Midshipman Graham and the Battle of Abukir

by James Boschert

  “We need someone to get up to the top and hook a line to the block up there to use for the sheet,” Duncan remarked. “I’ll go.”

  “Much as you might want to, Midshipman, I am going to overrule you. You are in charge of this vessel and as such will not be risking your neck. One of the other men can get up there and carry out the task,” Captain Williams told him in a firm tone that brooked no dissent.

  Duncan opened his mouth to object, but by this time one of the crew men was already half way up the narrow stays, taking with him a line. He nearly ran up the wildly corkscrewing pole with the agility of a monkey and tied of the line before calling down. One of the large sheets was tied off quickly by the men on deck and the sailor at the top hauled it up, where it flapped wildly, almost dislodging him from his precarious perch while he tied it off. The ragged sheet then streamed out in the wind.

  For long minutes every man on deck stared towards the ship in the distance. It remained a small, dark silhouette with a single white smudge at its top that appeared and disappeared at irregular intervals as the waves carried the ketch up and down.

  Out of the corner of his eye Duncan noted with some despair that the men who had formerly been in the cabin were being helped out by their mates. The bedraggled and soaked men stood on the deck looking very dispirited. The one who had spoken to him before looked over to Duncan and shook his head. Duncan’s heart sank. He could feel the whole vessel becoming more sluggish as the minutes went by. If no help arrived soon they would all be swimming.

  Then one of the men with sharper eyes gave a shout. “It’s making more sail. I can see there is more sail being set! God save us! There, ’is main and ’is topsails is on, and now ’is mizzen.”

  “Is it changing course for us?” called Hotchkins.

  “Not sure, Sir.” called back the same man. But then he pointed. “Dear Lord, I do believe it’s coming about! It’s comin’ towards us!”

  The ragged, soaked, and chilled men cheered and slapped each other on the back at the news. “Lord bless us, Sorr, but we might be all right!” Hotchkins said with a happy grin.

  “Still some way off, though.” Duncan observed. “It’s going to be a close call.” He glanced at the bow of the ketch, which didn’t rise from a wave as fast as it used to. The water poured back over the fore hatch and streamed past the men on the deck. He thought he felt a shudder as the ship tried to right itself and only managed to so so very slowly.

  “Bollocks,” he said under his breath.

  “What are you muttering about, Graham? Ye look peeved,” Captain Williams asked. His eyes were red-rimmed and he looked haggard. “Can’t swim, eh? Neither can any of those other gentlemen, I dare say. I’ve no desire to feed that bunch of sharks we just passed, either.”

  “Noo, while I don’t like the idea of swimming, Sir,” Graham replied giving a rueful shake of his head, “It’s no that. My first command and it sinks beneath my bluddy feet!” he shook his head in disgust. “I just wanted to sail this vessel into Larnaca and claim some prize money, Sir,” Duncan growled. “I could do with some.”

  Williams slapped his thigh and gave a bark of hoarse laughter. “Well I never. Listen, you young cockerel. There will be other opportunities for that, and don’t forget that you saved some lives here. By the way, I will be very willing to teach you something about fencing, should the opportunity present itself.”

  “Fencing, Sir?”

  “Oh yes, Graham. I have little doubt as to what was going on in the bushes back there on the beach. Very clumsy, from what I could tell. Those kind of things need to be finished within a minute, not all over the place. That’s when the wrong person gets hurt.” He chuckled. “I’ve a shrewd idea who it was you were scrapping with, too.”

  Duncan gaped but there was no time to respond, because another yell called their attention to the arrival of the ship, which, with main and top sails set, was descending upon their little craft at great speed.

  The men on the ketch cheered as the war ship, HMS Theseus, itself hove to half a cable away and rapidly lowered a boat.

  “Not before time either,” Captain Williams remarked. “My feet were about to get wet!”

  Duncan could now hear the water in the cabin below sloshing about, and when he went to peer over the wall it was a mere three feet from the upper deck. The boat was wallowing very low in the water, and if the waves had not been reduced to a choppy sea they would have been swamped and doubtless under water by now. As it was, he waited with mixed emotions as the long boat approached.

  They were hailed by the officer in the bow. “Ahoy there! Are you Captain Williams and crew? We saw the flag.”

  “Yes, we damned well are, and get us off this thing, it’s going down!” Captain Williams bellowed back with some asperity.

  “Aye aye, Sir,” called back the officer.

  They were able to step easily across from the ketch to the longboat, which accommodated all of the men. Hotchkins was gently assisted aboard by his mates. He winced with pain at one point, then looked up at Captain Williams and Duncan, who were the last to leave the stricken vessel, and said, “We would still be rotting in a Froggie prison but for you, Sirs. Please accept our ‘eartfelt thanks.” The men around him chorused their agreement.

  “Mum’s the word about how this young man achieved it, eh?” Williams said, tapping his nose. The scruffy bunch of ex prisoners, huddled in the waist of the longboat, laughed and nodded their heads. “Mum’s the word, Sorr.” That received some puzzled looks from the lieutenant and his bosun, but no further questions were asked.

  Without without further ceremony they were rowed across the intervening gap between the two vessels. Duncan sat in brooding silence near to Captain Williams and the officer, Lt Harrison, who was eager to know what had happened. While they talked Duncan glumly contemplated his first command as it wallowed lower and lower, giving off hissing sounds as though it resented being abandoned. It was under water with only its mast showing by the time they arrived at the side of the huge war ship.

  After seeing Hotchkins up the side, the remainder of the bedraggled group followed Captain Williams up the ladder to the main deck, where they were greeted by Lt Spaulding, who knew the captain and welcomed him warmly.

  “Sir Sidney Smith will be delighted that you made it, Sir. Although I imagine you could have wished the circumstances to be somewhat less, er... arduous? Looks like we were just in time, eh?” He chuckled, looking critically at their scarecrow appearance. “I dare say you would like to clean up, Sir. Please avail yourself of my cabin. The Captain’s steward will find some clean clothes for you.”

  Captain Williams gave him a tired smile and gestured towards the disconsolate midshipman at his side, who gave a half bow. “I, we all owe it to Midshipman Graham here; it was he who steered us through the storm and enabled our escape.”

  “Mr. Graham? I had heard that you were missing.” Spaulding gave Duncan a quizzical look, then turned to Williams with a look of enquiry on his face.

  “Been with me all the time and has conducted himself with honor and courage and ... at all times with dignity.” Captain Williams stated firmly.

  Duncan turned his head towards the captain just in time to catch a very slight lowering of his right eyelid.

  The End

  Author’s Note

  The French invasion of Egypt was a hugely ambitious campaign but one that promised Napoleon enormous rewards, for himself but also France. His determination to build France an empire and to even take India from the British brought about a truly remarkable series of events that in their way matched the conquests of Rome in an earlier time. Napoleon was a superb leader with equally capable generals to assist him in this campaign.

  While he conquered Egypt relatively easily with his highly disciplined army he had not taken into consideration that the British would side with the Turks and thwart his attempt to take Acre, a milestone which he simply could not bypass on his way to taking Constantinople itself. It might have
been better for him and his army if they had stayed in Egypt and explored the Upper Nile, where there were treasures beyond imagining waiting for his Savants to discover.

  Sir Sydney Smith is the ‘other’ great British admiral (actually he was a Commodore at Abukir) of the period who used his ships at the siege of Acre as mobile heavy artillery, hence preventing history from taking a totally different course from that which eventually occurred.

  It reflects upon the brilliance of Napoleon and his remarkable, hardened army of Infantrie, Grenadiers and cavalry that, thwarted though they might have been, and exhausted from their awful retreat across the Sinai desert, nonetheless these same men could recover sufficiently to force march from Cairo and conclusively defeat a vast army of Turks who had landed on Abukir with the aid of Sir Sidney’s ships.

  This particular battle does not reflect too well upon Sir Sidney, because had he investigated the area around Abukir he would have found out quickly enough that there was no place for his ships to be deployed usefully. There is little doubt that had he been able to bring his big ships with their guns to bear then Abukir might have gone to the Turks. As it was it disintegrated into a spectacular rout which was the end of any further attempts by the combined British and Turkish forces to take back Egypt. The story of Abukir is rendered as faithfully as possible as a factual account of an historic event. Naturally enough there are many accounts of this battle, but I have tried to reproduce the essence of what actually happened with some quotes from officers who were actually there at the time.

  Sir Sidney really was made a member of the order of the Templars by the archbishop of Nicosia. That is a matter of record and I have described it as it as such. Deservedly so, because he and he alone, with a very small squadron of ships, kept the east end of the Mediterranean clear of French ships and Napoleon from his vast ambitions.

  I have taken some license with the interaction between Sir Sidney and the Pasha and his officers, but for the most part there was room for Midshipman Graham as one of the many junior officers on the British war ships at that battle. He is a figment of my imagination, as is Captain Williams, although Sir Sydney did have spies in his employ who spoke several languages, including Arabic. Graham was put there to bring a more personal and lighter side to the whole, and I hope that he succeeded. We might not be done with this young scamp as yet.

  James Boschert

  About The Author

  James Boschert

  James Boschert grew up in the then colony of Malaya in the early fifties. He learned first-hand about terrorism while there as the Communist insurgency was in full swing. His school was burnt down and the family, while traveling, narrowly survived an ambush, saved by a Gurkha patrol, which drove off the insurgents.

  He went on to join the British army serving in remote places like Borneo and Oman. Later he spent five years in Iran before the revolution, where he played polo with the Iranian Army, developed a passion for the remote Assassin castles found in the high mountains to the North, and learned to understand and speak the Farsi language.

  Escaping Iran during the revolution, he went on to become an engineer and now lives in Arizona on a small ranch with his family and animals.

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