“It does the people good, I believe, to see that the Articles apply to all and will always be enforced. A lieutenant can dance the hemp two-step just as well as a foremast jack if he thinks he is above our law.”
Sir Iain was expansive in his relief, the business over, his only problem now that of maintaining, re-establishing, a blockade with too few ships, tired men and inadequate rations – ordinary sea-faring business.
“A glass of wine with you, Sir Frederick, to wish you joy of your change of name, so well earnt!”
Mutters of agreement round the great table, the assembled captains showing the full gamut of expressions from simple admiration and respect to sour envy of his luck.
Captain Paget leaned across the table, “I believe we are related, Sir Frederick, connected at least – your late wife was a removed cousin of mine – we shared great grandsires, I believe. I consider myself, and the family, honoured, Sir Frederick.”
They drank again, the expressions of the socially and politically aware very thoughtful – the Pagets were known to have seats reserved at the high table in Heaven, and, if not necessarily sitting at God’s right hand, would be at very close quarters. They exercised much power, very discreetly, in England. Captain Paget had to have received his information by letter from another of the clan, suggesting that they regarded Frederick as of some importance to them – they had cast the mantle of the godly and respectable about him.
“Sir Frederick! Tell us about your cannibals – the tale is spreading apace, and no doubt becoming wilder with each telling – let us hear the real story.”
The admiral’s command had to be obeyed, and it would do no harm to disseminate the truth, not that it would be believed, the fictions would be much more entertaining.
“Well, gentlemen, as we all know, Charybdis was sent out to clap a stopper on the antics of a French squadron in the Spice Islands and was lucky enough to destroy them piecemeal in three separate actions…”
Another throbbing head – these dinners were not good for him.
“Mr Jackman! Passage to Gibraltar, permission to part company, respects to everyone senior, which is damned near all the fleet, gird our loins and fly.”
“Inshore passage, sir?”
“Perhaps… No! Better we should not. I believe we might just have stretched a point already with our so-called American. Wiser not to make a habit of taking advantage of our orders – we might get a bad name. Gladden Mr Ferrier’s heart by taking his ideal course.”
In peacetime they would have sighted a dozen or more of merchant vessels trading between the ports of Southern France and the Atlantic. In a leisurely week before a light wind they saw only one tunny boat, whose catch they bought at probably outrageous price judging from the satisfaction of its crew.
“Of course, Mr Jackman, a losing war is far the more profitable – your French cruiser or privateer cannot help but stumble over English bottoms whilst we must scour every corner of the Ocean in search of their trade. In the American War I am told that an English cruiser would come into port with a great tail of French, Spanish and Dutch trotting behind – but now even the West Indies is drying up – poor sailors will soon all be living on their pay!”
“What ungainly creatures these bomb ketches are, sir!” Jackman exclaimed. He had never served in company with a bomb before, had never had occasion to observe their dimensions, or sailing capabilities.
“Designed to work in shallow waters – being coastal craft by their nature – yet to carry very heavy loads. Broader by one half in the beam than one might look for and round bowed to give working space around the mortars. Mainmast stepped further back than would be expected, no fore, of course, and mizzen in the very stern. Rigging leading back, as far as possible. Massive timbers in her construction.”
Ferrier, the professional sailor, had all of the facts at his fingertips, had probably made it his business at some time to look at the drawings of a bomb.
“Two big mortars – they come, I believe as thirteen, eleven and six inches, is that not so, Mr Ferrier?”
“So I understand, sir, yet I have never seen a six inch. Generally speaking, purpose built bombs carry the larger calibre whilst converted brigs and colliers will tend to have the eleven inch.”
Frederick, an interested observer at Jackman’s side, had also never served with a bomb, but felt that he should not in the nature of things be seen to be ignorant. Captains on their own quarterdecks were the fountainhead of all knowledge, and, whilst it was possible for that knowledge to be expanded, it was impossible for them to have no knowledge at all. He peered at the ketch’s sides, noted the carronades and the vast number of swivels around the quarterdeck.
“Yes, sir, they work inshore, sir, are always vulnerable to a boarding from small boats – most that I have seen mount at least a dozen two pound swivels and their gunner nearly always has a rack of musketoons at each mast. Very nervous-making, I should imagine, mooring within half a mile of a beach with the intention of dropping shells on an emplacement or into a harbour – you might not sleep well of a night.”
“They must moor to fire, then, Mr Ferrier?” Jackman asked.
“Always, sir, they cannot fire accurately from a moving, rolling or pitching deck. You will note their anchors?”
“Two bent on at the bows, one at the stern, although tied up in harbour. Unusual: best, bower and kedge all ready… but they are not! They are all of the same size, all three best!”
“When she goes into action at Isle Djerba you will see why, Mr Jackman. Let’s have her captain aboard, if you please – join me in the cabin, and you, Mr Ferrier, while we discuss exactly what we intend to do.”
Tartarus’ captain was waiting his summons, came immediately, showed himself to be an old lieutenant, forty at least, short, squat and poor, the slightly seedy air of the unwed about him – his uniform good enough but no better, his hair and shaving the same, a man who cared little for himself because none cared about him.
“Evans, sir, lieutenant-in-command of the Tartarus, sir, since the war began.”
Bombs were useful, valuable machines, but ships only by courtesy – they travelled by sea but fought on the coasts, were essentially maritime extensions of the Army, not true Navy. As a result their command was no golden road to promotion, they were backwaters manned by aged lieutenants and passed-over master’s mates, their ambition gone and become pottering craftsmen, often vastly skilled in the art of propelling huge shells high in the air to drop to the foot on their target, their fuse exploding them promptly at impact. The best, like Evans, were intuitive mathematicians, men who could feel the patterns of number, could estimate wind, temperature and humidity, add them to a precise range and specify powder charge to the half ounce and cut their fuses to the nearest eighth of an inch, all in an apparently casual glance. Evans amused himself with primes in his spare time, was trying to find the largest prime number, the ultimate, as it were, arguing that there must be a point beyond which no number could be prime, there being so many cardinals already that their products must achieve all numbers greater than themselves.
“Fascinating, Mr Evans! Thank you for explaining that to me. Now, let us consider Rashid Hassan and putting an end to his capers at sea. I propose that we destroy his shipping first, forts after – galleys and xebecs can run out of range, but batteries and fortalices tend to be immobile. Field guns may be a problem, but Charybdis will endeavour to make it her business to silence all who will try to interfere with you, Mr Evans.”
Evans looked relieved, commented that he hated to be interfered with whilst going about his business; Jackman and Ferrier looked elsewhere, faces sternly rigid; Frederick did not notice.
“I believe, Mr Evans, that the bulk of our work will fall upon Tartarus – we shall do our possible to give you a clear field, sir.”
“When they invented leeway they should have called it Tartarus,” Jackman observed, watching in fascination as the bomb progressed from weather bow to lee quarter and wearil
y tacked yet again, three or sometimes four legs to Charybdis’ one, all in a stiff north westerly.
“They should rig a stay, mainmast to bows, set a pair of jibs, fore and aft on grommets and snatchblocks on deck – could be cleared in ten minutes, stowed away in twenty, and would enable her to point up so much more.”
“I am sure that is true, Mr Ferrier, but… would it not be an innovation, sir, something new?”
“Good God! Call me Forshaw! You are, of course, quite right, Mr Jackman.”
Frederick appeared, spoke to thin air. “I am in favour of new things – I don’t mind innovation, just so long as it’s not done for the first time!”
The Atlas tailed away and the North African coast became flat, occasional bluffs at the sea’s edge, sometimes dunes marching to the Mediterranean, but normally a boring, brown, sere plain covered in scrub and coming to an indeterminate end in coastal lagoons. The lagoons were salt or brackish, connected to the sea at high tide or only by seepage, and they were full of birds – dramatic flocks of pink flamingos, tens of thousands together, great drifts of colour that occasionally took to the sky in whirling banners, silently watched by almost all of the crew, even the monkeys staring in silence.
“I wish I could paint, Mr Ferrier!”
Ferrier, looking up from the watercolour he was attempting, shook his head. “Who will believe the colours, sir? Do you see those pure-white herons, sir, or egrets, perhaps, hundreds of them, all standing together in the shallows. What Englishman will look at that in a painting and accept that it is simple truth?”
The Isle of Djerba came into view, a shallow channel looking almost like an estuary trending south east to make the island. It was low-lying, minor hills making a spine, not quite flat and it was green – the colour difference dramatic. The land was cultivated – dates, patches of grain, goats, sheep and donkeys, low stone and mud villages, all the signs of a hot land that had water.
“The notes say winter rain, sir, and deep wells,” Ferrier read. “It don’t feel like it, but there is enough north in this wind to bring it across a respectable stretch of sea and pick up moisture, a sort of tiny monsoon, for the wind will blow dry off the Sahara in summer.”
Rashid Hassan Bey’s citadel and town were built on the inland side of a lagoon towards the east of the island, the enclosed waters a full mile wide by nearly a half and deep enough to make an adequate harbour, more than sufficient for the limited hinterland it served. The town was respectable in size, sprawling across a low hillside, warehouses towards the shore, a thousand or more of houses in winding streets above the citadel, an old, sandstone-walled castle of no obvious provenance.
A spit of land, probably artificially banked, enclosed the lagoon, broken by a single cut running north south, two cables or so in length, just wide enough to accommodate a third rate, they estimated, but with no spare on either beam – any large vessel would have to be towed, could never sail through except with the rarest of following winds. West of the cut there was an old fort with a bailey extending to the sea’s edge. On the east, distant perhaps a cable from cut and sea, a new demilune battery was building, a modern gun platform with four embrasures, its front face complete and pieces emplaced.
They sailed in with the dawn, coming from the east, the admiral’s orders suggesting that the battery faced west, and that the fort was the lesser danger. The master had his big telescope to hand, was dictating notes as they closed the shore.
“Fort – there are walls at no more than three fathoms high, covering less than an acre, an outer wall, somewhat lower, surrounding three times the area, down to a Watergate and a quay fronting the cut and seashore, fifty paces in length. Ancient construction – Roman, I would hazard; very much the same as Portchester, down below Gosport. The lower walls big stone blocks and Roman brick intermixed, higher more recent. Small cannon on the ramparts, no embrasures lower. A great door, two wooden flaps, looking out to a track west about to the mainland from the quay. Smoke, cooking fires at a guess. Roofs visible inside, though what I cannot see.”
Young noted all, appended a rough sketch.
“Battery, four embrasures, big, wheeled military cannon emplaced, pointing to cover the cut and approaches to the fort. Back wall under construction, still open. Crews going to the big guns.”
“Citadel, a big castle – Spanish or the Knights, perhaps, thick walls, guns emplaced at high, none low, so only small, I estimate.”
“In the harbour, twenty three of galleys, half-galleys and xebecs, moored in a cluster under the fort, where the depth of water serves, I would hazard from the colour.”
Ferrier turned to Frederick, made formal report of his observations. “The cut, as we suspected, sir, is too narrow. I would not be willing to attempt to sail Charybdis through it, sir, and we could not tow past the fort, the boats would never live. The battery in its present state is no threat at all, though in another month it would be a different matter, cannon in both faces.”
“Then all is as we surmised, Mr Ferrier, and we shall carry out our first plan. Tartarus to anchor inshore as convenient, target shipping. Mr Ferrier, we shall engage the battery first, at close range so that we may shift target to the fort, bows to shore, the town is well within range of the chase gun. Mr Beeton, Mr Warren – starboard broadside will destroy the battery and will then engage the fort. Clear! Boats to tow!”
The last orders were merest formality, the men having gone to their guns at dawn and stayed there since, the boats having been set to tow an hour previously, Jackman wanting to get the awkward, time-consuming labour out of the way.
“Mr McGregor, Mr Critchel – pistols and muskets on the centre line behind every gun, if you please. Ensure they are loaded and that there is cartridge and ball to each. Extra small arms are stored where, gentlemen?”
“In the lazaretto next to the sailroom, sir,” Critchel replied, “due to there being no space in the magazine for the extras we carry.”
“Very good! Well done, young man!”
Critchel flushed with silent pleasure, ran off with McGregor. It was Frederick’s habit to busy the younger midshipmen before action, they were not of an age to wait stoically, brave though they might be.
“Officers, sidearms, if you please.”
Ablett appeared with his pistols and sword, strapped them on, took position behind him, similarly armed, next to Bosomtwi, who preferred boarding axe to cutlass.
Tartarus was no more than fifty yards offshore, using her boats to place her anchors, one on either bow, the third on her stern quarter, against the current. A spring was led from each bow cable to a block at the stern, then to the capstan so that the bomb’s head could be swung in an arc of at least thirty degrees on either beam.
Gunners had pulled the tarpaulins off the mortars and were loading, supervised by Evans; they were using a very small charge, no more than eight pounds of powder at the short range. He helped settle the nearly one hundred pounds of shell and personally cut and inserted the wooden fuse with its secret, exact burning mixture.
“Range takers and observer in the mizzen, sir – the main is over dangerous for use in action.”
“Correct me if I am wrong, Mr Ferrier, but the mortar tube is fixed, is it not, cannot be altered?”
“Yes, sir, its angle of elevation is constant and range is varied by changing the powder charge, aim by shifting the ship’s head.”
“Only the best powder, then, to be consistent.”
“White, small grain, sir, nothing else, the gunner taking care that each charge is identical. Most, I am told, make up powder bags of four pounds, two pounds, one pound and four ounces, each double weighed to be exact. Careful tamping of the charge, each to be rammed to the same consistency, and then an ounce or two more or less and your shell falls where you wish – if you are good enough!”
“Permission to open fire, sir?” Midshipman Green panting, having scurried from Beeton’s side on the forecastle.
“Granted.”
They were ou
t of carronade range – only the long guns fired. Sand boiled up round the battery, slowly drifting down the wind, had not all settled by the time the next broadside followed.
“One minute fifty three seconds, sir,” LeGrys voice quietly announced.
“Three broadsides in five minutes and forty – good, but we could do a little better yet.”
Beeton held his fire after the third, waited for the air to clear to see what he had achieved.
“Tartarus firing, sir. Flag’s up, dipped now.”
The flat cough of one mortar, the left only, a shell exploding some twenty feet above the water and between two of the largest galleys. The right fired, exploded nearly fifty yards further south, a fraction lower. A galley began to burn. The targets were the most distant, on the south eastern side of the moorings – any would-be escapee would have to pass through the firing zone or make a run to the sea, into Charybdis.
“Boat, sir, putting off from the Watergate. White flag.”
“Cease fire!”
“Battery destroyed, sir, guns dismounted, carriages smashed, gunners nowhere to be seen.”
The boat approached, half a dozen oars and as many robed passengers.
“Man the side, sir?”
“No, Mr Jackman. No compliments until I know who I am talking to - they are rebels. Bosomtwi, stay with me, you know their language, don’t you?”
“One of them, sir. The language of the Book.”
“Why do you attack subjects of the Sublime Porte?”
The speaker, in an easy, hardly-accented English, sported a long, bushy white beard, wore an elaborately folded green robe and was, Frederick suspected, probably a renegade Englishman.
“Rashid Hassan is a rebel, condemned to death by the Sublime Porte. He is also an ally of France, his ships having taken two English stores and attacked the Levant convoy. He is an enemy of England and I am ordered to destroy his fleet, every vessel he possesses. I will willingly accept their surrender, so as to prevent loss of life, but they will be burnt – there is no other alternative.”
The Fuzzy-Wuzzy Man (The Duty and Destiny Series, Book 3) Page 16
