by Tom Grundner
The Canada had been there for some time. In an act of unbelievable courage, or unbelievable stupidity, Captain Cornwallis had decided to take on the Ville de Paris broadside to broadside. The Canada was no garbage scow. She was a 74-gun third-rate with a ship’s company of over 600 men. But the Ville de Paris was a 120-gun masterpiece—the largest ship in either nation’s Navy. Yet, the Canada was giving as good as she got.
As soon as the Russell slowed to a stop, the starboard side guns ran out and raked the huge three-decker. Susan gasped.
Being raked was the worst thing that could happen to a ship. It involves one ship crossing another and pouring gunfire through the bow or the stern and down the length of the ship. Susan knew exactly what was happening on the French vessel.
Round shot would be streaking down the entire length of the Ville de Paris’ gun decks. Some of the balls would be passing through groups of men as they served their guns. Some would be striking gun carriages upending them. And some would be striking the gun barrels themselves, ricocheting in God-only-knew which direction.
To make matters worse, the Duke had followed the Russell over and, from a distance was already trying to get in its licks. The Duke was firing balls over the top of Susan’s tiny boat. The crash of her guns followed by the “wiss” of a ball overhead caused everyone to involuntarily duck.
For the first time, genuine fear entered Susan’s consciousness. All it would take would be one gun with a bad powder charge, or a mistake in elevation by a gunner, or a shot fired on the down-roll instead of the up-roll, or a change of munitions from the solid ball to grapeshot. If any of those things occurred then she, and everyone else in the boat, would be so much ground meat.
She was not alone. She looked around and saw that several of the rescued men were entertaining the same fears.
And the battle waged on.
* * *
Admiral De Grasse was many things, but incompetent was not among them. He was as shrewd a tactician as ever sailed and no one who knew him doubted his courage for an instant. He knew his line had been cut. He knew the British were devastating several of his ships. His own ship was being hammered. But, he was not without hope for he had one more card he could play.
“Mr. D’Ethy,” he called. A young lieutenant came running over, covered with soot, his hat gone, his coat torn and a slightly wild look in his eyes. He was the signal officer and he still clutched his precious slate, chalk and code book in his hands.
“Sir!”
“Take down these signals. To Admiral Vaudreuil: REAR. CLOSE. ON ME. Then send a second signal to Admiral Bougainville: VAN. RETURN. ATTACK. FROM WINDWARD.”
The lieutenant ran off to the signal halyards while De Grasse paced the quarterdeck trying to calm himself. He looked aft and saw the Glorieux was in dreadful shape. He had no idea how she stayed afloat; yet, there she was, still getting off sporadic rounds of gunfire. Off his starboard bow, he could see the Caesar and Hector under attack from four British ships but still fighting.
“It is not lost yet,” he told himself. “It is NOT... lost... yet...”
What he had just done with the signals was to bring his badly torn rear squadron up to join his center in a defensive position. He would create what amounted to a floating fortress consisting of his two squadrons massed together so they could protect each other.
The British could encircle this cluster and eventually destroy them, but that’s where he had played his ace. His van was almost unscathed. They could come back and attack the British even as the British were attacking them. He would have them caught in a pincer between his “fortress” and the ships of his free ranging van.
It will work, he thought. It all depends on the van, but it will work.
The signal lieutenant returned. “The signals have been sent and acknowledged, sir.”
“Very well, Mr. D’Ethy. Stay near me in case I have more signals to send.”
Several minutes passed. The remnants of the rear squadron were swinging around the four entangled ships and coming up to join the French center. But, the van was another question entirely.
“Mr. D’Ethy, are you certain Admiral Bougainville acknowledged your last signal?”
“Yes, sir. I am positive.”
“Damn it. Send it again and this time fire a signal rocket. That should get their attention.”
De Grasse continued pacing, feeling the hits his own ship was taking through his feet as he walked. He was determined not to show fear to the men. His pace was measured and steady, like he was taking a Sunday stroll.
He glanced over the side at the Canada just a pistol shot away. Secretly he admired the amazing rate of fire the ship was keeping up; but that was not a feeling he wanted to portray. Instead, he screwed his face up into a look of utter contempt and turned away.
D’Ethy returned. “Sir, I sent it again and they acknowledged it again; but, sir, except for the Ardent, they are not coming back. They’re running, sir. They’re running!”
* * *
“This is a hell of a time for the froggies to be putting on a fireworks display,” Walker said, nodding skyward.
“Trust me they aren’t. It looks like someone’s not paying attention to signals,” Smith replied.
The two were bouncing around on their improvised hatch cover raft. They had each recovered a piece of broken wood and were paddling in the direction of the British line.
“Oh, Jesus God,” Smith exclaimed. Walker looked over, saw he had stopped paddling and was staring at the water.
“What? What is it?”
“Look over there,” Smith said, pointing. And, as if on cue, a shark fin broke the surface, leisurely making its way toward the raft.
“Oh, Jesus God,” Walker echoed.
“Lucas, if he comes for us, what are we going to do?”
“All right, look, don’t panic. I read once that if you bang a shark on the snout, he’ll leave you alone.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, positive. Sharks have bad eyes but great noses. Bang’em a good one and they’ll turn tail. It’s their most sensitive part.”
The shark had to be at least eight feet long. Not at all large by Great White standards, but enough to scare the wits out of anyone who is in close proximity. He slid down one side of the raft, turned, and cruised down the other, eyeing the occupants on each pass. Suddenly, he seemed to make a decision and swam toward the raft head on to see if there was anything he could snatch.
The shark had gotten his head over the edge of the raft and opened his huge mouth displaying several rows of serrated teeth. Smith scuttled backwards almost knocking Walker into the water.
“Hit him, Sidney! Use your piece of wood. Hit him on the nose.”
Smith quickly got to his knees, reared back, and cracked the shark, hard, right across the point of his snout. The shark slid back into the water.”
“Atta’boy. Way to go, Sidney! That’s giving it to him. That’s the last we’ll see of him!”
The shark retreated about thirty yards away, then turned and headed straight back at the raft—800 pounds of thoroughly enraged carnivore. The shark plowed into the frail raft at full speed, smashing it to pieces. Walker and Smith spun into the water, right where the shark wanted them.
* * *
With the French van disappearing, ship-by-ship, over the horizon, De Grasse knew it was over. His fleet—well, most of it anyway—had fought well; but it was now just a matter of time before they would have to surrender. If it hadn’t been for the betrayal of Bougainville... If it hadn’t been for the cowardice of...
“Damn it,” he suddenly yelled. “Will that poxy ship never stop raking us from the stern?”
The first ship to surrender was the Glorieux. Indeed, there were so few people left alive on her that she almost didn’t surrender at all for lack of anyone to take down the flag. Her decks were littered with dead men, whose collective blood was flowing in torrents out of the scuppers, creating numerous graceful red swashes al
ong the side of the ship. Finally, the ship’s only remaining officer staggered to the pole upon which the tattered French flag was nailed, and tore it down. Her battle was mercifully over.
The next to go was the Caesar. The Caesar too had fought well, but she had been trapped by the second British breakthrough and was simply out-gunned. What happened to her, however, should not have happened to any ship, let alone one as brave as she was.
The Caesar surrendered between one and two in the afternoon. When the British prize crew came over, the Frenchmen were so out of control that the British had to herd them quickly below decks and seal-up the hatchways so they could get the ship straightened up and underway. With no officers and no discipline, the men quickly got into the spirit room and spent the rest of the afternoon getting drunk and fighting among themselves.
Tragedy finally struck when a drunken seaman, carrying a lantern, bumped into a liquor cask whose top had been stove in. The flames quickly spread from one deck to another, trapping men by the dozens. The British prize crew, amid the demented shrieks of those caught below in the fire, worked furiously to put the fire out; but it was to no avail.
As the ship burned to the waterline, the prize crew threw open the hatches to let the Frenchmen out. The French seamen sized up the hopeless condition of the ship and, almost to a man, jumped over the side. What they hadn’t figured on were the sharks.
All day the sharks had been feeding on men thrown or knocked overboard in the battle; but, still, they were not satisfied. With fresh meat in the water, they renewed their efforts. Men were grabbed, released, and grabbed again. Men, who a few hours earlier had been masters of the sea, were now being torn from retched scraps of debris to have huge chunks of their body ripped away. Each of the British ships sent boats to help in the rescue, but little could be done.
About five o’clock, the Hector surrendered. She was trapped along with the Caesar in the second British breakthrough, but did not fight nearly as well.
When the British broke the line, the Hector faced the prospect of an entire squadron unloading into her as they passed by. It was more than the men could take and a near mutiny ensued. Men threw down their weapons and ran for the safer reaches of the lower decks. Their captain, however, was having none of it. He ran among the fleeing men, beating them with the flat of his sword, until order was restored. Unfortunately, a short time later, a British ball tore off the captain’s leg at the hip and the last of shipboard discipline went with it.
The next to go was the Ardent, and this was the most poetic surrender of the day. To begin with, the Ardent was the only ship in the French van to return when ordered by De Grasse. Second, until 1779, the Ardent had been a British ship. The French had captured her in the Channel a few years earlier. It was as if her re-capture now symbolized Britain’s return as a naval power.
* * *
Durbin and Pulley had made it over to a good-sized launch that was also being towed; and they began work immediately throwing lines to other men in the water. Their boat could hold 25 men comfortably and it was already starting to fill up.
Susan looked over at the launch, caught Pulley’s eye and waved. Pulley smiled and waved back. As he did, however, something caught Susan’s attention.
Over on the far side of the Russell, between the Russell and the Formidable, she thought she saw two men on a raft. The smoke would reveal them one moment and hide them the next. But, there was something about them.
“There. Just there. Was that not... yes, there were two people, one in uniform, one in civilian clothes.” She put her hand up to shield her eyes from the sun. “Could it possibly be?” she speculated.
She finally decided she had to know for sure. “You, up forward. Cut the towline. The rest of you get out the oars, we’re going to row over to where I think I see some men.”
She had given an order, but no one moved.
At first, she couldn’t believe it. Then the reality struck home that she was a woman in a boat full of men, seamen at that. They were used to obeying orders automatically, which is probably why she had gotten as far as she had; but they were not used to taking orders from a woman.
She tried again. “Men, cut the towline and rouse out the oars. There are some people over there I mean to rescue.”
A voice from amidships answered, “Bint, ain’t nobody gonna cut that line. That’s us only connection ter the ship. Wot ‘appens if we cut it and the chuffin’ ship, hell the ‘oole damn fleet, gets under way, eh? We gonna row after them?”
Susan found herself pleading. “You don’t understand. There are two men over there. They are...” Susan stopped short, thinking how to describe them. “They’re friends of mine. Very good friends. And I just can’t leave them there!”
“No, ‘mam. Th’t line stays. And I ain’t takin’ no more orders from a bitch.”
It was a standoff. The thin, nervous, man was as adamant in his position as Susan was in hers. The issue was finally decided in a very straightforward way.
Sitting in the back of the boat near the tiller was a huge seaman by the name of Raymond Hayes. Susan was to later find out he was Hugh Hayes brother. He sighed once, got to his knees, then stood up—all 6’5” of him—and started to slowly walk forward. When he got to the protesting man, he reached down, grabbed him by the neck, and literally lifted him off the deck.
“Yer know, cully, 20 minutes ago I didn’t ‘ear yer callin’ the lady a ‘bitch’ wen she were ‘aulin’ yor worffless hide out’a the drink, did I?”
The man tried to gurgle a response.
“No, I didn’t think so. Now, she says she ‘as some mates over yonder ‘oo need some ‘elp. And if she ‘as some mates in trouble, we’re gonna ‘elp ‘er ‘elp them, ain’t we?”
The man gurgled again.
With that as an apparent assent, Hayes released his grip and the man crumpled to the deck.
He continued forward, took out his knife, and slashed at the towline. When the line finally parted, he turned around.
“Alright, ye useless lubbers, get them oars out. We got places ter go.”
* * *
For the next half-hour after the Ardent struck her colors, De Grasse moved like he was in a bad dream. It was the kind of dream where you knew something bad was going to happen to you at any moment, but there was absolutely nothing you could do to prevent it.
The Canada, off his starboard beam, had surgically removed every stick of timber from his main deck. In a spectacular display of gunnery, there wasn’t a single mast left standing taller than a man’s height. The Russell, on his stern, had blown away his rudder and was streaking shot after shot down the length of his decks, mangling and mutilating men and material as they went.
In a daze, he looked at his feet and wondered when he had put a pair of red shoes on. He didn’t remember even owning a pair of red shoes. He saw also that he was standing in a pool of blood, but he was not able to connect that with his shoes. The pool of blood was connected, in turn, to Lieutenant D’Ethy who in death was still clutching his slate and codebook. D’Ethy’s body didn’t register with De Grasse either.
Dimly, he knew he had to surrender soon, but to whom?
He looked over the side and saw yet another British ship coming up. Squinting against both the smoke and the setting sun, he could see a long, thin, blue pennant streaming from the newcomers foremast.
“NO!” He screamed. “No, I will not! Not to HIM!”
De Grasse rushed to a 12-pound gun that its crew had just loaded and run out. He shoved the gun captain away, took up the slow match and, just as the Barfleur came into his sights, touched off the gun. When it had finished its recoil, he climbed up on the rail to shake his fist and scream at his old nemesis, Admiral Hood.
To a 90-gun warship, being hit by a 12-pound ball was more puzzling than dangerous. No matter, Admiral Hood thought. If the Ville de Paris sill wanted to fight, that was fine by him.
Hood gave a series of rudder commands that placed him in-between the Cana
da and the Ville de Paris. Once he had pulled even, he gave the order for a broadside.
Even if the Ville de Paris had been a healthy ship, catching 45 balls, ranging from 12 to 32 pounds each, at point-blank range, would have been a serious matter; but the Ville de Paris was not healthy. She was, in fact, on her last legs.
The force of the broadside crashing into his ship’s side knocked De Grasse off the rail and into an untidy pile at the foot of the catwalk. Suddenly, the daze he had been in for the past hour lifted. Suddenly, his head was clear. Suddenly, he knew what had to be done.