Killigrew and the Sea Devil

by Jonathan Lunn

  ‘I must’ve been mistaken,’ said Adare, struggling to keep a straight face.

  Endicott glanced at Tremaine, and instantly creased with laughter. He nudged Molineaux, who took one look and likewise doubled up.

  Tremaine glared at them. ‘What the devil’s the matter with you two?’

  ‘Nuttin’, sir,’ said Endicott, wiping tears of laughter from his cheeks with his sleeve. ‘I just thought of a funny joke, that’s all.’

  ‘And what’s your excuse?’ Tremaine asked Molineaux.

  ‘I thought of the same joke as Seth, sir.’

  ‘Have you two been sucking the monkey? Come here so I can smell your breath!’

  Snickering, the two petty officers stepped on to the quarterdeck, struggling to keep straight faces. When Tremaine thrust his nose close to their lips, however, they collapsed with fresh peals of laughter.

  ‘Right, I’ve just about had enough of you two!’ snarled the commander. ‘Mr Adare, send for the master-at-arms. I want these two men under arrest, now.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Somehow, Adare managed to keep a straight face. ‘Pass the word for the master-at-arms.’

  The master-at-arms came on deck, and promptly collapsed when he saw Tremaine’s face.

  Crichton emerged from the after hatch. ‘Did I hear someone pass the word for the master-at-arms?’ he asked. Then he saw Tremaine’s face, and everything became clear. ‘Ah-ha! Been in a fight have we, Mr Tremaine?’ he asked with a smile.

  ‘Fight, sir? No…’

  ‘In that case, I think you’ll find that some joker has smeared the eyepiece of the bring-’em-near in the binnacle with boot blacking.’

  ‘What?’ Tremaine rubbed his eyes and looked at his hands to see the blacking smeared on the white kid leather of one of his gloves. He rounded furiously on Adare. ‘This is your doing! I’ll pay you back for this!’ Crimson-faced, he turned and stumbled down the after hatch.

  As soon as the commander had gone, Adare could no longer suppress the gales of laughter that had been welling up inside him.

  ‘A tad on the childish side, don’t you think, Mr Adare?’ Crichton said with a smile.

  ‘Sorry, sir.’ Adare wiped his eyes with a handkerchief. ‘Not very original, I know, but I couldn’t resist it. He does rather set himself up for it.’

  ‘I suppose you put blacking on the mouthpiece of the speaking trumpet, too?’

  ‘Want me to clean it off, sir?’

  ‘Good heavens, no! By the way, I’ve been invited to go aboard the Merlin today; Sulivan’s taking us in to take a closer look at the Russian defences. Fancy coming along?’

  ‘I’d be delighted, sir.’

  ‘Splendid! I don’t imagine we’ll see much excitement, but it beats kicking our heels on the Ramillies all day, eh? Mr Pemberton, would you assemble the crew of my gig? Mr McGurk, pass my regards to Mr Tremaine and tell him I’m going aboard the Merlin with Mr Adare. He’s in command in my absence.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Midshipman McGurk made his way below.

  The gig was lowered from its davits and Adare shinned down the lifelines with the crew before they rowed the boat to the foot of the accommodation ladder, where Crichton descended with more dignity if less panache to join the lieutenant in the stern sheets.

  ‘Reminds me of when I was a snotty in the Ramage,’ Crichton remarked to Adare as they were rowed across to the Merlin. ‘We used to fill the salt-shaker in the cockpit with baking soda, put a tissue over the top, prod it down a little and pour some concentrated lemon juice inside, put a circle of card inside the top of the shaker so the juice won’t come out, replace the lid – but don’t screw it down – trim off the tissue paper sticking out around the edges, and warn everyone else in the cockpit not to use it. As soon as the victim gives it a shake, the baking soda reacts with the lemon juice and spews foam everywhere, blowing off the lid.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Not that I’d expect an officer of mine to get up to such shenanigans.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘I particularly wouldn’t want him to do it on Friday night when I’m dining in the wardroom, so I get to see what happens.’

  ‘I’ll bear it in mind, sir,’ said Adare, making a mental note to ask the steward if he had any tissue paper.

  A surveying ship, the Merlin was 125 feet from stem to stern, a small paddle-steamer dwarfed by the ships of the line. The Ramillies’ gig was one of ten bearing captains from the other ships of the fleet, and Crichton and Adare had to wait their turn before they could climb on board, where Admiral Pénaud – the commander of the French contingent – was already waiting with his own captains.

  ‘Hullo, Sulivan,’ Crichton greeted the Merlin’s captain once they were on board. ‘Have you met my second, Mr Adare?’

  ‘It’s an honour, sir,’ said the lieutenant, saluting Sulivan, an intense-looking Cornishman whose dark hair was starting to turn grey at the temples. He already knew Sulivan by reputation. The fleet’s surveyor, he had served as a midshipman under Commander Fitzroy on several voyages, including the one Mr Darwin had made famous in his celebrated book, The Voyage of the Beagle. He had made a name for himself the previous year by surveying a channel through the Åland Islands, making Vice Admiral Napier’s attack on the fort at Bomarsund possible.

  Adare was not the only junior officer who was a guest on board the Merlin that day; several of the other captains had brought a junior with them, and Adare recognised Lieutenant Slater from the Buzzard, with whom he had served on board HMS Bolitho before the war. The two of them greeted one another warmly.

  The Merlin was about to steam away from the fleet when a gig arrived bearing a lieutenant from the flagship, HMS Duke of Wellington, and a civilian in his mid-fifties wearing a frock-coat and chimney-pot hat and clutching a sketch pad. ‘Rear Admiral Seymour presents his compliments, sir, and asks if you’d mind taking Mr Carmichael with you, sir?’ asked the lieutenant.

  ‘The sketch artist from the Illustrated London News,’ Sulivan explained to Crichton in a low voice. ‘My compliments to the rear admiral, and tell him I shall be delighted to have Mr Carmichael aboard. Send him up, Lieutenant!’

  Sulivan lifted the speaking tube from the binnacle and blew into it before lifting it to one ear and listening for a moment, then speaking into it. ‘Turn ahead, half, Mr Lowther,’ he told the engineer. He listened for a response, then hooked the tube back in its place moments before the engine below decks throbbed into life and the paddle-wheels on either side of the hull plashed at the waves, driving the Merlin forward. ‘Three points to port, Gilham.’

  ‘Three points to port it is, sir.’ The quartermaster nodded to the two seamen at the helm, and they spun the wheel, bringing the Merlin’s head around to starboard until she pointed east-north-east. As she steamed around the flotilla of gunboats riding the waves closer still to Kotlin, she was joined by her escort: HMS Dragon and HMS Firefly, and the d’Assas: a steam frigate, a paddle-sloop and a French corvette respectively. The Firefly followed close in the Merlin’s wake, while the Dragon and the d’Assas kept a course parallel to the two smaller ships.

  While they were steaming across towards Kotlin Island, Mr Carmichael sketched Admiral Pénaud with Sulivan and the other captains posing on the quarterdeck. Presently Tolboukin Lighthouse came up off the starboard bow: a cylindrical, seven-storey tower rising up from a cluster of buildings that huddled on a rocky islet half a mile off the west end of Kotlin. As they passed, Adare glimpsed the granite forts bristling with guns that rose sheer-sided from the waves to the south of Kronstadt. There were signs that the Russians had begun constructing similar forts to the north. Previously they had believed the water there to be too shallow to permit the passage of ships, but Sulivan had disproved that by sounding in HMS Lightning the previous year.

  There was also evidence that the Russians had not been idle during the winter on Kotlin itself. As the Merlin steamed along the north coast of the island, Sulivan and the other officers observed that several new batteries
had been built across the island halfway along its length, presumably to prevent the Allies from landing troops on the west end from which they could set up their own batteries to bombard Kronstadt the way Bomarsund had been bombarded the previous summer.

  The Merlin was proceeding under steam and sail, and as one of the hands moved aft to adjust a brace, he bumped into Mr Carmichael, who had finished sketching the officers on the quarterdeck and was now wandering about the windward waist. Knocked off balance, Carmichael staggered into another seaman, who responded by expressing himself in exceedingly salty language, much to the artist’s evident embarrassment.

  ‘Mr Carmichael, why don’t you sit on the fore-side of the paddle-box?’ Sulivan suggested to the artist. ‘You’ll get a better view from up there, and you can rest your sketch pad on your knees.’

  As the Merlin rounded a headland halfway along the length of the island, the ships of the Russian fleet came into view.

  ‘Come two more points to port,’ Sulivan ordered the quartermaster.

  ‘Two points to port it is, sir.’

  ‘Let’s see how close they’ll let us get. Dickens, make sure the lookouts keep a sharp eye on those enemy ships, in case one of them decides to weigh anchor. You never know, they may yet surprise us.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  ‘Dickens, did you say?’ Crichton murmured to Sulivan.

  ‘My chief bosun’s mate, Arthur Dickens.’

  ‘He’s no relation of… ah… you know?’

  ‘Not that I’m aware of. I never thought to ask. Still, you never know: I believe that the author hails from Kent, as does Chief Petty Officer Dickens, so I suppose it’s entirely feasible.’

  The Merlin steamed at a leisurely pace parallel with the north-east shore of Kotlin for the next hour and a half, until by a quarter-past three they were parallel with the east end of Kronstadt, close enough to see the flotilla of Russian gunboats and mortar-vessels harboured in the fortress’ lee. Sulivan gave the order to drop anchor, and got busy with the other officers on deck, sketching the fortifications with a practised hand.

  After looking for himself, Crichton handed a telescope to Adare so he could see. They were just over half a mile off the main fortress, near enough for the lieutenant to make out the soldiers in shiny helmets and white coats manning the battlements as they bustled back and forth.

  They had been at anchor for three-quarters of an hour when a cry came from the lookout at the masthead. ‘Sail ho!’

  Sulivan took the speaking trumpet from the binnacle to call back. ‘Where away?’

  ‘Fine on the starboard bow!’

  Sulivan levelled his telescope to where a paddle-steamer approached from the direction of St Petersburg, grey smoke puffing from her funnel beneath the lowering sky. Sulivan handed his telescope to his second in command. ‘What do you make of her, Creyke?’

  ‘Flapper of some sort, sir. Difficult to say how many guns she’s got.’

  ‘Best not to take any chances. Beat to quarters!’

  As the marine drummer summoned the crew to their battle stations, Sulivan took the telescope back from Commander Creyke for another look, and gasped in astonishment. ‘Good heavens!’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Captain Mundy of the Nile.

  ‘The flapper: she’s a pleasure steamer.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘See for yourself.’ Sulivan handed him the telescope. ‘You can see the gawkers lining the rails: men in chimney-pot hats, and women in ball gowns.’

  Mundy looked through the telescope and saw Sulivan was telling the truth. ‘Good gracious! You’re right!’

  ‘They must’ve come from St Petersburg to view our fleet.’

  ‘What do they think this is, is naval review?’ Captain Erskine of the Orion spluttered indignantly. ‘Don’t they know this is the seat of war? Why, we should order the Dragon to engage ’em. Serve ’em right if a few near-misses gave ’em a shower-bath, what?’

  ‘It would be a waste of shot,’ said Sulivan. ‘Let them watch. We’ll learn more from watching them than they’ll learn from watching us.’

  Once the officers on board had seen all they had come to see, Sulivan took the Merlin to another point off the coast of Kotlin to draw the Russians’ attention from the point they had examined earlier. Just as the surveying ship was turning to rejoin the rest of the fleet, a distant boom echoed across the waters of the gulf.

  Adare turned to see a Russian gunboat emerge from behind the eastern end of Kronstadt, a plume of smoke disseminating from the muzzle of the gun on her deck. Closer to the Merlin – but still more than half a mile away – a great spout of water rose up where the shot landed.

  The Russians were not in the habit of taking pot shots; Adare guessed the shot was intended to provoke them into giving chase, perhaps to lead them close to some of these infernal machines he had heard about.

  But Sulivan was too experienced a captain to fall for that one. ‘As you were,’ he told the quartermaster. ‘Steady as she goes.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  ‘Perhaps Captain Sulivan should not get too close,’ Carmichael said anxiously to Captain Mundy on the paddle-box.

  ‘Not to worry, Mr Carmichael. We’re well out of range of their guns.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’

  Mundy smiled. ‘Captain Sulivan knows what he’s doing, I assure you.’

  The Dragon and the d’Assas maintained position on a parallel course once more, while the Firefly followed in Merlin’s wake. The Russian coast was just over a mile away to the north-east after they had been steaming for three-quarters of an hour. Adare levelled a telescope at it: a low-lying, dreary-looking place, as far as he could see, all swamps and forests. The Russians were welcome to it, as far as he could—

  The roar of the explosion filled his ears and the deck shuddered beneath his feet, making him stagger. He lowered the telescope in time to see a huge fountain of water rising over the level of the bulwark from below the port bow.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ exclaimed one of the seamen on deck. ‘What the ’ell were that?’

  ‘There!’ exclaimed Carmichael, ashen-faced. ‘A shot has struck us!’

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Mundy. ‘I didn’t hear the shot.’

  ‘Take over, Mr Creyke,’ Sulivan told his first lieutenant, dashing down the after hatch. ‘I’ll check in the engine room.’

  ‘Sounds as though the engine’s running all right to me,’ sniffed Erskine. ‘Something must’ve hit us…’

  ‘Or we hit something,’ added Crichton.

  The vibrations of the deck beneath their feet ceased as the engine was stopped, although the Merlin continued to glide forward under her own momentum. ‘We’re not aground, at least,’ said Adare.

  Sulivan emerged from the after hatch. ‘Damage report, Chips!’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’ The carpenter hurried below decks to see if they were holed.

  ‘Well, the engine still appears to be working,’ Sulivan announced to the officers on the quarterdeck.

  ‘That was an explosion!’ said Erskine, climbing up to the port-side paddle-box to investigate. ‘Must’ve been one of those infernal machines we’ve been hearing some much about.’

  ‘Signal the Firefly to stand off, Underwood,’ Sulivan ordered one of his seamen.

  ‘Are we sinking?’

  ‘No need to alarm yourself, Mr Carmichael,’ Sulivan said confidently. ‘I don’t think we’re holed. We’ll know for certain soon enough.’

  ‘Ah-ha!’ Erskine exclaimed from the port-side paddle-box. ‘Come and take a look at this, Sulivan! I can see a stone…’

  ‘A stone?’ Sulivan echoed incredulously. ‘Take a sounding, Meakin,’ he added to the leadsman as he crossed the deck to the port bulwark to see for himself.

  Adare heard the lead plop into the water off the bow as the leadsman slung it, measuring the depth in the line that ran out through his fingers. ‘By the mark five, sir!’

  ‘There’s definite
ly something down there,’ Sulivan agreed with Erskine, leaning over the port bulwark. ‘Mr Bullock, ask Mr Lowther to turn astern, half.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’ One of the Merlin’s lieutenants blew into the speaking tube on the binnacle and listened for the engineer’s response. ‘Turn astern, half, Mr Lowther.’

  The Merlin’s engines started up again. No sooner had she begun to reverse through the water, however, when a second explosion shook her and water fountained up immediately below the starboard paddle-box, rising several feet above the hammock-netting. The Merlin gave a jerk beneath Adare’s feet, and the masts shook alarmingly as the ship heeled over, sending the men beneath them scurrying for cover.

  ‘Stop her!’ ordered Sulivan.

  Adare sniffed: suddenly there was a strong smell of rotten eggs in the air.

  ‘Smell that?’ asked Crichton. ‘Sulphur!’

  Sulivan nodded. ‘There’s no doubt about it now: infernal machines,’ he said, heading for the after hatch once more. ‘Not so chimerical after all, it seems. I’m afraid we’ve blundered into an infernal machine field.’

  Adare followed Sulivan below to offer his assistance and they met one of the petty officers on the lower deck: the man looked terrified.

  ‘What’s the matter, Farley?’ demanded Sulivan.

  ‘We’re holed, sir! There’s water coming in!’

  Sulivan and Adare made their way below to see the extent of the damage for themselves. Most of it was in the engine storeroom: where two diagonal girders crossed one another, one made of wood and the other of iron, the iron one was bent in from the side and the wooden one was broken. The explosion must have bent the side in for a moment, before the wooden timbers sprang back to their original positions. A heavy tank of tallow had been torn from the side to which it was cleated and thrown three feet across the storeroom against the opposite bulkhead along with all the paint-tanks and casks. The shelf-piece under the deck head was split and broken, and water was pouring in from somewhere above.

  ‘Find that hole and fother it, Farley!’ Sulivan ordered crisply.

  Adare followed the petty officer up to the engineer’s mess place on the deck above. It really was a mess now: the sideboard and lockers were smashed, the mess-traps and private stores they contained scattered across the deck, which was strewn with shards of crockery and glass, along with the pickles and sauces some shattered bottles had previously contained.