by Jay Worrall
THE PORT OF Genoa lay at the head of a long shallow sweep of coastline enclosing a gulf over a hundred miles across. The outer roads were open to the sea, while the port extended inland, the city spreading fan-like around the harbor into the surrounding low hills. Flags of the newly coined Ligurian Republic (minted in France) fluttered languidly over the forts guarding the harbor entrance.
About five miles to the west, Charles thought he saw something that might be the ribs of a wrecked man-of-war among some rocks under a low bluff. He directed Eliot to steer inshore and have a closer look. Pylades sailed on under a bright midafternoon sun with a steady south-westerly breeze. Satisfied that the ship’s bones were neither recent nor substantial enough to be one of Nelson’s seventy-fours, Charles ordered that Louisa stand back out and resume her former course.
Charles watched as Pylades, now almost a mile ahead, slipped across the calm sea, scattering a few coastal traders and fishing smacks as she went. The waters of the bay were a deep blue, the deepest Charles had ever seen. He could see no ships of any consequence in the roadstead; Bevan would signal if there was anything of interest. So Charles was surprised when Pylades’s yards abruptly braced around, and her bow turned to put the wind on her quarter. He was just beginning to wonder at this when a shout came down from the masthead: “Deck there. Somefing’s comin’ out o’ the ’arbor.”
Charles snatched up his glass from the binnacle and steadied it on the harbor entrance. At first he saw nothing; it occurred to him that the wind was nearly foul for anyone attempting to exit its narrow mouth. He transited the lens in one direction, then the other, and then he saw them. They were two, no, three—no, four craft of a type he had seen only once before. He knew immediately what they were—long, narrow, and elaborately ornamented boats, each with a single mast but no sail unfurled. He swallowed hard. They were galleys, an ancient type of warship that had once ruled the Mediterranean but now had almost ceased to exist. He watched, fascinated, as the banks of oars flashed in the sunlight and then fell as one to churn the surface frothy white. The distant boom—boom— boom of drums marking the rowers’ time reached him over the water.
The galleys picked up speed quickly, too quickly for Charles’s liking. They skimmed across the surface, their gilded prows already curling a substantial wave. The four craft neatly divided into two pairs, diverging to starboard and port, and settled their courses to circle around Pylades and attack her from the bow and stern. With his glass, Charles could easily see twin twenty-four-pounder cannon on the bow of each galley, their crews heaving on the tackle to run them forward. The banks of oars rose like wings, then levered forward, then down. Boom—boom—boom. He knew that tiny Pylades, with her six-pounder broadside, had little chance alone in the light wind and calm sea. “Two points to larboard, if you please, Mr. Eliot,” he said to the sailing master. “Mr. Keswick!”
“Aye, sir?” came a call from the waist of the ship.
“Drop the courses, if you will. And hurry about it.”
“Aye-aye, sir,” the boatswain yelled back, and Charles heard his shrill call to send the hands into the rigging to loose the large mainsails. The devil of it was that without Talmage, Charles had to rearrange his officers on the spot and do most of the duties the first would have assumed.
“Mr. Winchester,” he said, the formality of his speech betraying his anxiety, “we will clear for action immediately. After that, if you would be so good as to take command of the gundeck.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
“Mr. Beechum! Where the hell is Beechum?”
“Here, sir,” a voice at the bottom of the ladderway answered.
“Good lad. You will place yourself on the forecastle and direct the carronades. Look to Lieutenant Winchester for your orders.”
“Aye-aye, Captain, sir.” The young man moved forward, loosening his dirk in its scabbard and testing that it was free. Charles felt that he could trust Beechum at the far extremity of the ship. The other midshipman, Michael Sykes, was a different story. Three years younger, he seemed to lack the focus of his older rival.
“Mr. Sykes,” he called to the boy standing expectantly by the binnacle.
“Yes, sir.”
“You will command the quarterdeck guns. You will attend directly to me for orders.”
“Yes, sir,” Sykes answered, smiling with pride. At least on the quarterdeck, Charles decided, he could keep an eye on him.
Charles turned back to study the progress of the galleys, now well out of the harbor. He stared at them in wonder: a scene from the long-bygone era of the great Greek and Roman navies. But the Greeks and Romans didn’t have twenty-four-pounder cannon on gun platforms pointing forward. The farther pair were fast reaching a position where they might turn and fire into Pylades’s unprotected bow. The increasingly urgent meter of the drums echoed across the bay.
To Charles’s surprise, he saw Talmage mount the ladderway to the quarterdeck, unsmiling and immaculate in his full dress uniform and sword. The nominal first lieutenant took a moment to survey the distant Pylades and the circling galleys, then approached.
“Your orders?” he said without saluting.
Charles was not pleased. He had already rearranged his officers to make up for the lieutenant’s absence. Biting back the urge to dismiss Talmage’s offer out of hand, he compromised. “You may replace Mr. Winchester on the gundeck. Send him aft and inform Mr. Beechum in the forecastle of your status.”
Talmage’s eyes narrowed. Without a response, he turned and descended to his appointed station. In effect, Charles had lowered Talmage’s status to that of second and raised Winchester’s to first. A circumstance that both Charles and Talmage understood perfectly.
Winchester arrived moments later, a quizzical look on his face. “Sir?”
“As of now, you are the acting first,” Charles said. “Do you understand?”
“What about Talmage?”
“I don’t give a damn what Mr. Talmage does right now,” Charles said, his anger at the lieutenant’s behavior coming to the surface. “Look, this is intolerable. I can’t have him deciding to appear on deck one day and then disappearing the next, depending on how the mood takes him. It just won’t answer.”
“Yes, sir,” Winchester said.
Charles forced Talmage out of his mind and returned his attention to Bevan’s brig. His pulse quickened. Pylades suddenly turned, her sails ashiver before they were hauled and filled on a new track directly away from the harbor. This maneuver also brought her guns to bear on one pair of galleys, and a small cloud of gunsmoke erupted from her deck as she fired her tiny broadside at extreme range. Charles marked the waterspouts appearing about the Genoan warships, but saw no damage. As Pylades settled on her course, her sails braced up tight. The galleys turned on their keels to take up the slow-moving brig’s wake and attack her undefended stern. Charles cast a quick glance at the second pair, now running parallel and on the opposite course to Louisa. In time they would come around and take up his own rear, he supposed. He decided to ignore them. Boom—boom—boom—boom, he heard clearly, menacing and insistent. The noise irritated him.
Still half a mile or more off, Louisa cleaved across the flat sea toward the gap between Pylades and the fast-closing enemy. Charles found his progress agonizingly slow. It was evident that he wouldn’t be in a position to intercede before the Genovese came within easy range and opened fire. He gritted his teeth. There was little he could do except steer to shave Pylades’s stern as closely as possible and hope that she had not been disabled before he arrived.
“One point to starboard, please, Mr. Eliot,” he ordered, trying to anticipate the point where Pylades would be when he came upon them.
“Yes, sir. One point to starboard,” Eliot answered.
“Beat to quarters, Stephen,” Charles said without removing his eyes from Bevan’s ship and the rapidly closing galleys. Boom—boom— boom—boom, the quickening beat of the nearing galleys rang in his ears. Then came the rat-at-at-at-a
t of Louisa’s marine drummer as his crew ran to their guns and action stations. Above this came four sharp explosions as the galleys opened fire.
Charles noted two tall waterspouts along Pylades’s side. At least one hit midships, he thought. The galleys were closing fast, too fast.
“Starboard a half-point,” he barked at Eliot. “Shot on shot, larboard guns,” he bellowed in a voice that could be heard the length of the ship. “Run them out.”
It would be a near thing, he realized. Louisa was within a cable and a half of Pylades, but the galleys were closer. Charles noticed his fingers beating a tattoo on the railing in front of him, frowned, and balled them into a fist. He watched as the two galleys ran their guns forward, backed their oars, and fired at pistol range. Pylades’s poop deck erupted splinters, and her mizzenmast cracked at the deck, canted to port, and swung down toward the sea in a rending crash.
Having disabled one enemy, the two galleys might have thought to turn and confront the other, but they’d left it too late. Louisa slid almost silently across the water, the damaged Pylades on her starboard, her port side cannon ready. The two galleys hesitated as if undecided, then, with a shouted order, the drums started. The seas alongside churned to froth as one bank of oars backed, the other pulling. They spun nimbly. There was no hope in that direction, Charles thought. He was already too close.
“You may fire when ready, Stephen,” he said.
Winchester moved to the forward rail of the quarterdeck. “Fire as you bear, if you please, Mr. Talmage,” he called down. Charles watched as Talmage acknowledged with a stiff nod.
Seeing their plight as the frigate swept down on them, the commander of the oared craft evidently decided to turn back and face the enemy. In some confusion, the drums pounded and the oars reversed. The bows swung back, their guns almost reloaded.
Beechum’s forward carronades spoke first with devastating effect into the first galley’s gun crews, throwing one cannon off its carriage and back into the first benches of rowers. Then a long ripple of explosions as Louisa’s broadside fired, gun by gun, while they passed. The frail bow of the near galley disintegrated under the onslaught, opening the front of the craft wide to the sea. Charles had no time to watch as she quickly settled beneath the waves.
“Hold your fire,” he snapped at Midshipman Sykes. “We’ll save it for the second.” To Winchester, he said, “Have the foretopsail and topgallant laid to the mast, if you please.” To Eliot: “Down the helm.”
The second galley, fifty yards off Louisa’s bow quarter, fired her twin cannon, one striking the side with a crash, the other screaming through the rigging. Her oars fell into some disorder as she started immediately to turn away. Louisa slowed, with her foresails backed, and began to swing to starboard. As soon as Charles was satisfied, he turned to Sykes. “Now,” he said.
The quarterdeck carronades barked and the nine-pounders roared. Debris flew up from the galley, her oars flailed uselessly, and Charles saw at least one ball cleave through the packed mass of rowers, convicts probably, chained to their oars. That was enough, he thought, but before he could speak, Talmage’s gundeck twelve-pounders, by now reloaded, exploded inward. The frail craft dissolved before his eyes, a terrible carnage among the rowers, and began to fill with water.
He was thinking about lowering a boat to pick up the survivors, if any, when two loud bangs came from behind. A section of taffrail burst into pieces, and he felt the ball passing from aft forward. Over his shoulder, he saw the second pair of galleys close under his stern, their gun crews already sponging out their weapons to reload.
“Oh, shit,” he muttered, then, “Keep the helm down,” he yelled urgently, more in desperation than hope. “Brace the foresails back around.” Charles mentally kicked himself for forgetting the second pair of galleys. Now they had crept up from behind. He knew that Louisa was in a serious position. If they disabled her rudder … He watched the four twenty-four-pounder cannon being heaved forward, ready to fire.
An unexpected series of explosions rent the air, and he saw a section open on the rail of the port side galley. She immediately backed her starboard oars while those on the left pulled. Her cannon went off together after the start of the turn and went wide. For a moment Charles couldn’t imagine what had panicked the galley, for panicked she was. She spun sideways as her oars beat the water, entangling with those of her partner, some snapping loudly. Confusion engulfed both craft as they struggled to extract themselves.
Searching the sea around him, he found Pylades off his stern quarter, under foremast alone, her six-pounders already running out for a second broadside. Her guns fired in a single outpouring, the shot crashing into the galleys, but they had managed to fend each other off and went limping back toward the harbor with all the speed they could muster.
Charles removed his hat and wiped at the sweat that had collected under its band. “Mr. Sykes,” he said to the midshipman, “signal to Pylades Course south-by-east, if you please. Look in the book for the numbers.” That would put the wind behind them, and it should be a course Bevan’s brig could hold. “We will shorten sail directly,” he said to Winchester. “Otherwise, Daniel will never be able to keep up.”
Remembering Talmage in the waist, Charles looked down from the forward rail, thinking to congratulate him for his handling of the guns and perhaps begin a conciliatory conversation. He searched the gundeck in vain.
Just before dusk, and well out of sight of the land, he ordered Louisa to heave to. Promptly, he called away his gig and had himself pulled across to Pylades.
“Jesus, Charlie,” Bevan said, greeting him at the rail with none of his customary humor, “that was a near thing.”
“We managed, Daniel,” Charles said seriously. “So long as we stick together, we’ll always manage.”
“No matter what,” Bevan said. “I’m deeply obliged for what you did. I’ve never seen so welcome a sight as Louisa sliding across our stern. They would have sunk us otherwise.”
“The sentiment is mutual,” Charles answered. “I don’t know what I was going to do about that second pair.”
“Likely, not much,” Bevan said with a grin.
Charles asked, “How badly damaged are you?”
Bevan considered. “Apart from the mast, not too bad. You wouldn’t happen to have a suitable spar, would you? We can replace the mizzen yards, but we’ve nothing for a mast.”
“The largest I’ve got is a mainmast yard. I suppose something can be made of that.”
They took the next day to make repairs on both ships, Louisa ’s boatswain and his mates helping with the rigging of Pylades’s sadly insufficient jury mizzen.
Charles took the time to consider his main problem: Where were Nelson and his possibly reinforced squadron? And where had the French fleet gone? He strongly suspected that the two questions were linked, and the solution lay with the French and their intentions. If the curious American party who had found him off Cádiz were correct, then the French fleet may have departed Toulon and sailed east to collect additional resources along the French coast and Genoa. Charles had heard that there was a large French army in northern Italy, under the command of a young and enterprising general. What was his name? It was on the tip of his tongue … Bonasection, Bonapiece, Bonasomething. Charles had certainly seen no sign of an active French military presence around Genoa, nor any of the transports or supply ships that should have been there to support them.
The American had suggested an invasion of Ireland or England. Charles doubted this. If the French had sailed to Genoa and then doubled back toward the entrance to the Mediterranean, he and Bevan surely would have seen something of them. It was possible, of course, that they had gone south around Corsica or even Sardinia before turning west, but it didn’t seem likely unless they had some reason to call there. And if the British Isles were not their destination, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, which occupied the southern part of the Italian peninsula and the island of Sicily, was a possibility. The kingdom
was at least nominally neutral in the great war, an occasional ally of Austria, sometimes friendly to Britain, and always nervous about the French. This might be motive enough for Paris to contemplate an invasion. Less likely but still possible were other objectives farther east, such as Greece, Crete, and the Levant, but for what reason Charles couldn’t imagine.
Just for a moment he remembered the American, Jones, saying that the French force presented a serious threat to English interests and must be destroyed. He had been adamant about it. What did that mean? It was all rather dubious. But if the American had thought it important, Nelson probably did, too.
To turn his thoughts toward firmer ground Charles decided it was nearing time to think about the replenishment of Louisa’s food, water, and firewood. There was no urgency, they still had supplies for a month or more on board. But fresh water would be a large improvement over their current supply, already two months in the cask. It had long since developed a distinct odor, and a flavor that only a seaman could endure. Fresh meat, fresh vegetables, some good Italian wine to restock the supply, all would be welcome.