A King's Cutter

by Richard Woodman

  But would such a deception work?

  Chapter Thirteen

  June–October 1797

  No Glory but the Gale

  The splash of a cannon shot showed briefly in the water off Kestrel’s starboard bow where she lay in the yeasty waters of the Schulplen Gat, close to the beach at Kijkduin.

  ‘They have brought horse artillery today, Mr Drinkwater,’ said Major Brown from the side of his mouth as both men stared through their telescopes.

  Drinkwater could see the knot of officers watching them. One was dismounted and kneeling on the ground, a huge field glass on the shoulder of an orderly grovelling in front of him.

  ‘That one in the brown coat, d’you know who he is?’

  Drinkwater swung his glass. He could see a man in a brown drab coat, but it was not in the least familiar. ‘No sir.’

  ‘That,’ said Brown with significant emphasis, ‘is Wolfe Tone . . .’

  Drinkwater looked again. There was nothing remarkable about the man portrayed as a traitor to his country. Kestrel bucked inshore and Drinkwater turned to order her laid off a point more. ‘I’ll give them the usual salute then.’

  ‘Yes, no! Wait! Look at the man next but one to Tone.’ Brown was excited and Drinkwater put up his glass again to see a tall figure emerge from behind a horse. Even at that distance Drinkwater knew the man was Santhonax, a Santhonax resplendent in the blue and gold of naval uniform, and it seemed to Drinkwater that across that tumbling quarter mile of breakers and sea-washed sand that Santhonax stared back at him. He lowered the glass and looked at Brown. ‘Santhonax.’ Brown nodded.

  ‘You were right, Mr Drinkwater. Now give ’em the usual.’

  Drinkwater waved forward and saw Traveller stand back from the gun. The four-pounder roared and the men cheered when the ball ricochetted amongst the officers. Their horses reared in fright and one fell screaming on broken legs.

  ‘Stand by heads’l sheets there! Weather runner! Stand by to gybe! Mind your head, Major!’ Drinkwater called to Brown who had hoisted himself onto Number 11 gun to witness the fall of shot. ‘Up helm . . . mainsheet now, watch there! Watch!’

  Kestrel turned away from the shore as the field-gun barked again. The shot ripped through the bulwarks on the quarter and passed between the two helmsmen. The wind of its passage sent them gasping to the deck and Drinkwater jumped for the big tiller. Then the cutter was stern to the beach and rolling over in a thunderous clatter of gybing spars and canvas. ‘Larboard runner!’ Men tramped aft with the fall of the big double burton and belayed it, the sheets were trimmed and Kestrel steadied on her course out of the Schulpen Gat to work her way round the Haakagronden to where Duncan awaited her report.

  The admiral was on Venerable’s quarterdeck when Drinkwater went up the side. He saluted and made his report to Duncan. The admiral nodded and asked, ‘And how is Lieutenant Griffiths today?’

  Drinkwater shook his head. ‘The surgeon’s been up with him all night, sir, but there appears to be no improvement. This is the worst I’ve known him, sir.’

  Duncan nodded. ‘He’s still adamant he doesn’t want a relief?’

  ‘Aye sir.’

  ‘Very well, Mr Drinkwater. Return to your station.’

  The strange situation that Duncan found himself in of an admiral almost without ships, compelled him to tread circumspectly. He did not wish to transfer officers or disrupt the delicate loyalties of his pitifully small squadron. Griffiths was known to him and had indicated the professional worth of Kestrel’s sailing master. The admiral, astute in the matter of personal evaluation, had formed his own favourable impression of Drinkwater’s abilities.

  As the week of easterly winds ended, when the period of greatest danger seemed to be over, Duncan received reinforcements. Sir Roger Curtis arrived with some units of the Channel Fleet. Glatton, the curious ex-Indiaman armed only with carronades, had mutinied, gone to the Downs and cooled her heels. There her people resolved not to desert their admiral and returned to station. Other odd ships arrived including a Russian squadron under Admiral Hanikov. Then, at the end of June, the Nore mutiny had collapsed and Duncan’s ships returned to him. At full strength the North Sea squadron maintained the blockade through the next spell of easterly winds at the beginning of July.

  Kestrel made her daily patrols while Griffiths lay sweating in his cot, Appleby a fretful shadow over him. They saw no more of Santhonax and still the Dutch did not come out. Major Brown became increasingly irritated by the turn of events. Santhonax had shot his bolt. The Nore mutiny had collapsed and the French captain had failed, just as he had failed on the Culloden. Now, if he was still at the Texel, Santhonax had failed to coerce De Winter.

  ‘A man of action, Mr Drinkwater, cannot sit on his arse for long. This business of naval blockade is the very essence of tedium.’

  Drinkwater smiled over his coffee. ‘I doubt you would be of that opinion, sir, if the conduct of the ships were yours. For us it is a wearing occupation, requiring constant vigilance.’

  ‘Oh I daresay,’ put in Brown crossly, ‘but I’ve a feeling that De Winter won’t shift. When we next report to the admiral I shall transfer to the flagship and take the first despatch vessel to Yarmouth. No, Mr Drinkwater, that train of powder has gone out.’

  ‘Well sir,’ answered Drinkwater rising from the table and reaching for his hat, ‘perhaps it was a little longer than you expected.’

  Major Brown stared after the younger man, trying to decide if he had been the victim of impertinence or perception. Certainly he bridled at Drinkwater’s apparent lack of respect for a major in His Majesty’s Life Guards but he knew Nathaniel was no fool, no fool at all. Brown remembered the dinner at the Fountain and Drinkwater’s insistence that the presence of the uniforms, charts and money indicated the Citoyenne Janine held a secret. He also remembered that he had been less than frank about what he had discovered at Tunbridge Wells.

  It was true, as he had said to Lord Dungarth, that he had not found anything. But where the wolf has slept the grass remains rank. That much he had learned from the Iroquois, and he was no longer in doubt that Santhonax lay frequently at Tunbridge, in enviable circumstances too. A refuge in Hortense’s arms was typically Gallic, and if Santhonax had not persuaded her to flee from France in the first place he had turned that fortuitous exit to his own advantage.

  But Brown could not admit as much to Dungarth before Kestrel’s officers. He had lain a trap and until Santhonax sprung it the hunter remained silent. He had learned that too from the painted men of the Six Nations.

  Whether Dungarth had guessed as much when he had ordered surveillance of the Dowager Comtesse’s household mattered little. Santhonax had eluded Brown just as Brown had escaped Santhonax from Paris.

  The major bit his lip over the recollection. Had the girl detected him? As he had seen her on the arm of her handsome naval lover in Paris, had she perhaps seen Brown himself some time during the negotiations with Barrallier and De Tocqueville? That would have revealed his true allegiance, and Etienne Montholon had been a party to the arrangements. He tried to recollect if she might have discovered him with Santhonax during his spell as a clerk in the Ministry of Marine. Then he shrugged, ‘It’s possible . . .’

  Santhonax had reached the coast before him, had nearly cut off Kestrel but for Madoc’s skill and young Drinkwater’s timely rescue. It brought him full circle. Was Drinkwater right and Santhonax still trying to bully Jan De Winter into sailing? Brown knew Santhonax to be ruthless. He was certain the man had had De Tocqueville assassinated in London, the more so as it removed a threat to his occupancy of Hortense’s bed. And the officer commanding the naval forces at Roscoff had been shot for his prudence in strengthening a convoy escort by the addition of the Citoyenne Janine. His mistake was in requisitioning Santhonax’s own lugger. Brown’s reflection that that meant one less Frenchman to worry about begged the pressing question. It pecked at his present frustration, counselling caution, caution.

  Was Santh
onax still at the Texel? Was Drinkwater right? Did the train of powder still sputter here, off the Haakagronden? Was De Winter under French pressure?

  ‘It’s possible,’ he repeated to himself, ‘and there is only one way to find out.’

  And he shuddered, the old image of geese over a grave springing unbidden into his mind.

  Drinkwater was very tired. The regular swing of the oarsmen had a soporific effect now that they had run into the smoother water of the Zeegat van Texel. Astern of them in the darkness the curve of sand dunes and marram grass curled round to Kijkduin and the Schulpen Gat, where Kestrel lay at anchor. It was late before full darkness had come and they had little time to execute their task. Drinkwater pulled the tiller slightly to larboard, following the coast round to the east. He steadied it again, feeling the bulk of the man next to him.

  Major Brown, wrapped in a cloak under which he concealed a small bag of provisions, had insisted that he be landed. From his bunk Griffiths had been powerless to prevent what he felt to be a hopeless task. He did not doubt Brown’s abilities but the gleaning of news of De Winter’s intentions was a desperate throw. Griffiths had therefore instructed Drinkwater to land the agent himself. Johnson, the carpenter, had contrived a pair of clogs and they had been carefully scuffed and dirtied as Brown prepared himself in the seamen’s cast-offs as a grubby and suitably malodorous fisherman.

  Drinkwater turned the boat inshore and whispered ‘Oars’. The men ceased pulling and a few moments later the bow of the gig grounded with a gentle lift. Brown shrugged off the cloak and scrambled forward between the pairs of oarsmen. Drinkwater followed him onto the beach and walked up it with him to discover a landmark by which they might both return to the spot. They found some fishing stakes which were sufficient to answer their purpose.

  ‘I’ll be off then, Mr Drinkwater.’ Brown shouldered his bag and a dimly perceived hand was thrust uncertainly out in an uncharacteristic gesture. ‘Until two days hence then. Wish me luck . . . I don’t speak Dutch.’

  As he turned away Drinkwater noticed the carriage of confidence was missing, the step unsure. Then he jeered at his womanish qualms. Walking in clogs was bad enough. Doing it in soft sand damned near impossible.

  On the afternoon of the day on which they were due to recover Major Brown Kestrel sailed into the Schulpen Gat, taking the tide along the coast on her routine patrol. When the masts of the Dutch fleet had been counted over the intervening sand dunes and attempts made to divine whether De Winter had advanced his preparations to sail, which all except Drinkwater were now beginning to doubt, she would retire seawards until her midnight rendezvous with the agent.

  As she stood inshore towards the battery at Kijkduin, Drinkwater scanned the beach. The usual officer and orderly were observing their progress. He slewed the telescope and caught in its dancing circle the rampart of the battery. Then he saw something that turned his blood cold.

  A new structure had been erected above the gun embrasures, gaunt against the blue of heaven and terrifying in its sinister outline. And from the gibbet, unmistakable in the faded blue of Kestrel’s slops, swung the body of Major Brown.

  Drinkwater lowered the glass and called for Jessup. The bosun came up, immediately aware of the cold gleam in Drinkwater’s grey eyes. ‘Sir?’

  ‘See if Lieutenant Griffiths is fit enough to come on deck.’ Drinkwater’s voice was strangely controlled, like a man compelled to speak when he would rather weep.

  ‘Nat, what the deuce is this . . . ?’ Appleby came protesting out of the companionway.

  ‘ ’Vast that, Harry!’ snapped Drinkwater, seeing Griffiths following the surgeon on deck, the flutter of his nightgown beneath his coat.

  Without a word Drinkwater handed the telescope to Griffiths and pointed at the battery. Even as he watched the lieutenant for a sign of emotion Drinkwater heard the dull concussion of the first cannon shot roll over the sea. He did not see the fall of shot, only the whitening of the already pallid Welshman and when he lowered the glass Griffiths, too, spoke as though choking.

  ‘Our friend Santhonax did that, Mr Drinkwater, put the vessel about upon the instant.’ Griffiths paused. ‘That devil’s spawn is here then,’ he muttered, turning aft.

  Drinkwater gave orders and watched Griffiths stagger back to the companionway, a man who looked his years, sick and frail. The battery fired again. Shot rained about them and they were hulled once. Running south with the wind free and his back to the gibbet, Drinkwater imagined he could hear the creaking of the contraption and the laughter of the gunners as they toiled beneath their grim trophy.

  The death of Major Brown had a desolating effect on Kestrel. The enigmatic army officer had become almost one of themselves and the cramped cabin was a sad place without him. For Madoc Griffiths the loss was more personal, their friendship one of long standing. In the twilit world of their professions strange and powerful bonds drew men together.

  ‘Brown was not his real name,’ Griffiths had muttered, and it was all the epitaph the Major ever had.

  It seemed that his death extinguished the powder train whose extent he had been so eager to determine. Whatever Santhonax’s achievements in the apprehension of spies it was apparent to the watching British that he had failed to persuade De Winter to sail.

  Yet Duncan, and in a lesser way Nathaniel Drinkwater too, persisted in their belief that the Dutch might yet sally; or at least must be prevented from so doing. As the summer waned and turned to autumn the routine blockade wore down men and ships. Much of the time the line of battleships lay anchored, weighing and standing offshore, even sheltering in Yarmouth Roads when the weather became too boisterous. Hovering on the western margins of the Haakagronden the inshore squadron, the frigates Beaulieu and Circe and the sloop Martin, maintained the visual link between the admiral and those in close contact with the enemy, the lieutenants in command of the little flotilla of cutters and luggers working inside the Haak Sand.

  The cutters Rose, King George, Diligent, Active and Kestrel kept their stations through the long weeks, assisted by the luggers Black Joke and Speculator. The last two named provided endless witticisms as to predicting whether the Dutch would, or would not, emerge. When Speculator was on an advanced station the chances were said to be better than when the sardonically named Black Joke was inshore.

  These small fry fell into a routine of patrolling the gatways, acting as fleet tenders and advice boats. It was exhausting work that seemed to be endless. Scouting through the approaches to the channels, counting the mastheads of the enemy, determining which had their topmasts up and yards across, constantly worrying about the shoals, the state of the tide and whether a change of wind might not bottle them up in range of a field gun or battery.

  Griffiths’s health improved and he reassumed effective command of Kestrel. But the Dutch did not come out. As week succeeded week expectancy turned to irritation and then to grumbling frustration. In the fleet, officers, still suspicious after the mutiny, watched for signs of further trouble as the quality of rations deteriorated with the passing of time. Imperceptibly at first, but with mounting emphasis, discipline was tightened and a return ‘to the old days’ feared on every lower deck. Among the men the triumph of the mutiny was lost in petty squabblings and resentments. Men remembered that executions had followed the suppression of the Nore affair, that they still had had no liberty, that the pursers were not noticeably more generous or their pay more readily available.

  Then the weather worsened with the onset of September and the admiral, taking stock of the condition of his fleet, decided that he must return to Yarmouth to refit, replenish stores and land his sick. For scurvy had broken out and no admiral as considerate of his men as Adam Duncan could keep the sea under those circumstances. Yet, in the leaking cabin of Venerable he still fretted as to whether the Dutch, supine for so long, might not still take advantage of his absence.

  Drinkwater peered into the screaming darkness, holding onto the weather shrouds and bracing himself aga
inst the force of the westerly gale. Kestrel, hard reefed with her centre plates down, stood north west, beating out of the Molen Gat, clawing to windward for sea-room and safety. Somewhere to the south of her, across the roaring fury of the breakers on the Haakagronden, Diligent would be thrashing out of the Schulpen Gat while Rose should have quitted the West Gat long since.

  Drinkwater rubbed his eyes, but the salt spray inflamed them and the fury of the wind made staring directly to windward impossible. He had hoped to see a lantern from Circe but he had difficulty seeing further than the next wave as it rose out of the darkness to larboard, its rolling crest already being torn to shreds by the violence of the wind.

  Kestrel’s bow thumped into it, the long line of her bowsprit disappearing. Water squirted inboard round the lips of her gunports and a line of white foam rose to her rail but she did not ship any green water. Drinkwater was seized with a sudden savage satisfaction in the noble way the cutter behaved. In the tense moments when they could do nothing but hang on, trusting to the art of the Wivenhoe shipwrights who had built her, she never failed them.

  He turned and cautiously moved aft, his tarpaulin flapping round him. When he had checked the course, he secured himself by the larboard running backstay, passing a turn of its tail around his waist.

  Tregembo approached, a pale blur in the darkness. ‘You sent for me sir?’

  ‘Aye, Tregembo. An occasional cast of the lead if you can manage it.’ He sensed rather than saw the Cornishman grin.

  They must not go aground tonight.

  Drinkwater adjusted himself against the big stay’s downhaul. He could feel the trembling of the top-hamper transmitted down to the hull as a gentle vibration that transferred itself to his body, so that he felt a part of the fabric of the cutter. It was a very satisfying feeling he concluded, a warm glow within him defying the hideous howl of the gale. For a time the image of Brown in his gibbett was dimmed.