Pistoleer: Roundway Down

by Smith, Skye

  So far so good. Rob waved to his men and then gave them another signal. They began to walk along the decks, moving quickly but silently in bare feet to their next task. That was to make sure that none of the officers or crew could leave their quarters. With pins and lines and bars they now jammed doors and hatches, and then stood guard at each one. Meanwhile some of Rob's expendables had managed to climb aboard, and now they were getting ready to use their axes to cut all of the shore lines that held her to the quay.

  Rob ran along the quayside gunnels frantically motioning to his axemen. There was no one on the quay, and since the only way to reach the cliff quay was by boat, there was no immediate need to cut the ship free. "Change of plans, change of plans," he said as he passed each axeman, "stand by with your axes, but don't cut the lines unless I say so."

  It must have been the light thumping needed to jam the doors and the hatchways that got the crew below decks wondering what was going on, for suddenly there were shouts and calls and questions filling the calm night air. Some of the crew forced a blocked hatch and began climbing out onto the main deck. For causing trouble they got two dragon loads of birdshot and quicklime in their faces. Those shots would have woken the town, never mind the crew, so now there was no time to lose.

  Tow lines were thrown down to the 'expendables' still waiting in the three launches, who had taken up the oars. Those men were mostly land lubbers, but there was no longer a need for subtlety on the oars, and sure enough there was no subtlety at all as the launches pulled away from the side of the ship. They put their backs into those oars and the three launches moved out into the river until the tow lines were taut. Rob yelled to them to stay ready in that position, just in case.

  Meanwhile there was an increasing noise of the thumping of dozens of hands and boots against blocked doors and hatches. Rob had no idea how large a crew were aboard, and he certainly didn't want to find out in a fight. He made sure that the landlubbers in the launches had understood what he wanted, and then he ran to the jammed door that led to the officers cabins beneath the stern castle.

  He reached there just as the door splintered and gave way. There were angry men on the other side of that door, armed men, so he gave no warning before he fired his dragon into the blackness behind the splintered door. The two Lymemen guarding the door took his shot as an order, and fired theirs as well, with the effect that the entire area became foul with acrid stinging smoke. It was billowing so thickly that it forced the three of them to step backwards out of it before taking their next breath.

  The calls of anger and outrage from inside the cabin immediately turned into coughing and shrieks of pain and anguish. Three dragons of birdshot and lime would not have killed any of them, but all of them would have been blinded, either temporarily or for life. Simply breathing in a bit of the smoke made your nose and eyes sting and your throat burn.

  Rob threw down his empty dragon to free up both of his hands. He needed both free to grab an arm each of his two helpers before he dove to the side of the gaping doorway, dragging them with him. His helpers both fell heavily and they cursed him, but in the next moment they were praising his forethought as a new cloud of gun smoke erupted from the cabin doorway. Blinded men may not have the best aim, but they can still pull a trigger.

  "You in the cabin!" Rob yelled out. "Your eyes need immediate care else you risk being blinded for the rest of your lives. Your ship is taken and we are preparing to slip the lines. The quay is empty so there is no rescue coming. Put your weapons down and come out. No tricks. All we ask in return for saving your sight is that one of your officers orders your crew to calm down and stop fighting us. Once there is peace aboard, we will have the time to attend your eyes."

  The only sound that came from the cabin was the sound of men squabbling. Finally a voice, a feeble voice that coughed between words, called back. "We surrender. The master is ashore, so I am in command. I will tell the crew to behave, but you will have to lead me about the decks for my vision is blurred."

  * * * * *

  It took the best part of an hour to coax all the crew out of their hiding places and secure them. As soon as any blinded men submitted to being bound, Rob's men began flushing their eyes, noses, and throats with clean water, lots of clean water. They had to be bound first, not to secure them as prisoners, but because the pain of the flushing may set them to struggling. In the end, the blinded men were in luck because there was fresh milk aboard, and so the final flush and drink was of milk. Milk soothed the sting better than anything.

  Once the flushing was done, and the fears of being blinded were subdued, then Rob's men set about removing the imbedded bird shot from faces and necks, and applying salve to the burns caused by glowing embers and powder. Seven of their prisoners would never be pretty again, but only one of them would likely be blind in both eyes for life. Unfortunately he was just a lad, a midshipman. Rob felt heartsick for him, but he had no time to ponder the lad's fate because Sam was calling him up to the bridge .

  "They're coming across from the town in dories and skiffs," Sam told him as Rob stepped onto the bridge.

  "Are any of the cannons loaded yet?"

  "Some."

  "With what?"

  "Grape."

  "Bugger. There's no such thing as a warning with grape. Pour some powder into an empty cannon and give them some gunsmoke as a warning. Follow it up with some pistol fire. Let's give them enough to worry about to make them turn back. Oh, and call our own launches back alongside just in case we are forced to use the grape."

  While Sam raced down to the gun deck to supervise the shots, Rob walked a slow circle around his bridge. His bridge. Never had he commanded such a large and formidable ship. The tide was still inching higher but not enough to worry him. On the Wye the current upstream was never as furious as when the tide retreated. He kept his eye on the launches. The three launches were rowing clumsily back to the ship, but the boats of the port folk were gaining on them.

  A big gun went off in a cacophony of sound and smoke. He stared towards the lights on the Chepstow bank. If you watched carefully you could see the moving shadows that marked the small flotilla that was coming towards them. That was about all you could see.

  Sam came running back to him to report, "The men think they have turned away the boats. What now?"

  "There is not much we can do until daybreak. Not until we can see. Before we move her we must see how this ship is rigged, and be able to spot the river bars and snags. Has there been any signal from above yet?" Any messages from the army would come by way of the scouts they had left in place above them on the cliff.

  "No signal, not yet," Sam replied.

  "I don't know this river or its bars or its tides, so it is likely best to do nothing but keep her tied to this quay, and keep the townsfolk far away. Your squad can take the first watch, while the rest of us get some sleep. Tell your men to be sure to ease the mooring lines as the tide drops. Tell the men in the launches to tie them to the ship and come aboard to get some sleep."

  By first light the tide was ebbing swiftly and the ship was gnawing at the rope fenders between her and the quay, but otherwise the wind and the townfolk remained calm. By sun-up the ship had dropped four feet so that the level of the carved quay was level with the ship's main deck. Once there was full daylight those squads not on watch busied themselves with figuring out the rigging. It was the watch in the crow’s-nest who first heard the message shouted down from the scouts on the cliff top, and they relayed it, "Waller's army is approaching the town!"

  "Sam," Rob called out to his brother. "Do you see that stretch of the port's wall beyond those sloping quays on the other side. There are no houses near to it. Load two cannons with balls and then see if you can hit that wall. It will serve as a reminder to the garrison that Waller has the help of our cannons, and as a reminder to the port folk with the skiffs that we will sink them if they come towards us."

  "Should I send a squad to secure the other ships?" Sam asked. There
were two small coastal ship moored ahead of them against the cliff.

  "Nay. They will surrender soon enough once the town surrenders to Waller. Just don't let them slip away on us."

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  The Pistoleer - Roundway Down by Skye Smith Copyright 2014-15

  Chapter 16 - Escaping from a Trap at Chepstow in March 1643

  The castle garrison and the ancient walled town of Chepstow surrendered to General Waller after a standoff of less than three hours, that being the amount of time that Waller had given them before he threatened that the Dragon of Bristol would begin lobbing cannon balls into the town. Much later that day, once the surrender was complete, Rob sent a launch to fetch the general to the ship and then had him whistled aboard navy style.

  Waller would have been more impressed if instead of the ceremony Rob had produced a reckoning of everything of value aboard the ship. So it was that while Sam commandeered one of the smaller ships to tow the borrowed launches back across the Severn to hand them, with thanks, back to their Huguenot owners in Aust, Rob busied himself with writing a full manifest. He finished it just in time to join Waller and the general staff at dinner in the George Inn near the gate house in the port wall. The George was famous for its shellfish stew, or at least so said the sign in front of the carriage house.

  On Rob's arrival, Waller pushed his bowl of famous stew aside so that he could feast on the manifest instead. The manifest was thin gruel in comparison. "This is all," he said raising an eye to Rob. "This is just ship's gear. The most valuable things are the cannons. Even these quantities of powder and shot are only enough for the ship's own use."

  "The ship's officers told me that they had already unloaded their cargo," Rob told him as he passed him the manifest of the cargo the ship had unloaded in Chepstow a few weeks ago. It was signed by the previous master, a master who had since vanished from the town, as had most of the royalist army officers. "It is likely that all weapons, munitions, and ordinance that you captured from the Welsh army in Highnam were brought on this ship from Holland, and then transshipped on barges up the Wye to Monmouth to arm the Welsh."

  "Oh well, at least the ship is valuable. Are you and your men able to sail her as far as Bristol?"

  Rob smiled at Waller, one of the richest men in the kingdom. Through his shares in the Providence Island Company, the general was a part owner of many ships. There was no better time to make his own desires known to the general. "I suggest that my men and I sail from here and use the ship to patrol the mouth of the Severn and Bridgwater Bay to make sure that no other ship can supply the king's men in Wales. My own ships are on the Dorset coast at Lyme, but it would take us a week or more for us to bring them around Cornwall."

  Waller cocked an eye at him, as did all of the other officers at the table including Arthur Haselrig, Waller's second in command.

  Arthur spoke under his breath to the Sergeant Major sitting beside him, "More boasting from the short windbag."

  The Major did not encourage Haselrig by whispering back. Instead he said, "That was sweet work capturing that ship and then holding her in place in case we needed her guns. Well done Captain Blake. Should we not continue with the royalist strategy of using the ship's guns to hold the town?"

  "Nay, the royalist strategy had a great flaw," Rob replied, and then when no one nodded their heads, he explained. "The cliff above it, sir. If we had failed to capture her, we would have destroyed her by dropping gun powder bombs and fire bombs down on her from the top of the cliff."

  "Aye, well done in capturing her," Arthur agreed in a sarcastic tone. "Worthy of a Barbary pirate.” The men around him began nodding as they brought old memories to mind. At the beginning of his reign, King Charles and the Duke of Buckingham had lost the English navy in the Cadiz Expedition of 1625. Charles increased the hated Ships Money Tax in order to rebuild the navy, but meanwhile the waters leading to the Severn had been raided by Barbary pirates.

  Everyone at this table knew this all too well, for the loss of the navy and the subsequent tax was what had driven the wedge between Charles and his parliament. That wedge had now become a civil war. Buckingham was eventually assassinated, but that was more likely revenge for his dalliances with the French Queen, than for imposing the hated tax.

  "In my youth I was captured by Barbary pirates and was held as a slave for some months," Rob told Arthur, "until my uncle, who was the king's trade ambassador to Morocco at the time, bargained my release. I have seen Barbary pirates take ships first hand, and you are correct. My own tactics borrowed much from them."

  Arthur sat back while thinking of a cutting retort, but meanwhile there was a commotion at the door and a rough man pushed through the general's ensigns while dragging another, better dressed man with him. The commotion set hands to swords, just in case, but Rob stood up and called out that weapons weren't necessary. "That is the sergeant of my scouts. Let him through. He wouldn't be barging in here unless it were urgent."

  "Aye Cap'n, that it is," Fodder called out over the grumbling and the scraping of chairs. He touched his cap to the general at the head of the table, and said, "Beggin' yer pardon yer lordship, but the man I bring to thee is a messenger from Gov’n’r Massie of Gloucester. We rescued him from a small party of royalists and have brought him straight to you. He's a bit winded and in pain, so would you rather hear his message from my lips?"

  "Continue."

  "The gov’n’r says that Prince Maurice and two thousand horse have copied your cunning and created a floating bridge near Twekesbury to cross the Severn. They are riding south in a hurry, most likely to cut you off from getting back to Gloucester. The gov’n’r is worried that it may be the first action of a storming of Gloucester." Fodder took a breath, noticed the bowls of stew and licked his lips. "Maurice, he's the devil prince's brother, yes?"

  "Captain, see that these men are fed," Waller told Rob, and then to the other officers, "Let us think about this latest news while we finish our meal. The discussion can wait until after the pots are sided, and we are drinking genever.” He nodded to the two men covered in road dust, and then waved they and Rob away in a silent dismissal.

  "Good timing Fodder," Rob complained as he took the two into the kitchen to arrange for their food. "Waller was just about to give me command of the ship, but then you barged in."

  "No fear, cap'n. Who else does he have to command her, right here, right now, with Prince Maurice and two thousand cavalryers heading this way? Eh? Eh? Aye, there may be other men in this town who could do the job, but can he trust any of them? Eh? Eh?"

  Rob nodded thoughtfully. Fodder had a knack for cutting to the heart of situations. "This messenger of yours is done in. He needs a bed more than food," Rob said, and then went in search of the innkeeper to arrange for a bed as well as food.

  "Oy," Fodder called out to his back, "What about me and my squad?"

  Rob turned and replied, "You will all rejoin my company and bed down on my ship."

  "Your ship, now, is it?"

  "We captured her so she is my command until the general says otherwise," Rob told him contritely. "Though it would have been far better had I captured a valuable cargo along with the ship."

  "There was no cargo?" Fodder wondered aloud. "Already unloaded then. Hmm, well there goes a bob. I wagered a bob that Maurice was racing here to keep the ship and cargo out of Waller's hands."

  "Why would you wager on such a thing?" Rob asked.

  "Well it was the only thing that made sense, weren't it?" Fodder shrugged. "If all Maurice wanted to do was to block Waller from getting back to Gloucester, then why would he bother coming all this way. He could do that closer to Gloucester. There must be another reason for him to come all this way, so the ship seemed a good bet." He shrugged again. "Tell me cap'n. You know ships. If there is no cargo aboard, then is the ship itself reason enough? Is it that valuable?"

  "No," Rob went quiet for a moment. "No it isn't." He was now almost twitching with new found ener
gy. "See your friend to his bed, and then gather your squad and meet me at the ship.” With that he turned and almost ran out of the Inn.

  * * * * *

  General Waller and two of his staff officers were whistled aboard the Dragon of Bristol as the first rays of sun turned the white cliffs above the ship a soft yellow. Rob greeted him as he stepped aboard.

  "Robert, this thing with Maurice doesn't make sense," Waller began, while ignoring the navy formalities that Rob had arranged, "and though I've tossed and turned all night thinking about it, I can still make no sense of it."

  "You mean, why is he bothering to chase you this far if all he wants to do is block you from getting back to Gloucester?" Rob asked.

  "Exactly. Especially since he risks being caught between my army and the garrison at Gloucester. It is foolish, and though Maurice is known to be a proud prig like his brother, neither of them are fools."

  "It can only means that there is something very important in Chepstow that he wants," Rob added, "or at least wants to keep out of your hands."

  "My thoughts exactly, and that is what has been bothering me all night long. What could it be?"

  "Come and join me for some fresh kofe in my cabin," Rob told the general and his escort of subalterns, his well tailored escort. He suddenly felt quite shabby as he led them through a hastily repaired cabin door and through the officer's mess and into his command cabin. He warned them to duck under the beams, something he himself never needed to do, and seeing these pristine officers bowing and stooping made him feel a bit better about himself.

  "William, you take yours with sugar, yes?" Rob asked of Waller as he walked to the one table in the room to pour the kofe. "You will find it in that chest beside your chair. Please open the lid and pass it to me.” He did not bother to pour the kofe, because he was too intent on watching Waller's face as he opened the chest.