A King's Cutter nd-2

by Richard Woodman

  Drinkwater had not seen the flag but he wondered at the recondite nature of Brown's knowledge. He did not yet appreciate the major's capacity for apparently trifling details.

  'It's going to be a bloody long war, Madoc,' continued the major. 'I can tell you this, the god-damned Yankees are involved. We'll fight them again yet, you see. They've promised the Frogs vast quantities of grain. Place would starve without their help, and the revolutionaries'll make trouble in Ireland… that'll be no secret in a month or two.' He paused frowning, gathering words suitable to convey the enormity of his news and Drinkwater was reminded of Appleby. 'They're going to carry their bloody flag right through Europe, mark my words…' He helped himself to another slice of ham. Drinkwater knew now why the man had appeared so jovial all those months ago. He himself felt the desire to chatter like Brown, as a reaction to the events of the night before. How much worse for Brown after that terrible isolation. Once ashore he would have to be circumspect but here, aboard Kestrel, he occupied neutral ground, was among friends. He emptied his glass for the fourth time and Griffiths refilled it.

  'Did you get Barrallier out?' Brown asked settling back and addressing Drinkwater.

  'Yes, sir, we picked him up at Beaubigny.'

  'Beaubigny?' Brown looked startled and frowned. 'Where the devil's that? I arranged for Criel.' He looked at Griffiths who explained the location.

  'I protested, Major, but two aristos had Dungarth's ear, see.'

  Brown nodded, his eyes cold slits that in such a rubicund face seemed quite ugly.

  'And one was a, er, misanthrope, eh?'

  Griffiths and Drinkwater both nodded. 'And was De Tocqueville with Barrallier?'

  'Yes,' said Griffiths, 'with a deal of specie too.' Brown nodded and relapsed into thought during which Drinkwater heard him say musingly 'Beaubigny…'

  At last he looked up, a slightly puzzled expression on his face as though the answer was important. 'Was there a girl with them?' he asked, 'a girl with auburn hair?'

  'That's correct, sir,' put in Drinkwater, 'with her brother, Etienne.'

  Brown's eyebrows rose. 'So you know their names?'

  'Aye, sir, they were called Montholon.' It seemed odd that Brown, a master of secrets should evince surprise at what was common gossip on Plymouth hard. 'Barrallier told us, sir,' continued Drinkwater, 'it did not seem a matter for secrecy.'

  'Ha!' Brown threw back his head and laughed, a short, barking laugh like a fox. 'Good for Barrallier,' he said half for himself. 'No, 'tis no secret, but I am surprised at the girl leaving…' A silence fell over the three of them.

  Brown ruminated upon the pieces of a puzzle that were beginning to fit. He had not known that it had been Kestrel that had caused the furore off Carteret, but he had been fortuitously close to the row that had erupted in Paris and well knew how close as a cause of war the incident had become. Childers's comparatively innocent act had been just what the war hawks needed, having stayed their hands a month or so earlier.

  The major closed his eyes, recalling some fascinating details. Capitaine de frigate Edouard Santhonax had been instrumental in checking the Convention's belligerence. And apart from the previous night, the last time Brown had seen Santhonax, the handsome captain had had Hortense Montholon gracing his arm. She had not seemed like a woman fleeing from revolution.

  Lieutenant Griffiths watched his passenger, aware of mystery in the air and hunting back over the conversation to find its cause, while Drinkwater was disturbed by a vision of auburn hair and fine grey eyes.

  Chapter Five

  Incident off Ushant

  October-December 1793

  In the weeks that followed Drinkwater almost forgot about the incident at Beaubigny, the rescue of Major Brown and the subsequent encounter with the chasse marée. Occasionally, on dark nights when the main cabin was lit by the swinging lantern, there appeared a ghost of disquieting beauty and auburn hair. And that half drowned sensation, as Tregembo hauled him through the breakers with the dead weight of the major threatening to drag them both to the bottom, emerged periodically to haunt half-awake hours trying to sleep. But they were mere shades, thrown off with full consciousness together with recollections of the swamps of Carolina and memories of Morris, the sodomite tyrant of Cyclops's cockpit.

  The spectre of the fugitives of Beaubigny appeared once in more positive form, revived by Griffiths. It was only a brief item in an already yellowing newspaper concerned with the death of a French nobleman in the gutters of St James's. Footpads were suspected as the gentleman's purse was missing and he was known to have been lucky at the tables that evening. But the man's name was De Tocqueville and Griffiths's raised eyebrow over the lowered paper communicated to Drinkwater a suspicion of assassination.

  Such speculations were swept aside by duty. Already the Channel was full of French corsairs, from luggers to frigates, which commenced that war on trade at which they excelled. Into this mêlée of French commerce-raiders and British merchantmen, solitary British frigates dashed, noisily inadequate. Then on 18th June Pellew in La Nymphe took Cleopâtre off the Start and his knighthood sent a quiver of ambition down many an aspiring naval spine.

  Kestrel, meanwhile, attended to more mundane matters, carrying despatches, fresh vegetables, mail and gossip to and from the detached cruisers, a maid of all work that fled from strong opposition and struck at weaker foes. Pellew took some men from her to supplement his crew of Cornish tin miners, despite Griffiths's protest, but they suffered only twice from this abuse. Kestrel's people, mostly volunteers, were a superlative crew, worthy of a flagship under the most punctilious admiral.

  'Better'n aught the Cumberland Fleet can offer,' Jessup claimed with pride, alluding to the Thames yachts that made a fetish of such niceties as sail drill. Griffiths too reserved an approbatory twinkle in his eye for a smart manoeuvre executed under the envious glare of a frigate captain still struggling with a crew of landsmen. He could imagine the remarks on a score of quarterdecks about the 'damned insolence of unrated buggers'.

  Amid this activity Drinkwater was aware that he was part of a happy ship, that Griffiths rarely flogged, nor had need to, and that these were halcyon days.

  Whatever his misgivings about his future they were hidden from the taut deck of the cutter and reserved for the solitude of his cabin. The demands of watch and watch, the tension of chase or flight and the modest profits on prizes were in part compensation for the lack of prospects on his own, personal horizon.

  December found them off the low island of Ushant cruising in search of Warren with the news that the commodore's squadron, after many delays and dockyard prevarications, would assemble under his command at Falmouth in the New Year.

  It was a day of easterly wind which washed the air clear of the damp westerlies that had dogged them through the fall. Depression had followed depression across the Atlantic, eight weeks in which Kestrel had sought her principals under the greatest difficulties, her people wet and miserable, her canvas sodden and hard, her galley stove mostly extinguished.

  The bright sunlight lay like a benefice upon the little ship so that she seemed reborn, changing men's moods, the skylarking crew a different company. Damp clothing appeared in the weather rigging giving her a gipsy air.

  The low island that marked the western extremity of France lay astern on the larboard quarter and from time to time Drinkwater took a bearing of the lighthouse on the rising ground of Cape Stiff. He was interrupted in one such operation by a hail from the masthead: 'Deck there! Sail to windward!'

  'Pass the word for the captain.'

  'Aye, aye, sir.'

  Griffiths hurried on deck, took a look at the island and the masthead pendant streaming over the starboard quarter in the easterly wind. 'Up you go Mr Drinkwater.' Agilely Drinkwater ascended the mast, throwing a leg over the topgallant yard. He needed but a single glance to tell him it was not Flora and to confirm a suspicion he knew he shared with Griffiths consequent upon the easterly breeze. The great naval arsen
al of Brest lay ahead of them. The sail he was looking at had slipped down the Gouiet that morning. Beyond he could see another.

  'Two frigates, sir,' he said reaching the deck, 'bearing down on us and making sail.'

  Griffiths nodded. 'Mr Jessup!' He cast about for the boatswain who was hurrying on deck, struggling into his coat. 'Sir?'

  'We'll put her before the wind, I want preventer backstays and every stitch she'll carry. Mr Drinkwater, a course clear of the Pierres Vertes to open the Fromveur Passage…' He issued more orders as the hands tumbled up but Drinkwater was already scrambling below to consult the chart.

  The Île d'Ouessant, or Ushant to countless generations of British seamen, lies some thirteen miles west of the Brittany coast. Between the island and Point St Matthew a confused litter of rocks, islets and reefs existed, delineated within a pecked line on the cutter's chart as: 'numerous dangerous shoals, rocks, and Co wherein are unpredictable tide rips and overfalls.' Even in the mildest of weather the area is subject to Atlantic swells and the ceaseless run of the tide which at springs reaches a rate of seven and a half knots. When the wind and tide are in opposition they generate a high, vicious and dangerous sea. At best the tide rips and overfalls rendered the area impossible to navigation. So great were the dangers in the locality as a whole that a special treaty had been drawn up between England and France that provided for the latter country to maintain a lighthouse on Point Stiff 'in war as in peace, for the general benefit of humanity'. This tower had been erected a century earlier to a design by Vauban on the highest point of the island.

  Two passages run through the rocks between Ushant and the mainland. The Chenal du Four, a tortuous gut between St Matthew and Le Four rocks, while the Fromveur lies along the landward side of Ushant itself. It was the latter that Drinkwater now studied.

  As he pored over the chart Drinkwater felt the sudden increase of speed that followed the clatter, shudder and heel of the gybe. Kestrel thrust through the water responsive to the urgency felt by her commander. Bracing himself he slipped into his own cabin and took from the bookshelf a stained notebook. It had once belonged to Mr Blackmore, sailing master of the frigate Cyclops. He riffled through the pages, finding what he was looking for, his brow frowning in concentration. He looked again at the chart, a copy of an early French survey. The litter of dangers worried him, yet the Fromveur itself looked straight and deep. He cursed the lack of Admiralty enterprise that relied on commanders purchasing their own charts. Even Kestrel, employed as she had been on special service, received no more than an allowance so that Griffiths could have only what he could purchase.

  Drinkwater went on deck. Ushant was on the starboard bow now and a glance astern showed the nearer frigate closing them fast. The sooner they got into the Fromveur and out-performed her the better. Drinkwater recalled Barrallier's superior air, his confidence in the sailing qualities of French frigates and his astonishment at finding Griffiths navigating the French coast on obsolete charts: the old government of France had established a chart office more than seventy years earlier, he had said.

  A feeling of urgency surged through him as he bent over the compass, rushing below to lay off the bearings. Already the Channel flood had swept them too far to the north, pushing them relentlessly towards the rocks and reefs to starboard. He hurried back on deck and was about to request Griffiths turn south when another hail reached the deck.

  'Breakers on the starboard bow!'

  Jessup started for the mainsheet. 'Stand by to gybe!' he shouted. By gybing again Kestrel could stem the tide and clear the rocks by making southing. The men were already at their stations, looking expectantly aft, awaiting the order from Griffiths.

  'Belay that, Mr Jessup… Are they the Pierres Vertes, Mr Drinkwater?'

  'Yes, sir.' Griffiths could see the surge of white water with an occasional glimpse of black, revealing the presence of the outcrops. To gain southing would allow the frigate to close.

  'Steer nor' west… harden your sheets a trifle, Mr Jessup… Mr Drinkwater, I'm going inside…' His voice was calm, reassuring, as though there was no imminent decision to be taken. Drinkwater was diverted by the appearance of a shot hole in the topgallant, a ball smacked into the taffrail, sending splinters singing across the deck. A seaman was hit, a long sliver of pitch pine raising a terrible lancing wound. They had no surgeon to attend him.

  To clear the reef the French frigate had altered to larboard, her course slightly diverging from that of the cutter so that a bow gun would bear. The smoke of her fire hung under her bow, driven by the following wind.

  'Steer small, damn your eyes,' Griffiths growled at the helmsman. Drinkwater joined him in mental exercises in triangulation. They knew they must hold Kestrel close to the Pierres Vertes to avoid the tide setting them too far to the north on to the Roche du Loup, the Roche du Reynard and the reefs between; to avoid the temptation of running into clear water where the dangers were just submerged.

  The Pierres Vertes were close now, under the bow. The surge and undertow of the sea could be felt as the tide eddied round them. Kestrel staggered in her onward progress then, suddenly, the rocks lay astern. A ragged cheer came from the men on deck who were aware that their ship had just survived a crisis.

  The relief was short lived.

  'Deck there! Sail to starboard, six points on the bow!' Drinkwater could see her clearly from the deck. A small frigate or corvette reaching down the Passage Du Fromveur, unnoticed in their preoccupation with the rocks but barring their escape.

  'Take that lookout's name, Mr Drinkwater, I'll have the hide off him for negligence…'

  Another hole aloft and several splashes alongside. One ball ricochetted off the side of a wave and thumped, half spent, into the hull. They were neatly trapped.

  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 stem 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 Îles 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 companion way 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.