A Brig of War

by Richard Woodman

  ‘Eh? Oh, undoubtedly you are right, Mr Appleby. But frankly I am driven to wonder to what purpose you men of science address your speculations.’

  Appleby expelled his breath in an eloquent sigh. ‘Ah well, sir, ’tis no great matter . . . how long d’you intend to stay here?’

  ‘Just as long as it takes Mr Rogers to assist the people of Hecuba to get up a new foremast. Under the circumstances they did a wonderful job themselves, for in that sea there was no question of them securing a tow.’

  ‘Ah! I was thinking about that, sir. Nathaniel was talking about using a rocket to convey a line. Now, if we could but . . .’ Appleby broke off as Mr Q popped his head round the door.

  ‘Beg pardon sir, but the captain of the Ra . . . Rag . . .’

  ‘Ragusan,’ prompted Griffiths.

  ‘Yes, sir . . . well he’s here sir.’

  ‘Then show him in, boy, show him in.’

  Griffiths summoned Drinkwater from sleep at noon. The tiny cabin that accommodated the brig’s commander was strewn with charts and Lestock was in fussy attendance.

  ‘Ah, Mr Drinkwater, please help yourself to a glass.’ Griffiths indicated the decanter which contained his favourite sercial. As the lieutenant poured Griffiths outlined the events of the morning.

  ‘This mistral that prevented our getting up to Toulon has been a blessing in disguise . . .’ Drinkwater saw Lestock nodding in sage agreement with his captain. ‘The fact that we have had to run for shelter has likely saved us from falling into the hands of the French.’

  Still tired, Drinkwater frowned with incomprehension. Nelson was blockading Toulon; what the devil was Griffiths driving at?

  ‘The French are out, somewhere it is believed, in the eastern Mediterranean. That polaccra spoke with Admiral Nelson off Cape Passaro on June the twenty-second . . . two weeks ago. He’s bound to Barcelona and was quizzed by the admiral about the whereabouts of the French armada.’

  ‘Armada, sir? You mean an invasion force?’

  Griffiths nodded. ‘I do indeed, bach. Myndiawl, they’ve given Nelson the slip, see.’

  ‘And did this Ragusan offer Sir Horatio any intelligence?’

  ‘Indeed he did. The polaccra passed the entire force, heading east . . .’

  ‘East? And Nelson’s gone in pursuit?’

  ‘Yes indeed. And we must follow.’ Drinkwater digested the news, trying to make sense of it. East? All his professional life the Royal Navy had guarded against a combination of naval forces in the Channel. His entire service aboard Kestrel had been devoted to that end. Indeed his motives for entering the service in the first place had had their inspiration in the Franco-Spanish attempt of 1779 which, to the shame of the navy, had so nearly succeeded. East? It did not make sense unless it was an elaborate feint, the French buying time to exercise in the eastern Mediterranean. If that were the case they might draw Nelson after them – such an impetuous officer would not hold back – and then they might turn west, slip through the Straits, clear St Vincent from before Cadiz and join forces with the Spanish fleet.

  ‘Did our informant say who commanded them, sir?’ he asked.

  ‘No less a person than Bonaparte,’ said Lestock solemnly.

  ‘Bonaparte’ But we read in the newspapers that Bonaparte commanded the Army of England . . . I remember Appleby jesting that the English Army had long wanted a general officer of his talent.’

  ‘Mr Appleby’s joke seems to have curdled, Mr Drinkwater,’ said Lestock without a smile. Drinkwater turned to Griffiths.

  ‘You say you’ll follow Nelson, sir, to what rendezvous?’

  ‘What do you suggest, Mr Drinkwater? Mr Lestock?’

  Lestock fidgetted. ‘Well, sir, I er, I think that in the absence of a rendezvous with the admiral we ought to proceed to, er . . .’

  ‘Malta, sir,’ said Drinkwater abruptly, ‘then if the French double for the Atlantic we might be placed there with advantage, on the other hand there will doubtless be some general orders for us there.’

  ‘No, Mr Drinkwater. Your reasoning is sound but the Ragusan also told us that Malta has fallen to the French.’ Griffiths put down his glass and bent over the charts, picking up the dividers to point with.

  ‘We will proceed south and run through the Bonifacio Strait for Naples, there will likely be news there, or here at Messina, or here, at Syracuse.’

  There was no news at Naples beyond that of Nelson’s fleet having stopped there on 17th June, intelligence older than that from the polaccra. Griffiths would not anchor and all hands eyed the legendary port wistfully. The ochre colours of its palazzi and its tenements were lent a common and ethereal appeal by distance, and the onshore breeze enhanced a view given a haunting beauty beyond the blue waters of the bay by the backdrop of Vesuvius.

  ‘God, but I’d dearly love a night of sport there,’ mused Rogers, who had acquitted himself in re-rigging the Hecuba and now seemed of the opinion that he had earned at least one night of debauchery in the Neapolitan stews. Appleby, standing within earshot and aware of the three seamen grinning close by said, ‘Then thank the lord you’ve a sane man to command your instincts, Mr Rogers. The Neapolitan pox is a virulent disease well-known for its intractability.’

  Rogers paled at the sally and the three men coiled the falls of the royal halliards with uncommon haste.

  Hellebore worked her way slowly south, past the islands of the Tyrrhenian Sea and through the narrow Straits of Messina; but there was no further news of Nelson or the French.

  On 16th July the convoy stood into the Bay of Syracuse to wood and water and to find a welcome for British ships. Through the good offices of the British Ambassador to the Court of the Two Sicilies, Sir William Hamilton, facilities were available to expedite the reprovisioning of units of the Royal Navy.

  ‘It seems,’ Griffiths said to his assembled officers, ‘that Sir Horatio has considered the possibility of using Syracuse as a base. We must simply wait.’

  They waited three days. Shortly before noon on the 19th the British fleet was in the offing and with the Leander in the van, came into Syracuse Harbour. By three minutes past three in the afternoon the fourteen ships of the line under the command of Rear Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson had anchored. Within an hour their boats swarmed over the blue waters of the bay, their crews carrying off wood and water, their pursers haggling in the market place for vegetables and beef.

  Hellebore’s boat pulled steadily through the throng of craft, augmented by local bumboats which traded hopefully with the fleet. Officers’ servants were buying chickens for their masters’ tables while a surreptitious trade in rot-gut liquor was being conducted through lower deck ports. The apparent confusion and bustle had an air of charged purpose about it and Drinkwater suppressed a feeling of almost childish excitement. Beside him Griffiths wore a stony expression, his leathery old face hanging in sad folds, the wisps of white hair escaping untidily from below the new, glazed cocked hat. Drinkwater felt a wave of sympathy for the old man with his one glittering epaulette. Griffiths had been at sea half a century; he had served in slavers as a mate before being pressed as a naval seaman. He was old enough, experienced enough and able enough to have commanded this entire fleet, reflected Nathaniel, but the man who did so was only a few years older than Drinkwater himself.

  ‘You had better attend on me,’ Griffiths had said, giving his first lieutenant permission to accompany him aboard Vanguard, ‘seeing that you are so damned eager to clap eyes on this Admiral Nelson.’

  Drinkwater looked at Quilhampton who shared his curiosity. Mr Q’s hand rested nervously on the boat’s tiller. The boy was concentrating, not daring to look round at the splendours of British naval might surrounding him. Drinkwater approved of his single-mindedness; Mr Q was developing into an asset.

  ‘Boat ahoy!’ The hail came from the flagship looming ahead of them, her spars and rigging black against the brilliant sky, the blue rear-admiral’s flag at her mizen masthead. Drinkwater was about to prompt Quilhampton but t
he boy rose, cleared his throat and in a resonant treble called out ‘Hellebore!’ The indication of his commander’s presence thus conveyed to Vanguard, Quilhampton felt with pleasure the half smile bestowed on him by Mr Drinkwater.

  At the entry port four white gloved side-boys and a bosun’s mate greeted Hellebore’s captain and his lieutenant. The officer of the watch left them briefly on the quarterdeck while he reported their arrival to the demi-god who resided beneath the poop. Curiously Drinkwater looked round. Vanguard was smaller than Victory, a mere 74-gun two decker, but there was that same neatness about her, mixed with something else. He sensed it intuitively from the way her people went about their business. From the seamen amidships, rolling empty water casks to the gangway and from a quarter gunner changing the flints in the after carronades emanated a sense of single-minded purpose. He was always to remember this drive that superimposed their efforts as the ‘Nelson touch’, far more than the much publicised manoeuvre at Trafalgar that brought Nelson his apotheosis seven years later.

  ‘Sir Horatio will see you now sir,’ said the lieutenant re-emerging. Drinkwater followed Griffiths, ignoring the gesture of restraint from the duty officer. They passed under the row of ciphered leather fire-buckets into the shade of the poop, passing the master’s cabin and the rigid marine sentry. Uncovering, Drinkwater followed his commander into the admiral’s cabin.

  Sir Horatio Nelson rose from his desk as Griffiths presented Drinkwater and the latter bowed. Nelson’s smallness of stature was at first a disappointment to Nathaniel who expected something altogether different. Disappointing too were the worn uniform coat and the untidy mop of greying hair, but Drinkwater began to lose his sense of anti-climax as the admiral quizzed Griffiths about the stores contained in Hecuba and Molly. There was in his address an absence of formality, an eager confidence which was at once infectious. There was a delicacy about the little man. He looked far older than his thirty-nine years, his skin fine drawn, almost transparent over the bones. His large nose and wide, mobile mouth were at odd variance with his body size. But the one good blue eye was sharply attentive, a window on some inner motivation, and the empty sleeve bore witness to his reckless courage.

  ‘Do you know the whereabouts of my frigates, Captain?’ he asked Griffiths, ‘I am driven desperate for want of frigates. The French have escaped me, sir, and I have one brig at my disposal to reconnoitre for a fleet.’

  Drinkwater sensed the consuming frustration felt by this most diligent of flag officers, sensed his mortification at being deprived of his eyes in the gale that had dismasted Vanguard. Yet Vanguard had been refitted without delay and the battle line was impressive enough to strike terror in the French if only this one-armed dynamo could catch them.

  ‘There is Hellebore, Sir Horatio,’ volunteered Griffiths.

  ‘Yes, Captain. Would that the whereabouts of the French squadron was my only consideration. But I know that their fleet, besides sail of the line, frigates, bomb vessels and so forth, also comprises three hundred troop transports; an armada that left Sicily with a fair wind from the west. It is clear their destination is to the eastward. I think their object is to possess themselves of some port in Egypt, to fix themselves at the head of the Red Sea in order to get a formidable army into India, to act in concert with Tipoo Sahib. No, Captain, I may not permit myself the luxury of retaining Hellebore . . .’ The admiral paused and Drinkwater felt apprehensive. Nelson made up his mind. ‘I must sacrifice perhaps my reputation but that must always subordinate itself to my zeal for the King’s service which demands I acquaint the officer on the station of the danger he may be in. I have already written to Mr Baldwin, our consul at Alexandria, to determine whether the French have any vessels prepared in the Red Sea. As yet I have had no reply. Therefore, my dear Griffiths, I desire that you wood and water without delay and send a boat for your written orders the instant you are ready to proceed to the Red Sea.’

  Drinkwater felt his mouth go dry. The Red Sea meant a year’s voyage at the least. And Elizabeth had given him expectation of a child in the summer.

  Chapter Three

  A Brig of War

  July–August 1798

  Lieutenant Drinkwater stared astern watching the seas run up under the brig’s larboard quarter, lifting her stern and impelling her forward, adding a trifle to her speed until they passed ahead of her and she dragged, slowly, into the succeeding trough. Hellebore carried sail to her topgallants as she raced south west before the trade wind, the coast of Mauretania twenty-five leagues to the east.

  Drinkwater had been watching Mr Quilhampton heave the log and had acknowledged the boy’s report, prompted by the quartermaster, that they were running at seven knots. Something would not let him turn forward again but kept him watching the wake as it bubbled green-white under the stern and trailed away behind them in an irregular ribbon, twisted by the yaw of the ship and the oncoming waves. Here and there a following seabird dipped into its disturbance.

  He had felt wretched as they passed the Straits of Gibraltar and took their departure from Cape Espartel, for he had been unable to send letters back to Elizabeth, so swift had been Hellebore’s passage from Syracuse, so explicit the admiral’s orders. Now it was certain he would be separated from her until after the birth of their child, he regretted his inability to soften the blow of his apparent desertion.

  He was aware of someone at his elbow and resented the intrusion upon his private thoughts.

  ‘Beg pardon, zur.’ It was Tregembo. Ten years older than Drinkwater the able seaman had long ago attached himself to him with a touching and unsolicited loyalty. He had cemented the relationship by supplying Elizabeth with a cook in the person of his wife Susan, certain that service with the Drinkwaters represented security. The personal link between them both gratified and, at that moment, annoyed Drinkwater. He snapped irritably, ‘What is it?’

  ‘Your sword, zur, ’tis now but half a glass before quarters, zur.’

  Drinkwater looked guiltily at the half-hour sand-glass in the little binnacle and took his sword. Since they left the Mediterranean Griffiths had adopted the three watch system. It was kinder on the men and more suited to the long passage ahead of them. There were no dog watches now but at five hours after noon, ship’s time, they went to general quarters to remind them all of the serious nature of their business.

  Drinkwater turned forward and looked along the deck of the Hellebore. She was a trim ship, one of a new class of brig-sloop designed for general duties, a maid of all work, tender, dispatch vessel, convoy escort and commerce raider. He stood on a tiny raised poop which protected the head of the rudder stock and tiller. Immediately forward of the poop the tiller lines ran through blocks to the wheel with its binnacle, forward of which were the skylight and companionway to the officers’ accommodation. Beneath the skylight lay the lobby which served her two lieutenants, master, surgeon, gunner and purser as a gunroom, their cabins leading off it. Griffiths messed there too, unless he dined alone in his cabin, set right aft and entered via the gunroom. Forward of the companionway to this accommodation rose the mainmast, surrounded by its pin rails and coils of manila rigging, its pump handles and trunks. Between the main and foremast, gratings covered the waist, giving poor ventilation to the berth space below, covered by tarpaulins at the first sign of bad weather. Here too was the capstan. Just beyond the foremast the galley chimney rose from the deck next to the companionway that led below to the berth space where the hundred men of Hellebore’s company swung their hammocks in an overcrowded fug. The remaining warrant officers and their stores were tucked under the triangular foredeck. A tiny raised platform served as a fo’c’s’le, providing just enough foothold to handle the headsail sheets and tend the catheads.

  She was pierced with twenty gunports but so cluttered did she become in the eyes that the foremost were unoccupied. The remaining eighteen each sported an iron six-pounder. These guns were still a subject of frequent debate amongst her officers. Many vessels of similar size carrie
d the snub barrelled carronades, short-ranged but devastating weapons that gave a small sloop a weight of metal heavy enough at close quarters to rival frigates of the sixth rate. But Hellebore had been armed by a traditionalist, retaining long guns each with its little canvas covered flintlock firing device. The only carronade she carried was her twelve-pounder boat gun which lay lashed under the fo’c’s’le.

  Drinkwater descended from the poop as Griffiths came on deck. The glass was turned and the people piped to general quarters. The hands tumbled up willingly enough, the bosun’s mates flicking the occasional backside with their starters more for form than necessity. But Drinkwater was not watching that; he was seeing his laboriously drawn up quarter-bill come to life. The gun crews ran to their pieces to slip the breechings and lower the muzzles off the lintels of the gunports. The port lids were lifted as the coloured tompions were knocked out and the men threw their weight on the train tackles. Irregularly, but not unpleasantly discordant, the trucks rumbled over the deck. One by one the gun captains raised their right arms as their crews knelt at the ready position. It was not quite like a frigate. There were no bulkheads to come down since Hellebore carried her artillery on her upper deck, there was no marine drummer to beat the rafale; not many officers to go round once the gunner had disappeared into his magazine and Lestock and Drinkwater had come aft to the quarterdeck. There was a quarter gunner to each section and a master’s mate at either battery. Second Lieutenant Rogers was in overall command of the engaged side with Mr Quilhampton (nominally a ‘servant’ on the ship’s books, but fulfilling the function of a midshipman) as his messenger. Dalziell, the only midshipman officially allowed the brig, commanded the firemen, two men from each gun who assisted each other to extinguish any fires started by an enemy. Drinkwater himself commanded the boarders while Lestock attended to the sails. Under the first lieutenant’s command were the men in the tops, sail trimming topmen and a detail of sharpshooters, seamen picked from a competition held weeks earlier in the Downs, and mostly landsmen whose past included either service in the sea fencibles, the volunteers or in a longer feud with their local gamekeepers.