficiency he had first noted about Jessup, paying dividends at last. He must remember that in his report. If he lived to write it.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Jessup.’ His eye ran past the boatswain. Forward he could see James Thompson checking the priming in a pistol and taking a cutlass from Short. Short, a kerchief round his grimy head, was lovingly caressing a boarding pike. By the companionway Tregembo was thumbing the edge of another pike and glancing anxiously aft at Drinkwater. All along the starboard side the starbowlines knelt by their guns as if at gun drill. He could see the red beard of Poll pointed at the enemy.

  A wave of emotion seized Drinkwater for a terrible moment. It seemed the cutter and all her people were in the grip of some coalescing of forces that stemmed from his own desire for vengeance. They could not have caught the same madness that led Drinkwater in hot pursuit of Santhonax, nor all be victims of the witchcraft of Hortense Montholon.