By the Mast Divided

by David Donachie

  ‘Surgeon Lutyens conjuring up what happened, would no doubt quiz me about Charybdis,’ he said suddenly.

  ‘And what,’ asked Michael, ‘is that when it’s about?’

  ‘Part of the twin sea hazards of antiquity, Michael, a sea monster called Scylla, with six heads and a ring of barking dogs, very close to a whirlpool big enough to consume a ship whole. Odysseus and the Argonauts had to sail between them to get home from Troy.’

  ‘Would that be anywhere near here?’

  Pearce laughed. ‘No one knows. According to Homer it took Odysseus ten years to reach his home island, and there is not a scholar born who could lay out his route.’

  ‘God pray it does not take us ten years.’

  Putting out of his mind the thought that somewhere out in that water were the bodies of dozens of other men, Pearce shouted up to Martin, ‘What do you see?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  The boy might be a pest, but he was nimble and he had the best eyes of them all. There was no sign of HMS Brilliant on the horizon, nor of any boat that might be looking for a sign of them, and though time and turns at sleeping had led to a more sober appreciation of what was and was not possible, it was undeniable that a look into Lézardrieux could do no harm and might do some good. What Pearce found interesting to measure, as they gathered themselves for the long walk along the line of trees that fringed the beach, was the degree of faith each had in the notion.

  On dry land again, Charlie Taverner was almost cheerful, and kept insisting that ‘something would turn up’. Rufus, who had great faith in Charlie, was carried along by that notion, though unable to show any optimism on his worrier’s face. Dysart, in pain from his broken arm, had set his stall out with his tale-telling and was very much of the positive wing. It was impossible to know what Burns thought because he was determined to remain as inconspicuous as possible, lest someone remind him that, as a young gentlemen and midshipman, he had the responsibilities of an officer and should be leading the enterprise instead of trying as hard as possible to bring up the rear. Martin Dent, Pearce reckoned, was too busy to say anything, wondering whether being rescued by a man he hated obliged him to change his tune. Only Michael O’Hagan looked at it rationally. It was a chance and no more than that, and it would be foolish not to explore it.

  The only one who had no faith at all in their rescue, as they spied the first signs of human habitation – lines of smoke rising into the cold morning air behind a dilapidated and seemingly deserted stone bastion – was the man who insisted they get into the trees and out of sight, the man who stayed on the beach, trying to make his hair, his face and his sea stained clothes look half respectable, the man who would have to carry it out, and who could not make up his mind what to do if he did.

  The remaining officers and crew of HMS Brilliant had stood to quarters at dawn with a greater degree of concentration than had attended that ceremony on most mornings. Depleted by their losses, those who had taken part in the cutting out operation were exhausted from their efforts. Each aboard was aware that the French might try a stroke of their own, hoping to catch the British frigate unawares, when she was too busy licking her wounds to be prepared for a battle. It was a long wait – interrupted only by the ship going about at every turn of the half hour glass, with the early-March sky not beginning to lighten till after six, two hours knelt by the cast off guns, with the cries of the wounded and those being attended by the surgeon welling up from the cockpit below. No crack sail drill attended the ship’s manoeuvres – each time Brilliant wore it was in a wide and gentle arc, for there were too few hands now to work the cannon and the top hamper with anything like speed and efficiency.

  Each cry from below tore at Ralph Barclay’s core, every moan an audible reminder of the depth of his failure. His Premier, Roscoe, was clinging to life by a thread, having taken a musket ball in the chest; his second lieutenant was missing along with the whole of his raiding party who had never even made his rendezvous; and he himself had returned to his frigate with half the crew of the longboat bearing wounds of varying degrees of seriousness, having left behind in that inlet two dead sailors and his marine officer, Holbrook, with half his head blown away. The total bill, if Thrale did not show up, was a loss of twenty-eight men either dead or missing, and a dozen wounded. He had heard of fleet actions where the butcher’s bill on a line of battle ship had been lighter than that!

  Ralph Barclay stood silently straining towards a shore he could not see, with Digby, now acting as Premier, in company, praying that he would hear a cry to tell him Thrale had returned. On the forecastle and the main-deck, midshipmen were carrying out the duties of commissioned officers, taking acting-lieutenant rank, overseeing what guns they could man, and which mute sailors would work them. The lack of chatter was nothing to do with discipline. Ralph Barclay reckoned it was more to do with a degree of disenchantment – the mood of men who had talked up and mentally spent the money to be made from the capture of the privateer and the Indiaman, only to have that dream snatched away. Now they were mourning mates lost, or thanking their lucky stars that they had not been chosen to participate in such a fiasco.

  Try as he might, Ralph Barclay could not see how to compose a despatch that would put what had happened in a favourable light. From the moment he had left the convoy to pursue that privateer he had been on the very fringe of his orders. If Roscoe survived he would be loud in his declaration that the chase should have gone to Gould in Firefly. How could he explain that, never mind losing her at night, he had rediscovered her in the morning cutting out one of the ships he was tasked to protect – and a valuable East Indiaman at that? To have chased her and failed to come up before they found a safe anchorage would not read well either. A frigate should have the heels of both a barque and an Indiaman, and his attempt at cutting out had been a failure.

  ‘Can I stand the men down, sir?’ asked Digby.

  Lost in his thoughts, Barclay had not noticed that the sky had gone grey enough to give a sight of the empty sea around Brilliant. He stood, without replying, until the lookout above called down that he had caught the first glimpse of the shore, which in this light would be no more than an indistinct line of a darker grey than sky and sea.

  ‘Make it so, Mr Digby.’

  ‘Permission to remove the members of the raiding party from normal watch duties?’

  Something of Ralph Barclay’s old self resurfaced then. ‘What an odd notion, Mr Digby. Is this not a ship of war?’

  ‘It is, sir.’

  ‘Then kindly bear that in mind. Order and discipline must be maintained.’

  Digby’s voice had a trace of despondency in it as he added, ‘Including the deck, sir?’

  ‘Very much so, Mr Digby! I fear we shall be witness to a few funerals this day. I would not sully the bravery of those who have given their lives for their country by despatching them to a sea grave from an unclean deck.’

  ‘And the course, sir?’ asked Collins.

  Barclay looked aloft at the suit of sails, then at a course that was taking them away from any chance of being spotted from the shore. ‘What we are about at present will suffice. We must let the full daylight come so that we can make a judgement about what to do.’ That he felt the need to explain himself was a good indication of how his position had been undermined by his failure. ‘Our friend may try to run for St Malo and if he does I intend to have him. We want sharp eyes in the tops Mr Digby, for if a sail appears I want to know immediately. If you need me, I will be below in the cockpit.’

  ‘Our friend,’ Digby said softly as Barclay disappeared, ‘can sit snug for an eternity. We cannot.’

  ‘Amen,’ moaned the master.

  Orders were issued to house the guns, the timbers rumbling as they were run up on their breechings to be bowsed tight against gun ports. The powder monkeys returned the cartridges to the gunner, while the gunner’s mates collected the flintlocks. Smoking linstock, there to fire the cannon should the flintlocks fail, was dowsed: ramme
rs, swabs and wormers again lodged away and the task of sweeping up the sand that had been spread on the deck began. Forward, the cook was lighting his coppers to prepare the men’s breakfast, while on the upper deck the task of sanding, holystoning, sweeping, washing and flogging dry the deck planking was under way for the watch on duty. Below, those off duty were listening to the tales of the men who had survived, including those of that pretty landsman Cornelius Gherson, who had, it appeared, not only been in the thick of things but had been instrumental in getting the whole party out of trouble, spinning a thrilling tale of personal and collective bravery.

  HMS Brilliant cruised the Brittany shore, more than hull down so that she was invisible from land. Only the lookouts aloft were able to spy the coastline, which was also close enough to espy a ship’s topmast, each half leg of her course taking her past the point that marked the Estuary de Trieux. It could have been any day at sea if someone could have quieted the keening sound of a man losing his arm two decks below.

  Crouched low in the confined space of the cockpit, Ralph Barclay watched Lutyens work with only half a mind – most of his attention was on his wife who looked tired and haggard from a night awake and an early morning. Like Mrs Railton, the gunner’s wife, she had spent three whole hours helping the surgeon. A sheen of sweat covered her brow, wisps of hair were escaping from under her cap, and black blood stained her apron. If she had ever had a fear of gore it had gone now. Nor did the writhing figure on the table, biting so hard on the leather strap in his mouth that his neck veins looked set to burst, evoke even a blink of sympathy. The cut had been made and the saw was now rasping through the bone, too slowly for Barclay’s liking. And when Lutyens finished lopping off the arm, leaving an untidy stump and several flaps of bloody skin, Emily took the appendage off him and tossed it into the nearby tub as though it was a piece of wood for the fire.

  Three bodies lay to one side, men who had come aboard alive and had expired on that table. Was that really due to their wounds or to the poor care they had received from Lutyens? Was Emily any better, having never had even a modicum of training in the art of nursing a wounded man? She did look at him once, but it was hard to tell in that lined and tired face if there was any regard, and once more he was struck by his own inability to communicate with her. Why could he not explain to Emily his hopes and aspirations in a way that would gain her support? Why could she not see that though life at sea was harsh, authority was a necessity? No one could be safe in a ship that was a debating chamber, and sailors knew the risks they ran when they transgressed, and were well able to accept the punishment that was doled out for their misdemeanours.

  Worse, as far as her husband was concerned, Emily’s cousin, young Toby Burns had not returned, and it would be his task to tell her, and no doubt to bear the brunt of a look that would lay the blame at his door. She had come down here as soon as the first of the wounded from Roscoe’s party had been brought aboard, so had no idea of what had transpired since. He recalled the boy’s face when he had been informed that he was to be part of the raid – fear and dread. Again he was in a quandary; it was his job to make a man of Toby Burns, not to mollycoddle him. If the youngster risked death in the process, then that was part of his duty. Ralph Barclay saw a young man who needed to prosper in the service if he was ever, one day, to enjoy commissioned rank. Emily, no doubt, saw the child who had visited her home to play – a little boy, frightened of heights, his fellow mids, and any thought of battle.

  Lutyens was stitching his patient up and he was having the devil’s own job of getting the ligature that would allow the wound to discharge to stay inside his ham-fisted attempts with the needle. Ralph Barclay had learnt about stitching as a young man, it being held necessary that a midshipman should know how to cut out, sow and make a sail. Watching Lutyens losing his thread, or getting it wound around the wrong part of his fingers, he reckoned the surgeon would never have passed that particular test. That was a thought obviously shared by Mrs Railton, who was looking at the deck beams above her head with despair.

  ‘Mr Lutyens,’ he asked, when the surgeon had finished, ‘I must ask you what the chances are for Lieutenant Roscoe?’

  Lutyens looked up, his face as tired as Emily’s, his eyes seeming out of focus as though the question was strange to him. His fine, normally curly, ginger hair was flat now, and wet from perspiration, making him appear even more odd, an impression not aided by the lantern light by which he was working.

  ‘The ball has been extracted, and I am informed he took the precaution of donning fresh linen before leaving the ship, so it may be possible to avoid corruption in the wound.’ He looked down at the man he had been working on, who had finally passed out from the pain, the leather strap marked by the bite of his teeth now lolling out of his open mouth. ‘In the end, Captain, like this fellow here, it is his vital spirit that will decide his fate.’

  ‘I will send a party to remove the dead,’ Barclay said.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Emily, I think you have done enough here.’

  ‘Your husband is right, Mrs Barclay,’ said Lutyens. ‘We all need some rest.’

  ‘And I am here, ma’am,’ added Mrs Railton, with a kindly look, ‘to aid Mr Lutyens.’

  Emily nodded, and put out a hand to gently touch that of the squat gunner’s wife. She then preceded her husband out of an area that looked very like a charnel house. Ralph Barclay waited until they were on deck, and the breeze had begun to refresh her, before he told her that Burns was missing.

  ‘I have no idea what became of them. No word has come from any of Thrale’s party.’ He saw the tears begin to course down her face, tears that she had not shed over bleeding, screaming bodies, but that could be brought forth by the contemplation of the unknown fate of a boy like Burns. That made him add hastily. ‘Which leads me to suspect, my dear, that they must have landed, but in the wrong place, and, trying to catch up with the others, may have fallen captive to the men defending the port.’

  ‘Or killed.’

  ‘No,’ Ralph Barclay replied, thinking that if he had kept Burns with him at least he would know. Why had he entrusted the boy to that old fool Thrale, who could barely navigate his way around the wardroom let alone the Brittany shore? Had it just been a notion to demonstrate no favouritism, or had the thought of Burns along with him, quite possibly freezing in action, determined him to send the boy with another? ‘There are no reports of any shots after the boats left the beach, no sight nor sound of a fight.’

  ‘So he will be a captive?’ There was no joy in the question, and she would not look at him.

  ‘I cannot say I hope so, my dear, for that is not the case. But if he is, then that is a better fate than the lot of those we will bury today. He wears his blue coat, the French will know him for what he is, a young gentleman, and will treat him accordingly.’

  Ralph Barclay put as much emphasis into the words as he could, well aware that he was talking of a France that had died in 1789. What it was like now for prisoners of war would be anyone’s guess.

  ‘The rules of warfare oblige the enemy to inform us of any officers they are holding; we do the same, and that includes midshipmen. In the previous wars with France there has always been a cartel that runs between Dover and Calais for the exchange of prisoners. If he has been taken, he could be back in England within the year. I will not say that his life will be snug till then, but he will not be ill treated.’

  ‘I should tell Mrs Railton of this, since he sleeps…slept…in her quarters. I cannot think but that she was fond of him.’

  Emily shivered, as though the contemplation of that was fearful. Ralph Barclay took her arm and led her off the deck to the door of his own cabin. There was still a marine to open it, but something told him not to follow her through.

  ‘Mr Digby.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘We will commence the burials once everyone has breakfasted. Please detail the necessary hands to sew the dead into their shrouds.’


  He followed that with a long, sad look towards the Brittany shoreline, wondering if burials were taking place there as well.

  Pearce had to take a long detour through the trees to avoid that bastion; it looked deserted but he could not be sure. His route took him uphill, then brought him back down a slope into the waterside part of Lézardrieux. From here he had a good view of the hill on the other side that rose towards a church – complete with bell tower – which dominated the anchorage. There were hills behind the town too, so that the whole area was well protected from the elements.

  When he first heard the locals speak he realised that while he might know Paris, he did not know France. He had heard plenty of regional accents in the capital, and he knew from visits to the Jacobin Club that there were Bretons in the mix, for it was they who had founded that radical institution. But they had been educated men; they had not spoken the common argot of the citizens of this place, which, when he heard it, seemed so accented as to bear little resemblance to the national tongue. Indeed many spoke a language that was wholly different, making him fear to engage in conversation. His appearance proved less of a worry. His torn topcoat and scuffed boots blended in with the locals who were, in many cases, as badly dressed as he, and seemingly living in a community to which a razor had never been introduced, so numerous were the beards.

  The open sea was just visible at the end of the long inlet and the fishing port was built on the flat littoral, facing a high wooded bank on the other. There was deep water in the middle, with great baulks of timbers sunk as pylons, but, with the tide out deep, mud banks lay between ship and shore. The buildings were huddled together, just back from the shoreline, lacking any pattern – a couple of high structures, warehouses with joists above the lofts, houses in the main, but with a pair of taverns identifiable by their swinging signs. Some form of market was in progress on the hard-packed earth that passed for a quayside, and soon Pearce was in amongst the bustle of a living community.