by V. A. Stuart
THE BRAVE CAPTAINS
Selected Historical Fiction Published by McBooks Press
BY ALEXANDER KENT
The Complete Midshipman Bolitho
Stand Into Danger
In Gallant Company
Sloop of War
To Glory We Steer
Command a King’s Ship
Passage to Mutiny
With All Despatch
Form Line of Battle!
Enemy in Sight!
The Flag Captain
Signal–Close Action!
The Inshore Squadron
A Tradition of Victory
Success to the Brave
Colours Aloft!
Honour This Day
The Only Victor
Beyond the Reef
The Darkening Sea
For My Country’s Freedom
Cross of St George
Sword of Honour
Second to None
Relentless Pursuit
Man of War
Heart of Oak
BY PHILIP MCCUTCHAN
Halfhyde’s Island
Halfhyde and the Guns of Arrest
Halfhyde to the Narrows
Halfhyde for the Queen
Halfhyde Ordered South
Halfhyde on Zanatu
BY JAN NEEDLE
A Fine Boy for Killing
The Wicked Trade
The Spithead Nymph
BY JAMES L. NELSON
The Only Life That Mattered
BY JAMES DUFFY
Sand of the Arena
The Fight for Rome
BY DEWEY LAMBDIN
The French Admiral
The Gun Ketch
HMS Cockerel
A King’s Commander
Jester’s Fortune
BY DUDLEY POPE
Ramage
Ramage & The Drumbeat
Ramage & The Freebooters
Governor Ramage R.N.
Ramage’s Prize
Ramage & The Guillotine
Ramage’s Diamond
Ramage’s Mutiny
Ramage & The Rebels
The Ramage Touch
Ramage’s Signal
Ramage & The Renegades
Ramage’s Devil
Ramage’s Trial
Ramage’s Challenge
Ramage at Trafalgar
Ramage & The Saracens
Ramage & The Dido
BY FREDERICK MARRYAT
Frank Mildmay or The Naval Officer
Mr Midshipman Easy
Newton Forster or The Merchant Service
BY V.A.STUART
Victors and Lords
The Sepoy Mutiny
Massacre at Cawnpore
The Cannons of Lucknow
The Heroic Garrison
The Valiant Sailors
The Brave Captains
Hazard’s Command
Hazard of Huntress
Hazard in Circassia
Victory at Sebastopol
Guns to the Far East
Escape from Hell
BY DOUGLAS W. JACOBSON
Night of Flames
BY JULIAN STOCKWIN
Kydd
Artemis
Seaflower
Mutiny
Quarterdeck
Tenacious
Command
The Admiral’s Daughter
The Privateer’s Revenge
BY JOHN BIGGINS
A Sailor of Austria
The Emperor’s Coloured Coat
The Two-Headed Eagle
Tomorrow the World
BY ALEXANDER FULLERTON
Storm Force to Narvik
Last Lift from Crete
All the Drowning Seas
A Share of Honour
The Torch Bearers
The Gatecrashers
BY C.N.PARKINSON
The Guernseyman
Devil to Pay
The Fireship
Touch and Go
So Near So Far
Dead Reckoning
BY DOUGLAS REEMAN
Badge of Glory
First to Land
The Horizon
Dust on the Sea
Knife Edge
BY DAVID DONACHIE
The Devil’s Own Luck
The Dying Trade
A Hanging Matter
An Element of Chance
The Scent of Betrayal
A Game of Bones
BY BROOS CAMPBELL
No Quarter
The War of Knives
Peter Wicked
THE PHILLIP HAZARD NOVELS, NO . 2
THE
BRAVE
CAPTAINS
by
V. A. STUART
MCBOOKS PRESS, INC.
ITHACA, NEW YORK
Published by McBooks Press 2003
Copyright © 1968, 1972 by V.A. Stuart
First published in the United Kingdom by Robert Hale
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without the written permission of the publisher. Requests for such permissions should be addressed
to McBooks Press, Inc.,
ID Booth Building, 520 North Meadow St., Ithaca, NY 14850.
Cover: Crimean War, British frigates engaging the Kilburn Forts, 16 October, 1855. Courtesy of Peter Newark’s Military Pictures.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stuart, V. A.
The brave captains / V.A. Stuart.
p. cm. —(The Phillip Hazard novels ; no. 2)
ISBN 1-59013-040-5 (alk. paper)
1. Hazard, Phillip Horatio (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Great Britain—History, Naval—19th century—Fiction. 3. Balaklava (Ukraine), Battle of, 1854—Fiction. 4. Crimean War, 1853-1856—Fiction. 5. British—Ukraine—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6063.A38B73 2003
823’.914—dc21
2003005260
Visit the McBooks historical fiction website at www.mcbooks.com.
Printed in the United States of America
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Contents
Author’s Note
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
AUTHOR’S NOTE
With the exception of the Officers and Seamen of H.M.S. Trojan, all the British Naval and Military Officers in this novel really existed and their actions are a matter of historical fact. Their opinions are also, in most cases, widely known and where they have been credited with remarks of conversations—as, for example, with the fictitious characters—which are not actually their own words, care has been taken to make sure that these are, as far as possible, in keeping with their known sentiments.
The remarks criticizing Army organization, attributed to Midshipman St. John Daniels (later V.C.) are based on opinions expressed at that time by a number of Naval Officers and, in particular, by Sir Evelyn Wood, V.C., in his From Midshipman to Field Marshal, published in 1906.
The main events described are historically accurate and did actually take place, as described, according to books published, soon after the Crimean War ended, by those who took part in them.
THIS NOVEL IS DEDICATED TO
Commander Charles Gower Robinson, R.N.
PROLOGUE
1
At 6:30 a.m. on October 17, 1854, the siege-guns of the Allied Armies of Britain and France opened fire on t
he Russian naval base of Sebastopol from their entrenched positions on the Crimean Upland, to the south of the city.
The two armies, with their Turkish allies and supported by their fleets, had landed on the Crimean Peninsula at Kalamita Bay, to the north, on September 14 and, six days later, had defeated the Russians, under Prince Menschikoff, at the Battle of the Alma. Subsequently yielding to the French belief that Sebastopol was impregnable to attack from the north, the invaders had made a flank march inland, landing their siege-trains at Balaclava and Kamiesch. It had taken the better part of three weeks to haul the heavy guns into position on the Upland and to establish the army camps there but, by October 17, all was in readiness for the first full-scale bombardment which, it was hoped, would destroy the enemy’s land defenses. Those on the seaward side were to be attacked—as nearly simultaneously as might be possible—by the Allied Fleets.
A well-directed fire was maintained from both works on the Upland for nearly four hours, the Russian garrison replying with spirit, in the awareness that this was a prelude to the long awaited assault on Sebastopol by the two besieging armies which, if it were successful, must lead to the city’s capture. At 10 a.m., however, a shell exploded the principal French magazine, causing considerable damage and loss of life and virtually paralyzing the French artillery. After a second explosion not long afterwards, General Canrobert—recently promoted to the French supreme command—sent an aide-de-camp to the British lines to announce that it would be out of the question for his troops to participate in any further action that day. Notwithstanding this news, the British batteries continued to pound away energetically at the Russian defensive works.
At noon the combined Black Sea Fleets, consisting of eleven French, ten British, and two Turkish ships-of-the-line, in addition to frigates and steam gun-vessels, started to maneuver into line to engage the enemy’s sea defenses. Sebastopol lay shrouded under a thick pall of smoke from the land bombardment and it was impossible to judge with accuracy what was taking place ashore. No means of communication having been arranged between the naval and military forces, the two Admirals Commanding-in-Chief were unable to obtain information as to the progress of the land-based assault they had been requested to support. In the confident supposition that this must shortly take place—if, indeed, it had not already been launched—both flagships made the signal to their fleets to attack as soon as the line was complete. The maneuver occupied almost an hour, since the battleships under sail had to be towed into station by steamers lashed to their sides, and it was 1:15 p.m. before the first broadside was fired.
In the meantime, despite the fact that the guns of the British Naval Brigade ashore had opened a breach in the Russian perimeter through which an assault might well have been attempted, the British military Commander-in-Chief, Lord Raglan—in the absence of French support—regretfully declined to order it. The regiments under arms detailed to form the first wave of the attack were, accordingly, permitted to stand down but the two fleets advanced valiantly to press home their own attack, unaware that their efforts were now to no purpose. They were met by a withering hail of shell and redhot shot.
As darkness began to fall, the thunderous roar of gunfire from the Upland slackened and then ceased and, it being at last evident that no land-based assault on Sebastopol had been made, the naval signal for recall was hoisted, first by the Ville de Paris and then by the Britannia. The smoke of battle slowly cleared and, as the attacking ships hauled off, one—H.M.S. Rodney of 90 guns and under sail—was seen to have run aground in shoal water in perilous proximity to Fort Constantine. Under a heavy cannonade from the batteries which had her range, she was towed off by two small steamers, Spiteful and Lynx, each mounting six guns, assisted by the steam-screw frigate Trojan, 31, whose commander took his ship close inshore to draw the fort’s fire from the stricken Rodney.
The French Fleet, under the command of Vice-Admiral Hamelin, set course for Kamiesch Bay to the south, followed by the Turkish flagship Mahmudieh. Vice-Admiral James Deans Dundas, Commander-in-Chief of the British Fleet, grimly recognizing that the action had been a failure, ordered his battered ships to return to their own anchorage at the mouth of the Katcha River, to the north of Sebastopol.
The swiftly gathering darkness did not completely hide the melancholy spectacle they presented. Scarcely a ship of the inshore squadron had escaped damage, their Admiral observed despondently, as he studied them through his night-glass. Some had been hulled more than a score of times; Retribution had lost her mainmast, Trojan her foremast, and Arethusa was still fighting a fire on her upper deck. Shrouds and stays hung in tattered shreds from those whose masts had not gone by the board, and blackened, still smouldering decks were littered with a tangle of torn rigging and shattered yards, which their weary crews laboured to salvage or cut away.
For nearly five hours the British fleet had discharged broadside after broadside at the great, stone-built fortress known as Constantine, which guarded the northern approaches to Sebastopol’s harbour. They had pitted their wooden ships against casemated batteries protected by immensely thick walls upon which, however rapid and well-aimed their fire, they had been able to make little visible impression. Prevented from storming the harbour by a line of blockships sunk across the entrance, most of the British line-of-battle ships had been out-ranged and out-gunned. Russian batteries, placed behind strongly constructed earthworks on the high cliffs behind the fort and firing bar and chain-shot had, even at extreme range, wrought havoc with their rigging and upper yards.
The seamen had worked their guns heroically, stripped to the waist and half-blinded by smoke, as shells burst on the crowded decks, taking terrible toll of them. But they had carried on in the best traditions of the British Navy, only now to realize that all their heroism had been in vain, their courage and sacrifice wasted by the inaction of the troops on shore. Sebastopol was still securely in the hands of its Russian garrison and, to add to the bitter consciousness of failure, not one of the towering forts at the harbour mouth had been silenced. Save for a few minutes early in the engagement, when a lucky shot from H.M.S. Agamemnon, 91, flagship of Rear-Admiral Sir Edmund Lyons, had caused some stored ammunition to blow up, the guns of Fort Constantine had blazed continuous defiance.
Even when, in an endeavour to shorten the range, Admiral Lyons had led the inshore squadron to within a scant six hundred yards of the fort itself, he had been compelled to drop anchor with less than two feet of water under his keel, and this had prevented all except the Sanspareil, 70—like Agamemnon, a steam-screw ship—from closing him. The other ships of his squadron, although able to bring their starboard broadsides to bear on the fort, had suffered severely from the enfilading fire of the cliff-top batteries ahead and astern of them, to which they had not the elevation to reply. These batteries had thrown hot-shot with devastating effect, setting several ships on fire, among them the Agamemnon herself. Her crew had, however, brought the blaze under control and the flagship had held her station, discharging repeated broadsides at her target, at times almost alone. First Albion, 91, then London, 90, and then the 50-gun frigate Arethusa—all sailing ships and all gallantly commanded—had been forced to break off and permit the steamers to which they were lashed to tow them out of range.
The Navy had paid a high price for the little—the tragically little—that the bombardment of Sebastopol’s seaward defenses had achieved, Admiral Dundas thought bitterly. And when, next day, he waited in the spacious stern-cabin of his 120-gun flagship Britannia for reports of damage and lists of killed and wounded to reach him from individual commanders, he grew increasingly bitter.
The combined Fleets had suffered 520 casualties in the abortive action, of which the British Fleet’s total was 44 killed and 266 wounded and, of the latter, the Admiral knew, many would die from their injuries within the next few days. He felt understandably resentful as he set about the difficult task of composing a despatch for the Board of Admiralty later that afternoon, when all the reports had come in
. He had advised very strongly against an attack on Sebastopol from the sea, convinced that the sinking of the enemy blockships at the entrance to the harbour must render such an attack ineffective. Lord Raglan had, however, seen fit to disregard his advice and when, after lengthy discussion, what had seemed to him a most ill-conceived plan of attack had been agreed upon, the French had insisted on changing even this … and at the eleventh hour, when his own ships were already clearing for action. He shook his head in weary frustration.
Their Lordships could scarcely be expected to approve of the long casualty lists and the damage to so many ships-of-the-line, he was unhappily aware. A successful bombardment of the sea forts, culminating in the capture of Sebastopol by the Allied land forces, might have justified the naval losses … but an unsuccessful engagement, which the Army commanders had so lamentably failed to turn to advantage, could not possibly redound to his credit. Conscious that the costly failure was not his fault, Admiral Dundas knew that, so far as their Lordships of the Admiralty were concerned, he would be held responsible nonetheless, and he endeavoured to pen his despatch optimistically, writing it in his own hand, instead of dictating the carefully phrased sentences to his Secretary.
When it was done, he read it through, frowning. Certain documentary evidence might with advantage, he decided, be appended to his report. Copies of letters from Lord Raglan and of various notes he had sent to and received from Admiral Hamelin were filed in his Letter Book. In addition there was a copy of the official communiqué, signed by Lord Raglan and General Canrobert, in which was set out, in detail, the military plan of action and the request for naval support. These might possibly absolve him from blame, if not entirely from responsibility, in their Lordships’ eyes. At least they would serve to demonstrate that he had wanted no part in yesterday’s costly fiasco and that he had agreed to the Generals’ demands because, eventually, he had been left with no alternative. He could not put into words, could not even hint—in an official des- patch to the Admiralty—at his dissatisfaction with his French Allies, whose system of command was such that it left all major decisions on naval strategy to be made by the military Commander-in-Chief.
