Fletcher's Glorious 1st of June

by John Drake

  What happened was that on 26th April 1794, Declaration’s lookouts spotted a distant sail, and Cooper immediately steered to close with it. By chance it was the first ship we’d encountered since leaving Boston and the American coast. At once Cooper ordered us to general quarters, and my crews broke all previous records in the smartness of their loading and running out. My station was on the gun-deck, so I was not party to any discussion that might have taken place among Cooper and his other officers on the quarter deck, and I stamped up and down threatening doom and damnation to any of the men who dared to whisper to one another, and wondering why Cooper didn’t turn away and make for Virginia and the protection of the Grain Convoy’s escorts.

  The point was that he was running one hell of a risk in closing with that distant ship, far away under the horizon. Because if she were a British man-o’-war then he’d have to run, which could seriously demoralise his crew just when they were beginning to learn their business, or he must fight, which he’d been ordered not to do by no less than President Washington himself.

  I supposed that Cooper’s old, piratical habits had reasserted themselves and that he couldn’t resist the chance of earning some prize money. The hands certainly thought so, ‘cos that’s what they were whispering about. They were eager as could be.

  That’s what I thought at first, and it merely annoyed me. But soon, the lookout hailed the deck again. “British colours! Enemy in sight!” cried the voice, and an intense excitement ran through the ship. A dull growl arose from my gun-crews that swelled into a cheer.

  “Belay that!” I bellowed, but they were wild-eyed and thirsting for blood and grinning at me like children whose father has laid a meal before them.

  Cooper said something to one of the middies and the next minute American colours were breaking from the fore, main and mizzen topmasts, to keep company with the big banner trailing at the spanker gaff.

  I couldn’t believe it. There was only one reason for such a display. Cooper was taking Declaration into action. The men cheered their heads off and the officers waved their hats. I actually saw the First Lieutenant shaking Cooper’s hand and the two of them laughing and chatting, as merry as could be. A great unease came upon me. One of the props that supported my view on the world had just been knocked out. I beckoned the eldest of the six midshipmen that I had under me to control the gun-deck.

  “You,” says I, “you’re in command!” and I ran along the deck and up the companionway ladder to confront Cooper in the midst of his officers.

  “Cooper,” says I, all protocol blown to the winds, “what in God’s name are you doing?” His face was flushed and his eyes stared. He was in a rare mood of exultation. He’d got a big powerful ship under his feet and he was bearing down on the enemy. I could see from the start I was wasting my time.

  “Fletcher,” says he, “this is just the chance we need!”

  “What about your bloody orders?” says I. “From the President?” The Master, the Marine Lieutenant, assorted midshipmen, the helmsmen, the carronade crews and a file of Marines with muskets at the ready, gaped at me in astonishment. But Cooper wouldn’t meet my eye. And nor would his First Lieutenant. They looked like a couple of dirty schoolboys caught fiddling with one another.

  “Orders?” says he. “What orders? My orders are to render every assistance to our French allies.”

  I’ve never been so thunderstruck in all my life. If it hadn’t been for the Marines, I’d have knocked Cooper flat on his own deck for the lying, double-dealing, conniving bastard that he was.

  “Mr Fletcher,” says he, “attend to your duties or go below.” He turned to the Marine officer. “See that Mr Fletcher is escorted, if necessary …”

  The swine! Even then he wasn’t straight with me. Was that a threat or not? The Marine laid his hand on his sword and looked confused. I was so angry that I turned my back on the lot of them and went back to the gun-deck. At least there were friendly faces down there.

  I don’t know how long I paced up and down worrying over what had happened. For that matter I’ve never yet worked out what Cooper was up to.

  Was it all lies about the President wanting to keep on the right side of the British? Or was Cooper swept away in the surge of the moment? Had Uncle Ezekiah been a part of this? Had he been lying with his tales of French wickedness? After all, the Frogs had helped them win their precious revolution. There would have been no United States without French interference. And, most important of all, was my 5,000 dollars safe or was that another deceit? I thought over every word, gesture and inflection of the conversations I’d had in the banks where I took Ezekiah’s draft. There was no way I could have checked better than I did … but if the whole Cooper family were plotting against me … then … then what?

  The maddening thing was that I was sure that the swab Cooper did actually like me. My final judgement on him and his uncle is this: both of them were so bound up with their bloody politics that they’d feed a man any damned tale that suited their purposes at any particular moment, and therefore it’s pointless trying to sift out the truth from the lies and from the mixture of both.

  So I stamped about, head on my chest, for a long time, paying no attention to anything around me, until the gun-crews started cheering again and making such a din that it even penetrated my thick head.

  The occasion for this was the appearance of the enemy in plain sight, from where we stood on the gun-deck. Sails, masts and hull were visible, still miles away, but she was coming on bravely under a press of canvas. She was a frigate, and a fast one, for her bows cut the waves in a shower of foam.

  She was a fine sight to see, but not one that I relished. For the “enemy” ship, bearing down upon us, with the Union Jacks streaming from her mastheads, was His Majesty’s Ship Phiandra.

  17

  A scheme more crack-brained and incapable of being carried through, it is hard to imagine. So much then for the “deep and deadly cunning” of the Coignwoods!

  (From a letter of 25th September 1793 from Mr Hector Gardiner, J.P., to Mrs Jane Forster, Widow of Mr Cecil Forster, J.P.)

  *

  “D’you mean to tell me the thing must be done here? In my house?” said Mr Hector Gardiner. “Cannot the wretch be taken to the Lock-up? Or to the Charity Hospital?”

  “No, sir!” said the surgeon. “Even the bringing of him here could easily have incurred a fatal outcome!”

  Gardiner, the new Magistrate for Lonborough and district, glanced at the heavy bulk of his Parish Constable who had stood with his brother in silence during this discussion between their betters.

  “Did you know this, Plowright?” said the Magistrate irritably. He was not in the best of humours, having been summoned from sleep in the early hours by the arrival at his door of his Constable and several others. He now stood in his nightshirt and dressing gown, holding this enquiry by new-lit candles in his drawing room, while his servants hovered in the hall and his wife stood on the upstairs landing listening in fascination.

  “We done everything proper, sir,” said the Constable, indignant at the implied criticism. “We brung ‘un along on a street front door, sir,” said the Constable. “Ain’t that so, Abram?”

  “Aye,” said his brother.

  “So’s he shouldn’t shake nothin’ loose what had come apart inside, sir,” said the Constable.

  “Aye,” said Abram.

  “Could you not have took him to the lock-up, man?” said Gardiner.

  Plowright thought that through, frowning at the act of concentration required, and brought forth his answer.

  “Well, Mr Gardiner, sir,” said he, “we couldn’t not rightly ha’ done that, sir. Not seeing as who it was, sir. We couldn’t put no gennelman in there, sir. So we brung ‘un here. Ain’t that right, Abram?”

  “Aye,” said his brother.

  “Huh!” said Mr Wallace the surgeon. “A gentleman, eh?”

  “Indeed!” agreed Gardiner. Noah Plowright, the Constable (Acting Constable, in fact)
was a good man for taking up drunken farmhands or chasing little boys out of orchards, but he had the brain of an ox. Gardiner wished fervently that Adam Plowright, the eldest brother, might soon be fit to resume his duties.

  Meanwhile, Gardiner saw that there was nothing for it but to proceed.

  “Do what you must, Mr Wallace,” said he. “I ask only that you should do it in the kitchen where the floors may the more easily be washed down.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said the surgeon. “I shall need as much light as possible, a good brisk fire to warm the room, and a stout chair with arms.”

  “A chair?” said Gardiner. “What’s that for?”

  Wallace started to explain, but a hammering on the front door announced more arrivals. As Gardiner’s servant opened the door, voices were heard outside.

  “Arr!” said the Acting Constable, “here’s our Adam come to see!”

  “Aye!” said his brother.

  “Where is he?” cried a voice in the hall, and the company in the withdrawing room, led by Gardiner, trooped into the hall to see who had arrived.

  With a dozen men crammed into the narrow space, clustered around the comatose figure on its improvised stretcher, where it lay flat on the floor, there was little room to move. Magistrate, surgeon, Constables and servants stood elbow to elbow, and all spoke at once, and Mrs Gardiner peered over the banisters in her eagerness to miss nothing that might happen.

  “Ah, you black-hearted villain!” said the new arrival, a big man shrunken and grey-faced from illness, and obviously another Plowright brother. He looked down upon the occupant of the front street door with bitter hatred.

  “See what you done, to me, you bastard!” says Adam Plow-right, lately the Parish Constable, and the company looked upon the empty left leg of his breeches and the two crutches that Plowright walked upon. “Half a man I am, thanks to you!” said Plowright, and looked accusingly at his younger brothers. “What you brung ‘un here for, eh?” said he. “He don’t need no buggerin’ doctors! What he needs is throwing in the buggerin’ river, the bloody bastard, with a buggerin’ great stone tied round his buggerin’ neck!”

  “Guard your tongue, man!” cried the Magistrate, sharply. “I’ll have no such speech in my house! And this man is under the protection of the Law!”

  “Shot me, he did!” said Plowright, miserably, looking down at the half-dead Victor Coignwood. “Last July when we went with Mr Forster to take him,” he pointed at Victor, “him, and his blasted mother! Deliberate, it were. He ruined me! Where’s the use of a man with one leg?”

  “Now, now, Plowright,” said Gardiner, sympathetically, “brace up! You shall go on a peg-leg as good as any man here!” Gardiner looked to the surgeon. “Support me now, Wallace! Shan’t our Constable walk on a wooden leg, eh?”

  “So soon as the stump is fully healed, I shall fit him myselc!” said Wallace.

  “There!” said Gardiner. “And your post awaits you on your return to health.” He pushed forward and laid a hand on Plow-right’s arm. “But now you shall go home.” He turned to the other Plowrights. “See to your brother like the good fellows you are,” said he. “Get him home to his wife.”

  “Leave me two men, at least, if you please, Mr Gardiner,” said the surgeon, looking at the broad backs of the Plowright brothers. “I need two resolute men for what I must do.”

  *

  Half an hour later Mr Wallace, the surgeon, was ready to begin. The slumbering kitchen fire had been aroused, candles blazed all around, and instruments sponges, salves and bandages were laid ready to hand on the kitchen table. Victor Coignwood was semi-conscious. He blinked stupidly and moaned to himself. He was propped up in a big armchair with his wrists and elbows firmly bound to the arms of the chair by stout linen tapes.

  As a further precaution, one of the Plowright brothers was holding Victor’s shoulders firmly against the chair back, and Mr Gardiner’s footman clamped Victor’s wounded forearm between his two fists. Gardiner himself and several of his servants stood in horrified fascination as Mr Wallace, the surgeon, stepped forward in his long apron, with sleeves rolled up and a lancet in his hand. Finding himself brightly lit and centre stage, Wallace rose to the occasion and expounded as if to students.

  “Having bandaged the chest wound, which is minor,” said he, “the first procedure proper will be one of relative simplicity.” He displayed Victor’s wound with the tip of his surgical knife. “Here the ball entered at the dorsal aspect of the forearm” — he showed the round entry-wound — “and here, on the ventral aspect, the ball may easily be palpated where it lies beneath the skin.” Bolder heads craned forward to see the dull blue shape of the lodged ball, clearly visible through Victor’s pale skin. “The radius and ulna are unaffected and it remains to remove extraneous matter from the wound track and to excise the ball.”

  All present watched in fascination as Wallace cleaned and bandaged the bullet-track across Victor’s chest. As Wallace had said, this was a simple matter, since the wound was little more than a graze. But then the surgeon took his knife and slit the round, dark swelling on Victor’s arm. An inch-long, red-lipped incision gaped open, blood oozed forth, and some lively work with a pair of forceps extracted the blood-slicked ball and a scrap of shirt that it had carried into the wound.

  At this, Victor moaned loudly, most of the audience found business elsewhere, and Gardiner’s footman fell back in a swoon.

  Wallace looked up from his work. “The arms,” said he, “I’d be obliged ...” Only Gardiner and his cook were left. Gardiner strongly wished to be gone, but although he could see that the woman was quite unmoved he’d been a soldier in his time and felt obliged to give a lead.

  “See to that man!” he ordered, and the cook pulled the footman clear, while Gardiner took his place at the forearm.

  Gardiner found that the trick of it was to stare fixedly at anything other than what the surgeon was doing. And so he managed without great discomfort as the arm was treated.

  “And now,” said Wallace, “the more serious procedure. I regret that I shall be obliged to trephine the skull, since the patient’s comatose state, consequent upon a depressed fracture of the left frontal bone, indicates an accumulation of ...” Gardiner did not properly hear the rest. He was looking at the blood stains on Wallace’s apron. Also he knew what trepanning involved.

  Everything became exceedingly unpleasant for Mr Gardiner after that, and had he anticipated that his duties as Magistrate would involve the like, he would never have taken them on.

  Wallace had him stand close in front of Coignwood, holding the man’s head between the palms of his hands, while Plowright remained as he was gripping the shoulders. That meant that Wallace had to squeeze in somehow sideways beside Plowright to do his work. But Coignwood himself showed how vital were the two “holders down”, for he wept and struggled powerfully once Wallace started with his trephine.

  But first Wallace cut short the hair of Coignwood’s head and set to with lather and a barber’s brush and razor to shave the scalp over an area the size of a man’s palm.

  “Ah!” said Wallace, when he’d dried the area with a towel. “Note the bruising,” and he prodded gently with his fingers, “and a palpable fracture ...” Gardiner nearly went at the knees as he heard a distinct grating of bone.

  “And, so ...” said Wallace slitting the skin of Victor’s scalp in a line about four inches long. Victor groaned horribly and Gardiner had to fight to keep the head still. From the corner of his eye Gardiner caught sight of two hideous instruments as Wallace took them up. They were like something from a torture chamber of the Inquisition: long-shafted double hooks of a wicked sharpness, made of twinkling steel on wooden handles.

  “Retractors,” said Wallace, “to open the wound,” and he hooked the ghastly things into the lips of Coignwood’s incision and tugged briskly at right angles to the line of the cut to expose as much skull as possible.

  Gardiner kept his eyes shut for a while after that, and did not
peep again until he heard a steady scraping noise and Coign-wood screamed loudly and fought to get out of the chair.

  Wallace was drilling into Victor’s skull with quick, neat twisting motions of an instrument like a corkscrew, except that the blade was a small, ring-shaped saw designed to cut out a disk of bone. It is a pity that Mr Arthur Walton was not available for comment, else he would have remarked upon the great similarity between one of his burglar’s centre-bits and a surgeon’s trephine.

  One look at the drilling in progress, and the little wall of pink, damp bone-dust building up around the working edge of the tool was enough for Gardiner. So he kept his eyes tight shut and missed the interesting moment of the removal of the plug of bone, and he missed Wallace’s careful opening up of the dura mater to release a gush of fluid and semi-solid blood that was building up beneath.

  In fact he kept his eyes shut until Wallace had completed the procedure down to closing up the wound and bandaging, and Gardiner realised that Wallace was telling him to let go of Coignwood’s head.

  “All done now, sir!” said Wallace, prising Gardiner’s fingers free. “Well done, Mr Gardiner!” said Wallace. “And you too, Plowright!”

  Magistrate and Constable looked at one another and it would have been impossible to say which of the two was greener about the gills. Gardiner noticed that his imperturbable cook was still there, but the footman had gone, either carried away or got up and gone of his own volition.

  Wallace took command.

  “Mr Gardiner,” said he, “I suggest that you go to the drawing room and take a large brandy. And perhaps Plowright could have a brandy, here in the kitchen?” Gardiner nodded. “If Plowright would then take charge of the prisoner, I will join you, Mr Gardiner, as soon as all is put to rights here.”

  *

  Much later, after a number of large brandies, Mr Gardiner was his own man again, and was ready to discuss the events of the night with Mr Wallace.

  “I believe that the rascal will live,” said Wallace. “If mortification does not set in, then he will certainly survive. But he may not be moved …”