The Friendly Sea (The Duty and Destiny Series, Book 1)

by Andrew Wareham

  Atkinson, who had very carefully seen nothing of all this, grinned, commented that it all served to spread the prize money through the fleet, as well as putting them in the way of picking up more of it.

  “But if we had not been lucky in the first place, we would not have had it, and would not then be able to make it, sir. You have to catch your prizes in the first place, sir, in order to be able to catch your prizes.”

  “The chicken and the egg?”

  Too deeply philosophical a concept for Frederick, he was familiar with neither away from the dining table.

  “You must read more, Mr Harris! A captain needs some semblance of a polite education, even if self-taught.”

  The school room again, probably no more than coincidence.

  “We had influence, Mr Harris. Without the family of the horrible Horley in the background we would never have received so thorough a refit in Pompey, one that equipped us particularly well to be a cruiser. Without your reward we would not have had our first cruise – the Admiral would have sent one of his own favourites, one of his family, to Martinique. To the Admiralty, of course, it matters not at all that one captain or another should cruise successfully, so long as some ship does, and the French are embarrassed and their strategy is carried forward.”

  “You are saying, sir, that events that happen, must happen to some person, any person, in a random occurrence, irrespective of vice and virtue and just deserts?”

  “I always think of custard when that is mentioned, Mr Harris!”

  “Very good, sir!” Frederick laughed dutifully – it was Atkinson’s quarterdeck and he could define humour on it.

  Two days later and the hull sported a dull gold band, the portlids shining black, in an elegant chequer - tangible evidence of the fruits of corruption.

  The stores were full, bulging, and the sailmaker found himself staring at bolts of best canvas laid out on a deck cluttered by half a dozen new topsail and topgallant yards and three new topgallant poles, each a fathom greater than its predecessor.

  Porson surveyed his ill-gotten gains with the greatest satisfaction, allowed that the new rig would give them an extra knot in light winds, if Sails ever got off his arse and did the bloody job he had signed on for.

  Atkinson called Frederick away, suggested it was wiser to leave the professionals to it.

  “Porson knows more about rigging this, or any other, ship than the pair of us put together. He would not presume to tell me how to fight the ship, and we must return the compliment, I believe. We are neither of us seamen of his sort, or Mr Paston’s, with both knowledge and feel of the sea. There are officers who are technical sailors of the best – like Captain Cook, the wonder of our age – and others who are hard put to take their ships to sea. Horley was half-way right, you know – it is our job to place ourselves in the way of the enemy and then hurt him while the tradesmen like the Master and the boatswain have the job of taking us where we wish to go. There are five or six hundred of our national ships at sea this year and the Admiralty would hard-pressed indeed to come across as many men who could both fight and sail their ships with an equal expertise.”

  Frederick nodded seriously, relieved that his inclination to agree with Horley on this one issue was not a sign of stupidity or depravity – he had wondered.

  They sailed replete, ready to face anything the Caribbean had to offer, including tedium. Frederick had attended an auction at the barracks, had bought a chessboard and a set of draughts pieces; bearing Atkinson’s advice dutifully in mind he had bid on a job-lot of books, the possessions of an army officer, new arrived and instantly dead of fever. He displayed his library proudly, the first books he had ever voluntarily purchased.

  “Twenty four volumes, sir, in a natty travelling case with bars across each shelf.”

  “All in English?”

  “So I think, sir, from the titles.”

  “Are they novels or serious works, Mr Harris?”

  “I am not sure, sir – though one is certainly for sailors, sir. It is called ‘Leviathan’.”

  It promised much for Frederick’s development – convoying giving time spare to read even to First Lieutenants.

  Three days to the Army’s scene of operations – two battalions in descent on St Jean d’Antilles, one of the lesser islands, a single port and forty or so plantations spread radially round the coast, fanning out from the crater of the extinct volcano that had formed the island. There was swamp, rainforest, mosquitoes and a garrison of four companies of foot and seventy or so militia. A single fort mounted a pair of coastal forty two pounders and a half dozen twelves covering the coast road.

  A failed frontal assault had given way to a beach landing five miles north of the town, the twelve hundred men landed from the boats of two seventy fours and eight transports. A corduroy road of tree trunks was forming across the soft silver sand of the beach and under the palm trees, nearly a quarter of a mile from tideline to the coast road. The navy would, eventually, put eighteen pounders ashore to act as siege guns. Three weeks after the initial attack the expedition had taken one plantation house and casualties of about ten per cent, almost all from fever.

  Atkinson reported to the commodore, a worried man, fearful for his career, the Admiral’s List looming, a certainty of being yellowed if he failed here, was received briefly, returned quickly to Athene.

  “Convoy two hospital ships to English Harbour, returning, hopefully, with replacements.”

  On return ten days later they had no replacements, but there was another transport full of sick to lead away.

  A fortnight after that they came back to an empty beach, the expedition crowding the port and overawing a half-burnt town. One of the third rates was rigging a jury mizzen mast. The other showed patches of new timber along her bulwarks and hull and was pumping even though at anchor in a protected harbour.

  “Night attack, line of battle ships led in by a boat, poured in their broadsides while the transports ran in to the quay and half a battalion assaulted from the land by way of a diversion. They sacked the place and burnt most of the warehouses in process; got them back under command yesterday after three days of rape and looting.”

  The Laws of War permitted the sack of defended towns, and in this one instance most armies of the day scrupulously observed the law. The Navy disapproved, normally very loudly.

  “The commodore tells me the army can muster four hundred men fit to stand in the line. And that stretches the definition of ‘fit’ to its very limit.”

  Two thirds of the soldiers dead or fevered, their battalions valueless until the men convalesced, the half who would, in six or so months, all in exchange for a thousand or two tons of sugar and tobacco each year. The campaign in the Sugar Islands destroyed the life or health of some forty thousands of men before its end, more soldiers than had formed England’s peacetime army.

  They escorted another pair of hospital ships to English Harbour, glad they were sailors.

  The harbour was full. As the staggering, broken wrecks that had once been fit young soldiers were led or carried ashore to the big hospital and its spreading graveyard behind, so more ships came to anchor, large vessels many of them, West India Company ships and private vessels of the named London houses.

  “Two hundred or so of bottoms that prefer to be home before the hurricane season, or whose insurers insist that they must be. The convoy makes up here from all over the Islands.”

  Two leisurely days of harbour routine and then the signal, “Athene to the Ordnance Wharf”.

  Tied up to the stone bollards set beneath the wooden gantry of the big crane, thirty busy free labourers swarming with a cat’s cradle of net and ropes and the two nine pounder chase guns were lifted out, dropped onshore and wheeled away, manhandled immediately onto the deck of a waiting barge. A chain of men tossed nine pound shot from hand to hand and on to a wagon on the quay. A vast wooden carriage was hauled out of the open-sided godown and was lifted just high enough to clear the bulwarks and settle
d gently into place in the bows. The carpenter, gunner and shore artisans scurried to remove, modify and fit anew ringbolts and tackle amid a rasping of saws and much banging of mallets and hammers; finally a massive, nine foot long iron barrel was slowly swung aboard and eased onto the carriage, capsquares turned over, ropes roved to pommelion ring, lifting tackle released only when the tons of metal were firmly secured. Stewart ran about very busily the while, getting in the gunner’s way, his enthusiasm tolerated, just, because he was a well-liked youngster and so keen on his guns. The chain of labourers reformed, passed thirty two pound balls the other way, much more slowly and carefully than they had offloaded.

  The master sat down with Atkinson, planned the restowing of his hold to allow for the weight pressing down on the forefoot, sent a gang of landsmen deep into the bowels of the ship to roust out half a ton of stone ballast from the bows and shift it to the stern. They made a careful note of the order in which water barrels would be broached to keep the trim.

  The foreman of the yard sought Frederick out, stood to an imitation of attention as a gesture of respect. “One Long Nine chaser, sir, Master Intendant’s personal instructions. Captain Rogers of the William Pitt – your Citoyen Paine what was – ‘persuaded’ the Master that he needed a pair of nine pounders, iron guns with the shorter barrel was all he could fit, just like the Athene ‘ad got, sir. And, last convoy in, sir, brought a Long Nine, what ‘ad been intended for frigate Hermione, sir, but ‘er captain and the Master ‘ad a falling out so she never got put aboard ‘er somehow.”

  Frederick put five guineas in the foreman’s hand – he might need him again, one never knew – and publicly gave him two to buy a drink for his men, as was traditional and their right. He turned then to his tradesmen.

  “Gun ports, Chips, will they be adequate for this big a cannon?”

  “Take the rest of today to cut out and make good and line the ports neatly and build the lids, sir. Two ports, either side of the heads, sir, give a traverse of ninety degrees or thereabouts, within the limits of where I can place the ringbolts sensible like. All in hand, sir.”

  The words, ‘bugger off’, though unspoken, were clearly present in the last sentence – he was in the way, it was not his job, he had nothing useful to offer. Frederick subsided, nodded, retreated – they were very kind and polite to him, but it was their ship, not his, when it came to matters like this. The standing officers were appointed to the ship, not to the commission. Carpenter, boatswain, cooper and sailmaker all expected to spend the remainder of their working days on this ship; the master and gunner might progress to bigger vessels and higher rates of pay, given their age, but the other warrant officers had reached as far as they were going. With each commission new captains, lieutenants and midshipmen would pass through, use the Athene, perhaps gain glory or prize money from her, but the warrant officers owned her, formed her backbone, made her into their image.

  “Thetis is in, sir. Signal for a lieutenant and a boat, just a minute back. Mr Stewart is on his way, isn’t it.”

  “Thank’ee, Bosomtwi. Mail.” Frederick stirred from his cot; he had taken the harbour night watch so as to allow captain, master and Stewart a long shore-run, had felt morally obliged to stay awake and active all night, so as to set an example which would be noticed as right and proper in the premier, but quite unnecessary for anyone else. A cup of something hot – Bosomtwi swore it was tea – a slab of yesterday’s soft shore bread toasted in the galley, a jam of some sort thickly spread on it, and he was ready for the new day.

  There were two covers for Frederick, one addressed in Marianne’s studiedly elegant Italian hand; the other was vaguely familiar, he had seen it before, his father’s perhaps. He opened the unknown first. It was from his father indeed – disturbing, his mother always wrote to him, from all the family, every three or four weeks, the packets reaching him more often than not. The first paragraph allayed his fears – his mother was well, father in good health – why, then, was his father writing?

  ‘Using your Power of Attorney I have instructed your Bankers to purchase Consols, low at the moment. You now have Four Thousand One Hundred at Four and One Quarter per centum to bring an Income of One Hundred and Seventy Four Pounds and Five shillings per annum.’

  “Very nice, pretty much the same as a frigate captain’s half-pay, but why so important?” Frederick mused.

  ‘Your Brother George is now settled at Home, his Health and General Constitution much Enfeebled following a Fall, taken in a Steeplechase, entered into Impromptu, on a Young Horse. Fractures to his Leg and Chest and, most importantly, to his Head, led his Doctor to fear for Him at first, but in the Month of his Treatment he has gained a little Strength. He coughs Blood, however, and the Doctor fears a Phthisis. A Cold, Wet Winter may yet prove his Undoing.’

  “A pity, but I hardly know the man – school at Winchester while I went to sea. Barely saw him after I was, what, nine or ten.”

  ‘It might be accounted Wise, were You to consider your Profession and its many Dangers, whether it be entirely Apt and Suitable if You are to become Heir to the Estate.

  We have seen much of Miss Paget and have a great affection for her…’

  The letter contained as well news of the rest of the family; of his uncle, the Viscount, his three sons all wed and fathers of sons themselves; of his father’s only sister, lately deceased a spinster and leaving her portion to father; of his Uncle Frederick in certain decline. There was a little of local notables, few of whom were anything more than a name to him.

  “I’ll jump that fence when I come to it – I will not go onto half pay on the offchance and be left with no career for certain, and an estate only a possibility. Brother George could still recover, though for the while it stops him wasting the ready quite so wildly, I suspect. It’s an ill wind, after all!”

  He turned to his other letter, found references to Brother George’s sad mishap and a little more detail, enough unsaid to allow him to read between the lines – the man had jumped a fence blind, unaware of a sunken lane behind it, had broken his horse’s neck, been rolled on, ‘after a celebration’.

  “Fool was drunk!” Frederick, unlike his brother who had been renowned locally in the saddle, was no horseman, but he knew enough to avoid that pitfall – no sensible man jumped blind.

  “Captain’s cabin, sir!” Bosomtwi interrupted.

  Coat, hat, belt, at the run, in front of Atkinson inside the minute, courtesy demanding instant response to that particular summons.

  “Orders, Mr Harris. We are not to refit yet – we hardly need it, in any case. Yes, yes, I know you have a little list of jobs that should be done, but none are urgent, I believe. We are to join the convoy escort to mid-Atlantic, or such point as the escort commander shall decide to be good. Rumour has reached the Admiral from several sources – some may be more certain than mere rumour – I do not know what intelligencers he may or may not have – indeed, I ought not to know – but simple common sense says there must be Royalists, and there are always paid informers. To cut the matter short, the Admiral believes there is a strong likelihood that national ships have sailed from Martinique and possibly Hayti in unknown force. The convoy escort is to be beefed up. Thetis, 36, to command with William, 32, ourselves, Billy Pitt, another gunbrig, Hornet, and two armed schooners. Thetis has twelve pounders, William only nine, she is old. Billy Pitt is now armed with eight six pounders, our two nines and six twenty four pound carronades – neither one thing nor the other, really, but all that the yard here can afford her. The Hornet is quite small and has eight six pounders, the schooners fours only, and whatever swivels they have grabbed hold of. Between us we can deal with any three or four Froggy frigates, and whatever sloops and privateers they care to send our way, I believe.”

  “Sailing date, sir?”

  “Two days hence, brought forward one day in the hope of avoiding the French – for they will know the date called for this convoy rendezvous – you cannot inform every merchant in the Carib
bean without telling everybody else.”

  Victualing was the normal organised chaos – it was all very well agreeing with the yard on times and sequences – bread to be brought out at eight o’clock of the morning, landsman’s time, beef and pork to follow at eleven, remaining dry stores at two of the clock precisely – but there was not the least chance of their holding to the schedule, and no profit in complaining, not and expect anything of them ever again. The barges all appeared within the same half an hour and the working parties ran furiously, thankful they were early rather than late.

  “Dates on the barrels are very good, sir,” the purser formally reported. “Much of the beef and all of the pork has been salted in the last six months.”

  The chances were that the meat would be fairly wholesome still – it was not uncommon for beef or pork to be ten years in the cask, having sailed at the bottom of a hold to India and back, then to the West Indies a couple of times, transferred back to the yard at the end of commissions and jobbed out again rather than go to pigswill after condemnation. There could be some very interesting food poisonings on occasion, but Athene was a rich ship, well known for her generosity in the yard, and her crew’s digestive tracts might well remain unharrowed.

  “Bread?”

  “American, sir. Baked in the ovens in Baltimore, so it says on the bags. Sensible, in fact, sir. More and more hard wheat is being transported from the States to England as the German supplies dry up. Cheaper to bake the biscuit in America.”

  They took their water at the last possible moment, even a day out of the cask was a gain worth having, and then tied up at the powder hoy, particularly emphatic orders from the Admiral ensuring a very full supply.

  Thomas spent the days busy with his mates, cutting and sewing serge powder bags for charges for the new Long Nine, ten pounds of powder instead of the carronades’ six. Stewart sweated in the bright sunshine, disobeying the unwritten rule and drilling late into the tropical morning with his chaser crew, working out a routine for serving the big cannon on the limited space of the forecastle; the long sponge and rammer was an especial problem, its twelve foot pole entangling with rigging, sails, anchor cable and crewmen quite equally until a specific evolution could be developed.