August–December 1804
Orders
‘All hands, ahoy! All hands, reef topsails!’
Drinkwater staggered as Antigone slammed into a sea. A burst of spray exploded over her weather bow and whipped aft, catching the officers on the quarterdeck in the face to induce the painful wind-ache in their cheeks. The equinox had found them at last and Drinkwater experienced a pang of sudden savage joy. He had been warned of the onset of the gale by the increasing ache in his neck and shoulder that pressaged damp weather. During the long, warm, dry days of that exceptional summer he had hardly been reminded of his wound, but now the illusions were gone, stripped aside in that first wet streak of winter that incommoded his officers and afforded him his amusement.
He clapped his hand to his hat as a gust more violent than hitherto laid the ship over. ‘Mr Rogers!’
‘Sir?’
‘We’ll reef in stays, Mr Rogers. See what the hands can do!’ He saw Rogers’s look of incredulity and grinned as the first lieutenant turned away.
‘Hands, tack ship and reef topsails in one!’ bawled Rogers through his speaking trumpet. It amused Drinkwater to see the variety of reactions his order provoked. Hill caught his eye with a twinkle, Quilhampton grinned in anticipation, while Lieutenant Fraser, still considering Drinkwater something of an enigma, looked suitably quizzical. The hands milled at their mustering points.
‘Man the rigging! ’Way aloft, topmen!’
Drinkwater crossed the deck and stood by the helm. ‘Keep her off the wind a half point, quartermaster.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
Drinkwater felt the thrill of anticipation. There was no real need to put the ship upon the other tack at this precise moment, but the evolution of going about and reefing the topsails at the same moment was an opportunity for a smart frigate to demonstrate the proficiency of her ship’s company. By the eagerness with which the topmen lay aloft, some of this had communicated itself to them. One could always count on an appeal to a professional seaman’s skill.
‘Deck there!’ The masthead look-out was hailing. ‘Sail four points on the weather bow, sir. Looks like a cutter!’
Drinkwater acknowledged the hail, his sense of satisfaction growing. They now had a reason for tacking and an audience, and Fraser was looking at Drinkwater as if wondering how he had known of the presence of the other vessel.
‘Down helm!’
Next to Drinkwater the four men at the double wheel spun the spokes through their fingers. Antigone came upright as she turned into the wind, the rush of her forward advance slowed rapidly and the scream of the wind across her deck diminished.
‘Clew down topsails! Mainsail haul! Trice up and lay out!’
This was the nub of the manoeuvre, for the main and mizen yards were hauled with the topmen upon them at the same moment as the topsail yards were lowered on their halliards, the braces tended, the bowlines slacked off and the reef-pendants hauled up. Apart from Drinkwater’s orders to the helmsmen and the general commands to the deck conveying the progress of the manoeuvre, there was a host of subsidiary instructions given by the subordinate officers and petty officers at their stations at the pin rails, the braces, the halliards and in the bunts of the topsails aloft.
As the yards were lowered, the studding sail booms lifted and the main and mizen topsails flogged, folding upwards as the reef-pendants did their work. Antigone continued her turn, heeling over to her new course as the fore topsail came aback, spinning her head with increasing speed.
‘Midships and meet her.’ Drinkwater peered forward and upwards where he could see the foretopmen having the worst time of it, trying to reef their big topsail while it was still full of wind.
‘Man the head-braces! Halliards there!’
Rogers watched for the hand signals of the mates and midshipmen aloft to tell him the earings were secured and the reef-points passed round the reduced portions of each topsail. Meanwhile Antigone crabbed awkwardly to leeward.
‘Hoist away topsails! Haul all!’
Aloft the topsails rose again, stretched and reset, assuming the flat curve of sails close hauled against the wind as the forebraces hauled round their yards parallel with those on the main and mizen masts. On deck the halliards were sweated tight and the bowlines secured against the shivering of the weather leeches, belayed ropes were being coiled down and the topmen were sliding down the backstays, chaffing each other competitively. Antigone stopped crabbing and began to drive forward again on the new tack. She butted into a sea and the spray came flying aft over the other bow.
‘Steady,’ Drinkwater ordered the helmsmen, peering into the binnacle at the compass bowl. ‘Course Nor’west by west.’
‘Steady, sir. Course Nor’west by west it is, sir.’
Rogers came aft and touched his hat. He was grinning back at Drinkwater. ‘Ship put about on the larboard tack, sir, and all three topsails reefed in one.’
‘Very creditable, Mr Rogers. Now you may pipe “Up spirits” and let us see what this cutter wants.’
Drinkwater glanced through the stern windows where the Admiral Mitchell danced in their wake. The lieutenant in command of her had luffed neatly under their lee quarter half an hour ago and skilfully tossed a packet of dispatches on board from her chains. She now lay waiting for him to digest the news they contained. He studied the written orders for some moments, put aside the private letters and newspapers, and summoned Lord Walmsley. To Drinkwater’s regret Walmsley had not offered to resign, though Drinkwater knew he could afford to and had therefore taken steps to settle the midshipman elsewhere. The young man knocked and entered the cabin.
‘Sir?’ Walmsley had been rigidly formal since his punishment. The experience had been deeply engraved upon his consciousness, yet Drinkwater sensed beneath this formality a deep and abiding resentment. Walmsley was still not convinced that he had erred.
‘Mr Walmsley, I have for some time been considering your future. I have been successful in obtaining for you another berth. Rear-Admiral Louis who has, as you know, hoisted his flag aboard the Leopard to assist Lord Keith in the Strait of Dover, has agreed to take you on board.’
Walmsley had clearly not expected such a transfer and Drinkwater hoped that he would be appreciative of it. ‘I hope,’ he added, ‘that you are sensible of the honour done you by Admiral Louis. No word of your conduct has been communicated to the Leopard. You will join with a clean slate. Do you understand?’
‘Sir.’
‘Very good. We will transfer you to the cutter as soon as the sea allows a boat to be launched. You may pack your traps.’
Drinkwater stared after the midshipman. He felt he had failed to make an impression on the youth and he feared that Walmsley would see that his sending him to a flagship only indicated his own lack of interest or influence.
It was two days before Walmsley departed, two days in which Antigone worked slowly south and west in obedience to her new orders. The formation of Rear-Admiral Louis’s squadron had released her from her duties in the Channel and she was sent out to join Cornwallis and the Channel Fleet. Drinkwater greeted this news with mixed feelings. The close contact with the shore would be broken now, the arrival of mail less frequent and he would feel his isolation more. Nor was he very sure of the opinion Cornwallis had formed of him when they had last met. But his puritan soul derived that strange satisfaction from the anticipation of an arduous duty, and in his innermost heart he welcomed the change and the challenge.
It was two days, too, before he found the time to read the newspapers and mail. The most electrifying news for the officers and men of the Antigone was that war with Spain seemed imminent. Since the end of the Peace of Amiens ‘neutral’ Spanish ports had been shamelessly used by French warships. Their crews had enjoyed rights of passage through the country to join and leave their ships, and Spain had done everything to aid and abet her powerful and intimidating neighbour short of an actual declaration of war against Great Britain. Now the new British government
had precipitated a crisis by sending out a flying squadron of four frigates to intercept a similar number of Spanish men-o’-war returning from Montevideo with over a million and a quarter in specie. Opposed by equal and not overwhelming force, the Spanish admiral, Don Joseph Bustamente, had defended the honour of his flag and in the ensuing action the Spanish frigate Mercedes had blown up with her crew and passengers. Although no immediate declaration of war had come from Madrid, it was hourly anticipated, and Drinkwater immediately calculated that the addition of the Spanish fleet to the French would augment it by over thirty ships of the line. They were superb ships too; one, the Santissima Trinidad, had four gun-decks and was the greatest ship in the world.
It was while reflecting on the possible consequences of Mr Pitt’s aggressive new policy, and on whether it would enable the French Emperor to attempt invasion, that his eye fell upon another piece of news; a mere snippet of no apparent importance. Thomas Pitt, second Baron Camelford, had been killed in a duel near Holland House. The circumstances of the affair were confused, but what was of interest to Drinkwater was that there was some veiled and unsubstantiated claims in the less respectable papers that Camelford’s death had been engineered by French agents.
PART TWO
Break-Out
‘I beg to inform your Lordship that the Port of Toulon has never been blockaded by me: quite the reverse – every opportunity has been offered to the Enemy to put to sea . . .’
NELSON TO THE LORD MAYOR OF LONDON August 1804
‘Sail, do not lose a moment, and with my squadrons reunited enter the Channel. England is ours. We are ready and embarked. Appear for twenty-four hours, and all will be ended.’
NAPOLEON TO ADMIRAL VILLENEUVE August 1805
Chapter 10
January 1805
The Rochefort Squadron
‘Signal from Flag, sir.’ Midshipman Wickham’s cheerful face poking round the door was an effront to Drinkwater’s seediness as he woke from a doze.
‘Eh? Well? What o’clock is it?’
‘Four bells, sir,’ Wickham said, then, seeing the captain’s apparent look of incomprehension added, ‘in the afternoon, sir.’
‘Thank you, Mr Wickham’ said Drinkwater drily, now fully awake. ‘I shall be up directly.’
They had received and acknowledged the signal by the time Drinkwater reached the quarterdeck. Lieutenant Fraser handed him the slate as he touched his hat. Drinkwater had grown to like the ruddy Scotsman with his silent manner and dry humour. Drinkwater read the message scribbled on the slate. Midshipman Wickham was already copying it out into the Signal Log.
‘Very well, Mr Fraser, we will close on Doris and see if Campbell has any specific orders for us. In the meantime watch the admiral for further signals.’
‘Aye, sir.’
Drinkwater eased his right shoulder. Of all the stations to be consigned to during the winter months, the west coast of France with its damp procession of gales was possibly the worst for his wound. He drew the cloak closer around him and began to pace the deck, from the hance to the taffrail, casting an eye across the grey, white-streaked waves that separated him from the rest of the squadron. He watched the half-dozen ships of Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Graves jockeying into line ahead, their yards braced up on the larboard tack as they began to move away to the north-north-westwards and the shelter of Quiberon Bay where they were to take in stores and water.
The two frigates Doris and Antigone, being late arrivals at this outpost of the Channel Fleet, were left to watch Rear-Admiral Missiessy’s ships anchored off Rochefort, in the shelter of the Basque Roads. Drinkwater turned his attention to the eastwards. On the horizon he could make out the blue blur of the Ile d’Oléron behind which the French squadron was anchored, comfortably secure under the lee of the island, the approach of its mooring blocked by batteries. He had reconnoitred them several times, sailing Antigone under the guns of the French batteries and carrying out manoeuvres between Oléron and the surrounding islands. It was, he admitted to himself a piece of braggadocio; but it was good for the men, enabling them to demonstrate before the eyes of the French their abilities. Best of all, it broke the monotony of blockade duty. They had received fire from the land batteries and from the floating battery the enemy had anchored off Oléron which mounted huge heavy mortars and long cannon of the heaviest calibres, together with furnaces for heating shot. Beyond the batteries they had counted the ships of Missiessy’s squadron anchored in two neat lines. They appeared so securely moored that their situation seemed permanent, but Drinkwater knew that this was an illusion. There were French squadrons like Missiessy’s in all the major French and Spanish ports, joined now, since the declaration of war against Great Britain, by the splendid ships of the Spanish navy. Nor were they entirely supine. Missiessy had sortied in the previous August, only being turned back by the appearance of Vice-Admiral Sir Robert Calder with a stronger force. From the Texel to Toulon the naval forces of the enemy were now united under the imperial eagle of France. Against this mass of shipping the British blockade was maintained unrelentingly. The ships of Keith, Cornwallis, Calder, Collingwood and Nelson watched each of the enemy ports, detaching squadrons like that of Graves’s to close up the gaps.
Now that Graves had been driven off his station for want of the very necessaries of life itself, the Rochefort squadron of Missiessy was checked by the rather feeble presence of a pair of 36-gun frigates, Antigone and Doris.
‘Doris signalling, sir.’
‘Ah, I rather thought she might.’ Drinkwater waited patiently while his people did their work and deciphered the numerical signal streaming from Doris’s lee yardarms. As senior officer it was up to Campbell of the Doris to decide how best to carry out their duties. Drinkwater listened to the dialogue between Wickham and Frey as the import of Campbell’s intentions became clear.
‘One-two-two.’
‘Permission to part company . . .’
‘Eight-seven-three.’
‘To . . .’
‘Seven-six-six.’
‘See . . .’
‘Two-four-nine.’
‘Enemy . . . er, “Permission to part company to see enemy”, sir.’
‘Very well, Mr Frey. Thank you. You may lay me a course, Mr Fraser. Shake out the fore-course, if you please, let us at least give the impression of attending to our duty with alacrity.’
‘Verra well, sir.’ Fraser grinned back at the captain. He was beginning to like this rather stern Englishman.
Drinkwater woke in the darkness of pre-dawn with the conviction that something was wrong. He listened intently, fully awake, for some sound in the fabric of the ship that would declare its irregularity. There was nothing. They had reduced sail at the onset of the early January darkness and hove-to. Their leeway during the night should have put them between Oléron and the Ile de Ré at dawn, in a perfect position to reconnoitre Missiessy’s anchorage with all the daylight of the short January day to beat offshore again. The westerly wind had dropped after sunset and it was inconceivable that their leeway had been excessive, even allowing for the tide.
Then it occurred to him that the reason for his awakening was something entirely different; his shoulder had stopped aching. He smiled to himself in the darkness, stretched luxuriously and rolled over, composing himself for another hour’s sleep before duty compelled him to rise. And then suddenly he was wide awake, sitting bolt upright in his cot. An instant later he was feeling for his breeches, stockings and shoes. He stumbled across the cabin in his haste, fumbling for the clean shirt that Mullender should have left. If his shoulder was not aching it meant the air was drier. And if the air was drier it meant only one thing, the wind was hauling to the eastward. He pulled on his coat, wound a muffler around his neck to suppress the quinsy he had felt coming on for several days and, pulling on his cloak, went on deck.
The dozing sentry jerked to attention at this untimely appearance of the captain. As he emerged, Drinkwater knew immediately his instinct was righ
t. Above the tracery of the mastheads the stars were coldly brilliant, the cloudy overcast of yesterday had vanished. A figure detached itself from the group around the binnacle. It was Quilhampton.
‘Morning, sir. A change in the weather. Dead calm for the last half-hour and colder.’
‘Why did you not call me, Mr Q?’ asked Drinkwater with sudden asperity.
‘Sir? But sir, your written orders said to call you if the wind freshened . . . I supposed that you were concerned with an increase in our leeway, sir, not . . . not a calm, sir. The ship is quite safe, sir.’
‘Damn it, sir, don’t patronise me!’
‘I beg pardon, sir.’ Even in the darkness Quilhampton was obviously crestfallen.
Drinkwater took a turn or two up and down the deck. He realised that the wind had not yet got up, that his apprehensions were not yet fully justified. ‘Mr Q!’
‘Sir?’
‘Forgive my haste, Mr Q.’
‘With pleasure, sir. But I assure you, sir, that I would have called you the instant I thought that the ship was in any danger.’
‘It is not the ship that concerns me, James. It is the enemy!’
‘The enemy, sir?’
‘Yes, the enemy. In an hour from now the wind will be easterly and in two hours from now Missiessy, if he’s half the man I think him to be, will be ordering his ships to sea. Now d’you understand?’
‘Yes . . . yes I do. I’ll have the watch cast loose the t’gallants ready to set all sail the moment it’s light, sir.’
‘That’s the spirit. And I’ll go below and break my fast. I’ve a feeling that this will be a long day.’
Over his spartan breakfast of skillygolee, coffee and toast, Drinkwater thought over the idea that had germinated from the seeds sown during his extraordinary conversation with Mr Pitt. He knew that he would not consciously have reasoned a grand strategy for the French by himself, but that game of shuttlecock with ideas at Walmer had produced the only convincing answer to the conundrum of Napoleon’s intentions. It was clear that the French would now move their vast armies across the Channel until they had a fleet in the vicinity. Now, with Admiral Ver Huell’s Dutch ships joining a Combined Franco–Spanish fleet, the preposterous element of such a grand design was diminishing. Drinkwater did not attempt to unravel the reasoning behind Pitt’s deliberate provocation of Spain. It seemed only to undermine the solid foundation of Britain’s defence based upon the Channel Fleet off Brest and the understanding that, if the enemy they blockaded escaped, then every British squadron fell back upon the chops of the Channel. In this grand strategy there still remained the factor of the unexpected. Navigationally the mouth of the Channel was difficult to make, particularly when obstructed by an enemy fleet. For the French Commander-in-Chief a passage round Scotland offered nothing but advantages: prevailing fair winds, a less impeded navigation, the element of surprise and the greater difficulty for the British of watching his movements. In addition the fleets of other nations could be more readily added. Russia, for instance, still not wholly committed to defying the new Emperor of France, perhaps the Danes, and certainly the Dutch. Worst of all was the consideration that the enemy might be in the Strait of Dover while the British waited for them off the Isles of Scilly. And the only place from which to launch such an attack was the West Indies, where the French might rendezvous, blown there by favourable winds to recuperate and re-victual from friendly islands.
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