Perilous Shore

by Chris Durbin

  ‘Then please do so, Mister Fairview, please do so.’

  Chalmers appeared on deck. At quarters he assisted Harris the surgeon in the gunroom on the deck below, but with the two casualties now calm, he’d come up to see the general situation. The pilot, evidently no longer trusted if not under outright suspicion, was lurking gloomily near the taffrail. Holbrooke stood in front of the binnacle, his legs apart and balanced against the pitch and roll of the sloop as it sped downwind towards the frigate. He’d noticed before how Holbrooke’s whole personality changed when they went into action, or in any other kind of crisis. Gone was the youthful uncertainty, the self-deprecation and timidity. It had been replaced by towering confidence and an assumption of command that would have sat as naturally on far older shoulders. Holbrooke gave his orders with not the slightest fear that they wouldn’t be obeyed.

  ‘Mister Chalmers, we’ll be in action again soon, this is no place to linger. Perhaps you could take Mister Renouf below into safety.’

  Chalmers bowed and gestured towards Renouf who, with a shrug, followed him to the gunroom where the surgeon was preparing for the next influx of wounded. He’d only had to deal with two so far, both with serious splinter wounds but neither requiring amputation. Two more were dead before they arrived in the gunroom, and they’d been moved into the space that was usually the first lieutenant’s cabin.

  ‘Batteries ready,’ reported Lynton. ‘I’ve lost two men taken below but I’ve still plenty to serve the guns.’

  ‘How’s her bearing doing, Mister Fairview?’ asked Holbrooke.

  ‘Near as damn-it steady, sir. If he doesn’t go about, we’ll shave his stern close as a Piccadilly barber.’

  Holbrooke nodded and stared hard at the frigate, now less than two miles on the larboard bow, but crossing fast from larboard to starboard in an effort to get to the south.

  ‘Starboard battery, sir?’ asked Lynton.

  ‘I think not,’ replied Holbrooke, ‘I can’t believe this gentleman is going to tamely let us rake his stern. Ah, there he goes!’

  The frigate turned her bows to starboard and tacked neatly across the wind.

  ‘Mister Fairview, I’ll leave the detail to you, but I want that frigate to believe that we’re determined to rake his bows. Steer as though you intend to cross his jib boom at half pistol-shot. Then watch for my command because when he’s convinced, I’ll want you to come to starboard and cross his stern, very, very close.’

  ‘I’ll need to veer now, in that case, sir.’

  ‘Very well, master.’

  Kestrel put her stern through the wind and steadied with the French frigate five points on her starboard bow, emphatically declaring her intention to cross the Frenchman’s bow.

  ‘Mister Lynton,’ he shouted. ‘Engage with the starboard battery as soon as your shot will carry, but I’ll need a full broadside from the larboard battery when we cross his stern. You may double shot the larboard guns.’

  Closer and closer. The frigate looked vast compared with the diminutive Kestrel. The officers on her quarterdeck towered above Holbrooke, having no real quarterdeck of his own – in the sense of a separate deck higher than the main deck – and with a low freeboard in any case. Five cables to go…

  Bang! The number one gun fired, followed by the whole starboard battery in ragged order as the gun captains fancied their shot would carry.

  The side of the frigate erupted in flame and smoke. She’d fired a broadside – all her larboard guns simultaneously – and Kestrel reeled as chain shot screeched overhead to tear through the sails and rigging. Holbrooke turned to find Jackson, but the bosun was already directing the repairs with the few men that could be spared from the guns.

  Now here was something Holbrooke hadn’t reckoned with. A solid bank of smoke lay between the two ships and the sou’westerly wind was pushing it back over the frigate. For a few vital seconds the French captain was blind.

  ‘Now Master! Down with your helm.’

  Kestrel turned five points to starboard; they were on a course to clip the frigate’s stern. The smoke must be making Kestrel very difficult to see from the Frenchman’s quarterdeck, and a five-point turn without either tacking of veering would be hard to detect.

  ‘Larboard battery ready!’ shouted Lynton. ‘Double-shotted.’

  ‘Fire by divisions as we cross her stern, Mister Lynton. Make every shot count!’

  Bang, bang! Holbrooke was concentrating on the manoeuvre, so once again he was taken by surprise when numbers two and four guns fired. The frigate’s high stern reached far above Kestrel’s deck and even the upper deck was above the level of the sloop’s guns. Nevertheless, the double loads of ball smashed through the stern, wrecking the transom while the swivels at full elevation made short work of the cabin windows and the gingerbread on the taffrail. It was a blow, but hardly a knockout. This was the hard lesson of taking on an adversary of a class above oneself – the frigate was bigger, stronger-built and a had a greater number of heavier guns. She had a harder punch and could endure more punishment. It would take luck or skill of a very advanced sort for Kestrel to win. Yet Holbrooke was in no mood to concede

  ‘Veer ship and put me alongside her Mister Fairview.’

  ‘Aye-aye sir,’ replied the master.

  The gun crews were hauling in the larboard guns and feverishly reloading. Holbrooke could see the frigate’s starboard eight-pounders; ten of the great ugly brutes, their muzzles thrust through the gun-ports. They looked big and powerful compared with Kestrel’s six-pounders. He could hear Fairview giving the orders that would turn Kestrel to the nor’west, abreast of the frigate. Then it would be a bare-knuckle slogging match; the frigate having the longer reach, the strongest punch and the broadest chest. The fighting madness left Holbrooke in a flash, suddenly he was rational again and he knew this battle against two opponents could only end one way. It was the disappointment over being sent away from the landings and the probable – no certain – treachery of the pilot that had led him to this crisis.

  ‘Where’s the sloop?’ he shouted to the quarterdeck.

  ‘To windward and heading south,’ replied Edney, keeping his head as always.

  Then this was a well-planned trap. The frigate and the sloop had ensured that one of them would always block the escape back to Cancale Bay and the safety of the squadron, leaving the other free to deal with Kestrel.

  ‘Belay the veering,’ Holbrooke said, clapping the master on the shoulder to prevent the irrevocable helm order. ‘Hold your course. Your piloting skills are about to become vital, Mister Fairview.’

  The master looked in astonishment at his captain, then he saw the massive frigate over his shoulder and the sloop far astern, cutting off their retreat, and he nodded in understanding.

  There was one thing to be said for this retreat; it put the frigate captain off his stride. His starboard broadside had been holding its fire until the little sloop ranged up alongside, but now its prey was running fast for the coast of the Cotentin Peninsula and every second was increasing the range. Holbrooke counted to himself. If the Frenchman didn’t fire in thirty seconds, he’d have missed the best opportunity to disable Kestrel. Thirty seconds passed, and then another ten.

  The frigate fired a ragged broadside. Her gun captains had expected to fire at maximum depression, but now had to knock out quoins for the greater range and shift the heavy guns around to bear on the quarter. It all took time and the precious seconds had flown away as fast as Kestrel sped east with the wind on her quarter. Nevertheless, the sloop took three hits. One of them harmlessly smashed into the larboard quarter; work for the carpenter or the yard but nothing to stop Kestrel’s flight. The second was unlucky for the sloop. It hit on the transom as the stern rose to the swell, creating a foot-wide hole below the waterline. The third ball caused the most harm: it shattered the new wheel, bringing down the old quartermaster and one of the steersmen.

  That should have been the end for Kestrel. Any other ship would have been unma
nageable for vital minutes until the rudder tackles were manned. Even if the frigate hadn’t come up to them in those few minutes, the sloop would have been slow to respond to helm orders and would have been a certain catch within the hour.

  However, Kestrel was different. Her tiller was still on the upper deck, covered by nothing more than a grating that the carpenter – no lover of modern innovations – had covertly made removable by the simple substitution of battens and wedges for the yard’s joints and nails. He was on the job in a flash, knocking out the wedges, throwing the battens over the side and lifting the grating to reveal the tiller. Two of the number fifteen gun’s crew recognised the situation and grabbed the stout bar. It was awkward because instead of being three feet off the deck as it was before the wheel was fitted, the tiller now swung at ankle height. It was difficult to hold the tiller and still get a good grip on the deck.

  ‘She steers, sir,’ said Fairview as he saw the tiller moving from larboard to starboard and felt the sloop respond.

  ‘Then shape a course to round La Hague, Mister Fairview, and set all sail. We need to keep out of range of that frigate until we’re around the cape. I don’t believe he’ll follow us out into the Channel.’

  Now it was sheer seamanship and navigation that would save them. Cape La Hague was thirty nautical miles away, perhaps four hours in this wind.

  ‘Mister Lynton. Reload the guns, quick as you can, then you may give the bosun all the hands he needs.’

  Within minutes the coarses were drawing and the stuns’ls started to appear, along with the full suite of stays’ls and the infrequently seen spritsail. Kestrel was wounded, but not critically, and she could still show a bold spread of canvas. Forward of the mainmast, the pumps were already manned, the familiar sound drifting aft to the quarterdeck. The carpenter was hanging over the taffrail, looking at the hole below the waterline as the stern rhythmically rose and fell.

  ‘I’ll leave one of my mates to tidy up this mess, sir,’ he said levering himself back inboard. ‘That hole’s my first concern now.’

  The French captain was slow to react; a retreat was the last thing that he expected after Kestrel’s bold approach. By the time the frigate fetched Kestrel’s wake, it was a three-mile stern chase and not a gun could be brought to bear.

  ◆◆◆

  ‘Man Overboard!’ shouted Edney, who happened to be the only one looking astern, ‘It was Mister Renouf, sir, I saw him jump.’

  ‘Mister Treganoc, a shot at that man, if you please,’ said Holbrooke, ‘quickly now.’

  Treganoc took a musket from the marine standing beside the aftermost gun, checked the priming and strode aft to the taffrail. He’d seen the way that the trust between Holbrooke, Fairview and the pilot had deteriorated, and he’d come to the same conclusion as his captain. There had been treachery on the pilot’s mind from the first time he came aboard. Renouf had taken this opportunity to jump overboard, carrying the lifebuoy with him, at the point where the French frigate was at its closest.

  Bang! Treganoc’s musket fired.

  ‘Damn it! Missed,’ he said.

  The sergeant had brought a file of marines aft and they now lined the taffrail and fired a volley. Still the figure of Renouf could be seen clutching the lifebuoy and receding further and further behind.

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ said Treganoc in a disgusted tone, ‘the traitor still lives.’

  ‘It was a difficult shot,’ Holbrooke replied. He was watching Renouf through his telescope. The frigate was up with him in less than ten minutes. Now it would surely heave to and send a boat or throw a rope, but it neither slowed nor altered course. He saw a movement from the man in the water, Renouf’s despairing wave as his would-be rescuers ignored his plight.

  ‘Unfortunately, sir, he has a reasonable chance of survival. The tide will wash him up on the coast of France, or Jersey, in a day or so,’ Fairview commented dispassionately, ‘as long as he holds onto that lifebuoy.’

  ‘Let’s hope it’s Jersey and I can send a letter before he can escape again.’

  Fairview grimaced. There was so much illicit trade between the Channel Isles and France that Renouf need spend no more than a day waiting for a boat and a sympathetic skipper.

  If he made it ashore…

  They chased north through the midday sun and into the afternoon watch. To start with, the frigate gained on Kestrel and at one point was little more than a mile astern. However, as Jackson got the loose halyards and sheets in hand and replaced the damaged mizzen tops’l, the sloop’s speed gradually increased. Soon she was running mile-for-mile with the frigate. The French sloop was nowhere to be seen, lost in the haze to the south. At six bells in the afternoon watch, with Cape La Hague abaft the beam to the sou’west, the frigate hauled her wind and with a parting gun in salute, started her long beat back to the south. The French captain had problems of his own. With his home port unlikely to be available for some time, the British Channel Fleet to windward and both of his ships requiring repair, he’d have to find a commercial harbour to refit.

  ◆◆◆

  ‘You know that I don’t usually hold with councils of war,’ said Holbrooke as he addressed his officers in his cabin. ‘Nevertheless, I need your professional opinions and I must, I regret, record them,’ he said motioning towards his clerk who sat at the desk holding his pen expectantly.

  Holbrooke shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Kestrel was lying-to ten miles nor’east of Cape La Hague, gently pitching and rolling in the sou’westerly breeze. The forlorn sound of the chain-pump drifted back into the cabin, a reminder of one of the critical factors that he must consider.

  ‘Commodore Howe is expecting Kestrel to return within four days of our departure, that would be Friday. We can still achieve that even with this wind, isn’t that so, Master?’

  ‘It is, sir,’ Fairview replied. ‘We’ll have to make a bold beat nor’west into the channel and we won’t round the cape again until tomorrow, but we can certainly be in Cancale Bay by Friday; sooner if the wind backs.’

  The cabin was silent except for the scratch-scratch of Pritchard’s pen.

  ‘Very well, Mister Fairview, so in navigational terms, it’s still within my power to fulfil my orders.’

  He turned to the bosun.

  ‘Mister Jackson, what’s the state of our sails and rigging?’

  ‘I’d be happier with a new mizzen tops’l sir, instead of that old one I’ve had to bend on. It won’t stand a blow. Otherwise we’re all patched and spliced, sir…’

  Jackson’s expression was transparent, he desperately wanted to know what his captain wished him to say. He’d swear blind that he had not a stitch of canvas to hang on a yard if it helped, but Holbrooke was giving nothing away.

  Pritchard wrote rapidly, catching the testimony of these ship’s standing officers.

  ‘Doctor?’ asked Holbrooke.

  ‘Two dead, as you know sir, and we’ll have to bury them this evening or tomorrow at the latest, what with this heat. I’ve five men in the sickbay. One arm amputated above the elbow and four with deep lacerations. I have hopes for all of them and they’ll do as well under my care as they will in Haslar,’ he replied a little too emphatically.

  Chalmers considered Harris. He knew that there was a degree of bravado in his answer. Haslar was probably the finest hospital in Britain. It was undoubtedly the largest, and surely his injured patients would have a better chance of survival inside that specialised institution? He glanced at Holbrooke and saw intuitively that he had the same opinion.

  ‘Chips, what’s the damage,’ Holbrooke asked.

  The carpenter pulled at his beard and thought for long seconds. He must have known that he would be asked this question, but apparently was only now considering how to answer it.

  ‘The starboard gunwale’s all knocked about, but my crew’s working on that now, sir; it’s nothing to worry about. The shot in the transom is awkward to come to, but it’s well above the waterline.’

  He pa
used, stroking his beard again.

  ‘The wheel’s a problem. I can’t fashion a new one and I can’t raise the tiller off the deck, not without a new rudder-head and that’s a job for a yard. That ankle-breaker of a tiller is all very well in these winds, but it’ll be unmanageable in a blow. I’m not happy to be at sea with it in that state.’

  Scratch, scratch, scratch. Pritchard’s pen and the clanking of the pump provided a doom-laden accompaniment.

  ‘And the shot below the waterline?’ asked Holbrooke, prodding the carpenter to continue.

  ‘Ah, now that’s the worst of it, sir. It’s come in at a difficult place, where the lowest fashion piece meets the stern post. As you know, perhaps, they’re held together by treenails from outboard. All I can do is push in a plug, and that’s not really holding as the ship works. We’ll be pumping every watch until we reach a yard. And the transom knees have been strained too.’

  Silence again as Pritchard caught up. Holbrooke was determined that this council should be properly recorded.

  ‘Mister Lynton, do you have anything to add?’

  ‘Well, having heard the carpenter, it seems to me that we tempt fate by staying at sea, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, Mister Lynton. I asked your opinion regarding the state of the sloop. Once I know that I’ll decide on our next course of action alone.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir. I spoke out of turn…’ Lynton mumbled in reply, embarrassed to be checked – however mildly – by his captain. ‘I’m lacking ten of our complement, sir, we sailed three short and we’ve lost seven, as you’ve heard…’ He stumbled to a close.

  Holbrooke ignored his first lieutenant’s embarrassment.

  ‘You’ve recorded everything, Pritchard?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the clerk replied. ‘I’ll just ask for these gentlemen’s signatures before they leave.’

  ‘Very well, then you may all return to your duties. Mister Chalmers, will you stay a moment?’

  ◆◆◆

  ‘If it’s spiritual guidance you require, then I’m your man, George. But I can add nothing to the testimony of your officers, except possibly to note that the surgeon may be somewhat optimistic about the chances of recovery for those wounded men. I suggest that they’d do better at Haslar.’