“Aye, aye, Sir,” he said, lifting his silver whistle.
There was an unfinished matter left from shore. Six marines had been detained by the port’s guard for ‘creating a great public nuisance’ in The Ship, one of the pubs in St. John’s. Drinking heavily on their last day in port, they took offense to remarks by home guardsmen and incited a general brawl. The offence was made worse by causing their brawl on the same afternoon as Lt. Lawry’s funeral.
All hands not in the rigging or at some duty shuffled to some perch that provided them a view. The redcoats formed their sparse line across the forward quarterdeck rail. Officers, with the midshipmen formed up behind the captain, stood in their best. As usual, Tripp somehow looked as though he had just purchased a new uniform.
“Have you anything to say for yourselves?” asked the captain. One Private Hughes dared to step forward.
“We was defending the honor of the ship, we was, Sir. They accused us of buggery,” he said. His statement was followed by several grunts of agreement from the others.
“You chose a poor time for it. Do their officers have anything to add on their behalf?”
Lt. McLay, not able to hide his embarrassment for having so many of his men standing before the captain, looked a brighter red than his uniform. He stepped forward, holding his hat beneath his arm, and said in a scratchy voice, “No, Sir.”
“Six lashes each,” ordered Troubridge with no indication of his feelings on the subject.
There were a few coughs and a general visible squirming amongst the seamen, who also had never seen so many marines together in this situation, but they were very careful not to give any sign of amusement.
Stripped of their shirts, the marines were all triced up to the main rigging by Mr. Tillman’s mates, two to a side, and to grates at the aft end of the waist.
“Mr. Baxter, do your duty, and be quick about it,” giving a very slight indication, between the number of lashes and the comment about ‘quick’, that Baxter could make a good show without exerting his full force. The lashes were given, with the reaction from the marines everything from screeches to stony silence. A sluicing with icy saltwater ended it. Two had to be carried below.
“Pipe the hands to dinner, Lieutenant Froste,” were the captain’s parting words.
“Miserable business, flogging, is my opinion,” offered Neville to the midshipmen gathered on the poop at noon.
“That’s how you keep the buggers in line,” rebuked Colson with a surprisingly haughty look.
Overhearing it, Lt. Tripp added quietly, “Not a good omen, though, having to start with punishment, after the happy barky we’ve had. This will seem a long passage, indeed, I’m afraid.
By morning, they were well out to sea. The weather held cold and the wind fair. The clouds were high and non-threatening. Sufficient breeze had come to drive them on, but the captain was already complaining about the merchants’ slow pace. “Now look, there. Only two days and an ‘undred miles into our two thousand and that fat arse Sesame is sagging off to loo’rd again.” He pointed to one of the full-rigged ships in the convoy, a dark, wide ship, low in the water, with three stubby masts and patchy sails. “You would think they would understand that they are the ones in danger and try harder to keep together with us. If we get a squall, it’s going to take us forever to gather them up again. Send her another signal to keep station, Mr. Burton, before Commodore Wallace hoists our number.”
“We are confounded by the slowest ship in the fleet, aren’t we, Mr. Burton?” queried Lt. Tripp rhetorically. “In a convoy, there is always a number that have difficulty sailing where they should, whether because of some deficiency in the ship or her crew, or simple inattention on the part of her officers. That lumbering, cod-carrying Sesame seems to be ours. Even the smaller ships – those brigs and ketches and American schooners – look as if they will have no trouble keeping up, as long as the weather does not become extreme. It seems their maneuverability does not hinder them from keeping station, either.”
“I never inquired, Sir; what do they carry?”
“Dried fish and farm products, mostly. There’s the rum and molasses from Jamaica, and tobacco from the Carolinas, of course. Some – probably those sleek schooners – carry luxuries such as beaver and seal pelts; large fortunes in small ships.”
Tripp returned to his subject. “Those American schooners are quite something, aren’t they – as big as they are and all fore-and-aft rigged.”
“Aye, they are.”
“You must pardon my grousing. I find it simply annoying that the faster ships, like us, have to sail with one sail or another partially furled in order to keep station – to slow down – when we have so far to go. I am just complaining, I know. It is our duty, and I suppose there is no other way.
“Captain’s compliments, Sir, and he asks if you would please stop in to his cabin,” said a passing seaman.
“Later, then, Mr. Burton.”
Life aboard ship became routine: priddy the decks, hammocks up, breakfast, clean below decks, exercise the great guns or work the sails, dinner and grog, afternoon ease, supper and grog, beat to quarters, hammocks down, and lights out. All the while, the wind whispered through the rigging – so constant that it was no longer noticed by anyone aboard. Neither were the pumps noticed, and they ran much of the daylight hours.
One make-and-mend day was suspended when rusty shot was discovered during gun practice.
“Lieutenant Tripp, have your off-watch rouse up shot,” Troubridge continued. “The worst of it, not the clean stuff, and have them chip it round like their lives depend on it; and be sure to tell them that it does. We should expect to see the enemy before we arrive home and, when we do, they will not say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.”
“Let us say twenty shot per cannon, at least,” ordered Lt. Froste. “Have our one-legged friend in the galley dish out some slush to coat the balls before they go back in the lockers.”
For hours on end, the ship sounded much like a tinker’s shop. The air was filled with the noise of metal striking metal, and the officers patrolled the crews searching for slackers and shoddy work.
The ship sailed on, creaking in acknowledgement with each passing wave, hour after hour, day after short day, and night after long night.
“It’s been cold and colder, Mr. O’Hanlan, but we’ve been lucky that the weather has held fair, ain’t that so?” Goode said to him. Neville and Colson crossed the quarterdeck to join the chat.
“Will we see icebergs, Mr. Goode?” queried O’Hanlan. Neville was glad to see there was no gibe from Colson, despite the sour look on his face.
“I’ve only been this way once before, Mr. O’Hanlan,” replied Goode. “That was in the early summer, and we did, indeed, see icebergs then. Not large ones, I was led to understand, but they were the size of a proper nobleman’s country house. That part you see is the small bit. The bigger end is below the sea, they say. Bright blue, they were, like a piece of the sky. I doubt we’ll see ‘em now, though. I’m told they break off the ice cap in late spring and summer. It’s all frozen together quite well this time of year, you see?”
“So, you see it, then, gentlemen?” quizzed Froste as he walked up to the group.
“Sir?” returned Neville.
“It’s early yet, but the moon is up, as you see,” explained Froste. “We’ll see a moon-dog tonight, I’ll wager. Worse weather coming. It’s not unexpected this time of year. Count the stars tonight. They’ll tell us how soon.”
“Maybe it was being thumped on the head that last time, Daniel, but I get the worst headaches in weather like this,” said Neville.
“The cold does get to you, I know. I feel it, too.”
“Not the cold, Daniel, although I don’t like that, either. It’s the noise of the rigging. The wind has been strumming it all like a bass fiddle these last three days. The noise comes down the stays and through the chains and it rumbles the hull, Daniel. You don’t hear it?”
“W
ell, I do, yeah, but I guess it just don’t give me a headache. We can’t get good noon sights, either, because we can’t see the sun in this overcast, so what’s giving me a headache is listening to Graesson grumble about it.”
“Remind me to avoid the North Atlantic in the future, Daniel. The wind pushes the cold through my bones. Twice we’ve had rain that froze on everything it touched, and today we have snow falling. If we’re still in the great stream from the Caribbean, it has lost its warmth.”
Days of squalls continued, with manropes fitted and decks sanded. The squalls alternated with days of reasonably fair weather; well enough to be able to open the ports to exercise the great guns and to take their noon sights. Practice reefing and shaking out the topsails or topgallants was not necessary, as they were repeating that process to near exhaustion in the daily sailing of the vessel.
“Fair progress, Sir,” opined Lt. Froste as he reported the agreed position one noontime in early May. “The South of Ireland should rise in two days if this holds.”
Following a hoot from the lookout, and a minute with his eye to the glass, Neville reported, “Signal, Sir, from Monarch.” Across five feet of quarterdeck, he added, “Our number, but I can’t read it yet,” to Lt. Froste.
“Lend me your glass, if you please, Mr. Burton. I would enjoy a moment away from this monotony.” Taking it, Lt. Froste steadied it on the mainmast bitts and looked aft. Castor was in her customary station ahead and to the north of the fleet. It took a few minutes, since the seas were high – maybe twelve feet – with spray flying every few minutes. When he handed it back, he said, “Hoist ‘Acknowledge’. We are to fetch Sesame. Look, she’s halfway back the convoy and at least half a league south of her assigned station – worse than usual. She appears to have no jib up at all but, from what I can see, she has no spars carried away. Perhaps only torn sails? Mr. Graesson, there, pass word for Mr. Tillman and prepare to beat back. Send my compliments to the captain and request orders to alter course.”
Captain Troubridge appeared on the quarterdeck for only a few minutes after receiving Froste’s report and request, and then looked toward the flagship and back to the Sesame, muttered something to Froste, and disappeared back below.
Froste passed his order to Mr. Graesson: “Helm down. Take her into the wind.” Castor turned to beat her way back southward through the fleet to Sesame. With her bluff bows shouldering waves aside, she labored hard. At four bells of the afternoon watch, she hove to on Sesame’s course in the middle of the first dog watch, finally able to enjoy some quiet.
“We won’t have much time before dark, Sir,” said Lt. Froste to Captain Troubridge, waiting on the quarterdeck for an opportunity to speak Sesame. “She has signaled ‘All’s well’.”
“No time, I should think. She is still a league off. Most of an hour away, and the sun already sunk. Damn these high latitudes. Signal him to follow and keep a good stern light tonight. Set the course nor’east back into the convoy. Be sure we have a lookout in every top at dawn, as well. If ever there is a time we are to see enemy, it is approaching fast. We should see Ireland in a day more.”
“Aye, aye, Sir.”
Thursday morning dawned fair, cold, and clear, with wind and seas decreased. Troubridge was at the taffrail as the dim purple of dawn began to give form to the smudge aft that was the Sesame.
“Set her aback, Mr. Graesson.”
By full light, Sesame was alongside, a half cable to larboard, and the captains were on their trumpets: “Do you require assistance, Captain?” boomed Troubridge’s deep voice.
Even at this distance and over the steady wind, Captain Smollend’s accented voice carried an unexplained irritation: “It’s just a couple bloody torn sails. We can’t afford the spare canvas you navy buggers carry, and I don’t carry a full rigging shop aboard, neither. There was no need to come chasing back for me; the wind’s all fair for England, anyway. What do you care if I’m a few bloody miles off station?”
The masthead lookout interrupted at that moment, howling down, “Deck, there, signal!”
“Get up there, Mr. Burton, and get that as fast as you can.
“Lieutenant Froste, have these men nothing to do?” he yelled forward.
Neville swung to the larboard main shrouds and climbed quickly, his glass case slung across his back. It hung heavily about his neck as he inverted himself to surmount the futtock shrouds.
“Good morning, Aubrey,” he said cheerfully. He extracted the long brass tube from its scabbard. “Nice morning for a climb. Where away?”
“There, northwest, Sir. Relay by the ‘Westerly something’, Can’t see Monarch for’rd.”
“Ah, yes,” he replied, finding a seat on the yard where he could steady the big glass. In a moment, his head jolted back from the lens as if he had been slapped, yelling down, “Captain! Signal is ‘Enemy’, Sir.”
On the deck, Troubridge lifted the trumpet again and yelled angrily across at the Sesame: “Did you hear that, you sluggard? There’s your answer: enemy. And us here holding your hand. Get your fat arse in line if you don’t want to be the first one taken.”
He neither waited for nor received an answer; he turned to Graesson and fairly yelled in a purple rage, “Call all hands! Crack on – Nor’east. All she’ll carry. Leave this bastard behind. Tell Mr. Burton to hoist ‘Acknowledge’ when he comes down. Pass word for Lieutenant Froste to join me for breakfast in my cabin.”
Castor unfurled one sail after another, and she was soon logging twelve knots. Even without studdingsails, the yards strained and groaned. Sheets were bar-taught, and not a wrinkle showed in any sail. Castor worked her way forward into the center of the convoy. As she went, she flew signals for the convoy to close up, thereby asking the ships forward to spill wind and slow down, and the rearmost ships to put up everything they had to catch the rest.
“Signal from Monarch, Sir,” reported Neville to Lt. Froste. “Enemy to the south: seven sail.”
“What do you suppose, good doctor?” Mr. Goode asked of him following breakfast. They had taken to meeting on the foredeck when it was pleasant enough to drink the last of their pot of coffee and discuss the events of the day past or their plans for the present one.
“I must confess, I don’t know what to make of it. I have not served on a frigate before, only smaller ships, and we have never joined in battle on this one – only played at it, making all that noise and destroying those little targets – but I am afeared it may not go well. There are only the two of us with a goodly number of guns, and you have just heard they are seven. You can see the captain and all the lieutenants are anxious to get into it. No more sailing comfortably. Now we ‘clap on the braces’ and ‘crack on’ and ‘step lively’ and all … not a moment to lose, et cetera, et cetera … to go be shot at?”
“I, as well, am not so familiar with the activities of the frigate. I was on a seventy-four last and so much more comfortable. We used to watch the frigates dash off into the fray, but they would always hide behind us if a battle formed up. Not much chance of that today, I suspect. Let us go below for another pot. Thank the Good Lord for Newfoundland; we have plenty aboard. It’s quite cold today and, if we cannot even see the seven sail, then it must be some time before we are needed.”
It was not very long, however, before the enemy became visible.
“Hop up there, if you please, Mr. Burton, and tell us what you see,” said Lt. Tripp, currently Officer of the Watch. He and Captain Troubridge were pacing the quarterdeck together. Troubridge hadn’t left the quarterdeck, save for his breakfast, since before dawn. The lookout cried ‘Sail ho! – sou’east,’ which sent Neville scrambling up the ratlines with his glass again. Settling by Smythe in the maintop, and gaining a careful hold, he peered southeast across the vast ocean.
“There, Sir,” Smythe pointed. “A line of topsails stretched a great wide distance. They are still only small squares of white hiding in the waves, but their sails have a slight yellow tint that reflects the sun differentl
y than foams of seawater. They are not bunched like a convoy, either, Sir. One there. One there ….”
“They are expecting something, you think? Searching for something? Stretched as a net, through which we cannot sail without being seen?”
“This way they come, Sir,” Neville reported upon arriving at the foot of the main backstay. “Seven, it is. At least four are full-rigged ships, I’m sure. Southeast, Sir, from two to four points abaft the starboard bow, in a very long line.”
“Lieutenant Tripp,” said Troubridge, “if there are that many, then it will be unlikely we can save the entire convoy. Do you suppose they are waiting for us, or for others? Another convoy from America, perhaps? How could they know we were coming? Well, I suppose we shall never know. At best, we may be able to delay them and allow some of our convoy to escape. Best have the hands piped to dinner, Lieutenant Tripp.” English captains, as a rule, did not wish to go into battle without the men having been fed, and Troubridge did not know what the afternoon would bring.
“Is there a signal from Monarch, Mr. Burton?”
“I’ll go up again, Sir. There wasn’t before.”
“Signal, Sir. Delay,” he yelled down from the top only a few minutes later.
“So I suspected, Lieutenant Froste,” said Troubridge with a very grim face. “As soon as dinner is done, let us come down two points to starboard to engage them further from the convoy.”
“Engage them, Sir? Seven?”
“Engage may have been a strong word, then. Let us say ‘encourage them to chase us rather than the merchants,’”
By the end of dinner, the enemy’s courses were visible; there was an occasional glimpse of dark hull. They seemed to fill the horizon from one end to the other.
“Two have altered course east by nor’east to follow the Monarch, Sir, but the rest come on.”
The Glorious First Of June (Neville Burton: Worlds Apart Book 1) Page 14
