by Tom Grundner
By late afternoon, the rest of the British fleet had caught enough wind to get out of the lee and join up with the van. Hood’s ships had been hit all right, but it wasn’t as bad as it looked. Rodney decided to heave to as if his fleet could go no farther and let De Grasse believe what he wanted to believe. Rodney was right. De Grasse thought the British were finally off his tail while Rodney lay in wait neither tired nor seriously hurt, but shamming.
The French lost one ship, the Cato, and that reduced De Grasse’s fleet to 32. Nevertheless, they continued on their way and, a half hour later, the British quietly followed.
* * *
The two fleets chased each other all that night and into the following day. On the night of the 10th, however, luck finally began to smile on the British.
In every navy, there are incompetent officers. Some never make it past midshipman. Some never make it past lieutenant. But, some make it all the way to captain of their own ship of the line. This was the case with Capitaine du Vaisseau De Gras-Preville, captain of the Zele. How he received his commission, let alone his own ship is unclear, but he was probably among the worst seamen in either navy—or very possibly any navy.
In the British system, such incompetence is often masked by the presence of “masters” on board. Every British ship has a captain, of course, but they also have a master who is a highly skilled and experienced seaman and is in charge of actually navigating and sailing the ship. It’s a holdover from the days before the British had a formal navy. The king would appropriate merchant ships, place guns on them, and send them off to war. The merchant captains demanded in return that they at least go along to sail the ship and they became the first masters. The captain tells the master where the ship will go and what it will do, and the master makes it happen. The French had no such system.
The French fleet was traveling along under all plain sail staying well ahead of the British. At one point, the fleet was ordered to tack to accommodate a shift in the wind. The Zele, sailing behind the Jason, completely mishandled her sails and ran into the Jason’s stern, seriously damaging her rudder. The Jason was able to make temporary repairs, but she was out of any fight.
De Grasse was down another ship.
When dawn broke the British were delighted to see that the Zele was straggling. No one could see the reason for it, but she was clearly vulnerable and Rodney made plans to take her.
De Grasse had to make a decision. If he continued to sail on, there was every reason to believe that he could still reach Jamaica before the British. Once there, his fleet, combined with Jamaican shore batteries, would be invulnerable.
But to do that he would have to sacrifice the Zele. As incompetent as she was, the Zele was still a French ship, and De Grasse was a man of honor. As evening fell, he backed a topsail on his flagship, the Ville de Paris, and went to her aid.
* * *
Rodney had hardly slept a wink since leaving St. Lucia to pursue the French. He subsisted on will power and by drinking endless pitchers of lemon squash, his favorite beverage. Throughout the night, he kept his eye on the French stern lanterns and slowly maneuvered his ships to be in the best possible position when dawn broke. When the sun finally rose, however, Rodney could not believe what he saw.
The last Rodney had seen of the Ville de Paris she was preparing to take the Zele in tow. Somehow, in some way quite unimaginable to Rodney, during the night the Zele had managed to collide with her rescuer the Ville de Paris. De Grasse’s flagship was relatively unhurt, but the Zele was a wreck. Her bowsprit was completely gone and with it the stays that held up the foremast. As a result, the foremast had come crashing down on her fo’c’sle. For all practical intents, the Zele was helpless and presented De Grasse with a dilemma.
Had he abandoned the Zele yesterday when she was lagging far behind, no one would have blamed him. After all, they were racing for Jamaica and possession of an entire major island was at stake. But now? Could he abandon her now that he had already circled back to her aid and the British were at hand?
No, he could not.
He signaled a frigate to tow the hapless Zele out of the way, hoisted signals for battle array to the remaining ships, and turned his fleet south to meet the British head-on.
* * *
The British were ready for this fight. More than ready, in fact. The previous three years had been frustrating ones. Defeat after defeat in the West Indies, capped off by the humiliation at the Chesapeake, had been a bitter pill for a proud navy to swallow. But, as frustrating as those years were, they were also years of preparation for this one crowning moment. The men were confident. The ships were in order; and, for the first time in anyone’s memory, the British actually had a numerical advantage.
The Battle of the Saints started out with what Walker would have called a “horse race.” The wind, as always was out of the east, the French were in a single line approaching from northwest, the British were approaching from the southwest. Each commander wanted to get to get upwind from the other. In naval tactical parlance, it was called “getting the weather gage.”
The advantage of having the weather gage, in the age of fighting sail, cannot be overestimated. To have the weather gage, in simplistic terms “having the wind behind you,” gave you the precious advantage of maneuverability. You could decide when the battle would start and at what distance it would take place. You could descend on the enemy with great speed, while the enemy would have to beat upwind to reach you. When gunfire started, the smoke would clear away from your ship while theirs was still engulfed in not only their own smoke but, soon, yours as well. This gave you the vital ability to see what was going on sooner than your opponent; and, in fleet actions, also to see the signal flags of your flagship sooner and more clearly.
Every captain, in every ship, in both fleets, knew these advantages, and was racing toward a hypothetical point in the ocean that would allow them to get to the windward side of their opponents.
On this day, the French won.
Rodney reluctantly turned his line of ships to the northwest setting up a classic set-piece naval battle. Two lines of ships would be traveling in opposite directions, passing starboard to starboard, at close range, with gun ports open, blazing away. When the lead ship of the British van, the Marlborough, reached about the sixth or seventh French ship in their line, Rodney ordered all ships to “Fire as you bear.” In other words, as soon as the enemy comes into your gun sights, open fire.
De Grasse, at this point, was quite pleased with himself. He had obtained the weather gage and Rodney had been forced into a standard line-of-battle fight. He believed this would be a short-lived scrap—a few hours at the most. He was wrong. In fact, the first broadside was fired at 7:40 AM and the last at sunset. The Battle of the Saints would rage for eleven bloody hours.
* * *
The Russell was the last ship in the van, with the Marlborough at the point and Admiral Drake’s Princessa in the middle. She had yet to fire a gun but all was in readiness. The lower decks had been swept clear and anything that could be moved was taken to the hold. Partitions between rooms had been removed to create open spaces. Even the captain’s cabin had been turned into a gunroom. On deck, hammocks had been rolled into sausage-like shapes and stowed in nets along the sides of the ship. Every small boat had been put over the side and was currently being towed behind the ship. The fewer boats that were on deck, the less the chance of a ball hitting one and creating a storm of deadly splinters.
The men had been at battle stations for hours. Some sat in small groups to quietly talk with their mates, some stared vacantly out to sea, some were sharpening cutlasses, some were examining round shot; but all knew what was coming and they knew that many of them would not live to see tomorrow’s sunrise.
Hanover insisted on being a part of the fight and, as a midshipman, had been assigned to supervise a battery of three guns on the starboard side near the fo’c’sle. He, too, was lost in thought as Susan Whitney came up.
“B
ill, could I talk to you for a minute?”
“Certainly, Susan. What is it?”
“Do you remember when I told you I didn’t think Lucas and Sidney had a chance of escape?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that was then, this is now.”
Hanover looked puzzled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means, while I was with them we discussed an escape plan.”
“Are you serious? What is it?”
“I need your help to get one of the small boats we are towing hauled up close to the ship.”
“And then?”
“Then I am going to get in it and you’re going to let the line out again. When we pass the Diadem, I am going to use the boat’s tiller to swing it out into the lane between the two ships. Walker and Smith are going to jump in the water and I am going to haul them out.”
Hanover looked at her and said nothing for a long moment as if he wasn’t quite registering what Susan had just said.
“Do you have any idea how crazy that sounds? What happens if you miss them on the pick-up? These ships are not going to turn around for anyone.”
“It’s not crazy, Bill. It’s desperate, yes, but not crazy. Will you help me?”
“Walker and Smith agreed to this?”
“Yes, they did. It was either that or spend the next God knows how many years in a French prison camp or, worse, a prison ship.”
“Honest to God, Susan. I don’t know which of you three should be the first through the door at Bedlam.
“Yes, of course, I’ll help. What do you need done?”
“I need you to get one of those boats we’re towing back there alongside us.”
Hanover spun around, “Olson! Trexler! With me.”
The big Swede and the tough Cornishman had the small boat alongside in no time. Whitney climbed down into it carrying several lengths of rope and several small buoys. She gave Hanover a wave and the guy rope was cast loose. In a few seconds, the boat was back trailing behind the Russell with the others.
* * *
The initial broadsides between the British and French vans caused a great deal of smoke and noise but little damage. That was to be expected. The guns on both sides would still be warming up and both sides would still be getting the range of the other. It did not take long, however, for the deadly nature of this kind of warfare to assert itself. The French as usual were mostly aiming high, trying to bring down the masts and sails of the British ships with bar shot. The British, as was their normal tactic, were aiming low, trying to penetrate the French hulls with round shot.
Marines on both sides were up in the platforms and on the ratlines with their muskets sending down sniper fire trying, especially, to pick off officers. Other seamen were manning small swivel guns, sending over clouds of grapeshot to sweep the opponents deck clear of men.
The flash of gunfire, large and small, was everywhere. The sound had grown so loud that it could not actually be heard anymore—only viscerally felt in your gut. And the smoke, the burning acrid smoke was everywhere, tearing at your throat, burning your eyes making it impossible to make any visual sense of anything that was happening more than 10 yards away from you.
Each man was in his own world. There was no time to think. There was no time to reason. You did whatever it was you had spent countless hours being trained to do. Swab out the barrel. Load the shot. Fire the musket, reload, and fire again. Race down to the powder room; get another charge and race back to your gun. If the man next to you was killed, it didn’t matter; in fact, it barely registered. If you slipped in a pool of someone’s blood, you cursed, got up, and continued on your way. The sound of men screaming and the sight of body parts that were never meant to be viewed became commonplace. If it had nothing to do with loading your particular gun, or firing your particular musket, or getting the next powder charge, it simply didn’t register.
The British van, under Lord Hood, had passed the French van and was now coming up on the French middle. At the same time, the British middle, Rodney’s division, was starting to engage the French van; and the first of the battle’s many characters had emerged.
The lead ship in the British middle was the Hercules, Commanded by Captain George Savage. Captain Savage was as brave as they come, but suffered terribly from the gout. It was so bad that he had to have a chair placed on the quarterdeck so he could sit down at frequent intervals. Gout or not, he was also a great believer that the British possessed a brand of courage that was uniquely theirs.
His approach to battle was to greet each enemy ship as it came along side with a broadside and a torrent of verbal abuse screamed through a megaphone. It is said he could stand by the rail, shake his fist and scream obscenities for a full five minutes, in three languages, without ever repeating himself. Bosun’s mates throughout the navy held him in awe.
Badly wounded by musket fire, he was taken below but was soon back on deck where he ordered his chair moved over to the rail and had himself tied to the chair. From this position, he continued to abuse each enemy ship, by name, as it came by. Then, for good measure, when the Hercules had passed the last ship in the French line, he suddenly swung around the enemy’s stern and contemptuously raked her from behind, just as she thought she was rid of him.
It was 9:00 AM and the battle was well and truly underway.
* * *
Susan was astonished at how fast she was moving. When you are on the deck of a ship fifteen feet above the water, its movement doesn’t seem to be that rapid. When you’re being towed behind that same ship in a small boat and you are only three feet above the water, it becomes a breath-taking sleigh ride.
She couldn’t think about that right now, however. She had work to do.
She took the two 50 foot lines and separated them. One line was tied to the bow of the boat, the other to the stern. At the opposite end of each line, she attached a small buoy. This gave the end some weight—something she could sling around and around in a circle before letting fly; and it would hold the end of each line on the surface of the water once it landed. Both ropes were then carefully coiled so they wouldn’t snag when she threw them.
Well, they’ll have two chances to catch on to a rope, she thought. And God help them if they miss them both.
She then turned to the tiller and tested it out. Yes, the boat was making more than enough steerageway. She could turn the rudder with the tiller and the boat would swing out to the left or right as she wished.
There. That’s all I can do for now, she thought. That’s all I can do, except wait.
* * *
Behind Captain Savage in the Hercules came the Resolution under Lord Robert Manners. He was one of the “stingers” Hood had put in the tail of his fleet at the Battle of Frigate Bay. Next came the Duke under Alan Gardner with its gorgeous figurehead of William, Duke of Cumberland, and victor at the Battle of Culloden Moor, at its bow. In the middle was the Formidable, Rodney’s flagship, and behind her was the Namur under Captain Fanshaw, who almost single-handedly saved a British convoy from the French at Grenada.
The Duke, the Formidable, and the Namur were all “first-rates” and carried over 100 guns each. Just those three ships alone could lay a combined 150 guns on a single broadside target; and there were very few ships in anyone’s navy that could withstand that kind of attack.
The two fleets slowly sailed past each other like warriors on a parade ground. It was a glorious sight, perversely made even more glorious by the death and destruction represented by each gun flash and each thunderous boom that echoed across the water.
About 9:30 AM, Rodney’s Formidable pulled alongside De Grasse’s flagship the Ville de Paris and the two started hammering away. The two ships were evenly matched, both with 100 guns, both with the finest ship’s companies in their respective fleets.
In the midst of the carnage, a French ball somehow managed to strike a hencoop that had been left on the spar-deck of the Formidable. When the dust finally settled, a small head pee
ked out from the wreckage; and shortly a bantam-cock emerged determined to find out who was responsible for this outrage.
He fluttered to the quarterdeck rail, saw the Ville De Paris and instantly decided she was the source of his unhappiness. For the rest of the battle, every time the Formidable unleashed a broadside, he would leap about, flap his wings and, with his shrill cries, cheer on the British seamen.
Admiral Rodney was so charmed by the bird that he gave orders that, if anything should happen to him, the bird would be cared for and pampered for the rest of his life.
Thus, with the French being simultaneously abused by British guns, half-crazy captains who could swear in three languages, and an irate chicken—the battle moved into the late morning.
* * *
“Sidney, it’s almost time,” Walker whispered.