Holbrooke's Tide

by Chris Durbin

  However, the real work was in charting the estuary before Commodore Holmes and his two frigates joined them. As each ebb started to slacken, Kestrel stood into the Ems, either through the east or the west arms, depending on the wind, and slowly made her way up the channel, backing and filling to allow accurate soundings to be taken. The master was in his element, directing the course of the sloop to make the most comprehensive chart of the depths. In this freezing weather, with bare hands subjected to the cold salt water and the easterly wind, a man could only cast the lead half a dozen times before he lost the feeling in his fingers. The galley stove was kept well stoked to return the circulation as each seaman completed his trick. But that was the easy part. As each ebb started, Kestrel turned her head to the north and rode the tide back out to sea, leaving the yawl to take the soundings in places that the sloop couldn’t reach. Much of the time it was so shallow that a sounding pole – a heavy fifteen-foot length of ash marked in fathoms and feet – took the place of a lead-line. Gradually, the estuary gave up its secrets, even on the Dutch side which in theory at least was the territorial water of a neutral nation.

  ◆◆◆

  Inevitably it was the yawl’s activities in Dutch waters that sparked the conflict. Kestrel was five miles north of Delfzijl, stemming the ebb tide in the narrowing channel between the banks of mud that the receding tide lay bare. The channel here was less than a mile wide at the bottom of the tide, but by now Holbrooke and Fairview knew it well. Kestrel sat happily on the larboard tack under her tops’ls, her head to the south as her four knots of speed exactly countered the four knots of ebbing tidal stream running under her keel. The yawl was two-and-a-half miles south, sounding the Groningen Watt, the bank that guarded the shallow bay to the north of Delfzijl, where the ebbing tide deposited the silt that was carried down by the Ems. The light was failing, and Holbrooke expected the yawl to pull out into the channel at any moment and let the tide bring her home.

  ‘Captain, sir,’ said the master, his telescope to his eye, staring at a point on the starboard bow, in the direction of Delfzijl. ‘There’s that gunboat again, just creeping out of the harbour.’

  Now that his attention was drawn to it, Holbrooke could see the boat with his naked eye. There was something ominous in the way it crept across the water. It was flying no flag this time, and if ever an inanimate object could look hostile, it was this gunboat. Holbrooke looked at the yawl. It was still sounding, and through his telescope he could see the pole rising and falling as the oars lifted and dipped in silent unison, just feeling its way along the edge of the bank.

  ‘Clear away a gun on the starboard side, Mister Lynton, as fast as you can. Give the yawl a warning as soon as you’re ready.’

  Holbrooke didn’t like the look of this. Varley had apparently not seen the gunboat. The yawl’s head was to the south, so the oarsmen were all facing away from Delfzijl, and Varley was concentrating on recording the soundings. He knew nothing of the impending danger. The gunboat, Holbrooke could see, was heading straight out into the channel to catch the full force of the ebbing tide. She was trying to cut the yawl off from the sloop.

  Bang! Holbrooke jumped involuntarily. He could see Varley look over his shoulder at the sloop, then, rather comically as seen through the telescope, he looked all around the horizon until his eyes fixed upon the gunboat, black and purposeful right on his bow. The rush of activity was clearly visible. In came the sounding-pole and the seaman who had been wielding it dropped onto a thwart and shipped his oar. The yawl, under the leverage of backed oars on her larboard side, spun around and headed slantwise into the channel, making a dash for the safety of Kestrel’s guns.

  ‘T’gallants and courses,’ roared the master. ‘Mister Jackson, get those men moving smartly.’

  Kestrel piled on sail. In a few minutes, she was making way up-channel, but oh, so slowly against the ebbing tide. The gunboat showed her colours now, a Dutch ensign streaming from her stern. She was big. Holbrooke counted twelve oars each side, and there was that great gun in her bows which now opened fire on the yawl. That wasn’t a warning shot, it was well pointed, and it pitched just half a cable short.

  ‘Beat to quarters, Mister Lynton.’ Holbrooke was watching the three-cornered race now without the telescope, and he could see that he wouldn’t be able to protect the yawl before the nine-pounder – he could see its size now – found its range. The gunboat only needed to land one shot in the yawl, and it would sink without trace. No doubt the Dutchmen would then turn tail and row back to Delfzijl, their massive oars – double-banked, he could see – giving them more speed than Kestrel, particularly as they could use the shallow water where the tidal stream was less fierce.

  The shallows! Of course!

  ‘Mister Fairview. We’ll have the lead-lines worked both starboard and larboard. I’m going to test your surveys now. I have the ship.’

  With that Holbrooke took responsibility for the pilotage of the sloop, because what he was about to do, he wouldn’t ask of any other man. He was constitutionally unable to hand over this responsibility to the master.

  ‘Up helm, quartermaster and bring her four points to starboard.’

  ‘Mister Jackson, I’d be grateful if you personally supervised the leadsmen.’

  ‘Aye-aye sir,’ replied the bosun, hurrying forward and pointing to one of his best able seamen and the larboard chains.

  ‘By the mark, five!’ called the starboard leadsman. Plenty of water for now, but it would shallow fast. Kestrel drew twelve feet at full load, perhaps eleven feet six inches with the expenditure of water and stores since she left Harwich. Two fathoms then, but that left only six inches spare. Luckily the sea in the estuary today was almost flat with barely a ripple.

  ‘By the deep, four!’ The larboard leadsman this time. Good, they were acting in cooperation so that each cast his lead in the interval between the other’s casts. It was worth sending Jackson forward; Holbrooke knew that the job would be done well, and each sounding would be checked for accuracy.

  Bang! Another shot from the gunboat.

  ‘That landed close to the starboard oars, sir,’ said Lynton. ‘The ship’s at quarters and cleared for action. Both batteries ready loaded with ball.’

  ‘Very well, Mister Lynton. I’m going to threaten that boat with being cut off from its home. You may be able to get a broadside in, but don’t fire unless I order it.’

  Holbrooke had already decided that he wouldn’t harm the gunboat unless it managed to land a shot in the yawl. That would strengthen his hand when he had to argue his reasons for his actions. However, if he could capture it…

  ‘And a half, three!’ That was the starboard leadsman again. Twenty-one feet of water, so just nine feet under the keel. He could sense the thick mud beneath them, like the sirens, calling them on to their destruction.

  ‘You have two cables on this course before you’re aground, sir,’ said the master softly. Only Holbrooke and the quartermaster heard him. The quartermaster moved closer to the helmsman and whispered to him. ‘Stand-by.’

  ‘By the mark, three!’ That was the larboard leadsman, the side further away from the shallows. It was a marginal but important point; the larboard side would have a slightly greater depth to report than the starboard. A matter of inches, but one more piece of information to be computed.

  ‘She’s fired again, sir,’ said the master. ‘Over! But that will have wetted Mister Varley.’

  Holbrooke had actually not heard it, such was his concentration. He was watching the yawl, watching the swirl of the tide at the sloop’s bow, and calculating how much further they could go. Every yard was vital because he could see how the stream was much more sluggish the further out of the channel they ventured. That could mean the difference between life and death for Varley and his yawl’s crew. But if he ran aground…

  Holbrooke realised how much he valued his master’s mate. He wouldn’t leave him to face that gunboat alone.

  ‘And a half, two.’ Fifteen fee
t, only three feet under the keel.

  ‘Put your helm down, quartermaster, handsomely. Set your head right at the point of land on the other bank.’ He indicated the bulge in the coast at Knock, where the Frisian shore turned east towards Emden.

  The quartermaster nodded at the steersman who lent against the tiller, pushing it twenty degrees to leeward so that the alteration of course was gradual, rather than an abrupt turn that would slow the sloop down. Kestrel came five points closer to the wind; she was following the edge of the mud now, just angling slightly towards the deeper water.

  ‘And a half, two.’ The larboard side again, so it would be a few inches shallower on the starboard side, but Holbrooke knew that they were gradually edging into deeper water.

  ‘We’re stirring the mud, sir,’ said Fairview in a matter-of-fact tone, looking over the side at the dark brown water being churned up by their keel. Then there really were only a couple of feet beneath them; this was sailing on the very edge and Holbrooke was grateful that the master was no dramatist. ‘Your depth will gradually increase on this course; in fact, you could come a point to starboard.’

  Holbrooke looked up at the gunboat just in time to see it spin around. They were pulling like furies. Evidently, they’d seen the danger that was posed by the sloop, it’s two rows of guns clearly visible as she came head-on towards her prey. Too late though, too late. Holbrooke could see his plan starting to work.

  ‘Quartermaster, half a point to starboard.’ That will state our intention, he thought.

  ‘If you luff now, sir, I’ll be sure of getting a few hits,’ said Lynton, eagerly.

  ‘Hold your course, quartermaster,’ he said calmly. ‘And hold your fire, Mister Lynton.’

  The yawl was abeam now, it’s crew hallooing as the sloop swept past. They were out of danger, and the hunter had become the hunted. The gunboat’s coxswain had underestimated Kestrel, misread the determination and boldness of her captain and wholly failed to believe that by methodically surveying the estuary, it was now the British navy that knew the shifting sand and mud better than the Dutch.

  Ownership of the Ems estuary had been transferred to King George!

  Holbrooke could see the fear on the rowers' faces. Their stroke was becoming ragged as they concentrated on the approaching nemesis, rather than on keeping time and maintaining their speed. In fact, the boat was visibly slowing, its bow-wave dropping as the crew became more and more distracted. The coxswain, a middle-aged man in a blue coat, looked over his shoulder and saw that Kestrel was close enough for a killer blow. But he was a man of determination, and he was shouting to keep the oarsmen in order. He was going to play this to the end. By sheer force of example, he prevailed, and the oarsmen started pulling in time again. In - out - in - out. A punishing rhythm that would have killed men not bred to the sea.

  Holbrooke watched impassively as the gunboat started to draw ever so slowly away from the sloop. He knew that he wasn’t going to get between them and Delfzijl so unless they struck their colours – and that coxswain didn’t look the striking sort – the only way to stop them was to swing Kestrel’s bows to larboard and sink them with a broadside. Both Holbrooke and the Dutch coxswain knew that it could be done, without any fear of failure.

  ‘Haul your wind, quartermaster,’ ordered Holbrooke and the sloop’s bows swung to larboard opening the whole starboard battery to the gunboat. The coxswain looked over his shoulder again, and even as he saw the battery pointing at him, he tipped his hat to Holbrooke before turning back to encourage his men to pull harder. He was a dead man, and he knew it.

  ‘Hold your fire, Mister Lynton,’ said Holbrooke with icy calm. When he was certain that the first lieutenant heard him, he added, ‘one gun at full elevation over their heads, if you please.’

  ‘Number one gun. Withdraw your quoin. You’ll fire at my command,’ ordered Lynton. He watched the movement of the ship and timed it so that he gave the order as Kestrel ceased her downward roll and had just started the up-roll. That allowed for the delay in using a linstock to fire the gun.

  ‘Number one gun. Fire!’

  Holbrooke saw the oarsmen flinch, he heard the officer in the stern shout something to them and then he saw the splash half a mile beyond.

  Most of the oarsmen in the gunboat had stopped rowing when they heard the gun, concluding that it was all over for them. Holbrooke could see the shocked and incredulous faces as they realised that Kestrel was letting them go. The coxswain stood up and turned to face the sloop, his blue coat showing a modest amount of gold braid on the collar and cuffs; an officer then, in all probability. He looked deliberately at Holbrooke and raised his hat. Holbrooke touched his in acknowledgement. Then the Dutchman turned to the task of getting his crew back in order and pulling for home.

  Holbrooke stared at the retreating gunboat for a long half-minute, the tension draining away as he realised that he’d won that encounter, quite emphatically.

  ‘Steady on this course quartermaster.’

  Jackson had watched all this from the fo’c’sle, where he’d been supervising the leadsmen. ‘Three cheers for Captain Holbrooke,’ he shouted, and the shouts of Kestrel’s people pursued the chastened gunboat on its dismal journey back to Delfzijl.

  Holbrooke turned to face his crew, acknowledging the compliment.

  ‘You have the ship, Mister Fairview. Overtake the yawl, get her crew inboard and take her in tow. Then get us out to sea before the light fails entirely.’

  ‘You made your point, sir, I believe,’ said the master staring in outright admiration.

  ‘I think we did, Mister Fairview, I think we did.’

  ◆◆◆

  19: The Commodore

  Wednesday, Fifteenth of February 1758.

  Kestrel, at Anchor. Harwich.

  The navy anchorage at Harwich was unusually crowded, with two tall frigates, a sloop and a cutter in a cluster at the northern end, a cable off the King’s Yard. The two bilanders had gone, presumably snapped up by some east-coast merchant and soon to be carrying coals from Newcastle to London or naval stores from the Baltic to Portsmouth. The pink was still there and the galliot of course, but they both looked as though they’d been taken in hand by new owners. That meant the prize money was one step closer to being paid.

  ‘I know one of those frigates,’ said Fairview with his telescope to his eye. ‘That’s Seahorse, twenty-four, and she’s flying a pennant. I don’t know the other, but the sloop’s Strombolo. I’ve seen her before when she was fitted as a bomb, and I believe she’s arranged internally as a fireship if she should ever be required in that guise.’

  ‘Then that’ll be Commodore Holmes. Anchor close abeam of Seahorse if you please.’

  ‘Starboard battery’s ready to salute, sir,’ said the gunner, removing his hat respectfully. Matross was an older man and clung to the old ways. He had no time for those who would merely touch their hat when addressing their captain, nothing but a full removal would do for the solemn formality of saluting their new flag.

  ‘Very well, Mister Matross. Then it’ll be an eleven-gun salute.’ Holbrooke was thankful that he’d ordered the gunner to be ready to acknowledge the commodore. He’d anticipated that Holmes would be gathering his squadron at Harwich a little later in February but had ordered the preparations in case he was early, and here he was. But how would this affect Kestrel’s orders?

  ‘Mister Jackson, clear away the yawl larboard side and pass the word for my coxswain. I’ll be calling on the commodore as soon as the anchor’s let go.’

  Kestrel crept slowly into her berth half a cable on the flagship’s beam, stemming the ebb tide under her tops’ls, feeling her way, deadening her speed by checking the braces and showing a little more canvas when she needed to surge ahead. When Fairview was happy that the sloop was in her correct berth and would lie back on the cable to be right abeam the commodore with room to swing, he backed the fore-tops’l and brought her to a dead stop.

  One of the first changes that would
be made to Kestrel when she was put into the hands of Portsmouth dockyard would be to give her a regular man-of-war’s capstan to replace the antique windlass. However, one of the advantages of the windlass was that it was fixed to the upper deck, where the fo’c’sle would be if she weren’t flush-decked. That meant that the cable was ranged on the upper deck ready for anchoring, and Fairview, therefore, had a clear view of the whole anchoring process.

  ‘Let go!’ called the master. The captain of the fo’c’sle cast off the ring stopper from its cleat, throwing himself backwards to avoid being hit by the stout length of cordage as it was propelled upwards and back onto the deck with a whiplash effect. The anchor fell clear of the cathead, plunging into the brown water with barely a sound and dragging the cable behind it. Lynton had ordered a half turn around the bitts so that the anchor could be controlled if necessary and the friction created a thin trail of smoke that was quickly extinguished by a boy with a bucket of water.

  Bang! went the first gun of the salute, and all of Harwich’s somnolent seagulls rose flapping into the air, squawking their indignation. Bang! the second, and now with the noise from the cable subsiding, Holbrooke could hear the gunner chanting as he strode from gun to gun, his linstock in his hand: ‘If I wasn’t a gunner I wouldn’t be here, number five gun fire. If I wasn’t a gunner I wouldn’t be here, number seven gun fire …’

  ‘Belay!’ shouted Fairview when he judged that enough cable had been let out. The hands on the fo’c’sle took a full turn around the bits and lay back on the cable. Kestrel was at anchor, and the salute was only half complete.

  The gunner did indeed cling to the old ways. A man-of-war’s guns were numbered from forward to aft, odd numbers to starboard and even numbers to port. So, while a younger, lesser gunner may order a salute without regard to the gun’s allotted, God-given number, Matross pedantically referred to them in the correct form as the Almighty had intended. Hence his litany skipped all the even numbers, as he planned to fire the full salute from the starboard battery.