by Chris Durbin
‘With pleasure, sir,’ the first lieutenant replied in what was the closest thing to a rehearsed speech.
‘Mister Gilbert, you’ll command the yawl and Mister Wishart, you’ll second Mister Gilbert.’
Both attempted to look like seasoned stoics, but their beaming faces betrayed them. They were good friends and Gilbert was only a matter of months senior to Wishart, but those few months meant that one commanded and one seconded, an immutable law of the sea.
‘Mister Angelini,’ he let the uncompleted sentence hang for a few seconds as he studied the young man whose face was set in an aspect of false indifference; a defence mechanism as Carlisle knew well. ‘Mister Angelini, you’ll second Mister Moxon in the longboat.’
And may God have mercy on my soul if this should all go wrong, thought Carlisle, because my wife certainly won’t.
***
13: Gabarus Bay
Sunday, Twenty-Sixth of March 1758.
Medina, at Sea. Off White Point, Île Royale.
The muted bell struck three, half an hour before the end of the last dogwatch and the beginning of the first. The clear weather that the nor’easterly wind brought had extended the period of twilight, and Medina had loitered off the coast, not out of sight, but perhaps out of mind until the last afterglow of the setting sun had been consumed by the darkness. The moon hadn’t yet risen; for a blessed hour the world was in darkness. It was unlikely that watchers on the shore could see Medina under her fore-and-aft sails, let alone the two boats, so low in the water.
‘Bring her to, Mister Hosking. Bosun, haul those boats alongside,’ said Carlisle in a quiet voice. There was really no need for silence a mile off a windward shore in a two-reef tops’l breeze, but boat operations at night had that effect upon people, Carlisle had noticed. He remembered another dark night when he’d sent boats inshore; at Toulon where his first lieutenant John Keltie had commanded. But Keltie was dead, shot down by a French marksman as he cut away the enemy frigate’s colours and he’d been launched over the gunwale into eternity in five hundred fathoms to the east of the Bonifacio Straits. Carlisle shivered at the memory. Then he remembered Holbrooke, who’d commanded the boat at Fort St. Philip in Minorca, and he’d prospered and had been promoted and given the command of a fine ship-rigged sloop. He still missed his friend Holbrooke, but less keenly now that Moxon was growing into the job.
Medina bucked and rolled to the stiff nor’easterly wind. In the lee of the land, the sea was moderate, but the backed jib caught enough of the near gale to make working on deck uncomfortable.
‘Longboat’s alongside the fore chains, sir,’ reported Hosking.
‘Very well. Mister Moxon, you may begin embarking your crew.’
‘Yawl’s alongside the main chains now, sir, just hooking on.’
‘Mister Gilbert are you ready?’ asked Carlisle. There was no discipline to be lost in a last fussy question to a young master’s mate, nothing lost and perhaps a little gained in a slight increase in the bonds between a captain and one of his followers.
The two boats pulled away from the ship’s side into the darkness. The wind was fierce, and rowing was difficult, but it would get easier as they neared the shore, and it wasn’t worth the risk to show any canvas at this point. If soldiers on the land had seen the frigate – and that was unlikely – they would almost certainly not have seen the low boats moving towards the shore. They’d be in ignorance of Medina’s intentions.
‘Bring her onto the wind, Mister Hosking. Larboard tack, and we’ll beat up to the harbour mouth.’
***
It was simple enough to keep station by the light of the gibbous moon, and sure enough, as the boats neared the shore, the waves decreased so that the oarsmen found their task more manageable. Moxon and Enrico sat in the stern sheets of the longboat, jammed into the confined space with the captain’s coxswain. Looking for’rard between the two rows or oarsmen they could see the corporal and the marine, carefully shielding their muskets with tarpaulin sheets against the spray that burst over the bows every few seconds.
‘Bring her two points to starboard, Souter,’ said Moxon to the coxswain. ‘Do you see the low cliffs on our starboard bow? I want to be two cables off there before we turn to larboard.’
It was no use talking compass points to the coxswain. They had no compass in the boat, and even if they did, they wouldn’t have dared to illuminate it.
Enrico was guarding a slate under his cloak to record the positions of lights on the shore. To act as a defence against the rain and spray, the carpenter had secured a flap of stout canvas to the top edge using copper rivets, the same that he used to fasten the strakes of a clinker-built boat. The carpenter, unfortunately, hadn’t been quite as clever as he’d thought and one of the holes that he’d bored in the slate had been too near the edge and had broken through. Enrico was very conscious that the success of his part of the mission depended to a great extent on keeping the slate dry, so the slate came under the cloak, regardless of the discomfort.
‘Bring her to larboard now, Souter. You see that next point, about a mile away?’ he pointed just for’rard of the beam. ‘That’s Flat Point. There’s a rock just a cable or so offshore, and it’ll be only just visible, so keep us three or four cables off.’
‘Aye-aye sir,’ the coxswain replied, pushing the tiller away from him so that the longboat would come to larboard in a gentle arc. It did no good to knock the oarsmen off their stroke by making violent turns when they weren’t necessary.
The longboat turned west on a parallel course to the coastline. It was almost entirely dark now, and if there were anything to be seen, any campfires betraying the positions of batteries and defensive positions, they would soon be visible.
‘Mark seven,’ called the leadsman softly, abbreviating the usual report. The splash of the lead hitting the water had been lost in the other sea-sounds, and Moxon had forgotten that he’d ordered the lead to be cast as soon as they left Medina. The leadsman had been keeping the reports to himself until he found seven fathoms with the red rag, between the black leather at ten fathoms and the white rag at five, as Moxon had ordered. It sounded simple, watching for the flash as the white cloth slipped through the fingers and knowing that the next marker – invisible in the dark but easily detected by the fingers – meant seven fathoms; Moxon knew it wasn’t.
‘Edge inshore coxswain,’ said Moxon, ‘I want to find the six-fathom line. How far off would you say we are?’
‘Not more than six cables, sir,’ said Souter, ‘maybe five.’
It was deeper here than Moxon had expected. Six fathoms offered a good holding depth for a frigate or even a small two-decker, a fifty or sixty-gun ship, and that put the shore batteries within a comfortable range.
‘Deep six.’ The leadsman’s voice floated over the heads or the rowers. How there was space for the bow oar, two marines with their muskets and a swinging lead was a mystery, but the soundings were coming in fast.
Moxon looked over his shoulder. The yawl was following in his wake, perhaps a cable astern. Too far really, but no signal of his would be seen. He just had to hope that Gilbert had the sense to stay close. The only reason for sending a second boat was for mutual support, and that meant they must remain close together. The sky darkened and he looked again, but of the yawl, there was no sign. A bank of cloud, hurrying down from the nor’east had obscured the low moon, cutting the visibility like the snuffing of a candle.
‘Easy,’ ordered Moxon. The coxswain relayed the order to the stroke. The longboat yawed rather more as the wind caught its starboard quarter and pushed the stern away. ‘We’ll let the yawl catch up with us.’
‘I see a light,’ whispered Enrico. ‘It’s astern of us, at the base of White Point.’
Moxon strained his eyes into the blackness. Yes, there was certainly something there. It looked as though it was higher than the shoreline, perhaps on the slightly elevated rocks of the point. He could see the line of surf where the point and its outl
ying rocks carried on their daily battle on the frontier between land and sea.
Enrico scrawled a note on his slate under cover of his cloak. He was doing it by touch alone; there was no light in the boat. He started each line two fingers below the last so that there was some chance of it being legible when he returned to Medina. Enrico knew that Wishart would be doing the same in the yawl; naturally, without really thinking about it, they were in competition with each other.
‘Very well,’ whispered Moxon in reply, ‘and I think I see another. Four points on the bow, there’s a black space between two patches of surf, I can just see a red glow, lower down than the last.’
‘Yes, I see it, sir.’
Enrico made his second entry on the slate then returned to his study of the coastline. Even with the moon behind the clouds, he could infer the main features of the land by the white, slightly fluorescent breakers on the shore. The surf, moderate though it was in this nor’easterly wind, outlined the rocky parts of the coast and its points and headlands. The spaces in between were cloaked in darkness, that was where the sandy coves would be.
Moxon still looked astern, hoping for a glimpse of the yawl, but it had disappeared completely. He looked at the sky, but there was no help there. He could see a diffuse glow where the moon should be, but it was impossible to see the extent of the bank of cloud that was obscuring it.
‘Blast that damned Gilbert,’ he muttered, not quite softly enough to prevent the coxswain hearing him. The last thing he wanted was to turn back to search for the missing yawl.
‘Rest on your oars, Coxswain,’ he said.
The longboat came to an uneasy stop, rolling hard as the way came off her.
‘Mister Angelini, you keep watching the shore while I try to locate the yawl.’
Moxon had thought about this before they’d left Medina and he’d given Gilbert strict instructions that the boats needed to stay together. If they were separated, they would immediately aim for a rendezvous off Flat Point, in the centre of the area that they were to patrol. The point was well named, and from seaward, it was difficult to discern, but the wave-washed rock that lay two cables to seaward was constantly battered by the sea, and the surf gave away its position.
Moxon stared astern, but he could see nothing. Then the cloud started to thin, and the rising moon cast its light over the sea. After the near total darkness, it was shockingly bright, revealing details that had been hidden. It seemed to those in the longboat that they must be plainly visible from the shore, however much their reason told them otherwise.
‘There’s the yawl, sir,’ said the coxswain, with an edge of excitement in his voice. ‘Two, no three, cables on the starboard beam.’
Moxon had been looking astern, where he expected the yawl to be following him. The last thing he expected was to see it well inshore.
‘They’ll cop it if there are any Frogs awake this side of the town,’ said Souter.
‘Keep your opinion to yourself, coxswain,’ snapped Moxon. ‘Head towards the yawl and let’s see how these men can stretch out.’
Was there a reluctance to get the longboat moving? Moxon thought that perhaps there was. It was to be expected. The longboat’s crew would reason that their own boat had kept itself out of trouble and was consequently in a relatively safe position. Those fools in the yawl had gone astray in the dark, and it was their own damned fault if they now found themselves in trouble. Why should they put themselves in danger for the preservation of fools?
‘Eyes in the boat, damn you.’ Moxon almost shouted. He could see the danger; the yawl was only a few hundred yards from the second group of lights that they’d seen. Souter was right; if that was a battery and not just a platoon position, then Gilbert’s boat was in mortal danger.
The oarsmen had settled now; they had just needed leadership. They bent to their oars, and the longboat sped over the water into the teeth of the wind.
Had Gilbert seen the danger? He must have lost his bearings when the cloud passed before the moon. Perhaps he was relying too much on following the longboat, and when that had disappeared into the darkness, he was left disorientated. It was hard to see what the yawl was doing, which way they were heading.
‘There are more lights now, sir,’ said Enrico, ‘some new ones between the two points; and the lights on Flat Point are getting brighter.’
Moxon could see that for himself. Either they saw the same lights from a different aspect, or there was a lot more activity over there. It was a strange feeling, as though he were in an amphitheatre with an audience on three sides, and the sensation only intensified as they pushed further into the shallow bay.
‘By the deep, four,’ called the leadsman, ‘Shoaling fast.’ He’d abandoned the abbreviated reports now that secrecy appeared to have been lost.
Now the yawl was becoming more distinct. It looked like Gilbert had turned his bows to seaward. Yes, there was furious activity among the rowers.
Moxon saw the corporal and marine checking their priming.
‘Don’t fire unless I give the word, Corporal; we don’t want to give the French an aiming mark.’
‘Amen,’ said the stroke oar in what he imagined to be a Sunday church-going voice. He shifted his quid of tobacco from one cheek to the other, managing that facial contortion at the same time as speaking without pausing the regular beat of his oar. He was an experienced man and chosen for that position of honour from which the other oarsmen took their time.
Flash-bang! The sound of a gun followed shortly behind the obscenely bright flash of its discharge. So there was a battery on Flat Point. That information alone made the expedition worthwhile, if only they would live to take it back to Medina.
Flash-bang! A second gun joined the first. In the darkness, Moxon couldn’t see the fall of shot, but he could tell that they were shooting at the yawl, not at the longboat. Probably they had no idea that the longboat was there.
There was a pause. Only two guns then, and they sounded like four or five pounders, six at the most. Nevertheless, the longboat and the yawl were within easy range.
‘The yawl’s returning fire, sir,’ called the corporal from the bows.
The pinpricks of light were visible now, and the faint pop-popping of the muskets came down on the wind. Had they lost their minds? Their weapons could do no harm to the French at that range, and they were offering a perfect aiming mark to the gunners who would have lost much of their night-vision after the first two shots from the battery.
The boats were only two hundred yards apart. It was a strange experience, rushing through the calm inshore water towards a darkened land with a stiff breeze blowing overhead. The flashes from the battery only intensified the darkness, and the lights of the campfires could hardly be seen. The French on that battery must be reloading frantically, thought Moxon. Any moment now.
Flash-bang! Another shot came from Flat Point, and then another, but from White Point this time. That was a long range for such small guns, but Gilbert’s marines continued to provide an aiming mark with their musket flashes.
‘Bring her around in front of the yawl at about a hundred yards,’ said Moxon, ‘then you may have the men pull as hard as they like! Straight out to sea until we’re out of range of those guns.’
Souter watched the yawl with an appraising eye, waiting for the moment to start his turn. He’d just started to push the tiller when the yawl broke apart, hit by an unlucky shot from the battery on Flat Point. The yawl’s disintegration wasn’t graceful, and it wasn’t slow. One moment it was a solid object, its oars in urgent motion as it sped to seaward away from its tormentors, the next it was nothing: just a mass of men struggling to survive in the icy water surrounded by broken planks and oars.
‘Belay that, coxswain,’ shouted Moxon as he felt Souter pushing the tiller hard away from him, to turn the longboat towards the sea and safety. ‘There’ll be survivors, hard a-starboard and stretch out!’
Something like a gasp came from the oarsmen, but they pulled with
a will and the longboat came around in a tight arc and headed to the scene of the tragedy. The batteries hadn’t stopped firing, it was likely that they had no idea of their success, and another shot – a six-pounder almost certainly – raised a spout a few yards from the longboat as the oarsmen dug in to slow the boat down.
There were cries for help from overside, men struggling in the grip of the freezing sea and men holding on to whatever they could find to keep themselves afloat. Men in the water, but oh, so few. Of the yawl’s crew of eleven, only five were hauled in over the longboat’s gunwales, and it was only after her bows were again pointing to the sea that Moxon realised that only Wishart, of the two master’s mates, had been saved.
The crew of the longboat dug deep and, encumbered though they were with the exhausted survivors lying at their feet, they hauled at their oars and brought the longboat off the shore and out to the safety of the sea. The batteries were firing blind. Did they know that there were two boats out there? It was impossible to say. The men at the oars stripped off their coats and gave them to the shattered, shivering men of the yawl. Shockingly, there were no injuries. Those who had been wounded, however slightly, had drowned in the few minutes before the longboat arrived on the scene.
The last shots from the shore served no purpose and were a waste of powder and shot.
‘By the deep, twelve,’ intoned the leadsman. Nobody had told him to stop sounding and so he’d continued to do so, even after the corporal had pulled his grego and Guernsey sweater off his back to give to the shivering marine who’d sought the companionship of his mates in the bow.
Moxon had just started to consider how he should spend the next four hours before Medina was expected to pick them up when he heard another gun, a deeper, more familiar sound. Then he saw the flash to the east. Carlisle had heard the gunfire, deduced that all was not well, and had abandoned his diversion off the harbour entrance. Medina had run fast to the west to pick them up.
