Having watched for a moment as a sort of order began to emerge from the numerous manoeuverings of individual ships, Monck looked aloft. Beyond the topmen coiling the gaskets, the solitary figure of the young lieutenant he had sent to the masthead stood out against the sky, only Monck’s monstrous red admiral’s flag above him.
It was too much to hope for news of the enemy for at least half-, perhaps three-quarters of an hour. Instead, Monck watched as his ships fell into rough lines, each division falling into place in its squadron. Then, with a skilful spilling of wind allowing the leading ships to draw ahead, he saw with a degree of pleasure, the three squadrons take up their stations, Ayscue’s ahead of his own, all his ships flaunting white ensigns. Astern, still unformed, gilling and jockeying into station, followed Teddeman’s Blue Squadron. There was an order about the movements that Monck found gratifying. It was not quite the battlefield precision of his infantry deploying from column into line, but something very similar, and all the more remarkable When one considered that these were not sentient soldiers capable of stepping up a touch if they lagged behind, or slowing if their wing-man was a bit forward; these were huge, lumbering, wind-driven behemoths, bearing along their oaked sides more artillery than half-a dozen land-battles could ever muster.
Monck grunted his satisfaction.
‘Your Grace?’ queried an attentive Kempthorne.
‘Nothing but an expression of my satisfaction, sir. If they maintain such station-keeping then we should do very well.’
Standing beside Monck, William Clarke smiled.
‘’Tis a very good turn-out,’ Kempthorne agreed, ‘considering the lack of prime seaman in the fleet.’
‘Well, that is not to be helped,’ Monck remarked, recalling the prodigious difficulties he and Prince Rupert had had in manning the fleet. They had issued orders to the Bailiffs in Great Yarmouth and Ipswich to institute a hot-press and round-up the merchant seamen known to be hiding in the two towns; they had embargoed every fishing boat out of Harwich and impressed their unfortunate crews, but the ketches sent to pick-up the men had still reached the Nore with far too few seamen and orders had had to be sent for the drafting of some five hundred infantrymen to serve at sea.
Monck had got wind of the resentment at the arrival of ‘the bloody sojers,’ but took no heed of the seamen’s grumbling. He knew enough of the sea-service to understand that seamen who did not grumble were likely meditating something far more dangerous. Besides, he and Rupert had had more important matters to think of, not least the meddling of the Duke of York and the prospect of a French attack up-Channel. In the end, matters concluded just as Monck knew they would. The whole of the burden was thrown upon his shoulders, it being ‘conceived’ by His Majesty and His Royal Brother that, once Rupert had been despatched down-Channel, it ‘was best to leave it to Your Grace’s prudence to do what you shall think best for His Majesty’s service…’
In the event, Monck’s fleet had worked their way eastwards from the Nore to the North Foreland, then round into the traditional anchorage of The Downs, ready to meet the Dutch if they attempted to slip down-Channel, or to move to the cruising ground selected by the Duke of York and the King, between the North Foreland and the Naze of Essex. Monck had intended moving north, to anchor off the Gunfleet pending news of the enemy, but now that was unnecessary: the easterly had brought the enterprising De Ruyter to him, only to leave him to anchor for fear of falling back to leeward as the easterly wind, favourable to the Dutch, failed them.
‘If we catch them at anchor…’ Kempthorne mused aloud but Monck laughed.
‘They are not such fools as to allow us that. They will be on a short scope of cable if I judge aright, and will cut-and-run the moment they catch sight of us. Now, Sir John, do you have the requisite flag for close action hoisted.’
And so it proved. Moreover, the Dutch felt the westerly wind before the English fleet bore down upon them and they were already getting under way when a shout from aloft told the knot of officers about Monck that the enemy was in sight from the main-masthead. Monck, Kempthorne, Clarke and all the rest of those upon the quarterdeck of the Royal Charles strained to catch their first glimpse of the Dutch and then, quite suddenly, emerging from the har, there they were: a long line of dark ships. Their sails were pallid and above which the bright spots of flags and ensigns indicated the Admiralties of Zealand, of Amsterdam, of Frisia, of Noorderkwartier and the Maas in all their brilliant and pompous variety.
The sight caused a mood of levity to sweep the deck of the Royal Charles as the fleet’s course was altered, following the van squadron as it strove to close the nearest Dutchmen making sail to the south and east.
‘There they are, the Mynheers, God love ’em!’
‘Ho for the The Square-headed, clog-wearing bastards! Look at ’em!’
‘We shall carry this breeze down a-top of them,’ someone remarked cheerfully, until Kempthorne sobered them before Monck did.
‘Hold your wagging tongues! With a breeze this strong we shall find it impossible to work the lower gun-ports.’ He turned to Monck. ‘The heel of the ship, Your Grace, will prevent –’
‘Yes, yes, I comprehend the dilemma,’ Monck snapped testily, bracing himself against the sharpening heel of the flag-ship as she followed round, onto a course south of east. ‘Damn the precious weather-gauge,’ he muttered to Clarke who watched anxiety cross Monck’s careworn face.
But now something else was emerging from the mist: the ships in sight were but one squadron. Now they could see more beyond them to the north-east, a lot more. Kempthorne turned again to Monck.
‘I see them,’ Monck said and both men saw the nearer of the Dutch formations swing round onto a parallel course to their own, roughly east-south-eastwards, ahead of the English and with the other Dutch squadrons forming beyond, upon their larboard quarter.
Monck stared astern. The English fleet was already in line ahead, its swing almost completed. The strong wind was driving them down towards the enemy so that they would engage the nearest Dutch squadron before the rest of the enemy fleet caught up. That would compensate the English for their inability to use their heavy lower-deck guns, at least for the time being. Monck remarked on this to his flag-captain, Will Clarke joining in the discussion.
‘It is our best chance,’ concluded Kempthorne.
A few minutes later the advanced ships exchanged shots to bring on a general engagement. The breeze had strengthened by now to a near-gale and ten minutes later the Royal Charles was in the thick of it, the Dutch fire, aimed high, sought to disable the English ships. What was more disconcerting was the concentration of fire that the Royal Charles was soon receiving. The flags that identified a flag-ship to her own fleet, squadron and divisions, did so equally to the enemy and it was not long before several spars were shot away, the leeward standing rigging was seriously damaged and the truss of the main-yard was all-but shot-through. Splinters littered the deck, and severed ropes ran through the blocks, to fall upon the deck like monstrous dead snakes.
‘That’s Cornelius Tromp’s flag!’ Kempthorne remarked, indicating a large Dutch man-of-war not far away and bearing down upon them.
The two fleets were driving relentlessly towards the French coast, the three English squadrons pressing hard upon the two divisions under Cornelius van Tromp. The main Dutch body under De Ruyter still lay some distance off to leeward and astern, cramming on sail so as to get into action but, at least for the first hour, the English had the advantage of numbers, though the weight of metal they were capable of throwing was lost to the heeling wind. Meanwhile the Dutch were firing high, taking advantage of their own heel and doing damage to the English ships aloft.
As they all ran down towards the Sandettié Bank it was clear that they could not continue thus, so, at about fifteen minutes past eleven, the head-most Dutch ship risked a raking and bore away to wear-ship and lead the Dutch line round in a loop. In due time, it would stand to the west-south-west. The English fleet foll
owed suit, but the order to preserve the line and avoid confusion and a hopeless mêlée meant that the English executed this turn after the Dutch had begun their own. As Monck’s fleet came round onto the larboard tack, the English found themselves not only engaged on the starboard side – not the larboard as they had been thus far – but in contact with De Ruyter’s ships. Van Tromp’s turn had allowed De Ruyter to catch-up and his ships, having cut the corner, came fresh into action alongside the English fleet. It was now that the superior Dutch numbers began to tell.
‘Christ! That was well done!’ Kempthorne exclaimed blasphemously in admiration of the Dutch manoeuvre. ‘They have turned the table upon us, Your Grace!’
Monck needed no-one to tell him that. The storm of shot that now assailed the English ships was near overwhelming. Added to this, the thunder and concussion of their own guns and their recoil, which made the very fabric of the Royal Charles shudder, only dimmed the wits of the officers driven to contemplate their own ruin. For the seamen toiling at the guns, there was at least the consolation of mind-numbing repetitive movement: of swabbing, worming, reloading the charges, ramming them home then adding ball, to run their monstrous artillery out while the gun-captains primed them and all jumped clear as the linstocks were applied. As the discharge roared, in came the gun, rumbling on its iron trucks and the whole process began again. But it was different for Monck and his small staff. Once mayhem had been released, there was little they could do but watch and hope that those responsible for the vast machinery of destruction that contested with the enemy would each do their own part.
There were no longer any signals to be sent, for if the mist no longer troubled them it was replaced by the thick clouds of smoke that intermittently clouded everything until the wind tore it away across the Dutch fleet. There was scarce an interval between the Dutch ships, though they were not in any formal line, but the effect of Van Tromp’s turn and De Ruyter’s superb supporting manoeuvre was to confront the English with over-powering force. This combined with the advantage of firing upwards from the leeward position began to tell on Monck’s fleet.
The red gun-flashes, the roar of their discharges, the scream of the balls and whirring noises of the destructive chain and bar-shot that whistled through the hot and choking air so distracted a man from thinking that to be considered in command of such a hellish situation was nothing short of a night-mare. But Monck knew that, should the day miscarry, he would stand before Parliament and answer for it as if he played a game of chess. As he stood between Kempthorne and Clarke, his hat was torn from his head by a passing ball; the incident reminded him of how precariously rested his head, both in battle and in its aftermath. Clarke bent and retrieved the hat, handing it to Monck with a half-smile.
‘Sir! Sir! The Swiftsure’s struck!’ An officer ran aft with the news. ‘I can see her from forward, sir. She’s fallen out of the line!’
‘Get back to your post, sir!’ roared Kempthorne. Turning to Monck he shouted: ‘Berkeley’s flag-ship!’
‘Aye.’ Monck recalled the impossibly young admiral and hoped he was alive, but feared the worst. It was no small part of the mechanism that had broken down. Surrender meant that the Swiftsure had been reduced to something resembling a huge butcher’s shambles. Only later would they learn that the young Berkeley lay among the slain.
It was now past two in the afternoon and the precision of the English line had been lost. Such was the damage executed upon the English ship’s rigging that several had become unmanageable, including the Royal Charles. A gallant attempt had been made to keep her in her station, but this proved impossible. Circumscribed by a small circle of smoky vision, the great English flag-ship was surrounded by hostile Dutch men-of-war whose guns seemed plied by devils.
Then, in a break in the clouds of gun-smoke, they saw the Henry, flag-ship of Rear Admiral Harman, drift helplessly past them, beset by three Dutchmen. She had been in the tail of the van under Ayscue’s command.
‘Fire-ships!’ someone yelled and they saw the smoke begin to coil upwards from the Henry. Ayscue’s van squadron seemed to have been entirely destroyed. Frustratingly they were unable to work the Royal Charles to her assistance, and Monck began to consider the day lost.
He called Kempthorne to his side and bellowed in his smoke-blackened ear, ‘We’re beaten, John, but this wind and the condition of our ships prevents us from disengaging. I consider we should make the signal to anchor.’
‘Your Grace, Your Grace…’ The same officer who Monck had sent aloft that morning sought to gain the Commander-in-Chief’s attention.
‘What is it, Grant?’ Kempthorne asked.
‘I think the Dutch are breaking off the action, sir.’
‘The devil they are!’
Very slowly over the following hour the noise subsided as the two exhausted fleets drew apart and the fighting between them slowly fizzled out as men too exhausted to ply their guns slumped beside them, despite the exhortations of their officers. One thing was clear as the evening approached, the fleets drew apart and the crews were set to work knotting and splicing, fishing spars and, where they could, hoisting spare yards to replace those shot away, and that was that. The Dutch had given the English a severe drubbing.
The night that followed was short and bloody. While the tired but fit cleared the decks of debris and threw the dead overboard, the wounded suffered the torments of the knife and bone-saw, their screams making the sleep of the exhausted intermittent and full of hellish visions. Not a man among either fleet could hear properly, for their ears rang while their skin crawled with stale sweat and smoke-powder. Some food was served but all order seemed to have disintegrated as, everywhere, men slept where they had earlier stood.
Yet strangely the ships’ routines went on. Men attended to their watches after a fashion and the fleets lay hove-to, drifting with the tide as the wind abated. The early dawn promised a hot June day with a red sun rising over the rim of the world to stir the restless air into languid motion. And, like resurrected corpses, the stiff and weary rose from their sleep and put their ships back into fighting trim. Monck had spent much of the night at the capstan which Clarke was using as an extemporised desk – the great cabin being cleared for action – and towards the dawn four officers were sent round the fleet in the ship’s boats. They carried Monck’s written order that all ships capable of standing in the line-of-battle were required so to do; a list of the casualties was brought back to the Royal Charles.
Monck gave these a cursory glance and looked at Clarke. ‘There will be equal damage in the Dutch fleet, Will. Our ships may be battered but we were not firing high; they will have suffered, of that I have no doubt. That is why they broke of action last evening and that is why I shall press them again today.’
By about eight o’clock, both fleets had reformed east of the Galloper shoal and soon afterwards came into action. They fought the whole day without any conclusion, the lines-of-battle criss-crossing as each passed through the enemy’s, while the guns thundered their defiance. All was intermittently obscured by smoke, but, at intervals, damaged ships fell out of their formations, the English predominating in this respect. Such ships withdrew towards Harwich, beating clumsily into the wind to do so, such was the damage.
At one point, however, it seemed that the English had cut-off Van Tromp’s division and might have finished the business of its destruction as they had intended on the first day of the battle, but again, De Ruyter, executing a brilliant turn-about, brought a locally overwhelming force against the cluster of English ships over-bearing Van Tromp and rescued him. In the fury of this action a storm of iron balls swept the Royal Charles’s deck and a cry beside him made Monck turn.
Will Clarke was down on one knee in an awkward supplication, his shocked face looking at his chief. ‘Christ, but I am shot!’
Monk took in the situation at a glance: a round shot had shattered Clarke’s right leg and the blood from his femoral artery was pumping out of him upon the white planking ben
eath him. Even as Monck called for assistance, Clarke’s eyes glazed over and he slumped sideways in his own gore.
‘Oh, Will, Will…’
Monck bent over his most faithful friend and colleague and, for a moment, it looked as if the battle-hardened old man would crack at the wounding of Clarke, but he rose and those like Kempthorne, who had seen what had occurred, marvelled at Monck’s stone face.
‘Have him carried below,’ Monck shouted to a brace of gunners Kempthorne summoned from their piece to remove the badly mauled Clarke. The men knuckled their foreheads and Monck bent to his friend, looked up as a further blast of shot swept the quarterdeck. ‘Take him gently and have the surgeon see to him quickly. Do you do that for me.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
Monck turned to Kempthorne who was wounded in the right arm, had lost his hat and had a lacerated ear. ‘Hot work, John. But I fear they have the better of us again. I fear poor Will’s wound will prove mortal.’
‘Let us pray that is not the case, Your Grace.’
Again nightfall brought respite and again the dawn brought renewed action which continued throughout the third day. It was now that the English fleet, having impressed the Dutch with their bold station-keeping, began to falter in their combined resolution. Watching, Monck was alarmed that in places the line was not maintained and he ordered the offending ships identified.
Sword of State: The Remarkable Story of George Monck Page 56