A Battle Won

by Sean Thomas Russell

  ‘Cast off the French boat, if you please, Mr Gould,’ Hayden ordered the young middy.

  Before Hayden’s own guns could be run out the brig fired a small broadside with her six-pounders, all aimed up into the rigging hoping to retard or end the Themis’s progress. Musket fire began, much of it directed toward the Themis’s quarterdeck.

  ‘Mr Hawthorne!’ Hayden called, seeing the marine lieutenant mustering a party to go aloft and return fire. ‘Keep your people on the deck, for the moment. This brig is intent on bringing down our spars.’ Hayden had lost enough marines in the tops; he could afford to lose no more.

  Hawthorne appeared disappointed. ‘Aye, sir. Shall we return fire from the deck, Captain?’

  Another salvo fired from the brig just as gunports opened on the Themis.

  ‘Yes, you shall, Mr Hawthorne.’

  The Themis fired her broadside at that moment, battering the brig unmercifully, for she was not three ship’s-lengths distant. No guns sounded in return.

  Archer’s boats caught the Themis up and the men came huffing over the rail opposite the open gunports, and threw themselves down upon the deck, too spent to stand. Even Archer was utterly done for, as he had clearly taken up an oar with the hands.

  ‘Do not stream the boats,’ Hayden ordered the coxswains. ‘Cast them free. Let us have nothing to impede our progress.’

  A report from a battery on the eastern point, and a ball sent up a splash just short of the Themis.

  As they were now sailing almost free, the wind gave the appearance of having dropped away to a zephyr, but the sails were full and Hayden could see by the land that they moved… slowly. If the wind would but hold for half of the hour they would slip away. If…

  They sailed very near the brig, now, and would be past in but a moment. Musket fire came from that quarter with renewed energy, balls cracking off carronades and burrowing through the air with a deadly hiss.

  Gould, who stood but two paces off, looked despairingly about at the others. Hayden feared the boy might lose his nerve. A reassuring hand on his shoulder from Saint-Denis – an uncharacteristic show of compassion – and the first lieutenant took a step forward and sideways, interposing himself between the musket fire and the midshipman. Saint-Denis had only just moved when he stumbled back as though pushed, a look of utter surprise and confusion on his face. He fell against Gould who grasped ineffectually at him, half pulling off his coat and breaking the tumble only a little.

  Immediately, Gould crouched over the prostrate Saint-Denis, who blinked up at the sky as though his vision had been suddenly compromised. He took hold of Gould’s arm and said something lost beneath the booming of guns. A liquid breath, and he choked out a little blood.

  ‘Captain Hayden!’ Gould cried. ‘There is something… amiss with the lieutenant.’

  Wickham went to the fallen officer, but a dark, and growing stain on his white waistcoat told all. ‘Bear the lieutenant down to Dr Griffiths,’ Wickham ordered three seamen, who came forward and took up the wounded officer. ‘You, there, support his head. Just so. Handsomely, now.’

  Through the musket fire, that continued unabated, the officers watched Saint-Denis being borne below, his arms hanging limp and joggling, hands bouncing along the deck.

  ‘My God, sir,’ Gould managed to no one in particular, ‘the lieutenant only just survived the influenza and now he has been shot through. Will he die?’

  Before anyone could answer the Themis fired a second broadside, smoke blooming up, and slowly spreading over the rail. All musket fire from the brig ceased. From diverse points along the shore, cannon began spouting flame, heavy balls rending the air.

  ‘Mr Archer, we will direct fire toward the shore batteries as our guns can be brought to bear. Perhaps we will prevent a little shot from finding us.’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  As they passed beneath the Grand Tower, the tiny breeze that bore them on sighed once then fell away. Sails hung limp as pelts, but the ship drifted onward, carrying her way over a star-festooned sea.

  ‘Blast this wind to hell!’ Barthe pronounced. ‘We shall sit here and be cut to flinders if we cannot sail.’

  Hayden cursed himself for cutting free the boats. ‘Mr Franks,’ he called, ‘Launch the barge. We will warp out of range of these batteries, if we must.’

  ‘Aye, sir,’ Franks answered. ‘Lay aloft! Lay out!’

  Galvanized by fire from all around, the men went quickly about their business, the barge swinging up into the air in record time, two men aboard hurriedly arranging its gear. Hayden could feel the ship losing way, like a boat run up on soft sand.

  The wind gasped, wafting the sails, the highest aloft bellying an instant, then all went slack and restive.

  Barthe turned to Hayden, his manner very brittle. ‘We are for it, now, Captain,’ the master said gravely.

  Hayden did not reply but turned to Archer. ‘Extinguish all lights… and let us pray for a cloud to cover the moon.’

  But the few clouds abroad that night appeared to be going about their own business without a thought for the moon or British frigates adrift in Toulon harbour.

  Balls began to land in earnest all around or to tear open the air above. Just as Franks ordered the barge to be lowered, a ball struck it amidships blasting out the larboard side and showering the men with splinters and shards of planking.

  In the silence that followed, Franks could be heard hollering, ‘Childers? Price?’ The bosun gazed up at the shattered hull. Childers emerged, staggering in the swaying craft. He stumbled two steps aft and threw himself at the falls of the tackle, grasping hold and clinging there, as though he thought the boat would break apart and drop him to the deck. The other man, more frightened yet, came over the side, grabbed a guy rope, and flew down to the deck hand-over-hand.

  ‘We shall have that ruin of a hull down on the deck, Mr Franks,’ Hayden called, ‘and the launch over the side – smartly! Have the small kedge brought up from the hold, Mr Madison.’

  The barge, all but broken backed, thumped down and the tackles were transferred quickly to the launch, which swung aloft with all speed.

  ‘If those bloody Frenchmen do not manage to shoot that one away…’ Barthe grumbled, gazing up at the boat hanging from the yard-tackles.

  A moment everyone held their breath as the boat was swung out, then quickly lowered by squealing blocks down into the calm sea. The kedge went next, swung out on tackles, and then the hawser, followed by the remaining crew. Archer and the still-shaken Childers clambered into the stern. Immediately the boat pushed off, a flaw of wind came down the harbour, bellied the sails, pressing the Themis forward. Shot continued to fall all around, the scream of it tearing at every man’s nerves. Two heavy balls smashed into the hull forward, but the ship gathered way, her own guns replying. A dense cloud of smoke enveloped the ship and hung over it, carried on the same wind. Wickham clambered out to the end of the jib-boom, more or less out of the smoke, and conned them out.

  As the Grand Tower fell behind to larboard, Hayden felt a little wave of relief pass through his knotted muscles.

  ‘We are out, Captain,’ Hawthorne pronounced. He raised a hand as though he would clap Hayden on the back, remembered his position, and turned the gesture into an awkward wave towards the shore.

  ‘Throw a rope to the launch and we will take her in tow,’ Hayden ordered. ‘I do not want to heave to so we can bring them aboard if this wind keeps making.’

  As they passed out of the inner harbour, the breeze, which had been blowing from nor-nor-east came around to the east.

  ‘We will not weather Cape Sepet on this slant, Captain,’ Barthe observed. The sailing master stood by the binnacle scrutinizing their heading. ‘If we are forced to make several boards to weather the cape, the French might stir themselves to give chase.’

  ‘The wind has not settled itself, yet, Mr Barthe. Let us hope, when we travel farther from the land, that it will back a little more.’

  ‘Which it mig
ht manage, Captain,’ Barthe agreed, ‘we have had some luck this night. Let us pray it will sail with us but a little farther.’

  Shore batteries along the peninsula opened fire, and Hayden ordered that fire be returned. The ship barely had enough way on to answer her helm at times, and then the fickle wind would pick up and hurry them on, allowing a more favourable course. Archer’s boat was drawn alongside and the crew retrieved. Hayden could not lose another boat so they took it in tow, even though it slowed them a little on such a small wind.

  The quarterdeck was a silent place, the French batteries landing shot all around but little of it finding its mark. Barthe and Franks had men aloft repairing damage to the rig, and the gun crews were kept busy returning fire, though largely to obscure the Themis from view with clouds of smoke. The leadsman cried out his soundings – minor proclamations of the ship’s safety – until the bottom began to shoal.

  ‘Mr Barthe?’ Hayden called to the sailing master. ‘How go your repairs, sir? I believe we shall be forced to tack.’

  ‘We can clear away in a moment, sir,’ Barthe replied from the waist.

  ‘Then let us coil down and make ready.’

  Before the order could be given to tack ship, the wind backed a little more, and more yet, and the leadsman found the bottom dropping away. The darker mass of Cape Cépet moved further to starboard as the ship’s heading altered, and tacking ship was delayed for the time being.

  The leadsman worked furiously as the Themis skirted the edge of the bank, calling depths over the ‘crash’ of French guns. In the midst of this Griffiths appeared on deck, a grim, greying presence, consumptively spare.

  Hayden, whose eyes ran from powder smoke, saw the doctor as though through a pane of flawed glass, distorted and dulled.

  ‘Doctor,’ Hayden said as Griffiths approached.

  ‘I am very sorry to report, Captain, that Saint-Denis has departed this life,’ the doctor stated, but haltingly. ‘The musket ball found his heart and he bled his pitiful life away.’ The doctor paused a moment, clearly not finished, though Hayden wondered what more there could be to say. ‘He asked for pen and paper at the end, but had not the firmness of hand to write. Mr Ariss kindly offered to take down anything he might speak, thinking it would be a letter to his family or perhaps a final will.’ Again Griffiths paused as though wondering what to say. ‘It was, instead, a letter to Mr Gould. Saint-Denis thanked him for saving his life during his recent illness… He also asked his forgiveness for persecuting him. I must say, I was rather surprised. Very near the end, Saint-Denis managed to ask, “Have I wholly wasted my days?” Mr Ariss assured him that this was not the case but Saint-Denis would not hear it. “Perhaps Gould can make something of himself,” he said, “where I could not.” Those were his final words.’

  Hayden could not hide his surprise. ‘It seems Saint-Denis was more honest with himself than we might have presumed.’

  Griffiths’s facial gesture was unreadable. ‘It is passing strange,’ he ventured. ‘I have misliked Saint-Denis since first we met, but these past weeks I have had a change of heart towards him. No doubt his brush with death caused him to re-examine his place in this world – and showed him that it was not nearly so high as he had believed. He was humbled but as a man is humbled before God, if I may say it. Putting himself in the way of musket fire to preserve young Gould was very likely the first time he had ever placed another before himself.’ Griffiths stood a moment lost in thought, shook his head, then wandered away without remembering to touch his hat or even take leave.

  Hayden stood at the starboard rail looking out towards the shadowed coast of France – a distant world divided from him by a narrow river of sea – and the booming of guns suddenly seemed a salute, as though someone great had passed who was mourned and honoured.

  Wickham came quickly up, touching his hat. ‘Mr Barthe says we shall double the cape on this tack, Captain.’

  ‘Yes, I am quite certain he is correct. Saint-Denis has just died.’

  Wickham said nothing for a moment and then, ‘God rest his soul,’ the midshipman said softly. ‘I am very sorry to hear it.’

  ‘Do you think Mr Gould will have any particular… sentiment about this? Were he and Saint-Denis friends?’

  ‘Given that Saint-Denis persecuted him relentlessly upon learning he was a Jew, I would think not, but Saint-Denis seemed to suffer a sea-change after Gould nursed him back to health. Did they become friends? Gould has a desire to think the best of any man, or so I believe. He forgave the lieutenant his trespasses, but… Well, Captain, I should not speak for Mr Gould.’

  ‘Yes, certainly.’

  The guns ashore stopped firing at that moment, and on the Themis they fell silent as well. After the great guns had been exercised Hayden often noted that the ensuing quiet was somehow deeper, more complete or perhaps more profound. The night wrapped itself around them as the ship’s almost silent progress carried them seaward. Hayden felt a deep melancholy settle over him, for some reason he could not fathom. Perhaps because Saint-Denis’s life had been so misguided and cut short before there was any chance of redemption. Perhaps it was relief at their narrow escape from Toulon. He did not know, but he felt as though, were he alone, he might weep.

  ‘We shall have daylight in a few hours, Captain,’ Wickham observed.

  ‘Not for us all. Ask Mr Smosh if he will read the service when we commit Saint-Denis’s body to the depths.’

  ‘Aye, sir.’ Wickham touched his hat and turned to go.

  ‘And Mr Wickham?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘You are acting second lieutenant, now.’

  Wickham nodded and touched his hat. ‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,’ he said softly. For a moment he stood as though he might say more and then made his way forward like a man in a daze.

  Thirteen

  At dawn, a British frigate, blown off station in the gale, appeared to leeward. She was desperately beating toward the Themis, and signalling for her to hold position.

  Hayden and Hawthorne stood at the rail watching her bob through a streak of sunlight. A bracing easterly pressed against their backs and shook pennants overhead. Neither man had slept after their escape from Toulon. Having come so near to losing their ship and being made prisoner, their minds had been left in such a turmoil as to prohibit repose.

  ‘I believe this was the ship charged with preventing British vessels entering Toulon,’ Hayden ventured.

  ‘They made a bloody poor job of it.’ Hawthorne’s voice had a harsh, hollow tone – his throat abraded by exhaustion.

  ‘And I shall not shrink from telling them so.’

  In under an hour the two frigates rolled, hove to, side by side, the respective commanders calling to one another through speaking trumpets. Hayden refrained from upbraiding the man before his crew but let it be known that it was something near a miracle that they had escaped Toulon with the loss of only a single man, three ship’s boats and sundry minor damages. The frigate’s captain felt such guilt at hearing this that he offered Hayden a cutter, which was gladly accepted. It was only later that Mr Gould pointed out the frigate had four cutters, as well as the usual complement of ship’s boats, so could easily afford this act of apparent generosity.

  Admiral Lord Hood, it transpired, had been driven from Toulon with his various allies, by the Republican armies, and though the crew of the Themis were aware of this from the previous night’s altercation, to hear it spoken still brought a groan from one and all. The British fleet had shifted its berth to Hyères Bay, some small distance down the French coast. The wind, brisk and blowing north-east by north, would not allow them to sail along the coast but dictated a course of east by south – not so terribly bad, Hayden noted, but they would not find the admiral that day. The worst of it was, they must have sailed past the British fleet by night, distant enough that they had been unaware of its presence.

  As it was probably his last night as commander of the Themis – a thought that left him troubled and anxious
about the future – Hayden decided to invite some of his officers and guests to dinner to take his mind off such matters. This impending loss of command removed some sense of his obligations as senior officer and he decided not to invite Worthing, but to invite the other ecclesiastical guest, the Reverend Mr Smosh – an unforgivable snub but Hayden did not care. Worthing had not only attempted to undermine him with his crew but had done the same while in Gibraltar. Undoubtedly he would continue in this endeavour once they found Lord Hood. Inviting such a man to his table was beyond even Hayden’s sense of duty. But when Hayden’s guests arrived, Worthing was among them, having assumed that the invitation to Smosh included him. Despite his near hatred of the man, Hayden could not then send him away. Another chair was quickly added and a setting produced, so subtly that almost no one noticed.

  The Reverend Mr Smosh, Hawthorne, Archer, Wickham, Barthe and Dr Griffiths were all in attendance, as well as midshipmen Madison and Gould (Hobson was officer of the watch, the ship being short of senior officers), Mr Ariss, the surgeon’s mate, and Mr Franks, the bosun.

  The atmosphere at this dinner was subdued, though Hayden was not sure why. Perhaps it was the near loss of their ship the previous night, or the British retreat from Toulon. Hayden wondered what had become of all the thousands of Toulon residents who had supported inviting the British into the city. Certainly Lord Hood could not evacuate them all.

  ‘What do you think will become of them, Captain?’ Barthe asked, referring to the very people who were so constantly in Hayden’s thoughts.

  Hayden was forced to shake his head. ‘One would hope for a trial but the country is in the grip of… bloodlust, it seems.’