by Chris Durbin
‘He was particular about his guns,’ Chalmers mused aloud, ‘he’d have recognised Kestrel, I imagine?’
‘Oh yes, we’re very distinctive, even to a soldier. The only other sloop that looks remotely like us is probably wrecked on some Bahamas sandbar.’
‘That was a strange encounter, wasn’t it?’ Chalmers asked, remembering that day when they captured this very ship.
‘Yes,’ replied Holbrooke. ‘It’s not every day that one of His Majesty’s frigates fights two identical Dutch privateers-turned-pirates, captures one,’ he patted the binnacle in affection, ‘and sends the other scurrying away downwind to its near-certain demise.’
They walked on in silence for a moment. It was that day, ten months ago, that had led directly to Holbrooke’s preposterously early promotion to commander and to the quarterdeck of the very sloop that he’d captured, the sloop whose deck they were now pacing.
‘What are your intentions, if I may inquire,’ asked Chalmers. ‘I gather we’ve been sent here on a somewhat spurious errand.’
‘I believe so.’ Holbrooke paused, his mood changing like the snuffing of a candle. ‘Commodore Howe is a most particular planner. His dispositions for the cruise to Cancale and for the landing are masterpieces; every man-of-war and every transport and storeship down to the smallest hoy has a role to play and a station to fill. He even has a plan for filling any gaps, so Captain Ourry’s station has already been taken by another frigate until Success is patched up. Kestrel was a late addition to his squadron. He has no job for us, and we were becoming a hindrance to the smooth workings of his command. There’s no need for a screen here to the north, not with Anson and the Channel Fleet blocking anything coming from Ushant, and this westerly wind preventing anything rounding Cape La Hague. We’ve been sent here to keep out of his way.’
He continued in a low voice, ‘the pilot Renouf is with us for much the same reason.’
‘Then we should make the most of it. This is tantamount to a cruise after all. Isn’t that what you’ve been craving?’
‘A cruise with no chance of a prize,’ Holbrooke replied. ‘That… that great squadron,’ he said biting off an obscenity – he never swore in front of the chaplain – ‘will have frightened off every innocent French merchantman and fisherman from the Chops of the Channel to Calais, aye and every not-so-innocent Englishman smuggler too.’
Holbrooke stopped abruptly and turned to the chaplain.
‘But it’s not the lack of prizes that troubles me, we’ve had more than our share of fortune already.’
Chalmers knew what was coming, he’d heard it or something similar from Holbrooke on many occasions.
‘I have to get myself noticed. Time’s running out for me to prove myself fit to be posted. I know you believe that I’ve already done that, but as far as their lordships are concerned, my name will hardly have been mentioned. Commodore Holmes probably ignored me, certainly the published accounts don’t give me any credit for the fall of Emden, and now Howe, with a plethora of captains to look after, will certainly overlook me. In four or five months the Admiralty will yield to pressure from the many deserving lieutenants and promote one into Kestrel. I’ll be on the beach waiting for a vacancy in the post-captain’s list that hasn’t already been promised. I tell you truly, David, my wait will be in vain! I must distinguish myself, and that very soon.’
Chalmers knew that it was no good trying to shake his friend out of this frame of mind once it gripped him. He’d long ago decided that Holbrooke was a complex character; a great leader and a fine fighting seaman who saw neither of these aspects of his own character but was in the grip of the anxiety and self-criticism of a young man making his way in a veteran’s world.
‘Well, you know my view. Their lordships would be mad indeed to overlook your talents.’
‘Ha, there you have it! Surely you see, they are mad – mad as hatters, the whole gang of them – and we are nothing more than their playthings.’
The ancient quartermaster had seen young captains come and young captains go and being no more than a few feet away at any point of their walk, had naturally heard every word. He nodded his grey beard in solemn agreement to this fundamental naval truth.
‘Amen, halleluiah,’ he said in a deep bass growl, not caring what the chaplain thought about this mildest of blasphemies.
It was hard to enjoy the sunshine now, and Holbrooke’s humour had spread across the deck with the speed of a quick-match. The two men paced on, lost in their own thoughts and carrying their personal cloud with them.
◆◆◆
‘Sail ho! Sail a point on the starboard bow,’ shouted the lookout from the main topmast. ‘Looks like a ship’s tops’ls.’
‘Up with you, Mister Edney, and tell me what you see.’
Holbrooke swept a glance across the deck. The guns were already cleared for action and the yards had been chained, so there was little else to do except to turn the hands up, if it became necessary.
‘What do you think, Mister Lynton,’ he asked as his first lieutenant arrived on deck, as much to prevent him unnerving everyone by fussing over the guns as for any real desire to hear his opinion.
Lynton stopped in his tracks and looked to the northwest as though he’d never seen the sea before.
‘Coming down this side of Jersey? If she’s ship-rigged then she’s either a man-o’-war or a privateer. Unless she’s a merchantman that’s slipped past the Channel Fleet and hasn’t heard about Howe’s squadron. In that case, she could be heading for Granville or somewhere else along the coast.’
‘A victualler from Portsmouth for the squadron?’ asked Holbrooke.
‘Not with this wind,’ Fairview interrupted, joining the conversation, ‘she’d never have weathered the cape.’
That was true. With the wind in the southwest, anything coming from the east of Cape La Hague would have to tack and tack again to get this far.
‘Mister Renouf, your expert opinion, if you please.’
Renouf had been hanging back, listening to the discussion but not joining in. He really was a timid man for a pilot, thought Holbrooke.
‘East of the Écrevièr Bank, I take it?’ Renouf lapsed into a very convincing Breton accent when using French words.
‘Just so, it appears,’ replied Holbrooke.
‘A French merchantman, I don’t doubt,’ he replied with a curious sideways look, ‘making for Saint-Malo perhaps.’
‘No French merchantman would take that passage unless forced to, there are shoals everywhere and few of them marked,’ said Fairview.
‘I believe I know my own back-yard,’ snapped Renouf in reply, and he turned away to study the wake.
‘When’s high water, Mister Fairview?’ asked Holbrooke
‘Midday, sir, or thereabouts.’
‘Then the tides rising, what do you say now Mister Renouf? Would a homeward bound West Indiaman risk it?’
Renouf shook his head without turning.
‘Not when the deep passage to the west of the Écrevièrs is open to him, but there are many other places that a merchantman could have sailed from.’
‘Very well,’ said Holbrooke, ‘whatever that vessel is, you may beat to quarters, Mister Lynton. God send us a merchantman or anything less than a big frigate,’ he continued, ‘begging your pardon Mister Chalmers.’
To the sound of the drum, the Kestrels poured out from below decks. In just five minutes Lynton was able to report the ship at quarters, cleared for action. By that time the masthead of the chase – for that is what they now thought it – was just visible from the deck.
Jackson, his yards already chained, was busying himself with boarding nets. Not for the world would he forego his nets, not after the fight with the Dutch pirates last year.
‘Sir!’ shouted Edney from the main topmast. ‘It’s a man-o’-war. It looks very like that sloop that we met off Guernsey. The same tops’ls.’
Holbrooke looked unsurprised.
‘Any sign of the other
one?’ he replied through the speaking trumpet.
‘Nothing, sir, there’s not another sail all around the horizon, not even a fishing boat.’
Holbrooke turned and smiled at Chalmers who bowed wryly in acknowledgement that Holbrooke’s invocation had worked. Something less than a big frigate, it was; but not Renouf’s merchantman.
◆◆◆
The sou’westerly wind was on Kestrel’s quarter and even under fighting sail she was making six knots. The French sloop – Trois Poignards, Renouf had thought was her name – was hard on the wind, beating up to Kestrel with every appearance of offering battle.
‘What’s her weight of metal, Mister Renouf,’ asked Holbrooke.
Renouf looked embarrassed, more reticent than even his usual demeanour.
‘If she’s the Trois Poignards, and I say if, then she carries fourteen four-pounders, an easy win for you, sir,’ he replied.
Holbrooke was almost certain that the pilot knew more than he was saying, that in fact he was very familiar with this ship. Probably it was nothing more than a little smuggling that brought him into contact with the enemy, but he would bear watching anyway.
‘D’you hear that, Mister Lynton? Fourteen four-pounders in all probability.’
Lynton replied with a cheer, taken up by all the gun crews.
‘Do you see anything else?’ Holbrooke shouted up to the masthead.
‘Nothing, sir,’ replied Edney, ‘clear all around.’
‘Stay at the masthead, Mister Edney, and keep a careful lookout. There’s a frigate around somewhere.’
Now, was there something about the look on Renouf’s face? Probably not, just his shyness coming through and his irritation at being contradicted by Fairview.
‘She’s coming on boldly enough,’ said the master. ‘Look at her!’
The sloop – for that was what she was in British terms, whatever the French called her – hadn’t shortened to fighting sail and hadn’t deviated from her course. It occurred to Holbrooke that the French captain may be unaware of Kestrel’s presence, but then he discarded that idea. No King’s ship – British or French – could possibly keep that bad a lookout in the Channel.
‘Mister Lynton, Mister Fairview. I plan to place her on our starboard bow, then at the last moment cut across her hawse and give her a broadside with the larboard battery from right on her bows. He’ll have to turn one way or the other, and in either case I’ll manoeuvre to rake her. Double-shot both batteries, Mister Lynton, the range will be pistol-shot, I aim to finish this as quickly as possible.’
‘Aye-aye sir,’ replied Lynton. Fairview just nodded, his mind already working on the helm orders and sail trimming.
‘But remember, gentlemen.’ Holbrooke continued, ‘there’s never yet been a fight at sea that went according to design. The enemy has a plan too and one thing’s for certain, it won’t fit in with ours. So be ready for changes. In any event, Mister Lynton, keep those guns firing!’
◆◆◆
Now the two sloops were only a mile apart. The Frenchman still had not manoeuvred, not even when Kestrel made a distinct alteration of course to larboard. It was as though the French captain disdained tactics and manoeuvre in favour of a single broadside and a swift boarding. Closer and closer, in just a minute they would be broadside-to-broadside but passing each other at a combined nine or ten knots.
‘Helm a-weather, Mister Fairview,’ Holbrooke shouted from his position at the leeward mizzen chains. He was leaning far out to catch the first hint of movement from his adversary.
Kestrel came off the wind and the Frenchman moved from the starboard bow right across to the larboard beam. Still he held his course. The larboard guns were being levered around as the Frenchman’s bows drew rapidly left. A moving target it may have been, but it was a moving target at a mere thirty yards and that first double-shotted broadside hammered into her bows. Holbrooke could see the splinters flying from her beakhead, the parted lines and the holes in her foresail. As they hurtled past, he caught a glimpse of the gammoning for her bowsprit, a shot had grazed it and half a dozen turns had parted. That would be a limiting factor for her manoeuvering; her captain would have to reduce the pressure on the headsails to avoid losing all her forward spars, the foremast included.
‘He’s following us around, sir,’ said Fairview.
Sure enough, the Frenchman was turning his ship to larboard, chasing Kestrel’s stern away to the east. It was an unusual tactic, rather like a playground game of tag where the pursued kept close behind the pursuer, just out of arm’s reach. It was almost like a stalling tactic, as though…
‘Sail ho! Sail on the starboard beam, close to the coast. It’s another man-o’-war, sir.’
So that was it, a trap and an elegant one at that. The sloop’s role was to lock onto Kestrel and pin the British sloop in position until the frigate could join the battle. Holbrooke glanced again at Renouf. His face was blank, and he gripped the gunwale capping with ferocious intensity. It was as though he was carefully showing no emotion. Could he have set this up? In a general sort of way, it was possible, although he’d had no contact with the shore since he’d joined the squadron at Portsmouth. And yet, he’d suggested this as the most profitable place to hunt, and here they were with a sloop to windward and a sixth rate reaching up to cut off the escape to the south. Only the channel between the Écrevièr bank and the Cotentin Peninsula offered a means of escape, and that meant leaving his station. If this sou’westerly persisted it would be days before he rejoined the squadron. An elegant trap indeed.
‘She must have been hiding against the coast over by Portbail,’ said Fairview, glancing sideways at Renouf, who looked the other way.
‘Veer ship, Mister Fairview, and lay me alongside him.’
Holbrooke eased his sword in its scabbard.
‘Mister Lynton,’ he shouted, ‘stand by the starboard battery.’
The fore-stays’l came down in a flash and, relieved of the windage forward, Kestrel spun around to starboard, bringing her stern through the wind.
‘Fire!’ shouted Lynton.
This time the load of sixteen six-pound balls was too much for the Frenchman’s bowsprit, and it broke clear and fell into the sea under the sloop’s forefoot, dragging a crazy mass of stays and halyards with it. Her foremast and topmast survived, but they would never stand for a hard beat to windward.
‘She’s veering,’ shouted Fairview.
Holbrooke could see the bows turning towards Kestrel. It was an act of desperation but one that may yet work. He guessed that the Frenchman was attempting to fix himself alongside Kestrel and he could see the boarders mustering on the sloop’s bows. They were making no attempt to either clear the wreckage of the bowsprit, or to rig a new forestay. A few intrepid souls had scrambled out on the foreyard holding grapnels, ready to catch in Kestrel’s spars and rigging.
It was a race between Kestrel’s increasing speed after she’d veered and the Frenchman’s remaining forward momentum now that he was hard on the wind with no headsails.
Bang! The swivel gun beside Holbrooke fired and he saw a gap torn in the French boarders. He’d been unaware of the marines pushing forward between the guns, but now their muskets were popping away as well.
‘Fire!’ shouted Lynton again and the starboard guns erupted. He’d had the foresight to load with grape. The splinters flew from the enemy gunwales, and more men went down.
The French larboard guns could at last bear and now it was Kestrel’s turn to receive a punishing broadside. The four-pound balls did little damage to Kestrel’s sides, but where they found the gunports they were lethal. Men were falling all over the deck now as the French swivels joined in.
‘Repel boarders sir?’ shouted Lynton, almost in his ear.
‘Be damned if I will. Stand by to board her! Away Boarders!’ Holbrooke shouted. ‘We’ll take her, lads, and carry her into Portsmouth!’
Lynton waved his sword, urgently gathering the men at the starboard gunwale. The
re were only a few yards between the two sloops now. Neither had rigged boarding nets, each planning to board the other and neither wanting any impediment.
‘Where’s the frigate?’ Holbrooke asked looking around. He was shocked by what he saw. There was the second Frenchman, Joli was her name, if Renouf was to be believed, only three or four miles away and reaching up fast under all sail. Even her windward stuns’ls were set in her haste to join the battle.
‘Helm to windward, Mister Fairview, we must leave the boarding for another day.’
‘Ready the guns, Mister Lynton. Load with ball. We’ll have to fight the frigate before we can finish the sloop.’
Kestrel paid off slowly, fast enough to stay out of reach of the sloop, but not out of reach of the taunts that were flung after them. It was a bitter blow to muster the boarding parties and then send them back to the guns, but that frigate would be upon them in ten minutes.
◆◆◆
14: Treachery
Tuesday, Sixth of June 1758.
Kestrel, at Sea. Gorey Point, West 10 Nautical Miles.
With the wind on her starboard quarter, Kestrel tore down towards the enemy frigate. Over his shoulder, Holbrooke could see the sloop frantically attempting to follow, but with no headsails it was difficult to keep her bows off the wind. They were trying manfully, the mizzen mast was already bare, and the main tops’l was flying, but her speed was down to about two knots and her steering was erratic. The frigate, however, looked majestic. She was hard on the wind, rushing to get between Kestrel and her obvious escape route to the south.
‘How well do you know these waters, Mister Fairview?’ asked Holbrooke.
‘Pretty well, sir, I can keep you off the rocks and shoals in any case.’
