Sugar and Spice (The Duty and Destiny Series, Book 6)

by Andrew Wareham

  “Typical of the Spanish, they will never learn that sea officers need qualities other than gentle birth, and they will not believe that seamen need any qualities at all. They are so convinced that the lower orders of society are all scum that they make no attempt to differentiate between them – gutter rat and respectable artisan are identical in their eyes. They will not train their people because they know that all they need to do is obey orders; not being seamen themselves the officers are unaware that the men must learn skills.”

  Vereker and Nias nodded – they had heard the same before and both had seen Spanish ships displaying courage and extreme incompetence simultaneously – it was conventional wisdom, and probably not incorrect, that the Spanish officers were their own worst enemies at sea.

  “They cannot change, or so it seems, sir, without bringing into question the precept that the nobility are of a finer breed than the common clay. Better to die with their illusions intact, it would seem.”

  “I agree, Mr Vereker, yet how does that square with their alliance with the regicides of France?”

  “A good question, sir. Call Mr Murray down and he might be able to provide an answer – his brain is finer than mine and his knowledge vastly greater!”

  “Agreed, wholly, sir.”

  It was necessary to hold casual conversation on the quarterdeck while entering battle – the men had to see the officers as quietly confident, waiting for business to commence, thoroughly unconcerned. They did not believe it, of course, but they had their expectations of their leaders, and a cool head came very high on the list.

  “Ninety guns, Mr Vereker – does that make her a third or a second rate?”

  “Definitely of the second rate, sir – so much better a success for the Gazette to record. Besides, sir, you have a third rate to your name already and one should never repeat oneself!”

  There was a chuckle from the gun crews in hearing and the word ran along the deck to muttered amusement and probably vulgar responses judging from the increase in the laughter.

  Ablett and Bosomtwi came on deck carrying sword and pistols to formally arm Frederick and then took their positions at his shoulder, their own pistols holstered and carrying their blades, cutlass for Ablett, boarding axe for Bosomtwi, ready to defend him. The gunner and his mates trotted up, their arms full, and proceeded to array a dozen loaded musketoons around the mizzen mast. The gunner touched his hat and disappeared again, not a word said.

  “Where did they come from? We have no musketoons aboard to my knowledge!”

  “Slavers always carry they, sir, isn’t it. We stop a slaver last month, isn’t it!”

  Sergeant Benson glanced sideways from his position at the right flank of the first rank of Marines, almost winked at Bosomtwi.

  Frederick shrugged his shoulders resignedly – such things happened.

  “Ah, well, Bosomtwi, I must ignore this act of theft, though if I get the opportunity, I shall certainly tell the Bishop.”

  The howl of response came from the original Tridents, followed by a shout of laughter.

  Nias waited until silence reigned again, then suggested they should tack, being at about a mile’s distance from the Spaniard.

  The captain’s clerk, stood at the binnacle to record his first battle, was heard asking whether he should write all of that into his log.

  “Record the tack only, Mr Dunnett.”

  Arnheim was watching and paralleled their change of course without signal, as Frederick had expected.

  “Reduce sail, just a little, Mr Nias, give Arnheim room to tack or wear as she may wish. Chasers are in range I believe?”

  The two frigates were bearing down on the Spaniard, bows to bows.

  “At your convenience, Mr Akers!”

  “Better you should take station on the forecastle, Mr Vereker. Remember, if I fall…”

  Vereker nodded and grinned; Captain Murray would not inherit command.

  The chasers boomed and watched the fall of their shot, each a little over, skimming the upper deck of the ninety gun ship and hitting towards her poop structure. She was slower, the distance closing a little less rapidly than they had calculated. They fired again, matched by Arnheim, four large roundshot landing on the forecastle almost together. There was no reply.

  “Useful, Mr Nias – gun crews down, possibly a chaser damaged.”

  “The Spanish rarely carry more than one, sir, being short of great guns.”

  “On deck! Hands to braces on the Spaniard, sir.” The foremast lookout was alert, earning his pay.

  “Coming round to respond with a broadside, sir”, Nias called.

  “Larboard your helm!”

  Nias shouted the necessary orders and Trident began to swing away, leaving the line-of-battle ship to threaten an empty sea.

  “Bring us broadside on, Mr Nias! Two and then return to original heading. Mr Corsham, Mr Duff, two broadsides, well pointed up!”

  Frederick watched the sea boil with splashes around the Spaniard, saw a bare half of his rounds strike home. Too many landsmen, too few of skilled, trained men yet. His broadsides would be better fired at one cable than four or five. Still, some damage had been done and Arnheim was still hammering away with her chasers and closing rapidly – Jackman had not stripped to fighting sail, presumably having chosen to ignore Frederick’s order ‘due to changed circumstances’.

  “Arnheim using grape over ball, sir, damaging the rigging to the foremast. Coming within a cable, sir. God damn it, sir, more like pistol shot! The Spanish are firing muskets at her.”

  “Captain Jackman has his own feeling for close range, Mr Nias. You have noticed his face, of course – due to his habit of sticking his head into hornets’ nests.”

  “Arnheim is crossing her now, sir, firing singly, a lieutenant running down the deck, sir.”

  “Each one aimed, Mr Nias. He will be using grape, I would imagine. The foremast will not fall, but I doubt they can set a sail on it after that!”

  A boy ran the length of the deck to Nias.

  “Mr Akers reports that he is double-shotting the chasers, sir.”

  Frederick nodded and hunched his shoulders against the detonation. Incorrectly loaded and the breech of a double-shotted gun could explode; it was not a common event, but not unknown and Trident’s men were not yet fully trained up.

  They fired successfully, threw more splinters along the upper deck, cut the last of the shrouds to the foremast.

  “Topmast is swaying, sir. She will fall soon.”

  “Good. Mr Kelly!”

  The smallest midshipman, still swamped in his outsize uniform, stepped forward.

  “Run to Mr Akers and inform him that he is to change his point of aim to the mainmast.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  The little boy scampered away, running full pelt to perform his first ever useful task.

  “I begin to doubt that we should bring them to sea so young, you know, Mr Nias.”

  “Captain Murray has said the same, several times, sir.”

  “Bring her round, Mr Nias, to cross her. Heave to, will that be possible? In order to give her some more at close range off her larboard quarter.”

  “No, sir, not without the risk of being run down, sir.”

  “Pity. Cross her, then wear ship to hold off her broadside?”

  “Yes, sir. A far more practical suggestion in this wind, sir.” Nias was very patient. “Arnheim has made an offing, sir and is working towards her stern, sir. He will need to tack twice at least, sir. She is, however, sufficiently slowed for Captain Jackman to achieve his aim. His use of fore-and-aft sails does give him greater speed, sir, though it is very ugly!”

  They worked Trident to starboard and then crossed the bows at an angle, pouring their fire into the forequarter, every round hitting home, as they should have on so large a target at a cable’s distance. Trident took half a dozen roundshot in return, the forward guns of the two-decker just able to spike themselves onto her. There were a very few screams.<
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  “Bad gunnery, sir! As we suggested – she has mostly untrained crews who are unable to allow for the lower deck height of a frigate. All except one in the rigging. A few men taken by splinters from the one that hit the main deck, sir.”

  They wore ship, came round in a great slow circle to position themselves a mile off the bows again. Arnheim crossed the stern while they were still well distant.

  “Arnheim signalling, sir. ‘The enemy; steering; damaged; rudder’, sir.”

  “Mr Rogers! Reply ‘hold distant one cable. Do not board’. All sail, Mr Nias. Signal Wallsend to close, Mr Rogers, prepare to board.”

  “On deck! Enemy putting men into a small boat, sir.”

  “What a strange thing to do, Mr Nias.”

  “Important passengers, sir, seeking to escape?”

  “Might well be so. Let us find out. Mr Rogers, Nimble and Speedy to intercept the boat and make prisoners of all aboard. They are not to sink her.”

  The two small craft, fretting at the edge of the fight, responded instantly, setting all sail and sending double lookouts up. Nimble, far quicker, very rapidly outstripped Speedy, which responded by cutting the corner and coming within close gunshot of the Spaniard, gambling that she would be too busy to waste a broadside on a little brig.

  “What is it about lieutenants and small ships, Mr Nias? Never an ounce of common sense to be seen. No matter! Ignore it.”

  The Spaniard, lacking sail on the foremast and unable to use his rudder, could not steer and fell inexorably into the trough, still receiving a broadside a minute from Arnheim’s carronades. Trident crossed her bow again, very slowly, every shot crashing home.

  “Damned fool should lower his flag, Mr Nias. All he can do now is to lose more and more men. He is rolling so heavily he must close his lower ports or drown. There they go. Now he has only his upper deck, and how he will take aim with a ship rolling like that, I cannot imagine.”

  The Marines and sharpshooters were busy at this close range and they were receiving nothing in return.

  “On deck! Spanish are running below, sir, abandoning their guns.”

  “Surely he must strike now.”

  “Wallsend closing, sir.”

  “Bring us alongside, Mr Nias. This is no more than butchery now. Boarders! All hands to board!”

  The two ships and the ketch sent their men onto the Spaniard, arms bristling, ready for a fight that did not eventuate. A single officer waved a threatening sword and attempted to run at Frederick; Bosomtwi tripped him and Ablett trod on his swordarm while a pair of gleeful Marines removed his pistols and tied his hands behind his back. The bulk of the remaining men were only too pleased to surrender; most had never wanted to go to sea, almost none had wished to fight in all their lives.

  “Trident to pass a line and commence a tow. Mr Corsham, take command here, if you please. Mr Jackman, are you able to find a lieutenant and a party of men while Trident is busy with the tow? Carpenters from both ships to examine the rudder, I think. Mr Smith, a working party from Wallsend and your boatswain to the foremast, if you would be so good. Mr Cheek, will you and Chips first perform a quick survey to determine whether she may be salvaged?”

  Frederick looked around to see what must come next.

  “Mr Quinlan, you have the prisoners in hand?”

  Quinlan had seen to that little matter; his ensign was now commencing a count and he proposed when that was done to set the prisoners to work, mostly with bringing the wounded to the surgeons.

  “Well done, Mr Quinlan – one can always rely on the Marines, sir!”

  Quinlan almost blushed – two compliments in the same month!

  Doctor Morris came aboard to join Wallsend’s man with the wounded.

  “What is our bill, Doctor Morris?”

  “Lost Mr Duff, sir, and his midshipman, to splinters from that one ball. Four men with abdominal wounds, sir – splinters again. The ball was plunging, sir, and penetrated the deck. Another seven with minor cuts and abrasions and contusions that will heal with a little luck.”

  A full broadside could have killed a hundred, going by these figures. He must remember the effects of fire from a higher gundeck or clifftop battery.

  “Which midshipman?”

  “Paulet, sir.”

  The Captain of the Dockyard’s brother’s boy, from Portsmouth; that was a source of influence lost.

  “I do not know numbers here yet, Doctor Morris, but I suspect you will be busy.”

  “Pour in the grape and one tends to be, sir!”

  Murray appeared from the captain’s cabin; he had been busy looting it of every piece of paper he could find.

  “First glance through the documents, sir, tells me that Santiago de Compostela was ordered to The Havana, to join the fleet there preparatory to escorting an invasion of Jamaica. There are other documents relating to that enterprise which I have yet to peruse. Of interest is a statement of the complement, numbering her at one thousand two hundred and twelve men and boys on departing Buenos Aires. One rear-admiral; his staff; a captain and six lieutenants; twelve boys, of, it would seem, midshipman equivalent. No sea-soldiers, they to be shipped at The Havana. No attempt is made to differentiate the crew by rank – no mention of, for example, warrant officers.”

  “Typical of the Spanish, or so I have been told. Is there mention of any others aboard?”

  “Four priests, sir, of the Holy Office, sent for the work of the Church in Jamaica. We were used to refer to the Holy Office as the Inquisition, sir.”

  “What? Does that still exist? I had thought it long dead.”

  “I gather it still exists to root out heretics, though less in the habit of the auto-da-fe – burning at the stake, sir.”

  “Do not mention this to the men, I beg you, Captain Murray – they would lynch them!”

  It took very little to rouse the ancient fears of the Protestants, the bulk of whom never entered a church from one year’s end to the next and were utterly uncomprehending of those who believed sufficiently to kill for their faith.

  “What is your bill, Mr Jackman?”

  “Five seamen, sir, two dead already and three belly-shot, and a mid from the forecastle – all to musketry. No other casualties at all, sir.”

  Murray had been sat cross-legged on the deck, surrounded by his papers, ignoring, probably unaware of, the scandalised looks of the crew. He had sorted his loot into six separate piles, weighed down by belaying pins, and now stood triumphant, waving two sheets.

  “Army officers on passage, sir, to join and command the invasion force. They are sent from the garrison at Buenos Aires because there are no spare senior officers to command the newly raised troops in Cuba. The reference is to ‘local recruits who must be brought to discipline’, sir. I presume freemen and Caribs and even some slaves, sir.”

  “A mob, in fact.”

  “Unless they were very good officers, yes, sir. The second sheet, sir, suggests that other ships will be sent from Cadiz over the next few months – to arrive after the hurricane season – but no mention of what they are. The Admiral in Antigua will be pleased to discover this, sir.”

  “A small Spanish fleet when he has but a pair of frigates to his name! I do not know what there is at Jamaica, but suspect he will send his fastest runner to England!”

  “There seems as well to be something in the way of a codebook, sir, for their flag signals – a very simplistic thing – they must send but few messages, sir!”

  “The Admiral will make his own copy and send this to the Admiralty, Mr Murray, also on his runner. Captains have been shot in the past for losing a codebook!”

  Jackman’s boatswain came up to him, smiling quietly as he knuckled his forehead and made his report.

  “The rudder is sound, Sir Frederick,” Jackman reported. “The tiller ropes were severed by grape, could have been replaced in fifteen minutes by competent seamen. McDonnell says that there were bloodstains, as if two or three men were hit by the same blast, and the rest
presumably did not stay at their post of duty in case of more. She will be in command within minutes, sir. Main and mizzen topsails will give her way, sir, and the tow will be unnecessary.”

  “Good. Mr Corsham, you heard the report, sir. Mr Kelly!”

  Frederick had noted the midshipman, who was Vereker’s doggie and should have been at his heel as soon as the action had ended, to be trailing behind him carrying a cutlass very nearly his own height.

  “Sir!”

  “Run a message to Mr Vereker to cease preparations to make tow, and then stay where you should be, sir, and put that bloody cutlass down!”

  Kelly ran.

  “Damned boys! The influence of Mankiller McGregor, of course – they have all been told his tale!”

  Murray laughed, rather disapprovingly - he would much rather the children had been in school.

  “McGregor attracted the Admiral’s attention in Malta, sir – he having stood up in a duel with an army lieutenant who had made a disparaging remark about the navy in his hearing. He put a bullet in the lieutenant’s shoulder and was heard to swear at himself for missing his aim! The Admiral felt he would be better at sea before he carved a swathe through the whole garrison and appointed him to a sloop where he would be second senior in his berth, although still very young. The last I heard of him his sloop was enjoying a degree of success hunting Barbary pirates – who the Admiral has a great down on – and he had made a little of prize money and had enhanced his reputation for lunatic bellicosity.”

  “He will be a lieutenant at fifteen, if he lives.”

  Frederick ordered Corsham to bring Santiago in his wake, course for Antigua, and returned to Trident.

  “A good day’s work, Mr Vereker! First reports say that Santiago will be quickly reparable and so she will certainly be bought in. I would expect the captain of Admiral Makin’s larger frigate to be given her, and that will set off a chain of promotions. I will recommend Corsham as her premier, which will place him very well in position for a plum within a year or two – a young First in a second rate will be looked after. That will leave a vacancy for a master and commander in one of the Antigua squadron’s sloops and I shall beg it for you, and would expect to receive it in compliment.”