by Chris Durbin
‘Broadsides while you can, Mister Lynton.’
Kestrel managed four broadsides before they were out of range. The men cheered as the earth erupted in modest fountains where the balls landed. They’d done precious little material damage, but the effect on morale must have been considerable. Perhaps only half a day’s worth of work had been destroyed, but those soldiers had been routed without any hope of retaliation. They’d felt the destruction that a tiny sloop could inflict upon them; they could only tremble when Howe’s ships-of-the-line appeared before their puny defences. That was one advantage of this bay, the third and fourth rates could approach close enough to cover a landing.
◆◆◆
18: A Measure of Redemption
Saturday, Fifteenth of July 1758.
Kestrel, at Anchor. Spithead.
The nor’east wind gave Fairview an interesting exercise in working the tides to cross the English Channel. It was only seventy nautical miles, but it took Kestrel two days to make the passage. In the end, they had to wait for the ebb to drop down from the east of Selsey Bill into the Solent. They anchored at Spithead late in the dog watches, but not so late that they couldn’t see their identifying flag and the captain pennant hanging out in the flagship.
Holbrooke entered the great cabin with some trepidation. He hadn’t met Howe since the squadron’s return from Saint-Malo, in fact his only sight of the commodore had been the frosty glance that he gave before that awkward interview with the flag captain. Time seemed to have healed some of the antagonism, yet his welcome was not as warm as it might have been.
‘Take a seat, Mister Holbrooke, and give me an account of your reconnaissance. I’ll read your report later,’ Howe said, indicating that the envelope should be handed to his secretary. ‘This wind can’t have made it easy to get back. I heard you were seen off Selsey this morning; had to wait for the tide, eh?’
Holbrooke expected no quarter from the commodore, and this mild allusion to a landfall that was less than exactly accurate was the least of his fears. He knew, and the commodore knew, that there was no shame in being set a few miles up the channel on the flood. The tides could be predicted, more-or-less, but the wind was much less certain and the sudden shift into the west had taken both he and Fairview by surprise. Holbrooke was comforted by knowing that Howe’s fleet had taken three days to get to its anchorage at Spithead; three days and the loss of a transport on the Horse Tail Sand.
‘Yes sir, the wind veered this morning and caught us the wrong side of the flood. We anchored on a long cable off Selsey until the ebb.’
Howe nodded grudgingly.
‘Then what did you find at Cherbourg, Mister Holbrooke? Are the Pelée Island batteries manned?’
Holbrooke recognised the mild rudeness in the insistent use of mister rather than captain. It represented the finest of distinctions. When applied to a post-captain or a commodore the use of mister was perfectly normal. When applied to a master and commander, it stressed the fact that he was not a post-captain. He was in fact a captain only by courtesy, and perhaps only temporarily, and Commodore Howe evidently didn’t care to offer that courtesy.
Still, there was nothing that Holbrooke could do. He saw that Campbell looked embarrassed and turned away to gaze out of the window, fidgeting with the notebook that he habitually carried. Howe clearly had developed a poor opinion of this youngest of his commanding officers, Holbrooke thought. He still had suspicions of his conduct in the affair with the French frigate and sloop and Kestrel’s return to Portsmouth. Perhaps Howe had heard about his weekly visits to Wickham and their purpose. Well, there was no point in hoping that Howe would change his mind without some stimulus. Holbrooke knew that the burden was on himself to prove his value.
‘The fort and the battery are both manned, sir. Ten guns in the battery facing north. The guns weren’t run out in the fort, but I saw one and a total of twelve embrasures facing west. There was a lot of activity, much more than would have been required for that one gun, so I assume each of the twelve embrasures had its own gun out of sight. The guns that I could see all looked like twenty-fours, sir…’
‘Did you see any men-o’-war?’ the commodore interrupted, ‘anything in the road or up the river?’
‘Five ships and two snows, all merchantmen, in the anchorage, sir, and two vessels up the river. I couldn’t get close enough to see them but I’m sure they weren’t men-o’-war. They could have been privateers.’
‘Very well,’ Howe replied, ‘then I’ll read your report later,’ he turned back to his desk loaded with papers. The meeting was at an end as far as the commodore was concerned.
‘Sir…’
Howe looked up again in irritation.
‘With the tide not turning for another four hours, rather than fight against it, I cruised the coast to the west of Cherbourg, to determine the state of the defences.’
Howe’s expression changed, he looked interested.
‘They’re fortifying the whole of that coast for eight miles beyond Cherbourg…’
Holbrooke described what he’d seen: the earthworks, the batteries with their gabions and fascines, the absence of guns.
‘I fired four broadsides into the gabions at the battery at the western end of Saint-Marais Bay, perhaps setting the work back half a day, sir.’
Howe nodded. It was always good to annoy the enemy.
‘You’ve noted all this in your report?’
‘I have, sir, and this chart summarises what we saw.’
Howe gave Holbrooke a curious look.
‘Then unroll it, man, a picture’s worth any number of words.’
Holbrooke spread the chart out on the table.
‘Here’s the battery that we attacked, sir, and here’s the bay to the east of it.’
Howe studied the chart systematically, running his finger along the coast from east to west.
‘This is by the same hand that drafted the chart of Cancale Bay, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Holbrooke replied. ‘Josiah Fairview, my sailing master. He’s a meticulous surveyor and draftsman.’
‘He was my mate in Centurion in the last war,’ added Campbell.
‘Then you’re certain of Saint-Marais? The extent of the rocks at either end and of the bay and this foul ground in the centre?’
‘The rocks showed white in the swell, sir. It was almost low water and they were the only obstructions that we could see.’
‘A battery at either end,’ Howe continued, ‘probably twenty-fours like the island.’
‘The guns hadn’t been mounted two days ago, sir, but the placements looked the right size.’
‘Earthworks all along the shore as well?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Holbrooke replied, ‘they were still throwing them up, but the work was well advanced.’
Howe exchanged glances with Campbell.
‘Defended then, and yet still possible, I believe, Campbell,’ he said to his flag captain.
‘It still looks the best place, sir. Even if we silence the Pelée Island guns, there’s no good landing in Cherbourg Bay.’
Howe stared at the chart for a moment.
‘This is most valuable, Captain,’ he said. ‘You’ve done well.’
So, it was captain now? Holbrooke recognised the significant step towards the commodore’s good opinion. Significant but still not enough. He needed Howe to be at least his advocate if not his patron if he was to be gazetted after these expeditions.
‘Oh, and Captain Holbrooke,’ said Campbell, ‘you won’t have seen the general order that the commodore issued on the thirteenth. As you predicted, the lack of gang-boards was found to be a serious matter for the army, although why they didn’t forecast that is beyond me. The carpenters of the fleet are building them now, a pair for each flatboat. That hoy, Forester, that caught up with us in Cancale Bay, it was loaded with deals and carpentry stores, enough for the gang-boards for a whole fleet of flatboats. Your specification has been immortalised, Captain,’
Holbrooke bowed in acknowledgement. For some reason Campbell had appointed himself his mentor. Although he was wary of contradicting his commodore, he was adept at helpful interjections. Holbrooke could see that Howe had registered Campbell’s compliment yet chose not to comment.
‘Holbrooke’s Plank!’ added Campbell. ‘It has a ring about it, don’t you think?’
Howe ignored the jest.
‘Would you send Mister Fairview over to talk to my sailing master?’ Howe asked, already moving on to other matters.
◆◆◆
‘A measure of redemption, then,’ Chalmers declared after Holbrooke had told his story of the interview with Commodore Howe.
‘Yes, I believe so, but there’s still a long way to go. He didn’t entirely believe the urgency of Kestrel returning to be docked last month, you know, despite the master attendant’s word on the subject and the port admiral’s endorsement. I suspect that he knows about my visits to Wickham, although God knows they were innocent enough. How he heard I cannot tell.’
‘It’s a family, this navy of yours George, and this part of Hampshire is nothing more than a small village, full of gossip and speculation. He could have found out from any number of sources, and the telling didn’t need to be malicious, just the normal to-and-fro of information in a family, in a village.’
Holbrooke thought about it for a moment.
‘You’re right, of course, David. There are few secrets in the navy.’
‘And I can see how his train of thought would lead him to suspect your conduct. As you stated, from his perspective, you took the first opportunity of some more-or-less exaggerated damage to run back to Portsmouth. The fact that there’s a lady involved just made his suspicions more certain. It’s all circumstantial, but we’re not dealing with a court of law here.’
‘No. If Commodore Howe wishes to blight my career, he can do so without concerning himself with any kind of official action. He can achieve it by mere inaction. If he doesn’t mention my name in his report to the Admiralty, then they’ll assume that I made no significant contribution.’
Holbrooke strode across to the windows and checked himself. He’d become aware that this habit of staring into space had become known to his officers. He’d seen no signs of amusement from them, but he wanted to avoid any appearance of strangeness. He turned quickly back to Chalmers, who hadn’t missed his captain’s abrupt change of direction.
‘It’s infuriating, David. The ironic thing is that I value Mister Howe’s opinion of me more than any other senior officer that I’ve met. If I could choose a mentor, a patron, it would be him. Not merely because he has influence, but because I’d like to model myself on him. He’s energetic, decisive, intelligent and he can command men. He’s the sort of sea officer that the service is crying out for, and yet I’m failing to impress him.’
This time Holbrooke did stare out of the cabin window. Kestrel was at the western end of the Spithead anchorage and the tide was flooding. The rest of the squadron was invisible, forward of the beam, but the whole of the Solent was open for his inspection. He watched the coastal traffic hurrying on its occasions and saw the sea break on the shingle of Gilkicker Point. The bright flag that flew over the field gun battery on the point made a pleasing splash of colour on this sparkling day.
Chalmers made no comment, but he watched his friend’s back as he stood in mute introspection. One can discern much of a person’s mood from the set of his shoulders, Chalmers thought. He was aware that Holbrooke loved Shakespeare’s plays and acknowledge that there was much wisdom in them, although somewhat less than the bible. In this case his friend appeared to be giving too much weight to Cassius: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.
‘I can’t see Ann, of course,’ said Holbrooke, turning briskly back to the cabin. ‘We’re all forbidden to stray outside Portsmouth and the Yard without the commodore’s written permission, and I don’t feel that my case would be improved by applying to spend tonight in Wickham!’
‘Indeed not. Will Miss Featherstone have heard that Kestrel’s at Spithead?’
‘Oh, certainly. As you pointed out, this area’s no more than a dispersed village. The comings and goings of the squadron will be common knowledge as far north as Alton and Guildford.’
‘Then you must write without delay. Imagine how the poor young lady will feel when she hears that Kestrel has returned! A letter now, sent by the morning carrier, will reach her by noon tomorrow. Perhaps not ahead of word-of-mouth, but maybe not far behind.’
◆◆◆
Holbrooke chewed the end of his quill. It was a nasty habit, a hangover from his childhood, and a sign of his agitated mind, and he started guiltily when he realised what he was doing. How to write to Ann? He’d written to her before, but now it was a more delicate matter.
On the one hand, they had no formal relationship. He and Ann had no understanding about a joint future and her father hadn’t given his agreement to anything more than his calling on Ann in her own home. On the other hand, he felt a strong attraction to Ann, and he was sure that she felt the same for him. After all, she’d travelled down to Portsmouth Point when Kestrel had sailed away only three days ago. A letter that sounded over-familiar could well be resented by her father, but probably not by her step-mother.
He realised that he didn’t know enough about the family to know whether she could open her own correspondence. It was quite common for the parents of unmarried daughters to intercept letters before they were delivered. And yet a cold, impersonal letter may do more harm than good, particularly after the way that he’d left her less than two weeks ago.
The bell struck twice, seven o’clock in the evening.
‘Will you take supper, sir?’ asked Serviteur, breaking in on his thoughts.
‘In thirty minutes, if you please.’
He’d fallen into the habit of addressing Serviteur as though he were a gentleman; it was an inevitable consequence of the man’s own bearing and manner.
‘Would you also tell Mister Pritchard that I shall have a letter to be dispatched, and let Dawson know that he’s to take the yawl and row Mister Pritchard to the Sally Port?’
It was close to an abuse of his position, Holbrooke knew, and Pritchard, probably Dawson as well, would immediately guess the message that was being sent to Miss Featherstone of Bere Forest House, Wickham. Damn them all he thought. No other captain in the fleet would hesitate for a moment.
‘And Serviteur,’ he called as his servant opened the cabin door, ‘tell the bosun to pass the word. If any officer or man has a letter to be sent, he’s to deliver it to my clerk in the next thirty minutes.’
A small sop to his conscience, perhaps.
Alone in the cabin now, Holbrooke could stare out onto the beautiful summer evening undisturbed. He was almost sure that Sophie Featherstone, Ann’s stepmother, was a friend to his cause. They’d been together on the Round Tower, waving as he set out to sea. How much influence did she have over Martin Featherstone? Considerable if he was any judge of character. She’d certainly bullied his father into joining in the enterprise. She’d needed an escort to negotiate Portsmouth Point, even if only as far as the Round Tower, and the elder Holbrooke would have had no chance against her will.
Dear Miss Featherstone.
No, that would never do. It sounded like a letter from a bank manager. He crumpled up the paper and drew out a clean sheet. Strangely, that false start had hardened his resolve.
My dear Ann, he wrote purposefully. Now that he was resolved to be bold, he found the words came quickly.
What a pleasant surprise to see you at the Round Tower with your mother and my father. I waved until you were out of sight, and I do hope you saw me.
That was not entirely true, of course. He’d waved until the sloop’s navigation had claimed his attention, but by then he’d have been too far away for Ann to see. A white lie.
You cannot imagine how it lifted my spirits to know that
you had made the journey to Portsmouth to see me sail away…
Holbrooke wrote on, making quite sure that Ann knew how much he appreciated the pains that she’d taken to see him navigate out of Portsmouth Harbour.
You may know by now that Kestrel is at anchor at Spithead again. I really don’t know how long we will be here, probably days rather than weeks…
This was the hard part, telling her that he wouldn’t be able to see her until these expeditions were completed. He didn’t know how close she was to his father; it had come as a real surprise to see him on the Round Tower. If they were on calling terms, then the senior Holbrooke would no doubt explain the constraints that his son was under.
Holbrooke finished the letter as the ship’s bell struck three times. He could hear the noises of the yawl being hauled alongside and the crew scrambling down the side. His clerk knocked and came in.
‘Ah, Mister Pritchard. Would you take this letter to the Dolphin and ask the landlord to deliver it to the Alton carrier before seven in the morning? He should add the cost to my account.’
‘May I, sir,’ he said.
Holbrooke nodded. Pritchard held the sealing wax over the candle and dripped a pool of red, molten wax onto the flap of the envelope. He sealed it with a gold guinea that he kept in his pocket.
‘You should consider having your own seal struck, sir,’ he commented.
Holbrooke knew very well that most captains had their own seal, perhaps a heraldic coat of arms for their family, or a copy of the seal from the county or town they called home. He also guessed that Pritchard saw it as a slight upon his own dignity, his captain not having a personal seal. Holbrooke, however, felt his hold on his rank was too tenuous to tempt fate in that way. A common guinea would do until he was posted, regardless of Pritchard’s dignity.
◆◆◆
It was four bells in the first watch, and still quite light this close to the summer solstice, when he heard the yawl returning. Probably Pritchard had given the crew an hour to wet their whistles at one of the sailors’ inns that were only a few hundred yards up Broad Street. Most likely he’d also gone to meet some of the other young gentlemen, perhaps at the Blue Posts only a short walk from the Sally Port. It was a humane indulgence; they weren’t under sailing orders and with the sloop at Spithead, that was the only way for any of the people to get a run ashore.