Perilous Shore

by Chris Durbin

  Holbrooke noticed the colonel’s momentary alarm.

  ‘Of course, I’ve no intention of putting the sloop aground with the two commanders of this expedition on board. You see we have two leads going so that we can respond quickly to any changes in the depth, one on each side.’

  ‘Deep six,’ called the larboard leadsman.

  ‘Bring her up a point,’ said Fairview to the quartermaster, responding to the report of deeper water. Howe nodded his approval

  Holbrooke tried not to watch as the colonel relayed this intelligence to the duke. In a way, Holbrooke pitied the commander of the land forces. Both his rank of nobility and his rank as a soldier prevented him from getting involved in this kind of detail, but he could see that the duke was keenly interested. He sent the colonel off to study the operation of the lead-line.

  ‘There’s the battery at Cancale,’ said Holbrooke pointing over the starboard beam.

  Howe studied it through his telescope. It was a solid masonry emplacement for a battery of eight guns. Their black muzzles could be seen protruding through the embrasures.

  ‘We’re within range if they’re twenty-four pounders. I wonder that they don’t fire,’ he said. ‘Do they believe we can’t see them? Are they hoping to lure a more succulent target?’

  Holbrooke could see the sense now in not flying the commodore’s pennant. And yet, he wondered. If Hans Albach was over there, he’d surely recognise Kestrel. Would he hold his fire for an old friend? Quite possibly. He’d committed worse military sins off Emden, coming close to colluding with Holbrooke in the downfall of the French garrison.

  Howe looked over his shoulder at his flagship moving into the anchorage with the whole squadron of men-o’-war, transports and storeships following. The battery would be disappointed; Cancale Bay offered good holding ground outside the range of the guns. Also, the new flatboats with their vastly improved carrying capacity allowed him to conduct the operation at greater range than he could have done if he’d had to rely on ship’s boats.

  ‘They have no overhead cover,’ remarked the duke, grudgingly joining the discussion, ‘they’re not bomb-proof.’

  ‘Oh, I believe we can silence that battery without resorting to the bombs. I have only two and barely enough ammunition for a single landing. I’ll reserve them until we really need them.’

  ‘We could try a ranging shot now,’ said Lynton, more in hope than any real expectation that the commodore would agree.

  ‘No, I think we’ll observe our side of this peculiar truce, Mister Lynton,’ said Howe. ‘I fancy we have more to lose than they do.’

  Kestrel was making less than three knots under her topsails and headsails. The land slipped by slowly to starboard and soon any danger from the Cancale battery was behind them.

  ‘There’s a great deal of open beach for my men to advance over,’ said the duke, looking at the expanse of flat sand between the lapping waves and the sand dunes.

  ‘Yes, Your Grace. It looks quite daunting now, but it will be a long time before your men are ready to land and the tide will have risen by then. We’ll be able to put them ashore under the very shadow of those dunes if we can make the landing at five o’clock. Every hour after that will increase the distance again.’

  ‘What would be the last time for the landing today, commodore?’

  ‘At eight o’clock there’ll be about three hundred yards of sand, that should be the latest to put the grenadiers ashore. Of course, once they’ve taken the villages and the dunes, the remainder can be put ashore at leisure.’

  ‘Deep four,’ called the starboard leadsman. He had a soft accent that was bred somewhere in the Downs – sheep country – and it was quite distinct from the harsh Portsmouth accent of the larboard leadsman.

  Holbrooke was prevented from interfering by Fairview’s calm order to the quartermaster. Kestrel’s head moved two points to larboard and the next call, from the Portsmouth man, showed that they’d moved back to five fathoms. Not for the first time Holbrooke blessed his good fortune in having Fairview as his sailing master. Most unrated sloops had one who was newly promoted from the ranks of master’s mates.

  ‘If you look just to the left of that tallest dune, sir,’ said Holbrooke addressing the commodore, ‘you’ll see the gabions in front of the new battery.’

  ‘Could they really have set it up in that time?’ asked Howe. ‘It’s only three days since you were here, and you said that the guns weren’t in place then.’

  ‘Yes, sir. If the guns were available. I doubt whether they’ve registered them though, so their firing may be a little wild.’

  The contours of Cancale Bay were steeper here and Kestrel could move closer to the shore, well within twenty-four pounder range.

  ‘Mark five.’

  That was the Downsman. He’d told Holbrooke once that his family came from the tiny hamlet of Idsworth, nestled in a valley of the Downs just a couple of miles to the east of the London road. It was close to one of England’s main commercial arteries, but it marched to its own beat, a community turned in upon itself and not welcoming the attention of the outside world.

  ‘Shot!’ said Lynton. They could see the white smoke to the left of the high dune and a moment later they heard the dull boom of a cannon. A plume of water soared upwards half a cable ahead of the sloop, its moment of life ending in a frosting of spray blowing away on the wind.

  ‘Stand on, Mister Holbrooke,’ said the commodore. ‘I want to see right down the throat of that battery. You may fire if you think you have the range.’

  ‘Mister Lynton, fire by divisions and make sure every gun is well-pointed,’ called Holbrooke to the first lieutenant who was already far forward among his guns.

  The quarter gunners were fussing over the pointing and elevation of each of the forward two guns on the starboard side, levering hand-spikes and tapping quoins. Lynton took a last look and stood back. The ship was hardly rolling at all, providing the best of platforms for this kind of long-range gunnery. Nonetheless, it was a very long distance to expect six-pounders to hit a target.

  ‘Numbers one and three, fire!’ shouted Lynton, and the two guns bellowed and leapt back on their breechings. A spray of sand showed where they had struck the base of the dunes, a full thirty feet below the battery.

  ‘Knock those quoins out a touch,’ shouted Lynton, already deafened by the first discharges.

  ‘Numbers five and seven, fire!’

  Better this time; the shots had landed only just below the level of the embrasures but well to the right.

  There was a whirring overhead. Holbrooke looked up to see a hole appear in the mizzen tops’l.

  ‘Have you seen enough, Your Grace? I fear that those fellows will have our range in a few minutes and a sloop isn’t a two-decker; it can’t stand many hits from twenty-four-pound shot.’

  ‘I’ve seen enough, Commodore. Let’s return and start preparing for the landing.’

  Fairview bore away and stood out into the bay with the wind directly abaft, taking the most direct path to increase the range from the battery. They only had to endure two more salvos, and they fell short as the French gunners struggled to adjust for the rapidly opening range.

  ‘Deck there!’ shouted the lookout from the main topmast head. ‘On the dunes, sir, soldiers.’

  Half a dozen telescopes trained aft over the taffrail.

  ‘Dragoons!’ exclaimed the colonel, ‘and there’s infantry there too.’

  ‘Out of range,’ muttered Lynton to Holbrooke so that he couldn’t be overheard.

  Holbrooke could see now without his telescope, which the colonel had unceremoniously taken up from its stowage on the binnacle. There was a group of around a hundred horsemen in blue tunics on the dunes half a mile north of the battery. They could have been dragoons, but he couldn’t tell with the naked eye. What he could see was a long line of infantry behind them, an endless snake of white uniforms, black tricorns and moving patches of blue where their wide cuffs swung to the rhythm of
their marching. There was a glint of polished metal above them as their bayonets reflected the noonday sun. They were marching along the dunes towards the battery and would be there in perhaps fifteen minutes.

  ‘Deep eight,’ reported the larboard leadsman

  ‘Regulars or Militia?’ asked the duke.

  ‘I can’t tell at this range,’ replied the colonel.

  ‘Can we get closer, Commodore?’

  Howe glanced at Holbrooke who nodded in reply.

  ‘Yes, Your Grace, Mister Holbrooke will move in as close as he can.’

  ‘Bring her on to the wind, Mister Fairview,’ said Holbrooke. ‘Steer for the head of that column and stand in to four fathoms.’

  ‘Aye-aye sir,’ Fairview replied.

  The men ran from their guns to haul on the tacks and sheets. By pinching the wind, Kestrel could lie two or three points off the desired course; it would need a tack in five minutes to bring her head onto the marching column.

  ‘That’s two companies of regular line infantry,’ said the colonel after a long searching stare through Holbrooke’s telescope. ‘The dragoons could be either, they both have blue uniforms. They look like regulars though, unless the French militia is better drilled than ours.’

  ‘Mark seven,’ called the starboard leadsman. It was shoaling rapidly. They’d have to be careful that they didn’t run aground between casts of the lead.

  ‘Can you get a shot at them?’ asked Howe.

  ‘I’ll go about in two minutes, sir,’ said Holbrooke, catching Fairview’s eye, ‘unless it shoals any faster. We should get a shot at them then, but it’s too long for grape or canister.’

  Fairview brought Kestrel sweetly onto the larboard tack. The starboard side gunners had been released to work the ship, so the larboard guns were all manned and ready. Lynton was leaping from gun to gun, checking the elevation.

  Another waterspout rose ahead of the sloop, the battery had started firing again now that they were back in range.

  ‘Broadsides, Mister Lynton, we may get only one chance.’

  ‘Broadsides, aye-aye sir!’

  Kestrel steadied on her new course running parallel to the line of dunes. There was a breathless pause.

  ‘Fire!’ shouted Lynton.

  Kestrel’s Dutch builders hadn’t anticipated her firing many whole broadsides in her life; her scantlings weren’t made for it and her shallow draught meant that the recoil had a particularly noticeable effect. The sloop moved bodily sideways as all eight six-pounders spoke in flame and thunder. It was a good broadside, possibly the best of Lynton’s career so far. At least four of the balls ploughed through the ranks of the dragoons. Holbrooke could see horses down and kicking, and blue-coated figures immobile among the tussock grass. He knew how difficult it was to manoeuvre on the top of those dunes. There was only a single winding path and as soon as the men and horses left it, all unit cohesion would be lost. It happened now. The officers were quick-witted enough to know that a second broadside would do an equal amount of damage, and they hastily pulled their companies and squadrons back below the crest. It must have been an ignominious retreat, made worse by their utter inability to fight back. By the time Kestrel’s battery was reloaded, only dead men and wounded horses could be seen on the dunes.

  ‘A salutary lesson to the French, I believe, Mister Holbrooke.’

  Those were the first words that the duke had uttered to Holbrooke since he’d embarked.

  ‘Yes, Your Grace.’

  ◆◆◆

  Kestrel quickly moved out of range of the battery again. It never failed to amaze Holbrooke how slowly artillerymen learned the lessons of firing at moving ships, even when they manned batteries overlooking the sea. No doubt they would do well if Kestrel had anchored within range or – God forbid – had run aground, but as long as she kept moving, the salvoes continued to drop ahead or astern. Apart from that one hole in the fore tops’l, Kestrel had suffered nothing from nearly an hour under the French guns.

  ◆◆◆

  ‘Will you take my longboat, sir?’

  ‘If you please, Mister Holbrooke. His Grace and I must be back in Essex without delay. I want to do something about those batteries before they hold up the landing.’

  The bay was starting to fill with ships, anchoring closer to each other than would ever have been countenanced at Spithead or the Nore. The ten transports that carried two flatboats each started immediately on the slow process of heaving them off their makeshift cradles and swinging them over the gunwales and into the water. Already the boats were pulling over from Essex, Rochester, Deptford, Portland, Richmond, Pallas, Brilliant and Tartar, carrying the post-captains who had been nominated to command divisions of boats. It still seemed a curious use of such an exalted rank, but the duty was vital to the mission and in any case, those men-o’-war had little else to do now that the squadron had been brought safely to its destination.

  Kestrel’s station now was at the southern end of the landing area, within sight of the small battery but out of range. Holbrooke had nothing to do but wait. The dragoons and infantry must have moved away because there was no sign of them. They’d taken their dead and wounded and departed.

  The tide was flooding fast now, and the strip of sand was getting narrower by the minute. It was said that at the head of the Gulf of Mont Saint-Michel, near the castle on the mount, the flooding tide could out-run a horse. Holbrooke found that unlikely, but certainly a man would want to step out to keep ahead of it.

  ‘Commodore’s pennant’s shifting, sir!’

  That was Edney; he was becoming a good signal midshipman. There’d been little call for flags when they operated alone off Emden, but now, as part of a large squadron, his role had become more important.

  ‘Hauled down in Essex, sir, broken out in Success.’

  So, Howe had moved into a frigate, thought Holbrooke. What’s afoot?

  He trained his telescope on the new flagship. Success was underway and so were Rose and Flamborough, heading south towards Kestrel.

  The three frigates had little space to manoeuvre and never did make it into the sort of neat line beloved by squadron commanders. Nevertheless, their objective was clear; the battery at La Houle! Howe was taking personal command to silence the three guns. Holbrooke hoped fervently that Albach wasn’t there. A combined broadside of sixty nine-pounder guns was on its way to obliterate the battery.

  ‘Signal from the commodore, sir. Kestrel to join the line.’

  ‘Weigh anchor!’ shouted Holbrooke. ‘Bosun, get those men moving, I want to be underway in ten minutes!’

  ◆◆◆

  12: The Line of Battle

  Monday, Fifth of June 1758.

  Kestrel, at Sea. Cancale Bay.

  The line of battle! Every sea officer dreams of the day that he’ll walk his quarterdeck as his ship moves into its allotted place in the line, with the enemy in sight. In this case the enemy wasn’t a noble column of ships-of-the-line, but a tiny battery perched precariously on the dunes of Cancale Bay. Neither was Kestrel a mighty third rate with seventy-four guns loaded and ready, but a humble sixteen-gun sloop. Nevertheless, it was a proud moment. He could see it on the faces of his crew. They’d caught the mood of the occasion: there was an eagerness, a delight in the prospect of the coming battle, one-sided though it was.

  ‘Half a cable, sir,’ said Fairview looking judiciously at the spacing of the three frigates. ‘They’re not leaving much room for error.’

  ‘Then let that be our spacing also, Master, half a cable astern of Flamborough.’

  Kestrel was sailing hard on the wind to join the line. It was a pretty sight, three frigates of twenty guns in tight formation under tops’ls – fighting canvas – making no more than three knots in the light west-nor’westerly breeze that swept over the dunes. Success, flying Howe’s broad pennant, was an older ship. Like Fury, Holbrooke’s frigate in the Mediterranean at the start of the war, she carried a small demi-battery on her lower deck and a pair of three-po
unders on her quarterdeck. Success in fact carried twenty-four guns even though she was rated a twenty. Rose and Flamborough were new twenty-gun nine-pounder frigates, launched for this war and as alike as two peas in a pod. They were both spilling the wind from their main tops’ls to keep in their stations on the leading ship, the slower Success.

  Holbrooke knew the histories of their captains. Eighteen months ago, they’d all been commanders, like Holbrooke, and they’d each been posted in the great rush to build and man the additional ships that were needed to fight the war. Holbrooke’s fear was that if he didn’t make post-captain soon, he’d miss his chance. Another six months – a year at most – and their lordships would move him out of Kestrel to make way for another newly-promoted commander to prove himself. There was no compromise. Either he was posted, or he’d be on half pay for the rest of his life, and the half-pay of a commander wasn’t an appealing thought. He shook away that unprofitable line of thinking to concentrate on bringing his sloop into action. After all, that was the surest way of being noticed – and promoted.

  ‘Bring her three points to larboard, quartermaster,’ said Fairview. ‘You may steer for Flamborough’s ensign staff.’

  Kestrel slid neatly into the line just as the flagship’s broadside opened with a roar.

  ‘Starboard battery ready,’ reported the first lieutenant. ‘I’d like to fire by divisions unto we get the right elevation, sir.’

  ‘Very well, Mister Lynton. Remember we’re a lot closer than we were last time.’

  It was a shock to see how fast the day was slipping away. Already it was four o’clock and in two hours it would be high water. Albach’s battery was only a quarter of a mile away. Once the frigates had found their elevation, it would be uncomfortable work serving those twenty-four pounders. Of course, it would be uncomfortable work in the ships too. Frigates and sloops weren’t built to withstand shot of that size, and just a few hits could disable any of the three. Any single hit could disable Kestrel.