The Alouette spun on her heel as they passed her stern and came alongside. Swivel guns cracked and grapnels flew snagging on rigging, upper works, and even an unfortunate sailor. The two ships were tied together like lovers and the Alouette’s vaulted the side howling their war cries.
It was all over in minutes; the French threw down their weapons and James had control of the ship. He took the officers onto the Alouette and installed a prize crew backed up by a squad of marines to control the prisoners.
Chapter 13: Cleaning up
James sat across the table from Marty and tucked into the excellent pie they were having for dinner.
“The second corvette will be ready to sail after a fashion tomorrow,” Marty told him, “and we will be ready tonight. Do you think you will be able to escort them back to base on your own?”
“Certainly, especially with extra marines to guard the crews,” James confirmed with a grin.
“You want some extra marines?” Marty laughed at his cheek.
“It would make life simpler.”
“Alright, you can have them. What about the captain of the one you took?”
“It was his first voyage as senior. In fact, both of them had absolutely no experience whatsoever.”
Marty shook his head. The French must be short of commanding officers if they entrusted such an important convoy to a couple of inexperienced lieutenants.
“Did you see any other transports after you left the Eagle?” Marty asked.
“No, none at all.”
Marty sat back and thought about that. The last he remembered before the powder ship went up was the convoy scattering. He closed his eyes trying to picture the scene. He opened them and resumed eating.
“Well, Ryan should have picked up the two you saw and with any luck will have had the sense to maintain his patrol outside of Santander. If he has, he will pick up any that get that far.”
He paused to savour a particularly tasty morsel then carried on,
“I will sweep around to the East and see if any are over that way, then circle around to rendezvous with the Eagle. I will collect up any prizes he has and escort them all back to Gibraltar where I will complete my repairs.
Get back here as soon as you have resupplied and bring supplies for the Eagle as well, as you will both stay here until I get back.”
James gathered up his charges the next morning and set off for home. A pair of corvettes would net them a fair profit once the prize court got around to valuing and buying them in.
Marty got his battered ship underway and went hunting the scattered transports. The current in that part of Biscay circulated to the North in a generally anticlockwise fashion so any other ships that were caught in the blast when the powder ship went up would drift that way. Marty decided to swing up to the Northeast then make his way down the coast to Bilbao.
They didn’t have to go far, just over the horizon they spotted a transport adrift with half a mast. As they approached, the rail of the ship was lined with men waving and shouting.
They hove to half a cable away and sent over the barge and cutter. The French crew was so desperate that they welcomed them on board and once they had it secured, the carpenter and doctor went over. One to tend the sick and the other to repair the ship.
“She’s loaded with cannon and carriages, according to the crew she was one of two carrying the guns. There were another two, specialist transports, for the horses and two troop carriers for the soldiers. She was next in line to the powder ship and caught the worst of the blast. They managed to sail for a couple of hours then the mast broke. They’ve been drifting ever since,” Lieutenant Stamp reported.
“Repairs?” Marty asked.
“We will have a jury-rigged mast ready by this evening and can make slow way.”
“Take command of her and make your way towards Santander. You should find the Eagle down there. I will rendezvous with you at the latest in three days and then escort you and the other prizes back to base,” Marty instructed.
Happy to have his own command. Andrew Stamp returned to his ship and set course for Santander.
The Bay had other ideas.
Out in the Atlantic, a storm was brewing; it was a big, low-pressure area and it was heading straight into the Bay. The winds were gusting over sixty miles an hour and the waves being pushed ahead of it were becoming monstrous.
Andrew was struggling with the ship. The wind was too much on the beam for easy sailing in this scow and he couldn’t make more than four or five knots while it wallowed like a sick pig. He was making progress towards Santander but at this rate, he was looking at getting there at around the same time as Marty.
He sniffed the wind, which was swinging towards the West. It smelled of seaweed and salt. He looked suspiciously toward the horizon and saw the sunset had an angry look to it. He called the Bosun’s mate,
“Check all the hatches are dogged down and get canvas over them with battens to hold it down. Seal the ship up as much as you can. Bring the French captain to me as soon as you’ve done that.”
They continued South as the sun set and he noticed the ship was wallowing noticeably more as the sea was picking up and hitting them on the beam. The captain appeared.
“Look,” Andrew said and pointed to the sky to the West.
“Oh my God, that is a storm! We have to get to shelter immediately!” cried the captain.
“With this wind, we will never make Santander,” Andrew decided, “Where should we go?”
“Where are we?” the captain asked,
“As far as I can tell, here.” Andrew indicated a point on the chart Northeast of Santander.
The Captain looked at the sky, sniffed the wind, then pointed to a point on the coast further east.
“Bilbao.”
Marty also noticed the change and went to his cabin to look at the barometer. It had dropped an inch and as he watched it was creeping lower.
He laid a chart out on the desk, pulled out a magnifier from his drawer, and scanned the coast to the west of him. He stood up, puffed out his cheeks worriedly, and looked again.
His hearing was coming back and he could hear the creaking as the ship was taking the growing waves. He finally saw what he was looking for.
On the quarterdeck, the wind was picking up, and he met the master in the chart room.
“We need to head into here,” he said, indicating the point on the chart. “Acheron bay, it’s the only shelter East of here.”
“I’ve never been there,” Grey responded with a frown. “Looks like a river estuary.”
“I don’t think we have a choice. If I’m any judge, what’s coming will drive us right onto the lee shore otherwise.”
They set course, running before the wind. With the waves on their stern, it was a deceptively comfortable ride. The coast came into sight, and they turned South looking for the entrance to the bay. They found it, and Marty put two good men in the chains sounding the depth. They had to work hard to stay off the banks that lined the northern entrance to the bay, and they crept in under almost no sail at all.
The channel swung to the North behind a headland and Marty decided that as the light was fading, they would anchor there. The storm picked up and the wind howled through the upper rigging that was stuck up above the headland. Marty ordered the top masts taken down to reduce the force on the ship.
Ryan captured two ships full of soldiers. He was keeping them under his guns but now he had a problem- a storm was coming in from the West and there was no way he could keep them close by. His alternatives were to sink them. The thought of the wholesale drowning of so many men made him feel physically sick. Take the risk that his men would be overwhelmed, and the ships recaptured by the French in the storm as soon as he lost contact, or find shelter.
The wind and waves were picking up and he made his decision. Gunners without guns were just foot soldiers, he reasoned, so he would enter Santander bay and shelter there. If he anchored far enough out from the shore, he
might even come away with his prizes.
Andrew had every man on the ship working. French sailors hauled next to English and the pump was working constantly. Even the French captain bent his back when needed.
The Ria de Bilbao was an estuary and was sheltered enough that they could anchor and sit out the storm, but they had to get there first. The transport was heavy but to jettison cargo meant opening the hatches and with the seas as high as they were it wasn’t practical.
So they pumped till their hands bled and fought the bitch until they turned in and scuttled almost sideways into the shelter of the hills.
James had a different problem. The more damaged of the two corvettes was taking on water and foundering, she would never make the coast. He positioned the Alouette and the second corvette to windward of the stricken craft forming a lee so they could boat off the prize crew and prisoners. That done, they abandoned her and sailed South towards Santander. They would shelter in the bay and get out as soon as the storm allowed them.
The storm was fast moving to start with but as it entered the bay, it slowed as it was trapped by the surrounding hills and like many storms before it, all it could do was rage and spend itself there.
Rage it did for two full days before it started to run out of energy. It took another day to die down to the point anyone would want to sail in it.
Andrew sat on the shore and emptied the water out of his shoes. Most of the crew and prisoners managed to get ashore before the ship sank.
It was ironic, he thought. The ship had made it into the bay but halfway through the night had sprung a couple of planks below the waterline and sunk in a matter of minutes. Luckily, a lookout noticed the sea edging up the side and raised the alarm. He lost two men who were trapped below but the rest managed to get in the ships boat or get a hold of something that floated and gotten ashore.
His problem now was they were beached in enemy territory and to make it worse, a line of horsemen had appeared on the hill to the south of them.
Ryan was woken by a grinning Midshipman Archer.
“Excuse me, sir, but there is something you should see,” he chirped excitedly.
“It had better be bloody good!” Ryan grumbled as he pulled on his boots. He had only had three hours sleep and the storm was still howling outside.
Once on deck, he looked around and his jaw dropped. There anchored in line with him was the Alouette and a French corvette with the Union Jack flying above the French tricolour just visible through the rain. James stood at the rail and waved as he saw him.
“Rough night!” he shouted above the wind and rain. “Come over for breakfast!”
It only took a minute to boat over and he was soon down in James’ cabin drinking a coffee.
“We came in around midnight and saw your ships in the lightning’s light. The Eagle is easily recognizable- there aren’t many Baltimore Clippers in this part of the world,” James told him as his steward brought in plates of fried ham and eggs. They had indeed navigated in by the light of the lightning that had played almost constantly across the sky. “What cargo are those ships carrying?”
“A brigade of seasick soldiers,” Ryan replied, “They got so ill in the storm that you could guard them with two snotty mids with buckets. What happened to the Formidiable?”
James filled him in and when he finished, they ate in silence for a while.
“All we can do is wait until this weather passes and then get back out to the patrol area,” James stated and then concluded, “if they don’t get here in four days one of takes the prizes back to Gibraltar and the other goes and looks for them.”
That was a sobering thought- the idea that Marty and the Formidiable could be laying wrecked on the French coast somewhere made them both anxious.
James sighed,
“Whatever we will need to get out of this bay as soon as we can, the French may have a battery overlooking it and we will be sitting ducks if we stay.”
At the same time, Marty sat in his cabin with Blaez’s head in his lap while Shelby examined the dog carefully. Blaez had collapsed not long after Marty returned to his cabin.
Shelby sat back and frowned.
“I can’t find anything physically wrong. There isn’t any swelling in his abdomen, his heart rate and breathing are normal.” He thought for a moment.
“Was he with you when that ship blew up?”
“Yes! We were on the quarterdeck; he was knocked out cold,” Marty told him.
“Then I have an idea what is wrong. Sometimes when a person is knocked out or gets a hard blow to the head, they can carry on for quite some time as if there is nothing wrong, and then, quite suddenly, exhibit signs of concussion.”
“What, like it’s delayed or something?” Marty asked.
“Yes, or it comes back again after the first instance.”
“Will he be alright?” Marty asked his heart in his mouth.
“With rest, he should make a complete recovery. He needs to be watched and if he tries to be sick you must prevent him choking on it.”
Sam, who was listening from the door into the steward’s galley, stepped forward,
“Don’t you worry, boss. Sam will look after Blaez.”
Marty looked up at him, concern written plain across his face and said,
“Thank you, my friend.”
It was a long two days that they sat in the lee of the headland and when the weather cleared, it became obvious that to get out, they would have to go into the bay to turn the Formidiable so she could sail out. In fact, Marty was surprised they had gotten in without running aground the passage was so narrow.
Blaez slept on for another day then woke hungry and thirsty. He looked and behaved as if nothing happened and Marty spoiled him rotten.
They felt their way into the bay until they could turn the Formidiable safely around and head back out to the open sea.
Marty thought if they headed South along the coast, they might find the escaped transports and gave orders accordingly, but after about twenty nautical miles, he wished he hadn’t.
They started seeing pieces of wreckage then the fins of sharks heading towards some point ahead of them. A half-eaten horse’s body bumped against the hull as they slid past it, then another being feasted on by a score of sharks amid boiling water as they thrashed and spun to tear chunks off. A little further along and the sea was covered in bloated horse corpses, so many that they couldn’t avoid hitting them, occasionally they burst, and clouds of fetid gas blew across the deck. Flies flew thick in the air and swarmed on the rotting meat.
Then they saw that the transport had been driven up onto the beach and pounded to pieces by the waves. The horses perished as the crew had absolutely no way to get them off the ship. Marty, hardened as he was to the sights of the consequences of war, had never seen anything like it and had to swallow the bile that came up into his throat at the sight. Other men were reduced to tears, the British sailor was sentimental concerning animals, especially horses and dogs.
They broke clear of the debris field and stood a little further out to sea in case the second horse transport had suffered the same fate.
Andrew Stamp stood and raised his hands above his head, the squad of French Lancers that had trotted down the hill now surrounded them with their lances lowered into the attack position. The French captain stepped forward and spoke to the Ensign in command,
“These men are my prisoners, they helped us to get our ship into the bay ahead of the storm where it unfortunately sunk. We should take them to Santoña or Santander where the commander of the Naval group can decide on what to do with them.” The ensign looked down his nose under the peak of his hat and replied,
“No sir, you will form up and we will take you to our camp. The local military commander can decide what to do with them. If you would start in that direction,” he pointed South, “Our camp is just a couple of kilometres away.”
The trek was miserable. Some of the sailors had no shoes and it was raining hard.
After the first kilometre, most were suffering - the French as well as the English. The soldiers didn’t seem to care and just prodded all of them along with their lances if the lagged behind.
Their ‘camp’ was a fortified position that housed at least a brigade of lancers behind a palisade of logs. Inside, it was well organized and the prisoners, as they all now thought of themselves, were handed over to the guard.
They were herded into a compound with canvas stretched out between the rails in one corner to form a shelter which they huddled under, keeping close to share body warmth.
Eventually after what felt like an age, a sergeant entered and asked for the Captain,
“Come with me. The Commandant wants to talk with you,” he barked as if he was giving orders on a parade ground. The French captain, who Andrew now knew was called Cyril Dupuis, stood and followed him out, complaining loudly about the treatment of loyal French sailors and their prisoners.
A squad of soldiers came and separated the French and English into two groups. Each group was taken out of the compound, and the English were taken to a large tent and pushed inside.
Andrew looked around and saw that the tent had cots for all of them and a stove in the middle that provided some heat. There were rough blankets on the cots and the men started stripping off their wet clothes and wrapping themselves in the blankets to warm up.
The flap opened and a pair of soldiers entered with bundles of old clothes, which were unceremoniously dumped on the first cot. Andrew noticed that a further, two soldiers stood outside with lances at the ready. They left and a jolly fat man and a skinny helper came in with a cauldron of something that smelt like stew, bowls, and sticks of bread.
The bread turned out to be stale, and the stew thin with gristly chunks of unidentifiable meat and a few vegetables, but it was warm and filled them up, so they didn’t care that they ate it with their fingers and mopped the bowls with a heel of bread. After they finished, an officer came in and asked who was in command. Andrew stepped forward and the officer looked at him incredulously obviously expecting an older man. Andrew was cursed, in his opinion, with looking younger than his years.
The Trojan Horse Page 14