by Jay Worrall
Aviemore appeared suddenly beside him, pulling on his sleeve. He had almost forgotten all about the boy and the message from the lookout. Before the midshipman spoke he looked beyond the enemy frigate and knew what it was. “T’other warship’s hauled her wind,” Aviemore squeaked out, his voice rising ever higher in pitch in his excitement. “She’s turned back toward us.”
Bevan, who overheard the report, cleared his throat. “We’d best leave it go, Charlie,” he said. “We’ve made our point.”
In the distance, through the frigate’s tangled rigging, Charles again saw the seventy-four’s full length, in the process of wearing around. Signal flags flew from her masts. He didn’t want to accept it. “Not yet,” he answered. “The seventy-four won’t be up to us for almost an hour. The frigate might strike before then.”
“No she won’t; not with the bigger one coming up. Even if she did there’d be no time for us to board her. And, if we lose a mast in the meantime, the other will run us down at her leisure.”
The French frigate enveloped herself in smoke as all her guns fired together. The tops in the mainmast lost half of its deck in a shower of splinters as at least one ball struck it, severing a number of the futtock shrouds. The main topmast promptly canted to port, but thankfully did not fall. That was enough. Charles knew Bevan to be right. He’d wanted to contest the frigate, he’d done it, and the result was a draw. It would be foolish to try for more. “Damn all,” he said under his breath, then reluctantly to his lieutenant, “All right, we will break off.” He tried to turn his mind to the new problem—disengaging from a close-fought gun duel was no easy thing.
“Wait,” Bevan said. “Look.”
With smoke still clearing across the frigate’s decks Charles saw her yards come around and her topmen scrambling up the shrouds to loosen more canvas. She had also decided, or been ordered, to run. Her head fell off with the wind as she wore back toward her companion. As the stern showed, he saw her name: L'Agile. Cassandra’s cannon fired off a final broadside in a prolonged tearing series of explosions. A number struck the frigate’s after structure, smashing in a pair of the windows across the stern, others sending up spouts of water close alongside. The gun crews then stood by their weapons and cheered.
“Cease firing,” Charles said. He knew he should be satisfied. Cassandra had acquitted herself well enough; the French had turned away first. He had made his point; his honor and that of his ship had been redeemed. He looked around him at his quarterdeck to survey their damage. Some railing and hammock netting had been beaten away, and an off-side carronade lay broken, its slide shattered and the barrel upset on the deck. He saw two men lacerated by flying splinters sitting propped against the binnacle, waiting to be taken below. He turned back to Bevan. “The butcher’s bill?”
“I’m guessing it’s not too bad. A half-dozen or so injuries; Mr. Owens will say for sure. The lookout in the tops had a near religious experience when a goodly piece of his platform disappeared, fortunately not the bit he was standing on.”
“House the guns and stand the men down,” Charles said. “Start the repairs immediately. I’ll hear the carpenter’s, boatswain’s, and surgeon’s reports as they have the time. For the moment, I think it best to stay where we are until we see what those other two decide to do.”
If the larger French warship continued to beat into the wind toward him, Cassandra would have to turn and run. But Charles doubted she would. The seventy-four had never shown any special interest in the smaller English ship. Still, he watched with relief as Raisonnable took the frigate under her lee, and then wore again to resume her former course.
Mr. Burrows approached after a time with a lengthy list of needed repairs, the most serious of which were shot holes in the hull between wind and water, and the mainmast tops which would have to be replaced before the topmast shrouds could be repaired. Similarly, William Baker, the boatswain, presented a seemingly unending enumeration of cut lines and cables which he insisted on going through item by item. The main thing Charles took away was that a suitable replacement for the cracked mizzen boom could not be obtained until they reached Cape Town; sistering a smaller spar along its length would do for now. The surgeon’s report confirmed what Bevan had told him earlier. In all, Charles considered, he had gotten off relatively lightly. It could have been very different if he had come under the guns of the seventy-four.
Late in the afternoon Cassandra resumed under easy sails, keeping the French in sight, their hulls just over the horizon. In the morning the enemy had vanished, even to the lookouts in the masts. Consensus among the officers on the quarterdeck was that the pair had turned south during the night in order to shake Cassandra from their wake. Charles had no argument with this. He wondered again where the French warships might be bound that the senior captain in the seventy-four would keep the frigate on such a tight leash. There must be some urgency about his orders. For the first time he considered the possibility—just the possibility—that their destination was the Red Sea to aid this General Bonaparte’s supposed conquest of India. It seemed to him improbable. There were a dozen more likely places they could have orders for, but it was not impossible.
CHAPTER SIX
“You may begin the salute, Mr. Sykes,” Charles said, pleased in spite of himself at the growing extent of land off the starboard bow. Cassandra passed Green Point, her ensign streaming from the main peak, her recognition signal and number on the signal halyards. The forts and settlement of Cape Town revealed themselves in a low line beneath the forbidding slopes of Table Mountain. She sailed large, under all plain sail, on a tack that would easily clear the headlands at the entrance to the harbor.
“Fire the first,” Sykes ordered gravely. The near most quarterdeck six-pounder boomed out its powder charge, the sound echoing back from the heights beyond the bay.
“One . . . , two. . . , three,” Charles heard the midshipman count out under his breath. At “five,” he announced, “Fire number two.” The gun captain yanked the lanyard to the flint lock and the next gun jumped inward. Coincident with the third gun firing off, an embrasure of the closer fort emitted a cloud of smoke, beginning its return of the ceremonial greeting. Charles saw a number of John Company ships, the large armed merchantmen of the Honorable East India Company, moored in the harbor. It being March, a late-summer sun shone down, pleasantly warming the afternoon air. Raising his long glass, he watched the pilot boat push off from the waterfront to guide them to their anchorage off the port. It was an agreeable little place to make landfall, he decided. The Dutch buildings seemed somehow both familiar and strangely foreign with their narrow fronts and curiously embellished gables. The colony had been taken from Holland four years before after the Low Countries had fallen under the dominion of France.
Charles noticed that a number of the crew had gathered along the lee rail of the gangway in their best clothing in anticipation of leave to go on shore. He wasn’t comfortable about this and had not decided whether to allow them to do so. The men had behaved themselves reasonably well over the past weeks and had shown marked improvement during the most recent encounter with the French. The bickering and arguments had trailed off—or at least he thought it had—there had been few incidents reported to him in the interval. It would be appropriate, expected even, that he reward them with time ashore. There would be some who would take the opportunity to run, he was sure, especially among the Americans. It would be awkward to search them all out and escort them back to the ship. He looked again at the men by the rail, talking among themselves while staring at the port. It wasn’t a particularly large place, he decided; rounding them up shouldn’t be too much trouble.
The harbor cutter approached and Charles ordered that the courses be taken in and the ship heaved to so that the pilot might safely board under their lee. There was some grousing among the topmen sent aloft, a number of whom had to be called away from the railing. Cassandra drifted a little past the cutter, which had to reverse its course to catch them up. Ch
arles frowned at the lapse. He was embarrassed at this new display of inept seamanship, but decided not to make an issue of it. Bevan could apply minor punishments as he saw fit; no real harm had been done, aside from inconveniencing the pilot.
“I do most sincerely apologize, sir,” Charles said as the man climbed through the entry port. A number of the topmen, British and American alike, were descending the mainmast shrouds a few feet away.
“Got lubbers for a crew, have you?” the pilot answered testily. “I’ve seen better ship handling on scows.”
Before Charles could answer, one of the topmen, just having reached the deck, cast his eyes upward at another. “It’s you Yanks what done it, you know. Ye’r all as slow as Boston whores.”
“Shut your fuckin’ gob, Limey, or I’ll shut it for you,” the American replied. “It weren’t me gawkin’ over the rail.”
“Belay that kind of talk,” Charles snapped at the two. They were being closely followed down the ratlines by a dozen more. He turned back to the pilot. “It’s been a long voyage, and a trying one,” he said. “It’ll be a blessing to be in port.”
“All right, then. We’ll get underway, shall . . . “ The pilot stopped in mid-sentence, his eyes wide, staring over Charles’ shoulder. “My God,” he uttered.
Charles turned. At the head of the ladderway to the gundeck a knot of topmen returning below were pushing and shoving. One threw a fist. The recipient tumbled bodily down the stairs while others rushed up from below to join in the confrontation. In an instant, half the crew were wrestling and punching in a disorganized, seething mass. Charles looked on in disbelief.
“Avast there!” Bevan bellowed, hurrying as best he could on his gimpy leg toward the growing disturbance. “Sergeant at Arms! Where are the marines? Stop that; I’ll have order, do you hear me?”
None of the words made much impression that Charles could tell. His first thought was to stop it, with force if necessary. Then he decided not to. Afterward he would show them that he would tolerate no more. “Excuse me for a moment, if you will,” he said to the astonished pilot. He then started back toward the quarterdeck. “Lieutenant Bevan,” he shouted over the melee.
Bevan looked up, his eyes wide in frustration. “I’ve sent for Ayres to fetch his marines,” he sputtered. “We’ll have order restored one way or another in a moment.”
Charles shook his head. “Let it go. This has been building since we left Chatham. Maybe a good fight will help to get it out of their system.”
“Do you think so?” Bevan said, unconvinced.
“Maybe,” Charles answered. The men were packed so tightly in the still growing fracas that there was little room to cock an arm or deliver a blow. Most of the conflict appeared to involve grappling at close quarters. There would be scrapes and bruises aplenty, he thought, the odd broken nose, and any number of lost teeth, but few serious injuries. He saw Baker and his two mates approaching from forward along the gangway, staring incredulously at the uproar. “Clear the ladderway, if you please,” Charles ordered as two men spilled onto the quarterdeck. “Do not intervene otherwise.”
Baker nodded with a grim smile and touched his forehead. “Aye, aye, sir,” he said. The three petty officers moved to the head of the stairs, picked up the first seaman they came to and pushed him back onto the heads of the men below. A second quickly followed as Charles noticed Lieutenant Ayres, his sword drawn, at the head of a file of red-coated marines hurrying aft.
“Your orders, sir?” Ayres said, his eyes on the confusion in the waist.
Charles scratched his chin. “Line your men along the break of the quarterdeck,” he said. “We will do nothing for the moment. Once they have worn themselves down we’ll sort them out.” He glanced again at the struggling mob below, then decided he should return and speak to the harbor pilot before the man gave up in dismay and left.
“It’s a fine day, isn’t it, Mr . . . , Mr. . . ,” he spoke to the pilot, still standing with a disbelieving expression at the place where he had come on board.
“Barkley,” the man answered, then stared at Charles. “Is this a normal occurrence?”
Charles grimaced. He wasn’t answerable to the harbor pilot but he had to say something. “There are some hard feelings among the crew. We will be ready to proceed as soon as they are finished.”
“You’re going to tolerate this?” Barkley asked. To Charles it sounded like an accusation.
“Until they’re done,” Charles answered tersely. “Then I’ll deal with it.”
The brawl continued for a relatively short time, a broiling mass of forms. Charles didn’t think they knew who they were fighting—landsman, seamen, Americans, British—all seemed to be working out their discontent on whomever was closest. He pulled out his watch and looked at it. He would give them a quarter of an hour—if it lasted that long. After five minutes he thought he detected a flagging in their enthusiasm. Individual seamen began to stagger out from the midst of the fray to collapse on a clear space on the deck, more from exhaustion than injury; nose bleeds seemed a common ailment, although some might be more serious. Charles turned to Midshipman Hitch, watching the contest with considerable enthusiasm. “My complements to the surgeon, if you please,” he said calmly. “I would appreciate his presence on the gundeck as he has the leisure. Ask that he bring a goodly supply of dressings and unguents.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Hitch responded and hurried along the gangway toward the bow, where he could descend in relative safety to the surgeon’s quarters by way of the forward hatch.
Charles checked his watch again. There was more moaning and gasping for breath than cursing coming from the waist. The men lay mostly in an undifferentiated heap on the deck. Here and there an effort was made to strike a blow or simply to clear some space. “Lieutenant Ayres,” he called. “If you would be so good as to send your men down to separate the combatants.”
“Yes, sir,” Ayres answered. He gave the necessary orders and the marines started down the ladderway, collecting bodies and dragging them without ceremony to the unoccupied parts of the deck. Owens arrived with his case of supplies, and began moving from man to man in search of the more seriously injured.
“Daniel,” Charles said next. “We’ll give them a few moments to catch their breath. Then I want them on their feet, those that are able, and aligned in their divisions.”
“What are you going to do?” Bevan asked, visibly furious at what had happened.
Charles frowned. “There'll be no shore leave, that’s a fact. I intend to lay down the law.”
“Floggings?” Bevan prompted. “You can’t let this go with a slap on the wrist.”
“You can’t flog the whole crew,” Charles answered evasively. He had yet to come to a final decision on what he would do. Bevan was right in at least one respect: He could not overlook it. He watched with as much patience as he could muster as the men were sorted out. A number, having recovered some of their strength, pushed themselves into sitting positions. A few were ordered below by the surgeon where he might better treat broken bones or dislocated fingers. Soon, Bevan sent Winchester and Beechum, the midshipmen and petty officers down to get the men to their feet and into some sort of order. They were a sorry mess with torn clothing, missing hats, some with only one shoe. Any number had blood down their fronts from bleeding noses or minor cuts.
“The men are all present and sober,” Bevan reported when he was satisfied that the crew were assembled in as orderly a fashion as they were going to get. “Except for those with the surgeon, of course.” Their sobriety was not Charles’ greatest concern.
Charles nodded and stepped to the forward edge of the quarterdeck where everyone could see and hear him. The faces below, bruised and scuffed though they were, mostly looked up dully, some sheepishly, a few with some satisfaction. He spoke loudly: “If you poor sods fought half as hard with the French as you do against each other, the war would be over by now.” There were a few grins at this, as he knew there would be. Now he res
olved to wipe them away. “Do you want to fight with your own shipmates?” he went on. “Fine. Fight to your hearts’ content. But if anything like this occurs again, not a man jack of you will set foot ashore at any port of call so long as I am captain of this ship.”
The grins vanished, as did any expressions of satisfaction. “What about Cape Town?” a voice shouted up.
“Silence there,” Bevan growled.
Charles lifted his hand in forbearance. “There will be no shore leave in Cape Town,” he answered. “I had planned to allow it, but you have scotched that.” The seaman opened his mouth to protest. Charles spoke first. “It is not a question that is open for discussion. I will not have this kind of behavior on board my ship. In the future, any man caught taunting or fighting will receive a dozen lashes for the first offense. There will be two dozen for the second, three for the third, and on, until you get it into your heads that I won’t tolerate it.” There, he’d said it. He hoped that the threat would be sufficient. “If you expect liberty in port in the future, you will have to earn it by your good behavior. Is that understood?”
Bevan looked at him with a surprised expression. “Do you mean it?” he said.
Charles nodded reluctantly. “Yes, I mean it. Now, if you please, we’ve still to make port. Set the men–those that are able–to trim the sails. I will go and apologize to the pilot for the delay.”
“Hoist out the jollyboat, if you please,” Charles said. “See that the mail is passed down. I’m to call on the port admiral; be back by suppertime, I expect.” As soon as the boat went down over the side and its crew had settled in, Charles climbed down. He seated himself in the sternsheets, two satchels—one with dispatches he carried from England, the other with the ship’s mail to be returned there—lay at his feet.
