by David McDine
Every man’s eyes were on him and only the slaps of the waves and creaks and squeaks of the ship’s timbers broke the silence.
‘Well, boys …’ He looked slowly around the expectant faces. They were his boys at a moment like this, men on more formal occasions, and lubbers when they got it wrong or when the loneliness of command soured him. ‘Yes, my brave boys, at last we’ve a chance to strike a blow for old England!’
He paused to allow them a ragged cheer and smiled good-naturedly on hearing an unmistakeably fellow-Welshman at the back ask: ‘And Wales too, eh sir?’
‘Most certainly for Wales, boy. And Scotland and Ireland too!’ He knew the Paddies and Scots, who hated being lumped in with the English, would like that.
The buzz of laughter was cut short by the bosun tapping his rattan cane on the cannon and the captain’s upheld hand. ‘Now this is serious, boys. There’s a privateer lurking in the harbour of a place called St Valery—’
‘Saint ’oo?’ queried a voice from the gloom.
Bosun Taylor banged his cane fiercely and shrilled: ‘Hold yer tongue when the cap’n’s speaking!’
Phillips smiled benevolently. He knew how to work his audience. ‘For the benefit of that man who’s obviously spent too much time working the guns and has addled his hearing, the port is Saint Valery …’
His riposte provoked nervous laughter and he paused for effect.
‘Yes lads, it’s a place called St Valery-en-Caux. That’s where we’re bound. This poxy privateer’s been causing mayhem on our coast, capturing unarmed merchantmen and feeding their crews to the fishes. Now he’s holed up and we’ve a chance to give these cowardly Frogs some of their own medicine.’
He looked round at the sea of expectant faces picked out intermittently by the swinging lantern. ‘So, we’re going to cut this privateer out. Are you up for it, lads?’
A chorus of muted cheers and ‘aye ayes’ greeted his call to arms.
And there were more cheers, and louder, when he added: ‘If we pull this off there’ll be prize money, boys – and likely there’ll be lots of it!’
In his case there most certainly would be plenty – thanks to the Admiralty’s patently unfair system of doling out the proceeds from the sale of a captured enemy vessel. It would be divided into eighths and then shared out according to rank rather than risk.
Sceptics could well have queried the fairness of a scale dictating that in a case such as this the admiral commanding the fleet would receive an eighth although hundreds of miles away from the shot, smoke, blood and guts. The captain’s share was to be two eighths, although in this instance he would be remaining on board the Phryne. And a lucky captain could make thousands.
Fair enough that the next ranking officers would share an eighth and the two levels further down the food chain would also each split an eighth.
Less acceptable, in some lower deck eyes, was that the lowliest seaman or marine risking his life on a dicey raid would receive a mere fraction of the rest of the ship’s company share of two eighths. Divided so many times over, it was often barely enough for a good run ashore.
But if there were any such sceptics aboard they wisely held their peace in public, saving their muttering for their hammocks.
Phillips was not one for long speeches. ‘Now, listen up to the first lieutenant who’ll tell you what you’re to do, boys. I’d like to be with you, but someone’s got to mind the shop while you’re enjoying your run ashore …’ He paused to let the nervous laughter subside and added: ‘I know you’ll do your duty.’
Every member of the cutting-out party knew the captain meant what he said. He had proved himself to them often enough.
They nodded and muttered their assent and Phillips strode away, back to his charts.
*
For Lieutenant John Howard the raid was a golden opportunity, and his eagerness to crack on was infectious.
In allowing him to lead the expedition, the captain of the Phryne was doing his first lieutenant a supreme favour. Success could mean an honourable mention in the Gazette and almost instant promotion, not to mention a decent share of the prize money the privateer would fetch once safely alongside in Portsmouth or Chatham.
Certainly failure could mean death, maiming, or kicking his heels as a prisoner of the French until he could be exchanged. But the rare opportunity for advancement outweighed the risks and any naval officer worth his salt would have been eager to lead the raid. Howard, scion of a noble family, was no exception.
Supported by McKenzie of the marines, Lieutenant Anson and young Midshipmen Lampard and Foxe, he briefed the boat parties on what lay ahead.
The three boats would be launched two hours before dawn, and, with extra boarding crews and marines aboard, would be towed nearer the objective. An hour before first light the boats would cast off, slip round the slight headland to the west of St Valery and row hard for the mole – a long, high, man-made stone jetty jutting out into the Channel and sheltering the small natural harbour.
The plan was for the boats to land Howard, McKenzie with his marines and a dozen of the seamen on the slipway at the opening of the inlet used by St Valery’s fishermen. The raiders were to deal with any sentries and make their way swiftly down the mole.
Once in the inner harbour, where the privateer was believed to be lurking, it would be down to the marines to take in the name of King George and enable the seamen with them to get on board and prepare for sailing.
Anson and the two midshipmen were to stay with Phryne’s boats which, after dropping the raiding party on the mole, were to row like hell straight for the privateer, hopefully arriving immediately after she had been taken, and tow her out before the French woke up to what was happening.
2
Westward, back to Fecamp, and east towards Dieppe, stretched a wall of off-white chalk cliffs known as les falaises to the French, broken here only by the inlet and harbour of St Valery-en-Caux. Inland lay the Pays de Caux – the land of chalk.
To an attacking force the gap, the only route inland, was the maritime equivalent of a breached citadel wall. But this entry port had been formed by the battering of nature, not siege guns. And, given the good fortune of surprise, the Phryne’s boat crews would not have as formidable a task as a forlorn hope about to assault a heavily-defended breach.
There would be batteries on either side of the inlet, and watchers enough. But in the hour before dawn the boat crews, appearing suddenly and silently on the mole from the shelter of a bulge in the cliffs shown on the captain’s chart as the Falaise d’Aval, had every chance of achieving complete surprise.
Phillips had no precise intelligence about the shore batteries guarding St Valery, but elsewhere the French were known to have 24-pounders or even 32-pound monsters commanding entry to their harbours, and capable of blasting out of the water anything that could float. They would be well protected behind embrasures 5ft thick and 8ft high, and behind them would be furnaces for heating shot – a frightening proposition for men in a wooden warship unable to elevate their own guns enough to counter them.
*
At zero hour a tot of rum was issued to each member of the cutting-out party and the boats were lowered.
Twenty seamen and ten marines clambered into the launch. A dozen sailors and four marines manned the smaller jolly boat, and ten seamen and six more marines scrambled into the cutter. With the officers and midshipmen, there were 67 in all – a third of the complement of the Phryne.
There was some confusion in the pre-dawn darkness as men struggled to reach their appointed places, but there would be time enough to sort themselves out as the frigate towed the boats nearer the objective.
When Phillips judged it close enough, and in silence lest bosun’s pipes and shouted orders carried ashore, canvas was lowered and Phryne hove to, rocking gently in the slight swell.
Topmen remained aloft along the yards ready to cast off the gaskets and let the sails fall when the time came to follow the boats, and gun cre
ws gathered to man the starboard battery.
Phillips had taken every possible precaution and it was now down to the cutting-out party – and good fortune.
From the launch, Lieutenant Howard waited for the expected low shout from the ship: ‘Ahoy boats. Cast off!’
Tow ropes were abandoned and with a wave of Howard’s second-best bicorn hat and to hissed orders of ‘Dip oars, give way together,’ the boats pulled slowly away from the frigate.
The oarsmen were fit and, with only a couple of miles to row and a westerly breeze pushing them on, they made good progress towards the Falaise d’Aval despite an increasingly choppy sea.
Greased sacking muffled the rowlocks, but they still squeaked and cracked noisily. And however carefully the rowers slid their blades into the water they could not avoid splashing.
Pock-faced bosun’s mate Duff exchanged a pained look with the young officer commanding the cutter and snarled venomously at the worst offender: ‘Stop squeakin’ yer effing oar, Robson!’
‘Bollocks!’ The response was just loud enough to provoke a stifled guffaw from those nearest the offending rower.
Duff, feared on board for his fierce dedication to his disciplinarian role, hissed: ‘If ye’re answerin’ back, y’pile of shite, I’ll have ye!’
Notorious though he was for his cheek, Robson was ever careful to play the innocent when it mattered. ‘Not me, mate. I just said it’s me rowlocks. I canna help it. I allus seem t’draw a squeaky whore. I mean oar!’
Duff’s muttered oath and piercing glare cut short the boat’s crew’s half-suppressed chuckles. He growled: ‘Ye’re doing it on purpose you pillock. Cut it out or ye’ll be the death of us all.’
Robson knew when to toe the line. But he provoked more sniggers with his Tyneside-accented: ‘Whey-aye aye, man!’
Within the hearing of an officer – and Lieutenant Anson was a clergyman’s son to boot – the bosun’s mate had learned to refine his profanities and abuse. But his retort was none the less forceful: ‘Cut the effing crap or I’ll stick yer effing oar up yer effing arse meself, yer effing cretin!’
‘Amen t’that,’ muttered Robson, provoking Duff to spit again with venom: ‘Button yer lip!’
His fierce stare swept the rowers. ‘Next one of you dozy scum to make a noise’ll get a whack for breakfast.’
Being ‘started’ by a bosun’s mate with a rope’s end was no picnic. If disregarded, Duff’s threats were known to be backed by action. And so the cutter carved its way through the waves, now somewhat quieter, if not squeak-free.
Squatting in the stern among a half-dozen grappling hooks and listening to the banter, Lieutenant Anson could not stop the ghost of a smile tugging at his blackened features.
Glimpsed when the cloud cover gave way briefly to moonlight, the Normandy coast to starboard was lined with seemingly sheer chalk cliffs, fortress-like and forbidding.
In those occasional brighter moments Anson looked over the raiding force as they closed on their objective.
The dark shapes of the two other boats lay to larboard, the three linked loosely with ropes to avoid becoming separated by St Valery’s tidal currents in the pre-dawn gloom.
There was just enough light for Anson to make out the red-coated marines clutching blackened muskets and his seamen, pistols in their belts and armed with their newly-sharpened cutlasses, half pikes, axes and tomahawks, crouching in the thwarts between the oarsmen.
The seamen may have been chosen by lot, but there would have been enough volunteers to man three more boats if need be. By tradition, no-one ever dared ask the marines. They were always assumed to have volunteered en bloc – by sacred right.
Faces were camouflaged with burnt cork and the seamen wore white armbands for identification ashore. The red jackets of the marines were unmistakeably British.
If in doubt as to friend or foe, the password was easy enough to remember – the name of their ship, pronounced by all on the lower deck as ‘Fry-nee’.
Muskets and pistols that had not been loaded until the men were in the boat for fear of accidental discharges while clambering down the ship’s side, were now charged and checked over and over again, their priming carefully protected from spray by hats or cupped hands.
Edged weapons were fingered nervously as the seamen carrying them reassured themselves that Abel Grist had done his work well and they were ready for business.
It was time to give the French a painful wake-up call.
*
Soon after the boats had pulled away from the frigate they had attracted the unwelcome attention of screeching seagulls.
Howard willed the launch on, concerned that the ravenous gulls following the little flotilla in the hope of a meal, just as they no doubt always followed the local fishing boats, would put sentries on the qui vive.
‘God-damned creatures,’ he mouthed at the cackling ghost-like shapes wheeling above. ‘Damn their eyes!’
His coxswain, close enough to pick up the muttered oaths, misinterpreted the target of Howard’s ire and hissed at the oarsmen: ‘Row, ye buggers, row!’
With the launch in the lead, the little flotilla at last reached the end of the mole and pulled for the slipway.
Crouched in the stern of the cutter, Lieutenant Anson scanned the shoreline anxiously. Surely someone would spot them approaching.
And in the jolly boat Midshipman Lampard, only 15 and still with choirboy looks but already a promising seaman keen to prove himself in action, was earnestly urging his oarsmen on.
The boats approached the sloped landing place used by St Valery’s crabbers and lobstermen and the launch was first to touch, keel scraping on the granite blocks of the slipway.
Howard, determined to be seen to lead by example and unconsciously observing the ancient naval tradition – senior officer last in, first out – jumped but lost his footing on the greasy, seaweed-covered slipway and sprawled awkwardly into the water, twisting his ankle and dropping his sword as he fell. It was an ill omen.
Helped by a wild-eyed, tomahawk-wielding sail-maker’s mate, he climbed painfully to his feet, scrabbled to find his sword, muttered ‘Thankee Coppins,’ and hopped on.
The rest of the marines and sailors making up the mole party followed Howard and Lieutenant McKenzie into the water and up the slipway.
As planned, Anson and the two midshipmen remained with the boats’ crews, ready to pull away as soon as the shore party had disembarked. Then, as the shore party raced down the mole to board Égalité, they were to row flat out for the inlet and the privateer’s berth alongside the harbour walls.
From their briefing they knew that the tidal inlet curved to the right, bordered by typically-Norman timber-framed and red-painted houses. A blue flare was to signal that the ship had been taken by the shore party and the rowers were to spurt the last few yards, turn under Égalité’s bows and secure the tow ropes that were to be thrown down. Then it would be a case of pulling like devils for the open sea. No blue light would mean the boats’ crews would need to clamber aboard and help the shore party overwhelm the ship. Hence the grappling irons in the thwarts.
The prevailing westerly would be of no help in bringing the privateer out, so the attackers would need to rely on muscle power and the ebbing tide until she was clear of the harbour.
Once clear of the mole, they would get her under way while Phryne swooped in to provide protective fire and recover the boats before sailing clear of the shore batteries.
If all went well, first light should see the frigate and her prize setting a course for Portsmouth.
It was a simple enough plan and if it worked it would be an excellent morning’s work. Everything depended on achieving surprise – and on swift and determined action. But if the alarm was raised too soon and the mole party became bogged down ashore, or if the enemy batteries came into action, it could so easily end in disaster.
*
Ashore, through a powerful glass from an observation post atop Falaise d’Amont to the east
of the harbour, the frigate’s arrival had been noted. It was still too dark for the French lookout to identify the ship as friend or foe, but he played safe.
Messengers had been despatched to alert the shore batteries and the infantry battalion that had been bivouacked around St Valery for the past few days.
It was better to be safe than sorry, and when a second messenger arrived with news that boats had been seen leaving the warship, the French infantry colonel ordered a company down into the harbour.
Half took up positions in the town and the inner harbour, and the rest set off at a trot down the mole.
*
As Lieutenant Howard hopped up the slipway, dark-jacketed figures could be seen approaching from the port. French infantrymen!
The sickening realisation hit him. The enemy had been alerted. Surprise was lost.
He paused for a moment debating whether to press on or beat a hasty retreat before the boats pulled away for the inner harbour. Without the boats his party would be trapped.
A shouted ‘Qui en va?’ followed closely by the crack of a musket gave him the answer.
He turned and shouted: ‘Hold the boats men. The Frogs are waiting for us!’ And he discharged his pistol towards the shadowy figures.
Fire was returned immediately and a dozen musket balls buzzed angrily by – one felling the seaman who had helped Howard when he stumbled.
Lieutenant McKenzie bellowed to his marines: ‘Fire boys, fire!’ and a ragged volley sent the leading Frenchmen scuttling for cover.
Howard was now in no doubt whatsoever that the mission had failed before it had begun. The only sensible course of action was to withdraw to the boats. Anything else would be suicidal.
More and more Frenchmen were reaching the scene and musket balls splattered the stonework around the slipway.
But McKenzie’s marines were reloading, kneeling to make less of a target, and returning fire.
Above the rattle of musketry, Howard’s voice was as strong and clear as if he were on the quarter-deck. ‘Marines form a rearguard, the rest back to the boats!’
