'Alert Captain Owen of the movement in the Road!' He saw Dennis wave and the jib of Constitution was held aback as she spun on her heel and lay over again on a broad reach to the west where Owen in the Immortalité was at anchor with the frigate Leda. Owen was locally the senior officer of Keith's 'Boulogne division' and it was incumbent upon Drinkwater to let him know of any unusual movements of the French that might be taken advantage of.
'Well, gentlemen, let's slip the hounds off the leash. Mr Frey, make to Harpy, Bloodhound and Archer Number Sixteen: "Engage the enemy more closely".' The 18-gun sloop and the two little gun-brigs were a mile or so to the eastward and eager for such a signal. Within minutes they were freeing off and running towards the dark cluster of French bateaux above which the shapes of sails were being hoisted.
'Mr Hill, a man in the chains with a lead. Beat to quarters and clear for action, Mr Rogers.' He stood beside the helmsmen. 'Up helm. Lee forebrace there…'
Antigone eased round to starboard under her topsails and began to bear down on the French coast. The sun was already westering in a bloody riot of purple cloud and great orange streaks of mare's tails presaging more wind on the morrow. Antigone stood on, coming within clear visual range of the activity in the anchorage.
'Forty-four, forty-five brigs and—what've you got on that slate, Frey?—forty-three luggers, sir,' reported Quilhampton, who had been diligently counting the enemy vessels as the sun broke briefly through the cloud and shot rays of almost horizontal light over the sea, foreshortening distances and rendering everything suddenly clear. Then it sank from view and left the silhouettes of the Immortalité and Leda on the horizon, coming in from the west.
The small ships were close inshore, the flashes from their guns growing brighter as daylight diminished and the tide turned. Owen made the signal for withdrawal and the Antigone, in company with the Harpy, Bloodhound and Archer, drew off for the night and rode out the rising gale at anchor three leagues offshore.
At daylight on the following day, 20th July, Drinkwater was awoken by Midshipman Dutfield. 'Beg pardon, sir, but Mr Fraser's compliments, sir, and would you come on deck.'
Drinkwater emerged into the thin light of early morning. The north-north-westerly wind was blowing with gale force. The Channel waves were steep, sharp and vicious and Antigone rode uncomfortably to her anchor. The flood tide was just away and the frigate lay across wind and tide, rolling awkwardly. But it was not this circumstance that the new lieutenant wished to draw to Drinkwater's attention.
'There, sir,' he pointed, 'just beyond the low-water mark, lines of fascines to form a rough wall with artillery… see!' Fraser broke off his description as the French gave evidence of their purpose. The flash of cannon from the low-water mark was aimed at the gun-brigs anchored inshore. Out of range of the batteries along the cliffs, they were extremely vulnerable to shot from a half-mile nearer. The French, as if demonstrating their ingenious energy, had made temporary batteries on the dry sands and could withdraw their guns as the tide made. What was more, shot fired on a flat trajectory so near the surface of the sea could skip like stones upon a pond. They'd smash a gun-brig with ease and might, with luck, range out much further.
'It's bluidy clever, sir.'
'Aye, Mr Fraser… but why today?' Drinkwater adjusted his glass and immediately had his answer. At the hour at which it was normal to see lines of infantry answering the morning roll-call he was aware of something very different about the appearance of the French camps. Dark snakes wound their way down towards the dip in the hills where the roofs and belfries of Boulogne indicated the port.
'By heaven, Mr Eraser, they're embarking!'
'In this weather, sir?'
'Wind or not, they're damned well on the move…' The two officers watched for some minutes in astonishment. 'There are a lot less bateaux in the anchorage this morning,' Drinkwater observed.
'Happen they've hauled them inshore to embark troops.'
'That must have been a ticklish business in this wind with a sea running.'
'Aye.'
As the tide made, Owen ordered his tiny squadron under weigh and once again Antigone closed the coast. By now the batteries along the tideline had been withdrawn and there was sufficient water over the shoals for the bigger frigates to move in after the sloops and gun-brigs.
At noon Antigone came within range of the batteries and Drinkwater opened fire. After the weeks of aimless cruising, the stench of powder and the trembling of the decks beneath the recoiling carriages was music in the ears of Antigone's crew.
Their insolence was met by a storm of fire from the shore; it seemed that everywhere the ground was level the French had cannon. The practical necessity of having to tack offshore in the northerly wind allowed them to draw breath and inspect the ship for damage. There was little enough. A few holes in the sails and a bruised topgallant mast. Astern of them the gun-brigs and sloops were snapping around the two or three luggers that were trying to work offshore. The flood tide swept them northwards and, off Ambleteuse, Drinkwater gave orders to wear ship.
'Brace in the spanker there! Brace in the after-yards! Up helm!' The after-canvas lost its power to drive the frigate as Drinkwater turned her south.
'Square the headyards! Steady… steady as she goes!'
'Steady as she goes, sir.'
'Square the after-yards!'
Antigone steadied on her new course, standing south under her three topsails, running before the wind inside the shoals and parallel with the coast. It wanted an hour before high water but here the tide ran north for several hours yet and they could balance wind and tide, checking the ship's southward progress against the tide, and thus wreak as much havoc as they possibly could while the smoke from their own guns hung over their deck masking them from the enemy. The motion of the deck eased considerably.
'Mr Rogers! Shift over the starbowlines to assist at the larboard batteries. Every gun-captain to choose his target and fire as at a mark, make due allowance for elevation and roll. You may open fire!'
Drinkwater stared out to larboard. They were a mile from the cliffs at Raventhun and suddenly spouts of water rose on their beam. Drinkwater levelled his glass.
'Mr Gillespy!'
'Sir?'
'D'you see that square shape over there, where the ground falls away?'
The boy nodded. 'Yes, sir.'
'That's Ambleteuse fort. Be so kind as to point it out to Mr Rogers so that he may direct the guns.'
The little estuary that formed the harbour opened up on their beam as Antigone exchanged shot with the fort. Within the harbour they could see quite clearly a mass of rafted barges crammed with soldiers, rocking dangerously as the sharp waves drove in amongst them.
A shower of splinters sprouted abruptly from the rail where a ball struck home and more holes appeared in the topsails. Amidships the launch was hit by three shot within as many minutes and then they were passing out of range of the fort's embrasures. Rogers was leaping up and down from gun to gun, exhorting his men and swearing viciously at them when their aim failed. As the land rose again a battery of horse artillery could be seen dashing at the gallop along the cliff. Suddenly Drinkwater saw the officer leading the troop fling up his hand and the gunners rein in their horses.
'Mr Rogers! See there!' Rogers narrowed his eyes and stared through the smoke that cleared slowly in the following wind. Then comprehension struck him and he leant over the nearest gun and aimed it personally. The Frenchmen had got their cannon unlimbered and were slewing them round. They were shining brass cannon, field pieces of 8- or 9-pound calibre, Drinkwater estimated, and they were ready loaded. He saw white smoke flash from an almost simultaneous volley from the five guns and a second later the shot whistled overhead, carrying off the starboard quarter-boat davits and dumping the boat in the sea alongside, where it trailed in its falls amongst the broken baulks of timber.
Amidships Rogers was howling with rage as his broadside struck flints and chunks of chalk from the cliff
a few feet below the edge. But his next shots landed among the artillerymen and they had the satisfaction of seeing the battery limbered up amid frantic cheers from the gunners amidships.
'We're too close inshore, sir. Bottom's shoaling.' Drinkwater turned to the ever-dutiful Hill who, while this fairground game was in progress, attended to the navigation of the ship.
'Bring her a point to starboard then.'
They were abeam of Wimereux now. Here too, there was a fort on the rocks at the water's edge, and below the fort two of the French invasion craft were stranded and going to pieces under the white of breakers. Drinkwater was suddenly aware that the cloud of powder smoke that rolled slowly ahead of the ship was obscuring his view. 'Cease fire! Cease fire!'
The smoke cleared with maddening slowness, but gradually it seemed to lift aside like a theatrical gauze, revealing a sight of confusion such as their own cannon could not achieve. They were less than two miles from Boulogne now, and under the cliffs and along the breakwaters of the harbour more than a dozen of the invasion barges lay wrecked with the sea breaking over them. Their shattered masts had fallen over their sides and men could be seen in the water around them.
They had a brief glimpse into the harbour as they crossed the entrance, a brief glimpse of chaos. It seemed as though soldiers were everywhere, moving like ants across the landscape. Yet, as Antigone crossed the narrow opening the guns of Boulogne were briefly silent, their servers witnesses of the drowning of over a thousand of their comrades. In this hiatus Antigone passed by, her own men standing at their guns, staring at the waves breaking viciously over rocking and overloaded craft, at men catching their balance, falling and drowning.
'I think there's the reason for the activity, sir,' said Fraser pointing above the town. 'I'll wager that's the Emperor himself.'
Drinkwater swung his glass and levelled it where Fraser pointed. Into the circle of the lens came an unforgettable image of a man in a grey coat, sitting on a white horse and wearing a large black tricorne hat. The man had a glass to his eye and was staring directly at the British frigate as it swept past him. As he lowered his own glass, Drinkwater could just make out the blur of Napoleon's face turning to one of his suite behind him.
'Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor o' the French,' muttered Fraser beside him. 'He looks a wee bit like Don Quixote… Don Quixote de la Manche…'
Fraser's pun was lost in the roar of the batteries of Boulogne as they reopened their fire upon the insolent British frigate. Shot screamed all round them. Hill was demanding they haul further offshore and Rogers was asking for permission to re-engage. He nodded at both officers.
'Very well, gentlemen, if you would be so kind.' He turned for a final look at the man on the white horse, but he had vanished, obscured by the glittering train of his staff as they galloped away. 'The gale has done our work for us,' he muttered to himself, 'for the time being.'
Chapter Eight
Stalemate
July-August 1804
'Will you damned lubbers put your backs into it and pull,'
Midshipman Lord Walmsley surveyed the launch's crew with amiable contempt and waved a scented handkerchief under his nose. He stood in the stern sheets of the big boat in breeches and shirt, trying to combat the airless heat of the day and urge his oarsmen to more strenuous efforts. Out on either beam Midshipmen Dutfield and Wickham each had one of the quarterboats and all three were tethered to the Antigone. At the ends of their towropes the boats slewed and splashed, each oarsman dipping his oar into the ripples of his last stroke, so that their efforts seemed utterly pointless. The enemy lugger after which they were struggling lay on the distant horizon.
Walmsley regarded his companion with a superior amusement. Sitting with his little hand on the big tiller was Gillespy, supposedly under Walmsley's tutoring and utterly unable to exhort the men.
'It is essential, Gillespy, to encourage greater effort from these fellows,' his lordship lectured, indicating the sun-burnt faces that puffed and grunted, two to a thwart along the length of the launch. 'You can't do it by squeaking at 'em and you can't do it by asking them. You have to bellow at the damned knaves. Call 'em poxy laggards, lazy land-lubbing scum; then they get so God-damned angry that they pull those bloody oar looms harder. Don't you see? Eh?'
'Yes… my Lord,' replied the unfortunate Gillespy who was quite under Walmsley's thumb, isolated as he was in the launch.
The lesson in leadership was greeted with a few weary grins from the men at the oars, but few liked Mr Walmsley and those that were not utterly uncaring from the monotony of their task and being constantly abused by the senior midshipman of their division, resented his arrogance. Of all the men in the boat there was one upon whom Walmsley's arrogant sarcasm acted like a spark upon powder.
At stroke oar William Waller laboured as an able seaman. A year earlier he had been master of the Greenland whale-ship Conqueror, a member of the Trinity House of Kingston-upon-Hull and engaged in a profitable trade in whale-oil, whale-bone and the smuggling of furs from Greenland to France where they were used to embellish the gaudy uniforms of the soldiers they had so recently been cannonading upon the cliffs of Boulogne. It had been this illicit trade that had reduced him to his present circumstances. He had been caught red-handed engaged in a treasonable trade with a French outpost on the coast of Greenland by Captain Nathaniel Drinkwater.
Although well aware that he could have been hanged for what he had done, Waller was a weak and cunning character. That he had escaped with his life due to Drinkwater's clemency had at first seemed fortunate, but as time passed his present humiliations contrasted unfavourably with his former status. His guilt began to diminish in his own eyes as he transferred responsibility for it to his partner who had been architect of the scheme and had died for it. The greater blame lay with the dead man and Waller was, in his own mind, increasingly a victim of regrettable circumstances. When he had been turned among them, many of Melusine's hands had been aware of his activities. They had shunned him and despised him, but Waller had held his peace and survived, being a first-rate seaman. But he had kept his own counsel, a loner among the gregarious seamen of his mess, and long silences had made him morose, driven him to despair at times. He had been saved by the transfer to the Antigone and a bigger ship's company. Among the pressed and drafted men who had increased the size of the ship's company to form the complement of a frigate, there had been those who knew nothing of his past. He had taught a few ignorant landsmen the rudiments of seamanship and there were those among the frigate's company that called him friend. He had drawn renewed confidence from this change in his circumstances. He let it be known among his new companions that he was well-acquainted with the business of navigation and that many of Antigone's junior officers were wholly without knowledge of their trade. In particular Lord Walmsley's studied contempt for the men combined with his rank and ignorance to make him an object of the most acute detestation to Waller.
On this particular morning, as Waller hauled wearily at the heavy loom of the stroke oar, his hatred of Walmsley reached its crisis. He muttered under his breath loudly enough for Walmsley and Gillespy to hear.
'Did you say something, Waller?'
Waller watched the blade of his oar swing forward, ignoring his lordship's question.
'I asked you what you said, Waller, damn you!'
Waller continued to pull steadily, gazing vaguely at the horizon.
'He didn't say nothing, sir,' the man occupying the same thwart said.
'I didn't ask you,' snapped Walmsley, fixing his eyes on Waller. 'This lubber, Mr Gillespy, needs watching. He was formerly the skipper of a damned whale-boat…' Walmsley laid a disparaging emphasis on the two words, 'a bloody merchant master who thought he could defy the King. And now God damn him he thinks he can defy you and I…'
Waller stopped rowing. The man behind him bumped into his stationary back and there was confusion in the boat.
'Give way, damn you!' Walmsley ordered, his voice low. Besid
e him little Gillespy was trembling. The oarsmen stopped rowing and the launch lost way.
'Go to the devil, you poxed young whoreson!' Waller snarled through clenched teeth. A murmur of approval at Waller's defiance ran through the boat's crew.
'Why you God-damn bastard!' Walmsley shoved Gillespy aside and pulled the heavy tiller from the rudder stock. In a single swipe he brought the piece of ash crashing into the side of Waller's skull, knocking him senseless, his grip on the oar-loom weakened and it swept up and struck him under the chin as he slumped into the bottom of the boat.
The expression on the faces of the launch's crew were of disbelief. Astern of them the towline drooped slackly in the water.
Drinkwater sat in the cool of his cabin re-reading a letter he had recently received from his wife Elizabeth, to see if he had covered all the points raised in it in his reply. The isolation of command had made the writing of his private journal and the committing of his thoughts to his letters an important and pleasurable part of his daily routine. Cruising so close to the English coast meant that Keith's ships were in regular contact with home via the admiral's dispatch-vessels. In addition to fresh vegetables and mail, these fast craft kept the frigates well supplied with newspapers and gossip. The hired cutter Admiral Mitchell had made such a delivery the day before.
He laid the letter down and picked up the new steel pen Elizabeth had sent him, dipping it experimentally in the ink-pot and regarding its rigid nib with suspicion. He pulled the half-filled sheet of paper towards him and resumed writing, not liking the awkward scratch and splatter of the nib compared with his goose-quill, but aware that he would be expected to reply using the new-fangled gift.
Our presence in the Channel keeps Boney and his troops in their camps. Last week he held a review, lining his men up so that they presented an appearance several miles long…
He paused, not wishing to alarm Elizabeth, though from her letters he knew of the arrangements each parish was making to raise an invasion alarm and call out the militia and yeomanry.
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