The Bermuda Privateer

by William Westbrook

  Once, caught on a lee shore in an overtaking storm, they’d foundered and nearly drowned. Beauty had urged him to leave her and swim in, but he would not. They had swum until they were too exhausted to raise their arms, then held hands and floated with their faces turned to the jagged sky. Fallon made Beauty talk to him, told her stories, and even had her sing with him until the thunder stopped. Sometime just after dark, the wind and waves pushed them into land. Their bottoms bumped the bottom, and they yelled for joy together. Still holding onto each other, they stumbled ashore and picked their way along the small hills and shrubs toward home.

  They were laughing uncontrollably when they saw the loom of St. George Town. They’d been walking so long they were dry.

  “DECK THERE!” roared the lookout. “Two points to starboard! A sloop, and she’s French!”

  Fallon turned his face to the right as he reached for the telescope from Becker. It took him but a moment to find the ship, definitely French. Definitely the enemy of Great Britain. She had seen Sea Dog, as well, and was just raising more sail.

  “Beauty! Call all hands, all hands!” Fallon ordered. He quickly considered wind and tide and asked Becker to lay down a course to intercept the sloop. He was calm, for there was no reason to think the French ship could escape. Sea Dog had the weather gauge.

  Sea Dog made her gradual turn to starboard as her big sails popped out in the wind and began to draw. “Trapped against a lee shore, by God,” observed Beauty. “Damned bad spot to be.”

  “No question,” responded Fallon. “Bad luck for her. Wonder why so far inshore?”

  “Something’s odd,” replied Beauty, never taking her eyes off the Frenchman. “But we’ll know soon enough.”

  Sea Dog sprang to life like a hound after a fox. These were sailors who knew their work, and the schooner jumped to the scent. The French sloop was no match for the speed of a Bermuda schooner, though the sloop carried 12 guns, two of which were long guns. One fired a ranging shot when Sea Dog was still over a mile away.

  Fallon was unperturbed by the shot and could trust the men to be patient, even though it was not easy to be fired upon and not return fire. Beauty stood by his side as they studied the developing scene together, talking strategy. In particular, Fallon relied on Beauty’s tactical thoughts, though the situation was fluid, of course, and required a certain elasticity in thinking because anything could happen at sea.

  Sea Dog closed the angle of the triangle made by the ships within thirty minutes, and Beauty ordered the helmsman to come up closer into the wind, just for a moment, to give the ship’s guns a firing angle. “Fire!” yelled Fallon, and Sea Dog’s 9-pounders sent their deadly balls flying across the water into the French sloop. Instantly the air was rent with French cries of shock and anguish. Quickly, Beauty ordered the helmsman back onto his old course, and as the smoke cleared, there was the Frenchman’s deck in shambles with an upturned gun, her larboard railing blown apart in places and several bodies hanging over the side. But here were Frenchmen gamely massing at the guns to return their own broadside, and it came with a fury that seemed to pause the moment in time as Sea Dogs were blown about the decks, several bleeding and others too concussed to speak. The forestay was parted and the jib shot through, and there were deep furrows in the deck into which blood was now running. Fallon rallied the men, called to them by name, and urged them to drag the wounded away from the starboard railing.

  “Boarders ready!” yelled Fallon hoarsely. “Standby the carronade!” The ships edged closer together, and for a moment it was oddly silent, as if time held its breath. Fire! The carronade belched the grapeshot that Fallon had ordered loaded for this moment, and he could see the Frenchmen’s faces through the haze, grimy and terrified in the second before the iron balls tore through them.

  Sea Dog’s crew massed at the railing, cutlasses and pistols to hand as the French fired again, a ragged broadside that blew holes in Sea Dog’s mainsail in two places and ripped Number Four gun from its breeches. There had been men standing there an instant ago.

  Beauty laid Sea Dog alongside the sloop in a deft maneuver, luffing up into the wind just so at the last moment. “Boarders away!” Fallon yelled as he led fifty screaming men onto the French sloop’s deck. The Frenchmen recoiled in horror, reclaimed their wits, and fought gamely. Pistols fired and jammed. Cutlasses clanged and blood ribboned into the scuppers. Fallon hacked at anyone in front of him, stabbed and slashed at Frenchmen without thought.

  He fought his way toward the capitaine, who looked too old to be fighting as fiercely as he was; but now he was tiring and edging backward as Fallon was coming forward, the question of surrender or death written on his sagging face, his last decision. With the tip of Fallon’s sword to his neck, the capitaine surrendered.

  It had been a nasty business. The French sloop’s deck hosted a massacre, with wounded and dying in heaps and survivors in shock and disbelief. Fallon himself was near swooning, for although he was unhurt in the fighting aboard the sloop, he was bleeding from a splinter wound to his scalp. It had been a near thing.

  Now the French flag was on the deck and the capitaine’s sword was handed over. Beauty took charge of organizing the prisoners and setting the ships to rights, detailing men to specific tasks, assessing the damage and sending Fallon back to Sea Dog to the surgeon.

  Sea Dog’s surgeon, Pence, took his time with Fallon’s stitches, making sure first to get every piece of the splinter out, for splinter wounds were notoriously prone to infection. He whistled absent-mindedly as he probed and stitched. Unlike most surgeons in the Royal Navy, he knew his medicine. And was sober.

  “You’ll live, Nico,” Pence said. “But an inch lower and you’d be as blind as Millie Oakford’s cow.” That was blind, indeed, for Millie Oakford’s cow had been dead for years. The surgeon smiled at his own humor.

  Fallon was in no mood for jokes, however. “How bad was it for the crew?” he said gravely. “We took some shot here and there.”

  “None dead, thank God. But some who will be. Poor Mason and Trembly were together at Number Four when it blew up, and they’re not entirely in one piece. They won’t see morning. Several stab wounds and lacerations, one critical. I’ve got seven in for splinters of some sort, but they should heal. And Betty copped it, you heard?”

  “The goat?” said Fallon. Betty had been their best milker. “Well, the cook will know what to do.”

  A knock and Beauty opened the door. “How are you, Nico? We’re all worried. Not too much, mind you, but a little. How’s the head?”

  “Well, I’m much better than others, including poor Mason and Trembly, I’m afraid. Pence, do what you can for the men and don’t spare the laudanum. I’ll be in to see them after I’ve interviewed the French capitaine.”

  “Aye, Captain,” said Pence, scurrying off to tend the other wounded.

  The French sloop was the Fleur, and the capitaine was stone-faced and uncommunicative when brought to Fallon’s cabin. Tom Pleasant followed quickly with the ship’s papers and logbook and, best of all, the signal book, which miraculously had not been thrown overboard. The French capitaine had rather dramatically underestimated the speed and character of his attacker.

  “Capitaine,” Fallon said in his best French, “it is the worst of luck for you and no fault of your own that your ship has just been taken. Had we not been blown far off course in yesterday’s storm, we might have easily never had the opportunity to meet. I am Captain Nicholas Fallon of His Majesty’s privateer Sea Dog. And you, sir?”

  The French capitaine stared blankly past Fallon’s shoulder. He was clearly unhappy. He was a frail, deeply wizened man of an age too old for a larger command, and Fallon knew the ignominy that attached to the captain of a captured ship.

  “I see,” said Fallon. His head hurt terribly. He moved to the logbook. The capitaine’s name was Viceux. He had called at Lisbon for wood and water three weeks ago. Three weeks ago? That meant Fleur had been idling off the coast of Spain for days.


  Fallon considered the documents. There were the usual lists of ship’s stores, powder, and shot. Nothing out of the ordinary. And yet.

  “Capitaine Viceux, the ship’s papers seem to be here, except for your orders. I am wondering, sir, where they might be?”

  Viceux flinched and made to touch his breast before catching himself. Fallon smiled. “Come, Capitaine Viceux, I can have your coat taken off or you can hand them to me.”

  “This is very dishonorable of you, Captain,” said Viceux, having suddenly found his voice. “I demand to be treated with honor.” He was clearly agitated and barely under control.

  “Capitaine, there is no dishonor intended. But a French sloop whiling away her time off the Spanish coast for days makes one curious. Was she waiting for something? Perhaps a passenger. Or a cargo. Or a message of some sort? I will be interviewing each of your crew and searching your ship. Whatever I find, even if I find nothing, will not change your fate. You are my prisoner, sir. And I will have your coat.”

  Fallon watched Viceux consider and decide. Well, he was in no position to decide anything else. Slowly he pulled an envelope from a pocket hidden inside of his coat. He held it for the briefest moment, out of feigned honor, and dropped it on the desk.

  SEA DOG plunged ahead to weather. Out of sight of land, only dull sky and gray ocean visible. Men went about their tasks while the ship worked through the miles, her wake a daily diary of routine. The ship’s noises became song in the men’s ears: the thrum and whine of rigging. The surrender of wood bending against its fibers, accepting its destiny with grudge and moan. For most sailors routine was a godsend. Simple minds embraced it. Complex minds were made to accept it.

  As was his own routine, Fallon paced the deck deep in thought. He wanted to call for Beauty, but she was commanding the prize crew in Fleur, trailing Sea Dog astern. Fallon was still recovering from his head wound, and more, from the shock upon reading Viceux’s orders. It seemed that Fleur had been ordered to wait off Vigo for a signal from shore. When the signal came, it meant that, after years of fighting Revolutionary France, Godoy of Spain had about-faced—to ally with France against Great Britain! Viceux was to carry the news immediately to a French squadron, patrolling to the northeast, lest they continue to attack Spanish ships along with British.

  The news was bad, indeed. Damn Godoy for a turncoat! And here was Great Britain now facing Spain as well as France. How in God’s name could Great Britain survive the both of them? Well, there was nothing to be done about the alliance; in fact, the news was likely already in Paris and Madrid. But the news was not at sea, by God! The French squadron would be awaiting their sloop’s arrival with open arms. There might be a plan in there, somewhere.

  FIVE

  HIS FATHER had hoped young Nicholas would decide for the pub after his mother died, but the boy did not want his father’s life. They had grown closer though and were often seen walking along the shoreline together, the Irish in them sharing a laugh.

  With his father’s blessing, and without influence, young Fallon signed as a ship’s boy in the Royal Navy. A fifth-rate ship, the frigate Bon Vivant, 36, had called at St. George looking for volunteers and the boy offered them a good sailor with a head for numbers and angles. Leaving St. George had been difficult. His father had treated it like a wake, alternatively drinking and laughing and crying.

  Beauty hugged him so hard it almost broke his back. She made him swear he wouldn’t die before he came home. He feigned to consider, and agreed. It would be years before they sailed together again.

  On board his first ship, he was subjected to all the joys and horrors of the lower deck. Men were cruel and violent, kind and protective. Well, they were seamen.

  As a lad he kept his own counsel, never ratted out a bully, and fought his fights till he could not stand. He grew stronger and began winning at age sixteen. Then things got interesting.

  The boy became a man when he passed for lieutenant. His skills in mathematics and cleverness in general made him a natural navigator and much respected by the crew. He saw his first action as a second lieutenant off Ushant in 1771. It was a victory against a French ship-of-the-line, but with horrendous loss of life. Blood painted the decks. He vomited fear for a week.

  There were few occasions when women entered his life. He would have liked for more, but he lived on the sea. He grew tall and capable and had eyes that women found…well, they enjoyed looking into them. It was as well he was mostly at sea, aboard ship and away from temptation. Still, there was the occasional small romance, brief and to the point.

  At age twenty-three he was given command of a bomb ketch and ordered to the Baltic. It was a relatively uneventful mission, his ship being no more than a support vessel for inshore operations. Unfortunately, the commodore of the squadron to which he was attached was new to the Baltic and ordered Fallon to stay too deep into the winter before heading for home. The ketch was nearly iced in during the freeze of ’74 and, as a consequence, Fallon was horribly wounded by a storm of splinters caused by a cannonball skipping into the ship from a Danish fort across the frozen Kattegat. For weeks the surgeon thought he would die from infection.

  Dodging ice, the ketch sailed for England and Fallon was transferred to a hospital in Ipswich to convalesce. He lived, weakened and frail, his back scarred like a cutting board. In the spring, he mustered out, returning to Bermuda with the clothes on his back and a deep hatred of the French in his soul.

  FALLON’S JAW was tight as the ships bore on toward the Bay of Biscay. Sea Dog and Fleur were thrashing to windward under shortened sails. The Bay was being what it always was—notorious. Sea Dog was carrying barely more than handkerchiefs aloft, as much to keep the schooner under control as to stay in sight of Fleur which, with Beauty in command, was sailing as well as could be expected. The French prisoners had been transferred to Sea Dog, it being the larger ship, and were safely under guard below decks, no doubt feeling the unique hopelessness and anxiety only prisoners of war can feel, locked in the black, fetid air of the holds.

  Fallon and Beauty had contrived a plan to use the information gleaned from Viceux’s orders to advantage, though everything depended on finding the squadron. And timing. And a thousand things they couldn’t control. So, not much of a plan.

  On board Sea Dog the men on watch were wet most of the time, the crew below decks not much drier. The schooner worked at the seams and was tossed about by gray walls of water that blocked out the sky day and night. It was thoroughly unpleasant sailing, and only Fallon’s remaining on deck most of the time gave the men any heart for it. Still, watches turned out on command, spirits were piped up on time, and meals were somehow hot, mostly. It was tedium, but the crew knew something was afoot and bore their unique misery with equanimity. At one point, at the worst point it seemed, several of the hands lashed themselves to the mainmast and attempted to play a tune and dance—to the great amusement of the watch on deck. The fife tweeted and the whistles whistled until a great slab of green water broke over the whole affair and water spurted from the whistles and everyone laughed themselves silly at the ludicrousness of their effort.

  They were after the proverbial needle in a haystack, and Biscay was an enormous haystack: more than 85,000 square miles of water, often violently angry. Blockading British ships paid a price in winter, wherever they were, but nowhere more than the Bay of Biscay.

  Fallon moved about on deck, checking rigging for wear and having a word with his crew. It was the first dogwatch, about 4:00 PM, and the men who turned up found the weather had moderated in the forenoon and was actually tolerable. The sea had lain down with the lessening breeze, and there was a chance of late sunshine.

  “Deck there!” the lookout called. “Sail two points to starboard. Can’t make her out yet, though!”

  Instinctively, all eyes turned to see—nothing. The sail was miles away and the light still uncertain.

  “Tom Pleasant,” Fallon roared from the foredeck, “bend on our French flag and signal
to Fleur that a sail is in sight to the northeast.” Quickly the signal and flag went up, and moments later Fleur answered with a French flag of her own. Being a privateer, Sea Dog carried every nation’s flag and flew whatever served, at least until battle. Then the home colors went up.

  On they sailed, French to all accounts, in the afternoon’s dying light, toward an unidentified ship. Fallon paced the deck, chin tucked into his chest. Minutes passed, then the best part of an hour. The sun suddenly broke free under the low clouds to the west.

  “Deck there!” the lookout called again, “A brig! North nor-east and French! No other sails in sight!”

  Fallon considered. A lone brig could perhaps mean anything, but odds were it was the eyes of a squadron, as yet unseen. It was what he had hoped for. He could feel a chill on his arms as the hair stood on end. Now he was doubly grateful to have retrieved Fleur’s signal book.

  “Tom Pleasant, make the French private signal.”

  The French brig responded with the appropriate answering signal, and Fallon ordered Tom Pleasant to send up the next one.

  Have prize and important dispatches.

  Moments passed, and then the signals flew from the French brig: Heave-to and report aboard. Fallon muttered under his breath. Now we shall see.

  He could see Fleur and Beauty making more sail to bring the sloop up to Sea Dog. He could also see Fleur’s guns being loaded but not run out. Part of the plan. Fallon called a ship’s boy to bring him Viceux’s hat and coat from his cabin. The fit was close enough, and Beauty would think he looked jaunty.

  The Sea Dogs were in place behind closed gun ports, many wearing the French prisoners’ clothing and scarves, nonchalant. As the three ships drew closer, Fallon could pick out the details of the French brig. She was beautiful in the setting sun’s light, a low wave creaming at her bow. He could see French sailors standing at their stations, alert with anticipation, but seeming unthreatened. The brig’s sails were reddening in the lowering sun, and the whole scene had a painterly aspect. Fleur had inched ahead now, perhaps a quarter of a mile, and was just rounding up into the wind to heave-to and set the trap. The French brig sailed closer and, perhaps two cable lengths away from Fleur, hove-to, as well. It was a ponderous process for a square-rigged brig, much easier for a fore-and-aft-rigged ship. But finally the brig settled down, her sails set against one another so the ship fought against herself and would go neither here nor there.