The Flag of Freedom

by Seth Hunter

  Nathan assured him that he had no strong views on the matter and was rewarded with a dismissive grunt. But at least he was invited to sit.

  ‘I do not believe you have met Mr Scrope.’ Jervis indicated the civilian, who acknowledged Nathan with something between a nod and a bow. ‘He is sent by their lordships on a special commission – to keep us up to scratch.’

  This riposte was greeted with a thin smile. The Admiral was noted for his wry sense of humour.

  Nathan viewed the stranger with renewed interest. Shortly after rejoining the fleet he had sent a confidential report to their lordships of the Admiralty detailing what he had learned, while on his ‘business ashore’, of French intentions in the Eastern Mediterranean. He wondered now if Scrope had been sent to discuss the implications of this, perhaps even to propose a plan of action. Jervis had given no indication of the fellow’s status, but it was reasonable to suppose from the Admiral’s remark that he was no mere clerk.

  He was probably in his early thirties, Nathan estimated, modestly dressed but with the look of a man who has a considerable opinion of himself. It was difficult to perceive the reason for this, certainly in his appearance. His face had the unhealthy pallor of a civil servant who rarely sees the outside of a room in Whitehall and then only when it is dark. Even his eyes seemed drained of colour, though there was the merest hint of blue in them, like a dying promise in a wintry sky, and the long, sandy lashes had something of the appearance of a web.

  There was much about him that reminded Nathan of one of those représentants en mission that the National Convention in Paris sent out into the provinces from time to time to ensure that the populace there kept to the path of righteousness, with the help of a large contingent of soldiers and a portable guillotine.

  These reservations apart, his presence at this interview was encouraging. Nathan dared hope that it might presage a new mission for himself, either to learn more of the French plans or to forestall them. But the Admiral’s next words swiftly dispelled this conceit.

  ‘Their lordships have been debating how we might persuade the Dons to come out and fight,’ he said. ‘And they have hit upon an ingenious plan. I wonder that I had not thought of it myself. Perhaps Mr Scrope would be so good as to explain it to you.’

  It was difficult to know if the Admiral’s tone was sardonic or not. A great many officers had made the mistake of mis judging his mood and suffered the consequence. Scrope clearly took no chances but gave another of his meagre smiles and replied that he was simply the bearer of a proposal – a mere suggestion – and that neither he nor their lordships would presume to direct the victor of the Battle of St Vincent in matters of strategy.

  ‘Oh come, sir, you are too diffident, too retiring by half. Tell the Captain what is proposed.’

  Mr Scrope turned his pallid countenance upon Nathan. ‘It behoved their lordships to suggest that the Spanish fleet might be induced to leave the shelter of Cadiz and engage in battle if the port were to come under some form of a bombardment,’ he confided.

  His voice was courteous enough but there was something in those pale blue eyes that suggested an element of disdain, as though he resented the necessity of an explanation, especially to one whom he clearly considered an underling.

  Nathan inclined his head in the pretence of deliberation. In fact, his mind was entirely engaged with the question of why he was being consulted in the matter when there were several Rear-Admirals and above a score of Post Captains – consider ably senior to himself – who might be summoned by means of a simple signal, if not a modest hail.

  Perhaps it was a test. The kind of hypothetical problem he had dreaded when obliged to undertake his examination for lieutenant.

  Let us suppose that you are close-hauled upon the larboard tack under a full press of sail when a line of breakers is reported at a distance of less than a mile about two points off your starboard bow. What is your immediate reaction?

  But Nathan was no floundering midshipman. He could speak now with all the authority and presence of a Post Captain, having the benefit of several years’ experience in command of a King’s ship.

  ‘Interesting,’ he said.

  A sound issued from the Admiral that could have been laughter or the violent clearing of his throat.

  ‘I dare say you would find it a lot more interesting to be on the receiving end of it,’ he said. ‘Or even to be firing the bombs.’

  This was true, though Nathan had not experienced either of these misfortunes. Naval bombardments were highly specialised operations requiring the use of a bomb vessel and trained artillery men, either of the Marines or the Army. Nathan was inclined to deplore them, both from a military and a moral standpoint, since the bombs were highly unreliable and tended to explode at the wrong time, and the mortars that fired them were notoriously inaccurate. Directed against a port, they could land almost anywhere and were almost certain to cause a number of civilian casualties.

  He saw no particular reason to point this out, however, for it seemed to him that the Admiral had called him in merely to witness his own demolition of the plan.

  In which supposition he was entirely mistaken.

  ‘I anticipate, as you are presently without a command, that you might care to be involved in the operation,’ the Admiral proposed with only the merest hint of a question in his tone.

  ‘By all means,’ agreed Nathan, wondering quite what Jervis had in mind. He had only the vaguest notion of how to fire a mortar. Besides, so far as he was aware, the fleet had no such weapon at its disposal.

  But once more he was in error.

  ‘They are sending us a bomb vessel from Gibraltar,’ the Admiral confided. ‘Also a gunboat with a howitzer.’

  Nathan inclined his head once more, in appreciation of this intelligence, but ventured to point out that he had very little experience of either mortars or howitzers – or indeed the vessels that carried them.

  ‘That is of no consequence,’ the Admiral assured him. ‘Rear-Admiral Nelson will be in overall command of the operation, and it is to be assumed that the individual commanders know what they are about. Your role will be to command the guard boats. Unless you have an objection, of course.’ He raised his shaggy brows like a pair of gunports.

  ‘Not at all,’ replied Nathan. Anything less would have been to invite a broadside. ‘Indeed, I am grateful for the honour.’

  ‘Then you may take one of the launches and report to Admiral Nelson with the inshore squadron. I am persuaded that the pair of you will devise a suitable plan of attack and that we will shortly see some fireworks. It will, of course, be a night attack.’

  Nathan returned to the upper deck in an even more subdued frame of mind than when he had left it. Despite what he had said to the Admiral, he felt neither gratitude nor any sense of honour in his new commission. Indeed, it was close to being the least honourable assignment of his career. In effect, he was to assist in the shelling of the civilian population in the hope that it would so incense the Spanish authorities they would order their fleet into battle.

  Nathan had no illusions about the nature of warfare. He had studied enough history to know that civilians often bore the brunt of it. And yet in recent years, wars between European nations had become rather more civilised than in the past. They had become wars of manoeuvre between pro fessional armies or navies, rather like games of chess. Attacks on civilians had been seen more as an aberration than the norm – a crime punishable by hanging or the firing squad. But not in this war. The French Revolution – and the reaction to it – seemed to have engendered a new kind of savagery, even among people who normally commanded Nathan’s respect. The bombing of a city to make its defenders come out and fight fell into this category, as far as he was concerned. And he wanted no part of it.

  The consequences of refusal, however, were likely to be severe. It would mean disgrace, even a charge of cowardice. And cowardice in the face of the enemy, as the Articles of War had so recently assured him, was a hanging off
ence.

  When he came on deck, he saw that the bodies of the four men had been taken down and were being sewn into canvas bags for burial. He doubted they would be granted the distinction of a Union Jack, though the chaplain might say a few words before they slid off the plank into the waiting sea.

  From what Nathan had heard, they had led a protest when two of their shipmates had been condemned to death for sodomy. It was said that they had planned to seize their ship and sail her back to Spithead, but the evidence at their court martial had been fairly inconclusive. It seemed to Nathan that their execution was yet another sign of the savagery to which they had all succumbed. And for what? Everyone said there would be peace before the year was out. Nothing had been resolved by the last four years of war, except to make the French stronger.

  Perhaps that was the problem. A sense of frustration – and fear – had spread through the English upper classes. Frustration at their failure to crush the regicides in Paris. Fear that the Revolution might spread to their own shores. That was why they were so merciless at the first hint of disaffection in the ranks.

  Nathan wondered what he felt about this. He had witnessed the Terror in Paris at first hand. He knew what revolution could mean and had every reason to fear and loathe it. But he was sickened by the violence it had provoked in his own side. He needed to feel not only that he was fighting in a just cause, but also that he was fighting in a just manner. He knew that many of his fellow officers would regard this as pathetic, deluded. They were fighting for their survival – or at least they thought they were; they could not afford to be sentimental. And yet … how could Jervis punish an officer for allowing his men to plunder a few fishermen, on the grounds that they were non-combatants – and yet order his fleet to bombard a city full of them?

  Jervis would probably say it would help to end the war. But Nathan was not convinced.

  Even so, he dutifully passed on the Admiral’s orders and waited for the boat crew to prepare the launch for his journey to the inshore squadron. He had no belongings to take with him, besides the borrowed clothes he wore. Even his sword was borrowed. He had lost everything when the Unicorn went down – even, it seemed, his self-respect.

  ‘Well, sir, I am very happy to have you aboard. With a bit of luck we will finish what we started at Saint Vincent and may sail home trailing clouds of glory – and a string of prizes.’

  Rear-Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson greeted Nathan on the quarterdeck of his flagship, the Theseus. It was the first time they had met since Nelson’s promotion for his part in the British victory. That, and the knighthood that came with it, were richly deserved in Nathan’s opinion, for it was Nelson’s single-minded action in breaking out of line, without orders, and driving his ship into the heart of the enemy fleet that had prevented the Spaniards’ almost certain escape, unscathed, into Cadiz.

  As it was, the Spanish navy had lost four ships in the result ant action. Nelson had taken two of them himself, boarding the second prize from the decks of the first – an unheard-of feat which had won the acclaim of the nation.

  Nathan remembered the joy on Nelson’s face as he led the attack.

  ‘Glory – or a tomb at Westminster!’

  Had he really said that at the time? The newspapers said he had, so it must be true. All Nathan could remember now was the dash and fury of the attack and the sense of being led by a schoolboy in Captain’s uniform, for Nelson was slight of stature and led men into battle with all the eagerness and energy – and contempt for personal safety – of a house captain on the school playing-fields. As a result, he now wore an Admiral’s uniform, with the Star of the Garter stitched to the left side of the breast. He was about ten years older than Nathan but looked surprisingly young for one so senior in rank – and appeared as keen as ever to take the fight to the enemy.

  The inshore squadron consisted of ten ships of the line – enough to take on the entire Spanish fleet in Nelson’s view, before Jervis could come up with the rest of the fleet. He had them drawn up in a crescent – or a drawn bow – just out of range of the batteries on the shore and in the direct path of the enemy fleet, should the Spanish Admiral choose to lead them out from the fortified area known as the Diamond and risk another battle. The fact that Nelson’s squadron would be outnumbered by more than two to one did not seem to trouble him in the least.

  ‘Depend upon it,’ he assured Nathan, ‘the moment they stick their noses out of the Diamond, I will make the most vigorous attack upon them.’

  Clearly, he did not share Nathan’s doubts about the bom bard ment of civilians, or if he did, he kept it for his more private reflections.

  ‘If that fellow there don’t bring them out, then nothing will,’ he observed, indicating the bomb vessel sent up from Gibraltar which was now lying at a cable’s length off their stern – the arrow to their drawn bow. The Thunder.

  Nathan observed her with a professional detachment. As he had told Admiral Jervis, his knowledge of such vessels and their weaponry was not great, but he knew a little of their history and structure. They were originally a French concept, built for the wars of the last century. The plans for their design had been brought to England by the Huguenots – French Protestants fleeing the oppressions of Louis XIV – and the first to be made in British yards had been ketches with their two masts stepped further aft and the mortars mounted side by side on the foredeck, firing forward. But they had been awkward sailors, particularly in a rough sea, and since the last war the British versions were all ship-rigged, with the weapons mounted along the centreline on a revolving platform.

  The Thunder, however, was not a British design. She had been captured from the Dutch, shortly after their surrender to the French and their decision to declare war on their former allies. From where Nathan stood, she looked much like a ship-rigged sloop, her sides pierced with gunports for ten 24-pounder carronades. He could see no sign of her more lethal armament, which he assumed must be carried below decks and somehow winched into position for whenever it was required.

  Nelson had already explained the basic plan. Careful soundings had been taken of the waters around Cadiz and a position had been located in what was said to be a blind spot for the Spanish batteries.

  ‘It will be like lobbing stones into a hornets’ nest,’ he told Nathan, ‘and if we make them mad enough, I dare say they will overcome their natural reluctance to come out and fight.’

  In Nathan’s experience, Spaniards were no more reluctant than hornets to take on a perceived aggressor. But from what he had been told, their ships were manned mainly by soldiers who might have been steady enough on land but had little notion of how to sail a ship or fire a gun at sea. Besides which, their superiors seemed to be convinced that it was only a matter of months, if not weeks, before a general peace was declared, and so they had no particular desire to risk their lives for nothing.

  Hence the decision to bring on the Thunder.

  ‘Depend upon it,’ said Nelson, ‘even if they do not care a fig for their own people, they will not stand idly by while their precious cathedral is brought down around their ears, for they have been more than a hundred years building it, and their priests have doubtless assured them they will spend ten times as long in Purgatory if they permit it to be destroyed by heretics.’

  Nelson was the son of a country parson and maintained a proper Anglican contempt for Papist superstitions.

  ‘Never trust a Spaniard,’ he had warned Nathan, even when His Most Catholic Majesty was an ally of King George, and he considered the current ascendancy of the French Party in Madrid to be the complete justification of this prejudice. It was said that Nelson hated a Frenchman more than the Devil. In taking their part, the Spaniards had clearly invoked the wrath of God – which the Thunder was about to dispense.

  The main problem, it appeared, was moving her close enough to the port to do some real damage. Her draught was shallow enough to go closer inshore than any of the other ships in Nelson’s squadron, but she would need protection
from the Spanish gunboats. This was where Nathan came in.

  ‘You may take your pick of the ships’ boats,’ Nelson told him. ‘And we will give you whatever backing we can from out in the bay.’

  Nathan had studied the position carefully on the map and he could already name most of the salient features of the port and its defences, but he begged leave to go aloft with a borrowed telescope so he might view the real thing at close hand – or as close as the Theseus was likely to get. Nelson kindly lent him his own.

  Nathan climbed high into the crosstrees of the main topmast. From this lofty perch, a good 180 feet above the upper deck, he had as perfect a view of the port as he could have wished. It was at the end of a long, narrow peninsula, surrounded by a massive seawall and guarded by the fortress of San Sebastian with over eighty heavy guns at its disposal. Just beyond the fort, Nathan could see the mosque-like dome of the cathedral, still under construction, and the church of Santiago on the opposite side of the same square. He could even see a number of the citizenry walking out on the mall – women mostly, judging from their parasols. And on the far side of the peninsula, in the channel Nelson had called the Diamond, he could just make out the masts of the Spanish fleet – twenty-six sail of the line. A formidable number, even if they were handicapped by their lack of trained seamen.

  He was about to return to the deck when he noticed something else. Closer to the port, right under the guns of the fort, there was a fleet of much smaller vessels. These must be the gunboats – and there were a great deal more than he had imagined. There must have been at least a score of them, and he could see a few more in the dockyard beyond, apparently being equipped with heavier cannon.

  Nathan slid the glass shut and made his way back to the deck, a little more slowly and thoughtfully than he had made his ascent.