The Valiant Sailors

by V. A. Stuart

  Admiral Lyons’s small squadron, consisting of Agamemnon, Highflyer, Niger, Trojan, Triton, and Spitfire, was soon hard at work unloading stores and provisions and clearing transports. The ships were moored with their bows across the river and their sterns secured to the shore and the small harbour became packed to capacity as more and more transports were towed in by steamers. Sanspareil and Diamond came in to land reinforcements for the Marines defending the heights above the harbour, and the remainder of the Heavy Cavalry Brigade arrived from Varna and was disembarked. Orders came to put the siege train ashore and the bluejackets engaged in this task worked with such a will that, by 2nd October, all save two of the heavy siege guns had been landed, together with supplies of shot, powder, and shell.

  It was then decided, at Lord Raglan’s request, to land upwards of fifty naval guns to be worked by seamen from the Fleet and contingents from the battle squadron were sent to Balaclava by Admiral Dundas, to form a Naval Brigade. Trojan and Firebrand ferried them in, the battle squadron remaining at anchor off the Katcha River. Under the command of Captain Lushington of Albion, with Captain Peel of the Diamond as his second-in-command, his force consisted of 38 officers and 1000 men, in addition to the 1200 Royal Marines already serving on shore.

  Most of the naval guns—32-pounders, weighing about 40 cwt.—were taken off the Diamond and the ship herself moored in the harbour to act as a reception centre for sick and wounded seamen. The rest of the guns were found by the other ships and included four 68-pounders from the Terrible, each weighing 95 cwt., and two of the Beagle’s huge, long range Lancasters, which were designed to throw a 90-pound shot. A hundred and fifty rounds of shot and thirty common shell, with powder in proportion, were landed initially for each gun and seventy rounds for each field piece.

  It was a Herculean task to move guns and ammunition from the harbour to the batteries being constructed on the plateau above. Bullock carts, wagons, Malta carts drawn by mules, horse limbers, and even camels were requisitioned for the conveyance of ammunition but most of the guns were too heavy for the animals to pull and had eventually to be manhandled up the seven miles of steep, rutted track by the seamen themselves. The Royal Artillery furnished gun-carriages for the 68-pounder guns but there were not sufficient available for the 32-pounders, almost all of which had to be hauled up the hill on the wooden trucks used for working them on board ship. Fifty bluejackets harnessed themselves to the drag ropes attached to each gun and, with a fiddler or fifer to lighten their toil with a heartening tune, the men worked from 4.30 a.m. until 7.30 in the evening, with only a short break for meals.

  Phillip spent ten days in charge of a party of 120 men from Trojan’s complement, dragging guns and ammunition from the harbour to the top of the rise overlooking the Balaclava Plain. From there, another party, drawn from the Naval Brigade, completed the journey to the west of the Light Division camp, close to the Woronzoff Road, where the naval batteries were sited. Trojan’s men worked with the same will and spirit as those from the other ships and, once ashore and out of sight of their commander, with the greatest cheerfulness. As he watched them sweating and straining on the drag ropes, Phillip found it hard to believe that these were the same men as the sullen, hang-dog crew he had brought on shore with him. They laughed and joked with each other, making light of their arduous task and, when they could find breath to do so, sang the chorus to whatever tune the fiddler who accompanied them was playing.

  They slept on shore, in any shelter they could contrive, the discomforts they experienced the subject for jest, rather than complaint and some of them—in order to get a sight of the Naval Brigade gun-positions—voluntarily carried powder and shot to the batteries, when their official hours of duty had been completed. It was only when—the last gun hauled to the Upland—orders came for the shore working parties to rejoin their ships, that Trojan’s seamen rebelled. Led by a giant Irish A.B. called O’Leary, the entire party approached Phillip with the request that they be permitted to volunteer for service with the Naval Brigade.

  It was useless to explain that no more men were required to serve on shore or to point out that detachments of only 140 men had been taken from the line-of-battleships which—each having a total complement of close on a thousand—could still be worked effectively without them. Phillip explained, carefully and painstakingly, although he was aware that nothing he said carried conviction to these men. O’Leary listened attentively but his face was mulishly unresponsive, as were the faces of the shipmates who surrounded him.

  “Replacements for men who fall sick or are wounded will be found by the Fleet, O’Leary,” he offered consolingly. “You could volunteer then, probably, if you particularly want to serve on shore.”

  “’Twill be too late by then, sorr,” O’Leary told him woodenly.

  “Too late … too late for what, lad? You do not imagine that Sebastopol will be captured in a few days, do you?”

  “No, sorr. ’Twas not what I was meaning, sorr.”

  “Then what do you mean? Speak up, man!”

  The big Irishman flushed and was silent, his eyes meeting Phillip’s with a mute plea for understanding in them. Midshipman O’Hara, who was acting as second-in-command of the party to which O’Leary belonged, came to his countryman’s rescue, requesting Phillip’s permission to speak to him alone. They walked out of earshot of the seamen and Phillip said sternly, “Well, Mr O’Hara?”

  “Sir …” the boy’s tone was as pleading as O’Leary’s eyes had been. “You know what O’Leary means, do you not? You know why none of the men want to return to the ship?”

  Phillip sighed. For the sake of discipline, he ought, he knew, to feign ignorance but he could not bring himself to do so.

  “If I do, Mr O’Hara, that does not alter the situation, I fear. It is beyond my power to accede to O’Leary’s request.”

  “Is it, sir … is it beyond your power? You’ve been on Admiral Lyons’s staff. The Admiral would listen to you, if you went to him, sir, and—”

  “We are at war, Mr O’Hara,” Phillip was compelled to remind him. “I cannot question the Admiral’s orders or ask him to change them. Trojan is a frigate, with specific duties to perform and a crew of three hundred, every one of whom is required in order to work her at sea. If these men were allowed to volunteer for service with the Naval Brigade on shore, Trojan would cease to be an effective unit of the Fleet. The men would either have to be replaced or the ship left, like Diamond, in harbour … and we haven’t so many steamers. She cannot be spared, Mr O’Hara. None of the steam squadron can be spared, you must realize that.”

  “Yes, sir, I do,” O’Hara conceded. “But all the same …” his young voice was adult in its bitter disillusionment. “I’d as soon see Trojan stripped of her guns and her crew and used, like Diamond, as a hulk for the reception of the sick and wounded than send these men back to her against their will.”

  “No doubt you would,” Phillip returned. “But that decision, Mr O’Hara, is not for either of us to make, is it?”

  “No, sir. Only the men have had as much as they can endure, you see, sir, and I am afraid, if they go back, that … well, that there may be trouble. I’ve heard them talking, sir. The Captain—”

  “Belay that, Mr O’Hara!” Phillip bade him sternly. “And form up your working party at the double, if you please. Our orders are to rejoin the ship.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” the tall midshipman acknowledged flatly. The men formed up in response to his shouted command and, as dejected as they had been a week before, permitted him to march them down to the harbour and the boats that were waiting to take them back to Trojan. There was no singing, they marched in grim silence, the fiddler with his instrument under his arm. Conscious of an aching pity for them which he could not suppress, Phillip did his best to cheer them with the promise that he would report favourably on their conduct to the Captain.

  O’Leary eyed him defiantly and then spat, with studied insolence, at his feet. “Save your breath, sorr,”
he advised. “Sure, you’ll just be wasting it, if you do anything o’ the kind. Captain North will hear no good of us, whoever says it, wouldn’t you know that?”

  Phillip affected deafness and did not reprimand him. Back aboard Trojan, little seemed to have changed and the atmosphere was almost a tangible thing, whose brooding menace reached out to enfold him within a few minutes of his return. Anthony Cochrane, his face grey with fatigue, still wearily kept watch-and-watch, walking the quarterdeck like a ghost. The men of the Foretop Division, Phillip learnt, had had their grog stopped for lack of attention to duty. Two of the Port Watch were under arrest and awaiting sentence by the Captain for refusal to obey an order and Martin Fox reported three men down with cholera … one of these the Captain’s personal steward who, fearing his commander’s wrath if he went off duty, had carried on until he collapsed.

  “The Surgeon says the poor fellow’s dying,” Fox stated. “He was too far gone for medical aid when they brought him below.” He added feelingly, “Needless to tell you, Phillip, I am unable to find a voluntary replacement for him.”

  “And I,” Phillip told him, an edge to his voice, “have had to refuse a request, from my entire shore party, for permission to volunteer for service with the Naval Brigade, rather than report back to this ship for duty.”

  They exchanged unhappy glances. “Why do you not tell the Captain that, when you report to him?” Fox suggested, cynically.

  “How can I? No, I shall confine myself to praising them for the way they have worked on shore. They have been magnificent, Martin … every man-jack went on until he dropped and not a grumble from any of them, no matter what they were called upon to do. That is the truth and it’s what I intend to tell the Captain. Where is he, do you know?”

  “He’s dining below … but I doubt if he’ll believe you or welcome the interruption. However …” Martin Fox shrugged. “I’d like to talk to you when you can spare me half an hour in the private, Phillip. So would Mr Burnaby. Perhaps you should see him first.”

  “Burnaby?” Phillip frowned. “What does he want?”

  “I’d prefer him to tell you that himself. But don’t let me keep you from the captain, Phillip … even though you’ll be wasting your breath if you try to convince him that our men are anything but undisciplined scum. Recently …” Fox’s tone was more cynical than ever. “Recently he has taken to describing them as mutinous scoundrels with, I fear, more truth than he knows.”

  Phillip’s mouth tightened ominously but he did not argue. O’Leary had also told him that he would be wasting his breath, he thought wearily, as he went in search of the Captain, and perhaps it was true. But he would have to try, he supposed, even if his attempt were doomed to failure and the Captain refused to listen to him.

  North, who was finishing his meal, received him with no pretence of pleasure and listened to his favourable comments concerning the working party, a sceptical expression on his high-coloured, angular face.

  “I unfortunately chanced to witness your party’s return, Mr Hazard,” he said, cutting Phillip’s recital short. “And the men’s appearance was a disgrace to the ship. See that they all shave and change their shirts before they return to duty. Very well …” He commenced moodily to pick his teeth with a silver-handled toothpick, eyeing his First Lieutenant coldly. “You may carry on.”

  “But, sir … Captain North, I—”

  “Can’t you understand plain English, Mr Hazard?”

  “Yes, sir, of course. But I—”

  “Leave me to finish my dinner in peace, devil take it!” North interrupted irritably. “You may have got into the habit of dancing attendance on the Admiral whilst you were aboard Agamemnon and possibly he welcomed your attentions … but I do not. I prefer my own company, is that clear?”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” Phillip contained his rising temper with difficulty and prepared to accept his brusque dismissal. His hand was on the cabin door when Captain North called him back. “Oh, there’s a small matter which almost slipped my mind, Mr Hazard. It concerns your brother.”

  “My brother, sir?” Taken by surprise, Phillip halted and turned to face him, pale and startled. But he controlled himself. “If you are referring to Able-Seaman Hazard, sir, he is a prisoner of war in Odessa. That is, he—”

  “Able-Seaman Hazard, as you are pleased to call him, was brought back by the Fury a few days ago,” the Captain put in, a sneer in his voice. “From Odessa … although it seems, from what he told the Fury’s commander, that he was for a time in St Petersburg, undergoing a course of studies at the Imperial Naval Academy. Presumably he proved an unsatisfactory student, for they returned him.” North paused, savouring his triumph. “You look upset, Mr Hazard.”

  Making an almost visible effort not to betray his feelings, Phillip shook his head. “No, sir, I … I was surprised, that was all.”

  The Captain smiled. “Well, it may surprise you even more when I tell you that he will shortly be rejoining this ship. When he does, I will find suitable employment for him … I want no more of this skulking in the chartroom and meals with the warrant officers. He is rated as an able-seaman, not a Master’s assistant.”

  “Yes, sir.” Phillip’s thoughts were in turmoil and his mind reeling from the shock of what the Captain had told him. Graham … back with the British Fleet, returning to Trojan? But why? Why in heaven’s name had his brother left St Petersburg and why had he played his cards so badly that North had been able to arrange for him to be drafted back to Trojan? In the final analysis, he thought ruefully, as he closed the door of the Captain’s cabin behind him, Graham had, it would seem, behaved no less quixotically and certainly no less foolishly than he himself had behaved.

  2

  “Excuse me, Mr Hazard … I’d appreciate a word with you, sir, if you have a few minutes.”

  Phillip turned, recognizing Burnaby, the elderly Master, who had evidently been waiting for him to emerge from the Captain’s quarters. He stifled his impatience and nodded.

  “Yes, Mr Burnaby, what can I do for you?”

  “What I have to say is for your ears alone, Mr Hazard,” the Master told him.

  “Then come to my cabin.” Phillip led the way, the old man following silently at his heels. In the sanctuary of his small sleeping cabin, he waved his visitor to its only chair and poured him a tot of whisky from the bottle he kept there. Burnaby faced him squarely, glass in hand, his warning of impending trouble delivered with blunt honesty and with no attempt to prevaricate.

  “I can’t tell you what form the trouble will take, Mr Hazard,” he said apologetically. “But it is coming … I can feel it and I’ve been too many years at sea to be mistaken. You develop a nose for these things, an instinct, if you like. Your health, sir!” He swallowed his whisky at a gulp and, with an odd little gesture of finality, set down his glass. “That was all I wanted to say, Mr Hazard. But I had to tell you because, unless something is done very soon, I’m afraid it may be too late. And … you are the First Lieutenant, sir. It’s for you to act.”

  “Precisely what action,” Phillip asked, “do you consider I ought to take, Mr Burnaby?”

  “That is for you to decide, Mr Hazard. I cannot advise you, it is not my place.” Burnaby spoke with quiet dignity, his eyes on the worn rug at his feet.

  Phillip searched the lined, leathery old face but it offered no clue to the Master’s feelings. Could he, he wondered, count on Burnaby’s support, no matter how drastic the action he might be compelled to take? Was this what the old man was trying to tell him—was a promise of support implicit in his warning? Or was he, by issuing the warning, simply covering himself in case things went wrong and the situation got out of hand? Burnaby had come up through the hawse-hole, from the lower deck; he was closer to the men than the other officers so did he, perhaps, know more than they did?

  Phillip sighed deeply. “You may rely on my discretion, Mr Burnaby,” he said at last. “As, I trust, I may rely on yours.”

  “Of course, sir. I’d no
t be here otherwise.”

  “Good … then let us be frank with each other, shall we?” Phillip forced a reassuring smile. “You spoke of the possibility of trouble, Mr Burnaby, but of what are you really afraid? That this ship’s company may mutiny?”

  Burnaby glanced across at him apprehensively, his composure visibly shaken. “Mutiny is an ugly word, Mr Hazard.”

  “Call it whatever you wish. This is an ugly situation, is it not?”

  “Yes, sir,” the Master conceded unhappily. “And it is true that desperate men do resort to acts of violence that could lead to mutiny, if they can find no other remedy for their grievances. These men have a legitimate grievance, but …” he broke off, eyeing Phillip warily as if uncertain whether, even now, he dare speak his mind with complete freedom.

  “I invited you to be frank, Mr Burnaby,” Phillip reminded him. “We shall get nowhere unless you are, I fear.”

  The Master inclined his grizzled head. “Well, sir, as I told you when we were leaving Plymouth Sound, there’s nothing wrong with this ship’s company. They’re good men, most of them, but …” he spoke with deep feeling, forgetful of his earlier caution. “But they’ve been driven too hard, Mr Hazard, and for too long. There’s a limit to what flesh and blood can stand and I’m afraid that some of them—the bolder spirits— have reached their limit now. They’ve suffered tyranny and injustice for a long time and they can’t endure much more. They want to put an end to it, war or no war and … they’re looking to you to help them. If you cannot, they’ll take matters into their own hands without counting the cost.”