by Chris Durbin
‘Well,’ the master scratched his jaw, ‘two miles past Delfzijl will get us a glimpse. It’s a moderate city with some tall churches so, yes, at two miles we’ll see them. But five miles will take us to the edges of the Dollart, and we’ll get a much better view. We have the time, sir, it’ll be half an hour to the top of the tide when we’re at the Dollart. High water’s a little after midday.’
Holbrooke noticed the eagerness in the master’s reply. Was this just his nature, this constant pushing of the boundaries? Every other master that Holbrooke had sailed with – and his father was no different – acted as a calming influence on their typically impetuous captains. Clearly, Fairview was cut from a different mould, and Holbrooke would have to remember that and treat the master’s advice with more caution than he’d usually have done.
‘Very well, we’ll push on until seven bells. Let’s have a lead on each side, the casts to be made alternately so that we get more notice of a shoal. We must be making at least six knots over the ground.’
The clerk took hurried bearings and scribbled frantically to keep up with the rapid flow of soundings. They came faster now, and the water was shoaling as they moved deeper into the estuary. By the deep, six and by the mark five came in quick succession, the broken shells petered out, and the tallow showed only mud now. Then a series of five-fathom calls, still a muddy bottom. The master was satisfied that they were squarely in the centre of the channel. They passed a mile off Delfzijl, with the less-populated East Frisian shore a little further away to larboard. There’d been no reports of batteries from the lookout and no sign of any activity at all. The French-held shore basked in this watery winter sunshine, a picture of remote and rural peacefulness.
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‘Behold Emden!’ said the master theatrically as the first tops of the church steeples started to show over the low land on their starboard bow. Holbrooke was disorientated for a moment but realised that their present heading, to clear Reide Point, put the ship’s head somewhere to the left of Emden. They were, therefore, looking over the starboard bow to see the city. Holbrooke could see that the tide was slacking, and with the wind being deadened this far from the sea they were probably making no more than four knots over the ground. Still, it was a respectable speed, and in a very short space of time both Emden and the Dollart opened up in front of them. Through his telescope Holbrooke glimpsed a walled city at the head of a shallow bay with its back to what looked like well-tended farmland, but then it was gone, obscured by the island that lay in front of it. Either side of the island was a narrow approach channel, each of which led to Emden Road, an anchorage capable of taking a few ships of frigate size or several merchantmen. There was a glint of a lake or two in the distance over the wide, flat land.
‘That’s Nessa Island,’ said Fairview pointing to the low land that had obscured the city. ‘There’s nothing on it but an old monastery. Emden Road’s between the island and the city. Until the French marched in a year ago, the King of Prussia had a small East India Company business sailing from here, and there was some work done to dredge the Road to take the larger ships at all states of the tide. Kestrel could sail through at any time I dare say. What became of the Prussian East India Company, I don’t know; there were only ever two or three ships and the company was only in business for a couple of years. I expect it’s finished, and I don’t doubt that our friends in the John Company aren’t shedding any tears; they’re not keen on competition,’ he laughed.
‘We’ll stand on for another ten minutes, Mister Fairview, then we’ll head back down the estuary. Where’s the wind? West-southwest I fancy. We’ll need to tack as far as Delfzijl.’
‘Aye sir. We can haul our wind and tack over to the Groningen side, but we’ll need to watch the soundings. In an hour we’ll have the stream behind us and the wind on our beam, and we’ll be able to make an offing before dark.’
‘No men-of-war and no gunboats that I can see, although anything without a tall mast could be hiding behind the island,’ said Holbrooke.
‘I can see the masts of two merchantmen at the town quay. They must be using the few hours of high water to unload. They look like Dutchmen, sir.’
Holbrooke merely replied with a nod of his head. This is just what he’d imagined; the Dutchmen were taking advantage of the fat profits to be made by supplying the French. Each one of those vessels was liable to be seized by Britain under the rule of 1756, which they’d know well. He wondered whether they understood the consequences to their trade of this unexpected appearance of a King’s sloop-of-war.
‘I’ll haul our wind now if you’re happy, sir.’
‘Very well,’ replied Holbrooke. ‘If the leadsmen sound four fathoms, then we’ll tack.’
‘Aye-aye sir,’ and the master turned to give the orders that would take Kestrel out of the Ems Estuary and back to the safety of the North Sea.
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10: Horse Artillery
Sunday, First of January 1758.
Kestrel, at Sea. The Ems Estuary.
The hardest part was over. Kestrel had tacked westward away from Emden and the Dollart and was fast approaching the bend in the estuary where their course would turn through nor’west and then to the north, the channel widening all the time. Over to starboard was the small village of Knock, from where in more peaceful times a ferry ran to Delfzijl and in the summer to Borkum.
‘Deck there!’ It was Midshipman Edney at the fore-masthead, still carrying out his orders of looking for shore batteries. Holbrooke realised that he’d entirely forgotten him; evidently there had been nothing to report, but he’d nevertheless stayed at his post. ‘There’s some movement on the shore, sir. I’m not certain, but it could be field guns coming along the coast road, out of the city.’
‘Where away?’ shouted Holbrooke, but before the words had left his lips, he saw them, a short train of vehicles moving along the flat road just about to pass through Knock. He raised his telescope. The midshipman was right; no more than three field guns and a small battery but enough to do harm to his precious sloop. He looked again, carefully focusing his glass. The guns were being pulled by an odd assortment of cattle: cows, bullocks and tired old farm nags, not the swift horses of the field artillery that the French army had deployed with such devastating effect across the battlefields of Europe. Holbrooke could guess at the truth: the garrison at Emden was purely defensive. They’d have a range of different artillery pieces, but the horses to draw them – specially bred, fast and strong animals – would be badly needed by the field army. The commanding officer at Emden must have received warning from some watcher at the mouth of the estuary who’d reported Kestrel’s ensign; they probably had a permanent post at Knock. He’d hastily put together this improvised mobile artillery battery and sent it down the coast to ambush Kestrel when she turned her head back towards the sea. They’d be the French army’s standard four pounders, smaller than Kestrel’s guns, but firing from a fixed position on land they could be dangerous.
‘Sir, on the larboard tack we can weather Knock and make a single board past Delfzijl. We’ll pass well within the range of those guns, but we’ll be moving fast with the tide behind us.’ The master had a strange expression, suppressed excitement perhaps.
So here was the crunch. Any other sailing master would be advocating the cautious option, the slow and challenging short-tacking along the Dutch side of the channel, keeping as far as possible from the French artillery. Fairview, however, was urging a bold and swift resolution to the problem. Holbrooke carefully assessed the wind and the approaching Dutch shore. By the look of the confused ripples on the surface of the water, he guessed that the ebb had begun, and its rate would increase minute by minute.
‘Sir, there’s a boat putting out from Delfzijl.’ That was Varley, keeping his head and minding his duty. He’s a good man, thought Holbrooke as he raised his telescope, worthy of more responsibility.
It was a large boat pulling at least twenty oars, with a colossal ensign
flying from its stern and a black bulk in its bows looked suspiciously like a gun; a monster of a nine or twelve-pounder.
‘That’ll be the Dutch letting us know that we’re not welcome in their waters.’ He closed his telescope with a snap, his decision made. He could easily take on that gunboat – at least until the wind dropped and he lost his ability to manoeuvre – but he had no intention of bandying either blows or words with the Dutch.
‘Then make it so, Mister Fairview. Put the sloop on the larboard tack but pinch it as much as you dare. If the depth drops below four fathoms, we go about.’
‘That I will, sir,’ replied Fairview, touching his hat. The formal motion emphasised his understanding of the potential danger to Kestrel that those guns posed. ‘It’s shallower on the Frisian side, so we’ll keep the two leads going. We should be able to keep half a mile clear of the shore though.’
For a naval six-pounder, firing from a moving platform, half a mile was an unrealistic range to expect any measure of accuracy against a small target like a single gun, but a battery of three with their limbers and draught animals made a viable aiming mark. However, for the expert soldiers of the French Royal Artillery, half a mile was the range at which they were trained to engage. If they could establish the battery on the bulge of land a mile or so beyond Knock, they’d have Kestrel under their guns for a good half an hour as she made her way down-channel.
‘You see those guns, Mister Deschamps? They’ll be your target.’
‘They’ll be at the limit of our range, we’ll never hit them,’ he replied looking strangely disturbed and forgetting to address his captain as sir.
‘The range will come down to half a mile Mister Deschamps. You’ll have a fair shot but not for long.’
‘Shouldn’t we be on the other side of the channel? They won’t reach us there,’ Deschamps persisted.
Holbrooke turned away, his face set. Couldn’t his first lieutenant see what was going to happen? If Kestrel tacked down the channel, she’d be tangled up with the Dutch gunboat on one tack and the French artillery on the other. The intentions of the Dutch gunboat weren’t clear, but Holbrooke didn’t want to get embroiled in a diplomatic incident, particularly in Dutch territorial waters. The government in England wouldn’t thank him for handing a Casus Belli to the Dutch Republic. Granted, it was unlikely that Kestrel would score any hits, but they could distract the French artillery and make it more difficult for them to damage the sloop. Anything was worth doing if it made the enemy’s task more difficult. Perhaps Deschamps had never seen any action. Holbrooke knew that he was unusual in the number of times he’d been into battle, but surely all it took was a little imagination. Anyone would think that Deschamps was unwilling to put himself in the way of the French guns, but Holbrooke shook that idea from his mind.
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Kestrel came about smoothly while the gunboat was still over a mile away. Perhaps that was the Dutch plan all along, to force Kestrel across the estuary and into the range of the French guns. But no, they couldn’t possibly have coordinated a trap of that complexity, even if they were in contact with the Emden garrison. More likely these were two independent actions, but that didn’t mean that the commander of that Dutch boat wasn’t taking advantage of the evidently difficult situation that Kestrel found herself in.
There was a curious silence on the deck as the sloop neared the Frisian shore. Holbrooke could see that the French battery was well led; they’d reined in where they’d have the maximum time with Kestrel in range. The guns had been quickly wheeled into place, and now the crews were busy positioning the powder and ball for rapid fire. Once they were free from their unusual draught animals, they looked every bit the deadly queens of the battlefield that they were.
‘By the mark five,’ called the starboard leadsman. He must be feeling exposed there, outside the gunwales with nothing between him and the French guns.
‘Bring that man in,’ Holbrooke said to Varley. ‘We’ll manage with two leads on the larboard side, one at the fore-chains and one at the mizzen.’
‘They’ve opened fire,’ said Treganoc, who was watching everything with deep interest. Holbrooke noticed that he didn’t flinch, he just kept his eyes on the battery. ‘Just the one, probably testing the range. That’s a good battery commander over there.’
Holbrooke saw the fall of shot, it was at least two cables short. By the time the gun had reloaded the range would be good. He was aware of the leadsman moving from the starboard man-chains to the larboard mizzen.
‘Thank ‘ee, sir,’ the man said, knuckling his forehead as he passed Holbrooke, with the coils of his lead-line held in his fist, dripping water from the sailcloth apron that protected his clothes. That apron was Jackson’s doing. Holbrooke had served in ships where no protection was provided, and the unfortunate leadsman shivered in his soaked clothes.
‘Mister Deschamps, you may open fire by divisions.’
Kestrel’s battery was ordered into two divisions on each side; there was a quarter gunner for each division, but no master’s mates or midshipmen, they were in too short supply in this the smallest type of ship in the navy. That laid an extra responsibility upon the first lieutenant as he was deprived of a layer of command, though he had the advantage that the guns could all be seen from the quarterdeck in this flush-decked sloop.
‘Number one battery. Fire!’ shouted Deschamps. The sloop jerked as the four guns each spit their six pounds of iron simultaneously, followed by an ejection of smoke and flame from each barrel. Holbrooke trained his telescope on the French battery, but he could see no effect from the shot. Wait, he was wrong, there was a puff of dust fifty yards to the right of the target. Just a single shot had reached the shore, but it was well aimed to have pitched so close, at the very least it would give the enemy gunners something to think about.
Closer now, and the French battery fired together this time. A tense second or so passed and then the sea astern of the sloop was whipped up by the falling shot. The grouping was good, but the battery commander hadn’t made enough allowance for Kestrel’s speed. It was likely that he’d never had to consider how he’d engage a small naval target, and he’d know nothing of the tidal stream that was adding two knots to the sloop’s speed past the battery, even at this early stage of the ebb.
‘Number three division. Fire!’
That was better. Three of the shots reached the shore, and they were closer to the target. Holbrooke studied the field gun battery, hoping to detect some sign of distraction, but the gunners continued their cycle of loading and firing with no apparent concern at being under counter-battery fire. An officer was motioning the guns to traverse to the right, he at least had realised the crossing speed of his target. As Holbrooke watched, the three field guns fired in unison, their big wheels allowing them to recoil at least a dozen feet. It must be difficult, he thought, to have to adjust the elevation for each shot to allow for the way the ground beneath the guns had been churned up.
Crash! The sound came from for’rard and Kestrel shook at the impact. One of the four-pound balls had taken away a piece of the gunwale beside number one gun. The ball was only three inches in diameter, but it carried a deadly momentum, and the frail planking of this ex-privateer would barely keep out a musket ball. The gun was undamaged, but one of the crew was down, it looked like a splinter wound, and his mates were already hauling him clear towards the main hatch.
‘Belay that!’ shouted Deschamps. ‘Back to your gun, how dare you leave your station?’ The first lieutenant ran for’rard, his sword drawn and an ugly look on his face. He swung at the gun captain with the flat of his sword.
‘Three, Five and Seven guns ready to fire,’ reported the quarter-gunner, through the turmoil.
‘Mister Deschamps!’ called Holbrooke. ‘Return to the quarterdeck if you please.’
Holbrooke waved to the steady petty officer in charge of the division of guns. ‘Quarter Gunner carry on with your three guns. And get number one gun back into action.’
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Deschamps was correct to an extent. The crew of that gun should have merely pulled the man clear and returned to the task of loading and firing. But he should have handled the situation better. He could have called for help from the second captains at the larboard battery to carry the man below. He most certainly shouldn’t be striking the men with the flat of his sword; that was a last resort when the men were deserting their stations in the heat of battle. With this steady crew, it could only have a bad outcome. He could see the gun captain, favouring his bruised shoulder where the blade had caught him. Holbrooke knew that he’d have to deal with this first lieutenant.
‘A hit, sir!’ That was Matross, the master gunner who had come up from the powder room, reasonably concluding that there was enough powder and shot at the guns for this engagement and he had no need to fill more.
Holbrooke had missed the fall of shot, but he could see with his naked eye that the field battery was in confusion. However, the gunner was wrong; they hadn’t hit one of the guns, but at least one ball had fallen within the battery and caused some damage.
The men were cheering. Let them, thought Holbrooke, as long as they continued to serve the guns.
Deschamps seemed to have regained control of himself, and he ordered number three division to fire. This time Holbrooke saw the fall of shot, nicely grouped and just behind the battery. He saw the French gunners duck as the roundshot came howling overhead. It must be terrifying, being so exposed, with no earthen ramparts, no masonry, not even a ships gunwale to protect them, and pitting their three four-pounders against the sloop’s eight starboard-side six-pounders. If only we could get a little closer, thought Holbrooke, a broadside of grapeshot would finish that battery. For a mad moment he thought of reducing sail and groping towards the shore to reduce the range, but of course, that was nonsense. It would only take a lucky shot from the French to disable Kestrel and leave her high on a sandbank as the tide receded.