Perilous Shore

by Chris Durbin

  There was also a letter from his prize agents, the illustrious and respectable company of Hawkins & Hammond, resident at Bond Street, London. Not only had the prize money for Vulcain been distributed, which he knew about already, but so had the money for some of the prizes that Medina had taken in the Caribbean. Besides, the partners anticipated an imminent distribution from the capture of the frigate L’Arques off Montserrat. He was a wealthy man and there was more to come, for Medina had taken prizes aplenty in the Leeward Islands and off Jamaica and Kestrel had done well in the North Sea.

  If he wished, Holbrooke could afford to give up the sea and take to the study of law at Oxford. That had always been his ambition and it had only been thwarted by a family lack of funds. The irony wasn’t lost on him. Just two years ago, when there was no question of raising the money, he would have given anything to cast off his master’s mate’s uniform and take up the gown. Now that he could pay the fees and buy his board and lodging with ease, and support a family at the same time, if that should be necessary, he no longer had the desire for a career in law. Nor would his sense of duty allow him to leave the service in the middle of a bitter war.

  He recognised that he had twin reasons for wanting an early exchange. There was Ann, and he longed to see her again. But above all there was a desire to get back to sea, to earn his promotion to post-captain and to command a frigate. He was becoming single-minded, he knew, but as he told himself a dozen times a day, this war wouldn’t last forever, and when it was over, he could whistle for his promotion, for all the good it would do him.

  It appeared that a letter took about ten days to reach Dol from Wickham. Of course, it had to travel through London and down to Dover for the regular cartel ship, thence to Paris and so to Brittany. Ten days seemed not unreasonable for such a journey. Nevertheless, it raised the question of whether it was worth replying. Exchanges had been made in less than a month, and in this case, with both parties separated only by the English Channel, it seemed possible that they would be home faster than a letter. The next step though, was to be transferred to Saint-Malo, although it would be hard to leave this pleasant spot.

  ◆◆◆

  Then there was a letter from Chalmers, it was perhaps the most disturbing of all. He regretted to inform Holbrooke that Treganoc had died on the deck of Kestrel. He confirmed that it wasn’t the six-pound ball that had landed close to the boat’s transom, but a musket ball from one of the soldiers that were advancing on Holbrooke. Edney had tried to turn the boat, but by the time he’d pushed Treganoc’s body to the side, they were thirty yards from the shore, and he could see that there was nothing they could do for their captain. They’d feared the worst until a letter arrived from Albach, just hours ahead of the formal communication from the French navy suggesting an exchange.

  Chalmers had gone straight to Wickham to tell William Holbrooke. The old man took it very calmly. He’d been a sailing master through the last war, and it was very much part of a sea officer’s expectation that he may at some time be a prisoner-of-war. At least the French were a civilised nation and his son could expect reasonable treatment. William gave little weight to the tale of an Austrian artillery major looking after his son; he knew nothing of Austria except that they were a landlocked people ruled by a self-styled empress. He had no truck with landsmen nor with empresses.

  They’d sent a boy with a note to Bere Forest House, and Chalmers had visited briefly to tell Martin Featherstone the news. He hadn’t seen fit to call his daughter, or his wife, into the conversation, so Chalmers could offer no opinion on how the ladies of the house took the news.

  At the time of writing, Lynton had command of Kestrel, but they expected some change by the day. Lynton of course hoped to be made commander, but he was realistic enough to temper his hopes. Portsmouth wasn’t Port Royal, and it would be much more unusual for Lynton to be given Kestrel when Portsmouth was full of senior lieutenants than it was for Holbrooke to be given her in the faraway Caribbean.

  Chalmers’ letter was in many ways unsatisfactory, except in that he’d delivered the news to his father. Holbrooke still wasn’t sure that Ann knew of his deliverance, nor whether Kestrel was under new ownership.

  ◆◆◆

  The French captain appeared again, unannounced, on a still, clear day in the first week of October. As before, he came in a carriage, but this time it was followed by another. Both vehicles drew to a halt outside the gate to the cathedral cloisters.

  ‘Gentlemen, there’s no time to lose or you will most certainly miss your tide. We must be underway in ten minutes, no more!’ he exclaimed as he jumped down onto the cobbles.

  ‘Are we being transferred to Saint-Malo, sir,’ asked Rowley. They had all become most comfortable at Dol and the prospect of a French hulk or a damp waterside house had little appeal.

  ‘Saint-Malo? No, certainly not, although we must go through there. Have you not received a letter? Oh dear, then that’s why you aren’t ready. Your exchange has been agreed and I must have you away from France today!’

  They stared at each other as the reality dawned upon them. They shook each other’s hands vigorously, then they shook the Frenchman’s hand, everyone was smiling. Maplesden almost skipped with joy because in the last mail he’d been informed that a new command awaited him, a third rate, Intrepid. If only he could be home before the end of October when it would surely be given to another.

  Holbrooke remembered Intrepid from the engagement off Minorca two years before. Byng’s Nemesis, she was called in the taverns of Portsmouth Point. She’d been sixth in the line when she’d lost her foretopmast to French chain shot. Her bows had flown incontinently up into the wind, preventing those ships astern of her from coming into action. Byng’s battle was lost at that moment, and he never recovered.

  Nevertheless, a ship was a ship, and a third rate was a jump up from the fifty-gun Portland that Maplesden had left vacant. Holbrooke had a moment to reflect that he’d received no such letter. In fact, Maplesden’s joy at his letter had cast a gloom over the other four. It was evident that their lordships were busy offering their ships to new captains in what could only be termed unseemly haste. They knew that now, and they rejoiced in Maplesden’s good fortune, but they had no word of ships for themselves.

  Holbrooke’s moment of reflection was shattered as Albach chose that moment to ride through the gates of the close, whipping his horse into a lather. He reined in when he saw the busy, happy group beside the cloisters and immediately recognised the significance of the two coaches.

  ‘I’m too late, it seems, to be the bringer of glad news,’ he shouted as his horse turned and capered, caught up in the excitement. ‘I rode hard to tell you that you’re to be exchanged immediately, but I see I’m forestalled.’

  He gave a package of mail to Rowley.

  ‘Gentlemen, I implore you, don’t stop to read your letters. Ten minutes, no more, and then we must be on the road,’ said the French captain. ‘The cartel is drying out over the tide at the town quay but when she floats, she must be away. The tide waits for no man, gentlemen, as I’m sure I don’t need to remind you. Hurry, I beseech you! There are fifteen miles to cover and when we arrive, we’ll still have the documents to be signed and witnessed. There’s no time to lose!’

  It wasn’t ten minutes, but it was certainly less than fifteen. They gathered up their meagre possessions in the handkerchiefs that they’d bought in town. Rowley took up a subscription to give a purse to the bishop for the relief of the poor, and they were away.

  It was a wild ride, with Albach cantering alongside the madly swaying coaches. Just past Chateauneuf one of the carriages lost a wheel on the tight bend as the highway joined the road that followed the river. After a few minutes’ consternation, while the French captain scratched his head, four of them squeezed into the remaining carriage with the Frenchman while Holbrooke rode astern of Albach on his horse. The French captain fretted and fumed and pulled out his watch every five minutes. He was more nervous than
the prisoners on their way to freedom.

  They bypassed Saint-Servan and its shocking destruction at the hands of the Duke of Marlborough’s army and headed straight for the causeway to the town. There were more delays as the French captain explained himself at the first gate, then again at the second gate. Documents were examined and the officer of the guard called to authorise this fresh invasion by the British. Then a mad dash for the town quay. There was a scribe with his desk already set up as the master of the cartel waited patiently for his brig to float. A passing colonel of the militia, his lady on his arm, was dragooned into witnessing the exchange documents.

  And then suddenly it was all over. The brig made its first tentative stirrings of freedom as the incoming tide freed it from the thick mud of the harbour. Final farewells were flung at Albach and the captain.

  The master of the brig backed his jib to haul his bows out into the stream. He was being watched by an interested group on the quay and by Holbrooke and the other four sea officers. Perhaps it was the unwanted attention, but he ordered the jib to be sheeted home too soon and the brig hung in stays, drifting on the incoming tide, deeper into the harbour. The skipper of a passing lugger saw the problem and under the brute force of eight brawny Breton oarsmen he pushed the brig’s bows off the wind and into the stream. The southerly wind caught the topsail, and the brig started to move forward against the tide. The catastrophe was averted and in fifteen minutes, they were past Cézembre Island and nosing out into the bay, bound for Cape La Hague, the Channel and, by the next morning, the Solent and Portsmouth harbour. Holbrooke breathed the clean salt air of freedom, mixed with the cloying scent of fear – fear for the future, fear for his career and sorrow at the almost certain loss of his beloved Kestrel.

  ◆◆◆

  28: A Disappointing Return

  Saturday, Seventh of October 1758.

  Brig Sister Susan, at Sea. Off Saint Catherine’s, Isle of Wight.

  The near-grounding on leaving Saint-Malo was no isolated incident. The master of the brig was incompetent, and his ineptitude was compounded by a profound nervousness at his every move being watched by a parcel of critical naval captains.

  The winds had been light and baffling ever since they had left France, but the master appeared to have no idea – none whatsoever – of the tides in the Gulf of Saint-Malo or the Channel proper. When the stream was against him, he sailed offshore where it was strongest, and when it was with him, he hugged the coast where it was weakest. They narrowly missed foundering on Jersey, the Écrevièr Bank, Alderney, Cape La Hague and, astonishingly, the Casquets. How they came to be near the Casquets was a complete mystery. It was like a drunken game of shove ha’penny with the brig Sister Susan being carelessly pushed around the narrow seas instead of a coin on a board in the local tavern. Then, on the Saturday morning, they found themselves becalmed off Saint Catherine’s on an ebbing tide and slipping further and further west away from their destination.

  It was only a providential sou’wester that saved Holbrooke from spending a third night in the brig and prevented the world from witnessing the unedifying spectacle of five senior King’s officers being tried at court-martial for mutiny.

  ◆◆◆

  ‘Wish you joy of your new command, sir,’ said Holbrooke as brightly as he could, as they passed Intrepid at anchor at the tail of Spithead. Kestrel was nowhere to be seen, and Holbrooke wondered whether she’d been sent back to sea.

  Maplesden was acutely aware of his own good fortune in stark contrast to the uncertain future that his companions faced. The letters that Albach had brought included a note from the Admiralty secretary informing him that his commission would be waiting for him at the port admiral’s office, and that he could take command any day in October after Tuesday the tenth. If the master of the brig managed to get alongside in Portsmouth Harbour without drowning his passengers on the Point, he’d be the captain of a French-built third-rate in only three days. He made a polite attempt to conceal his glee, but it fooled nobody.

  ‘I’m sure their lordships will see you right, Holbrooke,’ he replied while lustfully studying the handsome lines of his new ship, ‘Mister Howe will certainly have a good word for us all.’

  He might, thought Holbrooke, but many captains had distinguished themselves that summer, and after all Howe was only a commodore and likely to be a captain again with the campaign season coming to its end. Possibly Maplesden’s commission was the extent of his leverage at the Admiralty. No, he was wrong, Rowley could look forward to a ship with some confidence. Paston was already a post-captain and a spell ashore would be no disaster for him. That was not the case for himself and Elphinstone, both commanders and both acutely aware of the fragility of their rank.

  ◆◆◆

  It can only have been divine intervention that brought Sister Susan safely alongside at the very spot where Kestrel had berthed after leaving the wet dock, certainly it owed nothing to the master’s skill. And there was Kestrel herself, looking bright and jaunty at anchor further up the harbour. Holbrooke wondered what he should do. He hadn’t been informed that he’d been superseded. As far as he was aware, he was still the captain of the sloop, unlikely though it seemed. Should he hail a boat and be rowed over to his ship? That risked an embarrassing scene on the deck. If he’d been replaced, he wouldn’t be entitled to the honours of a commanding officer. His own bosun’s mates would have to put away their pipes, and he would be greeted with merely a doffing of hats by whichever officers were available.

  He was still deciding what he should do when the gangway was laid onto the quay. The first person to come aboard was a messenger from the port admiral requesting that the five captains should meet him in his office before proceeding further. It was ominous that he didn’t say they shouldn’t proceed to their ships. The implication was clear; they had no ships.

  As befitted his seniority, Holbrooke was the last to be called. Rowley came out looking glum, Montague already had a new owner, so had Paston’s Jason, and they were both bidden to the Admiralty at their leisure. They could look forward to a spell of idleness until they again reached the notice of their lordships. Elphinstone too should visit the Admiralty at his leisure. By the time Holbrooke was called, he was reconciled to the worst of news. He was already planning how he would fill his time and calculating the earliest date that he could decently call on their lordships.

  Admiral Holburne gave a wintry smile as Holbrooke entered his office.

  ‘You managed to be wounded and captured, then, Mister Holbrooke,’ he said before Holbrooke was quite in the room. Holburne was one of those officers who were suspected of using their leisure time in practising the art of putting their juniors at a disadvantage.

  ‘Yes, Sir Francis, but my wound has healed and I’m ready to rejoin Kestrel immediately,’ he replied. It was as well to play a losing hand to the end, as his mentor Carlisle had taught him. ‘I see she’s anchored up the harbour.’

  The cold smile turned to a withering glare.

  ‘Don’t play games with me, Mister Holbrooke, it won’t wash. You’ll know by now that their lordships have given the ships that each of the five of you previously commanded to other captains. They could hardly do otherwise, with the date of your return not known and a war raging. Ships need captains and the country needed those ships last month, not when the French choose to honour their exchange obligations.’

  He stared at Holbrooke until the younger man dropped his eyes. His point made; he took a softer tone.

  ‘I happen to know that Mister Howe gave a good report of your conduct to the First Lord. Now, what the board will do with that I don’t know, but unlike your fellows you have a definite appointment in Whitehall.’

  Holbrooke looked up with hope starting to show in his face.

  ‘Don’t get carried away, Holbrooke, there’s many a slip twixt cup and lip.’

  He looked pleased with his aphorism.

  ‘Lord Anson’s still flying his flag over the Channel Fleet, but yo
u’re to meet Admiral Forbes at two o’clock on Tuesday.’ He looked Holbrooke up and down. ‘I suggest you contrive in some way to look a little more presentable by that time,’ he added.

  ‘Thank you, Sir Francis,’ Holbrooke replied lamely, ignoring the calculated insult. He could think of nothing more useful to say.

  ‘Your property’s already been removed from Kestrel. My secretary will direct you to the store where it’s being kept. Now, I think that’s all the business that we have for today.’

  ‘Excuse me Sir Francis, my followers in Kestrel, what’s become of them?’

  ‘Eh? Oh, I heard something about them. Your chaplain and your servant have removed themselves to lodgings ashore. In compliment to you I’ve restrained the impress captain from taking up your servant. I believe you’ll find them at the Dolphin. All the others; officers, warrants, midshipmen, seamen, marines remain on Kestrel’s books. I understand that Commander Rickets wishes to make some changes, to bring in some followers of his own, so you may have more of ‘em on your hands. Anyway, I’ll leave that to you.’

  Rickets, thought Holbrooke, he’d never heard of him. Of course, he’d have been an anonymous lieutenant a month ago, fretting on a promotion. Now he was master and commander of Holbrooke’s precious Kestrel, the ship he’d fought the Dutch pirates for in the faraway Caicos Passage, his ship. He already had an irrational hatred of this unknown Rickets.

  ‘Captain!’ called Holburne, as Holbrooke turned to leave the office. ‘My condolences on the death of your marine lieutenant.’

  Holbrooke nodded his acknowledgement. The port admiral didn’t even know the name of the dead lieutenant, he thought with disgust. Treganoc. Treganoc of Emden and Treganoc the hero of Saint-Cast. He’d have a memorial set up at his home church in Cornwall.