Sword of State: The Remarkable Story of George Monck

by Richard Woodman

  ‘Aye, thereabouts.’

  ‘Very well. He has stolen a march upon us,’ Monck remarked, his tone resigned but not dismayed. His next comment as he completed their joint analysis struck Bourne as a measure of Monck’s maturity as a fleet commander. On land he would have acted differently, ordering an immediate counter-march; at sea a few months ago he might have attempted something similar. Now he understood. ‘The man has a genius for the affairs of a fleet,’ observed Monck. ‘He knows that we will confuse our dispositions and likely divide our fleet should we attempt the same in this darkness…’

  ‘It is a July night, Excellency,’ Bourne could barely keep the admiration out of his own voice. ‘It will not last long. I will make a signal for the attending pinnace to come under our lee at once, and pass orders to tack at dawn.’

  ‘Three guns to be the signal, fired to leeward and repeated by all flags,’ added Monck, nodding his agreement.

  ‘It shall be done exactly as you wish, Excellency.’

  ‘We will nail him off the Texel…’

  ‘Exactly so, sir.’

  Bourne joined him in the great cabin after the watch had hailed the little Whelp which kept the Resolution company through thick-and-thin, including the din of battle. The two men poured over the candle-lit chart for some moments, Monck drumming his fingers irritably on the paper over the soundings that showed the lack of water along the shore.

  ‘Do you think he will keep inshore?’ Monck began, a hint of anxiety in his tone. Bourne, divining the reason, reassured his commander-in-chief.

  ‘The tide will not help him. ’Tis too near springs. He dare not risk weakening his power by the grounding of a single ship.’

  ‘Aye, but he may attempt to lure us…’ Monck began. Bourne considered Monck’s proposition but had no chance to respond before Monck suddenly straightened up. ‘No, he is going to strike us, thinking that, despite our numbers, we are weakened by these weeks at sea.’ The tone of conviction in Monck’s voice had a hard edge.

  ‘He may well think thus and, a year ago it night have been true,’ Bourne observed.

  ‘But we are better at our business now,’ Monck completed Bourne’s train of thought. ‘The augmenting of his fleet by the acquisition of De With’s ships speaks for itself. He will – he must – force a battle upon us.’ Monck smiled, contentedly. ‘And now we must get what rest we may.’

  Monck dozed until the knock at his door ushered the presence of Lieutenant Rusbridge. ‘It wants a minute or two yet, Excellency, but Captain Bourne’s compliments and our guns are charged and the Whelp has returned saying he has passed word down the entire line.’

  ‘Who commands her, Rusbridge? I would know his name for this service.’Twas well executed.’

  ‘Lieutenant Paul McLynn, sir. A tarpaulin officer like myself.’

  ‘You are acquainted with him?’

  ‘I am, Excellency.’

  ‘Do you such a service this day and I shall have you both advanced in rank. I fear there are too many soldiers in your way, eh?’ Monck smiled at the old sailor.

  Rusbridge grinned back. ‘Your Excellency is most kind.’

  ‘Tell Captain Bourne to carry on with the signal. I shall join him when I have made my toilette.’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  A moment later the three guns boomed out. Monck waited only long enough to hear the next repetition before voiding himself in the quarter-gallery and calling for razor and hot-water. As he shaved and dressed he heard the shouted orders and the creak of the steering as the helm went over; it was followed by the rattle of the sheaves in the blocks as the yards came round. The Resolution took on a slight heel and settled to her new course. Half-an-hour later Bourne himself entered the great cabin and made his report.

  ‘I am pleased to inform your Excellency that as far as I may judge the matter, the entire fleet has turned about as you ordered. The wind has settled in the nor’-west quarter and is light but steady, so we lay to the nor’- east on the larboard tack.’

  ‘And I am pleased to inform you, Captain Bourne,’ said Monck, drawing on his coat, ‘that I understand all that you say as any mariner might.’

  Bourne grinned at him. A moment later Monck followed his flag-captain out onto the Resolution’s deck accoutred for battle.

  It was six bells in the morning watch – seven o’clock – when the small pale rectangles of the Dutch fleet breasted the eastern horizon. The wind still held steady from the north-west, light but serviceable. Rusbride reassured Monck that he had been aloft and the English fleet was in as good a line as he thought possible.

  ‘And the intervals?’

  ‘I cannot say, sir, but I may hail the Whelp who can haul out to starboard and take a survey…’

  ‘Do that if you please.’

  ‘What is your opinion of Rusbridge?’ Monck asked Bourne as the lieutenant hailed his acquaintance in the little advice-boat.

  ‘A good officer, but he has no patronage. I have commended him myself, but I do not stand in much favour. To be truthful, Excellency, there is too much politics in the naval administration.’

  Monck grunted. ‘Well, that being as it may, let us send the men to quarters as soon as they have broken their fast. Will you join me for a quick breakfast in the cabin?’

  ‘Thank you, Excellency.’

  An hour later they were back on deck, the Resolution cleared for action, every sail drawing, the gun-decks stripped from end to end and officers and men at their various stations for action. From their limited vantage point on the ship’s quarter-deck Monck and Bourne could see enough to know that Van Tromp was indeed seeking a decisive battle.

  ‘We should clew up the courses, Excellency…’

  ‘Then see to it,’ Monck responded curtly. He was watching with satisfaction, chewing upon a quid of tobacco. From two points on the larboard bow, stretching across the head of the English line to three points on the starboard bow, the Dutch fleet stood on. Like their opponents, the Dutch were also clewing up the large, lower sails, making for a slower but greater control as the fleets closed for action.

  ‘Pray God Penn knows his duty,’ Bourne murmured, half to himself.

  ‘If he does not and I survive, I shall have him shot,’ Monck responded, half-humorously.

  But there was no need for any further orders. The English were to leeward, but their line, like a spear, was approaching from the opposite direction at an acute angle to the Dutch line-of-advance. If all did as they were supposed, and Penn’s squadron in the van held to its purpose, it would cut through the Dutch fleet at a point about three-quarters of its length.

  ‘They do not keep station as we do,’ Monck remarked.

  ‘No, whether they mean to or not, I do not know, but they cover their intervals…’

  ‘Thereby depriving themselves of half their fire-power,’ Monck completed the sentence.

  ‘Aye, but allowing a greater, more direct control,’ responded Bourne who was peering at the enemy through is long glass. ‘Their squadrons are formed from their different states and lack a cohesion… I am trying to determine from their flags and pendants… Tromp is in the van…’

  ‘To lead by example, no doubt.’

  ‘Aye, and he is followed by Evertsen, then De Ruiter…’ Bourne was wrestling with the complexities of the Dutch dispositions, but the flaunting bunting and the silk standards, the red-white-and-blue – sometimes in three broad stripes, sometimes repeated, in the huge ensigns – accompanied by the various command flags and pendants, gave a true picture of the Dutch fleet, if one knew them. But one must pick them out before the smoke and thunder of general action killed the view and dimmed the wits.

  ‘De With is in the rear, is he not?’ asked Monck. ‘Or is that Floriszoon?’

  ‘It’s De With; Floriszoon is beyond the general line…perhaps a reserve,’ Bourne stared through the telescope.

  ‘If so he is well-placed for that is where our first collision will occur.’

  The words w
ere hardly out of Monck’s mouth when the first concussions of the day opened the battle. ‘Mark the time, sir!’ Monck called to the Sailing-Master, asking ‘is there any sea-mark that will give us a bearing?’

  ‘Scheveningen church lies almost due east, Your Excellency,’ the man replied. ‘It is in sight from the mizzen-top.’

  ‘Then mark it on your slate.’

  ‘’Tis already done, Excellency.’

  ‘Very well.’ He knew he had no need to keep these men up to the mark, but neither did he want them to think he was not increasingly grasping their business. They were less likely to be tempted to pull the wool over his eyes, if only for their own amusement.

  The noise of gun-fire approached as each successive ship ahead of them, coming within range of the enemy, began her own part on the battle. Now they were receiving incoming fire and within minutes the action had become general as they pressed down upon the Dutch.

  ‘I reck they have fire-ships!’ Bourne called out, pointing, but Monck knew now his admirals and captains must do what they could on their own, for the smoke of a thousand discharges filled the air, stung the eyes and choked the throat. Pulling down about his ears his head-cloth, Monck could only take refuge in the orders he had written and had copied soon after Blake had left him in sole command, recalling the severe Third Article that said: Should battle be joined, no quarter is to be given unless a ship of the enemy doth capitulate fully, and that a fire shall be maintained into her until that matter of submission has been placed beyond peradventure. Fire-ships or no, this must be an action from which none escaped either destruction or surrender, Monck thought. After that, clemency should be exercised; but only after victory had been assured. It was his first principle in the waging of war.

  A hail of small arms shot swept the deck, clearly aimed at destroying the Resolution’s senior officers.

  Monck saw the loom of an enemy man-of-war and then they were crossing her stern as Resolution, following the ships ahead, cut through what passed among the Dutch for a line. Bourne had proved right, it was a veritable jumble of ships for De Ruiter’s squadron was running almost parallel to Floriszoon’s and so the English could not load their guns fast enough to rake ship after enemy ship.

  But if crossing the enemy’s sterns left the Dutch only a few stern chase guns to respond with, these fired low, hulling the English as they in turn raked the upper decks with a terrible ferocity. Resolution staggered as shots thumped into her, a few feet above her waterline. Moreover the galleries and high taffrails a-top the Dutch poops everywhere sprouted musketeers and arquebusiers who poured a rain of lead, adding to the few pounds of small iron balls, nails and other langridge fired from the small swivel-guns the seamen called ‘murderers’. These cut to pieces any poor soul in their way.

  ‘Captain Godbolt! Get your men to aim higher, sir!’ Bourne was screaming at the marine officer whose very existence Monck had all but forgotten. In the last few hours the strategic considerations had shrunk to the merely tactical; now matters had assumed an even narrower field – now it was merely personal. Godbolt’s men came running up from the waist, dilatory in the defence of their chief officers. One tripped and fell, almost at Monck’s feet, rolled over and displayed the bloody ingress wound of a half-pound ball. The expression in his eyes was one of stark surprise. Monck bent, tore off the man’s cartridge-belt, picked-up his musket and loaded it. He could do little more to guide his fleet, but there was every need for him to respond to the enemy’s galling fire. Blowing on the slow-match, he fired all eight cartridges with the satisfaction of knowing that at least five of the enemy sharp-shooters had been prevented from causing further damage, when it came to him that it was insufficient to simply pass the enemy’s line. The thunderous noise had addled his brains and he sought Bourne, but for a moment saw no sign of the man in the dense smoke then rolling across the Resolution’s deck. He ran forward in the hope of seeing more and was rewarded, through a clearing of the smoke as they broke past Floriszoon’s confused squadron. In the van of Monck’s fleet the competent Penn had turned parallel to the Dutch line. One-by-one the English ships were following. He hurried back to the quarter-deck; orders must be given to follow round and lay the whole English line against the windward side of the Dutch.

  Bourne had emerged from the smoke and saw the need to alter course. By the time Monck reached the binnacle the helm was going over and the hands spared from the guns were joining those allotted to the task of bracing the yards sharp up against the catharpings.

  ‘When Tromp sees us, he will try and work the van to windward!’ Bourne shouted in Monck’s ear.

  ‘Then we must cut through him a second time!’ Monck roared in response.

  Bourne nodded agreement; Monck noted the smoke-blackened face and the hole in his hat where a small-shot had passed right through the crown. Monck was relieved to see Bourne seemed unaffected by these vicissitudes.

  The noise, smoke and confusion now wrapped every man in that terrible conflict into a cocoon of his own. Every individual now felt his own isolation. The sheer violence that shattered the very air each man breathed – and that not without difficulty, for it was hot and its oxygen content all but consumed by the rapacious appetite of the gun-powder – was stultifying. Such was the mad unnaturalness of the environment that all seemed at the same time to be alone and yet part of one vast and struggling mass. About them all, whether perceived in the dark recesses of the gun-decks, or the fitful light and reeking stench of the cockpit on the orlop where the butchering surgeons made meat of men, even the supposed daylight of the upper deck, each man, irrespective of rank, felt the very solidity of his own ship falter. The thick oak planks, of double-thickness and secured to futtocks a foot square in section, seemed paper-thin and vulnerable as glass. Men and parts of men, lay all about like the cast-off pieces of broken dolls in a disordered and hellish nursery. Blood ran – quite literally – out through the narrow scupper pies and down the ships’ sides. But above all, above the horrors before men’s eyes, above the imperative demands of serving their brutish artillery – the swabbing, worming, loading, ramming, training, aiming and firing – above even the pain of flesh-wounds that failed to incapacitate them, above everything was the noise. There were no words to describe it, even afterwards, for it seemed then like a great and oppressive silence, as if they had been transported to a place where sound assumed an entirely some different physical property from which a man’s inner being shrank. Perhaps it was only this disabling of a man’s his hearing that compelled what was left of his battered intelligence to hold him to the monotony of his duty. Moreover, it was only this, the sole consolation of doing his duty among his fellows amid such a frightful desolation, that maintained a man’s commitment in defiance of his instinct for self-preservation.

  And men did peculiar things under such stress. There was one aboard the Resolution who, despite being scored eight times by passing small-shot, six time re-hoisted the flag-ship’s great red ensign when the enemy’s lucky marksmen shot away the flag’s halliards. Another, an officer’s servant whose duty in action was to assist in the carriage of cartridges from the magazine deep in the ship’s hold, to the lower gun-deck, so far forgot himself as to bring the General-at-Sea a drink of water, a dereliction of duty which earned him Monck’s high-praise. On the lower gun-deck, where Lieutenant Rusbridge commanded the batteries, there was a moment when, with the ship close engaged on both sides, and the enemy vessel on the Resolution’s larboard beam so close as to fire at point-blank range, several burning wads followed their balls through the shattered gun-ports and set afire a pile of clothes the sweating gunners had discarded in the heat of the fire-fight. These soon ignited a train of powder which, by virtue of the incessant carriage of cartridges up from the magazine, had slowly but persistently formed from a thin residue that fell from each as the powder-monkeys hurried back-and-forth. Leading directly back to the magazine it might have destroyed the ship in an instant, had not Rusbridge seen it, even as it flash
ed and sputtered aft along the planking. He threw himself full length upon the hissing flare and extinguished it even as another man stood stock-still, paralysed with horror at what might have been. When he had succeeded in his gallant act, Rusbridge rose with his face burnt and one eye destroyed. Uttering not a word, he resumed his station, commanding the guns of the lower-deck. Thus was the Resolution saved by Rusbridge’s quickness of thought; the Oak was not so fortunate. The only ship lost to the English that day, the Oak’s magazine was detonated by some equally careless or unhappy mischance.

  This madness did not exempt Monck as he did not expect it to, but he knew how to harness it. After satisfying himself that Penn had led the van of the English fleet round and that the rest of the fleet followed in his wake, Monck had stormed about the upper-deck directing the fire of Godbolt’s marines and of the lighter guns mounted there, including Resolution’s own ‘murderers’. From time-to-time he discharged his acquired matchlock, alternating this with brief consultations with Bourne, who stood beside the binnacle with the Sailing-Master, keeping the Resolution in her station.

  Half-a-dozen times Monck found himself roaring at Godbolt, calling up his men to take advantage in some break in the pall of dense smoke that hung over them and through which he had discerned a glimpse of the enemy.

  ‘Captain Godbolt! Here sir, instanter! A worthy target for your men!’ Whereupon, by way of example, he discharged his own matchlock musket into the clearing.

  After Van Tromp had swung round in an attempt to recover the weather gauge, the English passed again through the Dutch fleet, somehow maintaining a ragged line in defiance of the enemy and subjecting the Dutch ships to a relentless and withering fire. This time Monck’s fleet parted the Dutch half-way, between the squadrons of Evertsen and De Ruiter before Tromp turned yet again. Twice more during the long, excoriating hours of the summer day, the two fleets criss-crossed each other, at each exchange the Dutch having the worst of it. The larger, heavier armed English men-of-war, simply wore down their courageous opponents by the simple, terrible mechanics of attrition.