The French Admiral Read online

  Having gotten as close as they dared to the entrance, Solebay finally hauled her wind and came about back toward them, which required Desperate to tack as well in order to retire toward the tops’ls of their own fleet on the north-east horizon.

  “This shall be a grand opportunity,” Treghues said, almost capering like a young seaman about the quarterdeck. He was so energetic he reminded Lewrie of the Treghues he had known when he first signed aboard. Still, it sounded more like a good opportunity to get a lot of men killed. But, Alan realized, Treghues was odd enough to regard his own crucifixion as a blessed event.

  “The tide is making, and with this nor’easter breeze, they’ll not make it out past the Middle Ground or the Cape without a lot of short tacking. Some will run aground or foul each other.” Treghues explained the situation happily. “We have but to fall on their van and chop it to bits as they emerge, throwing the rest into total confusion.”

  “We have trapped them,” Forrester said, once more restored to the deck and the presence of his mentor. “It shall be a glorious day!”

  “Indeed it shall, my boy. We shall shatter a French fleet, snap up their transports and all their artillery, crush them between Cornwallis and ourselves, and eliminate the French either on land or sea in the Americas. Not only will this rebellion finally be confounded, but the Indies shall lie open to us with one stroke.”

  Desperate came within sight of the fleet later that morning, and it was impressive to see those nineteen great beasts rocking along under all plain sail in perfect alignment. London signaled for an early meal so that galley fires could be doused long before battle was joined, and Desperate’s crew tumbled down to their mess deck with a hearty appetite. In honor of the occasion, Treghues relented in his firm instruction concerning Avery and Lewrie, and they were allowed the last of the fresh bread and some not-quite-rancid butter to accompany their salt pork and peas, washing it down with a glass or two of wine for the first time in days. They toasted victory noisily.

  But it took time, time to move that line of ships across the sea at six knots, time to align the formation perfectly, with the thrilling signal flag for “Form line of battle” flying from London. Still in the lead, Solebay reported that the French were scurrying to ferry their crews back aboard from duties ashore, and were cutting their cables and making sail. As the tide began to ebb and flow outward, they began to get under way, now not so limited in their ability to make the open sea. The French van was not in any particular order; it looked like a panicky scramble to escape the confines of the bay before being penned into it.

  Alan was still yawning, this time from lack of sleep and the fumes of the wine he had imbibed with his dinner. He longed, though, to have the use of a telescope to see just how disordered the French were. Even from the deck it did not resemble a fleet so much as an informal regatta of small boats all trying to beat their way into the same narrow channel. Some of them were moving, some were dead still with their sails hanging limp as old rags, winded by the more weatherly vessels and unable to gain enough air to do much more than maintain steerage-way. To everyone, it looked as if the French were offering their van up for destruction.

  “God,” he muttered, “this is going to indeed be glorious, and I can’t see a tenth of it. This is going to be worth all the canings and cant, all the humbug and the stupidity!”

  Desperate was to windward, almost due east of the capes, and even without a glass, they were close enough on the disengaged side of the fleet to see that Alfred, one of Hood’s ships in their own van, was just about to enter the passage between Cape Henry and the Middle Ground.

  “Signal from the flag, sir,” Avery called.

  “Damme, what is this now?” Monk cried with as much pain in his voice as if he had just been run through.

  “‘Wear together to the port tack due east’!” Avery shouted, unable to believe what he was seeing.

  “Goddamn my eyes, that can’t be the signal!” Railsford bustled to read the hoist himself.

  “I should think you should know my feelings best about people who blaspheme, Mister Railsford,” Treghues said, chiding him harshly.

  “Sorry, sir, but this puts me beyond all temperance.”

  “He’s letting them come out!” Alan fumed, beside himself with the sense of a sterling opportunity lost forever.

  “Of course he is,” Treghues said. “Admiral Graves is not rash enough to put his own ships in peril on the Middle Ground. He is letting at least their van exit the passage, where we shall fall upon them. Why fight in the mud flats and shoals around the Middle Ground?”

  “Because that is where the enemy is, sir,” Alan observed, without thinking, lulled by Treghues’s too-good mood of the morning.

  “Ah, you alone know better how to handle fleets, I see,” the captain said with a bitter relish, back to his usual self once more. “You are criticizing the officers appointed over you by the Admiralty and the King, but then, you always know best, do you not, Mister Lewrie?”

  Hang it, Alan thought. I’ll not knuckle under this time. Why should I run in fear of having my honest say, when asked, even if it doesn’t please? After a moment’s reflection, however, and the realization that he was responding to one of God’s prime loonies, he tempered that rash resolve.

  “Would it not be better to bear down on him at this instant, sir, and smash his van now?” Alan asked, trying to couch his complaint as a question to be answered in the reasonable tone with which it was offered. “Once the van is in disorder, the center will have to bear away and end up on the Middle Ground or the shoals around Cape Henry, would they not, sir?”

  “And violate the Fighting Instructions?” Treghues asked contemptuously. “One never breaks the unity of the line of battle until the foe is flying. To bear down we must needs break the line, wind our own ships as they are doing, and overlap our fire. With you in command, we would lose the fleet. How foolish and precipitate you are.”

  “Impatience o’ the young, sir,” Monk chortled, trying to defuse the captain’s evident anger.

  “Thoughtlessness of the headstrong,” Treghues countered. “But Mister Lewrie does a lot without considering the consequences, do you not, Mister Lewrie?”

  “I have never done anything without forethought, sir.” Alan spoke back gently, trying to allay the hell he was expecting to catch. Damme, there was never a truer word spoken! How often can I damned near get my arse knackered since I was out of swaddles without scheming and planning to get anything out of life?

  “You are swaggering deuced close to open insolence, sir!”

  “I truly mean no disrespect, sir,” Alan said.

  “Do you not, sir!”

  “The fleet is coming about, sir,” Railsford reminded Treghues, who was lost in the passion of his pet.

  “Very well, hands to stations to wear to larboard,” Treghues said, reluctant to leave the subject, but forced to by duty.

  The next two hours, until about four in the afternoon and the start of the first dogwatch, were almost heartbreaking to witness. The fleet took up the new course due east, Hood’s strong division now the rear of the battle line, with Drake’s few ships as the van, backing and filling. Given the grace period, the French were beginning to sort themselves out into a line-ahead of their own, the van now in perfect order. Their center was beginning to exit the bay, and the milling rear division was also sorting itself out of chaos as well.

  Desperate was by then near the head of the British line, with the ships of Admiral Drake, almost on the beam of Shrewsbury, the leader. She backed and filled as well to maintain rough station well in sight of the divisional flag in Princessa and in sight of London far to the rear. Finally, when it seemed hours too late, Graves signaled to bear down and engage the opposite ships. But for some reason he left the signal for “Form line of battle” hoisted as well.

  This resulted in all ships turning slightly to starboard to bear down on a bow-and-quarter-line oblique approach, what Clerk’s booklet told Alan was
named a “lashing approach.” Since the fleets were converging at a slight angle already, the vans would come together first, then the centers, and the rear divisions in both fleets would remain out of contact or gun range ’til late in the day, unless something was ordered to change it.

  It was a daunting prospect to see all 28 enemy ships in one ordered line-ahead, a line much longer than theirs, with many more guns ready to speak thunders; a line that they could not match ship for ship as usual practice, for the French could bring more ships from the rear to double on them once they were engaged.

  Alan was on the gun deck with his men when the first ships tried firing at the range of random shot. He could not see anything below the bulwarks and the gangways, aching as he was to witness what would transpire. All he could see were masts and sails and then growing clouds of powder smoke as more and more ships began to trade broadsides. Desperate was at quarters, the men swaying easily by their light nine-pounder guns, which in this battle would be as useful as spit wads at thirty paces. No matter how stiff the discipline, everyone craned his neck for a view, or took little excursions atop the gun barrels or the gangways when the officers were not watching them. Even upwind of the fighting, though, Alan scented the powder smoke and saw the grimy gray-tan wall of smoke climbing higher than the liners’ masts and crosstrees. Hiding himself behind the thick trunk of the mainmast, Alan furtively scrambled up on the jear bitts, his favorite vantage point, so that his head was above the line of the bulwarks and hammock nettings. The sight that met his eyes filled him with awe.

  “What do you see, Lewrie?” Carey called out below him, hopping up and down in excitement.

  “God, what a sight,” Alan breathed. “It’s glorious, it truly is! They’re all in range for good practice now—Drake’s ships and the French van. You can see only the topmasts and tops’ls of the Frogs, now and then a stab of flame from a gun barrel through the smoke. Our ships are so full of powder fumes they look like they’re on fire!”

  All the officers were too busy with their telescopes to note if they were sneaking a look. Lewrie reached down and hoisted Carey into place with him.

  “Good Lord in Heaven!” Carey exclaimed in wonder. “Oh, I shall remember this all the days of my life.”

  The cannonading increased in fury and volume as he spoke and more ships came within range, and the guns slammed and boomed and barked in an unending storm of fire and metal. As far as they both could see, there were many ships —a forest of ships—with their courses brailed up to avoid the risk of flames, their tops’ls shot through like rags, upper masts hanging drunkenly here and there in both dueling lines of battle. The air quivered with the shock of broadsides, rattling their internal organs, setting their lungs humming with the power and terror of modern warfare. In the British line closest to them, they could witness shot ricocheting off the sea and raising tall waterspouts, could see hard-flung iron balls smashing home to tear loose clouds of paint chips, wood splinters, and spurts of ingrained dust and dirt, striking great sparks when encountering metal and shattering on impact with something as solid as themselves.

  “The French line is much longer, isn’t it,” Carey said, tears of passion streaking his smutty face. “Why does not Admiral Hood engage back there?”

  “They might double on him if he did,” Alan said. “They could cut across the end of his line to windward and fall back down to fight on both sides of his ships at once. Perhaps he is waiting for them to try, and he will rake them across their bows when they turn up.”

  “Alan,” Carey said, suddenly dead serious. “I know that war is a terrible thing. But is it so terrible that it is wrong to feel as though we are seeing something grand?”

  “I don’t think so, it’s what they pay sailors for,” Alan japed.

  “So it would not be wrong to say that I love this?” Carey pressed.

  “No.” Alan smiled. “I confess I love it, too.”

  “Good, ’cause so do I,” Carey said fiercely.

  “Mind you, young Carey, I only say that because we are not being shot at personally,” Alan admitted wryly. “You can cheer all the fame and honor and glory you like when you’re seated in the balconies.”

  Men were dying over there, ships were slowly being torn asunder by the shocking weight and power of iron; gun carriages were being overturned and their crews pulped in agony, riven by splinters or swatted dead like flies. The hideous reality was, however, over there, and not here in the Desperate, and even with prime examples of butchery not a month in the past to use as an example and a warning, Lewrie could not deny the fact that he was choking up with a pride he had never expected to feel in the Service. His eyes were moist and hot, his throat tight with emotion.

  Marine Captain Osmonde back in Ariadne was right, he decided grimly. This is brutal and bloody and cruel and horrible, and it can eat a man up but I swear to God above that I truly do love it! They have made me into a sailor, damn them all, and I will make an officer of myself if I live to manage it!

  Shrewsbury, lead ship of all the British line, came reeling out of battle, surrendering her place of honor as she could no longer maintain control over herself. Her rigging was shot to pieces so badly that she had barely a shred of sail aloft. Her gangways and bulwarks on her engaged side were pockmarked and shattered with shot holes, the oak stained black with spent gunpowder. Desperate’s people gave her a rousing cheer as she retired, having done all she could do. Sadly, Intrepid, the next ship in line, looked in about the same poor condition; her rudder hanging in tatters from her stern posts, she was being steered by relieving tackle below decks, but she still fought. Next, Princessa was missing her maintopgallant mast and the spanker over the quarterdeck. Her lower shrouds were shot through, threatening the stability of her masts as she rolled. Ajax, to her rear, had hardly any top hamper left, and Terrible was listing noticeably, her lower gunports dangerously close to the water, and her foremast spiralled back and forth as though it would go by the board at any moment. The other ships astern of her could barely be made out in the pall of smoke.

  But there was Hood’s rear division, now almost dead astern of Desperate, nowhere near firing range, maintaining a maddening line ahead and showing no eagerness to engage, almost parallel to the French line.

  “Why does he not bear down,” Lewrie said, almost wringing his hands in frustration. “Damme, he’s throwing away the last chance we have.”

  “Get down from there, now,” Mister Gwynn suddenly ordered, up from his magazines to survey the battle with the freedom his warrant gave him. “Set a good example for the hands, Mister Lewrie.”

  “Aye, Mister Gwynn,” Alan replied.

  “’Twas this very way with Byng in the last war in the Mediterranean,” Gwynn commented as softly as he could once he had strolled aft by Lewrie and young Carey. “Back when I was a raw rammer man. The way sea battles are. Half the ships never get a chance ta fire a shot.”

  “You’d think there was a better way,” Alan complained. “To bear down and break through the other line or something.”

  “Not for the likes of us to say, Mister Lewrie.”

  “Goddamme, what a waste.”

  “War mostly is a waste,” Gwynn grunted, cutting himself a plug of tobacco to cram into his cheeks. “Anythin’ that takes a man outen a woman’s bed and away from easy reach of a bottle is a waste, t’ my thinkin’.”

  By half after six in the evening, Cape Henry was far astern and almost under the horizon. The action still raged, though the broadsides were becoming very ragged and slow, the gun crews decimated and stunned into numb exhaustion from the continual roar and the shock of horror piled upon horror on those gun decks.

  It was also possible that ships were running low on powder and shot; a battle that long would have emptied Desperate’s magazines hours before.

  They had not fired a shot themselves but had stood down from quarters after rendering what aid they could to the crippled Shrewsbury. Alan rotated to signals duty on the quarterdeck as
cold food was issued, and small beer or American spruce beer was passed liberally to quench the dry throats among the crew.

  With a better vantage point, Alan noted that the worst-damaged French ships were able to slip away to leeward to allow fresh vessels to take their place from that reserve in the rear, still untouched by Hood, who had not budged from his role of disinterested spectator. Alan felt a cold anger seething in his breast at an act which he could only describe as that of the ultimate poltroon. He lifted his telescope to see better as the light began to fade. London was not looking good, nor did any British ship that had managed to engage, and Alan could imagine the letter of rebuke that Graves would send Hood once he had a chance.

  There was something different about the London— what was it?

  “Signal is down, sir!” he shouted, having discovered what was missing.

  “Watch her closely,” Treghues said, almost at his elbow. Alan took a sideways glance at his young captain and was shocked. Treghues looked a dozen years older. He was gray in the face and barely a shadow of himself. He held his mouth in a bitter arc of disapproval, and Alan felt that for once the displeasure he evinced was not toward him personally, but toward the entire conduct of the day.

  About five minutes later a single flag hoist went up a hal-yard, a blue and white checkered flag. Lowering his telescope, Alan consulted the short list to find the meaning. “Goddamn and blast,” he whispered sadly, almost drained of emotion or the ability to be surprised by anything. “Signal, sir: ‘Discontinue action.’ Yeoman, hoist a repeat on that.”

  “I see,” Treghues said. “Thank you, Mister Lewrie.”

  There was no groan of disappointment heard on Desperate, no low curses or signs of reaction. Perhaps men slumped just a bit more on hearing the import of that one colored bit of bunting. The battle had been fought, and it appeared from where they stood that they had just lost it.

  CHAPTER 4

  Perhaps Midshipman Carey’s geste against Midshipman Forrester was not the most aptly timed event in the continual war of wills in the mess that Alan had seen yet, nor was it particularly bright to jape so soon after such a galling failure as the Battle of the Chesapeake. The repercussions did not bear thinking about, and had Lewrie or Avery had a chance to talk Carey out of it, they most definitely would have. But, given Lewrie’s own recent history and the series of misadventures that seemed to dog his existence, it was much of a piece, and therefore seemed almost fated.