The Battle of All the Ages

by J. D. Davies

  We were very nearly level with the Sovereign, we moving onto the starboard side of the Dutchman, the Golden Devil onto the larboard. The Lion and Triumph were similarly in parallel behind us, moving to take up position on her quarters.

  ‘He might as well strike his colours now,’ I said. ‘He’s done for.’

  ‘No,’ said Delacourt, his telescope fixed on the bows of the Dutchman. ‘No, he can’t be –’

  ‘Lieutenant?’

  ‘Saw it done once by a sloop in the tiderace at the Shannon’s mouth – but surely it can’t work –’

  ‘She’s dropping anchor!’ cried Urquhart.

  In that moment, the large anchors on both the starboard and larboard bows of the Dutchman, together with her stern anchor, fell into the sea.

  ‘Jesus,’ I swore. ‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! Mister Burdett, there! Larboard battery to engage –’

  But it was already too late. The Dutchman came to a dead stop. Carried forward inexorably by the racing ebb, and by the weight of canvas we had aloft, we were past her even before the order to fire could be given. The same was true of the Sovereign. The Lion and Triumph, coming up behind us, managed to fire off a desultory broadside each before they, too, swept past the stationary Dutchman.

  ‘Clever,’ said Musk. ‘Many-headed, and clever.’

  ‘Surely we can simply turn and capture him!’ cried Rochester.

  ‘My Lord,’ I snapped, ‘ships do not simply turn. We cannot sail back directly into the wind, nor into this ebb. That which stopped the Dutch coming up to rescue him now prevents us going back to take him. He has outfoxed us, whoever he is. A brave man, and a skilful one, that captain. A great seaman.’

  But that, he was not. When we met at Veere, my good-brother Cornelis told me that the captain of the Gelderland was a landsman – a soldier named Van Ghent, a colonel of Marines. It seems that all the old seamen among his officers furrowed their brows and stroked their chins when he ordered the sudden dropping of the anchors, it being a thing beyond the compass of minds that must do things this way, because that is how they have always been done. Such is the way of old seamen, and probably always will be.

  * * *

  We had a new quarry, and this one was not going to elude us: on that, I was determined. It was now well into the evening, and we were much further to the east, where the ebb from the Thames no longer affected either fleet. But it also meant we were much closer to the Dutch coast, which was in sight: a long, low strip of land on the horizon.

  ‘Sixty guns, by my reckoning,’ I said, studying the Zeelander ahead. ‘A jury mast at the fore, and heeling to starboard. Must be holed beneath the waterline.’

  ‘Might be your wife’s brother, then,’ said Musk. ‘He’s a sour-faced killjoy at the best of times, so Christ knows what he’ll be like if he has to surrender to you for a second time in a year.’

  ‘While I would not approve of taking Our Lord’s name in vain, Musk,’ said Francis Gale, ‘I think you have the rights of it in this instance. I have met few men more dour than Captain van der Eide.’

  ‘No, wait,’ I said, studying the ship ahead intently, ‘I recognise this ship. We traded broadsides with her on the fourth day of the last battle.’

  ‘You’re right, Sir Matthew,’ said Urquhart. ‘The Zeeland Vice-Admiral’s flagship. Banckert’s ship.’

  ‘Not flying his flag now, though,’ I said. ‘He must have moved to a less damaged command. But it’s of no concern. Honour permits us only two courses, gentlemen – take or destroy!’

  I pointed my sword at the enemy, like a cavalryman charging his foe. This one would not escape. This one would be the prize that my men deserved. This would be repayment for all that had happened in the last weeks. This would be Sir Matthew Quinton’s revenge and apotheosis, all in one.

  We moved in toward the starboard quarter of the Zeelander, firing our bow chasers. Part of the quarterdeck rail, and the quarter-gallery, shattered as our iron balls impacted, sending wooden splinters into the air. The Dutchman fired a few of his upper deck guns, but it was little more than a gesture. The heel of the ship meant that he could not open his lower deck gunports, and that most of the guns on the upper deck could not gain enough elevation to bring us within range. Our angle of attack ensured that none of his guns forward of the quarterdeck could bear on us, and the catastrophic damage to his rigging meant that he could barely manoeuvre.

  ‘My French friend, the Comte d’Andelys, would call this moment the coup de grace,’ I said. ‘Let us apply it.’

  Although there was hardly any resistance, I was feeling the same rush of blood, the same battle-crazed elation, that I had only experienced previously in hand to hand combat, with my life at stake. I was dimly aware of the likes of Francis, Musk and Rochester speaking to me, but did not properly hear them.

  The men aloft adjusted our sails, the helmsman brought over the whipstaff, our yardarms swung, and the Royal Sceptre came in astern of the Dutch ship, very nearly at right angles to her stern. I looked forward, along the deck of the King’s Prick, and saw the men crouching by the starboard guns, intent on their target. Even the greenest landmen among the pressed drafts had their blood up as much as the Cornish veterans. The gun captains had their eyes on me, and on Burdett.

  There was something about the moment. Perhaps it was such a rare thing to have a Dutchman so entirely at one’s mercy. Perhaps it was my still-raw grief for Will Berkeley, or my pent-up anger at the duplicity of a King I had once venerated as a demi-god. Perhaps it was the tension of facing down both that King and the Duke of Albemarle. Perhaps it was my anxiety for Cornelia and my unborn child. Whatever the reason, I felt a sudden surge of rage stronger than any I had known in my life. I wanted nothing more than revenge on the Dutch, this nation of bog-born butterbox upstarts. I wanted nothing more than to give the order for our entire battery to open fire, to send in raking broadside after raking broadside, a bombardment that would slaughter every living thing on the ship lying helpless before us –

  ‘Luke Six, Chapter Thirty-Six,’ said Francis Gale, by my side. I was suddenly aware of the fact that it was the third or fourth time he had said this.

  ‘What? What do you say, priest?’

  ‘Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father is also merciful. You must summon him to surrender first, Matthew. It is the godly thing to do. It is the honourable thing to do.’

  ‘Be silent, damn you –’ But I turned, and saw the face of my friend. The face of a man of God. ‘Y-yes, Francis. You are right, of course. We must demand his surrender.’

  Young Kellett brought me my voice trumpet, and I called out in Dutch.

  ‘Ho, captain of the Zeelander! I am Sir Matthew Quinton, captain of His Majesty’s ship the Royal Sceptre! You have fought bravely, but your ship is disabled beyond hope. There is no dishonour if you surrender in such circumstances. And if you do not, I will wreak upon you the full force of England’s righteous vengeance! I call upon you to strike your colours, Captain!’

  There was silence. Long minutes of silence. We were nearly alone; most of our ships, and all of the Dutch, were already past us, still running for the east, toward the Weilings and the Dutch fleet’s harbours. I could see men scurrying about the quarterdeck of the Zeelander, and could imagine the scene. The officers would be in conference. Perhaps her captain, whoever he might be after Admiral Banckert’s departure, was a diehard patriot, holding out against sullen warrant officers who wished to surrender; or perhaps the captain was a coward and his subordinates were trying to force him to fight to the death…

  ‘Ho, Matt Quinton!’

  The voice coming across the water was a very familiar one, albeit one I had not heard for three years, since the last time that Cornelia and I visited her parents and home town. The voice of a friend. The voice of a friend whom I had very nearly murdered in cold blood.

  ‘Pieter? Pieter de Mauregnault?’

  ‘That it is. Captain Pieter de Mauregnault of the Tholen, flag captain to Vice-Admiral Ba
nckert. And you may be a knight of England now, Matt Quinton, but you still owe me a flagon of ale at the Sign of the Ostrich in Veere.’

  During the two-and-a-half years when I lived in exile in Veere, before the King’s restoration, Pieter de Mauregnault had become a good friend. A big, bluff, bellowing fellow who loved life, he was a rarity in a town thronged with gloomy Calvinists, and a blessed relief from the tedious company of my wife’s parents and brother. He reckoned that his irreverent attitude and love of drink owed much to his French ancestor, a century and a half before.

  I tried to be as jovial as I could, given the imperative of the moment and the horror of realising what I had very nearly done. Of what I might yet do.

  ‘I cannot promise you repayment in the same surroundings, Pieter. But you can have your choice of the taverns in London or Bedford, if you will surrender your ship.’

  ‘Surrender my ship, Sir Matthew? Now why would I do that, precisely?’

  ‘You are sinking, man! You cannot manoeuvre. You cannot fire a broadside. You’re undermanned – how small a skeleton crew did Banckert leave you, after taking off most of his men?’

  Pieter de Mauregnault shrugged.

  ‘We are still Dutch. We are still Zeelanders. So even if we had only one man left, we would not be undermanned. We do not surrender, Sir Matthew.’

  I remembered Pieter’s stubbornness. When we were young, it had seemed an attractive trait. But now, with the rage still far from gone from my surging blood, it served only to remind me of the power I could unleash with one word of command.

  ‘Look at the position of our ships, man! You know what will happen if you refuse. You are condemning your men to death.’

  ‘Come and try to board us, my friend, and then see what condemned men can do!’

  ‘I don’t intend to board you, Pieter, because I know how Zeelanders fight. Even my wife, by God. You’ll lose, but you’ll kill many of my men before you do. And I’ve lost enough men, these last two battles. Too many good men. So we do things the English way.’

  Friend or not, my fury demanded satisfaction. Friend or not, this was a Dutch flagship, and it would pay. Friend or not, Pieter de Mauregnault would pay.

  I raised my sword, then dropped it.

  One gun in the forecastle, and one only – a demi-culverin – belched flame. Some of the glass and framing in the Tholen’s stern windows shattered.

  ‘What is this?’ I cried. ‘Who has dared to countermand my orders? Who has done this?’

  But they all looked at me like a stony-faced bench of judges condemning a man. Francis Gale, Phineas Musk, Julian Delacourt, Urquhart, Burdett, even Lord Rochester. Not one of them gave himself away, nor anyone else. To this day, I do not know who modified my order so that my time-honoured command would unleash only a single warning shot, not the full force of our broadside. A final chance for Pieter de Mauregnault, a man I called my friend, to see sense. Some would call it mutiny. Perhaps some would call it saving the soul of Sir Matthew Quinton. For some reason, though, all I could think of in that moment was my unborn child. My half-Dutch child.

  I looked across to the Tholen, and saw Pieter despatch a man below. The fellow was back within the minute, and said something to his commander. But Pieter de Mauregnault said nothing. He simply stared at me, across the two-hundred years or so of water that separated us.

  ‘The whole battery is loaded with the same ammunition, Pieter,’ I shouted, trying my hardest to recover my composure and authority. ‘Canister and grape shot to kill your men. Chain and bar to bring down your remaining rigging. We will sweep your decks relentlessly, until the blood flows from your gunports. We will rake you with impunity, all night if necessary, for your own fleet will be safe behind its sandbanks by then, and no-one will come to save you. We will slaughter every man of your crew, Pieter. We will still have your ship, and you and all of them will have died in vain.’

  Still my old friend said nothing. Then, at last, he raised his voice trumpet once again.

  ‘Well, Matt Quinton,’ he said, ‘if I’d known that the nervous, gangling boy I drank with in the alehouses of Veere would turn into such a vicious, murderous, devilish bastard as you, I’d have drowned you in the harbour there and then.’

  He turned, and nodded to one of his men. The fellow went to the staff, and slowly hauled down the Dutch colours.

  The cheering began on the gundecks of the Royal Sceptre. It echoed from one end of the ship to the other. The shouting followed in short order.

  ‘Glory to England and Saint George!’

  ‘God save the King! God bless Sir Matthew!’

  ‘A fat prize, boys, and riches for all!’

  I saw John Tremar and several others of my Cornish following down in the ship’s waist, and they were bellowing another cry.

  ‘Glory to Cornwall! Glory to Saint Piran!’

  I could not cheer. I had no words; none at all. Countless competing emotions, but no words.

  Far forward on the bowsprit, Lord Rochester’s monkey, the first lieutenant of the King’s Prick, swung upon the jackstaff, where the red, white and blue colours of the Union Flag briefly enveloped it. Then it shat into the sea.

  Epilogue

  The English are a fickle race.

  In the immediate aftermath of the redeeming victory of St James’s Day, the calamity of the four-day fight suddenly seemed a distant nightmare, a temporary aberration upon England’s divinely ordained road to a victorious, imperial destiny. And very soon, an even greater calamity, one which I witnessed – indeed, one in which I hazarded my life – came upon the kingdom: namely, the destruction of the city of London by fire. No-one, from the king downward, still demanded a scapegoat for the division of the fleet, which was all but forgotten. There was no more talk of traitors, nor of hanging, drawing and quartering. This was a mighty relief to Beau Harris above all, who continued to command the Jupiter; and if every seaman in the kingdom mocked him behind his back for not being able to tell the French fleet from the Spanish, Beau had a skin more than thick enough to bear it, especially as he had the love of Bella Mendez to sustain him through it all.

  But time passes. Events move from the feverish tempests of the present into the calmer waters of the past. Men have an opportunity to reflect, and that reflection is shaped by the prognostications of the most idle, malicious peddlers of mendacity: that is to say, historians. And the historians, denied the truths that my brother and I discovered in the summer of that fateful year Sixty-Six – the annus mirabilis, as that fawning scribbler Dryden called it – these same historians concoct elaborate fantasies to prove how very clever they are. So it has been with the division of the fleet. It is now holy writ that, because of the report of one ignorant gentleman captain, the fleet was fatally divided and Prince Rupert was sent west to attack a non-existent French fleet reputed to be approaching the Channel. Thus George of Albemarle, that pure and virtuous old English hero, was forced to fight against impossible odds. And, of course, this was all the fault of that devious, fornicating mountebank, King Charles the Second.

  I could refute the historians. I could write my own history of those events, the true history, in which Albemarle’s own arrogance and duplicity would be proved, the Prince’s ambition exposed, and the gullibility and bungling of the king’s ministers brought into the light. Above all, I would damn the historians for depending on the evidence in the Gazette, and warn my fellow Englishmen that whatever they do, they should not believe what they read in those infernal outpourings of rancid untruth, the so-called news-papers.

  But I will not write such a history.

  For one thing, I doubt if anyone would believe it – ‘ah, but he is so very old, his brains must be addled’.

  For another, I doubt if anyone would care. It was a very long time ago, and an England ruled by turds like Robert Walpole and George Wettin, while being eaten away from within by gin and Jacobinism alike, is not a place where historical truth is greatly prized.

  And for one final thing
, to write such a history would force me, at last, to confront that same truth.

  I denied that self-same truth when I told young Ned Hawke about the four-day fight. I denied it in the days after I came back from Plymouth, when my thoughts were filled with the prospect of fatherhood. I have denied it to myself for sixty years and more. But this truth niggled away at me over the years, whispering in my ear when I was in a dark mood, sometimes giving me disturbed nights and strange dreams.

  For according to this strange, unwelcome truth, I was responsible for the division of the fleet.

  Of course, my rational self has no truck with such a perverse notion. How could the young Sir Matthew Quinton, a mere captain who played no direct part in the promulgation or acceptance of the false intelligence, bear such a responsibility? How could he, who was at sea when the orders were given, have played any part at all in bringing on the calamity that followed?

  But my less rational self sees it thus.

  In the first instance, I told Beau Harris the story of my grandfather and the false ensigns. I planted in his mind the notion that the fleet he saw off Lisbon could only be that of France. True, Beau’s intelligence reached Whitehall only after the order to divide our forces had already been given; but his letter reinforced the sense that the approach of the French fleet had to be true, and thus fatally delayed an order to recall Rupert.

  That, in itself, would be an insignificant matter.

  In one sense, so, too, is the responsibility I must bear for the death of Nathaniel Garrett, the poor creature whom I assumed to have been slaughtered for his knowledge of the French army at La Rochelle. Upon my arrival in Plymouth, I put out the word that I wished to interview him. As he revealed during his interrogation by Francis Gale and myself, Ludovic Conibear convinced himself that I had come to Plymouth, not to investigate the division of the fleet – which, of course, he could not know – but had instead come down from London to investigate him. Conibear feared that my public appeal for Garrett to come forward meant that I somehow knew of his dealings with Kranz, and that Garrett might testify to their alliance, and illegal and treacherous partnership in the illicit trade in smuggled French wine. So Garrett had to be killed; and inadvertently, I caused that murder.