The Valiant Sailors

by V. A. Stuart

  At eight o’clock the watch changed and Anthony Cochrane relieved Laidlaw. The ship being hove to, Phillip went below for breakfast, for once able to take his time over the usually hurried meal, which he shared with Martin Fox. When he returned to the quarterdeck, he was startled to hear the sound of gunfire, coming from somewhere fairly close at hand, and he reproved Cochrane sharply for not having informed him.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” the younger man apologised. “But it has only just started and I did not pay it much heed. We’re only a few miles from Odessa and I took it for granted that the garrison was engaged in firing practice. Those aren’t naval guns, surely, sir?”

  Phillip listened. The swirling mist distorted all sound but the gunfire, he was convinced, was not coming from Odessa, which was still four or five miles to westward of the ship’s present position. He could distinguish the crackle of musketry and the deeper, muttering roar of cannon, and his brows came together in a puzzled frown, as he mentally visualised the coastline. There was, if his memory was not at fault, no fort on this part of the coast … it was a place of high cliffs and a shelving, rocky shore devoid of habitation, and there seemed no logical explanation of the thunderous cannonade which was now disturbing the fog-bound silence.

  Unless, of course, a British ship had run aground there,one of the three making, with Trojan herself, for the agreed rendezvous off Odessa … He said crisply, “Call the Captain, if you please, Mr Cochrane. That’s no garrison exercise, I’m sure.”

  North, when he came on deck a few minutes later, agreed with him and, a trifle to his surprise, concurred with his suggestion that Trojan should approach cautiously and investigate the cause of the firing. The screw was lowered and, proceeding at a careful three knots, Phillip took the ship closer inshore, as the ship’s company went to quarters and the guns were manned. After covering about a mile, the depth of water decreased so sharply that the Captain refused to proceed any further.

  “Our charts are by no means accurate,” he said, “and I’m not going to risk running on shore in this infernal fog. There’s nothing to be done but drop anchor and wait until it clears.”

  “But suppose one of our squadron has beached herself, sir,” Phillip objected. “Surely we ought to make some attempt to go to her assistance?”

  “How do you suggest we do so, Mr Hazard?”

  “With your permission, sir, I could run in with the cutter,” Phillip offered and, again to his surprise, North nodded, after a slight hesitation. “I share your anxiety, Mr Hazard,” he admitted. “So take command of the cutter by all means and see if you can find out what is going on. But do not attempt to engage the enemy if they are merely exercising and, if Trojan’s help is required, return at once and report to me. I’ll have a bugle call sounded at five minute intervals, to enable you to regain the ship.”

  The cutter was lowered and, so thick was the all-enveloping mist that, after less than a dozen strokes of the oars, Trojan vanished from sight. Phillip stood in the bows and, guided by the sound of gunfire, called back directions to Midshipman O’Hara at the tiller. After rowing steadily for about a mile, they could hear voices and the thud of bare feet running across wooden deck planking, but the voices were too far away to make out what language they were speaking, and a prolonged burst of cannon-fire swiftly drowned them. As they drew nearer, it became evident that some of the firing was coming from the grounded ship and Phillip knew that his instincts had not been at fault … a ship had run ashore and the chances were that she was British and one of his own squadron. He called to the cutter’s crew to give their best and the men responded with a will.

  Within about a hundred and fifty yards of the shore, the fog dispersed and on the cliff-top, bathed in watery sunshine, he was able to make out seven or eight field guns, served by green uniformed Russian artillerymen, supported by at least two companies of infantry and a squadron of cavalry. The field pieces were firing down at the Tiger lying, helpless as a stranded whale, on the rocky, shelving beach 120 feet below, and within about thirty yards of the foot of the cliffs. Her foremast had been shot away and she was virtually defenceless, for, in a vain attempt to gain sufficient elevation for his starboard guns to reply to the enemy cannon, Captain Giffard had all but careened her. She now lay on her port beam, her starboard guns pointing skywards at so acute an angle that they could not be fired effectively. A single 32-pounder, mounted on her upper deck, spat brave but abortive defiance at her enemies, and her colours, Phillip saw, had not been struck. The single gun, heroically though it was being fought, was no match for the eight that were ranged against it and, stretched prone on the cliff-top, marksmen with muskets and Minié rifles were picking off any member of the crew who exposed himself within the compass of their fire. An anchor, laid out astern of the grounded frigate, and two upturned boats, waterlogged and riddled with holes, bore mute witness to the efforts of her crew to warp her off the rocks.

  Phillip’s heart sank, as he took in the scene. Even as he watched, a shell struck Tiger’s forecastle, scattering a group of seamen and Marines who were endeavouring to haul a second gun into position. This was followed by a shower of red-hot shot, some of which fell on the quarterdeck, causing tongues of flame to creep ominously along the deck planking. He hesitated, recognizing—or imagining he recognized—his brother Graham among those who ran forward with a hose to fight the flames.

  His first instinct was to go in and take off as many men as he could but, a moment later, he thought better of it. The cutter could not, with safety, hold more than a dozen or so and many of Tiger’s crew were probably wounded. Besides, his reason told him, when the soldiers on shore caught sight of her, the cutter, too, would become a target and he dared not risk that.

  “Put her about, Mr O’Hara,” he ordered urgently. “We must get back under cover of the mist and then try to guide Trojan in. If she can bring her guns to bear on that battery on shore, she may be able to drive them off. It will be Tiger’s only chance … and possibly our own. So pull for your lives, my lads, before they sight us!”

  A tense “Aye, aye, sir,” from O’Hara answered him but, before his order could be obeyed, the watchers on the cliff-top had seen the cutter. There were shouts, some of the greenuniformed gunners tugged their field pieces into position so as to bear on their new target and, between Tiger and the cutter, the surface of the water was spattered by a hail of musket balls as the infantrymen opened fire. A shell shrieked overhead, another exploded prematurely and fell short but two roundshot, coming unpleasantly close, straddled the cutter’s bows. Her crew pulled frantically on their oars, needing no urging as O’Hara put her about, and Phillip yelled to the coxswain to send up a distress rocket in the faint hope that, despite the fog, its bright orange trail might be seen from Trojan’s quarterdeck.

  The coxswain had managed to set his rocket fuse alight and the curtain of mist, for whose concealment they were making, was drawing appreciably nearer when the field guns fired a second salvo, less accurate and a good deal more ragged than the first. All the shots passed harmlessly overhead, with the exception of a single round-shot, which struck the water some distance astern of the lurching boat. This appeared to offer no danger but it ricocheted off the surface of the water and, its approach so slow that Phillip watched it in horrified fascination. It hit the cutter amidships, smashing an oar and tearing a gaping hole in her port side, between gunwale and waterline. Miraculously only one of the two seamen, between whose straining bodies the missile made its exit, suffered any injury but the boat’s bottom boards were stove in and the coxswain, still clutching his rocket and match, was flung overboard.

  Water started to pour in through the cutter’s shattered hull and despite her crew’s attempts to plug the hole the Russian round-shot had left in its wake, the level rose too rapidly for those who were bailing to keep pace with it. Phillip knew that it would only be a matter of minutes before she sank although, relieved of the dead weight of the men she was carrying, she might stay afloat long enough
to support the non-swimmers and the man who had been wounded … at least until the fog cleared sufficiently for Trojan to pick them up. He hesitated, reluctant to order them to abandon the boat, yet aware that he would have to do so very soon, if she were not to be lost to them altogether.

  Faintly above the crackle of another volley of musketry from the sharpshooters on shore and the moaning whimper of the wounded seaman, he heard the distant sound of a bugle call and remembered North’s promise to sound a call at five minute intervals, to guide him back to the ship. His mind made up, he stepped carefully to the injured man’s side and took a firm grip of him beneath the armpits, ready to lift him into the cutter’s bows. The man, a young A.B. called Lacey—a mizzentopman, Phillip recognized—looked up at him and managed a twisted grin. His right leg had been crushed to a shapeless, bleeding pulp about which someone had tied a belt, in the hope—a vain one—of arresting the bleeding. But there was no time to attend to that now, if any of them were to survive… .

  “We shall have to swim for it, my lads,” he said, having to shout to make himself heard. “Strong swimmers, try to get back to Trojan, if you think you can make it … she’s about a mile to the sou’east and the bugle calls will give you her direction. Non-swimmers, over the side and hold on to the cutter … she should keep you afloat, if there aren’t too many of you. The rest … make for Tiger and good luck. Right … over you go, stroke oar first.”

  Phillip had intended to wait until all her crew had left the sinking cutter and then, being a strong swimmer, endeavour to return to Trojan, but suddenly he found himself chest-deep in water, the wounded Lacey clinging to him with the strength of desperation. He freed himself, with difficulty, from the choking hold and, dragging Lacey after him, struck out instead for Tiger. A patter of what, for a moment, he imagined was rain struck the water in his immediate vicinity and then he realized, with a sense almost of disbelief, that the Russians were firing at him from the cliffs … using canister. Fortunately their aim was poor and he was unscathed and, although the swim seemed endless, he reached his objective at last. Two of Tiger’s seamen, clinging to her midship chains, helped him on board and relieved him of his limp burden.

  Breathless and gasping, Phillip gained the entry port and turned to look back, hoping against all reason that a few more of the cutter’s crew might, like himself, have come safely through the murderous barrage of canister and musket balls. But there were no bobbing heads, the short expanse of water was empty, and one of the seamen, following the direction of his gaze, said gruffly, “Most of them turned back, sir, when the Russians opened up on you … they swam back into the fog and they was trying to tow the cutter. But that gives ’em a chance, sir … a better chance than we’ve got against them murdering devils up there.” He jerked his head shorewards. “They’re just using us for target practice, I reckon, because we ain’t got nothing to hit back at ’em with, and that’s the truth, sir.”

  Aware that it was, Phillip felt anger catch at his throat but he offered no comment and, when he could get his breath and was able to stand upright unassisted, he asked to be taken to the Captain. “And … you’ll see this lad of mine receives attention, will you not? He’s lost a lot of blood, I’m afraid.”

  The Tiger’s two bluejackets exchanged unhappy glances. “Your lad’s dead, sir,” the elder of the two told him. “And Captain Giffard … why, he was hit some while ago, when they first started firing on us. In a bad way, he is or so they say. I’ll take you to the First Lieutenant, sir, he’s in command now.”

  Tiger’s First Lieutenant was on the upper deck, leading a fire party with reckless disregard for his own safety, as they fought to extinguish the leaping flames in which the frigate’s forecastle was enveloped. Phillip’s news of the presence, close at hand, of Trojan brought a brief smile to his smoke-blackened face. “If we can hold out until this thrice-damned fog clears and Trojan can come to our aid, we may have a chance. But to tell you the truth, Mr Hazard, I don’t think we can hold out for much longer without heavy loss of life. I was on the point of hauling down our colours when I spotted your cutter coming in and hoped it meant that immediate help was on the way. If Trojan cannot get to us at once, then …” He shrugged despondently. “The Captain is severely wounded, he’s lost his left leg and poor young John Giffard, his nephew, has lost both legs and is dying. We’ve a bo’sun’s mate and a boy killed and at least a dozen others wounded. And”—he gestured to the charred and shattered deck—“you can see the state we’re in. If this fire reaches our magazine, there’ll be none of us left to tell the tale, will there? Tell me frankly … what are the chances of your Captain bringing Trojan in before the fog lifts?”

  Phillip peered into the heavy pall of fog to seaward. Trojan was, perhaps, less than a mile away but without the bugle call—which had ceased—he could not tell even in which direction she lay. Those on board could have no conception of Tiger’s desperate plight, still less could they know how urgently their help was needed. Unless some of the cutter’s crew had managed to swim back to her … young O’Hara, perhaps, who was a strong swimmer and a brave and resolute young man. Or the coxswain but … he sighed. It would be a miracle if any of them found their ship and Captain North would not risk coming any closer inshore, would not be justified in doing so, without positive evidence of the extreme danger of Tiger’s position and … a boat to guide him in. He turned to Tiger’s First Lieutenant.

  “Captain North will not come in unless the position is made clear to him,” he said regretfully. “But if you can give me a boat, I believe I could find my way back and—”

  “I’m sorry, Hazard.” His companion wearily cut him short. “We’ve no seaworthy boats. They’ve all been damaged and we lost one when we were trying to warp the ship off when she first went aground. We worked for three hours to get her off, you know … and then they found us. A cavalry patrol on shore sighted us and gave the alarm. They brought up their artillery and have been pounding away at us ever since.”

  “Without giving you a chance to surrender?” Phillip exclaimed, shocked. Tiger’s temporary commander wiped the sweat from his brow. “We were offered the choice between surrendering with our guns intact or being blown to extinction,” he answered bitterly. “By some arrogant young Russian princeling who appears to be in command … look, you can see him up there, on a grey horse. Colonel Prince Andrei Narishkin or some such name. The Captain refused his terms and—” he broke off, yelling an order to his fire party as more red-hot shot tore into the blackened deck. Within a few minutes the gun’s crew was driven from their gun by smoke and heat, bringing their supply of filled cartridges with them which, in obedience to their First Lieutenant’s order, they dropped overboard.

  The First Lieutenant said to Phillip despairingly, “It is no use attempting to hold out any longer. I cannot watch all my men die when now we are unable even to answer their fire, can I?”

  “No,” Phillip confirmed. “You have done all in your power, all that honour demands.”

  “I shall ask Captain Giffard’s permission to strike our colours,” the First Lieutenant decided. “If he is conscious … if not, I must strike them on my own authority, so as to avoid further unnecessary loss of life. Half our guns are already overboard … we’ll spike the rest and throw them out too. The Russians shall not have them … they’ve cost us too much for that.” He glanced up at the ensign still flying from Tiger’s main-mast and his voice was choked with emotion as he added, “Oh, God, if only the fog would lift so that Trojan could see us! But it isn’t going to lift in time, is it, Hazard?”

  Phillip could only shake his head. Left alone, he went to join the fire party and, bearing a hand with one of the hoses, found Graham at his side, although it was a moment before he recognized his brother’s face beneath its thick coating of sweat and grime. They looked at each other and Graham’s cracked lips twitched into a rueful smile. “Well, so we meet again, Phillip … though I wish it were anywhere but here.”

  “I
wish that, too,” Phillip agreed.

  Graham passed a hand over his filthy perspiring face. “Where’s Trojan? Too far away to save us, I suppose?”

  “She’s less than a mile away, Graham … but in this fog, she might as well be fifty.”

  “That was what I feared,” Graham returned, his voice harsh with disillusionment as he eyed the swiftly spreading flames. “Are we to burn to death in heroic defence of the honour of the British flag, do you know? Or shall we surrender ourselves to languish as Russian prisoners for the duration of the war? Because …” His answer was supplied by a shouted order from the quarterdeck. The British colours were hauled down and, after a momentary delay, a Russian flag run up in their place. Firing from the shore diminished and finally when a leaking boat put off from Tiger under a white flag, it ceased altogether.

  When the boat returned, after a lengthy parley with the Russians, orders were issued for Tiger’s crew to go ashore and give themselves up. Ironically the first boatload was on its way when, with startling suddenness, the fog cleared and Trojan could be seen, less than a mile astern, with Vesuvius another mile or so further out to sea. Both ships were at anchor but with steam up and Phillip, watching them anxiously, saw a signal flutter from Trojan’s masthead which he read, with bitterness, as “How can I assist you?”

  “Half an hour ago,” Tiger’s First Lieutenant said, his glass to his eye, “I should have replied to that question on my knees, thanking God for our deliverance. Now …” He lowered his glass, leaving the sentence uncompleted. “Your cutter’s there, what’s left of her, Hazard, so at least some of your men must have got back to their ship. Only they weren’t in time either, were they? Unhappily for us …” again he left his sentence unfinished and went, shoulders bowed and walking like an old man, to superintend the removal of his Captain and the rest of the wounded to the boat which was awaiting them.