by Jay Worrall
A SEA UNTO ITSELF
A NOVEL OF THE NAPOLEONIC WARS.
BY
JAY WORRALL.
Fireship Press
www.fireshippress.com
A Sea Unto Itself by Jay Worrall
Copyright © 2013 Jay Worrall
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.
ISBN-13:978-1-61179-273-7: Paperback
ISBN 978-1-61179-274-4: ebook
BISAC Subject Headings:
FIC014000FICTION / Historical
FIC032000FICTION / War & Military
FIC047000 FICTION / Sea Stories
Cover Work: Christine Horner
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Fireship Press, LLC
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FOREWORD
The Long war between the United Kingdom and republican France entered its sixth year in 1799 with both sides finding reasons for optimism. January found the French in firm control of present day Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy (excluding Sicily). A large French army under the command of General Napoleon Bonaparte had recently established itself in Egypt, a strategically valuable country with extensive coastlines on both the Mediterranean and Red Seas. Communications and supply from Europe, however, were severed by Admiral Horatio Nelson's fleet, which had not only decimated the Republic's naval power in the Mediterranean at the Battle of the Nile the previous August, but also held Egypt's principal port at Alexandria under close blockade.
The United Kingdom, for the moment, reigned almost supreme on the high seas, while French armies remained dominant on the European continent. A so-called Second Coalition—made up of Britain, Russia, Austria, the Ottoman Empire, and others—was formed at the behest of, and heavily subsidized by, London. The wealth that made these subsidies possible came from England's widespread and vastly profitable trade, a large portion of which derived from her troubled colonies in India.
Direct invasion of the British Isles by France remained impossible. As an alternative, in 1798 the young General Bonaparte suggested to the Directory in Paris an expedition to the east "to drive the English from all their oriental possessions." It was this plan, subsequently adopted, which led to the invasion of Egypt. It also envisioned cutting a canal through the Isthmus of Suez and obtaining control of the Red Sea. This would make French military and commercial access to the subcontinent much more direct than England's, which required sailing around the southern tip of Africa and back up the other side; a journey of some six to nine months.
Assessment of this threat by Pitt's government in London ranged from sober consideration to a more generally held incredulity that any such effort could seriously be contemplated. In July, 1798, a small squadron consisting of a fifty-gun warship, two frigates, and a sloop of war under Rear Admiral John Blankett was dispatched by the Admiralty for the purpose of sealing the exit to the Red Sea and preventing any French passage to India. In January, 1799, the thirty-two gun frigate Cassandra, under the command of junior Captain Charles Edgemont, sailed from Chatham with orders to provide reinforcement and to assist in certain intelligence gathering services. Unknown to Captain Edgemont, who in any case had more immediate problems to overcome at the time, the responsibility for thwarting French ambitions would come to rest on his shoulders and his shoulders alone.
A NOTE ON MEASUREMENTS
AND VALUES
Money: It is not possible to directly equate the purchasing power of currency between the late 18th and early 21st centuries. It has been suggested, however, that the value of an English pound in 1790 might be multiplied by a factor of 70 or 80 to give an approximate equivalent for the year 2000. From pounds in 1790 to American dollars in the year 2000, the ratio might be 1:100–110. English pounds were divided into shillings, pennies and farthings: 20 shillings to a pound; 12 pennies to a shilling; 4 farthings to a penny. A full loaf of bread cost about 4 pence.
Distance: Units of measurement for distance at sea were not always standardized. The author has used:
1 league = 3 nautical miles = 5.6 kilometers.
1 nautical mile = 6076 feet (1.15 statute miles) = 1.9 kilometers.
1 cable length = about 200 yards (1/10 of a nautical mile) = 185 meters.
1 fathom = 6 feet (1/100 of a nautical mile) = 1.8 meters.
Time: Time on British naval ships was measured in watches and bells. The day officially began at noon and was divided into seven watches, five of four hours each and two of two hours:.
Afternoon:noon to 4pmMiddle:midnight to 4am.
1st Dog4pm to 6pmMorning:4am to 8am.
2nd Dog:6pm to 8pmForenoon: 8am to noon.
First:8pm to midnight.
The ship’s bell was rung in cumulative half-hour intervals during each watch so that three bells in the afternoon watch is 1:30 p.m. and four bells in the middle watch is 2:00 a.m.
CHAPTER ONE
5 January, 1799.
Liverpool, England.
“Look, here is Mary Elizabeth,” Mrs. Penelope Edgemont said to her husband. The two were strolling, arm in arm, along Liverpool’s harbor so that he could show her the seagoing traders tied up along the quay. A gust of cold wind blew across the waterfront, kicking up swirls of dust and debris and rattling the blocks in Mary Elizabeth's rigging. Gangs of roughly dressed workmen moved around them, loading cargos from carts and barrows onto the merchantmen to be transported abroad, or offloading the same to be put into warehouses. While Charles Edgemont had anticipated a flood of questions about the different types of craft and the intricacies of their masts and sail arrangements, Penny seemed more interested in the names they had been given.
“Yes, Mary Elizabeth,” he said dutifully, reading from the weather-beaten red lettering across her transom.
“We have also seen the Alice Harding, Diana, and Elizabeth Bea. Canst thou tell me, are all ships named for women?”
Charles searched for an answer that would please. “Many are, especially traders. They are away for such lengths of time that it reminds their crews of wives and loved ones at home.” There was more to it than this, but it would be too complicated to explain. Most seamen, from captains to ship’s boys, firmly believed that the name given their craft, and her fate, were inextricably linked. Women’s names were always comforting, conveying a sense of hearth and home. Discovery would be apt for a vessel on a voyage of exploration. For warships, Ajax would naturally be formidable in battle; Centaur, a terror to its enemies; Hero, Intrepid, and Victory spoke for themselves. A captain had a natural advantage with a command named like that.
Penny squeezed his arm more tightly against her side. She was covered in a gray woolen cloak fastened with buttons in front up to her chin. In her free arm she held an oblong package, carefully wrapped in oiled paper and bound with rope yarn. Her eyes glistened and her cheeks were reddened prettily from the cold. Silken strands of fawn-colored hair escaped from the edges of her bonnet, teased by the wind. Charles had decided on the cloak himself and given it to her as a present. He remembered ordering it from the finest (or at least the most expensive) tailor in Chester soon after he had returned shipless from the Mediterranean, his precious frigate Louisa—herself with a woman’s name—now charred and broken on the seabed in a bay off faraway Egypt. Penny had reprimanded him about the buttons for her cloak as an extravagance, but then wore it anyway and seemed pleased. The bulk of the mantle also concealed the fact, growing more obvious daily, that she was moderately advanced in her expectancy, the culmination of which event was
anticipated for the middle of March. The object she carried in her arm was a gift she had ordered for him in return from a shop specializing in nautical instruments. They had collected it earlier that morning: a beautifully made collapsing telescope with the finest hand-ground lenses from London in its own highly polished wooden case.
Charles and Penny had traveled to Liverpool in hopes of having a little time together before he was required to take up a new command waiting at the Royal Dockyard at Chatham. For the occasion he was dressed in civilian clothing, over which he wore an outer coat. He was without his sword, which as a gentleman and naval officer he was entitled to wear, but out of deference to his wife’s Quaker sensibilities had agreed not to. The absence of its familiar weight on his hip left him feeling vaguely naked.
“Tell me again,” she said, looking up at him. “What is the title of thy new boat?” This was a painful question for her, he knew. She seldom spoke about the necessity of his leaving again for the sea, and then only to address concerns about what clothing and other effects he should provide himself with.
“Cassandra,” he answered. He thought it a not particularly auspicious name for a thirty-two-gun frigate. At least it was feminine and derived from Greek mythology, which provided a little substance.
“Cassandra,” she repeated thoughtfully. “’Tis a pretty name. She hath the gift of prophesy, I recall, but no man shall heed her. I find it is oft so with men.”
Charles grinned. “No it isn't. I listen to you.”
“Thou dost not,” she answered. “Else thou wouldst remain at home.”
“Penny,” Charles began. “You know that I must . . .”
“Oh, stuff,” she said, then tilted her head to one side. “Shhh, listen.”
“Ye denizens of Liverpool,” a high-pitched voice sounded from across the square. “See what poor souls as suffer from yer iniquitous trade. Come forward and observe for yerselves the fruits of this ill-gotten, pernicious profit!” Charles looked to see a scruffy man in a threadbare coat and broad-brimmed hat mounting a box to address the passersby. Beside the speaker stood two black Africans in ill-fitting clothes, barely sufficient to preserve them from the chill. They were a man and a woman, and from the look of them seemed uncomfortable, whether from the climate or from being the objects of such scrutiny he could not tell.
“Gather ‘round,” the speaker shouted. “Cast yer eyes ‘pon these miserable wretches what have only newly escaped from the most cruel enslavement on American plantations, and what have only just regained their natural freedom that YE have aided to deprive them of.”
Charles knew himself to be no friend of slavery or slavers, but if the man wasn’t careful he would get his ears boxed for him, or worse. Liverpool was a port city notorious for its toughs and heavily invested in the transport of captured humanity to the Americas. There would be many in Liverpool who would not take kindly to his words. He glanced at Penny, her eyes on the speaker now risen to his full height on the crate. Charles knew from experience that his wife could become righteously indignant in her opposition to the institution of enslavement and even attended the meetings of a women’s committee in Chester dedicated to its abolition. It would be better if they moved along before some kind of trouble broke out.
“May we move closer?” Penny said, pulling on his arm. “I wish to listen.”
A crowd was already beginning to collect around the speaker. “I don’t think it such a good idea, my dear,” Charles said. “It would be better if we kept our distance.”
“Stuff and nonsense,” she replied. “He is making a testimony against slavery and we must display our support. Besides which, there are those wretched Negroes by him. Perhaps we can assist them in some way.”
Charles looked again at the reputed African slaves, or ex-slaves. They did indeed appear uncomfortable. Penny seemed to consider it her duty to intervene in the lives of everyone she came across who suffered from some inequity or another.
“Please,” she said. “This is England after all. Surely there can be no danger.”
Against his better judgment, Charles allowed himself to be led to the edge of the growing audience. He noted that it was mostly made up of the kinds of people one would expect along the waterfront: fish mongers, teamsters, a few shop clerks in their aprons, idle seamen, and other sorts of layabouts. Some were very rough looking indeed.
“The evil practice of slavery is the very antithesis of civilization itself.” The speaker gestured toward the sky with his finger. “It is abhorrent to the One True God for a man to enslave another. It is Satan’s own work to succor such trade in human flesh by transporting these poor souls from the comfort of their natural homes in Africa to harsh and penurious labors in the Americas.” He paused to add emphasis to his words. “The profits thus gained are the very wages of sin!”
Someone standing nearby yelled back, “Get ye down off that box, old bugger. Ye can bend over and I’ll show ye the wages of sin.” There was a good deal of laughter at this.
Penny turned to glare at the man who had called out. “I do wish he would not say such things,” she said primly. “Everyone knows that slavery is an evil practice.”
“Yes, my dear,” Charles said, his attention on the crowd. Still more people were emerging from the shops facing the square, and even off some of the long, sleek merchant ships moored farther up the wharf, to see what the fuss was about. Those ships, he knew at a glance, were termed ‘blackbirders,’ specially built for rapid transit of the Atlantic with highly perishable human cargos. He had crossed wakes with the foul-smelling transports on the high seas more than once.
The speaker seemed undeterred by the interruptions and continued his harangue on the errors of Liverpudlians’ ways. Charles’ focus turned to the two blacks standing by the man’s feet as if they were on exhibit. It must be difficult for them to be the subject of such hostile display. The male was large, heavily built, with skin as dark as ink. Charles wondered about him. He guessed that as a runaway slave he had experienced some frightening things in his life, perhaps more frightening than the crowd jeering sporadically at the speaker on the box. The man seemed to be surveying the assembled onlookers cautiously. For an instant their eyes met. Charles nodded reflexively in acknowledgement. The black tilted his head in return; his gaze moved on.
At that moment another man, a seaman by his appearance, shouldered his way past Penny and shouted through cupped hands, “Shut your fuckin’ gob, you nigger-lovin’ son of a whore, or there’s some of us that will shut it for you.”
The speaker on the box shouted ever louder over a rising chorus of derision. Penny, Charles saw with alarm, immediately turned to confront the offending seaman. “I will thank thee not to speak such rude and hateful things,” she said to him, clutching her package against her chest. “I think thou art not a loving Christian person.”
“Penny,” Charles said, trying to gain her attention before she went further. The burley, unshaven seaman scowled back at her. It was time to move his wife away before things got out of hand. The crowd had grown increasingly hostile and it wouldn’t take much to spark trouble.
“And I’ll thank you to tend to your own goddamned affairs, lady,” the man answered harshly. Charles could smell the waft of rum on his breath. He took his wife’s arm with the intention of leading her away.
Penny jerked herself free. “Thou art a rude, uncivil person,” she said with growing indignation to the seaman. “I do not abide that thou canst countenance this traffic in human flesh. It is a most despicable and hateful form of commerce and anathema to all Christians.” She looked to Charles for support.
“You will please mind your language in the presence of my wife,” Charles said firmly, more to appease Penny than to intimidate the seaman. He reached again for her arm. “We must leave now,” he said urgently.
The seaman glared back in response. Several people around them had switched their attention from the speaker to the more interesting confrontation between the seaman and the
young woman.
“I think thou a pernicious, ill-natured, uncouth, callous lout that doth prey on the misfortunes of others,” Penny continued, resisting the pressure on her arm, her voice rising.
Charles thought that these were probably the severest insults she knew. He doubted that the seaman comprehended the exact meaning of much of it, but he would get the drift. “Penny,” he said to regain his wife’s attention. He forcefully pulled her arm to turn her away.
“So she’s your Poll, is she, Jack,” the seaman sputtered, turning on Charles. “You should teach her to shut her gob.”
This was too much. ‘Poll’ was a term for a common dockside whore, although he doubted his wife would know this. “I will not have my wife addressed in such fashion,” he growled, taking a step toward the man.
“Go bugger yourself,” the seaman responded. He placed his hands on Charles’ chest and pushed.
Charles staggered backwards then, despite Penny’s pulling on his coat to restrain him, lunged forward and pushed back. “You will mind your manners when addressing me, cully,” he said menacingly, “or I’ll mind them for you.” He found the man surprisingly difficult to budge. He was about to follow up with the potentially significant revelation that he was a captain in the Royal Navy and that the seaman had better be careful or he would find himself in serious difficulties. He didn’t get beyond the introductory, “Do you know to whom you are speaking?” The seaman's fist pounded into his solar plexus like the kick of a horse. The force of it took his breath away and doubled him over. Before he could react a second fist hammered against the side of his head.
Charles found himself on the cobblestones gasping for air in a sea of pain. He heard Penny shriek. He saw the seaman’s foot draw back and start forward. Charles rolled sideways as the boot shot past. He sensed more than saw that a general tumult had broken out with an uproar of shouting. Struggling to his elbows and knees, he saw the man step forward, preparing to kick at him again. Inexplicably, the foot jerked upwards, swinging harmlessly above. Charles found this unusual in an academic kind of way. He was additionally puzzled as the other foot that the man had been standing on also rose magically into the air.
