The French Admiral l-2

by Dewey Lambdin

  As the process was being repeated to begin swaying up the new topgallant and royal masts to their own trestletrees, cheek pieces, and waiting doubling bands, one of the men on the tops'l yard gave a shout and pointed out to seaward. Lewrie was higher than he at the topmast crosstrees, which had just been correctly cross-tensioned by the shrouds, and he turned carefully on his precarious and half-finished perch to see what the excitement had been about.

  The morning haze had burned off with the heat of the autumn sun, though the day was still pleasantly cool, which made for almost ideal viewing conditions. As Alan shaded his eyes against the morning sun in the east, he could bareh make out an unnatural-looking cloud on the seaward horizon somewhere just inshore of the Middle Ground and the main ship channel into the bay, he suspected. Certainly it ould not be a ship in the passage—that was near forty miles off, below the horizon.

  "Riyals an' t'gallants!" the impromptu lookout declared firmly.

  "Looks to be only a cloud to me," Alan said, with a shrug.

  "Tis ships, Mister Lewrie, sir," the man insisted.

  "Might be Iris and Richmond, then," Alan said. "They were out to pick up all the buoys the Frogs left when they cut their cables a few days back."

  "Mebbe our fleet acomin' back fer us, sir," the man went on, nodding his head with the rightness of that thought. "See, sir, that gunboat of our'n out there is headin' out ta check on 'em."

  Alan looked closer in. Perhaps ten miles off, almost under the horizon herself, there was a ketch-rigged patrol craft that had come down from higher up the bay at dawn after taking or burning almost every boat or watercraft still on the upper reaches of the Chesapeake, so it would be impossible for the French over on the James to amass any shipping that could threaten the army on the York. Symonds's small flotilla had not left a rowing boat for the Rebels to use above their anchorage.

  "Aloft there!" Coke's voice boomed. "Stand by yer top tackles ta take the topgallant mast!"

  "'Old yer water, Norman, 'old yer water, damn ye," the carpenter griped, still rasping that last little bit of smoothness between the assembled trestletrees which would receive and hold the butt of the topgallant.

  "Go down and tell the captain there are unidentified ships in the bay, and that one of our gunboats is investigating," Alan said to the seaman who had made the first sighting.

  "Oh, Lor', Mister Lewrie, I couldn't do that, sir!" he pleaded.

  Cool day or not, the work was hard enough, and with so few people aloft Alan had had to do some of it instead of merely supervising, so he turned on the man quickly. "Damn you, go on deck and report to the captain as I instructed you, or the bosun'll have the hide off you tomorrow forenoon!"

  "Aye, aye, sir," the man replied, trying to hide his worries about how he might be received by their captain in whatever mood God had seen fit to give him at that moment. Just by trying to weasel out of going he had come close to insubordination and back talk, which could cost him a full dozen at the gratings from a cat-o'-nine-tails. He swung out of the rigging with lithe skill and scrabbled down a newly rigged and tarred backstay to the deck before Alan could think of another word to say.

  "Haul away on the top tackles," Coke commanded, and the blocks began to roar and squeal as the topgallant began to make its way up the mast.

  There was enough to do to take everyone's mind off the sighting in the next hour, and the seaman reported back quickly and fell to work with a will, evidently glad to have survived speaking to a quarterdeck officer instead of Treghues directly. Anyway, it was no concern of theirs as long as Desperate was not ready for sea in all respects. Had the strange cloud been a host of angels come ready for Armageddon, they would have had to wait until the bosun had the ship restored to "Bristol Fashion."

  By the time the fore and aft stays had been rigged for proper tension on the topgallant mast and its yard had been hoisted aloft to be refitted, the seaman had a higher perch over the bluffs and trees of the York peninsula and the outlying islands, almost into Lynnhaven Bay itself, and once more he called out for attention to seaward.

  "Now what?" Alan frowned as he balanced on the foot rope of the topgallant yard to aid in brailing up the new sail to the spar.

  "Take a look now, Mister Lewrie, sir," the man said, trying to keep vindication from his tone, though it was a given that the man had been right, had known it all along and was pointedly not calling all officers and midshipmen fools for ignoring him.

  Alan leaned into the yard to free his hands to shade his eyes once more, and this time he stiffened with intense interest. "Stap me!" he said.

  The strange cloud was a lot closer now, well inside the Middle Ground, high enough up over the horizon to reveal the graceful curving shapes of royals, topgallants, and a hint of tops'ls. The little gunboat was coming up over the horizon ahead of the cloud, as if she were leading. The cloud had split, part of it advancing toward the mouth of the York.

  "Deck there!" Alan bawled. "Send up a telescope! Ships in sight!"

  "Hood an' Graves?" the carpenter asked from the crosstrees below them. He was not as spry as he had been in his youth, and going aloft was no longer one of his required duties, so he was taking no chances on any unsafe handhold over one hundred feet above the deck.

  "Can't tell, Chips," Alan replied.

  "Musta caught up with them Romish bastards an' give 'em a good drubbin'. Mebbe run 'em halfway back ta Brest!" The carpenter chortled. "Now we kin go back over ta the James an' shoot the Frog sojers ta shit."

  If it was indeed the return of the British fleet, Alan realized it would be late in the day before they made their stately way into the fleet anchorage in the York, and nothing could change that, so there was no reason to be impatient. On land or at sea, things moved at their own speed, which was usually damned slow, like a four-hour dinner party. Patience was one of the prime virtues of the age, so Alan felt no hectic desire to have that telescope within the next blink of an eye. He was getting anxious, however; that old shivery, prickling reeling was back, plucking at his heart strings and knotting up cold in his innards.

  It could be Graves and Hood, he told himself as he steeled himself to show outward calm. If de Grasse decided to sheer off now, he's landed his troops and guns. I've not heard the Frogs really ever risk too much with their fleets. But Graves was such a tremulous poltroon t'other day, he more like simply turned about and let them go in peace. Best, in the long run. He's finally here, and he can seal the bay. Even a halfwit can accomplish that.

  "Glass, sir," a nimble young topman offered, panting from his long climb to the topgallant yard with the telescope. Alan slung it over his shoulder like a musket and scaled up to the cap of the topgallant mast for a better vantage. Hugging the mast, he drew out the tube to its full extension and steadied himself for a look-see.

  The first thing that caught his eye was the little ketch-rigged gunboat, now heading straight for the mouth of the York and the passage between the two outlying shoals. She was flying all the sail she could safely carry still hull down. Beyond her, only royals and topgallants were showing—ships of some kind. It was still too far to make out any identifying details, but there were at least eight to ten large ships headed for the York—they overlapped so much it was hard to get an accurate count. He swiveled to look over at Lynnhaven Bay and saw another pack of sails headed in for the old French anchorage, merely a gentler hint of ships, since they were much further away from him, even with Desperate anchored the most easterly of the ships in the base. But he could make out two ships closer to him, two ships that he took to be Iris and Richmond. Was it his imagination, or were they also headed in to join their sister ships in the York? Bows on to him, they were now.

  "Pass the word to the deck," he suddenly said. "At least ten sail of the line bound for the York, and an unknown number of sail headed for Lynnhaven Bay. No identification yet."

  While he clung to his perch, topmen came up around him to haul up the royal mast and the light royal yard, to secure them into posi
tion and link the braces to the lower yards and drop new rope down to the deck and the handling tackle.

  By eleven-thirty in the morning, Desperate was a whole ship once more. The lifting lines were flaked down or coiled away for future need, and the crew dismissed to their rum ration and the prospect of hot food. Alan could have joined them, hut he remained in the rigging, now almost to the peak of the royal mast so that nothing on the peninsula would block his view, not the bluffs around the town and harbor and not the lower land out near the islands and shoals. There was a meal on the mess table for him, but he could not go below without knowing for sure, so he remained out of a perverse sense of duty, swaying back and forth as the ship gently heaved and rolled and the masts slowly spiraled against the bright blue sky. He would have to go down soon, for Treghues still insisted on him and Avery coming to his cabins and reading aloud from the Old Testament; after the paint incident, they were all there now.

  The ships bound into Lynnhaven Bay and the James he would never be able to identify—they were simply too far off. But it did seem as if several of them—dare he call them frigates?—had separated from the mysterious main body and were closing in on what he took to be Richmond and Iris, and that was damned ominous.

  Closer in and now almost to the east, the little gunboat was now nearly hull up; she was close enough to spot her national ensign, and with a strong telescope almost catch the whip of her long commissioning pendant. Behind her, with all sail plans above the horizon, there appeared now a full dozen ships of the line and what appeared to be a couple more frigate-sized vessels.

  There was a puff of smoke from the gunboat, a tiny bloom of gray torn away almost at once into a light haze. It was too far away to hear the cannon, but it was a signal nonetheless.

  "Oh, Christ, no," he muttered.

  On the ketch's foremast, there rose a signal flag. It was from Admiral Graves's book, of course, since the local patrol craft were a part of his North American Squadron, and he had seen this particular flag hoist in the last few days aboard the Solebay as she had led the fleet down to the Cape Henry entrance to the bay on the fifth.

  Enemy In Sight.

  "Goddamn them," he growled. "Just goddamn the incompetent shits." He tried to read his feelings; would it be more suitable to scream and rant, to be petrified with fear for the future, to play up game as a little guinea cock? He was surprised to feel absolutely nothing, none of the emotions others might consider appropriate to match the situation.

  "Deck, there!" he yelled as loud as he could, and saw several white faces turn up to look at him from the quarterdeck. "Enemy in sight! French ships in the bay!"

  He did not have to repeat it.

  That ought to spill some soup on the mess deck, he thought. Christ, we are well and truly fucked!

  Desperate relayed the hoist to Symonds in the Charon, and the little gunboat was ordered back out to sea to scout. She was not gone for long, and was forced to come scuttling back to the safety of the river two hours later, bearing bad news.

  Richmond and Iris had been overwhelmed and taken as prizes by the French. There were at least eight sail of the line in Lynnhaven Bay, with several more ships that might be transports in company, anchoring to the abandoned buoys. There were four command flags that she had spotted, one in Lynnhaven Bay, two vice admirals' flags in three-deckers, and a full admiral's flag flying from a huge three-decker that was most likely the Ville de Paris, de Grasse's flagship. There was a two-decker and three frigates anchoring out by the islands at the mouth of the York, and the main passage between Cape Henry and the Middle Ground was most likely to be blocked as well. And all the ships present were flying the white banners with the golden lilies of Bourbon France.

  In midafternoon, the closest French frigate in the York fired a single gun to leeward as a challenge, daring any ship or combination of ships, in the English flotilla to come out to fight.

  They were trapped.

  "He wants our powder?" Treghues scoffed, shocked to the depths of his prim and addled soul.

  "Aye; Sir," Railsford said with a shrug. A flag lieutenant from Captain Symonds stood on the quarterdeck with a military officer in the blue, red, and buff of the artillery. "And we are also instructed to dismount our carronades and half our swivel guns and deliver them ashore, with all spare shot."

  "That would render us unable to fight!" Treghues barked. "One might as well ask for all our nine-pounders, too!"

  "You have nine-pounders?" the artilleryman asked. "Long nines? They might prove useful as well."

  "Then we would truly be disarmed!"

  "With the French fleet blockading the river and the exits from the bay, Captain Treghues, your armament is at present nugatory, is it not?" Receiving no answer, the artillery officer went on, patting the breech of one of the quarterdeck swivels in appreciation. "Until your Admiral Graves returns, we shall have to fortify, and we have nought but field pieces, none over a six-pounder. And should it prove a long siege, we shall be short of powder and shot for counter-battery fire. Your Captain Symonds has already stripped his vessel of all her eighteens, powder and shot."

  "Why do we not simply lay her up in ordinary, strip her to her tops and gantlines," Treghues fumed, "or just burn her outright and turn her crew into… soldiers?" There were few things lower to a Royal Navy man—"farmers" was the common epithet for the clumsy, but for the clumsy and stupid in the bargain, "soldiers" expressed a sailor's indignation quite well.

  "You have at present eighteen long 9-pounders, Captain," the naval aide pointed out. "A very long-ranged and accurate Piece, and they would be more useful in the present circumstances ashore in fortifications than aboard the Desperate. Your carronades at extreme elevation could deliver bursting shot as well as any howitzer or mortar barrel, and the swivels could break up any raiding party. Surely, you must see the sense of my captain's request. Perhaps you could dismount half your ordnance to form three half-batteries, and you could be left with a few en flûte."

  It did not take a genius to discern that if Treghues refused to grant the request, it would come back before the end of the watch as an order, which would leave him nothing.

  "I could retain two as chase guns forrard," Treghues mused, his brows knurled with repressed anger. "And three in battery on each beam. I can spare no more than ten."

  "At present, sir," the flag lieutenant said, reminding him that circumstances could indeed demand Desperate's stripping and burning sometime in the future should the siege last a long time.

  "My gunners would be most grateful, sir," the artilleryman added. "We shall take good care of your pieces, see if we shan't."

  "Naval artillery in the hands of soldiers?" Treghues reared back, ready to go on another tear. "Nay, sir, I shall depute my own gunners for land service!"

  "That would be most welcome, Captain." The army gunner nodded gratefully, unaware that Treghues's truculence was anything more than the usual grudge match between army and the sea service.

  "We could have barges alongside for the powder and shot by the beginning of the day watch, sir," the naval aide assured him. "Perhaps only the first tier of powder to begin with, and all prepared cartridge bags and shot garlands."

  "Aye, if you must," Treghues said, rubbing the side of his head that had been the target of the heavy rammer. "See to it, Mister Railsford. I shall be aft. Judkin?"

  "Aye, sir?" his steward replied, stepping forward.

  "Pass the word for Mr. Dorne, would you?"

  "Aye, sir."

  The barges came alongside within the hour while Treghues sulked in his cabins. They were barges slapped together from green pinewood, locally harvested, and minus all the attention to detail one usually expected from a good boatwrignt. They were broader than normal and of shallower draft, still pierced for a dozen oars, with a raised stem post and tiller head. It was fortunate that they were being used on a river, for they looked unhandy in any sort of seaway, even to the less experienced hands. They began to look even more unhandy as they
were loaded thwart deep with kegs of powder and rope nets full of ready-sewn powder bags, or stacked with round shot, canister, and grapeshot.

  The shot went down the skids to either beam, thick and smooth ramps that could cradle a beef cask or water barrel as it slid up or down the ship's side. The powder, though, had to be hoisted out one keg at a time, checked most carefully for dust or dribbles, slung into a net and then swayed up with the main yard and a series of gantlines to check any swing or sway. They were lowered into the waiting barges as carefully as eggs would go into a farmgirl's straw basket; one shock and…

  The artillery was no more easy. The gun tools and the carriages were fairly light and went quickly, but the barrels themselves were sinfully heavy and hard to handle. A barge could take only two barrels before it began to settle down so low that water began to lap near the gunwales and rowports, and the boat was then rowed gingerly to the town dock for unloading with jury-rigged spars set up as cranes.

  "Looks naked as a whore's belly," Mister Gwynn the gunner commented as he surveyed his bare decks. For the first time, below the gangways on either beam, the gun deck was free of tackles, blocks, and sheaves, free of guns, rope shot garlands, netting bags for practice shot, and water tubs for the slow-match, or firefighting. There were now two 9-pounders on the fo'c's'le forward as chase guns, and only three abeam remaining with which to fight; one pair just forward of the mainmast, and one pair just under the break of the quarterdeck for balance fore and aft. With her gunports empty, she did resemble a flute waiting to be played, instead of a warship. There were times that larger frigates had been disarmed or had given up half their guns to ease the burden of carrying troops, which was where the term flûte had arisen, but no one had ever imagined that lithe little Desperate would ever be called upon to surrender her guns 'til she was finally decommissioned. It was ironic that her commissioning pendant still flew from the mainmast truck under the circumstances.