by Iain Gale
Marlborough was suddenly captivated: ‘And then?’
Forbes coughed again and coloured. ‘Well, of course, at the time, Your Grace, it didn’t actually work.’
Marlborough raised his eyes to the sky. Cadogan looked both surprised and angry. Marlborough spoke: ‘May one ask why?’
‘Well, it would seem that as the jolly-boats left its side with the crew, the ship hit a rock. It listed and began to take in a quantity of water. Naturally, the powder became damp. In the end only one barrel went up and the French captured everything else. It was a little bit of a disaster actually. But we could correct it here, sir. I’m quite sure that it could work this time. The water is shallower here and there are no rocks. You must at least allow me to try, Your Grace. Think of the lives that it would save.’
Marlborough remained stony-faced: ‘It didn’t work?’
‘No, Your Grace.’
‘You killed exactly how many French? How many of their privateers?’ Forbes stared at his feet and mumbled. Cadogan closed his eyes. Marlborough continued: ‘Speak up, man. How many casualties did you cause?’
‘A cat, Your Grace.’
Hawkins was unable to stifle a guffaw of laughter. Cadogan merely looked embarrassed.
‘A cat? You killed a cat? Nothing more?’
‘No, Your Grace. Only a cat.’
Marlborough spoke gently, containing his fury. ‘Captain Forbes, might I suggest that you forget your anti-feline machinations in future and stick to finding means of killing Frenchmen. And while you are about it, of taking this town.’
Hawkins spoke up: ‘There is but one way, sir.’
‘Which is, James?’
‘That we take it at once, both from land and by sea. Admiral Fairborne is ready to blockade the harbour and has with him two bombketches, the Salamander and the Blast. Their command falls to Captain Forbes. I suggest that you have them bombard the place. Then, immediately their barrage is lifted, send in the attack. You might place the attacking force under the command of the Duke of Argyll. You could do no better. And at their head I would further suggest a storming party of crack troops. Men who will fight on their own initiative, yet who are also trained to stand.’
‘Grenadiers?’
‘Grenadiers, Your Grace. We send in a storming force made up solely of Grenadiers, taken from several regiments – English and Scots – yet under the command of one man and instructed specifically to hurl their bombs and then engage the enemy man to man, by whatever means. That, Your Grace, I believe will be the only way in which to defeat the desperate men who hold this place.’
‘And where would you have this attack take place? The directors of the trenches have reported to me that there is no weakness at all that they can discern in the fortifications.’ Marlborough grimaced and shook his head. ‘Vauban, again.’
Hawkins remained cool: ‘Indeed. There is only one point of entry into the city, Your Grace. Through the West Gate. That alone is the route that we must take.’
‘You would press an attack by way of the main entrance to the town? You must be mad, man.’ He paused and gave the matter some thought: ‘And who would you have lead this most hopeless of all forlorn hopes? What officer would be foolish enough or brave enough to offer his services? Young Johnny Mordaunt, perhaps. Though I dare say his father would never forgive me. But he triumphed against the odds at the storming of the Schellenberg.’
Hawkins shook his head.
‘No, James. You’re quite right. I cannot send him again. Who then?’
‘I did remember a certain gentleman to you before, Your Grace.’ Hawkins beckoned to a figure who for the last few minutes had been standing on the slope of the dune. Steel walked forward.
Marlborough nodded in greeting: ‘Captain Steel. Of course, the very man. You will lead the assault, Steel. You and your Grenadiers.’
‘I am honoured, Your Grace. Be assured that we will take the breach.’
‘If anyone can do such a thing you can. I dare say that after so long a rest, your men may need a little sharpening up. You have four days, Steel.’ Marlborough turned to Cadogan. ‘William, find Argyll. Confer with him and take it upon yourselves to select the other regiments and to find the remaining Grenadiers for this thankless task.’ He turned to Forbes, who throughout had been standing in embarrassed silence beside Cadogan. ‘Captain Forbes. You are responsible for the two bombships, are you not? Well, we require a bombardment. No more, no less. No fireships or dead cats. Merely fire enough to bring down all hell upon that town and make a breach in its defences wide enough for my boys to pass through and do their work. Can you do that?’
Forbes nodded: ‘I believe that I can, Your Grace.’
‘Then, gentlemen, we have not a moment to lose. We press the attack in two days’ time.’
Steel and Forbes saluted and as Marlborough turned away to confer with his generals, Steel intercepted Hawkins: ‘Colonel. I wonder if I might have a word with you?’
‘Of course, Jack. It concerns the assault?’
‘No, sir. It is to do with quite another matter.’
He reached into his pocket, produced the sheaf of broadsheets and handed them to Hawkins. Hawkins smiled and nodded. ‘Yes. We had just been discussing those. What do you know?’
‘I know what they contain, sir. And how damaging it might be. And I know that they are the work of a British officer. Perhaps two or more.’
‘Yes. I thought as much.’
‘But I do believe, sir, that I might be able to suppress them.’
Hawkins looked at him: ‘You do? Who’s the man?’
‘You must know, sir, that I cannot name a brother officer to you, until he has confessed his part in this affair. But I intend to confront him, Colonel, with your permission.’
‘Of course you must, Steel. And then report to me. This is good work, Steel. I shall make sure that the duke has word of it, should you succeed. For if we cannot stop these rags then your grand assault may surely be forlorn. For even if we take Ostend then we shall have to fight not only the French but the very people we have set free.’
SEVEN
There was no getting away from it. René Duglay-Trouin was stunningly handsome. Even his fellow pirates said so. And most of them without a threat. He, of course, was well aware of the fact and did his best to make the most of his already striking features. His nose was long and aquiline and his eyes of the darkest brown, which some said reflected the truth of the tale that his mother had been a mulatto. Tell him that to his face though and it would be the last thing you uttered. Certainly his skin was swarthy, but it was hard to tell whether this was the legacy of his birth or a product of his having served before the mast for almost a quarter of a century. His coat was a particular shade of royal blue, trimmed with real gold wire. It was cut in Paris, by King Louis’ own tailor, and cinched in at the waist to accentuate his muscular figure. It lay permanently open to reveal a black leather waistcoat beneath, beneath which he wore a frilled shirt of pure white – clean every day and doused in lavender water. A pair of full-cut red breeches tucked into turned-down riding boots completed the dandified ensemble. Across his shoulder Trouin wore the yellow sash of a French naval commander. His long fair hair was scraped back and tied with a ribbon of gold silk. Over it, he wore a black tricorne trimmed with gold lace and in his left ear a tiny ring of twenty-two-carat gold. The only flaw in Trouin’s appearance was the puckered line of a scar which ran from just above his left eye down to his chin. But as a relic of his most infamous fight, this added more to his dashing appearance than it took away. At his side hung a sword. He had taken it from an English naval officer three years ago in a bloody engagement off Leghorn. It was of Italian manufacture and perfectly balanced. In his broad belt he had tucked a pair of pistols which he kept permanently loaded. Brass barrelled and mounted, they bore his name engraved on the trigger guard. It was a name to be reckoned with.
At thirty-three Trouin was enjoying a reputation as the scourge of the high se
as and he wanted to look the part. And there could be no doubt, he did look every inch the gentleman pirate. At the moment though he preferred to affect the term ‘privateer’. It had a ring of legality to it, and in the present climate, as he had recently discovered, the notion that war should be fought by legal means meant much to his friends in the French administration who were happy to retain him on their payroll.
The war had been good to Trouin, and he knew it. Perhaps it was not as instantly lucrative as pirating; but with all that he did sanctioned from Paris, everything had become so much the easier. For the last four years Ostend had been his home; if someone like Trouin could ever truly consider one place home. But there was no doubt that he felt at home here.
His ships, his flagship the Bellone and the smaller Railleuse, boasting sixty and forty guns apiece, lay at anchor in the safety of the harbour and he too was as safe as the royal signature on his commission from the navy. French by birth, born into a family shipping business in St Malo, Trouin had joined the French navy at sixteen. But with no notion of any real allegiance to any one other than himself, he had quickly taken to the more lucrative trade of piracy. Fortunately for Trouin, in 1689 war had broken out with England and within weeks he had found himself much in favour with his former comrades in the navy. Clearly, he had backed the right side. For King Louis’ navy was now reckoned the most powerful in the world. The English, it was true, had taken measures to match its size. But as yet there was nothing to beat the French in a fair fight at sea. Or an unfair one – which was where he came in.
By the age of twenty he had his own command, a forty-gunner. Hadn’t he single-handedly captured five English ships with her? His fame grew by the year. He could number ten men-of-war among his prizes to date and some two hundred merchant vessels. He made it his business to seek out English ships in particular. He nurtured a hatred of the English. He had been a prisoner in Plymouth ten years ago, three long months in a filthy hole of a prison where the brown rats had run free in the excrement and typhus had carried off more of his fellow inmates than the executioner. Of course he had escaped, Trouin always escaped. He had bribed a guard – the English were always open to bribery – and stolen a ketch. The English still had a warrant out for his arrest for piracy. But he had spent the last eighteen years cheating the hangman. Why change the habit of a lifetime?
Trouin pushed himself back in the stout wooden chair at the table which they were careful always to keep reserved for him in this tavern – L’Etoile du Nord – which passed for his headquarters and squeezed his broad hand a little harder around the waist of the pretty Belgian girl perched upon his knee. Not too hard. Just enough to hurt her a little and to remind her not to flirt with the crewman who was sitting over on his right and leering at her cleavage. She let out a little squeal and smiled at Trouin. What was her name? He had no idea. What did it matter anyway? All the women in the inn, tarts and whores, belonged to him one way or another, and he’d had most of them. Indeed all the women in the town could be his, he was sure, in whatever way he chose, if he had a mind to take them. He pulled the girl towards him and to her surprise, kissed her hard on the mouth, then squeezed her breast, grabbed her around the waist with both hands and placed her upon her feet on the floor.
‘More wine, girl. Fetch more wine. Wine for everyone tonight. Wine for all my men. Beer if they want it. Keyt-beer. Understand? As much as they can drink. Get on.’
The girl hurried away and Trouin stood up. He was surprisingly tall, for his long legs were somewhat out of proportion to the length of his torso. In a swordfight though this could carry a distinct advantage, allowing him to outreach and outstep his bewildered opponent. He looked around the inn, peering through the fug of pipesmoke at the men who made up his command. They were a good enough company. Two crews, nigh on four hundred and fifty men all told and as typical a mix of nationalities as you could expect to find on any privateer. Mostly French and Belgians – no Dutch, of course. A few brace of Germans and a few more from Sweden and Denmark, surly, silent Vikings. By contrast there were the blackamoors. A round four score of them, mainly French Creoles who fought with him to maintain their liberty. And then there were the English. They were deserters mostly from the British navy or from the very army that was now outside these walls. He found that English soldiers made the best sailors and was always ready to welcome them in. Besides, it gave him a certain frisson to turn his old enemies and they were only too willing to do anything that would save them from return to a certain death on the gallows and only too thankful to have escaped service in an army which ran itself by the lash and made you stand in line when the shot came flying.
He saw some of them before him now, in various stages of drunkenness and debauchery. The room stank of their sweat, mingled with the discernible odours of wine, rum and cooking food. Tobacco smoke hung thick in the air and on one wall a small boy sat turning the handle of a spit on which, over an open fire, a sheep was cooking. The place sang with noise: laughing, shouting, cries for more wine and the giggling of the flirting, half-naked strumpets who constituted the female element of Trouin’s nautical family. In one corner a blind Irish fiddler was playing what passed for a jig and several drunken sailors and their harlots were skipping and dancing to the music which was all but drowned out by the general hubbub.
Trouin looked at them all, filled with pride. This was his world, these people his own. Loyal to a man – well, almost. At least for as long as he kept them fed and watered and led them on to greater riches – or the promised dream of wealth. Slowly, he walked through to the other room of the inn, followed from the shadows by an immense figure of a man, his skin pitch-black, who was his ever-present bodyguard. Trouin had rescued him from slavery in the Bahamas eight years ago, though not before he had had his tongue cut out as a punishment for attempting to escape from his English master. He could neither read nor write and Trouin, proud of his classical education and a devotee of Homer, had christened him Ajax, after the Greek hero and strongman. He was the best protector that Trouin could wish for and his name was doubly appropriate, for if ever his master was in danger, he would, like his namesake, go mad with rage and fight with the strength of ten. Inseparable from his saviour and as loyal as an old dog, he carried in his right hand, tucked in close to his huge chest, an immense blackthorn stick and anyone foolish enough to appear to threaten Trouin would quickly know its wrath. At his side hung a razor-sharp scimitar of Arab design with a mother-of-pearl grip, plundered from a Turkish merchantman. In fact Ajax rarely drew the sword. For when he did he swung it with such assurance and faster than many slimmer blades that it never returned to its scabbard without first tasting blood. The two men, master and servant, made their way through the inn, and as they passed any in their path were quick to move aside.
While most of the inn was alive with conversation, at one table no one was speaking and the only sounds came from a bodhran and a penny whistle, played by two of the sailors which provided the music for the entertainment that currently held twenty pairs of eyes in its spell. Atop a round table that had been cleared of glasses and plates, a pretty, dark-skinned girl was spinning round above a broad glistening silver serving plate which was now transformed into a mirror, afforded titillating glimpses of her cleverly exposed sex. The pirates gawped and cheered and threw their coins – crowns bearing the head of the Sun King, English guineas and pieces of eight – onto the table. The girl kept a careful watch, and as the pile of silver and gold grew began to look to a man to her right, a huge fellow with massively muscled arms and a shining bald pate. Every so often he would nod his head and she would remove another garment. Her pimp knew just when to stop, just when she would have offered enough to titillate, to encourage just one of the men around the table to follow her up to one of the filthy bedchambers; he would leave lighter of purse and with the prospect of an unpleasant, agonizing dose of the pox and she would leave some few crowns the richer. Trouin knew too that there were other mirrors upstairs, cleverly placed so t
hat those who had a mind to could observe the girls at their sport and gain as much pleasure in seeing as doing. At times he himself had enjoyed such harmless voyeurism.
This evening though, he was not in a mind to frolic. This was not an evening for sex or for killing, but for sport. He signalled to the girl’s pimp who snapped his fingers. Instantly the dancer stopped her twirling and bent down to collect her clothes from the table. There was a collective sigh from the men gathered around her, for she was now clad only in the thinnest of gossamer scarves around her ample breasts and another tied across her thighs. But Trouin wanted to play and he was not to be deflected. As the girl and her pimp found their quarry for the evening, one of the younger sailors who had not encountered them before, Trouin fired a parting word at their customer.
‘Be careful of her, Thomas. She’s as common as a barber’s chair, that one. No sooner is one customer out than another’s in.’ The other men laughed. He addressed the company: ‘Cards, gentlemen. Let us play. Who will take me on?’
The men began to back away. Trouin’s reputation went before him. Had he not killed a man in St Malo in a duel over a card game? And then there had been that incident in the Carolinas when he had lost 200 louis and over the next three days every member of the card school had been murdered – save for Trouin. No one was quite sure who had been cheating, but no one dared question the outcome.
Trouin addressed the room. ‘Come now. What is it to be? Perhaps a game of basset? Or ombre? Come, Soucrouff? You there, Evans, Barty. What about you, Dick Hughes? Whose game for a hand? Bring the deck. Come, join me in the academy, gentlemen.’
