A Ship for The King

by Richard Woodman

  Faulkner felt his mouth go dry and cleared his throat. ‘Is she gaining on us, Mr Brenton?’

  ‘Aye, sir, I am afraid so. And we’re on the larboard tack, full and bye. She’s almost as weatherly as we are with new sails . . .’

  ‘And if the wind gets up any more, we’ll be labouring . . .’

  Faulkner thought a moment, casting about the horizon. He could see the English coast, a faint blue smudge on the northern horizon. How far away was it? Eight, ten miles? An idea occurred to him. ‘Hoist our colours,’ he said briskly, ‘then run the jack up to the fore-truck. Send the men to stations. We’ll ease the braces and run her off a little . . .’

  ‘Won’t that allow her to—’

  ‘Do as I say, Mr Brenton, and look lively.’ There was an edge to Faulkner’s voice that he was not conscious of but both Brenton and Eagles noticed. Brenton met Eagles’s eye and he gave an imperceptible shrug.

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  ‘Mr Eagles!’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Be so kind as to go below and fetch my glass. Crowe will know where it is stowed.’

  A few moments later Faulkner was staring not astern at the man-of-war which had followed them round on to their new course, but ahead to where the coast of England took a damnably long time to look any nearer. Closing the telescope with a sharp snap he fell to pacing the deck, attempting to divert his mind and let time prove whether his gamble would pay off. He conceived the idea that if he did not stare at the chasing enemy he would not find it growing larger, a crazy fancy, but one which allowed him to appear composed. One thing, with the enemy so close dead astern, she would have to veer off her course to open fire and it all depended upon whether the French captain would reserve his fire until he had drawn almost alongside, or whether he would attempt to knock their rig about and disable their quarry so that she fell quickly into their hands. The problem with that was that in order to do so, the French man-of-war would lose ground and there was no guarantee that a quick shot – unless it was extraordinarily lucky – would achieve the objective. Better to hold the chase, which in any case was in the larger ship’s favour, allowing overwhelming force to be brought to bear with the inevitable consequence of Faulkner’s surrender.

  The thought made his blood run cold. The wind was increasing, a chill shower of spray burst against the bow and swept aft, stinging the face as it hit them. Surrender? If he was pushed to that extremity he must destroy the King’s despatches. Whatever happened to him, it was most important that nothing of the King’s communication with Buckingham fell into French hands. He was about to call Eagles to find the sealed package, but then thought better of it. He looked along the line of the deck. He had forgotten all about the crew and now he saw them all, some of the complement of sixty-three men whose stations required them on the upper deck in action, most crouched about their guns, awaiting the word to cast off the breechings.

  ‘Cast off the breechings, Mr Brenton, and load with grape and ball.’

  He watched the men stand to their task and then raised the glass again. ‘Stand by the braces, Mr Eagles! Steer nor’west a quarter north!’

  The Whelp steadied on her new course and the men trimmed the yards a little. It was not a large alteration but just sufficient to . . . Had he got it right? He must allow for the tide which was against them, but there was a chance and it was the best they had, given sufficient time. He allowed himself a glance astern and was shocked how the enemy had gained upon them. He turned away again and, to calm himself, raised his telescope and peered ahead. Was that . . . ? No, it was only a tumbling wave-cap, one among innumerable white horses that danced over the sea which, here in the Channel, was a deep blue. He looked up; above them a cloudy sky told of a steady wind and no change before dark.

  Faulkner could feel the sweat running under his shirt, yet he felt chilled. He made himself pace up and down, up and down, stilling his nerves and resolutely refusing to look astern again. Damn the Frenchman! Damn him to hell! Up and down: think of something other than black disgrace, possible death, certain imprisonment and dishonour at having to ditch the King’s despatches. Why did this have to happen to him? Why did he capitulate to the thought of gaining some regard from the lovely, flirtatious and doubtless faithless Katherine Villiers? Why did he not have the good sense to eschew the court, stay in Bristol, marry Julia Gooding and grow fat and prosperous as a Jamaica merchant? God, what a bloody fool he was! Anything was better than this slow torture, this slow road to obloquy! Why had Mainwaring and Strange lifted him out of the gutter? To be taken on his very first day at sea in independent command by some foul dog of a Frenchman?

  Faulkner allowed himself another look astern. Above the heaving rail of the Whelp the bowsprit of the Frenchman seemed to loom. It was so close he fancied he could see the cranse iron on the end of the Frenchman’s bowsprit itself. He spun and stared ahead. How far now? The coast was perceptibly nearer, but it was still miles away and though there were three or four brown lug-sails under the land they were only fishermen and of no potential use to the harried Whelp. Then he thought he could see what he was looking for. It was not yet clear and the tide was high but, nevertheless, they had a chance! He spun round and addressed the man on the tiller.

  ‘Keep her steady now.’

  ‘Steady as she goes, sir,’ the seaman responded, although he had been tending to his duty assiduously for the last forty minutes as Brenton hovered nearby.

  ‘What d’you mean to do, sir?’ Brenton asked, anxiety written across his usually carefree face.

  ‘Stand on, Mr Brenton, stand on!’ Faulkner replied. ‘Another ten or fifteen minutes . . .’

  Brenton turned to Eagles, his expression quizzical. Eagles frowned, stared ahead then shrugged with incomprehension. If Faulkner noticed anything, he ignored it, leaving his officers none the wiser. There was no time for explanations; if his ruse worked, well-and-good; if not it would not be necessary to explain what he was trying to do. For twelve long minutes the chase ran on. The tension was palpable. The men stood patiently to their guns, every now and then one of them would stand up and stare astern, then crouch down again and report the progress of the Frenchman. Only their commander seemed relatively disinterested in the mighty nemesis creeping up on them from astern.

  Faulkner was expecting it, but Brenton noticed it first: a change in the Whelp’s motion as she dashed over the seas which caused her to roll gently on the new course. Suddenly there were more breaking wave-caps and as others realized something odd was happening, few quite understood. Then someone looked astern and saw the Frenchman turn away from the wind, his yards coming round as he stood off to the north-east, leaving the Whelp to run on to the north and west. They had outwitted their enemy and the distance between them rapidly increased. Ten minutes later they watched the French man-of-war put up her helm and head away, back towards Boulogne in the far distance.

  ‘My congratulations, sir,’ said Brenton.

  ‘Thank you, Harry,’ Faulkner said quietly. The relief that flooded through him made him feel strangely light-headed, almost weak at the knees. ‘Stand the men down, but mind you keep her going on this course until we’re under the land before we tack. Short legs to the westwards until after dark. I’m going below.’

  Brenton nodded and watched Faulkner as he left the deck. Then Eagles was beside him.

  ‘Harry, what the devil did we do?’

  Brenton looked at the younger man and grinned. ‘You don’t understand?’

  Eagles shook his head. ‘No. One minute we were about to be overtaken and the next the whole thing is over.’

  ‘I must confess, I didn’t comprehend it at first but Captain Faulkner took us over the Varne Bank. We draw only nine feet while that fellow will draw nearer twenty . . .’ He let the explanation sink in and Eagles’s eyes widened with appreciation.

  ‘The devil,’ he breathed, admiringly.

  Although the wind remained contrary for the entire passage, it did not freshen and by
keeping under the English coast until they were well to the west, the Whelp beat her way down Channel, tack by patient tack and using the tide when it served. The encounter with the Frenchman also affected morale for, although the decks were wet and water found its way below so that the pinnace became a thing of damp misery, the mood of the little Whelp was sustained by the outcome and men began to mutter that Faulkner was a ‘lucky’ man. It would have surprised him to have heard how his cool nonchalance was admired among the simple souls who manned his ship, but all unknowingly he had established a name for himself in a modest way during that anxious hour or two.

  Ten days later they had doubled Ushant and, having stood some leagues further south, turned in towards the land, hoping to make a landfall on the île de Rhé.

  Six

  Buckingham

  1628

  ‘If I may speak frankly, Kit, I like this not at all . . .’

  Faulkner looked at Brenton who sat opposite at the table as they finished off a postprandial bottle. The necessity of having to heave to for the night in order to close the French coast in the light of morning suggested to Faulkner that he should invite Brenton to dine with him. So, with the deck left to Eagles, the two old friends relaxed after their meal, the air grew thick with tobacco smoke as the Whelp gently breasted the incoming swells from the broad Atlantic and the wind, not more than a gentle westerly, soughed in the rigging.

  ‘What don’t you like?’ Faulkner asked, diverting his mind from its preoccupation with his coming meeting with the Duke of Buckingham and the light in which it would cast him. At the bottom of his thoughts lay the troubling image of the lovely Mistress Villiers.

  ‘These policies of the King’s,’ Brenton said. ‘Do not mistake my meaning, I beg you. I am as loyal as the next man, but he is in deep trouble with Parliament who resist all attempts to force tax-raising measures through. I have heard that money has been demanded in the form of forced loans and refusal to pay has meant imprisonment for those gentlemen unwilling to comply with the royal will. As for the troops and the seamen, both are ill-paid and word comes from Buckingham’s forces that they are mutinous, they hate the Duke, and could not care a fig for the Huguenots, wanting only to get back home. Truly little will come of this policy other than that His Majesty will blight the fortunes of the Palatinate abroad and cause terrible dissent at home.’

  During their acquaintance aboard the Prince Royal Faulkner had developed a respect for Brenton’s independence of thought. Brenton owed his position and commission to the fact that he came from a good family and he in turn had rapidly determined that Faulkner, though a thoroughly able sea-officer, possessed no patronage beyond that of Sir Henry Mainwaring and had no family. Consequently Brenton saw the technically-able but somewhat politically naïve Faulkner in part as a sounding board for his own political opinions, but also as a malleable accomplice, while at the same time being one who was likely to rise in the sea-service. Brenton had no clear objective in thus cultivating Faulkner, but he sensed the rift between the King and Parliament was serious, and knew, far better than either Faulkner or Mainwaring, the mood of the greater part of the English people.

  Faulkner frowned. He did not understand the political point of English support of the Palatinate beyond a vague comprehension of the King’s sister being the Elector Palatine’s wife. As for domestic politics, he was apt to think of them attaching solely to the Court, entirely forgetting the rising power of Parliament, though he recognized well enough the attachment of the Puritans and the Dissenters – like the Gooding family – to the Commons.

  ‘Dissent? How mean you?’ he asked.

  ‘Did you not detect it in Bristol?’ Brenton paused. ‘You spoke of your people there being sober and somewhat dull Puritans, I thought.’

  Faulkner frowned. ‘Yes, but I cannot recall expressions of dissent . . . though Sir Henry . . .’ He broke off, recalling that Mainwaring’s remark about the King’s unreliability had been in confidence.

  ‘Sir Henry . . . ?’

  ‘Oh, ’twas nothing and likely I misunderstood.’

  ‘Sir Henry expressed a disloyal opinion did he?’ Brenton asked, leaning forward with a smile on his face. ‘Then he is shrewder than I thought,’ he said, adding in a slightly cynical tone, ‘I had marked him for a King’s man, through and through.’

  ‘I have no doubt but that he is, utterly,’ Faulkner said hurriedly. ‘I am no political beast, Harry, preferring to leave those matters to those better equipped to deal with them.’

  ‘Like My Lord Muckingham with his open purse and tight fist, revelling in the King’s high opinion and seducing him from his proper regard for the good of his people. You cannot surely think that Buckingham’s policies, which the King follows as a dog does a bitch in heat, will lead to any advantage. The King is bankrupt of funds and damn nigh bankrupt of friends.’

  ‘And in consequence we are defeated in France,’ Faulkner responded. ‘Against which you must allow our ships have done much execution among French shipping in the Channel. It was with the intent of revenging themselves of that disadvantage that we met our friend of the other day.’

  ‘That is true, to be sure, but to hold the sea you must maintain a fleet and we shall find that increasingly impossible, if indeed, it is not already impossible.’

  ‘I think you are too gloomy in your prognostications, Harry. We shall see what state our arms are in tomorrow.’

  ‘We will indeed.’

  The following morning they sailed into the Pertuis Breton and the fleet anchorage off the île de Rhé to find all was in confusion, as what seemed like hundreds of boats were pulled industriously betwixt the ships and the shore. The English standard still flew above the fortress on St Martin but as Faulkner learned within moments of stepping ashore, Buckingham had given orders for the withdrawing of his forces. Faulkner asked the whereabouts of the English commander of an officer of foot who was cursing a motley and ill-disposed mob of men whose semblance to an infantry regiment was negligible as they almost fought their way down to the stone harbour and the waiting boats.

  ‘My Lord Duke? God knows. Are you from England?’

  ‘Aye, with despatches for the Duke of Buckingham.’

  ‘From the King?’ the man asked, lowering his voice. Faulkner nodded. ‘If I were you, I should keep that quiet.’ He was about to resume herding his men, but added, ‘Unless they bring orders to withdraw, you are wasting your time. This has been a disaster; Richelieu has outfoxed us, the Rochellais despair of us and are treating with the Cardinal, we have little food and the islanders hate us. The sooner this lot are back on English soil, the better. To be truthful, there have been moments when I feared for my own life, not from the enemy but my own men, for God’s sake!’ At that he turned away and marched down to the harbour. None the wiser as to the whereabouts of Buckingham, Faulkner began to walk inland, past more groups of men bearing pikes and arquebusses making their way down to the boats of the fleet. No one seemed interested in the location of their commander-in-chief and several intemperately expressed their devout wish that he was in hell.

  The hostility of the dishevelled and retiring troops increased the further he walked away from the landing up the rising ground. Everywhere the tents were coming down and cooking fires were being extinguished and bivouacs cleared. The sparse villages and settlements of the fisher-folk and subsistence sheep-farmers looked neglected, as though the mere presence of the English army had blighted them, while of their inhabitants and their domestic livestock there was scant sign. After an hour Faulkner had made his way to the outer works of the fortress at St Martin. It took him a further half-hour to make his way into the citadel where he was assured Buckingham had his headquarters by the milling soldiery. The lack of direction was palpable, an air of confusion prevailing everywhere. No one seemed interested in the fact that he carried the King’s despatches, a fact he was compelled to announce in order to make any headway at all. In due course, however, his dogged persistence paid off and he en
countered an elegantly dressed young man wearing half-armour whose very appearance, in such contrast to the rest of the dishevelled army, hinted strongly that he was part of Buckingham’s personal suite. After explaining his mission, Faulkner was finally led into the Duke’s presence.

  In the company of several other high-ranking officers, Buckingham sat behind a table upon which the remains of a meal, some empty bottles and a few papers lay littered. Although Buckingham was dressed as elegantly as ever, his doublet was undone and it was clear that a deal of drinking had accompanied what Faulkner took to be a council of war. The young officer bowed and introduced him.

  ‘Your Grace, Captain Faulkner, newly arrived from London with His Majesty’s despatches.’

  It was clear that Buckingham had need to pull himself together. This was reflected by the conduct of the others. A gleam of recognition entered Buckingham’s eyes as Faulkner stepped forward and presented his sealed package and the covering letter.

  ‘Faulkner . . . You were aboard the Prince Royal, were you not?’

  ‘I was, Your Grace.’

  Buckingham grunted, shaking off the lassitude of overindulgence as he fumbled with the buttons of his doublet. ‘Pen and ink!’ he ordered, and his military secretary brought both. Buckingham scribbled his signature against the receipt Faulkner handed him with the sealed packet. Then he tore at the seal and began unwrapping the contents, looking up briefly at Faulkner. ‘Very well, Captain. You may go.’

  ‘Your Grace.’ Faulkner bowed. ‘May I enquire whether you have any orders for me?’

  ‘Orders? Why, pick up as many of these damned dogs as you can, and convey them to Portsmouth,’ he said dismissively, at which point one of the officers rose.

  ‘With your permission, Your Grace, I will embark with Captain Faulkner.’

  The move seemed to galvanize Buckingham who suddenly enquired, ‘What is your ship, Captain?’