I went over to the other member of my personal following who lay among the twenty or so men in the surgeon’s care. He lay on his back, unable to raise himself thanks to a bad wound in his right thigh, which was heavily bandaged. Even so, his head was still well off the ground, supported by a rough pillow, because he was so shaped that it was impossible for him to stand wholly upright.
‘Fatla genes, Jowan?’
‘Pur dda, meur ras, Syr Mathi.’
John Treninnick spoke no English, only the tongue of his native Cornwall, where he had spent too many years bending in the low seams of tin mines. But his strange shape, and the astonishing strength he had in his arms, made him perhaps the best topman in the fleet. And I now had enough rudimentary Cornish to ask him how he was, and to understand his obvious lie about being very well.
‘He’ll live?’ I asked Rowan.
‘God willing, as long as gangrene doesn’t set in. That wound would have killed nine men out of every ten, but Treninnick isn’t like other men.’
‘Keep him alive, Master Surgeon. Keep them all alive, if you can.’
‘That I shall, Sir Matthew. If I can.’
I went back up to the lower gundeck, where the gunports were closed. The ship was listing slightly due to the holes below the waterline, and although it was a hot, sunny day at the beginning of August, I dared not order the ports to be opened. Consequently, the deck was dark, and resembled the inside of an over-coaled bread oven. The fetid smells from the bilges and the stench of rotting flesh from the surgery below permeated the entire space. Sweating, half-naked men were scrubbing blood from the planking, and resetting two of the thirty-two pounder demi-cannon back onto new carriages. Three of Master Carpenter Richardson’s men were putting the finishing touches to the repair of one of the great holes in the ship’s side. I walked among the men, speaking some words of encouragement. Some of them, especially the Cornish, I knew well: good men like the tiny John Tremar and the giant George Polzeath. It was good to see that both still lived, and, God willing, would return to their homes over the winter for a few months of – well, fishing, if I believed what they told me, or smuggling, if I believed my own instincts.
To the upper gundeck, where at least the ports were open, although the culverins and demi-culverins had been hauled inboard. A few messes were at rest around their tables between the guns; we had little sail aloft, although many men had been transferred to the pumps, where the off-watch men would soon relieve them. Some were smoking clay pipes over tubs of water, up forward, as the regulations of the Navy demanded. Some played board games, one or two who could do so were reading. Ali Reis, the Moorish renegade, was playing a few soft notes on his fiddle, too rapt in the music to notice his captain’s presence.
I climbed back into daylight, and breathed deeply, ridding my lungs of the between-decks stench of gunsmoke, sweat, blood, and death. I looked across to the other ships in our little squadron, inching north-west toward the safety of our fleet, and prayed that De Ruyter and the Dutch did not appear on the northern horizon, nor the Duke of Beaufort and the French on the southern. For our condition was dire. In one sense the Association was in a better state than we were, intact below the waterline. The French captain had clearly adopted a different strategy for each of his opponents, choosing to attack us in the hull but Walton’s ship in the rigging, as his nation was wont to do. And the effect of that attack had been truly shocking. I now knew that Valentine Walton had been killed by the very first broadside, his body smashed into three pieces by barshot. Almost all his officers, over-confidently and foolishly massed together on the quarterdeck, had been slaughtered by the same cannonade. This, of course, explained the ship’s inaction during our own engagement with the Jeanne d’Arc. One of the two master’s mates who survived fled to the hold and hid himself there, shitting himself and moaning piteously the whole time. The other attempted to surrender, but was shot through the head by a fifteen-year-old midshipman, who valiantly took command and attempted to fight the ship. To fight it for all of ten minutes, it seemed, before a musketball fired from the Jeanne d’Arc’s maintop struck him in the forehead, leaving a blind ship’s cook as acting captain of the King’s ship Association. It was he who had somehow rallied enough men to fire the decisive broadside that convinced the Frenchman to surrender. I had sent over Urquhart to assume temporary command, along with some thirty of our men and Francis Gale, who felt it his duty to offer spiritual succour to men who had witnessed such slaughter.
Behind the frigate, the great French ship wallowed in the waves, listing to larboard. Julian Delacourt was commanding the prize crew, no doubt revelling in his first independent command. Ensign Lovell and most of his Marines were aboard her too. But it was time for proprieties to be observed, and for Sir Matthew Quinton to meet the worthy captain who had proved such a formidable opponent.
‘Mister Carvell, there! Ready the longboat!’
A tall black man grinned impudently, despite knuckling his forehead with appropriate deference. ‘Aye, aye, Sir Matthew.’
Julian Carvell, now coxswain of the Royal Sceptre, sometime slave in Virginia and sometime killer of his owner (if lower-deck rumour was to be believed), went off to assemble a boat crew. I retired to my cabin, now restored to a vaguely habitable and respectable state by young Kellett, the only survivor of my little band of captain’s servants. A band of four that had been halved in the Saint James’ day fight, when two of them were killed; a third had developed the bloody flux a few days later, and was either recovering, or dying, or already dead, aboard the hospital ship.
As I entered, Musk seemed to be explaining the facts of life to Kellett.
‘So then the man puts –’
‘Yes, I know that, Master Musk, done it often enough – beg pardon, Sir Matthew, never heard you, sir!’
‘Evidently. And God help you, Kellett, if you are learning the delicate arts of love and frigging from Phineas Musk. Best shirt, breeches, frock coat and wig, lad, and smartly, if you please!’
‘Yes, Sir Matthew!’
The boy flung open my larger sea chest and began to extract the clothes.
‘Off to see the Frog, then, Sir Matthew?’ said Musk. ‘Ready for a touch of arrogance, Popery and strong perfume?’
‘I take it, then, that you won’t be accompanying me, Musk?’
‘Can’t abide the French.’
‘Is there any nation on earth, other than the English, that you can abide? But remember that my grandmother was French, and a Catholic. You served her devotedly, as I recall.’
‘Ah, but she was a great lady, your grandmother. Besides, she was the Countess of Ravensden. That cancelled out the rest of it.’
‘Let the world be truly thankful that you never became a judge, Musk. I dread to conceive of the even-handedness of your justice.’
* * *
The longboat took me across to the Jeanne d’Arc. As we approached, I attempted to calculate her worth in prize money. A tidy sum, that was certain, and I had already done well from prize money in the present war. Or rather, I had done well in theory. Quite when the permanently straitened Treasury of King Charles II would pay me the sums due to me was another matter. This was a source of some friction in my domestic life, as my wife Cornelia had designs upon a country estate for us once the war ended. Being Dutch, and thus a native of a tiny, sodden, crowded country where land was as scarce as gold dust, she dreamed of broad acres and spacious gardens, where we could take her leisure and bring up our unborn child. It was a pleasant prospect, and one I shared; but I also had a better grasp of the tortuous workings of the prize system, and of the price of land in the more tolerable shires of England.
Aboard the Frenchman, Lovell had assembled an impromptu side party of Marines, and he and Julian Delacourt saluted with their swords as I stepped aboard. Groups of French sailors looked on sullenly.
‘The French captain’s below, in his cabin, Sir Matthew,’ said Delacourt. ‘Took a wound during the fight – his surgeon’s atte
nding to him.’
‘Very good,’ I said. ‘And his crew are co-operating?’
‘As much as Frenchmen ever co-operate.’
‘Ah. Carry on, then, Mister Delacourt.’
‘Aye, aye, Sir Matthew.’
I went below and entered the captain’s cabin of the Jeanne d’Arc, or rather, what was left of it. There was no glass in the stern windows, both quarter galleries were gone, and a huge hole in the deck allowed a clear view of blue sky. In the middle of the cabin, what could only be the surgeon – a fussy little man with red-black ooze on his hands and a blood-stained apron at his front – was stitching a gaping gash in the left shoulder of the man who must have been the ship’s captain.
He looked up at me as I entered, and smiled.
I am a tall man; or at least, I was once a tall man. In my prime, in those faraway days of which I write, I was one of the only men at court able to look his lofty Majesty, Charles the Second, in the eye. But the French captain dwarfed me. He was a veritable colossus, a full hand’s width taller than myself, and perhaps twice as broad. Worse, he was sculpted like an ancient statue of a Classical god – strong features, piercing eyes, close-cropped grey hair, a bare chest like the breastplate of Hercules himself. He must have been twice my age, yet whereas most men so ancient were wheezing their way rapidly to the grave, the gallant Frenchman sprang to his feet with the ease of a hare.
He bowed in the extravagant French fashion, the smile on his face so broad that an observer might readily have assumed he was the victor here, not the vanquished.
‘Sir Matthew Quinton!’ he exclaimed in English. ‘A true honour to meet the acquaintance of such a brave and famous officer! Why, Sir Matthew, your praises are sung daily at court by your friend, my friend, the noble and excellent comte d’Andelys –’
‘Forgive me, sir,’ I said, ‘but whose surrender do I have the honour of accepting?’
My slight peevishness upset him not a jot. Instead, he bowed again.
‘Jean-Paul Ollivier, Sir Matthew, of Quimper in Brittany. Captain in the service of His Most Christian Majesty, Louis the Fourteenth, King of France and Navarre.’
That would explain his English, I thought: the Bretons were famous linguists, no other race on earth except the infernal Welsh (and my Cornish, come to that) being able to understand their native tongue. It would also explain the remarkable sailing and fighting qualities that Ollivier and his crew had displayed during the battle, for the Bretons were renowned seamen, forming the backbone of the manpower of King Louis’ mighty new navy.
‘Well, Captain Ollivier, I regret to have to inform you that you are my prisoner, sir.’
He inclined his head. ‘Of course. It is, as I say, an honour. As it will be to accept your hospitality, Sir Matthew. The noble comte, our mutual friend, speaks very highly of it.’
‘My – hospitality, Captain?’
‘Indeed,’ said Ollivier, grinning broadly. ‘I will happily give my parole, of course, until such time as an exchange is arranged, or the war ends. But I will give it on condition that I serve that time as your guest, trusting that you will forgive my presumption. Else, of course, I shall be compelled to attempt to escape, and to kill as many Englishmen as I possibly can in the process.’
The impudence of the man! And yet there was an irresistible quality to him, the grin remaining firmly in place as he delivered his threat…
‘With respect, Captain, that will be a matter for my superiors to decide.’
‘Oh, I envisage no difficulties there, Sir Matthew. I served under your admiral, you see, as a kind of chef d’escadre – with Prince Rupert, back in the year Fifty-Two. He will vouch for me. Above all, he will vouch for my religion.’
For the first time, I realised that the captain’s cabin of the Jeanne d’Arc contained no Romish paraphernalia, such as crucifixes and statues of saints. That, presumably, was why Jean-Paul Ollivier had been able to serve in the tiny Royalist fleet commanded by Prince Rupert, son of one of Europe’s greatest Protestant heroes, in those dark days of the usurping Commonwealth.
‘You are a Huguenot?’
He inclined his head. ‘So you see, Sir Matthew, you need have no fear of being accused of harbouring a Papist.’
This altered the case. The French Protestants, or Huguenots, were tolerated by King Louis, but only barely. It would be instructive to learn more of their true condition. Roger d’Andelys, my French friend, was a good man, but he was also a Catholic, and thus not necessarily an impartial source. I was also eager to learn more of the French navy, namely how it had been transformed almost overnight into such a power upon the seas. Naturally, I did not dishonour myself and embarrass Captain Ollivier by demanding to know how far behind him sailed Beaufort’s fleet, what the Duke’s objective might be, or why the Jeanne d’Arc had been sent on her lone mission. But I sensed that the Breton would be good company at a dinner table, a house guest who might keep Cornelia entertained as her full term approached, and a man who might both inform and amuse me during the months ahead, after the fleet paid off. True, Captain Ollivier’s presence would very probably annoy Phineas Musk, but that in itself might create some amusing entertainment.
After all, it was bound to be another long and uneventful winter in London.
Chapter Three
Our return to the fleet, with the shattered Association in tow and our prize, the Jeanne d’Arc, sailing in our wake, was marked by huzzahs and gunfire salutes, the smoke rolling across the gently swelling waters. Cheers rang out from every ship, from the mighty Sovereign, the largest and most famous ship in the world, down to the humblest victualling hoy and ketch. We sailed into the midst of our three squadrons, the Red, White and Blue, and slipped into the wake of the flagship, the Royal Charles, the Union flying from her main. The Navy Royal of England was sailing proud, just out of sight of the Dutch coast, having taken command of the sea after the Saint James’ day fight, the second of that summer’s great battles. Our enemy had retreated to his harbours to lick his wounds, giving us free rein.
I ordered the ship’s longboat made ready to take me to the flagship. When we were roughly half way across, I noticed another boat pulling away from the side of the great vessel, her crew rowing her toward the Loyal London, flagship of the Blue, perhaps the most laughably misnamed vessel in the entire history of the Navy Royal – London having been anything but loyal to the Stuart monarchs, rather than the seething hotbed of sedition, dissent and rebellion it still was.
‘His Grace don’t seem keen to see you, Sir Matthew,’ said Carvell.
‘Keep your eyes on our course, Mister Carvell,’ I said, although I could not resist a slight smile.
Julian Carvell knew, as did every man on the Royal Sceptre, that the Duke of Albemarle, joint admiral of the fleet, heartily detested me, and that the feeling was entirely reciprocated on my part. I had recently bested and embarrassed His Grace, which rather fewer knew; and Valentine Walton had been a protégé of his. So it was no surprise that the portly figure of the erstwhile General George Monck, the man who had restored monarchy to England, should be sitting in the stern of a boat pulling away swiftly from my own, not deigning to cast a backward glance in my direction.
Our boat came alongside, I acknowledged the boatswain’s pipe and the salute of the flagship’s side party, and went up to the quarterdeck.
‘So, Matthew Quinton,’ said a sharply-dressed, long-nosed fellow in his mid-forties, who possessed a pronounced dimple in his chin. He spoke with a German accent. ‘You leave the fleet to cruise with two fine, intact ships. You return with three wrecks. Will my cousins think that a good return, do you think?’
I bowed to the other joint admiral of our fleet, Rupert, Prince Palatine of the Rhine. He still had about him something of the air of the impetuous young cavalry general who had nearly won the civil war for his uncle, King Charles the First, but the rings around the eyes were dark and tired.
‘My apologies, Your Highness,’ I said. ‘The Frenchman, yonder, p
ut up a stouter resistance than many of the Dutchmen we encountered in the late fights.’
Prince Rupert nodded.
‘I would have expected nothing less. I know Captain Ollivier of old, as I expect he told you – we sailed together, for a time, back in the days when my cousin’s royal cause comprised my single ship, and that alone. A good man, and a good fighter. He and I will sup together tonight, and you must join us, Matt Quinton. We shall be a merry company, I think. So you must tell me how the fight went here and now, so we do not embarrass our guest at table.’
The Prince led me to the starboard rail, and listened intently as I regaled him with the account of our battle with the Jeanne d’Arc. As I did so, I reflected on the fickle nature of destiny. I had spent most of my life blaming and hating Rupert of the Rhine for the death of my father, when I was only five years old. James Quinton, Earl of Ravensden for just one hundred and eighteen days, had perished in the Battle of Naseby when Rupert failed to support him during their fateful cavalry charge against the rebels’ left wing. But a little over a year before, the Prince had astonished me by apologising fulsomely for his failure on that fateful day, and by revealing that he had been my secret patron in the Navy. During my recent confrontation with the Duke of Albemarle, Rupert had taken my side without hesitation. So now I spoke to him openly and enthusiastically, man to man, warrior to warrior.
‘Excellent,’ said the Prince as I concluded, ‘most excellent, Matt. But troubling, in one sense. The fact that King Louis was willing to send this ship through the Channel demonstrates that the Duke of Beaufort and his fleet will not be too far behind. This time, I think, the French really will join with the Dutch, if we do not take steps to prevent it.’
I knew he had the same thought in his mind as I did. Earlier in the summer, our fleet had been divided due to a rumour that the French fleet was approaching the Channel, intent on joining with the Dutch. Every man in the fleet knew what that meant. The Dutch were unlikely to invade England, but the French were a very different coin, the possessors of a vast and terrible army that had trounced even the invincible Spanish, so the prospect of the mousquetaires du roi marching up Ludgate Hill chilled every English heart. The rumour of the approach of King Louis’ fleet had proved false, but the Dutch fell on Albemarle’s weakened fleet while Rupert was away in pursuit of the illusory French. During a ferocious four-day fight, our ships had been shattered and many good men killed, including one of my dearest friends, Sir William Berkeley. So the prospect of an actual conjunction between the two enemy navies was bound to concern any Englishman – or an adopted Englishman, as Prince Rupert undoubtedly was.
Death's Bright Angel Page 3
