The Admirals' Game

by David Donachie

  ‘Powder’s no use,’ said Jenkins, when a crouching Digby asked his opinion as to the failure of their opponents to strike home. ‘Rotten French muck.’

  The lieutenant forbore to point out to the Welshman that the powder he was using to fill his charges came from the arsenal of Toulon, and was thus also French muck. In reality, because the commander of that shore battery was concentrating on the capital ships, they were in receipt of very little counter fire. Michael O’Hagan’s prediction of heated shot came to pass in short order, though again not aimed at them. Very visible in clear morning air, the red-hot metal left a trail of smoke, which did not immediately increase on contact. In the sea it landed with a steam-inducing hiss, but if it hit wood it could embed itself and thus begin a conflagration, which might well, if it got out of hand, completely destroy the ship.

  Their consort, now rigged to a spare anchor, was able to come back into the action, and that was the point at which both John Pearce and Digby realised why they were being so lightly treated. They had possessed only half their maximum firepower, but once that was remedied, a quartet of cannon was assigned to deal with them. Safety, if it existed at all, came from being a small target on a large expanse of seawater, so the French gunners would have to be precise, and that required luck. The concomitant of that was less rosy; the longer the action continued, the more chance they had of success – in short, luck for the target tended to be a diminishing asset.

  After an hour, John Pearce was black from head to foot, covered in the soot released by the powder, and more than once he had been obliged to smack out something singeing his coat and breeches, scraps of wad from a discharge still burning but unspent. Likewise the gun crews, who were also sweating copiously, straining mightily to swab, worm and load, carrying both powder and the heavy cannonballs, then hauling the huge cannon across the deck to its firing position. They had a butt of clean water from which to assuage their thirst, though Digby, knowing they might have to stay on this station till twilight, had put a steady hand to control the use of the ladle.

  It was plain to the naked eye that the line-of-battle ships were not winning the contest. Columns of smoke, where red-hot shot had struck, rose from several parts of St George and Aurore. It was also clear their bulwarks were taking severe damage from common round shot, and every time a ball struck home the wrenching sound of torn wood filled their ears. They, being too distant, were spared the screams of those affected by the splinters such a mauling must produce.

  The sound of cannonballs hitting the water all around the pontoons had almost assumed a rhythm of endless waterspouts, each greeted with a jeering response from the British tars. That was shattered, as was the deck of their consort, when finally the French gunners scored a hit. Luckily the ball landed between the two cannon, but it gouged out great splinters of wood, which speared in all directions, so although the guns remained unscathed that could not be said of the crews. Worse was the manner in which it bounced on, taking out the gimcrack hutch that housed their gunner. That just disintegrated with slats being thrust into the sea and, judging by the spurts of blood and gore, he went with them, leaving everyone standing rock still waiting to see if the powder exploded, which could be fatal for them all.

  The screams of those wounded came across the strip of intervening water, dragging every eye to observe what they could of the carnage; Digby had to shout to his men that they should attend to their duties. Yet it was with one eye on the order and another on the damaged deck that they complied, witnessing the wounded being dragged to a place away from the cannon, but certainly not safety. There was no below decks to retire to, just an area of planking at as much risk as any other. The Gods smiled then, for, no doubt due to a very slight change in the powder measure, the next salvo hit the sea a few feet to the rear of the pontoon, missing everyone standing as it flew across the damaged deck, just before it struck the water. At its lowest it could not have been much above waist height.

  ‘Mr Pearce, we must assist our consort with some of our powder.’

  ‘They have called in a boat to take off the wounded, sir. I will employ that.’

  Such casualties as had been sustained might have been bearable if they had been inflicting the same on the enemy, but from what could be seen, and that was extremely limited, the whole attacking force was doing not much more than shifting earth. The mounds thrown up to defend the position, being loose, also served to absorb and nullify the force of any round shot that had the right range. Once in receipt of a supply of filled cartridges, both pontoons were soon back in action.

  ‘Can’t be long till our turn, your honour,’ said Latimer, in between loading and ducking every time the enemy replied. ‘And if it hits us a’foreship, we’ll be matchwood.’

  John Pearce had a duty then to tell Latimer, much as he respected the old fellow, to shut up; they were here and there was not a lot they could do about it. No retirement was possible without an express order from Admiral Gell, so they just had to lump it. But the words had him looking to the boats that had towed them, now out of range, rocking peacefully on the swell, oars at rest. He also tried to calculate the distance to the nearest part of the shore not occupied by the French, and reckoned, in the warm Mediterranean water, he would have little trouble in swimming to safety should the pontoon seem set to sink.

  Yet that certainly did not apply to many others; if there was one mystery John Pearce could never fathom it was the fact that so few sailors could swim. It seemed to him like an absolute necessity of the occupation, yet all he had ever heard was that when in danger of drowning, tars had only one aim; to find enough drink to ensure that when they did succumb to lungs full of water, they would do so in a state of inebriated oblivion.

  ‘I wonder, sir, if we might ask the boats to move in closer?’ he said, joining Digby.

  ‘They would be endangered by that, Mr Pearce.’

  ‘If I may say so, sir, the men aboard this pontoon are endangered by the distance they are sitting off from us. If we are struck in any serious fashion this deck will not serve to keep many alive.’

  ‘A risk we must take, Mr Pearce.’

  Both were forced to duck then as a ball whistled over their heads to land in the sea. Pearce knew there was no point in asking Digby if he could swim; nothing would alter his need to do his duty, that being a subject on which he and his superior had crossed swords before. Digby had only his naval career to give him any hope of advancement. John Pearce had no desire to prosper in the service; his sole aim, indeed his entire presence on this station, was exclusively to do with the need to fulfil a promise made to his Pelicans to get them free from the bonds of false impressment. He also had a deep desire to see in the dock at the Old Bailey the man who had brought them to this.

  ‘I feel the men would be happier if they thought the risk a shared one, sir.’

  Digby did not look at him, but there was a tense note in his voice. ‘You are not telling me, I hope, that they would refuse their duty.’

  The reply from Pearce was not tense, it was terse; nothing got his ire more than a blind sense of obligation to orders, however idiotic. ‘No sir, but I am saying it would be a pleasing thought that if the worst happens the men manning the guns might, instead of drowning, survive to fight another day.’

  He heard Digby take in a deep breath, and he guessed that in being so tactless he had probably dented any chance of his superior relenting. Happenstance came to his aid as another ball flew in, this time striking his pontoon on the very furthest edge, removing a sizeable chunk of timber, but bouncing off to ricochet harmlessly into the sea. The sound was worse than the effect as both men stared at the gap torn in the timbers. Obviously, if that same shot had hit further in, the platform on which they stood might have been so damaged as to be unable to remain afloat.

  A new sound from the flagship echoed across the bay, a booming reverberation that was not from a fired cannon, but one much louder, which had Digby searching for the cause through his telescope. He could
observe little, but there seemed to be a sense of confusion on the quarterdeck, which he had to assume meant the vessel had been hit hard.

  ‘Flag signalling, your honour,’ called the lookout unnecessarily.

  Digby shifted his telescope to the mainmast, but, with the advent of an offshore breeze, the message could be seen with the naked eye. Admiral Gell was breaking off the action and HMS St George swung round, followed by Aurore, presenting to the pontoons the side of the ships that had faced the enemy, allowing those manning them to see the extensive damage they had sustained, with only the lookouts in the tops having any real notion of whether they had replied enough in kind. Just as troubling as the smashed bulwarks and blown-in scantlings, was the signal at the masthead of the flagship, which Digby read out.

  ‘Engage the enemy more closely?’

  There was disbelief in his voice, and John Pearce shared that when he heard it. If a ship mounting a dozen 32-pounders on one side of her lower deck could not sustain the action, what chance did they have, for once the line-of-battle ships were out of range they would be the only target left.

  ‘He surely cannot be asking us to move closer inshore?’

  ‘We have hauled up as much as we dare on our shoreside anchors,’ Pearce said. ‘To move in further would mean…’

  ‘I know what it would mean, Mr Pearce.’

  The boats would have to come in, manoeuvre the pontoons to pluck the anchors from the seabed, execute various tows in different directions to get the platforms set again, and all the while they would be at the mercy of that battery – more so than they were now – without even the ability to return fire, for nothing could be done with the cannon being secured.

  ‘I think that is an instruction you can easily ignore, sir.’

  ‘Yet our friend yonder is calling in his boats.’

  ‘He’s a fool.’

  ‘He is a naval officer, Mr Pearce, doing what is required of him.’

  ‘Sir, we have been lucky so far. That would hardly last in our present position, let alone closer inshore.’

  ‘Nevertheless, Mr Pearce, you must call in our boats.’ Pearce hesitated, until Digby added, ‘I think, that having served together these last weeks, and knowing how I backed you off La Rochelle, I can count on your support.’

  John Pearce had no choice but to comply; he did owe him for that, having indulged in an extremely risky venture to rescue some French officers in danger of being guillotined. On that voyage to the Bay of Biscay and back, acting as escort to the returning French sailors, he had come to know his commanding officer well. He liked Henry Digby, even if he thought him to have a parochial mind, blinkered religious views, and limited experience of the world. That had consisted of a rural life until he was aged thirteen, with some schooling thrown in, followed by the cloistered world of a midshipman’s berth in the Royal Navy, and finally his examination and elevation to his present rank.

  The fellow seeking to dissuade him had experienced much variation in his life and, in possession of a wider understanding of the world, he had an independence of mind not granted to someone like Digby. Not for John Pearce a normal childhood: he had followed his father around the country as his parent sought to spread his message by pen and speech that the world in which his countrymen lived was a corrupt entity suited to those with wealth, while being inimical to the well-being of those without. Adam Pearce, the so-called Edinburgh Ranter, had a strong sense of his own virtue, a wide range of knowledge and trenchant opinions, plus the benefit of that most precious asset for a man of slender means, a Scottish education, first from the Kirk school, followed by a deep reading of the classics at Edinburgh University, much of which he had passed on to his son.

  In consequence John Pearce had a familiarity with much not vouchsafed to a naval officer, or many other people for that matter. He had met famous men, visited endless towns, stayed in great houses and leaky barns, slept under the summer stars, walked the edge of crowds listening to his father speak, collecting in his cap the means they needed to eat if they were in thrall to the message, looking for the means of swift departure if they were hostile. He had sat close to his father as he conversed among people with opinions of interest, though rarely of wholehearted agreement, suffered with him a spell in the Fleet prison and, forced to flee a King’s Bench warrant for sedition, reached his manhood in the hothouse of a Paris newly liberated from the stultifying grip of absolute monarchy.

  Yet Pearce also knew Henry Digby to be trapped: decline the order and he would be branded a coward – he could certainly be finished in the service. Obey and he might well perish. To a man in his position there was no alternative, and he was worthy of support so, picking up the speaking trumpet, Pearce called in their boats, this while Digby ordered the cannon to be secured, though left loaded for immediate reuse. As these orders were being issued the French artillerymen were giving the line-of-battle ships a send off to remember.

  Even when they were out of range they peppered the sea with shot, throwing up high spouts of seawater that looked like celebration; they were also telling the whole fleet that when it came to supplies, they had enough cannonballs and powder to waste on what was a demonstration. Finally they let fly with their largest cannon, the culverin which had initiated the Allied response, a single shot that showed the ships were still in range and a warning to stay well away from that particular shore.

  The boats came in slowly; clearly the coxswains shared the view that what they were about was reckless. A loud and cursing Pearce had the oars digging harder, for if Digby could be diminished by non-compliance with an order, common seamen could be strung up at the yardarm for the same thing. Seeing them put their backs into their oars, Pearce went to where his Pelicans were now gathered, round the windlass, waiting to ply the anchors, well aware that none of them could swim.

  ‘I think I’s goin’ to ask to serve under another officer, Mr Pearce,’ said Blubber Booth. ‘Old Latimer here was right, bein’ with thee is too dangerous.’

  ‘I heard you’se already had one barky sunk under you, your honour,’ said a sailor standing within earshot, a man unknown to Pearce.

  ‘Then take comfort from it, fellow, for I am still here. If this damn thing we’re sat on is hit—’

  ‘When,’ Charlie Taverner said.

  Pearce ignored the interruption. ‘If it begins to break up, find a large piece of timber and hang on to it. Even if our boats can’t do the job, there are plenty more out there with the fleet, so rescue will come quick and the water is warm.’

  ‘Hark at it, lads,’ hooted a grinning Latimer. ‘Allas cling to the wreckage.’

  ‘How can you be so jolly at a time like this?’ demanded Charlie.

  ‘No choice, shipmate, no choice.’

  ‘Holy Christ in heaven,’ cried Michael O’Hagan, who was looking over Pearce’s shoulder.

  He spun round to see, arcing through the air, trailing two lines of smoke, the first heated shot they had faced. What was worse, before the twin balls hissed into the sea, the whole battery opened up, having now aimed their guns at the pontoons. The air was suddenly full of flying metal, sound, and displaced water.

  The first strike was again on their consort, and this time it hit on the barrel of one of the cannon, which slewed sideways, breaking its restraints with such force that it tipped the pontoon into a sudden list. Pearce watched in horror as the two blue coats aboard, a lieutenant and a midshipman, rushed to try and keep it from capsizing them, only to be carried by it into the water as it tipped overboard, sliding into the sea, with them screaming underneath. All around him the sea boiled as ball after ball struck home, and he found himself emitting blaring and blasphemous imprecations at the boats to tow them out of danger.

  ‘Mr Pearce,’ Digby shouted, and Pearce turned to see him standing as if nothing untoward had happened, telescope tucked under his arm, speaking trumpet in his hand, his stance and face one of total normality. ‘Our duty, sir.’

  He raised the trumpet and called
to the other pontoon to enquire about the officers, but all he received from that was a negative shrug from men too busy seeing to those who had worked that piece, many of whom had serious wounds. Next he ordered all the boats to steer the damaged platform so they could form one entity, double madness to Pearce, since it increased the size of the target. That it proved to be so was no cause for satisfaction – the French gunners were flushed with success; they had driven off the capital ships so these two platforms were going to be no more than icing.

  With the range closing they had elevated their guns, an easy thing to achieve on land-based ramps, so that now the two pontoons were subjected to a more plunging form of fire. The next salvo arced much higher and came down upon them from a greater height, so that when one landed ten feet from John Pearce it shook the whole structure as it went right through the deck timbers, leaving behind it a wide hole with jagged wooden edges.

  That the pontoon could stand, though the same could not be said for any flesh close enough to be struck. It was the shots that hit the edge that were the danger, for under the decking there lay the sealed empty barrels that kept the thing afloat. It soon became obvious they did not need to be hit directly; Pearce saw the staves of one barrel fly into the air from a ball that hit the water close by – break open enough of those and the whole thing would sink from the weight of the guns alone.

  Digby had finally realised the situation was hopeless; he was now yelling through the speaking trumpet, ordering the anchor cables cut so the boats could haul them out and clear. When Pearce joined him, he said, though his face was gloomy, ‘There is a way of a difference, I think, between discretion and valour, sir.’

  They could see the oarsmen in the boats, all now towing in a seaward direction, near to standing as they strained at their sticks, this while they and the pontoons were subjected to a withering fire. The heated shot that hit Digby’s pontoon did not go through the planking; it embedded itself within a foot of the gunner’s hutch and began immediately to burn the splintered wood around it.