The Spoils of Conquest

by Seth Hunter

  In fact, all Nathan’s complaints, in those first few days, were reserved for the ship. She responded quite slowly to the helm and she drifted alarmingly to leeward. Nathan would not have called her an old slug – an indictment he had heard levelled at the Leopard, which was one of her sister ships – but he very rapidly came to the conclusion that she possessed all the vices of her breed – speed and manoeuvrability sacrificed for an extra layer of guns.

  The one thing he could not complain about was his accommodation. Sometimes he would just sit there admiring the play of light from the stern windows on all that polished woodwork and brass. Or he would go out onto the stern gallery to lean upon the rail, and gaze out upon the rest of the squadron under a full press of sail in line astern. And as if this was not enough for any man, he had a separate dining room and sleeping cabin as well – and a vast private larder on the orlop deck, which he had not been niggardly in stocking before they left Bombay. But his pleasure was tarnished by the knowledge that he had almost as much space reserved for his exclusive conveni ence as that provided for the rest of crew. It was not too bad for the officers who shared the space immediately beneath him, and had the advantage of their own stern windows – with a quarter gallery for Tully – but most of the men were accommodated on the lower deck where they had to find whatever space they could between the guns – 257 men and boys crammed into a space not much bigger than that provided for the commodore. Each of these individuals was permitted just fourteen inches of space to sling his hammock – though of course he had the luxury of twenty-eight inches when one half of the crew was on watch. Yet they seemed in good spirits and there was no muttering or black looks. Even the routine tasks such as the daily ritual of scrubbing the decks and lashing and stowing the hammocks were performed with cheerful efficiency. In fact, if they had not been so cheerful, Nathan might have thought they were automatons, as well drilled and inhuman as Prussian infantry.

  He was less impressed by their gunnery. On the morning of the second day, before the sun was at its most merciless, he had the whole squadron practise at the great guns. It was a fairly perfunctory practice – there was no time for manoeuvres or for firing at a target – they just blazed away for an hour or so in line ahead, and afterwards they collated the rates of fire. They were not good. Good would have been three rounds in just under five minutes. The Bombay came closest to that, with three in just over six. The Pondicherry was by far the worst and there were several injuries. Men began to run into each other, tempers frayed, mistakes were made. One man dropped a twenty-four-pound shot on his foot; one lost a finger on a touch hole; there were two serious burns. Joyce’s thunder threat ened to erupt. The ship had been in dry dock for the best part of a year, he explained later to his two senior officers, and there had been no opportunity to practise in Bombay harbour. They would do better with more practice.

  Nathan said nothing, at least in public. But afterwards he and Tully held a post-mortem in the privacy of the great cabin.

  ‘Three rounds in nine minutes!’ Nathan held his head in his hands. ‘We might as well command a transport ship.’

  ‘It was not quite as bad as that,’ Tully demurred. ‘And I am inclined to blame the guns at least as much as the crews.’

  There was something in this. So far as Nathan could tell, most of them were the original guns issued to the ship when she was launched in 1778, and they were the old Armstrong pattern which had been standard during the American War – instead of the new Blomefields which were a lot easier to handle and were fitted with flintlocks in place of the old-fashioned slow matches. And this was not his only complaint.

  ‘Why have we no carronades?’ he demanded of Joyce. The short, stubbly smashers forged by the Caron Company of Falkirk had become a standard feature aboard most King’s ships since their introduction in ’82. Nathan was not entirely enamoured of them for they were notoriously inaccurate, but they were very handy at close quarters and as far as he was aware they had replaced the quarterdeck 6-pounders on all ships over a certain size, even the old fourth-rates.

  ‘She was in French hands when they were issued,’ Joyce pointed out. ‘And we have not received any from England.’

  ‘But the Bombay has them and so does the Cornwallis – and the Comet has nothing but carronades.’

  Joyce inclined his head in appreciation of this intelligence but had no comment to make. They were the Bombay Marine. They could have what they liked.

  ‘But I do not think it would matter what guns we used,’ Nathan confided now to Tully in the privacy of his cabin. ‘It is the gun crews. They are altogether too rigid, too precise. I know one must take care with powder and shot and so forth, but I could have had my dinner in the time it takes them to sponge and worm out. And when you hurry them, they run about like headless chickens.’

  Tully frowned at the comparison. ‘Some gun crews are better than others,’ he pointed out. ‘If they were to fire at will, it would be a much better performance. And I doubt there is a ship in the Indian Ocean that could stand up to a single broadside, let alone three.’

  ‘So long as it can be brought to bear,’ muttered Nathan ominously.

  ‘Is there any reason why it should not be?’ Tully demanded. ‘They handle the ship well enough – you said so yourself.’

  For answer Nathan stood up and fetched a bundle of papers from his desk. They were the Sailing Quality Reports filed by her last two captains and they listed a catalogue of complaints. Nathan skipped over most of them as carping but the one that he found most damning was the reference to her exceptionally low freeboard. When she heeled to leeward, even in a moderate wind, it was impossible to open the gunports on her lower deck – a serious disadvantage in a fighting ship. Nathan was not the least bit reassured by the suggestion that she should always attack to leeward.

  ‘Well, I cannot argue with you about that,’ Tully agreed, ‘it is a bad fault. But she sails as well and as fast as most frigates when the wind is on her quarter – and I am sure that not even you could fault the sailing qualities of her crew. She has the best topmen it has been my privilege to serve with.’

  This was probably true, but it reminded Nathan of something else he had noted.

  ‘I could have been mistaken, but after dinner, when the midshipmen were larking about in the rigging, I could swear I saw an ape up there.’

  ‘Many of the midshipmen look like apes,’ Tully remarked, but in such a way as to alert Nathan’s suspicions.

  ‘This was a very small ape, a great deal smaller even than a midshipman.’

  ‘Well, it might have been the monkey.’

  ‘The monkey?’

  ‘The midshipmen have a monkey. It belonged to Mr Joyce’s women but it was left behind when they were thrown off the ship. They call it Hannibal. It lives with them in the gunroom. It is a kind of ship’s mascot. Do you wish them to get rid of it?’

  This would mean throwing it overboard, though being midshipmen they would probably eat it. Tempting, but Nathan dismissed the suggestion. ‘Perhaps we should put it to one of the guns,’ he remarked. ‘It could scarce do worse than the men.’

  A tightening of Tully’s features revealed that he had gone too far. For the rest of their discussion he was coldly polite, and Nathan conceded that he should let Tully and Joyce deal with the handling of the ship while he confined his attention to strategic concerns.

  This presented sufficient problems on its own account.

  When Nathan opened the governor’s written orders, he received an unpleasant surprise. He had expected them to confirm the verbal agreement made between them, and to repeat Nelson’s injunction to prevent French troops and supplies from reaching India. His previous experience of official orders should have alerted him to the probability that it would never be as simple as that.

  To Commodore Nathan Peake,

  His Britannic Majesty’s ship Pondicherry, on the Bombay station

  12 October, 1798

  Sir,

  In accordan
ce with the authority conferred upon me by the Directors of the Honourable East India Company and His Majesty’s Board of Control, and following the instruction of Admiral Nelson, I hereby confirm your appointment as Commodore of the vessels that have been put at your disposal, and request and require that you take whatever steps may be necessary to prevent the landing of French troops and materiel in India and to seek out and destroy those vessels of the King’s enemies as may be operating in the region.

  You are to consult and combine with the Commodore of the Company Marine operating out of Bombay, in protecting the trade and other interests of the said company and of His Majesty. You are especially required to seek his advice on all matters appertaining to company policy, with particular regard to relations with the native princes, respecting the neutrality of those princes not engaged in the current hostilities, whilst undertaking everything in your power to prevent the intervention of foreign powers opposed to the interests of the company and of His Majesty.

  I remain &c.

  Jonathan Duncan

  Governor of Bombay

  There were a number of reasons for Nathan to feel uneasy about this missive. Despite the encouraging introduction, it was not at all clear that Nathan was, indeed, commander of the combined squadron. Yet, at the same time, it was phrased in such a way as to ensure that he would be the one singled out for blame if anything should go wrong. The last sentence was particularly worrying. Was the Sultan of Mysore included in the stricture about the native princes? If so, and it must be assumed that he was, what were they supposed to do if French ships were found under the protection of the Sultan’s flag? Sit outside Mangalore until the French came out – or encourage them to do so by shelling the port? What else was a bomb ketch for?

  It seemed to Nathan that the governor had ‘set him up’. Was Duncan genuinely concerned at the possibility of provoking a war with the Sultan of Mysore? Or was it exactly what he and the Honourable East India Company wanted?

  He wondered if the commodore of the Bombay Marine could tell him. He sent a note over in the launch inviting him to dinner.

  Charles Picket was in his fifties, quite small and dapper with the powdered wig and courtly comportment of an older generation. In fact, he looked more like a lawyer than a seaman – he reminded Nathan a little of Robespierre, the little lawyer from Arras who had become leader of the French during the bloodiest days of the Revolution. He had the same sharp eyes and precise manner and a fussy way of dabbing at his mouth with his napkin. And the same artful way of waiting for you to say the wrong thing, or make the wrong move.

  There were just the two of them for dinner and Nathan fussed a little over the menu and the preparations, wanting it to be just right. They began with a soup made from a freshly caught turtle, flavoured with brandy; followed by a chicken, cooked in the Breton style, with cider and Calvados; and then a custard tart with dried fruits for pudding. Nathan made sure there was plenty of wine to go with it, but Picket drank abstemiously. A small sip of wine between courses, dabbing at his lips with his napkin, while they talked pleasantly enough of Nathan’s life in the Navy and Picket’s in India.

  He had been with the company since he was sixteen, he said, and had first come out to India as master’s mate on an East Indiaman forty years ago. The company had made him what he was; he was a company man, from head to toe. He said nothing to suggest it, but it was clear to Nathan that he did not trust any man who was not.

  Nathan waited until they were on the cognac before he asked him what he really wanted to know.

  ‘Have you thought,’ he said, ‘of what we are to do, if we come upon the French while they are landing troops upon the shore?’

  ‘We would attempt to stop them, of course,’ replied Picket, easily enough, ‘according to our instructions.’

  Nathan nodded, as if he had come to the same conclusion. ‘But what if they were to land in Mangalore itself?’ he said.

  ‘I believe that would be for you to decide – would it not?’

  ‘If we were to attack the French in the Sultan’s own port, it would be an act of war,’ Nathan pointed out.

  ‘That would be for the Sultan to determine,’ said Picket with a smile. ‘But we could hardly stand by and do nothing, could we?’

  So now Nathan knew. This was why they had given him the command of the Bombay Marine. This was why they had sent the Stromboli along. Duncan must have summed him up at a glance. An arrogant hothead, out to prove himself. Just the man to provoke a war. And if there was an inquiry by Parliament afterwards, they would throw him to the wolves.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Enemy in Sight

  ‘There are four of them. I see them with my own eye. Close under the guns of the castelo. Three brigues and one fregata. The brigues are privateers, I think, but the fregata is da Franca – a French national ship, of forty guns or more.’

  The Portuguese captain sat in Nathan’s cabin, with a glass of Madeira in his hand and the satisfied look of a man who is the bearer of important news, especially if it is bad news for the men he is telling it to.

  They had encountered him and the barque he commanded just over a hundred miles north of Mangalore. The French had arrived in the port four days ago, he said, while he was taking on cargo. No, he had not seen them unloading troops or munitions, or anything else of a military nature. They had moored round a bend in the river, too far away for him to see very much at all, except for their flags and their guns. The brigs, he thought, counted between twenty and thirty guns apiece, the frigate – well, as he had said, a very large frigate indeed. He had even seen its name across the stern – Forte. Strength. It was reported that they had come from the Île de France and he had no reason to doubt it. Where else would they have come from – a French squadron in the Indian Ocean? The British had taken every Indian base they had ever possessed. He knew nothing of their presence in Egypt.

  ‘Thank you, captain,’ said Nathan, standing and extend ing his hand. ‘I am sure you will wish to be on your way. You have been of great assistance.’

  As soon as he had gone, Nathan sent a message over to the Bombay requesting the honour of another visit from Commodore Picket.

  They consulted the chart together. Mangalore was on the Gurupur River, which ran parallel to the coast for several miles before veering westward to enter the Arabian Sea, river and sea being separated by a narrow strip of lowlying land that looked to be mostly marsh and jungle. The castle which the captain had mentioned dominated the harbour and the town – a massive modern fortress built by Tipu’s father, Hyder Ali, with the advice of French engineers – and there were several additional batteries covering the mouth of the river.

  ‘Is it possible, I wonder, to send the Comet in to reconnoitre?’ Nathan enquired.

  ‘It is possible,’ Picket conceded. ‘We are not yet at war. Though they might instruct her to moor in the mouth of the river. But what would it tell us, other than what we already know?’

  ‘We might discover whether the French have landed troops. And now many.’

  ‘And if they have? Is that a casus belli?’

  This was the problem, of course. It was for Nathan to determine whether it was cause for war or not, and to act accordingly. No one else was going to. Not Picket, certainly.

  ‘Even if it were,’ Nathan retorted, ‘I doubt we have the resources to act upon it. And we certainly do not have the authority.’

  He thought a slight shadow crossed his fellow commodore’s face at the use of the word ‘we’, though it might have been the reflections from the water. The skies had been clear for the past two days and with the wind remaining in the north-east they had made better time than Nathan had anticipated. If the wind held and they kept to their present course, they would be within sight of Mangalore by the following morning. Little enough time to decide on peace or war.

  ‘Well, we have the Stromboli,’ said Picket, diffidently.

  ‘You propose shelling the port?’

  ‘I merely mak
e the suggestion,’ Picket replied smoothly. ‘It is you who command. But the mere threat may be sufficient to incline the French to leave of their own accord. Or the authorities may pressure them to do so.’

  ‘Having already done what they came to do.’

  ‘Quite. But it would be a victory of sorts.’

  Yes, but whose? Nathan thought. He did not wish to be considered shy, but the fact remained that the presence of a forty-gun French frigate shortened the odds considerably in the French favour. The Pondicherry had some small advantage in guns, but none at all in speed and manoeuvrability. She would win in the end, of course – she had to win – but she would not be able to help the rest of the squadron. How would they fare against three large French corsairs? The ships of the Bombay Marine were crewed by Lascars – Indian seamen, from the Laccadive Islands, for the most part. Good seafarers, no doubt about it – Picket said the best in the world, but then he would. It was when it came to fighting the guns that the doubt crept in.

  Nathan did not for a moment suppose that they were more lacking in courage or any worse at gunnery than British seamen – certainly in practice they had been better than the crew of the Pondicherry – but this was not their war. They had signed up in the expectation of fighting pirates, not the French. They would fight for their ships, probably, and for their shipmates, certainly. And if it was backs to the wall, they would fight to the death. But it was not backs to the wall. If Nathan was the French commander, he would make a run for the open sea. Cut and run to the south-west, with the wind behind him. After all, he had achieved his purpose. And if Nathan was an Indian seaman, or even an officer of the Bombay Marine, he might be tempted to let him go. Good riddance and a fair wind for the Île de France.