by Chris Durbin
‘Good shooting,’ Lynton commented as he saw the sand erupt in small fountains, to subside quickly leaving dark patches where the sun-worn top layer was disturbed. Success was peppering the battery with her nine-pounders and now Rose was joining in.
‘Good shooting, aye,’ replied Holbrooke, ‘but we’ll need to put our balls right through the embrasures to have any effect. Look how that sand is just absorbing the balls. It’s all held together by the roots of those damned great clumps of grass.’
Holbrooke watched as Rose’s first full broadside threw up a storm of sand and grass without any visible effect on the guns.
‘No gun captain is to fire until he’s certain of his mark. We can fling as many of our balls into the sand as we like, and those gunners will just laugh at us.’
Now the French battery was replying. The sound of their guns was noticeably deeper and louder than the frigates’ nine-pounders. They’d made poor practice in the morning, but with their targets so close they could hardly fail to score hits. There was another gun speaking too, not the great solemn boom of the twenty-four pounders, nor the sharp crack of the frigates’ nine-pounders. It was something between the two.
‘They’ve two twenty-fours and a twelve, I fancy,’ said Fairview. ‘Look, the flagship’s taking hits!’
It was indeed. Rose and Flamborough had momentarily sagged away to leeward giving Kestrel a view of Success that they hadn’t had before. There were holes in her mizzen, and it looked like a portion of the taffrail had been shot away.
‘Her guns are still firing,’ said Fairview.
‘Mister Lynton, you may fire when your guns bear.’
Lynton raised his hat in reply and bent down behind his beloved number one gun. A brawny sailor had a handspike under the right-hand side of the carriage, and he was edging the gun sideways as the sand dunes slipped by them. Lynton held up his hand, the sailor whipped away the handspike and Lynton stepped clear.
‘Fire!’ he shouted and stepped forward to see the fall of shot.
Holbrooke too was watching, but it was hopeless. There were already sixty-two guns firing at the battery. It was impossible to distinguish the all-too-brief eruptions of sand caused by Kestrel’s six-pounders from the others. The impact of a six-pound ball in dry sand looked much the same as a nine-pound ball.
‘Broadsides, Mister Lynton,’ shouted Holbrooke above the rising din.
Numbers one and three guns were still reloading, so the first broadside was a mere six guns, and yet it shook the sloop like a terrier shaking a rat. The gunners all had their elevations now, and it was a case of using the handspikes to keep the guns pointing at the target and to load and fire as fast as possible.
Holbrooke looked ahead. The smoke from the frigates was rolling away to the east, and the smoke coming down from the battery on the dunes wasn’t thick enough to obscure Success, only four hundred yards ahead. She was hauling her wind!
‘The flagship will be aground in a moment,’ shouted Fairview. ‘Look, she’s handing her tops’ls and fore stays’l. She’s using her jib to haul her bows off the wind. Too late, far too late.’
Success came to a graceful halt, her bows nudging into the sand and her broadside facing the French battery. Fairview had assumed it was an accident, her rudder shot away or some other calamity that caused her bows to fly into the wind. But Holbrooke knew better. The commodore was in Success, and Holbrooke knew him well enough to guess that he was sacrificing an old frigate to silence the French battery. There could be no landing until the battery had been silenced, and if that took another two hours, they would have lost the opportunity to land the army today. Tomorrow anything could happen. A French army could appear over the dunes – those dragoons and infantry they fired at this morning could have been but the precursor – or a gale could sweep in from the west. It must have been evident to Howe that after this first pass, it would take half an hour for his line to reach back to the north and make another attack. That was too long, and in any case, it may still not silence the battery. Today was the day, and Howe would do whatever it took, make any sacrifices, to put the duke’s army onto the beach. Holbrooke was as sure as he could be that Success had been deliberately run aground under the French battery to slug it out toe-to-toe.
Rose, the next astern, kept stolidly on her course, reinforcing Holbrooke’s opinion. Howe would have shouted his intentions across to his next-in-line and now Rose was leading the frigates away from the battery.
‘High tide’s in half an hour, sir,’ said Fairview.
Kestrel’s guns were silent now as their view of the battery was masked by the grounded frigate, still flying the commodore’s pennant.
‘Boat putting off from the flagship, sir,’ Edney reported.
Holbrooke trained his telescope on the yawl. There was Commodore Howe, sitting in the stern sheets, looking grim, his shoulders set in defiance. He was right to leave the grounded frigate, of course, but it can’t have been easy to leave after giving that order; some would impute all sorts of dishonourable motives. The yawl set its lugsail and stretched away for the anchored Essex. Now that Holbrooke had a moment’s leisure, he could see that preparations for the landing were far advanced. The flatboats were congregating around the flagship, each with its load of grenadiers, the shock-troops of the assault on France. The post-captains would be boarding now and as soon as the battery was silenced, they’d be underway for the shore.
‘The commodore’s signalling, sir,’ said Edney, and then in a lower voice, ‘well, waving his arms, not exactly signalling.’
Howe was pointing at Kestrel and then emphatically gesturing back to Success. His meaning was clear, Kestrel was to haul out of the line and support the grounded frigate. It was an obvious decision; Kestrel drew four feet less than the frigates and Howe had seen that she was well-handled in shallow water. So that was the end of Kestrel’s career in the line-of-battle, a single pass in front of the battery and it was all over.
‘Mister Fairview, we’ll run a line to seaward of Success. Can we lie close enough on the northward leg?’
Fairview looked at the wind and squinted across the compass.
‘Just about, sir, so long as the wind doesn’t shift into the nor’west. We should be able to veer at the end of each run and keep close to the frigate.’
Holbrooke looked over at the commodore’s yawl. He’d been forgotten already; Howe was moving on to the next phase of the operation, putting the army ashore.
◆◆◆
Holbrooke knew why he’d been sent back to support Success, it wasn’t only because of her shallow draught, nor because of any merit on the part of Kestrel or her commander. It was mainly because the sloop was surplus to requirements. Howe had set up a structure to his squadron that held good in both cruising and at anchor. It was strong in defence, mutually supportive and, most importantly, all the captains of the men-of-war had been briefed on the plans and the signals to carry them out; Holbrooke hadn’t. He wasn’t even wanted to fill the gap left by Success. Well, if he was to be merely a hewer of wood and drawer of water, then he would be the best of that oppressed breed.
‘Mister Lynton, you’ll need to control your guns positively, I’ll be reaching across behind Success. You’ll get the opportunity for one or two broadsides each time we move ahead or astern of her, but you mustn’t let the men fire into the frigate by mistake.’
Kestrel’s six-pounders hardly counted in this battle, but by appearing and disappearing from behind the frigate, he hoped to put the French gunners off their rhythm.
‘You may veer now, Mister Fairview, and make the first reach. Take her as close you can without touching the ground.’
Kestrel had already moved to the south of the battery, but with the wind steady at west-nor’west it was a simple matter to turn to larboard and put the stern through the wind.
‘Ready the larboard broadside, Mister Lynton!’
It was curiously quiet on the sloop’s deck. The battle between the grounded frigate
and the battery was raging less than half a mile away, but Holbrooke felt detached from it all. He could see the twenty-four and twelve-pound balls striking Success, raising showers of splinters where they impacted on the upper deck, or making the hull shake where they hit lower down. The frigate’s masts all still stood, and she looked as though she could put to sea in a moment. However, a closer look showed the slightest slope on the frigate’s deck as the tide receded. In an hour she’d be leaning over so far to larboard that her guns would be unable to bear on the battery, and then she’d be hulled again and again, and sure to flood when the tide turned.
Holbrooke looked along the deck. His sloop had taken no damage at all, the guns were in good order and the crews were crouched beside them, with their sponges, rammers and handspikes poised for their turn in the madness to come. Lynton was standing atop the windlass where he could see over the gunwale and control the broadsides. His was the responsibility of preventing his guns from firing into Success. The training and elevation would be the responsibility of the quarter gunners and the gun captains.
A few degrees of helm and Kestrel heeled a trifle to starboard, then steadied. The gun crews were behaving like veterans, tapping at the quoins to reduce the elevation so that the balls would carry true to the target and levering the handspikes to keep them pointing.
Holbrooke eyed the range. He’d been right, they’d only get one broadside in at each end of each reach. It was better to wait for the last moment before they were masked by Success so that they had the best chance of hitting the battery.
Lynton glanced over his shoulder at his captain.
Crash! A heavy ball from the battery slammed into the hull below the upper deck.
‘Twelve pounder!’ shouted Lynton, waving his hat. The plan was working and some of the battery’s fire was being diverted from the frigate. They’d find it a frustrating task trying to hit the sloop as it appeared and disappeared from the shadow of the frigate. If only one gun fired at the sloop, that was a third of the battery’s strength being wasted.
Holbrooke waved his hat at Lynton.
‘Fire!’ shouted Lynton. The feeling of detachment from the battle evaporated in a moment. The guns belched their iron and flame and the smoke rolled back across the deck. The eight larboard six-pounders hurled themselves back against the breechings and the worms were immediately thrust down the muzzles to hook out any remaining wadding.
The side of the frigate was blocking their view now, she was very close. Fairview was obeying his instruction to use every inch of water to close the range to the battery. The leadsmen were far up in the beakhead where they were clear of the guns, but that meant the possibility of Fairview not hearing their calls, so a midshipman was stationed with them to run back along the length of the deck to relay the soundings.
‘And a half, three,’ said the breathless youngster after he’d sprinted down the starboard side, hurdling the breechings and dodging the gun crews.
Fairview was cutting it fine. The sloop had only half a fathom under the keel. It would only take a modest irregularity in the surface of the sand to put her aground. Then Holbrooke remembered that Fairview had seen the ground at low water, and he would undoubtedly have noticed anything of that sort.
‘Kestrel!’ Captain Ourry, was shouting to Holbrooke.
‘Good work, Holbrooke. If you can draw any of their fire, I’d be grateful. I’m going to shore the larboard side so that my guns still bear as the tide ebbs.’
‘I’ll run back and for and give them a broadside when I emerge from behind you,’ replied Holbrooke. ‘Do you need any men?’
‘Not yet, but the time may come…’
Holbrooke knew what he meant. If his casualties became so great that he couldn’t man all his guns, he’d call for reinforcements from Kestrel.
◆◆◆
For two hours Holbrooke reached backwards and forwards to leeward of Success. The shoring took little time and the French gunners couldn’t interfere as it all happened on the disengaged side. Kestrel was miraculously little damaged. The twelve-pounder that appeared to be devoted to their destruction achieved little, just three hits and no guns silenced, no men killed or wounded.
The tide ebbed and soon the frigate was lying in just a few feet of water, held upright by the spars lashed to her side and wedged onto baulks of timber on the sand.
‘The battery’s fire’s slacking, sir,’ said Lynton.
Holbrooke had noticed it. The twelve-pounder hadn’t fired at all the last time it had an opportunity and by the interval between shots from the twenty-four pounders, it appeared that only one of those was still in action. If Albach was commanding, he’d take a pragmatic view of events, Holbrooke guessed. The final destruction of the battery was only minutes away, whether it was by Ourry’s guns or by a storming party that the ebbing tide would soon make feasible. A prudent battery commander would spike his remaining gun and withdraw his gunners to fight another day.
There was a louder report than usual from the battery, and a cloud of black smoke, different in quality to the grey of a cannon discharge, rose rapidly from the dunes. The last gun had been disabled by over-charging it. That was the end of the gallant La Houle battery. Three days it had been in existence and it had held up the British landing by about as many hours. By any scale of military logic, it had done its duty.
◆◆◆
Kestrel anchored to seaward of the squadron. The sloop’s damage was minimal; the three shots in her hull had already been temporarily repaired by the carpenter’s crew. Jackson had some knotting and splicing to do, but thankfully Harris’ surgical skills hadn’t been required. Even Success had fared surprisingly well for lying under a battery of heavy guns for three hours. All but one of her nine-pounders were still in action and she’d float off at the next tide.
Holbrooke was exhausted. He’d been on deck since before dawn and now it was nearly the end of the last dog watch. He’d seen the flatboats take the first wave of grenadiers onto the beach and seen the red coats move up the dunes to establish a defensive perimeter. Now the same flatboats were ferrying field guns, infantry, horses, ammunition, rations and all the myriad needs of an army in the field. They were proving their worth on their first day of use.
‘Boat from the flagship, sir,’ reported Edney, removing his hat as he entered the cabin. ‘Orders from the commodore,’ he added, handing over a sealed envelope.
He should be used to it by now, this nervousness whenever he opened orders. Yet Holbrooke was still a young man, three months shy of his twentieth birthday – an imposter in command of a sloop-of-war – and the thrill of the unknown gripped him. The contents of this letter could change the course of his life. Howe had already demonstrated that he would use his officers in any way he saw fit. It could be another expedition ashore, or a bombardment of another French position, temporary command of a larger ship, even. Anything, so long as he stayed at the centre of the action, gaining recognition and credit.
He forced himself to break the seal with his knife rather than ripping the paper in his haste, yet his trembling hand betrayed him. Serviteur looked discreetly away.
Disappointment flooded over Holbrooke; he could almost have wept after the stresses and anxieties of the past week. Kestrel was to leave Cancale Bay and proceed north to the Jersey Channel, to watch the squadron’s northern flank. A hewer of wood and drawer of water indeed.
◆◆◆
13: The Trap
Tuesday, Sixth of June 1758.
Kestrel, at Sea. Gorey Point, West 7 Nautical Miles.
The wind had backed a few points into the southwest and the June sun shone hot upon Kestrel’s decks. Holbrooke had ordered the hands to quarters before morning twilight – the absurd hour of four bells in the middle watch – and when no enemy had appeared, he’d dismissed the watch below and taken a nap himself. Now he felt refreshed. The sloop’s decks were clean, all traces of yesterday’s battle had been removed and the men were in high spirits. The only check to his
good humour was the gloomy presence of Ishmael Renouf on his quarterdeck. He was well named: an unwanted man, cast out from his fellows along with the equally superfluous Kestrel. The Guernsey pilot had been a late addition to his orders and now the wretched man was haunting the deck, watching with a critical eye every move that Fairview made.
Chalmers fell into step with Holbrooke, enjoying the company, silent though it was. After a few turns, he paused and stared east at the green shores of the Cotentin Peninsula.
‘You truly believe that Hans Albach was commanding that battery yesterday? Yet I can’t understand how you would know. By your own admission it was unlikely to be a major’s command.’
‘It’s more of a feeling than anything else,’ Holbrooke replied. ‘Albach was certainly at the battery on Friday night, unlikely though that may sound, and I imagine that he would have stayed to supervise hauling the guns into position. When the battery was properly established, he probably left a junior coastguard militia officer in command – I conceded that there are a lot of assumptions here – and returned to the main battery at Cancale. When he saw the squadron anchor in the bay, he’d have guessed that the dunes to the south were the most likely landing site – that would be why he’d placed a battery at La Houle – and he’d have hurried down to take personal command.’
‘As you say, a lot of assumptions,’ Chalmers replied nodding thoughtfully.
‘There are, but there’s another thing. That battery was fought with more than usual resolve. It must have been obvious that it was a losing battle, and yet those militia artillerymen stuck to their guns until they had only one left. They bought valuable time for the French regulars to start a march for the defence – or relief if the duke moves fast enough – of Saint-Malo. That suggests a degree of determination that I wouldn’t expect in a militia subaltern. That and the judicious withdrawal when there was nothing more to be gained; neither too early nor too late. I sense the hand of a professional at work, and after Friday night’s encounter, there’s a good chance that it was Albach. Furthermore, I believe that he survived Howe’s onslaught. It was certainly his style to destroy his guns at the end rather than let the enemy have them.’