Midshipman Graham and the Battle of Abukir

by James Boschert

  He didn’t add that it would be very close and the collision, if it happened, would happen without any warning. One moment they would be tossing on the sea and the next shattered on the ugly black teeth of the shore.

  “We can’t turn into this one without being overturned. We have to run with it until it passes,” the Master shouted.

  Duncan barely heard him but nodded reluctant agreement. He was running blind now without even the elusive lantern of the larger ship to guide him. He had no appetite for a turn in this darkness. There were no stars to see by, as the storm clouds obscured even the sliver of the moon. He shook the rain from his hair and eyes, then had to bellow several times to get the attention of the men crouching in the waist of the boat, but finally they heard and ran to comply with the command to raise a small sail. The willing men managed to haul a short, wildly flapping sail half way up the foresail and secure it.

  Suddenly the gusts of wind and rain abated, leaving an ominous calm and little wind to fill the rigged jib sail. The ship was wallowing, but making some headway. The men on deck were uncharacteristically silent, sending apprehensive glances towards the southwest where even in the darkness they could feel the monstrous black cloud bank moving relentlessly towards them. During the calm Duncan shouted at the men to keep them busy, shouting at them to double lash down everything. They complied willingly enough. They had to avoid being driven onto the shore of the cape, but inexorably the wind continued to thwart his efforts. He tried to steer them a few points more to port, which would take in a more northerly direction, but stopped when it became clear that he was running across the sea and there was a real danger of waves tipping them over again. With a resigned curse he allowed the boat to fall off a couple of points until they were again being carried by the waves.

  Then he had an idea. Just as he did so the rain and wind came back. Leaving the captain huddled over the tiller, Duncan scrambled towards the men. “Help me get this over the stern!” he called out, indicating the sail on the deck. “Sheet anchor! We need a sheet anchor!”

  Several of the men understood and joined him hauling the wet and heavy sail along the deck, pausing from time to time to hang onto anything they could as the waves poured onto the deck, lashing their faces with spume.

  Using all their strength against the wind and rain and the drag of the soaking canvas, they arrived at the tiller area. The men bound ropes through the eyes of the sail and when they were done they called to Duncan, “Ready, Sorr.”

  Without a word he helped them to push the mass of canvas over the stern and watched it fan out in the increasingly turbulent waters behind the ketch. When it was about twenty yards behind Duncan held his hand up. “That’s far enough. Make it fast.” They fastened the end ropes to cleats on either side of the stern deck so that the sail was spread out flat on the sea. A slow but sure response to the drag of the canvas resulted. The small sail on the foremast took them down wind while the drag of the sail kept them from surfing the wild waves. They had slowed their headlong race for the shoreline and with luck might be able to pass to the north without incident. Duncan wished there was more brandy.

  Captain Williams swore, then shouted, “Its damned cold with all this rain. I’ll go and see if there are any oil coats below. This is miserable!” he disappeared down the stern hatch.

  “Bring some more of that Eau de whatever, Sir!” Duncan called after him. The captain laughed and shouted back, “If I can find some.”

  Captain Williams surfaced on deck with some smelly jackets. “Here take this,” he called, shoving one of the stiff coats at Graham, who thankfully took it and shrugged into the stinking covering. He realized that he was shivering from the cold. “Here this might help.” Williams pushed a bottle of something into his hand. Duncan took a swig and felt the warm glow of strong alcohol suffuse his body. “Ah, God, but that’s nice stuff, Sir.” he gasped as he took another swig.

  Williams gently took back the bottle and said, “Can’t have our captain and navigator too drunk to steer now, can we, Graham? You’re doing well, lad.” He laughed and took a swig of his own before handing the bottle over to Hotchkins, who had been looking longingly at the bottle as its contents began to disappear. “Thank ‘e, Sorr. Thank ‘e very much,” he said, and he took a healthy swig.

  “Well now we are all drunk and in the middle of a shit storm. Who gives a damn?’ Williams shouted into the wind.

  There was a flash of lightning about a mile away, followed almost immediately by a rolling crash of thunder almost overhead. The lightning lit up the agitated sea all around them and very briefly the Theseus, which was now many cables to their north. Duncan felt relieved that they were not nosing into its stern, but the sea had risen and the ketch was now pitching and rolling uncomfortably. Assuming that the Master of the Theseus knew what he was about and could see own compass, Duncan altered course to follow in the path of the ship as best he could.

  At times they would appear to be heading down into a deep watery valley and he would brace himself to prevent falling forward, but then the wave would pass under them, surfing the light ketch for a while in a welter of foam and water pouring over the transom on both sides, and then their bow would be pointing up into the air at another impossible angle while he hung on to the steering bar for dear life trying desperately to prevent the bows from falling off and presenting the vessel sideways to another oncoming monster. The drag of the sheet anchor was helping greatly, that much he could tell, but in the darkness there was not much to indicate how close to the shore they might be.

  Abruptly a blast of cold air struck the ship. The sail filled with a cracking sound and Duncan could have sworn the mast bent a little. The blast of wind almost knocked him and Captain Williams off their feet, causing them to clutch at anything that came to hand just to remain upright.

  A high, keening sound rose as the wind howled through the rigging, followed by another wall of rain. It washed over the men on the deck of the ship in torrents, lashing at exposed skin, soaking them to the bone. A flash of lightning nearby startled them all, and it was followed almost immediately by a clap of thunder that deafened the men on the afterdeck and made them cower.

  Men were lifted off their feet as the squall hammered at the ship and forced it to heel over to port. The crew hung onto anything they could to prevent themselves from being washed overboard. Some used rope to tie themselves to the mast or the transom.

  The ripping, tearing sounds of thunder bellowing overhead made men duck, and the bolts of lightning lit up the racing waves. Each time Duncan tried to take advantage of the momentary light to search for the Theseus or a dark strip of land ahead of them which would spell disaster. So far he had seen neither, which was reassuring. At least they were being driven out to sea, which was possibly the safest place to be at this time.

  The ketch righted itself and continued, but now they were being buffeted by waves that marched in serried ranks up from the southwest. The entire sky was lit up continuously now as the lightning increased in intensity. Even the air around them smelled of something unpleasant, almost as though it were burned.

  The storm hit the struggling ketch with a force that made the entire vessel shudder like a bell struck by a monstrous hammer. Slashing rain and lightning hissed into the sea around them, followed almost immediately by numbing crashes of thunder that shook the air and made their bones vibrate. The ship shuddered and yawed, then began to rise and fall with the waves. Captain Williams joined Duncan with his struggle to maintain course, but they were thrown about as they struggled with the beam and tried to keep the ketch from yawing, falling off into a valley and then being rolled over by a following wave.

  The wind screamed and howled as though a thousand demons were at work, their one intent to sink the vessel and claim all the lives on board. The waves had in the shortest space of time gone from a couple of paces high to mountains of foaming water that formed deep valleys and tall hills all around the struggling vessel. At times Duncan could barely br
eathe, the air around him was so full of water, he was very glad of the skin of the jacket, which repelled most of the rain. Hotchkins and Captain Williams both wore the same, but the rest of the unfortunate crew were in miserable condition and had very little protection from the rain and the water that continuously slopped over the sides.

  The ketch would nose into a wall of water that would bury the bowsprit and then pour over the bows and along the main deck in a foaming rush, and then very slowly the forward part of the ship would begin to rise. Water poured off the decks in torrents as they climbed out of the valley between breakers, so that they seemed to be pointing at the sky for one moment; and then they would crest the wave to descend sickeningly into yet another deep valley of water, pushed from behind by the foaming crest of the wave they had just run over.

  The spume and spray from the waves joined the torrential rain which washed over the decks, stinging faces with such force that men cowered trying to cover themselves with any cloth to hand.

  As the ketch rolled from side to side it would take on the sea, and the men on the waist deck would be up to their waists in water, in danger of being swept away; then the ship would begin to roll in the other direction. Anything that was not lashed down properly was taken overboard, and Duncan, watching this happen, was filled with dread. There had to be a lot of water pouring into the open cabin space.

  He was unaware of the passing of time until he noticed a dim light in the east as the boat crested a wave. Dawn was coming, and to the relief of his numbed and exhausted senses he saw that the storm was passing to the north, leaving their tiny boat bobbing in an angry sea. As the light in the east slowly increased he began to notice more details. There was land to their south: a long, low, dark strip. He pointed towards it and nudged the captain, who had a death grip on the tiller but was almost asleep with exhaustion.

  “Sir, I think that is Abukir,” he shouted over the still keening wind. “We cleared it, but I don’t know how!”

  Williams shook his head and stared. “If you say so, Graham. I’m just glad to be alive at this moment.” He gave Duncan a tired grin.

  Duncan glanced forward towards the bows which were still twisting up and down with spray flying back over the miserable men crouched near the main mast. “She’s low in the water!” he exclaimed.

  Then he saw something that made his blood run cold. A quarter of a mile ahead there was a flurry of activity on the surface of the water. Peering forward he was horrified to see a body floating face down in the water, then another, and then a group of bodies. The corpses were half-naked, the rags of their clothing hanging off and swaying in the water, and they were being attacked by large fish that churned up the sea all around the indifferent dead.

  “Ah God, help us!” he cried out involuntarily. “Captain, look over there!” Williams lifted his head and stared to where Duncan was pointing. The bodies and their accompanying carrion eaters were going to drift right by the ketch off the starboard bow by about fifty yards.

  “Dear God! It’s some of the Turkish dead from the battle! The current has taken them all this way out. Poor devils,” Williams exclaimed, sounding just as appalled as Duncan. As he said this a large dark fin, Duncan assumed it belonged to a shark, slid past the ketch heading in the direction of the activity. Duncan found himself staring into its eye as it passed: black and dead and menacing. It joined the throng of other creatures feasting with a flurry of spray and agitated water. Duncan shuddered.

  By now the rest of the crew members had noticed and were exclaiming and pointing. One even crossed himself. Then followed the cries of disgust as the wind changed direction slightly and brought the full stink of rotting flesh to their shocked senses. Slowly, the dead drifted by, and the men on the ketch, still covering their noses and mouths, thankfully turned away. There was a long silence as people digested the horror of what they had just witnessed.

  “I heard thousands and thousands were killed on that day,” Hotchkins said.

  “It was a monumental slaughter, Mr Hotchkins,” Captain Williams replied. “I have rarely witnesses such a thing. So many of them fled into the sea to escape the French, you see. These are but a few of those who drowned.”

  It seemed to Duncan that somehow the ghosts of Abukir had reached out yet again to disturb his peace of mind. He shook his head at the vivid memories of the panic, the terror in their distorted faces, and the slaughter he had witnessed. He would be haunted by those memories for a very long time to come.

  Hotchkins glanced up from his huddled position in the lee of the cabin. “I can hear water sloshing about below, Sorr,” he said. There was urgency in his tone. “We are fillin’ up fast. The hole in our side let most of it in.”

  Duncan bellowed at the men in the waist of the vessel. “Bailers! We need bailers. Now!”

  Several of the men heard him and scrambled to their feet, swaying with the erratic motion of the boat. “Get below, men. Do what you can, or we go to the bottom!” Duncan shouted.

  Before long, buckets full of sea water were being passed rapidly up through the broken cabin to the men on deck to be dumped overboard.

  Duncan searched the horizon for any other vessels and thought he saw a sail to the north. He shouted and pointed and another couple of men noticed. “Its a sail!” one shouted. “But ah’ve no idea what kind of vessel. Ship ‘o war, perhaps?”

  “Lets hope to God it’s the Theseus and not a Frenchie,” Williams remarked, “or we are all on our way back to the grand city of Alexandria.”

  The large vessel was visible on the horizon, with only its top sails set to allow it to ride out the storm. It was difficult for Duncan to tell whether its crew had noticed them but he changed course just enough to take the ketch towards the vessel. There was little choice now. He could not sail counter to the sea, which could still sink them in an unguarded moment, in the hope that a lookout might see them and come to investigate. The wind had abated somewhat but it was still too strong for them to raise another sail. Meanwhile the bailing continued at a frantic pace, for the ketch was wallowing in the water instead of floating high.

  “We can dispense with the sea anchor now,” Duncan said, and ordered two of the crew to cut the lines. The sail drifted off, looking like some great pale sea creature that had been driven to the surface by the agitated seas. The ketch began to move forward with a marked increase in speed.

  “Still too early to get a larger sail up,” Duncan said out loud.

  “Her seams up in the bow area must have opened in the storm, Sorr. We can’t drive her too hard, as that will bring in more water,” Hotchkins remarked, as he scrambled painfully to his feet and observed the way the vessel rode in the sea.

  “She would have taken on a lot of water through that hole,” Captain Williams observed.

  “Aye, and I hope that is all we have to worry about, Sorr,” Hotchkins responded. “But I have a nasty feeling it ain’t all that’s wrong.”

  Duncan agreed with him. The bailing was not making a great difference, despite the energetic activity with the leather buckets. Then one of the men inside the cabin shouted and another relayed the request to Duncan.

  “Sir, you are needed by the men in the cabin, Sir,” he called over to the men at the tiller.

  Duncan left the tiller with Captain Williams and Hotchkins and went to peer over the edge of the shattered wall of the cabin. Down in the well were three men up to their thighs in sloshing water. One looked up at him with a gaunt, exhausted look on his face. “She has started her seams somewhere up forward near the bow, Sir,” the man said. “Fast as we fill the buckets more water comes in. We began with water at our knees but now it’s almost a foot higher. Don’t seem to matter how much we take out.”

  Duncan felt a tight feeling in his guts. They were sinking and he had no idea whether the ship on the horizon had even noticed them.

  “Is there any way to get to the forward hold and stave it off with some plugs?” Duncan asked.

  “Jonesy here took a di
ve to ‘ave a look, Sorr. Couldn’t get below the first deck. There’s too much stuff floating about that could kill a man. Water's comin’ up from several places and we can’t get to the source of the leaks.”

  “Bugger and damnation and blast the Devil’s balls to pieces!” Duncan muttered. He hadn’t meant the men to hear him, but some did and despite their anxiety they snickered with amusement.

  “Ye’r right, Sorr. Fock the Devil for doin’ this te us,” one of the men with an Irish accent stated. He got a nudge from his mate. “Yer don’t swear in front of an orficer, Paddy,” he admonished him sotto voice.

  “Sorry, Sorr. Forgot me place,” the unrepentant Paddy grinned.

  Duncan took a deep breath.

  “Do everything you can, men. If it gets too bad then get out of there.”

  “Aye aye, Sir,” they responded in unison.

  Duncan went back to the tiller and answered the mute question in Captain William’s eyes. “We are sinking, Sir, and won’t be able to make land at this rate.” Duncan said in a low tone. His voice was tight with anger.

  “We need to get their attention.” Hotchkins jerked his thumb at the distant ship.

  “I doubt if we have a single charge of powder that isn’t soaked,” Duncan said. On deck the tiny guns would be useless and half full of water, while below everything was submerged.

  “Could we not rig a flag of some sort and get it onto the main mast?” Williams said, looking up at the swaying pole.

  “Good idea, Sir. Its better than nothing and we don’t have much in the way of options,” Duncan responded. “Get the men to rig a line and we’ll haul a sheet up to the top of the main mast, Hotchkins.”

  “Aye aye, Sorr.”