HMS Vigilant: A Charles Mullins Novel (Sea Command Book 5)

by Richard Testrake

  Using his knife as a pointer, Edwistair indicated a peninsula on the western coast of Finistére. A rocky path ran through rough country from the sea to the encampment near the village of Cruzon. Stone blocks from old ruins supplied the materials used to construct the enclosure. Only fifty troops supplied security for the camp, but there were four small field guns present that could deliver fire upon any attackers.

  When asked how he knew about the installation, he said he and his men routinely supplied fish to the troops and their prisoners. He thought there might be a total of perhaps a dozen British seamen there, but could not be certain since he had never seen more than a few at any one time. Edwistair was certain only one route would be suitable to rescue the people. This would be the same pathway his party used in the past to carry their fish to the place.

  A small inlet, large enough for ships’ boats was available for the invasion, although it was covered by a battery of four guns at the head of the inlet. In good weather, it would be difficult to attack this battery. There were few places where men could be landed to attack the battery from the rear, and any attackers would be in sight during daylight hours. During darkness, if would be difficult to navigate through the surrounding rocks without alerting the enemy.

  There was a weakness in the enemy defenses though. Often, the wind would blow right down the length of the inlet, throwing high waves up onto the precipice where the battery was located. During these periods, spray would drench the priming of the guns, making them difficult or impossible to fire. The French defenders were not concerned, believing nobody would be foolish enough to attack the battery in such conditions.

  Edwistair knew of a place up the coast a bit where a few good men could be unloaded and make their way to the battery. The sentries on watch were often asleep at such times, thinking themselves secure. It should be possible for a few men to take the powder magazine that was placed behind the battery. If the powder magazine could be destroyed, the guns in the battery would likely have no dry charges at the guns and be unable to fire.

  Although wave action in the inlet could be violent indeed, the Breton leader thought experienced Royal navy boat crews could make their way up the inlet to the landing site near the battery. If the battery had been secured by this time, they could occupy it at their leisure and then make their way up the path to the prison encampment, a mile inland.

  The Breton women and children were taken aboard the second-rate while their men remained on Vigilant. Since the enemy was used to seeing the frigate close to the land in these waters, it was decided to use her to make the rescue, rather than some other warship.

  Time was spent awaiting the proper weather conditions. During that wait, two members of the Inshore Squadron took a French brig that had sailed from a French Caribbean port weeks before, bound for Brest with a cargo of sugar. During the long chase, the brig was badly damaged by fire from her pursuers, her cargo ruined by water flooding into the brig’s hold.

  Carpenters from the fleet were able to stem the leaks and make the vessel fit enough for one last cruise. Her cargo jettisoned over the side, she was packed with men and arms for the attack. The plan was for Captain Mullins to lead the attack with an assault from his own ships’ boats onto the mainland. He would avoid the inlet, landing instead on a rocky beach a half mile away.

  Edwistair would guide this party through the rocks to the rear of the battery, where they would attack the hopefully sleeping garrison and destroy the battery’s magazine. As soon as the battery’s ammunition supply had been eliminated, a rocket would be fired to alert the other members of the assault force.

  This segment of the attack would be led by Lieutenant Parker of the flagship, also serving as the landing force interpreter. The remaining members of the Breton fishermen would accompany this force, guiding it into position. Most of the attackers of this secondary force would be on the captured sugar transport. The thought was she might be considered an innocent party in this invasion and left alone until the last moment. Marines and armed seamen from the fleet would make up the bulk of the attackers.

  Mullins, in his attack on the battery’s rear, intended to use a dozen of his own topmen, supplemented by a few Marines. He thought the topmen, young and agile, would be able to make their way over the many rocks through which they must navigate. The Marines he could use as a rearguard, should that seem necessary.

  Vigilant remained hove-to, out of sight of the coast, waiting for the right weather conditions. Much of the time she was alone, but finally, based on the intuition of the flag’s sailing master, it was thought this might be the night to attack. The captured sugar transport came up, loaded with men and weapons, her crew pumping steadily at the water that was coming onboard. The pair sailed toward Finistére, nearing their debarkation point, off Pointe de Pen Hir, just as the winds, as forecast by the old sailing master, began to shift. Although their landing site was not visible in the dark, Edwistair assured Mullins that the gale would be sweeping right down the inlet. He was sure the sentries would by now have left their posts and found a dry spot to sleep. The force went over the side to load in the launch and cutter. Only experienced naval seamen could have brought their small craft through the violent water to shore. The launch found a path between a pair of large boulders and was able to land its party almost dry-shod. The cutter was not so fortunate. Just yards offshore, she slammed down on an underwater rock, breaking her keel. Some of her people made it to shore with only minor injuries. The Marine Sergeant though, suffered a broken femur, and one of the topmen Mullins was counting on had a badly damaged shoulder. Most of the weapons in the cutter were lost and all of the powder was ruined.

  Edwistair found a cavern carved in the rocks which, while not quite dry, would still be more comfortable for the wounded men than being exposed to the weather. Mullins left the two injured men in the cavern, to be guarded by two of the Marines. The others gathered what equipment they had left and set out for the battery.

  They had to climb some difficult terrain to get to the area where they would eventually make their attack. Mullins, had he been asked, would have thought the attack was impossible under these conditions, but a pair of Cornish men in the party, showed them the way. Used to gathering seabird eggs on the cliffs near their own homes, these men took coils of line with them as they scrambled upwards where others would swear there were no footholds. When reaching the top, they threw down the lines and began pulling men up the cliffs.

  Aside from a few men too badly bruised to make the climb, Mullins now had a force of ten men with him. One musket and bayonet, Mullin’s double-barreled Manton pistol and a pair of cutlasses were all of the weapons available. Creeping as silently as possible, they made their way to the battery. The four French eight-pounders stood alone on their carriages, continually drenched in the constant spray.

  It had been planned to disable the guns by hammering steel spikes into their touch holes, rendering them useless, but the hammer and spikes had not made it to the top. Each gun had a small ready-magazine behind it, each with a pair of charges. These charges were wet and useless though.

  The main magazine was built into the side of a hill behind the guns. Mullins would have expected at least one sentry walking his post here, but the magazine seemed deserted. A wooden door closed off the entrance, inside of which a leather curtain shielded the deadly contents of the structure. Hearing a muffled snort, Mullins looked down and saw the sentry, asleep on the floor, with an empty wine bottle within reach. The sentry’s musket leaned propped up against the wall.

  With the point of a cutlass pressed against his throat, the sentry was bound and gagged. Much of the powder in the magazine was in bagged powder cartridges, although some was still in the wooden casks in which it had been transported. Mullins had intended to blow up the magazine, but this now seemed unnecessary. Rain and spray had inundated the surrounding ground, so the powder was simply taken outside and spilled in the mud. The casks were taken to the cliff and dropped over. On their
tumble to the rocks below, the staves were broken in and the powder inside wetted and spoiled.

  Behind the powder, in the darkness, was a stand of muskets, loaded and primed. Mullins thought these had been left behind by the other soldiers on a place where they could be kept dry. It was now time to alert the other members of the attack force. Taking one of the French muskets, he checked its priming. It being satisfactory, he picked up a sea bird feather from the ground and inserted its quill into the musket’s touchhole. One of his men, a gunner’s mate, had readied a rocket in the entrance of the now-empty magazine. Another man stood by Captain Mullins, holding a portfire as Mullins pulled the trigger of his musket. The priming flared, but was unable to set off the main charge of the weapon because of the blocked touch hole. The seaman with the portfire thrust it into the weapon’s flaring pan, setting it alight. The portfire was then used to fire the rocket. It soared into the sky, visible even in the rain for hundreds of yards. Just moments later, individual members of what had been the battery’s crew began appearing, mostly weaponless. Some of them ran toward the now-empty magazine, apparentlyhoping to retrieve their weapons.

  With every man of his force now equipped with a French musket, the approaching French soldiers were soon cut down. Later, a small party of better armed troops also attacked, with similar results. These too were cut down and their dropped weapons were added to their own arsenal.

  By now, over the popping of muskets could be heard the clatter of men and equipment coming through the rocks below. Some arrived at a critical moment. A rush of French Infantry had cost him three of his men, two wounded and one dead.

  With the arrival of the second wave of attackers, Mullins learned that one of the boats had been swamped, with the loss of some of its crew. Still, they had over fifty healthy men to accomplish their mission. The wounded and the prisoners were sent down for evacuation, while the rest prepared for their march inland. Most of the rations Mullins men had brought with them had been lost, but a quick search revealed the French had left a supply of food, much of it probably requisitioned from the local populace.

  The invading force had spent too much time on their seizure of the battery as well as dealing with wounded and prisoners. Dawn was approaching and the force still had to make its way down the difficult trail to the prison encampment.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The men started out at a trot, none of them wishing to waste time while imprisoned sailors were at the mercy of their captors. As the men tired though, the pace fell off, soon enough. The sailors and Marines were not used to this type of exertion and many of them were burdened with food and weapons taken from the enemy soldiers formerly manning the battery.

  With the dawn, the storm they had all endured the previous night began to die down, although bands of rain still swept over the peninsula. The party had nearly made its way down the track to the encampment, when they were discovered by the enemy. A lone horseman, probably on some punishment duty, was plodding along the track when the mount revealed the approaching column to its rider.

  At first, the rider continued his approach, probably thinking this column was one of some reinforcement of which he had heard nothing. When an advance scout fired his musket at the rider though, all efforts to remain quiet became futile.

  The rider wheeled his mount and made for the enemy camp at a gallop, his equipment flapping on his person. Mullins halted the column, while the Marine captain supplied by the second-rate took charge and formed up his Marines. Nothing could compel seamen to march in any kind of regular formation, but those men formed groups on either end of the now advancing line of Marines approaching the fortification.

  At a cable’s length distance from their objective, Marine Captain Hornsby halted the advance and conferred with Mullins. Seeing the enemy now wheeling a gun around to bear on the British line, Hornsby had his force sit down in a hollow to their front. When the gun fired, the ball, plainly visible to anyone looking, impacted the earth to their front and bounced over the entire assault force.

  The enemy continued their firing, hoping to drop a ball into the troop’s cover, but their balls continued to fly over their intended victims. Mullins and Hornsby, seeing the problems the enemy gunners were having, stood up and paced around, in full view of the enemy, while continuing their discussions.

  The encampment had not been designed by a military engineer. Stones, some shaped by humans as well as natural rocks, had been piled up into a rectangular defensive position. Sheds, some made of piled stone, others of branches covered by turf, had been constructed along the inner face of the fort. These were assumed to be the quarters of the military garrison. Other sheds, still cruder, were erected along the opposite inner face and probably served as housing for the prisoners.

  Some attempt had been made to dig a defensive ditch outside the exterior walls. Inside the outer walls, a brushwood fence had been constructed, apparently to keep prisoners away from the outer wall. The ditch would have hardly slowed any determined person and the brushwood barrier was also mostly a laughing matter. The success the authorities has thus far had in constraining their charges lay mainly in the remoteness of the installation and the difficulty any escapee would have in securing a boat to go out to sea.

  The conversation between the two officers mainly addressed the difficulties of assaulting the position with the few troops they had. Since they were on shore and had a Marine officer available, Mullins thought it logical that officer should make any decisions regarding the assault., Hornsby would make the decision of how to crack this nut. There was some need of urgency. The steady booming of the gun would probably bring assistance to the French defenders rather soon.

  Too, horses were seen picketed just inside the stone walls. Fresh storm clouds had made themselves evident over the coastline, and Mullins expected that another storm would hit them later. It would be strange if several mounted men could not escape on horseback and carry word of their predicament to other French forces under cover of a rain flurry.

  Captain Hornsby seized on that idea and offered up his own thoughts. “Sir, supposing they do send riders out to get help under cover of a storm. I suggest we covertly send a party of Marines around to the rear of the encampment. If riders emerge to get help, perhaps you could fire a few shots at the horsemen. This could be the signal for our men in the rear to attempt to force their way through the rear barricades. Attention will likely be drawn to the activity in that area. Our party in the rear could then make a demonstration against the guards, perhaps to be supported by some of the prisoners.’

  “If the defenders draw off some of their people in front to put down this intrusion, you might consider a frontal attack in force.”

  With more discussion, Hornsby’s plan was decided upon in all important areas. Dawn had come some hours before but visibility was limited due to the incessant showers and the patches of fog.

  Marines and a few seamen had been surreptitiously sent around to the rear of the enemy position, while everyone else watched closely for the appearance of horsemen emerging to obtain help. Several bands of showers went over with no activity from the enemy. Then, a veritable downpour fell upon them. Visibility fell to nothing in the ensuing downpour, but all could hear the drumming hooves of a pair of horses on the stony road.

  Men had been detailed to fire upon such messengers, but their weapons were drenched and would not fire. Shots must be fired to alert the waiting assault force at the rear of the enclosure. With nothing else available, Mullins pulled out his Manton double pistol from under his boat-cloak. Immediately, without giving the priming a chance to be wetted, he fired both barrels in the general direction of the fleeing horsemen.

  Miraculously, both charges fired, and moments later, the clatter of combat was heard. The rain shower left almost as soon as it had arrived, and now men were seen struggling along the rear wall of the encampment. It was a confused situation, men wearing British naval slop clothing were seen fighting beside Marines in their red jackets. Fre
nch soldats in their blue coats were seen rushing to the struggle and now men were emerging from the crude huts, joining in the fight using firewood from their cooking fires for weapons. These must be the prisoners they had come to rescue, although there seemed to be many more than the few dozens they had hoped to bring back.

  Mullins noticed none of these combatants in the rear of the compound were firing weapons. Presumably, these people, both French and British, had their weapons silenced by damp charges. Taking advantage of the temporary rain stoppage, all members of the attacking force before the main entrance of the fortress were ordered to replace their priming.

  With that effort accomplished, bayonets were ordered fixed and the order was given to advance. Probably there were nearly as many enemy guards as there were men in the assault force, but most of these guards were already occupied with repulsing this attack in their rear.

  When this new force surged through, some firing their re-charged weapons, the defense force was confused, with many throwing down their weapons. No one actually ordered a surrender, the fighting continued sporadically, until each group of fighting men saw the writing on the wall and did what was necessary.

  There were few serious casualties among the assault force. Most of the minor wounds had been caused by both attackers and defenders using hand-to-hand tactics. The defenders suffered relatively more serious injuries, including wounds caused by bayonets and the massive balls fired from the British Brown Bess muskets.

  There was much to be done before the operation could be called a success. The prisoners had to be secured and the wounded treated. Messengers were sent back to the landing site, and more people must be landed from the fleet in order to assist in the evacuation. Some of the prisoners were in poor condition, unable to travel on their own legs.

  Apparently, the mounted messengers from the French garrison had reached their headquarters. A small group of dragoons, probably based in a nearby village, made their appearance. The four guns that had been defending the prison camp were brought forward and emplaced in rocky terrain on either flank of the Marines, who were deployed in two ranks facing the enemy horsemen. Any attack by horsemen through the tangle of rocks and boulders would bring ruin to the attempt.