Sails on the Horizon: A Novel of the Napoleonic Wars

by Jay Worrall

  Charles paid the boatman, climbed the ladder up the side of the wharf, and went to the dockyard admiral’s office. Inside, he was directed down a corridor to a door marked ADMIRAL COMMANDING, HIS MAJESTY’S DOCKYARD, PLYMOUTH.

  A bent, white-haired secretary answered his knock and ushered Charles into a small anteroom and then disappeared through an inner door. Vice-Admiral of the Blue Sir Arthur Grimsley himself came out a moment later. Grimsley was a bandy-legged man of medium height with florid cheeks and an impressively protuberant belly that the elegant cut of his admiral’s uniform could not conceal.

  “Commander Edgemont, I’m honored, sir, honored,” Grimsley greeted him, extending his hand. “All England applauds your heroic efforts at the Battle of St. Vincent. I’ve read all about it.”

  “You are too kind, sir,” Charles answered, caught off-guard by the effusive greeting. “I only came to inquire about my ship.”

  Grimsley smiled broadly, half-turned, and slapped Charles on the back. “The Louisa, isn’t it? A fine little ship, lovely. You’ll make plenty of prize money with her, mark my words. I’ll tell you all about her. But I am amiss. Come into my office. Port or sherry? We’ll talk in more pleasant surroundings.” He nodded to the secretary, who opened the door, and Charles followed the admiral with a growing sense of trepidation into the sumptuously furnished room with damask drapes framing the windows and brocade-covered chairs. “Let me see,” Grimsley said, searching through some papers on his desk. “Ah, yes, the Louisa. She was built in eighty-five in the Brest yards—that’s in France—and captured last June off Île-de-Groix. She’s a very robustly built little ship for a French yard, if I may say. What else?” He squinted at the paper and held it up to his nose. “Oh, yes. Seven hundred fifty tons’ displacement, one hundred twenty eight feet on her maindeck, draws fifteen feet. A twelve-pounder frigate, of course, although she has nine-pounders on her fore- and aftercastles instead of the usual sixes. A very, very sharp little frigate.” They were seated and the wine poured out by a servant who seemed to have appeared from nowhere. “Now, tell me about St. Vincent,” Grimsley continued affably. “I want to know everything, the signals from the flagship, Spanish maneuvers, Argonaut’s role, everything.”

  This was not what Charles wanted to talk about and he wondered at Grimsley’s attention. He had a sense that he should tread carefully. “There isn’t much to tell, sir,” he temporized, “that wasn’t in the Gazette.”

  “Nonsense,” Grimsley retorted. “Don’t be modest. Details, details. I want to know everything.” He leaned forward confidentially. “For example, the little Argonaut being ordered to stand alone in front of the Spanish fleet like that. Old Johnny Jervis, the newly dubbed Lord St. Vincent, he ordered that, didn’t he? It hardly seems the right thing, does it? I can well imagine you were furious when you received those orders. Heh?”

  Charles sipped at his port to collect his thoughts. It seemed to him that Grimsley was not so interested in the battle itself as he was to see if Charles might be used as a weapon to discredit Admiral Jervis. “I was not commanding the Argonaut when those orders were issued by the flagship, sir,” he answered, choosing his words carefully and hoping to stay well clear of whatever vendetta Grimsley had against Jervis.

  Grimsley leaned further forward still, resting his hand on Charles’s knee. “But you were on board; surely you had a reaction, an opinion? Jervis sacrificed your ship in a vain quest for his own glory, don’t you think? You must have been angry at the folly, the stupidity of it.”

  This was too much for Charles. Not only was Grimsley insulting Admiral Jervis, but indirectly it was an insult against Charles himself, that he would rather hang back and protect his ship than engage the enemy. “No, sir,” he said with some heat. “The Argonaut was the only battleship in a position to delay the Spaniards until the remainder of our line could engage. I’ll admit that I was anxious, frightened even. I understood the odds. But in my opinion it was an act of courage for Admiral Jervis to order her into such a position, knowing that she would surely be destroyed, not otherwise.”

  Grimsley straightened abruptly in his chair, his eyes turning cold and his mouth hardening. “So you’re just another of Jervis’s toadies, are you? I must say I’m disappointed.” He paused for a moment, then continued in a barely interested tone. “You’ve come to inquire about your ship, have you?”

  “I’m no one’s toady,” Charles answered, trying to control his temper. “But my orders require that she be ready for sea by—”

  Grimsley cut him off. “I know what your orders say.”

  “Well, sir, she’s not as far along as I would have hoped. She has no running rigging or sails. There’s no crew, no stores, and she’s missing much of her armament and all of her gunnery supplies. Shall I go on? I must insist that the Louisa be made complete as soon as possible.”

  Grimsley remained unmoved. “You don’t make demands on me, Commander. You’ll not get so much as a nail or a biscuit until I say so.”

  Charles would guess what that meant. It meant money. He also knew that a battle with this admiral was one he would certainly lose. And if he couldn’t get Louisa ready for sea, his career would be finished almost before it had begun. He hated himself for the next words he uttered. “Surely we can deal with this problem like gentlemen, sir. Perhaps you can think of some way I can help the work along.”

  Arthur Grimsley leaned back in his chair, steepled his fingers in front of his chin, and focused on Charles. “You mean some kind of accommodation? Financially speaking, I mean.”

  “Well, yes, sir,” Charles said, resigned to dealing with Grimsley on his own terms. “In a manner of speaking. I was thinking that a contribution, a sizeable contribution, would be in order for the extra work and effort it will take to have the Louisa made seaworthy; some token of appreciation for the dockyard hands and shipwrights. I would leave this sum for you to disburse as you think best, of course.”

  “I see,” the admiral said, struggling unsuccessfully to suppress a smile. “Something to help the work along. That’s very generous of you.”

  Charles nodded, gritting his teeth. “For the good of the service, sir.”

  “We’re both gentlemen of the world,” Grimsley offered graciously. “How large of a sum were you thinking of…ah…contributing?”

  Charles had no idea as to the amount of money customary in common bribery. Too much might seem suspicious; too little might anger the admiral. He was fairly certain that whatever amount he offered would likely be negotiated upward. “I was thinking a hundred pounds would be generous.”

  Grimsley pushed his steepled fingers together in a gesture curiously like that of a man at prayer. “A hundred pounds would be more than generous if this were some small civilian boatyard. I don’t think you appreciate how many hundreds of men it takes to refit a king’s frigate. There are porters, laborers, carpenters, riggers, not to mention draftsmen and clerks, and many, many more.”

  “How many hundreds?” Charles asked.

  “Five.” The steepled fingers parted and lay themselves flat on the admiral’s desktop.

  Charles forced a smile while his insides churned. “I wasn’t proposing to reward all of Plymouth and the surrounding counties,” he said with a small laugh. “But I may go as high as two hundred.”

  The figure finally agreed to was three hundred pounds cash.

  The admiral seemed pleased, if not overjoyed, and was now anxious for Charles to leave his office. “And the money will be delivered tomorrow morning?” he said, rising and nodding toward the door.

  Charles couldn’t bring himself to shake the offered hand. “As soon as my bank opens. When can I expect my crew on board?”

  “These things can’t be hurried,” Grimsley said, his smile fading. “You’ll have to see Cavendish. He’ll take care of everything.”

  Captain Cavendish, Charles knew, was the dockyard superintendent, Grimsley’s executive officer. It was said he did nothing without his superior’s approval.
“I am sorry, sir,” Charles said. “I expected to have my crew before now. I’m afraid I’ll be too busy now to call on my banker until the afternoon, or even the morning after.”

  “All right, all right, I’ll send over what I can in the morning,” Grimsley conceded. “We have a hundred or so in the receiving hulks.” Charles breathed an inward sigh of relief. “For the rest of what you need, you’ll have to see Cavendish.”

  Charles wanted to be certain that his ship would receive all the attention she required. He began, “The Louisa also needs—”

  “Cavendish knows what she needs,” Grimsley said almost brusquely. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have other problems to attend to.”

  “You will tell Captain Cavendish to take care of Louisa immediately?”

  “Cavendish will take care of you,” Grimsley repeated, pointing at the doorway.

  “Just one more thing,” Charles pressed as he backed toward the door. “The Louisa’s main armament, the twelve-pounders on her gundeck, look like they’ve come from the bottom of the sea.”

  Charles thought he saw a look of uncertainty touch Grimsley’s face. “Oh, yes—er, I had newer ones set aside for you, but they had to be given to another captain,” the admiral explained rather hurriedly. “I had no choice; it was an emergency. The ones you have just need to be cleaned up a bit. A touch of paint will do wonders.”

  Charles thought the answer perfectly satisfactory, but the tone in which it was delivered somewhat strained. He wondered how much some other unfortunate captain had paid for his guns. “I’m sure a coat of paint will do the trick, sir. Thank you again, and I’ll be looking for my crew in the morning.”

  Alone in the hallway, Charles’s first thought was to go somewhere and wash. He felt as if he had been dipped in filth, outrageously treated and personally insulted, and it angered him that there was no way he could strike back. After calming himself, he went in search of Captain Cavendish and found that the dockyard superintendent would be unavailable until the next morning.

  Leaving the building, he walked to a nearby tavern, still thinking about his encounter with Grimsley and the Louisa’s cannon. Inside the half-filled room, the casual talk among most of the naval officers was about Spithead and the mutiny and how it should be dealt with. A few voiced sympathy for the sailors and the conditions under which they lived and worked. The larger number favored hanging for the ringleaders and harsh punishment for the rest, even if it meant flogging every sailor in the fleet. “You have to have complete discipline,” one senior captain argued hotly, “no compromises, no concessions. Otherwise, there’ll be no end to what the buggers want.”

  Charles sat with a fellow commander recently returned from the Mediterranean who seemed relatively unconcerned about the plight of sailors’ lives. “The French have a new general commanding their army in Italy,” the man said, looking very serious. “In the past year he’s had one victory after another—Castiglione, Bassano, Arcola, Rivoli, Mantua. He’s beaten up the Austrians so badly they say the emperor will sue for peace any day.”

  “Imagine that,” Charles said with other things on his mind and only vaguely aware of where those places were. He was fairly confident that land battles in the far-inland foothills of the Alps wouldn’t affect him very much.

  “He’s young, only twenty-eight,” the commander continued. “They say he’s ruthless. A Corsican named Buonaparte, Napoleon Buonaparte.”

  It was the first time Charles had heard the name and he promptly put it out of his head.

  AT THE FIRST bell in the forenoon watch the next morning Charles sat, finishing his breakfast of toasted bread, cheese, and hot coffee at his own table, on his own chair, in his own cabin, when he heard a small commotion on deck, quickly followed by a knock at his door. “Enter,” he shouted.

  Winchester’s head appeared through the doorway. “Beg pardon, sir,” he said, “but it appears our crew is here. At least I think so.”

  “I’m coming,” Charles said, dropping his spoon and signaling to Attwater that he was finished. He threw on his uniform jacket, snatched up his hat and sword, and hurried to the quarterdeck.

  “Starboard side,” Bevan said, pointing over the rail. In the water Charles saw four lighters crowded with all manner of men—young, old, heavy, thin, happy, and morose. A few were experienced seamen by the looks of them, many were rustic yokels, and the rest scattered in between—clerks, failed tradesmen of various kinds, possibly a few dandies escaping paternity suits or other problems.

  “Get them on board and read them in,” Charles said cheerfully. “It’ll take you all day to sort that lot out.”

  When Bevan merely grimaced Charles said, “I’m going to see the dockyard superintendent. I’ll help you with the watch-bills when I get back.” He didn’t say that he would stop at his bank first to withdraw the money to pay off Grimsley. When he finally arrived at the dockyard superintendent’s office, he was in a less happy mood.

  ___

  CAPTAIN CAVENDISH TURNED out to be a decent if hopelessly overworked man with gray hair rapidly turning white. “I will get to it as soon as I can,” he said, tapping his finger on the sheaf of lists Charles had given him. “I can’t promise when. We’re terribly shorthanded.”

  “I have to have food and water immediately,” Charles persisted. “I now have a crew to provide for.”

  Cavendish threw up his hands. “I can’t possibly do it before tomorrow.”

  Charles leaned across the desk. “Do you at least have my ship’s boats? A launch and cutter will do for now. I’ll send a party to pick them up, and they can bring back enough supplies to tide us over.”

  “I’ll agree to that if your men load the boats,” Cavendish said.

  “Agreed.”

  They talked about the rest of Charles’s lists, item by item, and worked out a rough schedule for many of them: food and water the next day; the nine-pounder guns the day after; spars for yards early the next week; sails and cordage after that; and on and on.

  Reasonably satisfied in the end, Charles rose to leave. “By the way,” he said out of curiosity, “what ship took my new twelve-pounder guns?”

  Cavendish looked at him strangely, “What ship? No ship. The admiral had ordered new guns from the Ordnance Board, but they were condemned, something about defective casting. They were returned to the foundry only three days ago.”

  “Thank you,” Charles said. He left Cavendish and walked thoughtfully down to the wharf, where he signaled a waiting wherryman. He hastily scribbled a note and gave it to the man. “Take this to the Louisa and give it to Lieutenant Bevan. Wait a bit. He’ll want to send a party back with you so he can collect our ship’s boats.”

  The wherryman, a former sailor himself, knuckled his forehead and then pulled on his oars. Charles checked his purse, then hired a chaise and directed that he be taken to the coach station on Millbay Road. He found the one-armed seaman Poole sitting on his wheelbarrow by the doorway to a nearby inn.

  “Mornin’, Cap’n.” Poole rose as Charles approached. “How do ye find yer new Louisa?”

  “You’ve a good memory,” Charles answered with a smile. “She’s coming along.” Getting straight to he point, he ventured, “You mentioned you have a friend doing the dockyard accounts?”

  “Aye,” Poole said cautiously. “Is there somethin’ ye wants to know?”

  Charles took him by his one arm and walked him a little away, where they wouldn’t be overheard. “Yes,” he said. “I want to know what happened to twenty-two new twelve-pounder cannon that were set aside for Louisa. They were apparently condemned as defective and returned. There’s twenty pounds in it for you if you can find out what’s happened to them and why. Fifty if you bring me the paperwork.”

  Poole whistled. “I might be able to do that, sur. I also know some boys in the ordnance yard. Don’t know what it’ll come to, though.”

  “I knew I could count on you,” Charles said, opening his purse and counting out ten pounds. “This should
get you started. And, Poole, not a word to anybody who might talk to the admiral.”

  “’Course not, sur,” Poole replied.

  THE NEXT TWO weeks passed in a flurry of barely controlled confusion. One hundred two hands, overwhelmingly raw landsmen, had been delivered by the lighters. The ship’s requirement was one hundred seventy-five, not counting the marines. Charles sent Winchester, with two of the master’s mates and the newly printed handbills, recruiting throughout the port and nearby towns and villages. Winchester had obviously labored long and hard over the wording and Charles was pleased with its understated appeal:

  BRITONS!

  HEARTS OF OAK!

  Here is your opportunity to join

  CAPTAIN CHARLES EDGEMONT, the HERO of St. Vincent,

  and HM Frigate LOUISA to fight your country’s enemies!

  Captain Edgemont is renowned for

  PRIZES taken and prize MONEY paid among his crews!

  Steer to GLORY!

  Sign on today while positions are still available.

  No impressments, Charles told Winchester; but he could offer extra cash bonuses for experienced sailors. Charles would pay for it out of his own pocket.

  The remainder of Louisa’s warrant officers arrived in ones and twos: George Black, the purser, a rail-thin, cadaverous-looking man; Keswick the bosun; the sailmaker, the cooper, the armorer, and Mr. Mahone the quartermaster. Several midshipmen ranging in age from ten to thirty-four also dribbled in, and on a Friday afternoon thirty red-coated marines and their sergeant arrived on board and were promptly marched to their quarters. All of the men had to be read in, entered in the ship’s books, assigned to watches and stations (there were two watches, termed “starboard” and “port,” and while Louisa was on active duty they would normally man the ship in alternating shifts). Each of them also had to be assigned a berthing space, twenty-eight inches by six feet where they could sling their hammock—two men assigned to each space, to be used by whichever was not on watch. Finding space was not yet a problem, since Louisa was still seriously undermanned, but with her full complement on board every inch would be at a premium.