A Ship for The King

by Richard Woodman

  ‘God help us if we drag now,’ he remarked to White, having thereby immobilized the ship. White nodded. It had been a hard six hours’ work. ‘Issue the men with an extra rum-ration, and tell them to stand easy.’

  Fortunately the wind shifted a little north of west which, thanks to the rocks and shallows in that direction, eased the strain on the cables and, in the event and to the amazement of them all, not a single vessel dragged her anchor. How Batten’s squadron fared they had no idea but, once the gale abated after it had blown for three days and four nights, there was nothing to be seen of his ships.

  For two further days nothing could be seen to the eastwards, so it was assumed that Batten had fallen back upon Falmouth, perhaps even as far as Plymouth, with his ships damaged by the foul weather. It was now that Sir Richard Fanshawe, aware that the islanders had barely enough for their own subsistence, advised Prince Charles that it might prove the decisive moment for his escape to Jersey. The Prince concurred and orders were given for the re-embarkation at a Council held in the castle in the Prince’s presence.

  ‘Sir Henry and I,’ Fanshawe began, ‘are of the opinion, Your Highness, that you should embark in the Proud Black Eagle. We are also of the opinion, confirmed we believe by Captain Baldwin Wake of that vessel, that she is exceptionally fast.’ Faulkner looked across at Wake, a young man in extravagant dress who commanded one of the other vessels keeping them company in the anchorage. ‘The enemy,’ Fanshawe resumed, ‘should we meet him, will assume that you remain in the Phoenix and we may let him continue to do so with the judicious deception of flags and so forth. Captain Faulkner will form the chief escort with the Phoenix and, should we encounter the enemy, act as a decoy. The other vessels will divide themselves accordingly as best suits the occasion, with at least one vessel in support of the Phoenix, but the remainder attending the Proud Black Eagle. I have no need to remind you gentlemen of what is expected of you if the enemy appears in overwhelming force. Any questions?’

  ‘I am short of powder and shot,’ said Faulkner. ‘I obtained a little yesterday from the garrison commander but, now that we are departing, may I have a requisition order for more?’

  ‘Of course, Captain. And I wish we had been able to increase our stores but all that the island can produce we have already taken.’

  There were a few more details to settle but by noon Faulkner, having sent word to White to collect more powder and shot, walked down to speak with Katherine. Knocking at her lodgings, a small, mean stone fisherman’s cottage almost on the foreshore, he was ushered in by the black maid. Katherine rose as he entered the room, as did Lady Fanshawe.

  ‘Captain, how good of you to call. I regret there is nothing here to offer you by way of refreshment,’ she said as he straightened from his bow.

  ‘That is of no account, Lady Fanshawe,’ he said smiling. ‘I am grown accustomed to hard usage. I had it in mind to speak with Mistress Katherine since you shall shortly be embarking again.’

  ‘So I hear. I must confess, I rather dread it. Yours is not the most comfortable of ships, Captain Faulkner.’

  ‘Then perhaps it is as well that you will be accommodated aboard the Proud Black Eagle.’

  ‘The what?’ Her ladyship’s eyebrows shot up, ‘What a preposterous name for a ship!’

  He turned to Katherine. ‘Shall you accompany her ladyship, Lady Katherine?’ he asked. ‘Sir Henry is to transfer his flag . . .’

  ‘Of course she will, Captain,’ put in Lady Fanshawe. ‘We are inseparable, are we not, Kate?’

  Katherine shot him a glance of resignation. ‘Indeed, Madam, we are.’ Faulkner felt the sharp pang of enforced separation.

  ‘Then I shall have to master my disappointment,’ he said, addressing himself to Katherine.

  ‘So shall we all, I fear, if the Proud Eagle is that little ship which we passed in coming ashore.’

  ‘That is the one, ma’am, but she is said to be fast. I shall take my leave of you. There is much to be done. I shall see you in Jersey, no doubt.’

  ‘I devoutly hope so,’ Katherine said, blowing a kiss from the tips of her fingers. He could hardly bear the look in her eyes and moved towards her.

  For a moment they stood close; then he said hurriedly in a low voice, ‘Perhaps it is as well that you travel with the Prince.’

  She shook her head, tears welling in her eyes. ‘No . . .’

  He tore himself away. She had not attended the Council meeting and did not know the load laid upon his shoulders. Faulkner was in a black mood as he returned on board where Mainwaring soon afterwards joined him. ‘I am sorry, Kit. I know they have snatched the prize from you, but with luck you will be reunited in Jersey.’

  ‘Let us hope so,’ he said shortly, ‘or the devil may take the consequence.’

  The little squadron was off the Caskets when one of Batten’s ships found them. The Proud Black Eagle, into which Mainwaring had transferred his flag, was in the van and made sail to the south-south-east and the refuge of loyal St Helier. In accordance with his orders, Faulkner hauled his wind and headed for Guernsey, as if making for the nearer island with his royal passenger and the enemy took the bait.

  With the wind freshening again from the south-west, the two ships thrashed to windward, laying over, the spray flying. It was a dangerous game, for the spars and canvas strained and Faulkner worried about the extensive reefs that lay to the westward of Guernsey. The island lay like a slab into which the angry Atlantic had been slowly eating in its endless game of attrition; century by century the island had fallen back, leaving the bones of its skeleton to windward, hidden in a welter of white water which tore and broke as the waves dashed upon the rocks, while the sea itself ran under the impetus of the moon with fierce tides that could set a ship like a toy.

  If the sturdy little Phoenix could not weather that muddle of rocks, and pass outside the Hanois reef, then she must turn and fight, and in these conditions, her crew worn with days of exertion and too small to man more than half her armament, she stood little chance of escape from a man-of-war of force, and the enemy was gaining upon them.

  Faulkner stood by the helm. ‘Keep your eyes on the compass,’ he growled at the helmsmen, sensing their nervousness. It was scarcely surprising. The men on deck were casting frequently worried looks astern and many of them belonged to the watch below. ‘Keep your eyes inboard, all of you!’ he shouted above the noise of the wind. White came up and, touching his bare forehead, asked for orders.

  ‘Seeing that we already have all hands on deck, you may load the guns but keep them inboard. Douse the galley fire and issue small arms.’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  ‘But,’ he said, restraining White from going about his business, ‘I shall only fight if I have to.’ White’s face looked relieved, and for a moment Faulkner was puzzled until White revealed the source of his relief.

  ‘You’ll think of something, sir,’ he said, before turning away to pass on Faulkner’s orders.

  He would think of something? Was that the burden of the men’s faith in him which he carried? He felt a sudden fury; an outrage at being so put upon. It stemmed chiefly from the remark he had been about to confide in White, but which White’s stupid remark had displaced. The only thing he could think about at the moment was the fact that he was bound in honour not to surrender; he had been about to tell this to White but to order him to save himself, the men and the ship, if he, Faulkner himself, were to fall.

  Think of something! What was there to think about other than the overwhelming power of the enemy and the inevitability of the end of this encounter? He allowed himself a glance astern. It was always difficult in such circumstances to judge both the size of a pursuing vessel and her distance, the one being contingent upon the other, but she was as big as the Frenchman who had chased him off the Varne, all those years ago. Now, however, there was no friendly shoal under his lee over which he might hop to safety, sure in the knowledge that the enemy commander dared not follow. Nor was this a French
man; the fellow in command of the man-of-war astern was a determined Englishman hunting for the grandest prize, the heir to the English throne, possession of which would possibly end the war at a stroke and bring the King to Parliament’s heel.

  Faulkner tried to clear his head of such thoughts. Germane though they were to grand strategy, they were a hindrance to him in his present predicament. But they were difficult to shake off and he was conscious that below all his professional anxieties there lay another: that having found Katherine, he was about to lose her. The thought nearly overwhelmed him. He felt the unmanly prick of strong emotion, of the start of tears and a feeling of black rage. God was punishing him for his abandonment of Julia and the children, or for his pride, or for his numberless sins.

  A shower of spray rose from the Phoenix’s bluff and plunging bow. The wind caught it and whipped it to leeward so that it stung his face and had the helmsmen beside him spluttering and blowing the saltwater off his nose. It saved Faulkner from an onset of paralysing nerves and roused him from the torpor into which fatigue and anxiety threatened to thrust him.

  ‘Mr White!’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Take the deck. Issue spirits to all hands. I am going to arm myself and will be but five minutes.’ White acknowledged his instructions and Faulkner sensed the lightening of the helmsmen’s mood at the announcement of a rum-issue. Did a tot of spirits really make such a difference when the enemy was at their tail? Faulkner certainly hoped so and he helped himself to a glass of wine the moment he reached his cabin. He stood a moment, glass in hand, braced against the pitch and roll of the Phoenix, and stared astern. The cabin windows perfectly framed the pursuing enemy vessel and he watched, almost mesmerized. Finishing his wine he pulled on his cuirass. Without a servant he had difficulty securing the clasps and straps, but the need to concentrate on so small but tricky a task steadied him. He picked up the crimson sash and wound it about his waist, buckled on his sword and looked about the cabin. He wondered if he would ever see it again. It had been his only home now for two months, during which his life had changed dramatically. Then his eyes were caught by the sight of the enemy, caught suddenly in a shifting patch of sunshine which threw her into highlights and shadows, the rise of her hull and the flat billow of her white sails. As he watched, her aspect changed slightly as her helm was put over and her head swung to larboard. He knew what was coming and saw the brief flowering of smoke with the bright flash of the discharge at its heart under her starboard bow. The smoke vanished in an instant, whipped away in the wind and lost, like the sound. The ranging shot plunged into the sea well astern of them, a hundred to a hundred and fifty yards away.

  The shot had cost her time and distance, and the alteration of course had lost her some yards to leeward. She would recover, given time . . . Odd that her commander had tried a ranging shot at such a distance . . . The thought recalled him to his own duty with a start. He knew at once what had prompted that shot: the proximity of danger. Those reefs under their lee bow were troubling his opponent and ought, by God, to be troubling him. He made for the deck at a run and saw at once what had precipitated his enemy.

  Almost under the larboard bow – or so it seemed from the lee side of the heeling and driven Phoenix – the seas broke on the outlying litter of dangers lying off the western coast of Guernsey. The spray from the breaking waves rose like smoke in the patches of intermittent sunshine and the white water over the shallows was broken here and there by the peaks of rocks and islets over which birds wheeled. Overhead the wind sang in the rigging, a near gale but steady. He looked up; the Phoenix was hard-pressed, but not overly so. He must hold his nerve and carry his canvas.

  He reached the helm up the steeply angled deck. White looked at him expectantly. ‘Shorten down, sir?’ he prompted.

  Faulkner shook his head. ‘Not yet, Mr White, not yet awhile.’ He caught the glance that passed between the two men at the helm. He thought better of interpreting it. It did not matter now what they thought; now the burden was his and his alone. He felt a pang of sorrow for them in their servitude and the thought, brief though it was, reminded him of Julia. The way of the world rendered such people helpless. He too was helpless, overborne by fate, or Providence, or the will of God. The difference, however, lay in the weight of his responsibility. That had been placed upon his shoulders by . . . by what? By fate, or Providence, or God? Was he a smaller version of King Charles, claiming the right to decide the fate of others by divine right? But he had had a hand in it himself by way of his ambition and ability; Mainwaring, even the unknown apple-seller had helped too . . . and Julia, the night she had repudiated his love-making. Where did it all end, this chain of cause and effect?

  He stood for a moment, almost paralysed with the import of this train of thought. To his men he seemed cool, the calculating fighting captain that they mostly assumed him to be. A man raised to command them and supremely fitted for such moments as they were just then embarking upon.

  Faulkner recovered himself and raised his eyes to again study the chasing man-of-war. She had certainly lost ground to leeward and would run closer to the rocks than the Phoenix in consequence, but her commander was a man of nerve. Faulkner felt a sudden inexplicable lightening of spirit. He was filled with a sudden determination. He did not greatly care what happened. He had in fact little choice in the matter. He had found his love and would gamble all on that fact alone, let the Devil himself take it. A man had only a reputation to leave, and to die honourably was preferable to any other death. He would leave matters to God, or Providence, or whatever ruled the universe.

  ‘I am going forward, Mr,’ he said to White, his voice suddenly cold. ‘Do you mind the men steer small.’

  ‘What trick is that devil going to pull now?’ one of the helmsmen asked of no one in particular.

  ‘Hold your tongue!’ snapped White, whose view of their situation was more realistic. He admired Captain Faulkner and knew him for a competent seaman and shrewd man of business, but doubted there was any trick he could pull right now. White expelled his breath. Well, perhaps it helped that the men thought their captain capable of such a thing but they were, for the most part, ignorant and superstitious fellows. He himself had a wife in London, and two fine pock-marked boys that he loved dearly, even though he beat them. Well, a man beat boys to make them men and the least he could do was make men of them if their mother was to be widowed in the next hour. White was not afraid of death; he had been at sea too long not to have seen its sudden, unexpected visitation far too often. Funny, but it so frequently carried off the best men, leaving the rotten to ruin the world. He watched, curious as Faulkner began to ascend the foremast ratlines on the windward side.

  ‘Cap’n going aloft, Mr White,’ the windward helmsman reported.

  ‘I can see that, thank you, Matthews.’

  ‘Reckon we’ll sink or swim in the next hour, sir,’ Matthews went on.

  ‘I can see that too, Matthews, thank you.’

  ‘Cap’n’ll see us through . . .’

  White held his peace. In his heart of hearts he certainly hoped so, but he knew he hoped against the odds.

  ‘Cap’n’s calling something, sir!’

  White went forward and looked aloft. Faulkner was staring down at him. ‘I’m going through the rocks!’ he shouted. ‘Send Matthews forward to station himself there, where you are, to pass my orders to you at the helm. I want you on the helm, White, and no one else!’

  White waved his acknowledgement and hurried aft. ‘Get yourself forrard, Matthews. The Captain wants you to stand where he can see you and I want you to shout what the Captain tells you with all your might. We’re going through the rocks.’

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Matthews’ mouth dangled wide open.

  ‘Can’t imagine why the Captain chose you, Matthews, you look like a damned loon. Shut your gob and get yourself forrard.’ On the far side of the tiller the second helmsman grinned. ‘And you mind me, lad,’ White chided him, ‘this calls for real
seamanship’.

  In the foretop Faulkner had come to his decision quickly. It did not do to dwell on the risk. They might escape death if he brought the other ship to action, but they would not escape entirely unless he risked everything on a single throw of the dice. All, he had thought when ascending the foremast, decided upon the mere possibility of escape. If there looked like a passage through the rocks, then he must take it. Reaching the foretop he stared out over the scene of wild desolation. From this elevation the chaos of rock and sea that extended between the ship and the shore seemed intimidating but, if one took a cooler appraisal, there was deep water between many of the rocks, each of which – when it appeared from the seas breaking over it – was encircled by a garland of white. The white was composed, he knew, of the air left from the endless succession of broken waves and these trailed off to the south-westwards, drawn by the run of the tide. Many of the rocks were covered by the tide, and most which lay insufficiently under water for the Phoenix to pass over them were betrayed by the tumbling of waves and the white swirl caused by their submarine presence. Between such disturbances, dark, undisturbed water ran and several almost clear lines, most going in unhelpful directions, had already opened up and then closed again as the Phoenix drove past. Two circumstances had heartened Faulkner and kindled the bright flame of real hope in his heart, almost daring him to make his attempt at escape. The first was the tide, which by pressing against their lee bow would allow him to haul the ship a point further off the wind and thus increase their speed, and the other was the proximity with which they had already run past several rocks – such close acquaintance with these dangers meant that there was a good chance that most rose steep and sharp from the seabed. They were, he realized, what was left by the sea’s attrition and likely to be the core of greater outcrops, and therefore chimney-like in their structure.