A King's Cutter

by Richard Woodman

  He shook his head to clear it of such disturbing thoughts. It was merely the result of discipline, he reassured himself. Then he cast all aside as ahead of them Draaken luffed.

  Unable to escape, she would stand her ground while she had a lead, lie athwart Kestrel’s bow, rake her and run north, delivering a second broadside as she did so.

  ‘Lie down!’ Drinkwater commanded, lending his own weight to the tiller and turning Kestrel a quarter point to starboard, heading directly for the yacht.

  The cutter staggered under the impact of Draaken’s broadside. The peak halliard was shot through and the mainsail sagged down. Splinters rose in showers from the forward rails and a resonating clang told where at least one ball had ricochetted off a bow chaser. Someone screamed and one of the helmsmen dropped into eternity without a sound, falling against Drinkwater’s legs. Then Draaken completed her turn and began to pass the cutter on the opposite tack, no more than twenty yards to windward.

  ‘Now Jessup! Now!’ Scrambling up from their prone positions the men gathered round the starboard guns.

  Draaken drew abeam. ‘Fire!’

  Drinkwater saw the bulwarks fly as smoke from the yacht’s own fire rolled down over Kestrel. As it cleared he saw her sails flogging uncontrolled. Santhonax had let fly his sheets and Draaken was dropping to leeward. With her shallow draught she would drive down on top of the cutter as Kestrel lost way, her mainsail hanging in impotent folds, the gaff shot through and her jib blowing out of the bolt ropes through shot holes.

  ‘Let fly all sheets! Boarders stand by!’

  All along her side Kestrel’s gunners poured shot after shot into the yacht as fast as they were able. It was murder and the cracking sails added to the screams of wounded men and the roar of the cannon. Then, in the smoke and confusion, Draaken was on top of them, her mast level with Kestrel’s tiller.

  ‘Boarders aft here!’ Drinkwater roared, lugging a pistol from his belt and drawing his hanger. Through the smoke he saw Tregembo and Short and James Thompson and half a dozen other faces familiar as old friends.

  Kestrel shook as Draaken ground into her and the Dutchmen passed lashings over anything prominent. The wind whipped the last shreds of smoke from the now silent guns and as it cleared they saw their enemy.

  They were poised to board, round red faces hedged with the deadly spikes of cutlass, axe and pike. Drinkwater sought vainly for Santhonax and then forgot him as the Dutchmen poured over the rail. The Kestrels were flung back, swept from their own deck as far as the gigs in a slithering, sliding mêlee of hacking, stabbing and murdering. Drinkwater thrust, twisted and thrust with Tregembo grunting and swearing on his right hand and James Thompson on his left. He felt himself step on a body that still writhed. He dared not look down as he parried a clumsy lunge from a blond boy with the desperate look of reckless terror in his eyes. The boy stabbed again, inaccurately but swiftly in short defensive reflexes. Drinkwater hacked savagely down at the too-extended forearm. The boy fell back, unarmed and whimpering.

  Briefly Drinkwater paused. He sensed the Dutch attack falter as the British, buttressed by the solid transoms of the gigs, found their defence was effective.

  ‘Come on the Kestrels!’ Drinkwater’s scream cracked into a croak but about him there was a hefting of pikes, a re-gripping of cutlasses and then they were surging forward, driving the Dutch before them. Over a larboard gun leapt Short, a maniacal laugh erupting from him as he pitched a man overboard then drove two more before him into the larboard quarter. They were disarmed and with his pike Short tossed them both over the shattered transom like stooks onto a rick.

  Drinkwater swung himself left, across to the starboard quarter where the enemy were in retreat. ‘Board the bastard, James, board the bastard!’ he yelled, and next to him Thompson grinned.

  ‘I’m with ’ee, Mr Drinkwater!’ Tregembo’s voice was still there and here was Hill, and Bulman with the chasers’ crews, having fought their way down the starboard side. Then they were up on the rail and leaping down onto Draaken’s deck, their impetus carrying them forward, men made hard and ruthless by months of blockade carried with them a more vicious motivation than the Dutch, torn from comfortable moorings and doing the bidding of foreign masters.

  Opposition fragmented, lost its edge and above it all Drinkwater could hear the furious oaths in a fairer tongue than the guttural grunts of dying Dutchmen.

  With careless swathes of the hanger Drinkwater slashed aft. A Dutch officer came on guard in front of him and instinct made him pause and come into the same pose but he was passed by Short, his face a contorted mask of insane delight, his pike levelled at the officer. A pistol ball entered Short’s eye and took the back of his skull off. Still the boatswain’s mate lunged and the Dutch lieutenant crashed to the deck, pierced by the terrible weapon with Short’s twitching corpse on top of him.

  Drinkwater stepped aside and faced the man who had fired the pistol.

  It was Edouard Santhonax.

  The Frenchman dropped the pistol and swiped downwards with his sword in the molinello he had used at Sheerness. Drinkwater put up his hanger in a horizontal parry above his head and the blades crashed together. Then Tregembo was beside him his pike extended at Santhonax’s exposed stomach.

  ‘Alive, Tregembo! Take him alive!’ and on the last word, with a final effort Drinkwater twisted his wrist, disengaged and drew his blade under Santhonax’s uncovered forearm.

  Santhonax, attacked by two men, took greater terror from the levelled pike and tried to push it aside even as Tregembo obeyed Drinkwater and brought it up. The vicious point entered the Frenchman’s face and ripped his cheek in a bloody, disfiguring wound and he fell back, covered in blood.

  Drinkwater turned to see the deck of Draaken like a butcher’s shambles. Lolling on the yacht’s companionway James Thompson was holding his entrails, staring with disbelief. Drinkwater turned away, appalled. A kind of hush fell on them all, the moaning of the wind rising above the groans of the wounded. Then Hill said, ‘Flag’s signalling, sir . . . Acts 27 verse 28 . . .’

  ‘For Christ’s sake . . .’

  All along the line of ships the smoke had cleared away. Admiral De Winter had surrendered and those of Onslow’s commanders still with men on their quarterdecks able to open bibles obeyed their chief. They sounded and found, not fifteen fathoms, but nine. In great peril the British fleet secured their prizes.

  Among them, her decks cluttered with corpses, her gear wounded, her bulwarks riven by shot, plunged the King’s cutter Kestrel.

  Chapter Sixteen

  October 1797

  Aftermath

  ‘How is he, Mr Appleby?’ In the swaying lamplight Kestrel’s cabin had the appearance of an abbatoir and Appleby, grey faced with exhaustion, was stained by blood, his apron stiff with it. They stared down at the shrunken body of James Thompson, the purser, his waist swathed in bloody bandages.

  ‘Sinking fast, sir,’ said the surgeon, his clipped formality proper in such grim circumstances. ‘The livid colour of the lips, the contraction of the nostils and eyebrows an indication of approaching death . . . besides he has lost much blood.’

  ‘Yes.’ Drinkwater felt light-headed, aware of a thousand calls on his time, unable to tear himself away from the groans and stench of the cabin as though by remaining there he could expiate himself for the murder they had been doing a few hours earlier. ‘Yes,’ he repeated, ‘I am told he supported me most gallantly in boarding.’

  Appleby ignored the remark.

  ‘You are giving him an opiate?’ Appleby lacked the energy to be indignant. He nodded.

  ‘He is laced with laudanum, Mr Drinkwater, and will go to his maker in that state.’ There was reproach in his voice.

  Drinkwater left the cabin and returned on deck, passing the cabin, his own former hutch, where Santhonax lay, sutured and waxen, his hands bound. The rising wind had reached gale force and the British fleet clawed offshore, each ship fending for itself. In the howling blackness, lurch
ing up and down the plunging deck, Drinkwater calmed himself before he could lie down and submit to the sleep his body demanded.

  Rain came with the wind, driving over the wavecaps with a greater persistence than the sheets of spray that lashed the watch. Out in the night an occasional lantern showed where one of the battleships struggled to windward and twice he heard Bulman caution the lookouts to exert themselves.

  Drinkwater knew he had not escaped the brutalising of his spirit that had begun so many years ago in the cockpit of Cyclops, nor escaped the effects of the events in the swamps of Carolina. The savagery he displayed in battle was a primaeval quality that those events had dragged out of the primitive part of him. But such ferocity could not be sustained against the earlier influence of a gentle home and in reaction he veered towards sentiment, like so many of his contemporaries.

  He took refuge in the satisfaction of a duty acquitted and an increased belief in providence. As fatigue tamed the feelings raging in him since the battle, numbing his recollections, he felt better able to trust himself to write his report.

  . . . the vessels were laid board and board, Drinkwater wrote carefully, and after a sharp engagement the Draaken, despatch vessel, was carried.

  I have to inform you that the enemy defended themselves with great gallantry and inflicted severe losses on the boarders. All of the latter, however, conducted themselves as befitted British seamen and in particular James Thompson, Purser, Edward Jessup, Boatswain and Jeremiah Traveller, Gunner, who died in the action or of mortal wounds sustained therein.

  He paused, reflecting on the stilted formality of the phraseology. One final piece of information needed to be included before this list of dead and wounded.

  He began to write again. Among those captured was a French naval officer, Capitaine de frégate Edouard Santhonax, known to your Honour to have been an agent of the French Government. Among his papers were found the enclosed documents relative to a proposed descent upon Ireland. Drinkwater carefully inscribed his signature.

  When he had appended the butcher’s bill he went on deck. The frightful casualties inflicted on their number could not damp the morale of the crew. The Kestrels shared a common sense of relief at being spared, and a corporate pride in the possession of the Draaken, following astern under the command of Mr Hill, whose gashed arm seemed not to trouble him.

  Drinkwater could not be offended at the mood of the crew. Of all the Kestrels he knew he and Appleby were alone in their sense of moral oppression. It was not callousness the men displayed, only a wonderful appreciation of the transient nature of the world. Drinkwater found he envied them that, and he called them aft to thank them formally, for their conduct. It all sounded unbelievably pompous but the men listened with silent attention. It would have amused Elizabeth, he thought, as he watched the cautiously smiling seamen. He felt better for those smiles, better for thinking of Elizabeth again, aware that he had not dared contemplate a future since the Dutch showed signs of emerging from the Texel. The grey windy morning was suddenly less gloomy and the sight of Adamant out of the corner of his eye was strangely moving.

  He completed his speech and a thin cheer ran through the men. Drinkwater turned to the grey bundles between the guns. There were thirteen of them.

  He had murdered and harangued and now he must bury his dead in an apparently meaningless succession of contradictory rituals.

  From the torn pocket of his grubby coat he took the leather prayer book that had once belonged to his father-in-law and began to read, ‘I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord . . .’ and overhead the bright bunting snapped in the wind.

  Duncan’s fleet anchored at the Nore to the plaudits of Parliament and the gratitude of the nation. At first the strategic consequences of the battle were of secondary importance to the relief of ministers. Despite the mutiny the North Sea fleet was unimpaired in efficiency. The seamen had vindicated themselves and the Government had been justified in its intransigence. Vicarious glory was reflected on all parties, euphoria was the predominating emotion and honours were heaped upon the victors. Admiral Duncan’s earlier ambition of quiet retirement with an Irish peerage was eclipsed by his being made a baron and viscount of Great Britain, Onslow was made a baronet, Trollope and Fairfax knights and all the first lieutenants of the line of battleships were promoted to commander. Medals were struck, swords presented and the thanks of both Houses of Parliament voted unanimously to the fleet. The latter was held to be, as Tregembo succinctly put it, of less use than his own nipples.

  Before reporting to Duncan, Drinkwater interviewed Santhonax. The Frenchman could only mutter with difficulty, his lacerated mouth painfully bruised round the crude join Appleby had made of his cheek. He had given his name after prompting, using English, but Drinkwater had troubled him little after that, too preoccupied with managing the damanged cutter with half his crew dead or wounded.

  But on the morning they anchored at the Nore, Santhonax was a little better and asked to see Drinkwater.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked, through clenched teeth but in an accent little disfigured by foreign intonation.

  ‘My name, sir, is Drinkwater.’

  Santhonax nodded and muttered ‘Boireleau . . .’ as if committing it to memory then, in a louder voice, ‘you are not the commander of this vessel?’

  ‘I am now.’

  ‘And the old man . . . Griffiths?’

  ‘You know him?’ Drinkwater was surprised and lost his chill formality. Santhonax began to smile but broke off, wincing.

  ‘The quarry always knows the hunter . . . your boat is well named, La Crécerelle.’

  ‘Why did you hang Brown?’

  ‘He was a spy, he knew too much . . . he was an enemy of the Revolution and of France.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I am a prisoner of war, M’sieur Boireleau . . .’ This time Santhonax crinkled the skin about his eyes. Stung, Drinkwater retorted, ‘We have evidence to hang you. We have Hortense Montholon in custody.’

  Santhonax’s sneer was cut short. He looked like a man unexpectedly whipped. What colour he had, drained from his face.

  ‘Take him away,’ snapped Drinkwater to Hill, standing edgily behind the prisoner, ‘and then have my gig made ready.’

  ‘Drinkwater, good to see you, my word but what a drubbing we gave ’em and what a thundering good fight they put up, eh?’ Burroughs met him at Venerable’s entry port, bubbling with good spirits and new rank. He gestured round the fleet, ‘hardly a spar knocked down among the lot of us but hulls like collanders . . . by heaven but I’m glad we did for ’em, damned if I’d like another taste of that . . . not a single prize that’s worth taking into service . . . except perhaps yours, eh?’

  ‘Aye, sir, but it’s already cost a lot.’

  Burroughs became serious. ‘Aye, indeed. Our losses were fearful, over a thousand killed and wounded . . . but come, the admiral wants a word with you, I was about to send a midshipman to fetch you.’

  Drinkwater following Burroughs under the poop and was swept past the marine sentry. ‘Mr Drinkwater, my Lord.’ Burroughs winked at him and left. Drinkwater advanced to where Duncan was writing at his desk, its baize cloth lost under sheaves of paper.

  ‘Sit down,’ said the admiral wearily, without looking up, and Drinkwater gingerly lowered himself onto an upright chair, still stiff from the bruises and cuts of Camperdown. He felt the chair had suffered the repose of many backsides in the last twenty-four hours.

  At last Duncan raised his head. ‘Ah, Mr Drinkwater, I believe we have some unfinished business to attend to, eh?’

  Drinkwater’s heart missed a beat. He felt suddenly that he had made some terrible mistake, failed to execute his orders, to repeat signals. He swallowed and held out a packet. ‘My report, my Lord . . .’

  Duncan took it and slit the seal. Rubbing tired eyes he read while Drinkwater sat silently listening to the pounding of his own heart. The white paintwork of the great cabin was cracked and flaking where Du
tch shot had impacted the Venerable’s side and in one area planks had been hastily nailed in place. A chill draught ran through the cabin and a faint residual stain on the scrubbed deck showed where one of Venerable’s men had bled.

  He heard Duncan sigh. ‘So you’ve taken a prisoner, Mr Drinkwater?’

  ‘Yes, my Lord.’

  ‘You’d better have him transferred over here immediately. I’ll have a marine detachment sent back with you.’

  ‘Thank you, my Lord.’

  ‘The conduct of Captain Trollope’s squadron, of which you were a part, was most gratifying and I have here a paper for you.’ He held out a document and Drinkwater stood to take it. It was a commission as lieutenant.

  ‘Thank you, my Lord, thank you very much.’

  Duncan had already bent to his papers again and he said, without looking up, ‘It’s no more than you deserve, Mr Drinkwater.’

  Drinkwater had his hand on the door handle when he recollected something. He turned. Duncan was immersed in the details of his fleet. There was talk of a court martial on Williams of the Agincourt. Drinkwater coughed.

  ‘My Lord?’

  ‘Uh?’ Duncan continued writing.

  ‘My people are long overdue for their pay, my Lord, might I ask you for an order to that effect?’

  Duncan laid his pen down and looked up. The admiral was too experienced a sea-officer not to know something lay behind the request. He smiled faintly at the earnest young man. ‘See my clerk, Mr Drinkwater, see my clerk,’ and the old admiral bent once again to his work.

  Kestrel lay a week in Saltpan Reach while they did what they could to patch her up. Drinkwater was confirmed in command until they decommissioned for extensive repairs and he gave a dinner for those of his officers still alive. It was a modest affair at which they were served by Merrick and Tregembo who volunteered for the task and accomplished it with surprising adroitness. Afterwards he sought out Drinkwater.