Until the Sea Shall Give Up Her Dead

by Sean Thomas Russell

  It was always Hayden’s way to plan for as many different eventualities as he could imagine. Given the vagaries of wind and weather, plans must often be abandoned, and on short notice too. Officers committed to one plan, and one plan only did not last long in the King’s Navy. Wind and sea were forces too great to master – men must ever and always adapt to them.

  The present matter, Hayden thought, had come down to a three-way race between the ship’s boats, the privateer and the descending darkness. The white crests of small breaking waves could be seen, marking the areas where the falling tide had exposed the shoal.

  ‘Helm half a point to larboard, Childers. Let us get as near this reef as we dare.’

  ‘Half a point to larboard, sir.’

  Hayden peered over the side, but it was now too dark to make out the bottom, which was one advantage lost. The schooner was yet some distance to windward, sailing fast. She had given up firing, perhaps realizing that seasoned British sailors were not merchantmen who would strike at the first shot. They were clearly hoping to reach the end of the reef before the Themises and Hayden was now beginning to think that she would do just that.

  Reaching under the plank-thwart, he took out the folded tracing of Mr Barthe’s chart. It covered only the harbour and immediate surroundings; it did not extend to the end of the careenage, as Hayden had never thought for a moment that he would be sailing the brig in these shallow waters. He cursed his foolishness. The brig was on a shoal in the bay and he was without the proper chart.

  No one aboard had eaten, now, for a day entire, and Hayden was beginning to feel weak and lethargic, although he was uncertain how much of this might be in his mind and not his body. The schooner passed them now, still too distant to bother wasting more shot.

  ‘Is there deep water off the end of this reef, Captain?’ Childers enquired quietly.

  ‘I cannot recall,’ Hayden told him. It embarrassed him to do what he did next, but he stood and called out to the other boat. ‘Mr Ransome! Is there deep water to the south of this shoal?’

  Ransome consulted with Wickham hurriedly, then stood so he could see Hayden. ‘Mr Wickham believes there may be, Captain.’

  ‘He is not certain?’ Hayden called back.

  ‘No, sir, he is not.’

  ‘Mr Wickham? Can you make out the end of the dried shoal?’

  Ransome sat and Wickham rose in his place, leaning out and low to look under the boom. His hand shot up.

  ‘There, sir,’ the midshipman called out. ‘Not half a mile, I should think.’

  Hayden waved and sat back down. The schooner altered her course at that moment, angling in toward the shore. The sun must have set, for the brief dusk was upon them. Hayden could just make out the men aboard the schooner, gathered at the rail.

  Three simultaneous blossoms of flame and a shroud of roiling smoke almost hid the hull for a moment. The report reached them, and then shot landed nearby, one ball skipping across the wave tops and passing between the two British boats.

  ‘Imagine missing us at that distance,’ Hawthorne observed from the bow. ‘Shall I stand and afford them a larger target?’

  ‘In truth, Mr Hawthorne,’ Hayden replied, ‘their gunnery appears to be up to the task.’

  Hayden looked quickly around. If Wickham was right and there was deep water off the end of the reef, then the schooner would cut them off. For a moment he hesitated and then Hayden called out, ‘Mr Ransome! We are going into the careenage.’

  ‘The careenage?’ the lieutenant shouted back.

  ‘That is correct.’ Hayden nodded to Childers. ‘As close to the breaking waves as we dare.’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  Orders were given and sheets started as Childers brought the wind around on to the boat’s starboard quarter. They were angling in toward the shore. The schooner unleashed another small broadside, but the balls all fell short this time.

  ‘Captain!’ came the call from Ransome. ‘Mr Wickham believes they are preparing to launch boats, sir.’

  ‘Will they heave-to, Captain?’ Gould asked.

  ‘I believe they will anchor. There is not enough surf to matter, and with such a handy little ship they can readily sail off.’

  Darkness deepened by the moment, and in fifteen minutes the schooner was lost to sight completely. They were sailing inside the reef now, into a dark anchorage with a narrow pass and spotted with irregular reefs to either side.

  ‘Are you … content with our course, sir?’ Childers enquired.

  ‘I am not the least content, Childers,’ Hayden told the coxswain. ‘But we shall hold it for a short time, tuck in near the shore where it is darkest, let the privateers pass us by in their boats and slip back out again. Or so I hope.’

  The boats went gliding along now across glassy waters. Overhead, the sky was thinly clouded – starless and moonless. The trade began to take off a little but, on such calm waters, their speed remained the same. Hayden strained to hear the splash of oars, but over the small waves breaking on the windward side of the reef no such sounds could be discerned.

  Perhaps a little more than half a mile into the careenage, Hayden’s boat suddenly ground to a halt, the wind immediately pushing the stern to leeward.

  ‘Let run the sheets!’ Hayden ordered.

  Before he could call out a warning, Ransome’s boat ran up on the same reef to windward of them, the stern lurching to larboard and the sails beginning to flog.

  The men went quickly over the side.

  ‘Do not push her off!’ Hayden hissed at the crew. ‘We must get the sails off her.’

  The sails were down of an instant. Hayden ordered the men to crouch behind the boats and distributed arms to the most experienced hands.

  ‘Do not fire until I order it,’ he whispered, and the order was passed down the line of men to the crew of the second boat. He waded to the bow of his own boat, where he would be in the centre of the line and his orders most likely to be heard. He had one knee in shallow water and steadied his pistol on the gunwale. If he was correct, the pass was so narrow at this end of the anchorage that a pistol could be fired across it with the very real expectation of inflicting damage.

  He could hear no sound of oars over the breaking seas – at least no sound of which he could be certain. And then the privateers’ boat seemed to take shape out of the darkness … not twenty yards distant.

  All breathing stopped.

  Hayden prayed that none of his men would lose their nerve. The master of the schooner, if he knew his business, would not have sent only a single boat, even if he did hope to raise the alarm in the careenage.

  The French boat, painted some light colour, was going to pass to the right of them, down what was very likely the passage Hayden’s boats had missed. The privateers bent to their oars, which had been muffled. Hayden could feel them looking every which way more than he could see them, but no French voice raised the alarm.

  Just when Hayden thought he must either order the men to fire or let the boat pass by, a second boat materialized before them.

  Hayden leaned near to Ransome. ‘If we must fire, the second boat is yours.’

  Ransome nodded.

  Under the sound of waves, the order passed from man to man. The crew of Hayden’s boat tracked the first privateer with their muskets and pistols.

  ‘There!’ one of the French sailors cried out, and he leapt up to point, rocking the boat. ‘There!’

  ‘Fire!’ Hayden ordered.

  It was a small volley – four muskets and six pistols, one of which misfired. Ransome’s broadside was no larger. Even so, at such close range, every shot likely found its mark. Immediately, French voices cried out in anguish and pain.

  ‘Reload!’ Hayden ordered.

  A ragged fire was returned, but Hayden’s men had ducked behind their boat. When pistols were loaded Hayden ordered a second volley. The privateers who could still man an oar were pulling for all they were worth, but the range was still very short and Hayden guessed
that the harm done among the enemy was very great.

  ‘Into the boats!’

  Sails were set and quickly sheeted, and the boats set off south, out of the mouth of the careenage. In the dark, and over calm waters, the boat seemed almost to be in flight, soaring low over the sea.

  ‘Mr Gould,’ Hayden said quietly to the midshipman, ‘ask if any were wounded and have Mr Hawthorne load all the muskets and pistols.’ He handed Gould his own pistol and his shot and powder as well.

  ‘No one hurt, sir,’ came Gould’s report a moment later. ‘Captain? Morris has departed this life. Shall we slip him into the sea, sir?’

  ‘Yes, may God have mercy on his soul.’

  With barely a splash, the able seaman known as Morris was put over the side and slid past Hayden, his face barely visible in the dark waters. Hayden closed his eyes a second. Nine men, he counted.

  ‘Captain?’ came Gould’s voice. As he returned Hayden’s loaded pistol, he said, ‘Mr Hawthorne asked me to inform you that we have not enough shot to load all the muskets, sir.’

  ‘How many can we load?’

  ‘Two, sir. But he has loaded all the pistols and can load half that number once more.’

  It was clear to every man who had heard Hawthorne’s report that they had not enough shot to fight off a sustained attack by men in boats. They were on the run and relying far too much on luck.

  Within five minutes the boats emerged from behind the cover of the reef and began to bob over the short seas. Ransome’s cutter was very slightly ahead and to leeward of Hayden so when someone aboard quietly hailed him, Hayden could not hear. Word, however, was passed back to him in whispers.

  ‘Schooner, sir … at anchor, directly ahead.’

  Hayden was about to order a course change when he asked, ‘How big a crew on that privateer, Childers?’

  ‘Perhaps twenty, sir. Not more than two dozen.’

  ‘And how many men would you have left aboard to man the ship?’

  ‘Six, Captain. Certainly not eight.’

  ‘My thoughts exactly. Mr Gould …? Pass the word to Mr Hawthorne. We will board the schooner and attempt to take her. Have him inform Mr Ransome.’

  ‘Take the schooner, sir?’ Gould repeated. ‘With two muskets and six pistols?’

  ‘Did you not hear Childers say they would leave six men aboard?’

  ‘It was only a guess, sir,’ Childers said quickly, ‘not a certainty.’

  ‘An educated guess. We should have the crew outnumbered, and it will be cutlasses and bayonets, at any rate.’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  Twenty-two

  Archer could not bring himself to move into the captain’s cabin, even though it appeared that he would be in command of the Themis at least until they returned to Barbados. Admiral Caldwell would then have the power to confirm him in his temporary position, or replace him. If there were some lieutenant aboard one of the other frigates who was pressed forward by his captain or to whose family Caldwell owed a favour, then Archer could be replaced. It would not be in any way unusual or in the least surprising. Admirals far from England’s shores promoted the officers they patronized. That was the way of the Navy.

  Even if Archer was not yet prepared to hang his cot in the captain’s cabin, he immediately began doing paperwork and conducting ship’s business there. The business at hand was placating an indignant sailing master and a quietly seething surgeon.

  ‘The entire enterprise was imprudent from the start,’ Barthe complained. ‘And then, upon discovering that the bay was full of French ships, he displayed the judgement of an idiot child! Our captain and our shipmates are in a French gaol because Jones is a vainglorious ass! There was a very good reason that Oxford and Crawley decamped at first opportunity. They knew what lay ahead.’

  ‘Mr Barthe, I do caution you to lower your voice,’ Archer said softly. ‘I do not think it is wise to let your opinions on this matter circulate throughout the ship.’

  ‘Mr Archer, the entire ship’s company is speaking of Jones in far less generous terms than I am, you may be sure.’

  Archer suspected that Barthe was right.

  ‘I am much in favour of venting our spleen in regards to Sir William Jones,’ Griffiths said, with just the tiniest tremor in his voice, ‘but the question remains: what shall we do? If we remain in company with Jones we shall be recruited to his lunatic enterprises, and you, Mr Archer, are not even a junior post captain; you shall be obliged to do as he commands.’

  Archer felt as though the planks beneath him grew somehow soft and he was sinking through them – down toward the sea beneath.

  The sailing master tapped his index finger upon the table. ‘I for one believe we should – entirely without intent – become separated from Jones this very night … before he leads us to our utter destruction!’

  ‘It is one thing for post captains such as Crawley and Oxford to lose sight of Sir William’s ship,’ Archer protested. ‘They will both claim it was due to poor weather, or fog, or whatever excuse they agree upon. Caldwell would never accuse them of doing so by intent. But I am only an acting-captain, whom he can replace upon a whim. He might have some other whose career he would like to advance and he will use my separation from Jones as his excuse to replace me. And then you might well have a new acting-captain who will follow Jones through the gates of Hades. I am not certain that is preferable.’

  ‘Without question, Mr Archer,’ Griffiths quickly spoke, ‘having you as our commander is preferable, but remaining with Sir William is to place our ship and crew in danger to no purpose. I do not know why his own crew has not mutinied.’

  ‘The hands idolize him!’ Barthe replied. ‘A coward, like Faint Hart, they might come to despise, but a brave man … even if he wastes their lives, they will follow him. I still believe we should separate ourselves from Jones at first opportunity. If we make the admiral enough prize money, I doubt he will replace Mr Archer.’

  ‘I will not do it on a clear night,’ Archer informed them. ‘I need at least a little weather so that I might reasonably claim to have lost sight of Inconstant. To lose sight of him on a fine night is to risk losing command, which I will not do.’

  Barthe looked at him oddly. ‘Mr Archer, if Caldwell has some other he wishes to put in command of our ship he will not require an excuse. He will do so because he can.’

  Twenty-three

  ‘Round up on the schooner’s larboard side, Childers,’ Hayden informed the coxswain quietly, ‘and we will let sheets fly as we come alongside.’

  ‘We will have quite a little way on, sir,’ Childers said.

  ‘I am afraid you are right. I will attempt to get the stern rope around something and stop us. Mr Gould, I shall trust you to shoot anyone who endeavours to kill me as I am doing this.’

  He thought Gould nodded in the dark.

  The schooner was an indistinct mass of shadow, then it began to take on definition. Thirty yards off, someone aboard called out, ‘Boats!’

  Hayden stood up and shouted in French, ‘What ship are you? Identify yourself!’

  ‘La Poulette,’ the man shouted in return. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Lieutenant Mercier of the La Vengeance. I will speak with your captain.’

  ‘The captain is away in the boats,’ one of the men replied.

  They were not ten paces off now, and Hayden could just make out the shapes of men lining the rail.

  ‘Prepare to fire,’ he said softly in English. He waited, not wanting to waste any shot. The men at the rail became more distinct, if remaining dark silhouettes. If he came too close, they risked being unmasked.

  ‘Fire,’ Hayden ordered. He levelled his own pistol and shot at the small mass of men along the rail.

  Judging wind and sea, Childers rounded up sharply and brought the barge alongside, backing the mizzen as he did so. Hayden clambered up with one foot on the boat’s gunnel, ran the rope around a stanchion and leaned back against it. Two of the crew jumped up to aid him and they
quickly brought the boat to.

  The men went over the rail with cutlasses and tomahawks, but there were only two privateers standing and these threw down their weapons immediately upon seeing the British, apparently in numbers. Ransome’s boat came alongside, aft of Hayden’s, and the men were all quickly aboard.

  ‘We will set sail, Mr Ransome, back a jib to larboard, cut the cable and set off on the starboard tack. Take the men you need; all others, prepare to repel boarders. The privateers might return at any moment. Mr Hawthorne! Secure the prisoners then search the ship for hiding Frenchmen. Mr Gould – a loaded weapon for every man … and load this swivel gun as well.’

  Despite lack of food, the British sailors ran to their appointed tasks.

  The mainsail and gaff, though small by frigate standards, were heavy for such a small crew. It seemed to take an inordinate amount of time to raise and peak the gaff. While this sail luffed and shivered in the wind, the foresail was raised. Before the men could get to the headsail halyards, Wickham shouted and pointed toward the careenage.

  ‘Boat off our larboard quarter, Captain!’

  Every man aboard snatched up the weapon they had been given and rushed to the rail. At that instant a cry went up from the French, who realized their schooner had been taken. A musket fired to Hayden’s right and Hawthorne loudly commanded men to hold their fire until ordered otherwise by the captain.

  Twenty yards off, the privateers opened fire with muskets and pistols, and balls began to strike planking and at least one British sailor, who tumbled back and lay moaning on the deck.

  ‘Fire the swivel gun,’ Hayden ordered.

  The swivel gun was ignited by match, so took a few seconds to fire. By the sounds of men crying out, Hayden thought they had struck home.

  ‘Fire muskets,’ he said, raising his voice just enough to be heard.

  A dozen muskets broke the silence. Hayden closed his eyes so the muzzle flash would not destroy his night vision.

  ‘Reload muskets,’ Hayden instructed. ‘Pistols at the ready.’

  The boats of the privateers continued on, rowed by desperate men who realized their vessel was about to be lost if they could not take her back.