The Battle of All the Ages

by J. D. Davies

  ‘A prayer, Chaplain, if you please!’ I cried to Francis, who was red in the face and breathing heavily.

  ‘My only prayer, Sir Matthew, is for the bodily strength I had twenty years ago!’

  ‘Amen to that,’ said Musk.

  Despite his willingness to help, the old rogue was of little use, if truth be told; he could only push tentatively at the gun, for fear of reopening his recent wound.

  I shifted position, and found myself alongside a landman from the new draft. He may have known nothing of the sea, but he pushed with a will.

  ‘Your name, fellow?’ I said, between pushes.

  ‘Loakes, Sir Matthew. Chair maker of Chipping Wycombe.’

  ‘No longer, Loakes. You are a seaman of the Royal Sceptre now. On my count, then, seaman Loakes – one, two, three!’

  We heaved again. Lord Rochester’s monkey jumped up onto the ship’s rail and hissed, seemingly in encouragement. The gun carriage toppled back and struck the deck with a great crash, which coincided with another mighty broadside from the Royal Charles ahead of us. Now we sprang to the ropes, hauling the demi-culverin back round at an angle to the remnants of the port. Burdett was already acting a part he must have played countless times in his youth, that of captain of one weapon. He gesticulated toward the pile of canvas cartridges on the deck, but the gun crew were still engaged upon the ropes. I had watched my men execute this countless times; why not, then? I took up one of the charges, placed it on a lengthy ladle and pushed it into the bore. As soon as the ladle was clear, Spence rammed home the wad. I picked up a round shot from the small pile next to the gun and pushed it down until I felt it rest upon the wad; Spence rammed in another wad ahead of it.

  Now Massey thrust a great pin down the vent to puncture the cartridge, poured powder into the vent, then signalled for the rest of us to haul the carriage round into position. Ship’s captain, lieutenant, chaplain, captain’s clerk and noble poet alike hauled on the tackles that pulled our weapon round into the port, facing toward the impossibly close hull of the Dutchman. Wait for the downroll – wait – Burdett put the linstock to the touch-hole, there was a spit of flame and our gun thundered forth. Close to, the shock of the blast was extraordinary; I was once kicked in the chest by a horse, and that had nothing like the force. The great demi-culverin recoiled across the deck. At once, we sprang to it and secured it. The whole thing seemed to have taken but a blink of an eye, but in truth it must have been several minutes. I looked out to see what damage we had done, but it was impossible to judge. The side of the Dutchman was full of indentations and jagged holes; any one of them, or none, could have been caused by the first cannon-shot of the most ill-sorted gun crew in the entire Navy Royal.

  ‘At the next firing,’ I said to the erstwhile chair maker, ‘you load the charge, seaman Loakes!’

  The young man looked at me nonplussed, but brought two fingers to forehead in a passable attempt at a salute.

  Four men from below came up to make good the complement of the gun’s crew. Burdett appointed Spence as captain of it, then saluted me before returning to his wider duties. I, too, suddenly recollected that I had a somewhat more detached role to play, and began my way back toward my proper station, accompanied by the Earl of Rochester.

  ‘Oh, glorious, most glorious!’ cried the noble earl. ‘I have never known the like. ’Twas very nearly better than buggery, Sir Matthew! That I, Rochester, manned a cannon in a great sea-fight!’

  Kellett ran up with bottles of beer, handing one to Rochester and one to myself. Unable to think of any riposte to the poet’s remark, I put the bottle to my lips and emptied the entire contents in one long swig. Battle is always thirsty work, but that Saint James’s Day felt as hot as the fire that the Saint himself wished to call down upon the Samaritan village. I sent Kellett at once for a second bottle, and tried to wipe some of the sweat from my brow and chest.

  All around us, the battle raged. Thousands of great cannon roared. Muskets fired. Men barked orders. Other men screamed in death-agony. Timber broke asunder. And then I had the strangest thought. Could Cornelia, in London, hear the sound of the battle? Would it alarm our unborn child? Would it somehow know that its father risked death at every moment of the day? Was it about to be half-orphaned, long before it was born?

  I took another swig of the beer, and resolved to live.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Behold that navy, which a while before

  Provok’d the tardy English close to fight;

  Now draw their beaten vessels close to shore,

  As larks lie dar’d to shun the Hobbies flight.

  Dryden, Annus Mirabilis

  We continued to trade blows with our assailant, but neither of us could gain the advantage over the other. Fearful of the power of our larger guns, the Dutchman kept his distance; but his position, and his dogged persistence, meant that we could not advance to assist the Royal Charles. And within the hour, it was clear that our flagship was in a terrible condition. Her rigging was in shreds, the foreyard fallen to the deck. The huge Union Flag flying from the maintopmast head was in shreds. Her rate of fire was falling off.

  ‘Allin’s advantage in the van will be for nought if the Charles surrenders!’ I cried.

  ‘Rupert and Albemarle surrendering?’ said Musk. ‘I think they’ll need to have rather less ship beneath them before they contemplate that, Sir Matthew. One plank, maybe, then they’ll haul down the colours. Pair of stubborn buggers, one as bad as the other.’

  ‘Perhaps, Musk. But wait –’

  ‘Look, Sir Matthew!’ cried Rochester. ‘What is happening there?’

  ‘They’re manning the ship’s boats on the unengaged side,’ I said, training my telescope on the Royal Charles’s starboard quarter. ‘They’re going to tow her out of the battle. Get her upwind, and try to effect repairs.’

  ‘But will the Dutch not finish her?’

  ‘If God wills it, My Lord, we can still keep them entertained! Look there – it’s the Black Prince!’

  Kit Farrell’s command emerged from the thick, immovable cloud of gunsmoke astern of us and passed our larboard quarter. The Sceptres cheered their old lieutenant, and I raised my sword in salute. Kit responded in kind, the most enormous grin upon his face. The Black Prince fired a broadside into our assailant as she passed, but she had other fish to fry. Kit steered directly for the Seven Provinces.

  ‘But he’s half her size!’ said Rochester.

  ‘Two thirds, more like. But Captain Farrell is a good enough seaman to keep clear of De Ruyter’s guns, My Lord, and by interposing himself between the Dutchman and the Royal Charles, he stops De Ruyter going after her.’

  So it proved. As the boats of the Royal Charles towed the shattered flagship slowly toward safety, Kit engaged the Seven Provinces, skilfully manoeuvring so that he avoided the full force of the Dutch flagship’s broadsides while ensuring that his own could bear with maximum effect. Meanwhile, we continued to trade broadsides with our stubborn adversary. But the Dutch had more ships coming up – very soon, they were bound to overwhelm the Black Prince, and unless I could disentangle the Sceptre, they would have a clear way through to the Charles…

  To begin with it was almost imperceptible, like the first roll of thunder in the very far distance on an autumn night. But it grew steadily louder, and louder still. The sound of drumbeats, rhythmic and terrifying. The Royal Sceptre carried four drummers, but this had to be the beat of at least five times that number. Slowly, all the ordinary sounds on the deck of our ship ceased. Men stopped shouting. Officers stopped blowing their whistles. Even Francis Gale stopped reciting psalms. And over on our opponent, exactly the same thing was happening. The eerie silence was so entire that it was even possible to hear the squawks of a passing gull: entire, but for the frightening beat of the kettledrums, growing ever louder.

  ‘What is it, Sir Matthew?’ Rochester demanded. For once, the voluble Earl spoke in the quietest whisper.

  ‘Watch, My Lord,’ I sai
d, for now I was certain of the cause. ‘Behold one of the wonders of the world.’

  A bowsprit emerged from the shroud of gunsmoke, the Union Flag flying proudly from the staff. Then came the beakhead, then a vast, towering forecastle, far higher than that of the Sceptre or even of the Seven Provinces, across the water. The drumming got louder and louder. More and more of the mighty hull came into view: the mighty, gilded hull. A vast golden ship, with a hundred brass guns protruding from her gunports.

  ‘The Royal Sovereign,’ I said. ‘God willing, she’ll teach the Dutch the meaning of the name she was christened with. Truly, My Lord Rochester, she is the very Sovereign of the Seas!’

  ‘Or the Golden Devil, if you prefer,’ said Francis. ‘That’s what the Dutch call her. They shit themselves at the very sight of her.’

  ‘Then why wasn’t she with us in the four-day fight?’

  ‘She needs so large a crew, she couldn’t be manned in time,’ I said. ‘But she’s manned now, all right. As De Ruyter will find soon enough.’

  If the Sceptres had cheered Kit and the Black Prince, they shouted themselves hoarse as the Sovereign swept past, the terrifying beat of her drums as deafening as a broadside. The giant ship flew a special blood-red pennant from her main-top, as though she had her very own bloody flag, permanently hoisted as a signal of her intent.

  ‘Very well, gentlemen!’ I cried. ‘This is our moment! This is England’s moment! Ready, Mister Burdett?

  ‘Ready, Sir Matthew!’

  ‘Very well! Take your cue from the Golden Devil, Master Gunner!’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir!’

  The Sovereign sailed majestically onto the larboard quarter as? the Dutchman engaged against us. I saw enemy sailors racing to man the guns on that side of the ship. But it was too late. The Sovereign’s lower deck cannon-of-seven roared out, the flames seeming to make the gilded hull glitter even more brightly. A moment later, Burdett gave the command to fire Royal Sceptre’s own broadside into the other side of the Dutchman. The smoke from the combined cannonade was so thick that it was impossible to see beyond the quarterdeck. Rochester coughed violently. I rubbed my eyes, and called out to Kellett to bring me another bottle of beer with which to wash away the acrid taste in my throat.

  ‘Look, Sir Matthew!’ It was Delacourt. ‘The Dutchman’s finished!’

  Not finished, perhaps, but certainly breaking off the engagement. Her foremast was gone, snapped like a twig and hanging over the side, the topmast under water. There were great holes in her side, where the Sovereign’s cannonade had caused havoc. Until she could cut free the useless foremast and rig a jury mast to replace it, she was little better than a hulk. So the Dutchman had his helm over and was beginning to fall away with the wind.

  ‘He’s ours!’ cried Rochester, rubbing his hands with glee. ‘A fat prize, by God!’

  ‘No, My Lord.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘We hold our course and our station. As we are, we can cover both the Royal Charles while she repairs, and the Sovereign while she tackles De Ruyter. The Dutchman cannot fight – that is the only thing that matters, My Lord.’

  The men within earshot bore disappointed looks, and I knew they were with Lord Rochester. (Musk’s expression was beyond disappointed; it might be described as homicidal.) A Dutch sixty-gunner taken into Harwich would earn every one of the Sceptres a tidy sum in prize money. I understood their feelings entirely, for if a common mariner might turn a tidy sum from such a capture, a captain could make enough to buy a small landed estate in some unfashionable county; Surrey, perhaps. But our duty was clear, and the Royal Sceptre sailed on.

  A thunderous roar signalled the Sovereign’s first broadside against the Seven Provinces, and the Dutch flagship replied in kind. Kit’s Black Prince moved astern of the Golden Devil to protect her most vulnerable aspect, but no Dutch ships were able to move against her. Around us, the whole of the Red Squadron was engaged, including some of the biggest and best ships in our fleet. There was Holmes, our Rear-Admiral, in his new flagship, the Henry; there Sir Joseph Jordan, our veteran Vice-Admiral, in the Royal Oak.

  Far astern, ferocious and continuous cannonading told a very different story. The Blue was taking heavy punishment. The squadron had good officers, the likes of Spragge and Kempthorne, but weak ships, for this was where the bulk of the hired merchantmen recruited to make up the fleet’s numbers were concentrated. There was a moment during the afternoon when the gunsmoke cleared sufficiently to allow a view back to the rear of the two fleets, and I briefly diverted my telescope from the fight of the Seven Provinces and the Sovereign to see how the Blue fared. By chance, I saw the foretopmast of one of the Blue’s best ships, the stout Resolution, came crashing down, and a Dutch fireship moved in for the kill. I watched the flames devour her hull and turn her masts into blazing crucifixes. I learned later that her valiant captain, Will Hannum, managed to escape, but some two-hundred of his men were drowned. The Saint James’s Day fight was only my third fleet action, but I was already inured to such things. It will sound harsh to those who have not been in battle, but I felt no more than a pang of regret as I watched the flames destroy the Resolution. After all, any amount of carnage in the Blue would not matter if we continued to prevail in the van and the centre.

  With no immediate opponent to fight and the Royal Charles, our charge, still out of the battle, the Sceptres had a brief respite in which to eat, drink, and rest. Lanherne moved among them easily, exchanging greetings with his old Cornish friends, establishing his authority among the new men. Meanwhile, Delacourt came up onto the quarterdeck, and stood alongside Urquhart, Rochester, Musk and myself to watch the duel between the Seven Provinces and the Sovereign.

  ‘De Ruyter’s fire is falling off,’ said Urquhart. ‘Their broadsides are becoming ragged.’

  ‘They’d already taken a fearful hammering from the Charles,’ I said, ‘and now they’re taking an even worse one from the Sovereign. The Dutchman’s a smaller ship, with lighter guns. De Ruyter’s only chance is to bring her close enough to board, but Cox is too good a captain to let him do that.’

  ‘Cox?’ said Rochester. ‘I do not know the name.’

  ‘John Cox commands the Sovereign,’ I said. ‘He’s a good man, and a veteran seaman.’

  I had encountered John Cox when he was Master Attendant of Deptford dockyard, responsible for setting out the Seraph when I commanded her to the Gambia River. By rights, the mighty Sovereign should have been a flagship, but she had come to the fleet so late that all the flags were already allocated, so Cox had her for his own. And what use he was making of her! The Golden Devil was pouring broadside after broadside into the Seven Provinces, the forty-two pound balls from the cannon-of-seven smashing into the Dutchman’s hull.

  ‘Look, Sir Matthew,’ cried the excited Delacourt, ‘they’re hoisting a new foreyard into place on the Royal Charles!’

  I turned and looked out to the west. It was true: her crew had worked wonders. The new rigging was being run into place. The flagship was preparing to get under sail again.

  ‘Once she comes back into the battle,’ I said, ‘the Dutch won’t be able to stand against both the Charles and the Sovereign! And De Ruyter knows it, by God! Look there – he’s putting on sail and hoisting a signal!’

  ‘I don’t know the Dutch signal book, Sir Matthew,’ said Urquhart, ‘but I’ll wager it’s their equivalent of our blue flag at the mizzen peak. The signal for the fleet to fall into the admiral’s wake or grain.’

  ‘Which means what, in the King’s English?’ demanded Rochester. ‘You sea-beasts and your infernal sea-language!’

  ‘Which means, My Lord, that the van and centre squadrons of the Dutch fleet are fleeing. They are running for Holland. Mister Urquhart, stand by to order full sail – aye, studdingsails, every inch of canvas we have! We will fall in a cable’s length behind the Sovereign, if you please!’

  With the scent of victory in their nostrils, the Sceptres set to with a will. The breeze was sti
ll light, but a strong ebb was running out of the Thames mouth. Slowly, painfully slowly, we began the pursuit of the Dutch, who were running east toward the safety of their shoals.

  ‘We have trounced them,’ said Rochester, a half-hour or so later. ‘We have shattered them. Yet still they escape us.’

  ‘That’s the thing about this sea-business, My Lord,’ said Musk, ‘nothing’s ever as straightforward as it should be. Isn’t that so, Sir Matthew?’

  I looked up at our own rigging, then across to the ships around us.

  ‘The one advantage of the Dutchman’s way of fighting a battle,’ I said. ‘If they fire high and shatter our rigging, it makes us more difficult for us to pursue them. A coward’s tactic, gentlemen.’

  ‘Sir Matthew,’ said Delacourt, lowering his telescope, ‘look ahead, sir. Perhaps their coward’s tactic will not avail them after all.’

  ‘One of De Ruyter’s seconds is in trouble,’ I said, peering through my own eyepiece. ‘A big one, at least sixty guns – a similar size to the Sceptre. Both his fore and mizzen topmasts are down. Looks as though his rudder is damaged, too.’

  ‘The Sovereign’s altering course to go for her, Sir Matthew!’ cried Urquhart.

  ‘Then we sail with the Golden Devil, gentlemen!’

  What a sight we were, bearing down on the crippled Dutchman – the Gelderland, as we later learned. With all sail set, ensigns and pennants streaming from our staffs and mastheads, four of England’s mightiest men-of-war sailed toward the easiest of victories. The Royal Sovereign led the way, a terrifying sight as her huge gilded hull rose and fell on the gentle swell. Then came the Lion, the Triumph and ourselves, any one of us more than capable of taking the Dutchman on our own. The Dutch saw the danger, but there was little they could do to prevent it. Even De Ruyter himself attempted to come up with the Seven Provinces, but his flagship was too shattered. Besides, it was impossible for him to make much headway against the breeze and, more importantly, against the racing ebb.