A Ship for The King

by Richard Woodman

  ‘Give them bloody hell, Kit,’ a voice said in Faulkner’s ear as he swept his telescope along the shoreline. Lowering his glass, he turned to find Rainsborough’s flag-captain, John Dunton, alongside him. ‘Give them hell,’ he repeated, ‘they can expect no quarter from me . . .’

  ‘Ah, I recall you were a slave . . .’

  ‘Aye, at Algiers, and only ransomed last year.’ Dunton ground his teeth. ‘My son remains there,’ he said, his tone grim. ‘He was taken out of the ship with me and is only ten years old. I hope that he is dead by now, though his mother would hate me for saying so.’

  ‘I am sorry . . .’

  ‘Just give them hell! That is all we can do.’ Dunton moved away, his face unhappy, his eyes gleaming with the prospect of a kind of revenge. Though this was Sallee and not Algiers, a rain of death and terror seemed meet for pirates of any colour.

  The following morning the ships worked their way cautiously inshore under easy sail and with their leadsmen in the chains. Having taken up their assigned stations and anchored with springs upon their cables, they awaited further orders, a wait that extended into several days, though Hopkins sent out reassuring messages that all was well and that he had made contact with some English merchants in the old town and was hopeful of meeting the marabout.

  Matters stood thus for several days, until Hopkins sent a request that Rainsborough himself went ashore and, with Hopkins interpreting, met the marabout. Two days went by and George Carteret, the vice admiral and the only purely naval officer in the squadron, betrayed his anxiety by pulling round the anchored ships and soliciting the opinions of the other commanders as to Rainsborough’s intentions. Captain Harrison, who was acting as rear admiral and happened to be dining with Faulkner that day, remarked that ‘Carteret probably hoped William would be cast into Sidi what’s-his-name’s dungeons in order that he might take over the command, for he’s as green as grass with jealousy and riled at serving under a merchant captain!’

  ‘From what I have seen of Rainsborough’s methods,’ Faulkner remarked, refilling Harrison’s glass, ‘they are far superior to my experience of regular naval procedures.’

  ‘What, even Mainwaring’s?’ Harrison asked, surprised.

  ‘When Sir Henry is left to his own devices, there is none to match him for organization and efficiency, but when we flew Rutland’s flag in the Prince Royal, there was a deal of confusion and wasted time. As for the expeditions to La Rochelle, why, not one of them left early enough in the year to achieve anything worthwhile and the waste was incalculable.’

  ‘The rulings of commerce sharpen a man’s wit, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Still, I would hate to lose Rainsborough at this juncture, if only because serving under Carteret we might fall into such evils. Let’s drink to his safe return.’

  Two days later the Leopard’s boat was seen pulling out from the shore, the oar blades flashing in the sunshine of a fine spring morning. Immediately on regaining the Leopard’s deck, Rainsborough again made the signal for ‘All captains’ and again they all repaired aboard the flagship, where Rainsborough gave Hopkins the freedom to open the explanation of what had transpired.

  ‘I was initially admitted to the marabout’s presence after three days wait, which indicated a quite uncustomary haste that, I think, marks his surprise and possibly apprehension at our warlike appearance. Early negotiations also showed that the presence of our admiral might speed matters to a conclusion, so I requested Admiral Rainsborough joined me, explaining that from the perspective of Sidi Mohammed, our arrival could prove timely.’ Hopkins conceded the floor to Rainsborough.

  ‘With the assistance of Mr Hopkins, gentlemen, we soon confirmed that it was imperative for Sidi Mohammed to suppress the rebellion of the pirates in order to retain his own position and influence . . .’

  ‘And probably his life,’ put in Hopkins.

  ‘Indeed, probably his life,’ said Rainsborough. ‘In consequence of this he agreed to an alliance with us, in earnest of which he has released seventeen slaves. We must, however, seek ratification from London and must therefore lay here quietly, only denying the passage of any ship inwards or outwards until I have permission to treat with this holy man.’ Rainsborough paused, then added, ‘This may prove difficult for us; onshore winds, if strong enough, may cast us on to a lee-shore, so we must be vigilant. We must also keep up the spirits of our men, who dislike inactivity and are always the devil near land, and that I confide to yourselves, bearing in mind that exercising in dumbshow drills may seem like time wasting, but may prove invaluable as we shall certainly go into action before we leave this place.’

  It was an unsatisfactory situation, as they all agreed, but little could be done until the Expedition returned with permission to proceed as Rainsborough, with unexpected statesmanship, proposed. Happily, however, the King’s sanction arrived by mid-July, along with the reinforcement of two ships, including the frigate Swan with two months’ victuals and money for the squadron to purchase fresh meat from Tetuan. Matters now moved to a swift conclusion. Rainsborough and Hopkins again went ashore and presented Sidi Mohammed with the fait accompli. With the English ships offshore, the marabout, whose levies had already invested New Sallee, summoned Ali el-Kasri and his besieged garrison to surrender. El-Kasri responded by firing guns, whereupon Rainsborough hoisted the signal to his squadron to open fire.

  The weeks of dumbshow practice paid off and aboard the Perseus, as with the other vessels close by, the fire was slow, measured and deliberate. Faulkner had sent two of his young officers aloft from where they remarked the fall of shot, as far as was possible, but once they had the range and were able to fire at the base of the walls along the waterfront quay, where a number of the pirate ships were moored in tiers, they began to see the result of their handiwork as spars fell and the first coils of smoke rose from a burning ship.

  The Leopard was firing over the walls and dropping her shot into the town itself, while the Antelope, close inshore, plugged away at the defences, her balls ploughing up clouds of sand and rock as they scoured the foreshore and prevented any response from the garrison.

  ‘My God, see the fires the Antelope has started,’ Faulkner remarked to no one in particular on the Perseus’s deck, as he peered through his glass. He could see miniature figures, black-robed women for the most part, running from the danger, small shapes alongside them that might have been children or perhaps goats or other small livestock. At one point a troop of horsemen came dashing along the sand. Although they were probably Sidi Mohammed’s troops, they were thrown into confusion by the bombardment and very largely destroyed. It was a grim business and one which was kept up by the exhortation, made by Faulkner and the other captains, to: ‘Remember the men, women and children these people have taken from their hearths!’

  The gunfire ceased at darkness, but resumed the following morning when Rainsborough ordered the two shallow-draughted pinnaces closer inshore. Both entered the river itself and anchored against the stream, from where they were close enough to shoot fire pots at the pirate ships lying board-and-board along the waterfront. By noon they were all ablaze, a great pall of smoke lifting over the walls of New Sallee and disfiguring the sublime and perfect blue of the sky. Such was the hatred among the English for the humiliations and losses to these pirates, that they exacted a terrible vengeance.

  Day after day the bombardment went on until the stocks of powder aboard the English ships were running low. Apart from the appearance of the Moorish horsemen on the beach, the rest of Sidi Mohammed’s troops, said to number twenty thousand, successfully reached the waterfront area, setting fire to warehouses in which El-Kasri had stored a year’s corn. Three weeks later they stormed the ramparts and were soon in the city, whereupon ferocious hand-to-hand and house-to-house fighting ensued.

  During this protracted period a few escaped slaves began arriving alongside the English ships. English, French and Dutch were either swept up by the pinna
ces scouring the shore, or found their own way out by swimming or in stolen boats. Gradually resistance in New Sallee crumbled and ebbed, and the green standard of Sidi Mohammed, flying conspicuously from minaret and tower, proclaimed those parts in the hands of the allies. Offshore, more and more escaped slaves were picked up, and on 28th July Ali el-Kasri surrendered.

  Rainsborough now began negotiations for the formal release of more enslaved Christians with the Sultan through Sidi Mohammed. These were forthcoming, and by the 8th August the squadron was crowded with some three hundred and fifty men and a score of women, all hungry and in want of food and shelter. With the onset of autumn gales now imminent, and their stocks of powder exhausted, the admiral ordered Carteret to withdraw with all the released captives and to take with him the Antelope, the Hercules, Providence and Expedition. He was to lie off the Spanish coast west of Gibraltar for as long as supplies permitted, before returning home. Prior to following himself, Rainsborough ordered Faulkner to proceed south, towards Safi, the port for Marrakech. Here he hoped to secure the release of a further thousand slaves who, so the negotiations with Sidi Mohammed had revealed, had been sold on to the mastabas of Tunis and Algiers. Faulkner was to make contact with an English merchant named Blake and await Rainsborough’s arrival, while he concluded his treaty with the Sultan of Morocco and waited for expected reinforcements from England.

  Faulkner was glad to be detaching. They had been too long moored off Sallee and he ordered the anchor weighed with a light heart. In a stiff west-south-westerly breeze they hauled their yards sharp up and stood along the coast. It was all but deserted, the English blockade having proved singularly effective. Inshore, an occasional fishing boat was descried, but little else until, that is, Faulkner and Lazenby were staring under the curve of the foot of the fore-sail, trying to make out the walls of Safi in the noontide glare.

  ‘That is no minaret, Captain Faulkner,’ Lazenby remarked, his face screwed up as he stared out on the larboard bow, ‘that is a ship.’

  Faulkner levelled his glass again and took pains to better focus it. ‘You are right,’ he said without removing the telescope from his eye, adding, ‘and she is square-rigged, which means she is either a European trader or a pirate. I am not minded to leave whoever, or whatever that ship is in any doubt as to who commands on this coast. Send the men to quarters, run up our colours and run out the guns.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Lazenby went off, shouting orders for all hands.

  Faulkner added with a shout, ‘And an ensign at the main masthead too, Mr Lazenby.’

  When he eventually lowered his glass he found the slightly stooped figure of Walker, the gunner, at his elbow. ‘Well, Mr Walker, you have come to inform me how little powder we have remaining, no doubt.’

  ‘I have, sir. And precious little it is if you are seeking an engagement.’

  ‘It may be a Frenchman, or a Dutchman, or a Spaniard or Portugoose . . .’ Faulkner remarked. Walker stared out over the deep and heaving blue of the Atlantic.

  ‘That’s a Moor, sir. No self-respecting Dutchman, nor a damned Spaniard or Portugoose would set a topgallant like that. We’ve taught them much but not quite how to set a topgallant . . .’

  ‘It could well be an undermanned merchantman, Mr Walker,’ Faulkner said.

  Walker sucked at his teeth. ‘It might be,’ he said with such emphasis on the conditional, that its negative quality put the matter beyond doubt.

  Something caught Faulkner’s eye and he again raised his glass. In response to their own ensigns, one flying from the peak and the other streaming from the main-truck, the approaching vessel had hoisted a large red flag, bordered in blue, the crimson field of which bore blue discs. Faulkner knew it for the colours of Sallee – here was a pirate that had not been mewed-up and blockaded by their arrival but had probably been lying off Safi awaiting the turn of events further north.

  ‘You are right, Mr Walker. We shall have to fight. You had better repair to your magazine and make up as many cartridges as you are able, and please send Mr Lazenby and Mr Norris to me.’ A few minutes later the two lieutenants stood beside him. Faulkner snapped his glass shut. ‘Yon ship is a Sallee Rover; we have only a few rounds left, so hold your fire until you can make every shot tell. I would have you go round the guns and tell the captain of each that is my wish, and if they value their lives they had better attend to the order. Also make certain that every man has arms of some sort. They will likely try and board and will probably outnumber us. You are used to the Jamaica trade but you, Mr Norris, have served in a slaver, I think . . . ?’

  ‘Aye, sir, I have.’

  ‘Then you know what to do. No quarter is to be given, no quarter whatsoever, or we shall end up enslaved.’

  ‘No quarter, aye aye, sir.’

  As they moved away Faulkner resumed his study of the enemy. She was, he thought, Dutch-built; a prize perhaps, or the possession of a Dutch renegade – he knew there were a number of them, alongside Englishmen turned Muslim. She could be well handled, or she might not be: that topgallant looked well-enough set to him. After a few minutes he lowered his glass and took a turn about the decks, then rattled out orders.

  ‘T’gallant sheets, there! Clew-up!’

  When the topgallants were hauled up in the bunt, and the yards had been dropped down to the caps, he ordered the fore and main courses likewise clewed-up. The Perseus slowed her headlong rush and under topsails quietly bobbed upon the swell, instantly manoeuvrable and awaiting the other to reveal her intentions. Within a few minutes the oncoming ship had done the same and done it well; it was clear that they were meeting a ship of some force and expertise.

  ‘Stand to your guns, men!’ he called, so that those men released from the guns to handle the sails returned to their action stations. That was one drawback of hiring armed merchantmen as commissioned ships: they always fell short of what the Royal Navy considered an adequate complement. Faulkner doubted if his opponent suffered any such deficiency.

  Under reduced sail the two vessels were approaching one another on opposite courses. Relieving the Perseus of her press of sail enabled her to manoeuvre on a more even keel and he guessed that the enemy, still on the lee bow, would brace up sharply, cross ahead and rake them. Faulkner walked across to the two men at the helm. From there he shouted to Lazenby, who was commanding the starboard guns, ‘Starboard battery! Double-shot your guns, knock out the quoins and aim high, but wait for my word!’

  Lazenby lifted his hand in acknowledgement and Faulkner waited only long enough to see the flurry of activity round the guns in the starboard waist. He had a ruse, but it depended on his men holding fire and the enemy holding his nerve long enough to close the range. In this he was not disappointed as the two drew closer and closer. Whoever the enemy commander was, he was an experienced fighter and this led Faulkner to conclude he was probably a renegade, rather than a native Moor. The latter were less willing to take on an opponent not easily dominated, because their business was piracy, not annihilation. An apostate Dutchman, or Frenchman, or Englishman, come to that, would be unwilling to fall easily into the hands of a European, still less his former countrymen.

  ‘Stand by to put your helm up,’ Faulkner said quietly to the helmsmen, who swiftly grasped his meaning. They could see the shrinking distance between the two ships and watch the relative vertical motion between them rising and falling with the swell, as the wind, steady enough, drove them down towards each other.

  ‘Keep her full and bye,’ Faulkner added, anxious to maintain speed and steerage-way for the disarming manoeuvre. His heart was pounding in his breast and it came almost as a shock when Lazenby called out that the starboard guns were all ready.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Lazenby,’ he said, remembering those long agonizing minutes off the Varne ten years ago when he had run from the Frenchman. Did a man have a quotient of luck, like a cat’s nine lives? If so, how did one calculate where one stood in Dame Fortune’s regard?

  Faulkner crossed the deck,
raised his glass and steadied it against a stay. He could see something like movement in the waist of the enemy, a slight density of darker hue above the foreshortened rail. ‘He’s sent his hands to the braces,’ he muttered to himself, then turning his head he called to Norris, ‘Send your larbowlines to the braces, Mr Norris, trim the yards as and when we swing!’ Then he shouted: ‘Stand-to, Mr Lazenby!’

  ‘All ready, sir!’

  Faulkner no longer needed the glass but he was undisturbed by the movement of Norris’s men which was heard rather than seen. Someone forward called out, ‘They’re swinging the yards, sir!’ and he saw the enemy ship – now no more than two hundred yards away – swing to larboard, across their bow. The enemy captain had to move his ship some seventy yards ahead before he commanded the length of the Perseus. As Faulkner ordered his own helm put up to swing the Perseus to larboard he would shorten that distance, but also the time, perhaps catching his opponent out by a few seconds, perhaps delivering his own ship to perdition by as much. He watched the two rigs, each of three masts, move against each other and as they did so selected his moment, praying that it would come on the upwards roll.

  ‘Fire!’

  As the concussion of her starboard broadside rolled over her decks and the Perseus shuddered to the thunder of the discharge and the recoiling gun-trucks, lurching to leeward in reaction, Faulkner observed the cloud of smoke from the enemy’s own guns. A second later the air was rent by the tearing noise of the passing shot: a few holes appeared in the sails and a rope under strain parted with a twang, so that the fore topgallant yard swung unconstrained by its severed brace. A thump or two told where a few balls had hit the Perseus and an explosion of splinters came from at least three places along her starboard rail. Someone amidships staggered back and another seemed to disintegrate as a gobbet of scarlet blossomed and then spread in a wet and lurid stain across the white planking. A sharp laceration ripped across his own cheek and he felt first the warm wet blood pour down his face and then the sear of the pain as the splinter passed him like a thrown knife-blade.