The French Admiral

by Dewey Lambdin

  The ships bound into Lynnhaven Bay and the James he would never be able to identify—they were simply too far off. But it did seem as if several of them—dare he call them frigates?—had separated from the mysterious main body and were closing in on what he took to be Richmond and Iris, and that was damned ominous.

  Closer in and now almost to the east, the little gunboat was now nearly hull up; she was close enough to spot her national ensign, and with a strong telescope almost catch the whip of her long commissioning pendant. Behind her, with all sail plans above the horizon, there appeared now a full dozen ships of the line and what appeared to be a couple more frigate-sized vessels.

  There was a puff of smoke from the gunboat, a tiny bloom of gray torn away almost at once into a light haze. It was too far away to hear the cannon, but it was a signal nonetheless.

  “Oh, Christ, no,” he muttered.

  On the ketch’s foremast, there rose a signal flag. It was from Admiral Graves’s book, of course, since the local patrol craft were a part of his North American Squadron, and he had seen this particular flag hoist in the last few days aboard the Solebay as she had led the fleet down to the Cape Henry entrance to the bay on the fifth.

  Enemy In Sight.

  “Goddamn them,” he growled. “Just goddamn the incompetent shits.” He tried to read his feelings; would it be more suitable to scream and rant, to be petrified with fear for the future, to play up game as a little guinea cock? He was surprised to feel absolutely nothing, none of the emotions others might consider appropriate to match the situation.

  “Deck, there!” he yelled as loud as he could, and saw several white faces turn up to look at him from the quarterdeck. “Enemy in sight! French ships in the bay!”

  He did not have to repeat it.

  That ought to spill some soup on the mess deck, he thought. Christ, we are well and truly fucked!

  Desperate relayed the hoist to Symonds in the Charon, and the little gunboat was ordered back out to sea to scout. She was not gone for long, and was forced to come scuttling back to the safety of the river two hours later, bearing bad news.

  Richmond and Iris had been overwhelmed and taken as prizes by the French. There were at least eight sail of the line in Lynnhaven Bay, with several more ships that might be transports in company, anchoring to the abandoned buoys. There were four command flags that she had spotted, one in Lynnhaven Bay, two vice admirals’ flags in three-deckers, and a full admiral’s flag flying from a huge three-decker that was most likely the Ville de Paris, de Grasse’s flagship. There was a two-decker and three frigates anchoring out by the islands at the mouth of the York, and the main passage between Cape Henry and the Middle Ground was most likely to be blocked as well. And all the ships present were flying the white banners with the golden lilies of Bourbon France.

  In midafternoon, the closest French frigate in the York fired a single gun to leeward as a challenge, daring any ship, or combination of ships, in the English flotilla to come out to fight.

  They were trapped.

  • • •

  “He wants our powder?” Treghues scoffed, shocked to the depths of his prim and addled soul.

  “Aye, sir,” Railsford said with a shrug. A flag lieutenant from Captain Symonds stood on the quarterdeck with a military officer in the blue, red, and buff of the artillery. “And we are also instructed to dismount our carronades and half our swivel guns and deliver them ashore, with all spare shot.”

  “That would render us unable to fight!” Treghues barked. “One might as well ask for all our nine-pounders, too!”

  “You have nine-pounders?” the artilleryman asked. “Long nines? They might prove useful as well.”

  “Then we would truly be disarmed!”

  “With the French fleet blockading the river and the exits from the bay, Captain Treghues, your armament is at present nugatory, is it not?” Receiving no answer, the artillery officer went on, patting the breech of one of the quarterdeck swivels in appreciation. “Until your Admiral Graves returns, we shall have to fortify, and we have nought but field pieces, none over a six-pounder. And should it prove a long siege, we shall be short of powder and shot for counter-battery fire. Your Captain Symonds has already stripped his vessel of all her eighteens, powder and shot.”

  “Why do we not simply lay her up in ordinary, strip her to her tops and gantlines,” Treghues fumed, “or just burn her outright and turn her crew into . . . soldiers? ” There were few things lower to a Royal Navy man—“farmers” was the common epithet for the clumsy, but for the clumsy and stupid in the bargain, “soldiers” expressed a sailor’s indignation quite well.

  “You have at present eighteen long 9-pounders, Captain,” the naval aide pointed out. “A very long-ranged and accurate piece, and they would be more useful in the present circumstances ashore in fortifications than aboard the Desperate. Your carronades at extreme elevation could deliver bursting shot as well as any howitzer or mortar barrel, and the swivels could break up any raiding party. Surely, you must see the sense of my captain’s request. Perhaps you could dismount half your ordnance to form three half-batteries, and you could be left with a few en flûte. ”

  It did not take a genius to discern that if Treghues refused to grant the request, it would come back before the end of the watch as an order, which would leave him nothing.

  “I could retain two as chase guns forrard,” Treghues mused, his brows knurled with repressed anger. “And three in battery on each beam. I can spare no more than ten.”

  “At present, sir,” the flag lieutenant said, reminding him that circumstances could indeed demand Desperate’s stripping and burning sometime in the future should the siege last a long time.

  “My gunners would be most grateful, sir,” the artilleryman added. “We shall take good care of your pieces, see if we shan’t.”

  “Naval artillery in the hands of soldiers?” Treghues reared back, ready to go on another tear. “Nay, sir, I shall depute my own gunners for land service!”

  “That would be most welcome, Captain.” The army gunner nodded gratefully, unaware that Treghues’s truculence was anything more than the usual grudge match between army and the sea service.

  “We could have barges alongside for the powder and shot by the beginning of the day watch, sir,” the naval aide assured him. “Perhaps only the first tier of powder to begin with, and all prepared cartridge bags and shot garlands.”

  “Aye, if you must,” Treghues said, rubbing the side of his head that had been the target of the heavy rammer. “See to it, Mister Railsford. I shall be aft. Judkin?”

  “Aye, sir?” his steward replied, stepping forward.

  “Pass the word for Mr. Dorne, would you?”

  “Aye, sir.”

  The barges came alongside within the hour while Treghues sulked in his cabins. They were barges slapped together from green pinewood, locally harvested, and minus all the attention to detail one usually expected from a good boatwright. They were broader than normal and of shallower draft, still pierced for a dozen oars, with a raised stem post and tiller head. It was fortunate that they were being used on a river, for they looked unhandy in any sort of seaway, even to the less experienced hands. They began to look even more unhandy as they were loaded thwart deep with kegs of powder and rope nets full of ready-sewn powder bags, or stacked with round shot, canister, and grapeshot.

  The shot went down the skids to either beam, thick and smooth ramps that could cradle a beef cask or water barrel as it slid up or down the ship’s side. The powder, though, had to be hoisted out one keg at a time, checked most carefully for dust or dribbles, slung into a net and then swayed up with the main yard and a series of gantlines to check any swing or sway. They were lowered into the waiting barges as carefully as eggs would go into a farmgirl’s straw basket; one shock and . . .

  The artillery was no more easy. The gun tools and the carriages were fairly light and went quickly, but the barrels themselves were sinfully heavy and hard to han
dle. A barge could take only two barrels before it began to settle down so low that water began to lap near the gunwales and rowports, and the boat was then rowed gingerly to the town dock for unloading with jury-rigged spars set up as cranes.

  “Looks naked as a whore’s belly,” Mister Gwynn the gunner commented as he surveyed his bare decks. For the first time, below the gangways on either beam, the gun deck was free of tackles, blocks, and sheaves, free of guns, rope shot garlands, netting bags for practice shot, and water tubs for the slow-match, or firefighting. There were now two 9-pounders on the fo’c’s’le forward as chase guns, and only three abeam remaining with which to fight; one pair just forward of the mainmast, and one pair just under the break of the quarterdeck for balance fore and aft. With her gunports empty, she did resemble a flute waiting to be played, instead of a warship. There were times that larger frigates had been disarmed or had given up half their guns to ease the burden of carrying troops, which was where the term flûte had arisen, but no one had ever imagined that lithe little Desperate would ever be called upon to surrender her guns ’til she was finally decommissioned. It was ironic that her commissioning pendant still flew from the mainmast truck under the circumstances.

  “This is getting serious,” Alan decided.

  “Aye, so ’tis,” Gwynn replied, ruminating on a wad of tobacco in his cheeks. He leaned over expertly and spat into the kid by the foremast. “Fuckin’ army got themselves trapped, so they did.”

  “And us with ’em,” Alan said.

  “I ain’t no man for land fightin’,” Gwynn growled, chewing hard at his almost dead plug. “Lice and fleas, sleepin’ rough on the ground ’stead of swayin’ in a comfy hammock and caulkin’ easy nights. Takes a pure fool to be a soldier, and not much of a man, neither. Nobody worth a damn ever took the King’s Shilling and put on a red coat.”

  “At least they don’t have press-gangs,” Alan said. Poor as the life of a soldier could be, and with such little regard from the citizens towards them, no one had to scour the seaports and coastal towns to drag people into the army.

  “Takes a superior kinda man to make a seaman.” Gwynn smiled. “But he’s the kind that needs a little prodding to sign aboard, like.”

  “A one smart enough to run, sir?” Alan said. “Caught anyway.”

  “Then how’d we get you, Mister Lewrie?”

  “Damned hard luck all around, Mister Gwynn.” Alan grinned.

  “Get your gear together, then. See what sort of damn hard luck we have ashore.”

  Gwynn could joke about it—he was a senior warrant, a man who was retained in peace or war aboard ship. In war he was in charge of all the artillery, powder, and shot. In peacetime he could live aboard ship with his family in Desperate as long as she was laid up in ordinary and her guns stored in some warehouse ashore. A gunner’s mate like Tulley would be turned out onto the beach to make his own way, but a man with a warrant from the Admiralty had a lifelong living if he so chose, since his skills were valuable; more so than those of a lieutenant, who would go on half pay once he was no longer needed.

  So Gwynn was not going ashore, much as he might crab about the conditions they might face. He was staying aboard ship.

  Tulley was going ashore, though, along with Lieutenant Railsford, who would command Desperate’s batteries. There would be full crews for all guns, which would require a gun captain each piece, a quarter-gunner for each half-battery of three guns, a rammer, powderman, shotman, a ship’s boy to fetch powder cartridges, and only two hands for tackles, since they would not be trying to roll guns up a sloping deck to firing position. That was still seven men per gun, and represented nearly half of Desperate’s allotted 160-man crew.

  Of the midshipmen’s mess, only young Carey would stay aboard to help supervise the remaining crew with the sailing-master and the captain. The quartermaster would stay, but his mates were available as senior petty officers. The bosun, Mister Coke, would stay, along with his mate Weems, the sailmaker and his crew, cooper, carpenter and the mast captains, and able seamen from the tops.

  Leaving the ship presented a problem for Alan beyond the wrench to his soul at going into siege warfare on land, for which he was so unprepared; what was he to do with the contents of his sea-chest?

  A locked sea-chest was fair game in the holds to anyone with a clasp knife and a little privacy. Even if left in the midshipmen’s mess, it was vulnerable to pilfering. Alan had valuable writing paper in it, books and shirts and silk stockings, his prize-money certificates, and the records of his meager sea career, which he would have to present some time in the future to gain his money. And there was that gold. All the rouleaux of guineas—beautiful one-guinea and two-guinea pieces that could vanish in a twinkling! They were much too heavy to carry on his person, and much too valuable to leave behind.

  There was no way he could confide in anyone aboard to safeguard the gold for him without admitting he had pilfered it from the French prize Ephegenie, and that was damned near a hanging offense. Even the mild and supportive Cheatham would not countenance it should he learn of it.

  What was worse, he had no confidence in ever returning to Desperate. The French fleet was blockading the bay and the mouth of the river, and it would be storm season before they departed. There was a French army on the James shore of the York peninsula, and Cornwallis was going into fortifications to withstand a siege that might result in the surrender of the British army if Graves and Hood didn’t get their act together soon. Desperate could end up a French prize of war, and his sea-chest could end up looted. He could become a prisoner of war, confined to a hulk or dungeon by sneering Rebel or French captors, stripped of every possession on his person except his clothes. Desperate might be burned to the waterline to prevent her use by the victors. And all his gold with her!

  Damn Treghues, I wouldn’t put it past him to set fire to her, he thought in an exquisite agony of indecision. Then I am once more as poverty-stricken as a pregnant bawd. And in prison to boot. Oh, God, I should never have pinched the stuff. I knew it at the time, but I needed it so dev’lish bad! If I’m not killed in the battle, I’m stuffed in irons until the war’s over and out of the Navy without a hope, and out all my money, too. What’s to happen to me then? What career would be open to me without prospects or sponsors or gold enough for security?

  Still, officers were usually released on their own means if they gave their parole to no longer bear arms against their captors, and their personal property was usually respected. There might be a chance.

  Taking great care not to be seen, Alan, in packing a canvas sea bag of things to sustain life ashore, slipped into his hoard and stuffed a deal box of two hundred guineas in one-guinea coins into his bag. If all else failed, he would have enough to survive confinement.

  Might be enough to bribe my way into better quarters or something, he thought ruefully. Anyone thrown into debtor’s prison could find good treatment and victuals if he had money enough on his person; how could a French or Rebel prison be any different? Besides, if he was ashore and in the tender mercies of the army long enough, a little gold could come in handy for delicacies or drink. His whore in Charleston had sneered at the Rebel Congress’s currency as “not worth a Continental,” so a gold piece could command a lot of clout in an economy starved of specie.

  “Ready ta play lobsterback?” Mister Monk asked, rolling through the small midshipmen’s mess from his quarters aft in the officer’s wardroom. He smelt pleasantly of rum.

  “Aye, Mister Monk,” Alan replied, drawing the strings taut on his sea bag. “Though I fear I don’t know the first thing about it.”

  “Anythin’ ya need ashore?”

  “A telescope, perhaps, sir. I doubt a sextant would prove useful. Or any of my books.”

  “I’ve given the first lieutenant two o’ the day glasses, an’ one o’ the night glasses,” Monk said. “All we kin spare, in faith.”

  “I fear for the contents of my chest, though, sir,” Alan ventured hesitantly. �
��’Tis all I own in this world, like any sailor . . .”

  “We shift ’em inta the wardroom fer safe-keepin’ once yer gone,” Monk announced. “An’ y’ll be back aboard now an’ agin ta fetch fresh.”

  “That would be most kind, Mister Monk, indeed,” Alan said with a lively sense of relief. Monk would keep a good eye on things, as good an eye as he could until something dreadful happened to the ship.

  With a lighter burden on his mind, Alan shouldered his sea bag and went on deck to muster with the hands to board the boats for shore.

  CHAPTER 8

  For days on end their tasks were easy. The army had already dug the fortifications for them—raised banks of earth shoulder high. For the battery of naval guns, the rampart was only waist high, and the native earth had been left in place like a ramp that spanned the trenches. On this they constructed “decks” of pine lumber, set up their trucks, and slung their artillery pieces.

  The soldiers had already prepared the ground before the ramparts as well, having sewn nasty abatis, sharpened stakes driven into the ground to slow down and channel onrushing attackers into fire lanes before the guns and the few swivels allotted them. The ramparts themselves also bristled with sharpened stakes to prevent their being crossed by even the rashest Rebel soldier. Not that they represented a real defense, even with the fascines and gabions to stiffen them.

  They were nakedly in the open. On their right was York River, and the so-called Star Redoubt to their right rear. There was a long and connected fortification on the right on their side of the Yorktown Creek and its steep ravine. Far away on their left, there were some other redoubts, small oblong semi-forts, but none of them tied together by any connecting trenches or earthworks. The army officers who had sited them in position had assured them that there was nothing to fear, for a determined foe had little hope of climbing the hills to get to their portion of the outer defense line. Far away on their left was the best approach route, across the lower-lying Wormsley’s Pond and Wormsley Creek, where there were more redoubts and connected trenches.