by J. D. Davies
In the darkness, and with faces blackened with powder and sweat, it was nearly impossible to make out individuals. I must have passed countless men whom I knew well, but failed to recognise or acknowledge them. Even by night, though, the red hair of Macferran, part of the gun crew of one of the starboard culverins, was unmistakeable.
‘Hot work, Macferran!’
‘Not too hot for a Scotsman, Sir Matthew! This one’s for Saint Andrew and the royal House of Stuart!’
The culverin fired and recoiled, Macferran leaping forward to swab the barrel. All around me, men were exhausted. But somehow they fought on, reloading, firing, reloading, firing, each man like an automaton. Boys ran up from below with fresh cartridges and shot. But how much was left?
‘Kellett!’ My young servant was at my side, eager to be of assistance; and as on previous occasions, rather too evidently enjoying the sights, sounds and feelings of battle. ‘To Mister Burdett – my compliments, and I would have his report on the state of the shot, cartridge and powder remaining to us!’
Kellett saluted and ran down to the gunner, who was overseeing the firing of the mighty demi-cannon on the deck below. The Seven Provinces’ broadside fired again, and the unmistakeable whistle of bar-shot passed not far above my head. The Dutch were firing to disable our masts and rigging, their customary tactic. I looked up, and could just make out huge tears in the mainsail. But it still seemed to be filling, and we were maintaining our course and speed.
‘Mister Burdett’s compliments, Sir Matthew,’ said the breathless Kellett, ‘and we have fewer than twenty balls per culverin, a few more for the demi-cannon. Plenty of bar, chain and grape, though. Powder, no more than eighty barrels.’
I returned to the quarterdeck and made some swift, rough calculations in my head. We had already fired five broadsides against the Seven Provinces. At this rate, we would run out of powder or shot long before we got past the last Dutch ships. If we ever got that far, of course.
At least our first opponent was very nearly past us. The Seven Provinces’ starboard quarter came up level with ours, the two quarterdecks directly opposite each other for a brief moment. And then a curious thing happened. The light from our stern lanterns, combined with that from those on the Dutch ship, made it just bright enough to make out the men on the enemy quarterdeck. One of them was a strongly-built bull of a man with a huge black moustachio. He raised his hat, and I brought up my sword to return the gesture. It was my first sight of the living legend that was Michiel Adrianszoon De Ruyter, the Netherlands’ greatest admiral.
* * *
‘If you seek proof of miracles,’ said Francis Gale, ‘I think you have it.’
‘Miracle?’ said Musk. ‘With all respect, Reverend, I’ll call it a miracle when I’m back in my own bed, safe and unscathed.’
But ‘miracle’ was one of the few words that came close to describing our apparent good fortune. After our encounter with the Seven Provinces, we had sailed unscathed through what must have been most of the Dutch fleet. We saw black shapes away to starboard, and off to larboard, and ahead: but apart from a few desultory shots from long range, we had been barely troubled at all for a half-hour or more. It was as though there was a vast gap in the middle of the Dutch, and we were sailing straight through it.
‘They won’t know what’s happened,’ said Kit. ‘They’ll have seen the firing up ahead, but they won’t know what the outcome was. As far as they know, De Ruyter might have captured us, or we might be trying to run. They won’t be expecting us to do what we’re doing.’
I was not so certain. ‘The Dutch are no fools,’ I said. ‘At least some of the ships passing us must have identified us – and if they have, they’ll be using their stern lanterns to signal to the ones behind them.’
‘Ships dead ahead!’ It was the cry of the lookout in the foretop. ‘Ten ships! None behind!’
‘The Dutch rear squadron,’ I said. ‘Get past them, and we are clear.’
I took up my telescope and squinted, trying to make out shapes in the gloom. After a minute or two, I was able to see the dim shapes of sails and hulls. Ten ships, in tight formation. Unlike so many of their fellows, these were clearly not oblivious to our presence, or confused about what might have been happening up ahead. These ships knew exactly who we were, where we were, and what we were trying to do. This was the force that the Dutch intended to stop us. Now, too, I could dimly make out their ensigns.
I attempted to put a brave face on it. ‘The Zeeland squadron,’ I said. ‘It seems I am to shake hands with my brother-in-law.’
I never knew for certain which of the ships that attacked us was the Adelaar, the command of Captain Cornelis van der Eide. It was immaterial. For the next half-hour or so, we were bombarded in succession by each of the Zeeland ships. They attacked both sides at once, and as I strode back and forward on the upper deck, it was clear that we could not survive much longer. The men were exhausted. Directly in front of my eyes, Treweek, a fine old Wadebridge seaman who had sailed with me since the Jupiter, suddenly clutched his chest and slumped forward over the barrel of the culverin, stone dead. No shot had touched him: his heart had simply given up. The other Cornishmen in the gun-crew muttered the Lord’s Prayer in their own tongue: Agan Tas-ny, us yn neft, Benygys re bo dha Hanow… Then, without further ceremony, they slung Treweek’s warm corpse over the rail.
All the time, my mind calculated the amounts of shot and powder that remained. At our current rate of fire, we would run out at about midnight. There seemed to be a strange appropriateness about that.
‘Sir Matthew!’ It was Kellett. ‘Look! The Dutchman luffing up toward us on the starboard bow – he’s flying white flags! Flags of truce!’
It was a large ship – somewhat larger than the Royal Sceptre. And at the maintop, it flew the command flag of the Lieutenant-Admiral of Zeeland himself.
A voice bellowed from a speaking trumpet. The voice spoke good English, albeit with a thick accent. ‘English captain! You have fought bravely! But your ship is surrounded. You are badly damaged. And I have not yet unleashed the worst on you. You know that. So I give you this final chance, Captain. Surrender now, with honour. I assure you and your men of quarter, and treatment fitting for those who have fought well.’
I sent Kellett for my own speaking-trumpet, and shouted my response across the water. ‘My thanks, Admiral Evertsen,’ I said in my fairly fluent Dutch, ‘but it is not come to that yet. Know that you fight Sir Matthew Quinton and His Majesty’s ship the Royal Sceptre, and we fight on for the honour of England and our King.’
‘My respects, Sir Matthew,’ Cornelis Evertsen shouted in Dutch. ‘Your good-brother will be sorry to see you perish in such a terrible manner. You will not reconsider?’
‘I will not. And pass on my respects to Captain van der Eide.’
I raised my sword. The flags of truce came down on the Zeeland flagship, and she began to sheer away. I dropped my sword again, the signal for Burdett to unleash our starboard broadside against Evertsen. A futile gesture at such a distance and in such darkness, but a token to prove that the Royal Sceptre intended to fight on. Then the Dutch ship disappeared into the gloom, and suddenly all was very quiet.
‘What did he mean, Sir Matthew?’ asked the Earl of Rochester.
‘What is the worst he can unleash on us? How will we perish terribly?’ Musk peered out into the darkness, his eyes straining to see into the gloom. Without turning to face Rochester, he said one word: the single word that was in the thoughts of every seaman aboard. The one thing that sailors feared almost as much as the sea itself.
‘Fireship.’
* * *
It was on us almost before anyone saw it. A tiny craft, its crew stealthily secured it to our starboard quarter using grappling hooks. Marines and seamen fired their muskets at where they thought the departing crew would be, rowing for dear life away from their deadly charge, but by then, smoke was already billowing from the fireship’s hold. It was followed in short order
by the first flames, licking across the deck toward the hull of the Royal Sceptre.
There was one chance, and one chance only, of saving our ship. I ran down to the main deck, then to the stern, to the space that contained my cabin; or would have contained it, if the partitions had not been taken down when the deck was cleared for action. If I could climb out of a quarter gallery window, and get down onto the deck of the fireship…
but another had had the same thought. Kit Farrell was already at the quarter gallery. All along the deck, men stood by their guns, looking on in fear and astonishment: fear at the knowledge of what lay just a few feet away from them, secured firmly to the ship’s side; astonishment at the sight of their two most senior officers disputing which of them should go to an almost certain death by trying to cut the fireship adrift before it could take hold.
‘My ship, Mister Farrell!’ I shouted. ‘My responsibility!’
‘Not your only responsibility, Sir Matthew. You have a wife, and you are the heir to an earldom. It does not matter if the poor tarpaulin Kit Farrell dies down there, but it matters greatly if Sir Matthew Quinton does.’
‘But your wound, Kit!’
‘Better to reopen the wound than for all of us to burn alive, Sir Matthew.’
Musk appeared by my side, having made his way from the quarterdeck at a rather more sedate pace than my own.
‘He’s right,’ the old man said. ‘You know full well he’s right. And if you argue the toss any longer, the ship’ll burn.’
He was right. But that did not make it any easier as I watched Kit seize hold of a rope fastened to the carriage of the nearest demi-cannon, haul himself painfully out of the quarter-gallery, and lower himself down the rope into the dense, stinking smoke billowing from the fireship.
I peered out of the window, trying to make out Kit’s figure on the deck far below. He had been down there too long – he must have been overcome by the smoke, or burned by the flames that were now melting the paintwork of the quarter-gallery – or else his efforts had reopened the wound he sustained but a few months earlier.
Long moments of silence and dread turned into minutes. Kit had failed, he was dead, and very soon, the rest of us would be so too.
There was a sudden jolt, then the creaking of wood.
‘He’s done it!’ I cried.
Clear water appeared between the fireship and our hull. The blazing wreck began to drift away upon wind and tide, the grappling ropes that secured her to the Sceptre’s hull neatly severed. And there, hauling himself up the ship’s side on the rope secured to the demi-cannon, was Kit Farrell.
Eager hands pulled him inboard, and we sat him down on the deck to recover his breath. I despatched Denton, my servant, to fetch him a tankard of ale, which he downed in one.
‘Hot work, Lieutenant?’
‘Smoke too thick – couldn’t find the fastenings for the grappling ropes –’
‘Take your time, Kit. Get your breath. You saved the ship. Men have been granted commands for less –’
‘Sir Matthew!’ It was Kellett’s voice, from the ladder to the upper deck. ‘Another fireship! On the other quarter!’
I ran back to the quarterdeck. There it was, a nearly identical craft, firmly secured to the larboard quarter-gallery.
‘Damn them,’ said Francis Gale. ‘They must have secured when all our attention was on the one to starboard.’
This new threat was even more dangerous than the one Kit had just eliminated. The first fireship had been to leeward, so drifted away as soon as the grapples were cut. But this one was to windward. Even if we had a second hero to equal Kit, it would avail nothing: even if the fireship were cut loose, the wind would continue to push it against our hull. And that same wind would fan the flames more vigorously, as it was already doing. The quarter-gallery was already alight…
I was aware of someone talking behind me, and turned. It was Lancelot Parks. He was standing by the starboard rail, mumbling the same words, over and over. ‘Thou, Matthew Quinton, art the Beast. I am the false prophet. Forgive me, Venetia. Thou, Matthew Quinton, art the beast. I am –’
As Francis Gale and I rushed forward to try and take hold of him, he leapt onto the carriage of the nearest demi-culverin. He turned, looked at me, then jumped over the ship’s rail. I ran to the side and peered down into the waters, but he was gone. Even if Parks could swim, his breastplate and heavy sword would have dragged him under.
‘Revelation Nineteen, Verse Twenty,’ said Francis. ‘And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. Almighty God, we give thee hearty thanks, for that it hath pleased thee to deliver this our brother Lancelot Parks out of the miseries of this sinful world. Amen.’
‘Amen.’
I had no time to mourn the captain of Marines. I could hear a clamouring further forward, then shouts.
‘The ship’s ablaze!’
‘God have mercy on our souls!’
I ran to the quarterdeck rail. Many men were massing forward, trying to edge away from the flames that were now spitting all along the larboard quarter, above the level of the quarterdeck. One, then another, then a third and a fourth, all from the London pressed draft, climbed onto the rail and jumped. Some of the sturdier and longer serving men were trying to calm the others – I saw Carvell, Ali Reis and many of the Cornish rushing hither and thither – but more and more men were jumping, convinced they stood a better chance in the water.
‘If as many as a quarter of them can swim, I’m the Grand Turk,’ said Francis.
‘And those who can don’t stand a chance of being picked up by a Dutch ship,’ I said. ‘They won’t come near while the fire blazes, in case our magazine blows up. One thing for it, Reverend Gale.’
I drew my sword, and Francis drew his. ‘One thing for it indeed, Sir Matthew.’
We both ran forward, straight into the heart of the mob, our swords waving above our heads.
‘Sceptres, stand firm!’ I cried. As Francis pummelled men in distinctly unclerical fashion, I leapt up onto the steam gratings around the galley chimney. ‘Stand firm! We can still save the ship, but only if you return to your stations –’ Another man climbed onto the rail and jumped. ‘Listen to me, you fuckwits!’ I screamed at the top of my voice. ‘I will run through the next man who tries to jump! You hear me? This sword, in your gut. Or yours. Or yours.’ I pointed the weapon vaguely at faces that seemed particularly terror-stricken. ‘I swear it upon the honour of Ravensden!’
My venom seemed to be having an effect. The clamour subsided. Men looked at each other uncertainly. And now my other officers were advancing, in unison – Hardy, Burdett, Urquhart, even Lord Rochester, all armed to the teeth. Rochester’s monkey advanced alongside its master, spitting and hissing ferociously. Behind them came Lovell and his Marines, a menacing line of yellow-coated uniforms spread out across the deck, muskets primed and levelled, their new young commander fearless and resolute. But it was one sight above all others that finally turned the tide. Up from below came the familiar, stocky figure of Kit Farrell. In his hand he bore the sword that had severed the grappling ropes of the first fireship.
‘Well, Sceptres?’ I cried. ‘Are you going to dishonour the heroism of Lieutenant Farrell, there, or will he be your example?’ No more men moved toward the rail. ‘Very good! Mister Hardy, Mister Urquhart – organise chains of men to bring up buckets from the pumps! Mister Carvell, there, to lead the men facing the fire! Lieutenant Farrell – take a party with the firepoles we have, to push the fireship away!’
‘Is there still time?’ asked Francis.
‘God knows,’ I said. ‘Let us pray that there is –’
God’s apparent rejection of our prayers seemed to come immediately. A sudden shaft of flame shot up from the quarterdeck rail and caught the foot of the mizzen sail, which
caught light at once. If the fire spread into the running rigging and the other sails came down, the upper deck would be doused in flames from end to end.
‘Lower the yard!’ cried Kit.
Men ran to the shrouds, and the sail began to come down. But by now it was well alight, and bringing it onto the deck seemed just as likely to spread the flames as if it was left aloft.
Phineas Musk emerged from below, panting heavily. Behind him came my little body of servants, Kellett, Coleby, Denton and Smart. They were carrying what seemed to be bundles of wet rags, which they flung over the blazing sail as it came down to the deck. Clouds of steam rose. The fire was doused.
‘Well done, Musk! Well done, boys!’ I cried as I approached them. Only when I was immediately by them did I recognise one of the dampened ‘rags’ as the charred remnants of my best frock coat.
‘Only stock of linen we could get our hands on in time,’ said Musk. ‘Only stock of linen that was all in one place, not scattered throughout the ship.’
‘My wardrobe, Musk?’
‘Think on it this way, Sir Matthew – Lady Quinton will greatly enjoy dressing you in new clothes.’
And so she would. But my ambivalent feelings about Musk’s quick thinking were overtaken at once. A ragged cheer broke out from the men along the larboard rail, and at the gunports on the deck below. I ran to the rail, peered over, and saw the fireship falling away from us, carried past our stern by the very wind that had threatened to hold her to our hull. Kit and his men had done their work well: thankfully, the Dutch had secured this second vessel with fewer grapples than the first, relying principally on the wind and tide to keep her tight to our hull.
Without thinking upon my honour or dignity, I, too, joined in the men’s cheering at our deliverance. Truly, God was an Englishmen; God was a Sceptre.
Finally, I returned to the quarterdeck. There were no hulls around us in the midnight darkness. I could just make out the distant lights of many stern lanterns: the enemy fleet, moving away to the south-east. The Dutch must have seen the fireships secure to our hull, seen the flames spreading, and assumed, entirely reasonably, that we were doomed.
