Despite Liberté’s British colours, her French appearance was obvious, and a guard boat appeared promptly at her side.
“We request to speak with the Master, if you please,” yelled a marine lieutenant aboard the arrival before it was close enough to tie on. Two more armed marines stood behind the lieutenant.
“I am Lieutenant Burton, Sirs, commander of the prize ship Liberté,” returned Neville. He had watched them come and stood at the rail by the sally port.
“A prize of the Swan, there?” he asked, then motioning the guard boat to move closer and tie on.
“Aye, Sir.”
“You are to come with me and make your report to the Governor. We will collect Swan’s captain on the way in.”
Captain Neville and one of his distinguished guests were both collected from Swan. The man was Colonel James Kendall, arriving to take on Governorship. There was little said on the short ride in from the harbor to the Governor’s office ashore. Lieutenants do not speak directly to Captains unless spoken to first, and Captain Neville was not speaking. It is possible that he was in realization that he had now passed from his ship, where he was in charge, to the Colony of Barbados, where Kendall was in charge. He appeared tired, which was understandable. Neville Burton was certainly tired.
After a few short comments by the new governor about what he saw around them, Captain Neville turned to Lt. Burton. “Did they offer any trouble, Lieutenant?” asked the captain.
“No, Sir; none. They were quite agreeable, really.”
“Really, I can’t imagine how you made yourself understood to a bunch of ‘Frogs’.”
“I speak French, Sir.”
“Really. I know there are some who do, but I cannot imagine why anyone would want to. Very well, then.”
“Here we are, Sirs,” said the marine who led them to the door. “You will find Governor Stede’s office easily, and his aide is there to the left inside.”
“Oh, hello,” said the aide as they entered. “You must be Colonel Kendall. The Governor has been expecting you. Please come in. You two may wait there,” he said, indicating a wooden bench in the corner. Captain Neville sat. Lieutenant Burton stood quietly.
After about ten minutes, Captain Neville was called in.
A half hour later, a portly captain emerged from the room. Three steps out, he stopped to stare at Neville. There was no expression. He asked, “Are you Lieutenant Burton?”
“Aye, Sir.”
“You’re with me, then. I am Captain Radford of Antelope,” he said, and headed for the door.
That was the last Neville Burton would see of either Liberté or Captain Neville. He was reassigned to Antelope as fourth lieutenant. By the time Antelope set sail for islands to the north, HMS Guernsey had come in late, and of the sixty-eight that had set sail from Plymouth only HMS Jersey still missing. HMS Swan, in whom he had begun the passage to Barbados, was to continue on to Jamaica carrying the new governor, Lord Inchiquin, and Liberté would either be used locally or sent to some English prize court for adjudication.
Thinking back on it, Neville was surprised that he had successfully endured the ordeal. He clearly remembered being very close to panic aboard the French ship Liberté after being assigned as prize commander. Not a minor panic like ‘I’ve soiled my trousers in public’, but more like ‘I’ve just watched my daughter run over by a carriage’.
He had gone over his recent history in his head several times. The last he remembered of 1797 was being aboard the Venerable off the Dutch coast. Captain Fairfax was about to be struck with a falling mizzen block, and Neville shoved him aside, only to be struck by something himself. He didn’t know what, but it carried him over the side. He had the scar on his head to prove that.
It was indeed a stroke of luck the captain gave me to be prize commander. I learned more there than ever in my life, and it will undoubtedly save my skin here! But must I remain here? However it has come to be, I am now here. Must I make my way here as in a normal life or is there a way back?
What has happened to Mary or to my mother or my sister Elizabeth? Maybe I should wonder what will happen to them, since they don’t even exist yet.
2 - “Battle in Paradise: June, 1690”
“We will land here at Frigate Bay,” indicated Antelope’s captain to a marine officer while tapping his chubby finger on a map of the small Caribbean island at a bay southeast of the city of Basseterre.
Lieutenant Neville Burton sweltered with a group of officers in Captain Richard Radford’s cabin. He wiped his forehead and neck with his handkerchief. His skin prickled. Even Toulon in summer was never this hot. The heat has soaked into every plank in this oven. What a sweat-box this cabin is. He was forcing himself to listen attentively to instructions for the imminent attack on the French-held island of St. Christopher, where the Antelope, a 48-gun frigate of Their Britannic Majesties’ Navy, swung at her anchor. Drops of sweat rolled down his back inside the heavy naval uniform.
“There’s no need to go all ‘round it again,” began Radford, “We prepared for the whole damn thing yesterday and would’ve got it done then if it hadn’t been for those hundreds of buggers we saw joining in. The guns have softened them up more than a bit by now, though, I’d…”
He paused after the blast of another twelve-pounder on the quarterdeck above their heads rendered them all momentarily deaf. “Never mind,” Radford mumbled.
“We are unsure what damage we have inflicted; those entrenchments appear to be very well made,” he continued in a louder voice. “Once Sir Thornhill and Colonel Blakiston get those island regiments over the hill tonight and firing down upon the trenches from their very backs at first light, however, I expect their resistance to be reduced substantially. Though that hill is quite high and rough, we are assured by locals that it is passable, and better so by night as to avoid the worst of this wretched heat, not to mention the enemy’s watchfulness.
“So, Barton,” and looking up to see that he had Neville’s attention, “Your boats will take the left flank, joining with Captains Kirby and Cardine and go straight at the trenches behind the beach. You have it then, Barton?”
“Aye, Sir,” he answered, and thinking to himself that it was understandable that the captain did not know the correct name of a young officer recently transferred to his command, he added without thinking, “And no disrespect, sir, but it’s Burton.”
Portly Captain Radford looked up again, this time slowly, as if trying to decide whether to hang or keelhaul this upstart who dared to correct him, even if he had been wrong. The room went quiet. With his eyes fixed on Burton, he snarled not only to Burton, but also to the full assembly, “Despite the apprehension of this moment, I expect you will all see to your duty without question. I have it further that after we sent the frigates off toward the English end of this trifling island, several hundred of those Frog soldiers were despatched thither, leaving fewer here for us to squash.
“All of you make sure you have your men in their landing boats well before light. Are there any questions?” he asked finally, looking directly into Neville’s eyes again.
The tramping of the officers’ hard shoes began immediately after the chorus of “No, Sir.”
Lieutenant Burton had forty seamen from the Antelope in two boats before the sky began its inevitable lightening in the east. He had taken time to be sure they knew who he was, since most of them had not seen a great deal of him during the previous two months on the sail from Barbados. In particular, he wanted them to know that his blue uniform was not a French target. There was some rattling from the things that they were now handing down into the boats: the old muskets he had seen before, cutlasses, and the oars that would propel them to the beach. It was otherwise so quiet that Neville heard eight bells of the morning watch chime on the two closest ships.
“No cocked weapons!” admonished Neville to his men.
“Look there, Sir,” said his boat’s coxswain. “On the hill,” he added after realizing that Neville coul
d not see him pointing in the darkness. A flurry of small flashes erupted halfway up the pitch-black hill that was followed after a few moments by the sound of small arms fire.
“Shove off,” he commanded.
“Make way all,” the coxswain chimed in. “Smartly now. Don’t let those bloody marines beat us in.”
An anxious quiet hung in the dark air, made more palpable by the day’s humidity, already beginning to rise even though the sun was still below the horizon. The only sounds were the water alongside and the occasional splash of an oar crabbing or a man’s grunt or cough. Light was increasing, however, and some of the swarm of boats carrying five hundred Englishmen to shore could be seen; all were pulling hard for shore in order to land before the enemy could see well enough to shoot them.
Musket fire began from the beach. The random ball thumped into a boat hull or whistled past, and one man screamed out in pain, but the volume of gunfire was vastly more than the damage or danger they were experiencing.
“Go at ‘me men!” Burton yelled at the first scrape of the hull upon sand. “Noise, now! Make a lot of it!” They were the third boat to disembark, splashing first through knee-deep warm water. They ran toward the trenches just behind Captain Cardine’s twenty marines, howling as they went. A single musket fired in Neville’s direction, the ball hitting some hard object in the sand to the right of him and whining off seaward. The yelling forward was growing louder and more confused. It was not the systematic shouting of attack, however, but the jumbled discord of confusion. It soon diminished.
“They’ve gone!” yelled a voice that Neville recognized at Cardine. “Hold fire! Regroup. Raise our standard before our countrymen from over the hill mistake us for Frogs!”
“Antelopes, assemble on me,” Neville yelled in three directions. “Antelopes - here!” It was almost fully light now.
“Form them in one line from each boat, and then report, Coxswains,” said Neville.
“All present and sober,” reported each coxswain shortly.
“Brilliant. Sit and rest here,” he ordered. “I’ll go find out what we do now.”
Neville returned in twenty minutes. “We’re marching on the main town, Basseterre,” he reported. “You lot be happy we’re not up with the marines,” waving his hand inland where the rocky hillside rose quickly beside them. “They’re with the local regiments from the English side of St. Christopher working their way along that ridge just inland above us.”
They had tramped about a mile in the fine sand of the road, with the sparkling blue-green water of the elegant bay to their left. The men complained of sand flies, the heat of midsummer’s tropical sun, and the lack of air, until musket-fire erupted simultaneously close ahead and above them on the ridge. The Antelopes sank to the ground to wait for a marine corporal trotting up the road behind them. He was sent forward to Neville.
“Lieutenant, Captain Cardine asks that you take your men and flank up the ridge here to your right. You’ll find enemy behind bushes and rocks as you go up. Our men are all in uniform, so you should be able to spot them easy enough.” After that short message, he bent low and continued trotting down the sandy track.
“Pass word back,” Neville said to the man behind. “We go up the hill here slantwise. To that tree, there,” he said, pointing to a five foot tall scrubby greenish-brown pretense of a tree atop the ridge ahead of them.
They began to take fire as they climbed the hill, which was more sand dune than rocky ridge. The enemy appeared to be in full retreat. There were only a few shots, and although some resistance lasted almost an hour, it finally fell away completely.
The next day the Antelopes were roused again and slogged onward out of the French half of the island into the English sector. Near the English Fort Figtree, the commanders of the attack force ordered encampment for the night.
“This will do,” said Neville. “Set up camp in this space. See to your cuts and bruises, and I’ll find out what’s next.” Neville could see that this climate was taking a toll on his men newly arrived in the tropics. They were showing patches of bright red skin.
A man appeared shortly. He appeared to be an army officer, though his threadbare uniform was blue rather than red.
“Are you in charge here?” he asked Neville.
“Aye, sir.”
“Get your men down t’other side of the fort one hour before sundown. That’s your time. We’ll not move today or tomorrow, even, so there’s a field mess being built. Hot meal tonight! Don’t straggle!”
“Aye, aye, sir!” he responded more enthusiastically.
Three days they waited with little to do. The sun beat on them and the sand flies bit. Daily rains insured an oppressive, energy-sapping humidity which caused profuse sweating whenever the sun came out from behind the clouds. On the fourth day, another messenger came with orders from Governor Colonel Codrington of antigua, the military commander of the expedition, to march for Pheype’s Bay.
With no opposition, they arrived there by late afternoon at the British encampment overlooking a large stone fortress. While the light still held that evening, Neville noticed a man working his way through the encampment, stopping at each group for a minute or two. He was tall and very upright, the way Neville imagined a general should be. The closer he got, the more it was obvious that his uniform had somehow managed to stay clean and neat. His sword hung properly at his side, and he carried no musket. That last observation meant he was most certainly a high-ranking officer. He stopped again at a group of red-coated soldiers in tattered uniforms about a cable distant and Neville could see one of them point his way.
“Excuse me there,” he began as soon as he was close enough to hear, “I’m looking for Captain Wright’s company of seamen. Is that you?”
“Aye, Sir. I am Lieutenant Burton, and this group is from the Antelope.” He touched his hat.
e officer responded in kind, saying, “I’m pleased to have found you at last. I am Sir Timothy Thornhill. I command the English regiment of three hundred men from Barbados. We’re encamped about a half mile from Fort Charles, there. We need your help to shift two guns up Brimstone Hill – that’s the one there that overlooks the fort, you see? We believe the French consider it impossible for us to fortify it and thus have not defended against it. Have your company report to me in the morning, if you please.”
The next day, Neville moved his men as directed. There he was admitted to a tent on a small knoll that commanded a good view of both the fort and the hill.
“Ah, Lieutenant,” greeted Sir Thornhill. He was not wasting time. “This is Colonel Codrington, Governor of Antigua and commander of their regiment here. You’ll see their blue coats.”
Neville respectfully removed his hat, tucked it under his arm in the navy fashion, and touched his forehead with a bent finger.
“Don’t confuse our blue uniforms with the French, please,” said Codrington, smiling at him. “We have need of your particular skills with block and tackle, sir. You may have noticed that I have my men clearing an access road to the top of Brimstone Hill. I also have men constructing a platform for the guns above the fort. It should be ready in two days. What say?”
“Have you the necessary rigging, Sir?”
“I doubt it. What do you need? We’ll send off to Captain Wright for it.”
“It would be best if I went for a look personally, and took a man or two with me, that we might confer on the best plan.”
By the end of the day, Neville had been up the hill to the platform with his second-in command, petty officer Margill, and returned to the command tent with his recommendation.
“The view of the fort and over it to seaward are exceptional, Sir, as I’m sure you’re aware. Targets within the fort can readily be chosen, but the distance from platform to fort may be at the very range of our guns. Also, I mean no disrespect, but we’ll not use much of your road. It’s too rough for such heavy guns. We’ll sway them up the steepest of the cliffs. Here’s our list of supplies, Sir.”
Neville reported the platform ready for action two days later on Monday, 30th June, 1690, despite three Antelopes who took ill and one whose hand had been crushed when one of the guns swung loose. Smoke still rose from two large houses nearby and two small outlying forts that had been burned.
On Tuesday, Colonel Codrington signaled the fleet to begin passing along the shore and firing at the fort, and the guns on the hill to do likewise. The fleet passed twice, and the guns on the hill continued their firing all day.
“Mr. Margill,” said Neville, “These guns are growing too hot to stand by, and I question the effect we are having on the Fort. I will ask Colonel Codrington if he can get an observer into position to advise us. For the meantime, please increase the elevation of the number one gun another quoin…”
The gun beside him fired.
3 - “Meet the Fullers”
Neville was slowly becoming aware that his situation had changed again. His mind was not yet processing his surroundings smoothly, but images were beginning to form in front of his eyes. These images were not entirely cohesive, and despite over a year in the Caribbean, did still not seem reasonable. He was in some sunlit space, lying on his back. The space was beneath a robin’s-egg-blue sky, but it was not aboard a ship, as the sky was partially obscured from his view by the palm fronds through which he squinted. Sheep’s-wool clouds were positioned above in the expansive blue. If they were moving, he could not tell it. A zephyr blew across his body, providing enough cooling to make this a perfect day… but where? There were no masts above him, nor were there yards or shrouds, braces, sheets or sails. No orders were being shouted, whistles blown, or men running. There was quiet, which is not at all normal for a Man-o-War.
New sounds reached his ears: the chirping of birds and the pattering of palm fronds tapping each other in the light breeze. The tweets and warbles were of shore birds, not the cackles of farm birds or the forlorn cries of sea birds.
A Journal of The Experiment at Jamaica (The Neville Burton 'Worlds Apart' Series Book 2) Page 3