by Michael Aye
“It’s amazing, so much devastation, and for what,” Lord Skalla said as he walked up next to Gabe. “Must history repeat itself over and over again?” Splashes were heard as the wings and limbs tub was emptied over the side, punctuating Skalla’s words.
Campbell came forward; he’d played his part perfectly. “I don’t think the French even knew what we were about,” he said.
The squadron had captured two of the French frigates as well as the corvette and sloop, in addition to the seventy-four; plus they’d retaken the Foxfire. Jenkins had given chase to another corvette, but gave up the chase when another French ship started firing on Fortune. However, that ship fled when Jenkins came about to give assistance to Fortune.
So much damage, so many dead, Gabe thought, shaking his head in disbelief.
“Do we head for St. Marys or Simon’s Town?” Campbell asked.
“I think Simon’s Town,” Gabe said. “We can’t get away from this place soon enough to suit me.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Mr. Campbell.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I do not feel comfortable with all the French prisoners we have in company. Keep enough to man the pumps on Trident and then send the rest ashore.”
“Aye, Captain. What about the Americans?”
“Let them be. We got our frigate back and destroyed the rest of their ships. Maybe they will enjoy the French company until another ship comes along.”
“Captain.”
Seeing the surgeon’s mate, Gabe’s heart jumped a beat. “Yes.”
“The surgeon wants to know if you could come below.”
As Gabe descended the steps, he had a sinking sensation. What would he tell his mother? Cornish saw Gabe and indicated he’d be right with him. He was sewing up the stump of an amputation. Gabe looked about but didn’t see Dagan. He was thinking the worst when Cornish finished and walked over, removing his bloodstained apron.
“I thought I should ask if you’d prefer Dagan be taken to your cabin or kept in a cot in the sick berth.”
Not completely understanding, Gabe muttered, “He’s alive?”
“Very much so. We will have to watch the sword wound to make sure it heals. A bloody blade can cause ill humours.”
“Blade…” Gabe muttered. “What about the pistol shot? I saw him shot in the chest.”
“Aye, that he was.” Cornish reached into his pocket and pulled out a large gold coin that was bent and misshapen. “Lucky man he was. Had this not been in his coat pocket he’d be dead. Now all he’s got is a cracked rib and a sore chest.”
Looking at the coin, Gabe recalled taking a ship with a hoard of gold coins some years ago when they were on Drakkar. Well, he thought, thanks to my uncle’s larcenous ways he’ll live to see another day. Thank the Lord.
EPILOGUE
The British sailors worked steadily, making the ships as ready for sea as possible until the last red rays of the sun sank from the dark horizon. Now the seas and the sky were one. Other than the lanterns hanging from various places so that some small repair could be finished, there was no light.
Taking a note from the smuggler’s handbook on lantern signals, the French were taken to within a short rowing distance from Ilot Madame in Stag and Venus. Upon the return trip, a green lantern would hang to starboard and red lantern to larboard. If a ship approached without the correct signal they would be fired upon.
Gabe sent Campbell across to take command of Stag, as Lamb had fallen. This was in spite of the lieutenant’s argument that he was needed to oversee the repairs on Trident and the French seventy-four, Le Cométe. It was miraculous that Trident still floated. Her pumps were manned constantly, but she was still floating. After a quick survey of the French prize, Bufford, the carpenter, set his number one mate to supervising repairs while he went back aboard Trident with a working party.
Gabe had decided to keep twenty of the French seamen to man the pumps, watch on watch. Marine Captain Schoggins detailed a squad of marines under a corporal to guard the prisoners. This would free up jack tars for sailing the squadron home...and, if need be, be ready to fight the enemy if they appeared.
Gabe had decided to put Laqua in charge of Trident. Command of a ship, even a temporary command of a wounded ship, would look good in his record. The biggest deciding factor for the acting lieutenant, however, was that he spoke French.
Within the hour the frigates were back. Campbell had Stag hove-to close by and had himself rowed over. Gabe had to smile when the call “boat ahoy” was given, followed by the reply, “Stag.” With there being a shortage of watch standing officers, Campbell recommended sending over the second lieutenants on Stag and Venus.
“Do you have any idea of the butcher’s bill?” Gabe asked.
Campbell thought for a moment before he spoke, “Acting-Lieutenant Turner, Captain Lamb, his master, Mr. Saunders, Fortune’s First Lieutenant Hamm.”
“I knew Saunders,” Hayes said, overhearing the conversation and joining in.
“Lieutenant Parkinson is wounded but should be able to maintain command. Captain Chatham may lose his arm,” Campbell said.
This made Gabe think of the wings and limbs tub that had been emptied over the side. That was enough to pay, and still the number of dead and wounded sailors and marines had not been fully counted.
Seeing Gabe’s gloom, Campbell spoke again, “I think the master will agree, Captain. The mission was a complete success. You’ve put paid the privateers by sinking their ships and recovering our frigate.”
“Absolutely,” Lord Skalla said, joining the group.
When he didn’t speak further, Campbell continued, “You have destroyed an eighty gun ship of the line, taken a seventy-four, two frigates, a corvette, and a sloop. And that doesn’t include the ships we took at Trinidad. Were I you, Captain, I’d be holding up my head and thinking of the prize money you will have in retirement.”
“Aye, and all without losing a single ship,” Lord Skalla said.
***
When Gabe was satisfied that as much as could be done had been done, he went down to his new roomy quarters. The seventy-four had quarters for both a captain and an admiral. The French captain must have been very well off, as the quarters Gabe inherited were very well furnished. Nesbit, Fleming, and House, Gabe’s secretary, were moving his personal belongings to the captain’s quarters. For some unexplainable reason, Gabe had Buck’s furnishings, those that had survived, taken to the admiral’s quarters, which had been sparsely furnished. The French commodore had used the eighty gun as his flagship. Gabe suddenly realized he’d forgotten, if he’d ever learned, the ship’s name.
Dagan was lying down without a shirt on, pale as a sheet but breathing normally. Gabe could see the huge reddish purple spot on his chest where he had been shot.
“Thank God for the coin.” Without realizing it, Gabe must have spoken aloud as Dagan opened his eyes.
Trying to rise, he felt a sharp pain so he lay back, but spoke in a hushed voice filled with pain. “I’m supposed to be your protector, not the other way around.”
“You were and you are, Uncle. But for you, this tub would have a new captain.”
Dagan managed a smile, and then spoke with a grimace, “No need for letters now.”
Gabe shook his head, “For some unfortunately, but not for us.” He made to rise but Dagan reached out and touched his arm. “Yes, Uncle.”
“Faith will be waiting with little James when we get home.”
APPENDIX
HISTORICAL NOTES
I have tried to be as accurate as possible in describing St. Croix, including the luminescence noted while paddling in the Salt River, the Mango Island, the landing, town, fort and harbour. There are a few pictures of the fort on my facebook page. The dungeon in the fort had low ceilings with very little light and was a cramped, musty, miserable place for prisoners to be held. While visiting St. Croix, I came upon an article in a paper, The Virgin Island Daily News, July 74 – History Corn
er, by Isidor Priewonsky, that was cut out and placed in a scrapbook. The article discussed how the Americans frequently visited the island during the Revolutionary War and how it was not uncommon for British ships to raid other ships in the harbour, almost with impunity, taking prizes, merchandise, and men. The practice was so great the Danish governor sent a request to Copenhagen for ships to be sent to help protect the harbour and St. Croix in general from these breaches of neutrality.
Thus far, the Caribbean has been the center for most of my stories. There are several reasons for this. The British maintained a significant force in the West Indies during the period in which I write, and this is vacation land for my wife and me. We have visited a large number of the islands, spending as much as a week at a time on some of them. However, I didn’t want to get monotonous and so I was searching for another place in which to focus my main battle.
A few nights later, I was surfing through the television channels and came upon a documentary on National Geographic. It discussed how an underwater archaeologist was searching for a pirate ship just off St. Mary’s. This stirred my interest.
After doing a bit of research I found that Ile Sainte-Marie, or St. Mary’s, was at one time a pirate stronghold for such legendary pirates as Captain Kidd, Robert Culliford, Henry Every, and Thomas Tew, to name a few. Ambodifotatra was the main town for the island, and a pirate cemetery still exists near the town. It is said that several pirate vessels still lie just below the surface, one supposedly the Fiery Dragon. In 1698, Captain Kidd watched as his flagship sank in the harbour at Ile Ste.-Marie due to disrepair.
The pirates on the island were said to come from many different countries, including America and England.
During the pirate heyday of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, pirates patrolled the maritime routes used by merchant ships, most notably those of the East India Company as they returned home from trading in the Indian Ocean. After raiding the merchant ships, the pirates would sell or trade their booty and then return to their strongholds either on Madagascar or Ile Sainte-Marie/St. Mary’s. After doing my research, I decided to revisit the “pirate round,” only it would be the American privateers and French raiding the British shipping lines.
I did find that one of the channels between Îlot Madame and Ile Sainte-Marie has been closed and is now a causeway between the two islands. Anyone interested in the pirates on Madagascar and Ile Sainte-Marie can find some interesting articles written by Cindy Vallar.
While haze gray and underway during my active duty days, we always had someone playing a musical instrument and singing. It might have been in a sleeping compartment sitting on a locker under your rack, on a bench on the mess decks, or sitting on the fantail. Someone always seemed to be singing and playing with a crowd gathered around listening. Therefore, I’ve tried to include music and song into my stories. On the USS Newman K Perry, DD883; we had a first class machinist mate who could play a mandolin behind his head. He could also make a steel guitar talk. It’s his memory that made me add the mandolin to this book. It should be noted that the mandolin as we know it dates back to the early eighteenth century.
Pickles – They didn’t have Tums or Rolaids back in Gabe’s day but they did have pickles. Cleopatra believed they enhanced her beauty. Julius Caesar and Napoleon rationed pickles to their soldiers to help prevent scurvy, and I read some years ago they were beneficial in the treatment of dyspepsia. I have a patient who swears they are good for hangovers. With so much positive data, I had to include a few lines about them. I’m sure Claussen will appreciate it.
In describing the approaches to Cape Town, Table Bay, False Bay, Simon’s Bay, and Simon’s Town, I found the “Africa Pilot III, 6th edition 1897 to be a great help. It discusses the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope and proved to be interesting reading.
The foods, beverages, and cookware discussed were all found on the web, researching South Africa during the American Revolutionary War and Early Danish rule of South Africa.
I recently was asked how I came upon what words and orders to use for various aspects of ship handling. First, I must say, having been a “Doc,” sailing was not one of my strong points such as with James L. Nelson. He is a true tall ship sailor. Therefore, I have intentionally left out a lot to do with ship handling. I was told by a reader who is now a friend that when he got to the areas of a book that was heavy in ship handling, he’d skip pages.
However, I do feel that to add authenticity to my books, a degree of ship handling has to be included. For this I refer to the following:
Seamanship – Age of Sail by John Harland.
Arming and Fitting of English Ships of War 1600-1815 by Brian Lavery.
The Young Sea Officer’s Sheet Anchor 1808 version by Darey Lever.
Age of Sail Glossary
aft: toward the stern (rear) of the ship.
ahead: in a forward direction
aloft: above the deck of the ship.
barque (bark): a three-masted vessel with the foremast and mainmast square-rigged and the mizzenmast fore-and-aft rigged.
belay: to make a rope fast to a belaying pin, cleat, or other such device. Also used as a general command to stop or cancel, e.g., “Belay that last order!”
belaying pin: a wooden pin, later made of metal, generally about twenty inches in length to which lines were made fast , or “belayed.” They were arranged in pin rails along the inside of the bulwark and in fife rails around the masts.
binnacle: a large wooden box, just forward of the helm, housing the compass, half-hour glass for timing the watches, and candles to light the compass at night.
boatswain’s chair (also “bosun’s chair”): a wooden seat with a rope sling attached. Used for hoisting men aloft or over the side for work.
bosun: also boatswain, a crew member responsible for keeping the hull, rigging and sails in repair.
bow chaser: a cannon situated near the bow to fire as directly forward as possible.
bower anchor: the name of the two largest anchors carried at the bow of the ship. The best-bower to starboard and small-bower to larboard.
bowsprit: a large piece of timber which stands out from the bow of a ship.
breeching: rope used to secure a cannon to the side of a ship and prevent it from recoiling too far.
brig: a two masted vessel, square rigged on both masts.
bulwarks: the sides of a ship above the upper deck.
bumboat: privately owned boat used to carry out to anchored vessels vegetables, liquor, and other items for sale.
burgoo: mixture of coarse oatmeal and water, porridge.
cable: (a) a thick rope, (b) a measure of distance-1/10th of a sea mile, 100 fathoms (200yards approximately).
canister: musket-ball sized iron shot encased in a cylindrical metal cast. When fired from a cannon, the case breaks apart releasing the enclosed shot. (not unlike firing buckshot from a shotgun shell.)
Cat-O’-Nine Tails: a whip made from knotted ropes, used to punish crewmen. What was meant by being “flogged.”
chase: a ship being pursued.
coxswain: (cox’n) The person in charge of the captain’s personal boat.
cutter: a sailboat with one mast and a mainsail and two headsails.
dogwatch: the watches from four to six, and from six to eight, in the evening.
fathom: unit of measurement equal to six feet.
fife rail: the uppermost railing around the quarterdeck and poop
flotsam: Debris floating on the water surface.
forecastle: pronounced fo’c’sle. The forward part of the upper deck, forward of the foremast, in some vessels raised above the upper deck. Also, the space enclosed by this deck.
Fother: to seal a leak by lowering a sail over the side of the ship and positioning it to be sucked into the hole by the rushing sea.
founder: used to described a ship that is having difficulty remaining afloat.
frigate: a fast three masted fully rigged ship carrying anywhere from
twenty to forty-eight guns.
full and by: a nautical term meaning proceed under full sail.
furl: to lower a sail.
futtock shrouds: short, heavy pieces of standing rigging connected on one end to the topmast shrouds at the outer edge of the top and on the other to the lower shrouds, designed to bear the pressure on the topmast shrouds. Often used by sailors to go aloft.
gaff: a spar or pole extending diagonally upward from the after side of a mast and supporting a fore-and-aft sail.
galley: the kitchen area of a ship.
gig: a light clinker-built ship’s boat adapted for rowing or sailing and usually used for the captain.
glass: shipboard name for either the barometer, a sand-glass used for measuring time, or a telescope.
grapeshot: a cluster of round, iron shot, generally nine in all, and wrapped in canvas. Upon firing the grapeshot would spread out for a shotgun effect. Used against men and light hulls.
grating: hatch cover composed of perpendicular, interlocking wood pieces, much like a heavy wood screen. It allowed light and air below while still providing cover for the hatch. Gratings were covered with tarpaulins in rough or wet weather.
grog: British naval seaman received a portion of liquor every day. In 1740, Admiral Edward Vernon ordered the rum to be diluted with water. Vernon’s nickname was Old Grogram, and the beverage was given the name grog in their disdain for Vernon.
gunwale: pronounced gun-el. The upper edge of a ship’s side.
halyard: a line used to hoist a sail or spar. The tightness of the halyard can affect sail shape.
handsomely: slowly, gradually.
hard tack: ship’s biscuit.
haul: pulling on a line.
hawse: the bows of a ship where the hawse-holes are cut for the anchor cables to pass through. The space between the stem of a vessel at anchor and the anchors or a little beyond.
heave to: arranging the sails in such a manner as to stop the forward motion of the ship.