The Brave Captains

by V. A. Stuart

  Jack—Captain Edmund Mowbray Lyons—was now in command of H.M.S. Miranda and on his way to join his father’s flag in the Black Sea. Miranda, a steam sloop of fourteen guns, had been the first British naval vessel to enter the Baltic and, under Jack Lyons’s able command, had subsequently greatly distinguished herself in operations in the White Sea. In company with the Eurydice, 26 and the Brisk, 16, she had maintained a successful blockade of Russia’s Arctic shipping for nearly four months—no mean achievement on the part of three small steamers, virtually alone in enemy waters. Phillip’s smile widened. It would be good to see Jack again and … “If you’re ready, sir—” Martin Fox was at his elbow.

  He roused himself. “Yes, indeed, Martin—I’m decidedly peckish, I don’t know about you. But we shall have to bestir ourselves or Captain Crawford will be alongside before we’re properly attired to receive him. Lead on.”

  “After you, sir,” Fox answered. He stood aside to permit Phillip to precede him, offering him the last courtesy he would enjoy as Trojan’s commander.

  2

  They breakfasted together in the gunroom and, as if by common consent, their conversation was of the ship and of the war and they avoided all personal topics. There were other officers seated at the long table—Lieutenant Laidlaw, Surgeon Fraser, Paymaster Oliphant, Sutherland, the young Mate who was acting gunnery officer, and the white-haired Master, Mr Burnaby. All were oddly subdued, wearing long faces, their reluctance to see him go greater than he had expected, Phillip recognized, but tempered with an embarrassment, when it came to expressing their feelings, which he sympathized with and shared. He choked down his food and said his farewells as briefly as he could, anxious to spare them, as well as himself, the added embarrassment of prolonged good-byes and too many meaningless expressions of goodwill.

  His hand aching with the warmth of their handshakes, he made his escape at last and hurried to the Captain’s cabin to change into full dress uniform. His steward had already packed for him and hastened to complete the task by adding his pilot jacket and cap to the valise as he took them off. When all his gear had been removed, the cabin took on a curiously empty and characterless air, as if waiting for the new occupant to enter and imprint his personality upon it. Phillip looked about him, as he picked up his cocked hat, and bit back a sigh, seeing North, as he had so often seen him in this cabin, hearing his voice raised, as always, in reproof or resentful anger. But North had gone, as he was going, he reminded himself, and Trojan’s destiny in the Queen’s service would be in another’s hands, whilst he … there was a knock on the cabin door and, on receiving permission to do so, the Marine sentry on duty outside thrust it open. Phillip recognized his brother’s tall, slightly stooping figure in the dimly lit alleyway and called out to him to come in.

  Graham Hazard did so, bare-headed and standing to attention, his seaman’s straw hat tucked correctly beneath his arm, until the sentry withdrew, closing the door of the cabin behind him. Then he relaxed and turned to Phillip, a smile lighting his gaunt face.

  “Have you ten minutes to spare, Phillip? If you haven’t, say so and I’ll go.”

  “Of course I have,” Phillip assured him. “Sit down, won’t you … and here, let me offer you a cigar.”

  “Thanks.” Graham accepted the cigar and, when it was lit, puffed at it appreciatively. He was the elder by only seven years but he looked forty, rather than thirty-four, his thinning fair hair already touched with grey at the temples. Of course, since a naval court martial had put an end to his promising career, his life had been hard, and the past eight months—spent on the lower deck, as a seaman under Thomas North’s command—had aged him almost beyond recognition, Phillip thought, conscious of an overwhelming pity.

  In their boyhood days Graham had been a hero to him, already at sea as a midshipman, when he himself had still been at school. Now, anxiously studying his face, Phillip wondered whether his brother still resented those lost, bitter years, cut off from family and friends and disowned by their proud old father or whether, at last, he was becoming reconciled to the blows an unkind fate had dealt him.

  As one of the survivors of the steam frigate Tiger, after she had run aground off Odessa, he had been a Russian prisoner of war and had only recently been released, under an exchange agreement made with the Governor of Odessa, Baron Osten-Sacken. The Russians had treated all the Tiger survivors well and ironically, for Graham, his captivity had probably been—so far as personal comfort went—a considerable improvement on the conditions under which he had now to exist. Yet he had returned, rejecting the Russian offer of a commission, to the British fleet where—despite a commendation for gallantry from Tiger’s First Lieutenant—his chances of regaining officer status were, to say the least of it, remote. And Captain North, had he lived long enough, would have rewarded his act of patriotic altruism with a second court martial … Phillip’s mouth hardened.

  Graham said, meeting his gaze, “I trust you weren’t thinking of leaving the ship without permitting me to wish you Godspeed, were you, Phillip?”

  Phillip shook his head. “No,” he answered, not entirely truthfully, since he was aware that his brother’s questions—if he were given an opportunity to ask them—would be no less difficult to evade than Martin Fox’s had been a short while before. “I was not … but my orders to join the Agamemnon came a trifle sooner than I had anticipated. And with Captain Crawford due to read his commission aboard this ship at five bells, I haven’t had very much time for leave taking, as I am sure you will appreciate.”

  Graham’s brows rose in a surprised curve. “You were expecting an appointment to the Agamemnon, then?”

  “Let us say I was hoping for it,” Phillip qualified.

  “That’s odd!”

  “Why should it be odd?”

  “Lower deck rumour, which is seldom wrong,” Graham returned, “has it that you are about to join the Naval Brigade on shore. In fact, my dear Phillip, so strong is that particular rumour—and so great your popularity with the men—that at least half the Starboard Watch, led by Able-Seaman Joseph O’Leary, are determined that they will volunteer in a body to serve with you. O’Leary has already been to his Divisional Officer about it and he intends to make his request to the new Captain tomorrow morning.”

  “It won’t be granted, Graham.”

  “Why not? O’Leary’s the best gunlayer we have.”

  “The steam squadron has to be maintained at full strength,” Phillip explained. “No seaman volunteers, apart from those already in the batteries, are to be accepted from any of the steamers, least of all from the frigates. Replacements for men killed or wounded ashore are to be found by the sailing ships—that is a Fleet Order.”

  “I see.” Graham sighed. “Well, the news will break poor O’Leary’s fighting Irish heart, but I fancy it won’t lessen his determination to follow you ashore. Aside from his devotion to you, Phillip, he’s convinced that the Naval Brigade and the Marines will see more action than the Fleet is likely to now. He could well be right. I pray, for all our sakes, that he is right, if it means an end to this infamous delay and an attack on Sebastopol, with all the resources at our command!”

  His brother had spoken with such feeling that Phillip stared at him in frank bewilderment. “Infamous delay?” he questioned. “What do you intend to imply by that remark? Presumably you have some good reason for making it?”

  “Yes, indeed I have,” Graham asserted gravely. “Phillip, unless an assault is made very soon we shall be here for the winter. Or else compelled to evacuate the Crimea, with the loss of all that has been so hardly won. Either would be a disaster, you know. The Crimean winter is quite appalling in its severity, according to the Russians and, for troops under canvas, it would be unendurable… .” He enlarged on this and then asked, frowning, “What had gone wrong, do you know, Phillip? Why has there been no assault? In Odessa they were expecting Sebastopol to fall for weeks and, even in St Petersburg, the outcome was regarded as inevitable. After his defeat
at the Alma, Prince Menschikoff withdrew all his troops from the town, considering it to be indefensible. The Allies could have walked in virtually unopposed, once they had crossed the Balbec. The Russians expected them to do so.

  “That can’t possibly be true!” Phillip protested, doubting the evidence of his own ears.

  “It is, I give you my word … and you can believe me or not, as you choose.”

  “I believe you. But I don’t understand, Graham. What do you mean by virtually unopposed?”

  “Well …” Graham shrugged. “These are the facts, as I know them. Once the army had withdrawn, there were only a handful of seamen left to defend the town … less than eight thousand men drawn from Admiral Korniloff’s fleet, with three or four thousand soldiers and a few hundred militiamen. Sebastopol’s sea defenses are formidable, as we now know to our cost, but the forts on the landward side had long been neglected and allowed to fall into disrepair. They could have been stormed, with small loss, a week after the battle of the Alma … even two weeks, perhaps. The only guns which could have put up an effective resistance on the landward side were those of the ships in harbour.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” Phillip demurred.

  “Nevertheless it is true,” his brother asserted. “It was said that Admiral Korniloff—who, by all accounts, is a brave man—wanted to put to sea with his ships and fight it out with our fleet. But Menschikoff, as supreme commander, over-ruled him … he, apparently, ordered the seven line-of-battle-ships to be scuttled and sunk across the harbour mouth, so as to close it to us. He intended it as a temporary measure, to delay the entry of our fleet. Menschikoff had abandoned Sebastopol, Phillip. He was expecting the navy to defend the town only for long enough to enable him to withdraw his main body of troops to Bakshi-Serai, from whence he could receive supplies and reinforcements, and preserve his lines of communication with Russia … aiming eventually at a counter-attack. Once he had gained his objective and had covered the post-road to Simpheropol, the garrison of Sebastopol—such as it was—would have served its purpose. They say he’s a shrewd old man and a ruthless tactician. As far as he was concerned, Korniloff could either have surrendered or endeavoured to make a run for it, after blowing up the naval arsenal and docks and scuttling the rest of his ships. So you see… .” Graham smiled, his smile lacking any vestige of amusement. “The Allied armies could have walked into Sebastopol a month ago. Surely the Generals cannot have been so ill-informed as not to be aware of the situation? Lord Raglan must have known that Menschikoff’s army had withdrawn … didn’t he have a brush with the rearguard?”

  “I don’t imagine that any of the Generals could have known how small a garrison had been left to defend the place,” Phillip told him wryly. “I am, of course, not au fait with such matters but I did hear that Lord Raglan and most of his Divisional Commanders were only too eager to press on when they reached the Balbec. In fact, there’s a story currently going the rounds that Sir George Cathcart volunteered to carry the town with his Fourth Division alone, supported by our steam squadron under Admiral Lyons. But the French wouldn’t have it.”

  “In heaven’s name why not?” Graham exclaimed.

  “Well, Marshal St Arnaud was dying and General Canrobert had just succeeded to the French supreme command. It was he, apparently, who insisted that the assault must be made from the south and who, I was told, refused to agree to any assault at all, until the siege-guns had been landed to support his infantry. I believe that both Sir George Brown and Sir John Burgoyne shared his opinion and advised Lord Raglan accordingly.” Phillip’s tone was bleak and he added, remembering Admiral Lyons’s bitter disappointment when the Generals’ final decision had been made known to him. “None of us liked it, Graham, least of all our Admiral. But Lord Raglan had no choice … and he could not attack without the French. In any case, an attack from the north side of the town would have meant ferrying our troops across the harbour. With the blockships sunk across the roadstead, the navy could have given them no assistance and that octagonal fort—which we call the Star Fort—mounting about fifty heavy guns, lay directly in the French line of march. So perhaps their caution was justified.”

  “Perhaps,” Graham conceded, doubtfully. “But having made the flank march and reached the south side of the town, they could still have walked in. Why did they not?”

  “Because it took three weeks to land the siege-guns and haul them into position for the bombardment,” Phillip said.

  “To bombard a town that was ready to surrender?” Graham spread his hands in a gesture of despair. “What madness! The delay and the Allies’ inaction puzzled everyone in Odessa—there seemed no reason for it. Well, the Russians have made good use of their unexpected respite—Sebastopol is, alas, no easy nut to crack now! Even Baron Osten-Sacken, who prophesied its fall almost daily, has since inclined to the belief that if the place can be held for a few more weeks, then the Crimean winter will do the rest.”

  “Do you agree with him? Do you think Sebastopol will hold?”

  Graham sighed. “Yes, if we delay our assault much longer. Menschikoff has been pouring in reinforcements since early in October, Phillip. His troops use the post-road from Simpheropol, through Bakshi-Serai, and enter from the north, which—although they are supposedly besieging the town—the Allies have conveniently left open for them! General Luders, with sixteen thousand men, joined the garrison on the fourth of October and, according to the talk I heard in Odessa, the total strength of Sebastopol’s defenders must now be doubled. Menschikoff is prudently holding his main body outside the town and adding to its numbers as each day passes. One of the best of the Russian generals, Liprandi, who distinguished himself in the Danube campaign, is said to be in the Tchernaya valley with a considerable force, including cavalry and field guns. And I can tell you for certain that over thirty thousand reserve troops left Odessa three weeks ago for Perekop … because I saw them leave.”

  Unable any longer to doubt the accuracy of his brother’s information, Phillip said, “But we have a squadron blockading Odessa, under the command of Captain Goldsmith. He has the Sidon and the Inflexible, and two French steam frigates, and is patrolling the coast between Cape Tarkan and the mouth of the Dnieper and he—”

  “Oh, yes, Goldsmith’s squadron was in action against the rearguard,” Graham interrupted. “They were being ferried across from Kinburn to Ochakov but all that happened was that the boats went into shoal water, where his frigates could not get within range of them, and the fort at Nicholaief eventually drove him off. It was a gallant effort but our naval blockade is powerless to stop a large body of troops marching overland— they cross the isthmus to Perekop where Baron Osten-Sacken has, no doubt, joined them by this time. He told me he intended to … and the Prince Narishkin with him, with his regiment of Chasseurs of Odessa.”

  “Prince Narishkin?” Phillip said, an edge to his voice. He had not thought of Mademoiselle Sophie or her husband for a long time, had steeled himself not to, but he thought of them now and his hands clenched involuntarily at his sides.

  Graham affected not to notice anything amiss. He went on, as if there had been no interruption. “Menschikoff was beaten at the Alma, Phillip, but he outnumbers us now or he soon will. When that happens, he will launch a counter-attack … probably on Eupatoria, with his Cossack cavalry, and almost certainly from the valley of the Tchernaya, in an attempt to turn our right flank and drive us out of Balaclava. Both possibilities were being talked about quite freely in Odessa. Russian communications are notoriously slow but a courier from Menschikoff reached Osten-Sacken just before I joined the Fury, and there was great jubilation at the news he brought, concerning our failure to take Sebastopol. No one could understand it.”

  Which, Phillip thought grimly, was hardly surprising. “Have you spoken of this to anyone else?” he asked. “Anyone in authority, I mean? Because it may be of vital importance.”

  “No one in authority appears to be even remotely interested in the observati
ons of a mere A.B., Phllip,” Graham returned, his tone faintly derisive. “Indeed I was regarded with grave suspicion when I said I had been well treated by the Russians! Oh, I tried … I tried very hard all the time I was aboard the Fury. I made a full report to Commander Chambers, who promised to pass it on—perhaps he did but I’ve heard no more. I took it that most of what I had found out would already be known to the Allied High Command, so I did not press the point. By the time I rejoined this ship I had rather given up hope of finding anybody who would listen to me.”

  “You said nothing to me,” Phillip reproached him. “I would have listened to you, you must know that.”

  “We have both of us been occupied with other matters,” Graham pointed out. “First with the late unlamented Captain North and then with our naval bombardment and its consequences. Until this moment, I’ve had no chance to talk to you. But you’ll be joining Agamemnon very soon, Phillip … if you can gain the ear of Admiral Lyons he, at least, might listen. It may be stale news but will you tell him?”

  “At the first opportunity,” Phillip promised. “But now …” He flashed his brother an apologetic glance and took his watch from his pocket. “I’m afraid that I must go, I—”

  “I know.” Graham rose, crushing out his cigar. “You have to hand over your command. I’m sorry about that, Phillip. You commanded Trojan well. The whole ship’s company will regret your going.”