Digby was looking back to the near-invisible shore, to the pall of smoke that rose higher and higher in the sky, yet it was clear at the base, broken from the land, so he had to assume the fire had been contained. Right now they would be trying to refloat the ship and tow her clear to free the shipping in the harbour, another reason to avoid being tardy. The tide had not finished rising when she went aground; plug the holes, pump hard and she might lift from the sea bed. A couple of cutters could then tow her far enough off to open the entrance so bigger vessels than a cutter could exit. A couple of well-armed and handled privateers, added to Pandarus, and HMS Faron would be done for.
‘Mr Neame, I know the masthead is a perilous position in a fight, but I need someone aloft to keep an eye on the prospect of those privateers Mr Pearce mentioned emerging from La Rochelle.’
‘Martin Dent, get aloft. Keep an eye out dead astern for any sign of a sail.’
If the boy knew that it was a point of danger, given the French generally tried to dismast an enemy, it made no difference to him; he went aloft with his usual cat-like speed. Pearce was still working in the bows, rigging a run of canvas to screen the cook’s deep copper pots. He also had a tub of slowmatch fetched forward, his aim to light the incendiary devices as soon as their ship was in receipt of a broadside. Meanwhile Harbin and Farmiloe were going around the deck with his instructions to the crew to pretend to panic as soon as the smoke became thick enough to make them cough.
Down below, Lutyens, his instruments laid out in readiness, wondered at the amount of running feet he could hear through the planking. An enquiry to a sailor gave him the information that while the enemy was closing, it would be half a glass of sand before they engaged, so he went up to the quarterdeck. Once explained, he gave the opinion that the men on deck should place something damp over their mouths to keep the smoke out, which led to a severe diminution in his stock of bandage. Digby, sensing the time had come, had a tot of rum served to each man, to get some fire in their bellies.
‘Range is closing, sir,’ called Neame. ‘I would say he’ll be putting up his helm in no more’n five minutes.’
A final check was made: the carpenter was ready with well-tarred canvas, plugs and mates to fix any hole in the hull; Sykes had men standing by for a fast repair of any vital rope or sail, and axes to cut away anything that, damaged, might imperil the ship; while the gunner, having filled all the cartridges he had available, and being a religious man of the Methodist persuasion, was praying to Almighty God to be spared. Digby had gone into his cabin and put in a weighted sack the ship’s books and the list of recognition signals used by British warships to identify each other, and then he came back on deck, to look at the half-dozen gloomy, cutlass-bearing Frenchmen in the waist.
‘Lads,’ he shouted, ‘he can hit us and all we can reply with are our bow chasers. So when I shout to get down I do not want you looking to see if I am serious. Get flat on the deck immediately. If you do not know what Mr Pearce is about, we are trying to fool the enemy, and I have to tell you, given that he has seen action and survived, we must assume that what he lacks in experience he makes up for in luck. So do as he orders, and we will win the day.’
They cheered, but Digby was left to wonder if it was brought about by enthusiasm or rum, though when he gave the orders that took them down to topsails, it was done with a normal level of efficiency. As an act, it was like a signal of intent to their opponent. The first ball from the bow chasers of Pandarus sent out a thick cloud of black smoke, which, billowing forward with the onshore breeze, had Pearce asking for any rubbish powder or bottom of the barrel grains the gunner might have to be brought up. It also reassured him; when the corvette fired a broadside, the smoke from their own cannon would obscure what was happening on his deck. The balls only fell short by half a cable, and the way the range was closing it could only be minutes until the expected salvo came from his main battery.
‘An eye on his deck,’ Digby called to the men in the mainmast cap with muskets. ‘Let me know as soon as they move to let fly the sheets.’
Silence fell, with only the slight whistle of the wind in the rigging still audible, and even on open water, everything came down to the closing gap between the two warships. When a voice from the masthead gave the alert, Digby shouted, and every man not an officer or midshipman dropped to their knees on the deck, Neame and the quartermaster on the wheel being the exception. The mighty crash of the guns was carried on the wind and it had passed them by when the balls struck, high in the rigging, parting ropes and dislodging blocks which were caught in the rigged overhead nets. Sykes and his men were quickly into action, to splice a break or run a replacement line and were still at that task when the second salvo came. A ball took one of Sykes’s mates and plucked him off the rigging like a shot bird, carrying him screaming into the water, where he was certain to die.
‘Belay that, Mr Sykes,’ Digby called. ‘Get your men to a place of safety until something vital is wounded.’
Smoke reached HMS Faron in a dispersing cloud, to mix with thicker stuff from the back blast of her own bow chasers. Pearce put the slowmatch to the incendiaries, and as they flared up he ladled slush onto the flames, which produced a cloud of pungent smoke that had him spinning away to get his breath.
‘Water that deck,’ he croaked, as he nearly retched over the side. He made his way to the bowsprit side of his brew and added more slush till the whole deck seemed to be in the grip of the smoke it created. Mentally he was counting; how long to discharge a gun and send a ball uselessly into the sea off the ship’s side, that followed by a couple more? Would the captain of Pandarus be fooled? Would he close to try to take possession of the ship?
Digby, before the smoke obscured his enemy, had seen the corvette come about and head away, slow enough to tease him to try and close, though it was obvious he could tighten his falls and increase his speed at will. Yet he also saw him check as the smoke rose from the bows, and if he could see the rising and flickering flames then he had to assume his opposite number would too. Digby jerked involuntarily as first one, then a second cannon went off, arcing a pair of nine-pounder balls into the sea off the larboard beam, sending up telling water spouts, this accompanied by frenzied shouting and a scene of apparent panic as men rushed around the deck.
That must have decided him; the captain of the Pandarus let fly his sheets, hauled hard on his rudder and started to come round on the wind in short order.
‘Mr Harbin,’ Digby said, in a calm voice, ‘please be so good as to inform Mr Pearce that his ruse has worked. Get those guns run in and reloaded.’
‘Topsails astern, sir,’ shouted Martin Dent, ‘something’s coming out of the port and I reckon it’s one o’ them privateers.’
‘If there is one, boy,’ Digby said to himself, ‘there will be two.’
In terms of his present situation it made no odds; he still had to engage the closest enemy vessel, but it did have an effect on the whole; he could not linger for fear of what was coming and he dare not risk a gunnery duel in which he might have his ability to sail impeded by the loss of a mast.
‘Mr Harbin, ask Mr Pearce to join me.’
That took less than a minute, with Michael O’Hagan now fanning away at the flames and Rufus and Charlie ladling the slush, this while the rest of the crew kept rushing about.
‘Sir?’
‘Mr Pearce,’ Digby said, then stopped to cough as a cloud of smoke enveloped him. ‘Earlier this day you alluded to my willingness to sacrifice the crew for my own advancement.’
Pearce had to take his wetted handkerchief from his mouth to reply. ‘A remark I withdrew, sir.’
‘Indeed you did, yet the stigma mentioned prays upon me. Our masthead, as I am sure you have heard, tells me that more vessels are coming out from La Rochelle, so if I stay and fight Pandarus, I suspect I am taking an unwarranted risk. Do you agree?’
‘Pandarus round and closing, sir,’ called Neame, seemingly unaffected by the smoke.
/> ‘I am happy to abide with whatever decision you make, Captain.’
‘That will not do, Mr Pearce,’ Digby barked. ‘I want your opinion.’
Pearce’s blood was up; his ruse had produced the desired result and he felt in his bones they could take the slightly better-armed vessel. Yet he was aware of his excitement, aware he was thinking along the same lines which he had accused Digby of earlier, thinking of himself and not the needs of the ship and the men she carried.
‘We cannot face three opponents.’
‘Obviously, Mr Pearce, only I doubt they can close with us in anything less than a hour.’
‘Yet can we face two if we sustain damage?’ Digby shook his head, and it was with some effort that he responded. ‘Then I think, sir, that discretion is the better part of valour.’
A fit of coughing meant he had to wait for Digby’s conclusion. ‘Thank you, Mr Pearce. Now go back to your station on the larboard battery, and stand by to give our friend yonder a surprise.’
There was a wait, to get to the point where the Frenchman was committed, the point where he could not change his mind. As soon as Digby reckoned that to be the case he yelled out for everyone to get back to their stations.
‘Forward there, get those coppers emptied over the side.’
Hands wrapped in thick canvas, the Pelicans obliged, though Charlie, ever fly, was wise enough to hide the remaining slush, which would come in handy to ease down his throat the hard ship’s biscuit. As the flaming sacks hit the water they fizzled and died, and they took with them most of the smoke. Digby could see his opposite number gesturing and pointing, he was so close, and the agitated way he was acting was evidence he had been severely discomfited by the sight before him; a disciplined deck with manned guns waiting to rake him. He screamed an order that, though it could not be heard, had his crew, lined up with pikes, axes and swords to board, running for their cannon.
Had he held his course, he would have endured only an exchange of broadsides; that he put up his helm and tried to turn into the wind was not only stupid, it was dangerous, because he diminished the arc of fire available to his own guns and created a corresponding increase in the target left to the cannon of HMS Faron. Added to that, he had brought himself into range of one of Pearce’s carronades, and though the nine-pounders did damage, sending great chunks of wood and splinters flying, it was that stubby weapon that did the real injury. Pearce waited until the stern of Pandarus came abreast and then sent the huge ball through the deadlights. Those were smashed to pulp, as were the casements they protected, and the ball carried on along the maindeck, the screams that came across the water evidence of the death and destruction being inflicted.
‘Mr Neame, take me alongside the enemy if you please. Mr Pearce, when you are reloaded I want elevation on your cannon. Let us see if we can ensure we stop any chance of a pursuit.’
Pandarus was wounded, but she was not out of commission, and Digby was being obliged to sail past her undamaged side to get clear, and that had loaded and unfired cannon. His opponent had the same notion as he; Digby wanted a mast brought down to cripple the corvette, the Frenchman wanted the same for HMS Faron. The only difference was in the discipline of the firing; Faron’s crew were steady on a ship that had suffered little damage, the French on a deck that had taken casualties. Added to that, Digby had his first broadside fired early, which further disrupted the enemy gunners as they were assailed by falling ropes and tackle, but most telling was the speed with which Faron’s gunner reloaded, the same advantage Britannia usually enjoyed against Gaul: the number of broadsides they could get off in a short time.
Pandarus’s fire was slow and well aimed, though not well enough to wound a mast, albeit the amount of debris that came through the nets had Neame and Digby looking aloft with alarm. Yet as the French were reloading they took another broadside, and this time, without instruction, Pearce had ordered the wedges driven out to lower the aim. Half of the Frenchman’s bulwark disappeared, while the clanging sounds of struck guns was clearly audible, and such was the effect on those conning the ship that the corvette fell away as the rudder was put down, either deliberately or in panic, it made no odds.
HMS Faron was clear and even before Henry Digby called for a report on damage and casualties, he gave loud orders to set all possible sail and set a course to clear the tip of the Ile d’Oléron.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The screaming south-westerly came upon them later than Neame had anticipated, a full eighteen hours from the point at which he had raised the matter of those lenticular clouds with his captain, and it came with a force that precluded any form of advance. Huge waves, with crests hundreds of yards apart, rolled in from the deep waters of the Atlantic, as high as the caps on the masts, forced forward by a wind that had only one virtue; it was steady, while above their heads dark grey clouds scudded along, blocking out the sun and creating a false twilight in the early morning sky. Having cleared the Ile d’Oléron before the tempest struck they had made good progress and they were now, Neame informed Digby, abreast of the Gironde Estuary, though well out to sea, with only a scrap of canvas aloft to try and maintain steerage way.
‘I suggest, sir,’ he yelled, ‘that we up our helm and make for shelter. This will get worse before it gets better and we are already close to being driven north and west. If it continues for any length of time all our efforts to clear the lee shore will be wasted.’
‘Do we not risk the same on the northern shore at Royan?’
‘The Gironde is thirteen miles wide at the estuary, and wider yet past the Pointe de la Chambrette, and this wind will carry us in at speed if we run before it. I am sure we can weather the Pointe de Grave and drop anchor in the Verdon Bay, which is sheltered from the south-west.’
In Digby’s cabin it was less noisy, but the bucking motion of the ship as it rode those great rollers, and the water running off their oilskins, made examining a chart difficult. To leave the deck at such a juncture made little difference; the four men on the wheel, who included for his muscle, Michael O’Hagan, had no other task than to keep HMS Faron’s head into the wind, with young Harbin in command. As for the rest, double stays had been rigged on the masts before the storm developed, the hatches, bar one, were battened down, there were relays of men manning the pumps and bosun Robert Sykes had everything in hand to repair any unforeseen damage. The crew snatched what sleep they could and right now, having been on deck and working for twelve hours as they prepared the ship for the coming storm, John Pearce and Farmiloe were having four hours’ well-earned rest.
The spread chart showed the north-west-facing estuary, with the great hook of the Pointe de Grave poking up like a claw that protected the river behind it from the blow they were facing, but Digby was quick to point out the one obvious flaw in Neame’s suggestion, when he placed a finger on the chart that showed a French fort commanding the very bay Neame was suggesting as an anchorage.
‘Quite apart from that, Mr Neame, we will be in enemy waters, and while I accept that Bordeaux is not a naval station, it is a commercial port and must of necessity have warships to guard it and some kind of military garrison.’
‘I would suggest, sir, that they cannot be out to sea for the same reason as us, it being too dangerous, and if I had the choice in such weather I would retire well upriver, in fact all the way to the Bordeaux docks, rather than stay in deeper water when no enemy could possibly approach in strength.’
‘The fortress?’
‘We still have a tricolour, do we not, and we are in a captured French vessel.’
Digby smiled. ‘I see Mr Pearce and his methods have affected you, Mr Neame.’
The older man responded with some pride. ‘I take that as a compliment, sir.’
‘It was meant as one, Mr Neame, rest assured, but I am not sure that even that will serve. We cannot anchor for an indeterminate time without paying compliments to the fort and whoever commands it. Failure to do that will make them curious and I cannot s
ee how, if they come out to investigate, we can keep them convinced we are French. We can get out of range of their cannon, but we could not stop them sending word upriver.’
‘You said, sir, kindly, that I was thinking like Mr Pearce.’
‘I did.’
‘Then I would like to rouse him out and put to both him and you this proposition. That we ask Captain Moreau and his party to cooperate. If they cannot convince a party of Frogs that they are of the same nation who can?’
‘Why would they do that?’
‘For the offer to put them ashore, sir, at a point of their own choosing, and one in which they will be in no danger of retribution.’
‘In which case we need Mr Pearce to make the suggestion.’
It was a groggy John Pearce who entered the cabin, clutching the bulkheads to keep himself on his feet until he made a chair that had been secured to the deck. He listened as Neame outlined his proposal, nodding slowly, his eyes red-rimmed with tiredness.
‘I cannot see how a decision can be made without first consulting Moreau.’
‘Very true,’ Digby replied.
‘Then someone must go and fetch him.’
One of the things Pearce had noticed about Gerard Moreau was his swift intelligence; he could grasp a problem quickly and act upon it, which no doubt made him a good ship’s officer. Another was his honesty, and while he accepted that the proposed ruse was tempting, he did point out that once committed, there would be no guarantee that one of his comrades, Jacquelin for example, might not renege.
‘I think I have a solution to that, Captain Moreau. Tell him that all the time he converses with his fellow countrymen, there will be a musket a few feet from his back.’
‘A dozen men?’
‘We have a dozen muskets, and I will be on deck and understanding every word, as well as examining every gesture. In return we will put you ashore anywhere you like between here and the Spanish border, which will allow you to go where you please, as long as you evade people like Rafin.’
A Flag of Truce Page 28
