A Brig of War

by Richard Woodman

  Griffiths was summoned on board for a council of war, the outcome of which was to attack Kosseir, destroy Santhonax and open the port to traffic from the Hejaz. French defeat would not only result in an improvement to the Meccans able to join Murad Bey, but would enable the British to pre-empt any French attempt upon India the following year. Returning from the meeting Griffiths also brought back personal news.

  A replacement for Echo had joined the squadron. The ship-sloop Hotspur had brought out mail, news and orders. The latter included a tersely worded instruction that Hellebore was to be returned at once to England. Nelson, the author of her present predicament was, it seemed, in disgrace. His euphoric languishing at Naples after Aboukir had been tarnished by the Caraccioli affair and followed by a leisurely return home by way of a circuitous route through Europe during which his conduct with the wife of the British Ambassador to the court of the Two Sicilies was scandalous.

  Drinkwater paid scant attention to this gossip, depressed by the realisation that Hotspur had brought no letters from Elizabeth. Then Griffiths swiftly recalled him to the present.

  ‘Oh, by the way, Nathaniel, Hotspur brought two lieutenants to the station. One is appointed to Daedalus and he wished to be remembered to you. He was insistent I convey his felicitations to you.’

  An image of the ruddy and diminutive White formed in his mind. Perhaps White had news of Elizabeth! But he checked this sudden hope on the recollection that White would not exchange the quarterdeck of Victory for an obscure frigate in an even more obscure corner of the world without an epaulette on his shoulder.

  ‘The gentleman’s name sir?’

  ‘A Welsh one, bach. Morris if I recollect right.’

  A strong presentiment swept over Drinkwater. From the moment he had jestingly suggested shooting off Bruilhac’s fingers and found Quilhampton handless, Providence seemed to have deserted him. The strain of weary months of service manifested itself in this feeling. His worries for Elizabeth stirred his own loneliness. It was a disease endemic among seamen and fate lent it a further twist when he recalled the words Morris had uttered to him years earlier.

  Drinkwater had been instrumental in having Mr Midshipman Morris turned out of the frigate Cyclops where he had dominated a coterie of bullying sodomites. Morris had threatened revenge even at the earth’s extremities. Suddenly Drinkwater seemed engulfed in a web from which he could not escape. The revelation that Dalziell was related to Morris made months earlier seemed now to preface his present apprehension.

  On the morning of 14th August 1799 in light airs the brig of war Hellebore led Captain Henry Lidgbird Ball’s squadron slowly into Kosseir Bay. The indentation of the coast was formed by a headland, a small fort and a mole which protected a large number of native craft gathered inside. More dhows lay anchored in the inner roadstead. Above the fort the tricolour floated listlessly. Of the frigate of Edouard Santhonax there was no sign.

  Griffiths swore as he paced up and down the quarterdeck, one ear cocked to hear the leadsman’s chant from the chains. Whilst the taking of the dhows and fort were of importance to Ball, only the destruction of Santhonax would satisfy Griffiths.

  The men waited round the guns, the sail-trimmers at their stations. Lestock fussed over a rudimentary chart he had copied from Fox’s as Hellebore picked her way slowly inshore. Drinkwater stared at the town through his glass. It was past noon with the sun burning down on them from almost overhead. Drinkwater indicated the dhows.

  ‘Santhonax’s fleet of transports, I believe sir.’ He handed the glass to Griffiths. The commander swept the yellow shoreline shimmering under the glare. He nodded. ‘But that cythral Santhonax is nowhere to be seen.’ Griffiths cast a glance about him. ‘Strike number five the instant the leadsman finds six fathoms, the closer in we get the greater the risk of coral outcrops.’

  As if to justify Griffiths’s concern Hellebore trembled slightly. Griffiths and Drinkwater exchanged glances but even the jittery Lestock seemed not to have noticed the tremor. The leadsman allayed their fears: ‘By the mark seven . . . by the deep eight . . . a quarter less eight!’

  Hellebore crept onward. ‘By the deep six!’

  ‘Strike number five! Braces there! Main topsail to the mast!’ The red and white chequered numeral flag fluttered to the deck and the brig lost way as the main yards braced round to back their sails. She ceased her forward motion.

  ‘Let go!’ The anchor dropped with a splash as the first gun boomed out from the fort. Unhurriedly the three British ships clapped springs on their cables and traversed to bring their full broadsides on the wretched town. The fire from the fort ceased, as though the gunners, having tried the range, paused to see what the British would do.

  Aboard Hellebore they waited for Ball’s signal to open fire, their own capstan catching a final turn on the spring to align the guns to Griffiths’s satisfaction. Drinkwater listened to the stage whispers of the gun crew nearest him.

  ‘Why don’t the bastards open fire at us, Jim?’

  ‘ ’Cos they’re shit-scared, laddy. Froggies is all the same.’

  ‘Don’t be bleeding stupid. They want to save their sodding powder until the brass have stopped pissing about and decide where to station us sitting ducks.’

  ‘It’s only a piddling little fort, mates. Bugger all to worry about.’

  ‘But you still save your powder an’ bleeding shot, Tosher, you stupid sod.’

  ‘How the hell d’you know?’

  ‘Look if you had to carry the fucking stuff over them mountains behind this dunghill you wouldn’t throw the stuff away, now would you, my old cock?’

  This debate was interrupted by Daedalus opening fire. Her consorts followed suit. The bombardment of Kosseir had begun.

  For an hour the men toiled at the guns under a burning sun. The constant concussions killed the wind and when Ball hoisted the signal to cease fire the men slumped exhausted at their pieces or scrabbled for the chained ladle at the scuttlebutt. They tore off their headbands and shook their heads to clear the ringing from their ears, wiping the grimy sweat from their foreheads. In his berth two feet below the now silent cannon, Midshipman Quilhampton writhed, tortured by heat, inflammation and fever. From time to time Catherine Best wiped the heavy perspiration from his brow and desultorily fanned his naked body. Appleby waited for casualties in the cockpit, cooling himself with rum and ignoring the groans of the wounded that had survived their earlier action and now twisted in the stifling, stinking heat of Hellebore’s bowels.

  Stripped to his shirt sleeves Drinkwater scanned the dun-coloured shore, watching for a response to the flag of truce now at Daedalus’s foremasthead. But although the fort’s guns had fallen silent the tricolour still hung limply from its staff. No movement could be discerned in the town after a first terrified evacuation of the dhows in the harbour. Drinkwater felt a strong sense of anti-climax. The fort seemed weak, no more than half-a-dozen cannon.

  ‘Old guns installed by the Turks,’ observed Lestock.

  ‘Place looks like a heap of camel-shit,’ muttered Rogers. They all suffered from a sense of being engaged in an unworthy activity, not least Griffiths.

  ‘A most inglorious proceeding indeed,’ he said, disgust filling his dry mouth. And Drinkwater knew the old man considered this a side-show compared with the task of destroying Santhonax himself.

  ‘Commodore’s signalling for an officer, sir.’ Dalziell reported.

  ‘Du . . . see to it Mr Drinkwater.’

  Clambering in at the entry of Daedalus Drinkwater was escorted by a cool-looking midshipman to the quarterdeck. He found a lieutenant from Fox already there, together with a figure he knew well.

  Time had not been kind to Augustus Morris. The years had ravaged his body, the skin drawn over prematurely withered flesh, his stance flaccid, listless in a manner that could not entirely be attributed to the heat. His face bore the marks of a heavy drinker, a tic twitching beneath his right eye. But although time might be remarked in his person an
d emphasised by his long worn lieutenant’s uniform, his eyes, beneath their heavy lids, glittered with a potent malevolence.

  There was no time for formalities. Captain Ball turned from a consultation with his sailing master and addressed the three lieutenants.

  ‘Gentlemen, I propose in an hour to hoist the Union at the foremasthead. Upon that signal I require you to take the boats from your ships and attack the native craft exposed in the outer roadstead. You should direct your respective boats to the nearest craft and thereafter concert your efforts as seems best to you. That is all.’ Ball turned away dismissively.

  ‘What’s the date of your commission, Drinkwater?’ asked Hetherington of Fox, a small, pinch-faced man with prominent ears.

  ‘October ’97.’

  ‘That makes you senior, Morris.’

  ‘It does indeed,’ said Morris with relish, never taking his eyes off Drinkwater. ‘Mr Drinkwater once outranked me, Hetherington. A temporary matter, d’you know. It is only just that I should have the whip hand now.’

  ‘Well what are we going to do?’ enquired the anxious Hetherington who was not much interested in Morris’s autobiography.

  Morris took his eyes reluctantly off his old enemy and fixed Hetherington with an opaque look that Drinkwater remembered from twenty years earlier. ‘Why, just what we have been told, Hetherington. Take the dhows of course. Mr Drinkwater will lead the attack . . .’ Drinkwater met his gaze again, reading Morris’s intentions quite clearly. Morris turned to Hetherington. ‘You may return to your ship.’ His hand shot out and restrained Drinkwater who had thought to leave.

  ‘Not you, my dear Nathaniel,’ said Morris with heavy sarcasm, his hand gripping viciously upon Drinkwater’s right upper arm, twisting the muscle maimed two years earlier by Edouard Santhonax, ‘we have an old acquaintance to revive.’

  ‘I think not, Morris,’ said Drinkwater coolly as the other dropped his hand.

  ‘Ah, but I order you to stay, there is so much to discuss. Your wife for instance . . .’

  Drinkwater froze, suddenly anxious and searching Morris’s face for the truth.

  ‘Oh, yes, I have seen her, Nathaniel. Heavy with child too. You have overcome your prudery I see. Unless it was another.’ Morris broke out into low laughter as Drinkwater’s hand reached for his hanger. Morris shook his head. ‘That would be most imprudent.’ Drinkwater clenched his fist impotently. ‘She looked unwell.’

  Drinkwater saw in Morris’s expression a cruel delight, such as Yusuf ben Ibrahim had worn as he butchered the Frenchmen of La Torride.

  Drinkwater opened his mouth to reply but the words were lost in the sudden roar of Daedalus’s guns. Ball had hauled down the flag of truce and resumed the bombardment. Spinning on his heel Drinkwater returned to his boat and Hellebore.

  ‘Bear off forrard! Give way together!’ Drinkwater took the tiller and swung the cutter away under Hellebore’s stern. Passing across Daedalus’s bow he steadied for the nearest dhow. Looking to starboard he saw Hetherington’s boat shoot ahead of Fox, then Morris came out from the shelter of Daedalus.

  ‘Pull, you lubbers. Let’s get this business finished quickly!’ The boat’s crew were already grimed and sweat-seamed from working the guns in relays, but they lay back on their oars willingly enough. Over their heads shot whined through the sullen air. Drinkwater looked ahead at Kosseir. The town was passing into shadow, purple and umber as the sun westered behind the mountains of the Sharqiya.

  They reached the first vessel, a large baghala, deserted by her crew. Drinkwater led his men aboard and it was the work of only a few minutes to set her on fire. As they tumbled back into the cutter Daedalus’s boat came alongside, a midshipman in charge of her.

  ‘Mr Morris orders you to attack yon dhow, sir.’ The youth pointed to a vessel anchored just off the ramshackle mole. Drink-water swung round to look at the dhow next astern of them. He could see Morris on its deck. No smoke as yet issued from her, though their own target was well ablaze. A dark suspicion crossed Drinkwater’s mind as he nodded to the midshipman. ‘Very well.’

  ‘Give way . . .’ Rounding the burning baghala’s bow Drinkwater headed for the mole. They were no more than two hundred yards from the decaying breakwater, their new victim lying midway between.

  ‘Is that match all right?’ The gunner’s mate in charge of the combustibles blew on the slow match and nodded. ‘Aye, sir.’

  ‘Pull, damn you!’ growled Drinkwater, seeing for the first time men in blue uniforms running out along the mole and dropping to their knees. They were French sharpshooters, the tirrailleurs of the 21st Demi-Brigade. The oar looms bent under redoubled effort.

  The cutter ran alongside the dhow and the seamen jumped aboard. At the instant they stood on the deck the sharpshooters opened fire. It was long musket range but Drinkwater immediately felt a searing pain across his thigh and looked down to see where a ball had galled him, reddening his breeches. Beside him a man was bowled over as though dead but sat up a few moments later, nursing bruised ribs from a spent musket ball. Drinkwater and his men crawled about the deck, assembling enough combustibles to ignite the dhow, wriggling backwards with the small keg of black powder leaving a trail across the deck. Drinkwater nodded and the gunner’s mate blew on his match and touched it to the powder train. The flame sputtered and tracked across the deck, over the coaming and below. Smoke began to writhe out of the dhow’s hold.

  ‘Back to the boat!’ he called sharply over his shoulder, venturing one last look at the crumbling mud brick of Kosseir’s pitiful defences. Overhead the whirr of cannon shot told where the squadron were thundering away, while puffs of dust and little settling disturbances of masonry showed the process of reduction. He scanned the beach that curved away to the left of the town. A few small fishing boats were drawn up on it and the dull green of vegetation showed where a hardy and pitiful cultivation was carried on. Some taller palms grew in a clump by a waterhole. As he ducked again and was about to crawl back to the boat Drinkwater noticed something else, something that brought him to his feet in a wild leap for the cutter. Round the end of the mole a boat was pulling vigorously towards them.

  The cutter was shoved off from the burning dhow and pulled clear of its shelter. Shot dropped round them and a brief glance astern showed the enemy boat no more than thirty yards astern.

  ‘She’s closin’ on us, sir,’ muttered the man at stroke oar nodding astern. Drinkwater’s back felt vulnerable. He looked over his shoulder and stared down the muzzle of a swivel gun. The puff of smoke that followed made his heart skip and he felt the ball hit the transom. Drinkwater looked down to see the dark swirl of water beneath him.

  Twilight was increasing by the minute and they had no hope of reaching the brig before being overtaken or sinking. They had a single chance.

  ‘Hold water all! Oars and cutlasses!’

  The enemy boat came on and Drinkwater pulled a pistol from his belt. He laid the weapon on one of the gunners and saw the man stagger, a hand to his shoulder. A second later the two boats ground together.

  Lent coolness by desperation, Drinkwater grabbed the gun-whale of the enemy boat. Beneath his feet Hellebore’s cutter felt sluggish and low as behind him the crew stumbled aft. Swiping upwards with his hanger Drinkwater leapt aboard the French boat. Manning the swivel were three artillerymen from Desaix’s army. Their eyes were pus-filled from ophthalmia and one already clasped a wounded shoulder. A second had recovered from Drinkwater’s sword swipe as he straightened up. Drink-water lunged his shoulder into the man, knocking him backwards and banging the pommel of his sword into the side of the man’s head.

  The impetus of the approaching French boat had slewed the cutter round so that her crew could leap the easier from their sinking craft. Drinkwater was aware of a stumbling, swearing mêlée of men to his right as, over the fork of the swivel gun, the third gunner faced him, a heavy sword bayonet in his hand.

  Drinkwater saw the matter in his eyes, and the mouth set hard beneath the black
moustache. He stumbled as the boat rocked violently under the assault. A man, thrown overboard in the scuffle, screamed as the first shark, attracted by the blood, found him. His frenzied cries lent a sudden fury to them all.

  The artilleryman struck down at Drinkwater as he recovered. Desperately Nathaniel caught the impact of the heavy blade on the forte of his sword and twisted upwards, carrying the big bayonet with him. Then, in a clumsy manoeuvre, he executed a bind, riding over the blade and forcing it across to the right. He made the movement in instinctive desperation, with every ounce of his strength. In this he had the advantage. The gunner, weakened by disease and malnutrition, only half able to see and unused to boats, lost his balance as he tried to avoid the Englishman’s much longer blade. Drinkwater felt the pressure stop and saw, with a curious mixture of relief and pity, a pair of tattered bootsoles as the man fell overboard.

  This emotion was swiftly replaced by a savage gratification as he swung half right to plunge amongst the fighting still raging in the boat. Then it was all over, suddenly the boat was theirs and men were grabbing oars and tossing Frenchmen callously overboard. In perhaps three minutes the British had destroyed their pursuers and had begun to pull the boat offshore to where the three British warships still cannonaded the town. It was almost dark. The gun flashes of the squadron were reflected on the oily surface of the sea, the burning dhows flamed like torches. There were only four of them; so neither Morris nor Hetherington had burned more than one dhow and two still remained unscathed. It was clear to Nathaniel that he had run more than the gauntlet of death from the French. The events of less than an hour seemed at that moment to have lasted a lifetime. He felt very tired.