Perilous Shore

by Chris Durbin

  ‘I wouldn’t like to handle them in a seaway,’ said Jackson, shaking his head. ‘Look at the way they yaw to the slightest ripple.’

  Holbrooke had his telescope out and was keenly studying the strange boats. He was here to witness a part of the trials for this new type of vessel. Their design was born of the experiences of the first few years of this war, when assaults had been hampered by the lack of specialist boats to land the soldiers. These were the fruits of the first contracts. There were two types of flatboat, one a little smaller than the other, but the two that were to be tested today were both of the larger variety. The expedition was due to sail in a week so unless there were some serious flaws, these were no prototypes, but the final design, and there was no time for anything other than minor modifications.

  Yesterday they’d seen the boats being hoisted into and out of a ship-of-the-line and a transport and they’d seen the soldiers scramble down into them. The transport, with lighter spars and rigging than the ships-of-the-line, had been modified with a strengthened main yard and lifts. Special tackles had been rigged to take the ponderous weight of the boats. It had been fascinating to see how all the internal fittings, the thwarts for the oarsmen, the seats for the soldiers and the steps for the masts, were made to be removed so that the boats could be nested on the upper deck.

  Some of the transports would be without their mainsails until the landings were over. The flatboats sat high on the booms and cradles that had been installed for them and consequently they fouled the feet of the mainsails so that they couldn’t be set. But speed was never a key consideration for that type of ship.

  Holbrooke and Jackson weren’t alone in the longboat. Colin Treganoc, the sloop’s marine lieutenant, had recently returned from Emden, and he was seated in the stern sheets with his captain. Jenkins, the master of the Portsmouth boatyard, was also there; he was responsible for the building and maintenance of the boats for the fleet. He’d personally supervised the fulfilment of the contracts by the half-dozen commercial yards scattered across the shores and inlets of the Solent.

  Fareham Creek had been chosen for this trial for two reasons. First, because it had a variety of the kind of shorelines that were likely to be encountered in an assault. The coastline showed monotonous stretches of mud at this stage of the tide, but with the water near its highest –when amphibious operations typically took place – there were sand beaches, reed beds, gravel banks, even a few rocks. The second reason was to maintain some sort of secrecy about the proceedings. This upper limit of Fareham Creek was about as unfrequented as anywhere in the area. There was just the tidal mill at its head and a few isolated cottages dotted along the shore.

  The two boats nudged up to where the longboat was waiting. They were rowed by sailors from the squadron, and the Thirty-Fourth Regiment of Foot, the Earl of Effingham’s, was supplying the soldiers. The larger of the two boats held a captain of the Thirty-Fourth, presumably the man in charge of the detachment.

  ‘Good morning to you, sir,’ he said, removing his hat. ‘Captain Overton at your service. I’m pleased to place my men under your command,’ he said formally. ‘And good morning Mister Treganoc,’ he continued with a theatrical flourish, ‘the hero of Emden, I presume.’

  Treganoc’s was the name of the moment among the British soldiery. He’d received a fair share of the credit for the military occupation of Emden earlier in the year and had in fact only just returned from there.

  ‘Thank you, Mister Overton,’ replied Holbrooke, relieved to see that he was dealing with a man with a sense of humour. God knew they would need it today.

  ‘You perhaps don’t remember me, sir?’ Overton continued, ‘we met under less pleasant circumstances.’ He was looking expectantly at Holbrooke with a queer sort of shy smile.

  Holbrooke racked his brain, there was something about the man… Of course! The Thirty-Fourth Foot had been at Fort Saint Philip in Minorca two years before. Holbrooke looked intently at his face. Yes, this was the same soldier whom he’d met twice at that little jetty in Saint Stephen’s Cove. Holbrooke had been sent to the fort in a captured barca-longa to carry messages between the garrison and the small naval force waiting for Byng’s squadron to arrive. He shivered slightly as he recalled the hellish scene: the massive impacts of the siege artillery, the bombs bursting all around, the mighty fortress being reduced before his eyes, and the shattered garrison clinging on in the hope of a relief that never came. He looked again at Overton, remembering how his appearance had changed as the siege wore on, how his hand had shaken uncontrollably when they finally parted. He recalled his own shame at sailing back to the relative safety of the frigate Fury. It would be understandable if Overton nursed a hatred of the navy after that disgraceful episode.

  ‘Yes, I remember you now Mister Overton. I’m happy to see you under more congenial circumstances. You endured some trying times.’

  ‘That’s one way of describing it!’ he laughed. ‘But without that siege, I’d be a subaltern still.’

  Holbrooke looked quizzically at him.

  ‘My regiment lost two captains and a lieutenant; killed or wounded beyond further service. I owe my promotion to them,’ he said simply.

  Holbrooke smiled grimly. It was uncomfortable to be reminded of the regiment’s losses, at least partly the fault of the navy. And yet, it was a similar set of circumstances in that same campaign – the loss of Fury’s first lieutenant in action with a French frigate – that had set him on the road to his present position. He ranked with a major now and was distinctly senior to Overton.

  ‘Good morning Mister Fitzalan, Mister Johnstone,’ he called out to the two master’s mates in command of the boats, to break the awkward silence. ‘Have you seen the schedule of trials?’

  ‘We have, sir,’ replied Fitzalan from the larger boat as he patted the pocket of his coat. ‘You’re to choose the landing sites, sir, and then we’ll run in from at least a hundred yards each time.’

  ‘My soldiers and I will be cold and wet by the end of the day,’ said Overton, looking up at the dark clouds that drifted listlessly overhead.

  Holbrooke nodded and studied the two officers seated in the stern sheets. They’d come from Howe’s flagship, Essex, and he’d met them briefly the previous day. The naval crews were at a bare minimum to work the boats, such was the need to carry the greatest number of soldiers. The master’s mates acted as both commanders of the boats and coxswains. They weren’t much younger than Holbrooke. They’d be hoping for his good word from today’s work, another testimony to help propel them to the lieutenant’s examination and the unspeakable glory of a commission. They looked eager enough in any case, keen to catch Holbrooke’s eye.

  ‘Describe your boat, if you please, Mister Fitzalan,’ asked Holbrooke. He hadn’t had the opportunity to see the flatboats at close quarters before today. He’d heard all about them from Jenkins who was the navy board’s representative at this trial, but he wanted to hear from a sea officer.

  ‘Certainly, sir,’ the young man said, stumbling over his words in his haste to impress. ‘She’s clinker built, fir on oak frames and she has an elm keel, although it’s hardly worth the name, the bottoms being so flat. Most of the fittings are oak,’ he pointed to the thwarts and benches. ‘She’s thirty-six feet long and ten feet, two inches in the beam. Fully loaded she draws an inch under two feet. We pull twenty oars and we can rig lugsails on a main and a foremast, but we’re not carrying the sailing rig today. There’s an anchor stowed in the bow and a grapnel for a kedge at the stern,’ he said patting the small anchor that was seized outboard of the transom.

  There really was no room for anything superfluous in the boat. It was just possible, Holbrooke could see, for the two masts and the sails to be stowed between the feet of the inboard-facing ranks of soldiers. Possible, but uncomfortable.

  ‘They’re moderately well built, sir,’ Jenkins interjected, ‘if you don’t mind commercial yard standards. Of course, we could have done a better job in the King�
��s yard, but we weren’t asked.’

  Holbrooke knew very well why the job hadn’t been given to the Portsmouth yard; the boats would never have been completed on time. It took the commercial pressure of a contract to be fulfilled, on time, to a minimum specification, with payment by results to ensure that the flatboats would be ready for the campaigning season.

  Holbrooke cast his eye over the two ranks of blue-jacketed seamen seated on their truncated thwarts. There were grins and nods in reply, and a touch of the cap from a man he’d served with as a midshipman. The oars were shorter than in any other boat of this size, deliberately so because the rowing positions were so close to the gunwales that the oarsmen couldn’t apply enough leverage to manage long oars.

  ‘You can see that the soldiers all face inboard on those fore-and-aft benches, except the fourteen in the stern sheets and the four in the bows. I can carry fifty soldiers at full load,’ continued Fitzalan.

  ‘That’s half a company, more-or-less,’ added Overton, ‘a real, solid force to put ashore in one boat. These two boats carry all the combat elements of my company between them.’

  It was an impressive sight, Holbrooke had to admit. There were a hundred tough-looking fighting men here, dressed in their regimental colours of red with yellow facings. Most of the soldiers were musketeers and wore black tricorns, but the eight men nearest the bows of each boat were grenadiers and wore a tall red and yellow mitre. The officers were distinguished by a silver gorget at the neck, a silver aiguillette on the right shoulder, silver lacings to the coat and a crimson sash. The spontoons that the officers carried – not unlike an ornamental boarding-pike – gave them a slightly old-fashioned look. The Thirty-Fourth evidently valued the traditional ways.

  ‘And we carry a half-pound swivel for’rard, sir, with five loads of ball and ten of canister.’

  The quarter-gunner in the bows trained and elevated his gun theatrically, to prove the officer’s words.

  ‘Let’s hope you don’t have to use that, Mister Fitzalan.’

  ‘Amen,’ said Overton. ‘It’ll be damned unpleasant if your broadsides haven’t cleared the beach before we get there, sir. However, it’s a reassurance, certainly.’

  Captain Overton was evidently not a man to be left out of a conversation.

  ‘How do the soldiers get ashore, Mister Fitzalan?’

  The master’s mate pulled a long face.

  ‘That’s the unsatisfactory part of the design, sir,’ he replied. ‘They have to jump off the bows and that may mean getting wet, and possibly broken bones, with fifty of them performing that caper. But we have no gang-board.’ He shrugged helplessly.

  ‘That’s the part that we must practise before any landing,’ said Overton. ‘You sailors may laugh at us but it’s of the utmost importance that my men get ashore with dry boots and no breakages. It makes little odds immediately, but after an hour or so marching it can be the difference between men ready to fight and men nursing swollen and blistered feet. These brave men,’ he pointed to the first and second oarsmen on either side, ‘must leave their oars and leap into the water to make like human stanchions for my musketeers to steady themselves as they leap.’

  ‘Well, we’re in two fathoms of water here, so I don’t expect them to carry out that part of the drill just yet.’

  He looked at the shipwright.

  ‘Mister Jenkins. I’d be obliged if you’d pay close attention to the disembarkation. I’ll be asking your opinion on how some sort of a gang-board may be made to help the process of getting the soldiers from the boat to the shore.’

  ‘Aye sir,’ Jenkins replied, ‘I can see what you mean,’ he added studying the stem of Fitzalan’s boat.

  There was an essential principle that Holbrooke needed to confirm. Captain Overton had a lieutenant in each of the boats. All three of the commissioned soldiers were senior to Fitzalan and Johnstone, and that could lead to difficulties. Holbrooke looked directly at the younger of the two master’s mates.

  ‘Who command’s this boat, Mister Johnstone?’ and he made a motion with his hand to prevent Captain Overton from answering.

  Johnstone looked startled and glanced nervously at Fitzalan. He hadn’t spoken yet and he was clearly the junior partner in this two-boat enterprise. Johnstone was wedged uncomfortably close to the tiller, and it seemed to hinder his powers of expression. There was a pause.

  Holbrooke kept his eyes fixed on Johnstone’s, waiting for a response.

  The lieutenant next to Johnstone nudged him with his elbow.

  ‘I… I command this boat,’ Johnstone stammered, ‘and I’m responsible for placing the soldiers ashore, sir, then Mister Draper,’ he motioned towards the officer sat beside him, he of the sharp elbow, ‘assumes command of his men.’

  ‘And if there’s a disagreement on the way to the beach? Mister Draper, perhaps you could tell me how that is to be handled.’

  The lieutenant was an intelligent, self-confident young man and he knew the answer by heart.

  ‘Mister Johnstone is obliged to take my views into consideration, sir, but the decision as to where and when to land is his. I am little more than a passenger until he puts me ashore.’

  ‘Very well.’

  Holbrooke was pleased to hear that the new orders for combined operations had been passed down to the men who must implement them. In a rare instance of co-operation, the Admiralty and their colleagues at Horse Guards Parade had agreed on groundbreaking new command arrangements for landing operations. There must have been huge pressure on them after the failures in 1757 where divided command led to embarrassing and costly debacles. Now, the navy commanded any landing until the army was established ashore. That arrangement held good equally at the highest level of command and this, the lowest. Holbrooke glanced at Captain Overton. He evidently understood his relationship to Fitzalan, who commanded his boat, and he bowed slightly to the younger man.

  ‘Thank you, Mister Johnstone, Mister Draper. Then perhaps we should start with an easy one? There’s a nice stretch of gravel even at this state of the tide, over by the mill,’ he said pointing. ‘Your men can stretch their legs and that will be one trial cleared away long before we’re due to start.’

  ◆◆◆

  5: Disturbing the Peace

  Wednesday, Twenty-Fourth of May 1758.

  Kestrel, at Anchor. Portsmouth Harbour.

  Dawson, Holbrooke’s coxswain, took the longboat to a position just under the mills where he had a clear view of the beach. Despite the loneliness of the location, an interested crowd had gathered beside the tall wooden buildings. The windows that looked out over the creek each had an occupant, some scowling at this interruption to their ordered existence, but most waving cheerfully at the sailors in the longboat. So much for the seclusion of Fareham Creek. Holbrooke watched as Fitzalan positioned his two flatboats a cable distance away from the shingle beaches. The signal that the boats were ready was a red flag raised on a short pole in the stern of each boat. Holbrooke would respond with his own red flag and when he was ready to start each trial, the longboat’s flag would be dipped.

  ‘They’re ready, sir,’ said Treganoc who was watching the boats.

  Holbrooke took another look at the shingle. There were no locals down there. It hadn’t occurred to any of them that the flat bottoms would be landing, otherwise they would have flocked to the scene and caused a dreadful confusion, prejudicing the trial and perhaps even forcing it to be abandoned.

  ‘Dip the flag,’ Holbrooke said

  Dawson emphatically lowered the flag and immediately the two wide, low craft could be seen moving forward. The crowd at the mill realised where the boats were bound and the more energetic started to run around the back to the narrow path that led down to the beach. The boats were slow, even slower than Holbrooke had imagined, and the mates were clearly having difficulty preventing them yawing. Of course, the rudders didn’t reach far enough into the water to have the amount of bite that was needed. That was a sacrifice made for the greater
good of a shallow draught. Each time they deviated from their course their speed decreased and a portion of the efforts of the oarsmen was wasted. It was becoming clear that the crowd would be at the beach before the boats and the capering idiots were quite likely to wade into the creek in a misguided attempt to help with disembarkation. Holbrooke could see his carefully laid plans coming to nothing.

  ‘Dawson, raise the red flag again.’

  It took a few moments for Fitzalan to see the flag, but when he did the rowers tossed their oars and the boats slowed, stopping half a cable from the beach.

  ‘Pull over to meet them, Dawson.’

  ‘Mister Treganoc, kindly request a file of men from each of the boats and a reliable sergeant and take them to secure the beach. I’ll land you at the mill so that you can stay dry on this occasion.’

  Holbrooke eyed the gathering of locals dubiously.

  ‘I fear that they won’t easily tire of such good sport and they’re likely to follow us as we move down the creek. I can’t promise that you’ll stay dry next time.’

  Ten minutes later Holbrooke had the satisfaction of seeing the crowd pushed back to the line of trees at the back of the beach. The sergeant that Overton had provided was a great bull of a man and, halberd in hand, he made an imposing figure whom few civilians would choose to defy.

  The boats moved back to the other side of the creek, ready to make a second attempt.

  ‘Make the signal again, Dawson.’

  Holbrooke tried to give the boats his whole attention, but the crowd at the back of the beach was in a festival mood. There was an audible gasp of appreciation as they saw the boats start to move again.