Frigates of War: A John Phillips Novel

by Richard Testrake

  Leaving the children in the vehicle, Lynch went over to the inn’s inquiring hostler and told him he was working for the husband of one of the inn’s guests, a Mrs. Phillips.

  “Oh her! A sharp tongue in her head she has. I’ll go tell the innkeeper, you just wait here.”

  A moment later, the portly innkeeper led Sarah Phillips to the vehicle. “What took you so long, Thomas? I was told we were very close to the Admiralty. Why didn’t my husband come with you?”

  “Ma’am”, Thomas suggested, “Admiralty building is miles away from here. Captain Phillips just arrived on the frigate Stag, and is moored in the Pool. He couldn’t leave the ship, but sent me as soon as he knew you were here. If you would get in the chaise, I’ll; take you to him.”

  With some effort, Sarah kept a still tongue in her head on the ride back to the Pool. She had the children with her, and did not really like to display her temper to them. After arriving at the quay, the question was, how to get the watchstander’s notice. After much waving of handkerchiefs from the quay, and a certain amount of jumping around by Timothy, a master’s mate did see them, and had enough ambition to look at them through his glass. A few minutes later, the launch was on its way.

  Sarah Phillips had had a long trip by coach, and a long wait in a strange inn, with two children to care for. She was in no mood to listen to excuses. Finding out Stag had just returned from the Baltic, she demanded to know why Captain Phillips had received orders from Admiralty to come there to accept another command.

  Snatching the official looking letter from her hand, Phillips noted it did have the Admiralty seal upon it. Looking at his wife, he asked sternly, “Sarah, how does it happen this has been opened?”

  She said, “I didn’t do it. Butler had it for a week until Norris came over one day and saw it on the salver. She saw it and wondered what you were up to.”

  Phillips said, “That is known as ‘Interfering with the King’s mail’. People have had their necks stretched for that.”

  Looking it over carefully, he noted; “Anyhow this is nonsense. They wanted to give me a ship going to the American station. It’s dated a month ago, and the ship has probably left by now. When it was sent out, I was in the Baltic. Somebody in Admiralty became a bit confused. Sarah, why don’t you let my officers entertain you in the wardroom? I have to make a trip to Admiralty and tell them I am here. Please try not to bite anyone’s head off while I am away.”

  “John, Norris says I act like a bitch around you. Do you think that?”

  “Well, Sarah, I’ll have to say you do have your moments. Now, if you will excuse me, I really need to get going. If you tire, have somebody take you to my quarters. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  It was late when the ship’s launch with its captain aboard hooked onto the starboard mainchains. As Phillips came through the entryport to the sound of the bosun’s pipes, and the stamp and crash of the Marines, he also heard the cries of his son who was running about the foredeck. He looked to be having a grand time. Timothy was an active boy, while Abigail was a sweet little girl, ordinarily wanting nothing more than to be held and read to. John was supremely satisfied with his children. Now, if only Sarah could calm herself down a bit, life would really worth living. After a word with Prescott on the quarterdeck, he went directly to his quarters. There, he found Sarah ensconced in her own bed, the children tucked in beside her.

  She looked at him with a question in her eyes. He said, “It’s the Baltic again for Stag.”

  Seeing the thunder cloud come over her face, he hurriedly added, “We have plenty of time to get there. If you’d like, I could transport you and the children to Essex in Stag.”

  The family lived in an estate outside the small village of Prittlewell, which overlooked the Thames estuary.

  She asked, “How would we get home from there. Would you drive us?”

  “No, can’t do that, Sarah. But it’s only a matter of a few miles. Your best plan would be to go to Amos Whitfield’s livery in Prittlewell, and hire him to drive you home.”

  Early the next morning, Stag was extracted from the mass of shipping by a most capable pilot, and a nerve wracking trip down the river ensued. As the ship neared her destination, the main lookout casually called down, “Ships in sight, dead ahead. Both ship rigged. One may be a frigate, the other maybe a ship – sloop.”

  As the ships neared, the signal lieutenant appeared and said, “Something is not right here, Captain. She’s wearing the White Ensign, and flying the number for HMS Elephant. Trouble is Elephant is a third rate of 74 guns, while this one is a frigate. Looks like she carries 36 guns, maybe 18 pounders.”

  Phillips looked up sharply. “Mister Prescott. Let us get the ship to quarters.”

  He looked aft, and saw they were still towing the launch in their wake. Mister Midshipman Lynch was standing by on the quarterdeck, with a telescope under his arm.

  “Mister Lynch, I want you to take my wife and children to shore. To the village of Prettlewell to be exact. Take the Gunner’s wife, Mrs. Larkin too, while you’re at it.” Master Gunner Larkin often took his wife with him. She took care of the youngest midshipmen aboard, being paid by the lad’s wealthy parents. Bringing his frigate to battle with another ship of its own size, as well as a corvette, was a situation too dangerous to carry women, in Phillips opinion. Unfortunately, Phillip’s opinion about a woman’s place in ship borne combat meant little to Mrs. Larkin. She was not about to leave her husband and her little squeakers aboard ship, while she went ashore. With the ship’s cat under her arm, and an eleven year olds hand in hers, she marched below to the cable tier,

  While digesting this instance of mutiny, Mrs. Phillips came marching to him on the quarterdeck, in high dudgeon, wearing her robe. “John, some men just came and started tearing down our quarters while I was in my shift. One of them ogled me.”

  “Sarah, I don’t really have time for this right now. When this is over, see me or Lieutenant Prescott and we will get it all sorted out. In the meantime, it is necessary that you get in the launch immediately with our children. The boat crew will take you to Prittlewell, where you can hire a carriage to get you home. Here is a purse for immediate expenses.

  “Husband, I do not understand what you are talking about. Why should I be evicted from my bedroom in my robe, and ordered into a boat?”

  “Madam, because of those ships over there”; pointing to the Frenchmen.

  Exasperated, Phillips turned to Lynch, and ordered him to get a boat crew in the launch, and ferry his wife and children ashore. However, Mister Foley, the third lieutenant and signal officer, interrupted. “Sir,” pointing off to starboard. Looking, Phillips saw the corvette ranging right up. She would be sure to snap up the boat, if he sent it. Instead, he ordered his wife and children taken below to the cable tier to keep Mrs. Larkin company. After reaching her haven in the cable tier, the still indignant captain’s wife complained to Mrs. Larkin, “I just do not understand why my husband is so worked up over another pair of King’s ships.”

  “Dear, those are no more King’s ships than I am. They are Frenchmen, is what they are, here to steal our own ships and ravish all the Englishwomen they can find.”

  Mrs. Larkin, unable to leave her refuge, under Captain’s orders, sent her little charge, Mister Horne, all of eleven years of age, to find some of her things. He came back with her sewing basket, from which she immediately extracted her knitting supplies and yarn. From the baskets depths, she took out a pair of hatpins, and a pocket pistol with a huge bore. Mrs. Larkin handed the hat pins to Sarah.

  “I’ll be all right with this pistol. You take the pins. Any Frenchmen trying to break in here will wish they hadn’t.”

  She had broken out her knitting needles and yarn. She was prepared to be as productive as possible while in combat. Battle started for them by a thunderous crash, as numerous French eighteen pound balls slammed through Stag’s scantlings. Another crash, as Stag’s guns fired th
eir loads. Above, Phillips watched as the corvette got right on her quarter, and started slamming eight pound balls into her. The French frigate came alongside, and the two ships began trading iron balls.

  Below, the bewildered Captain’s wife wondered, “Why are we fighting. Those ships you say are French were flying British flags when I saw them on deck.”

  Mrs. Larkin said, “I will imagine they have hoisted their own flag by now. You see, the men on both sides think it’s legal to fly any flag they choose, as long as they hoist their own before shots fly.”

  On deck, the corvette was becoming something of a bother as she hammered her eight pound shot into Stag’s quarter. Just then, a flaw in the current pushed the stern of the Stag around just a bit. The crew of the after carronade, had been futilely attempting to lever the big gun, a thirty six pounder, around enough to take the enemy ship under fire. For an instant, Stag was pushed around just enough for the carronade to bear on the enemy’s bow. The gun captain, acting without orders, yanked on the lanyard, sending thirty six pounds of cold iron aboard the enemy bows.

  The captain of the corvette decided his ship was not designed to handle gunfire of this caliber, and with Thames River water pouring into the huge gash in the water line, decided to leave the area.

  “Stag and the French frigate continued to pour fire into each other. As casualties mounted, one of the eighteen pounder guns on Stag sent a ball that clipped the enemy’s mizzen, making a big divot into the wood. A moment later, a carronade sent over a big iron ball that impacted just inches away from the earlier strike. The remaining wood at the base of the mast cracked, allowing the whole structure to sway, held up only by the standing rigging. During the course of the combat, individual strands of both stays and shrouds had parted due to from fire from Stag. Now, with intolerable stress imposed on the remaining rigging, this too began to let go. With popping, tearing and crashing sounds, the entire mizzen went by the board, in the process blanketing her after starboard guns with canvas. The Frenchman fought on for a few minutes, but it really was all over.

  One of the last shots fire by the foe struck a ringbolt in Stags deck, sending it flying. It flew past Captain Phillips side, horribly gashing his side. At almost the same moment a marksman on the maintop of the French frigate fired off a round into the blue. He was almost out of range, and really had no business firing at such a distance, but he was fearful of his superior and would fire until he ran out of ammunition. The marksman had a little trick that he knew his superiors knew naught about. When he tore open the paper cartridge and spilled a pinch into the frizzen, if no one was watching closely, he would pour half the remaining charge into the breeze, just leaving enough gun powder to push the big .69 caliber ball out the muzzle. This greatly reduced the recoil of the big Charleville musket, and minimized the pain of his aching shoulder afterward. It also greatly reduced the striking power of the big lead musket ball.

  The marksman was supposed to be firing at his counterparts in the British frigate’s tops, and did so. The reduced powder charge would not allow the heavy ball to fly straight; instead it took a downward course and found Captain Phillips as he lay on the quarterdeck, striking him in the upper arm. Normally, such a hit would probably require the amputation of the arm, if it did not cause death from exsanguination.

  This ball however, spent its little remaining energy pushing through Phillips heavy wool coat, and imbedding itself in Phillips musculature, and fracturing the humerus just below the shoulder joint.

  Below, in the cable tier, Mrs. Larkin was proving to be a pillar of comfort to the three children; the two Phillips offspring, as well as the tiny midshipman. She took turns telling them stories and singing folk songs. Sarah, on the other hand was as nervous as a cat in a room of busy rocking chairs. Unable to stand the tension any longer, she decided to see if there was anything she could do to help. She had no light, but moans, screams, and oaths directed her to the gun room, where the surgeon had set up for business, using the midshipmen’s sea chests as his operating theatre. However, the good surgeon was no more. Out of his depth in this bloody horror, the surgeon, faced with duties he could hardly understand, took a big swig from a rum bottle every time he looked at a patient. He had minutes before lapsed into unconsciousness, and would remain so. Two ‘loblolly boys’, both older than forty, were left to handle the wounded. One had been a butcher in civilian life before the Impress Service had caught up to him as he stumbled home from the tavern one dark night. This man had no fear of blood, but had absolutely no knowledge of healing. The other was a ruptured topman, a seaman all his life, whose only notion of healing was to pour sea water over the offending member.

  When Sarah came on the scene and comprehended the situation, the butcher was in the process of removing a mangled arm from a patient with knife and saw, with full sound effects coming from the patient. Shaken, she looked around and saw her husband, a mass of gore. She insisted the loblolly boys look at him, but the butcher said they were unable to treat him, that he was too far gone. As a pair of men brought a new patient on a carrying board to the operating theatre, she insisted they move the captain from the deck to a pair of chests in the corner. Ordinarily, they would have said, “Yes Mum.”, then quietly disappeared. Knowing she was the captain’s wife, and unsure of just how much authority she actually had, they decided it would be simpler to obey.

  It was dark in the corner, but a lightly wounded Marine found her a pair of unused lanterns. Someone fetched her pail of seawater, which she used to remove some of the gore from her husband after cutting off his clothing. She soon saw that what was needed here was a seamstress, rather than a butcher, and sent the wounded Marine to Mrs. Larkin to beg the loan of her sewing basket. Mrs. Larkin soon came, leaving the Marine to entertain the children. Larkin took over the bullet wound, taking a bloody scalpel from the hand of the drunken surgeon. She informed Sarah that she liked to use clean instruments whenever she needed to extract a splinter from her husband or one of her charges.

  The only cleaning agent they had was seawater in a filthy bucket. However, the surgeon had a plentiful supply of rum. Mrs. Larkin allowed as how that would do, and thoroughly washed off the scalpel and the skin of the patient with that fluid. The presence of the French ball was obvious by the big bulge under the skin. Fearlessly, Larkin cut the skin from the original bullet hole over to the bulge. A good squeeze popped the bullet right out. When Phillips groaned, Sarah remembered something she had seen earlier. A big, quart sized stoneware bottle labeled ‘Tincture of Laudanum’. When she went to the bottle to retrieve some, one of the loblolly boys warned her, “Surgeon says that is rank poison, Ma’am.”

  Sarah knew better. Last year her son had broken his leg, and the local surgeon had administered the tincture to the screaming child before setting the bone. The boy had quieted right down.

  She took a small vial of the liquid and administered it to the groaning patient, spoonful by spoonful. After he quieted down, she cut away John’s coat with Mrs. Larkin’s scissors, baring the nasty wound on his side, caused by the flying ring bolt. The two women cleaned the wound with rum soaked cotton waste. Blood was still pumping out at an alarming rate, so Sarah threaded a needle with fine silk thread, and began to sew. She reckoned herself a good seamstress, and sewed as if her work were to be inspected by her neighborhood’s ladies sewing circle.

  Upon finishing, she rather thought she had done an exemplary job, but kept her mouth closed, letting Mrs. Larkin give her all the praise.

  By this time new patients had ceased coming below, and the loblolly boys had finished with all the patients. Mister Prescott came below to check on the state of the captain. Finding his captain unconscious, along with the surgeon, he informed the ladies; “I need to go after the French corvette that has gone out to sea. Would the captain be better off if we landed him here, or should we take him with us?”

  “Lieutenant”, Sarah noted. “Our home is nearby, and there is an excellent surgeon in the town near us. I wish you w
ould land us, if you could.”

  Strapped to a board and laid across the thwarts fore and aft in the boat, Phillips was transported to shore, which by now was lined with local town folk. A cavalry unit met them and she was asked if anything needed to be done. When Sarah mentioned the number of wounded, and the lack of a competent surgeon aboard ship, the officer scribbled a note and handed it to an aide. In moments, a pair of officers were brought up in a carriage. The officer indicated one. “This is Doctor Phelps, a most distinguished physician and surgeon. He will be at the Royal Navy’s service.” Phelps grabbed his bag and seated himself gingerly in the boat.

  As Sarah watched them off, she noticed another coach and four which pulled up beside her. It was her neighbor, Norris.

  “Norris, would you please take us home please? It would be so kind if you would.”

  “My Sarah, your husband looks a little used up, there. He will have to get himself in better shape if he ever expects to get in my bed.”

  “Norris, please don’t joke. John has had a horrible day, but has conquered his foe. He is a hero to me. I never knew what he had to do for the King. I am going to take care of him as long as he needs me.”

  “Very well, Sarah. Have some men load him aboard. By the way, I wasn’t joking.”