Nobody’s Child

by Andrew Wareham

  There was a general laugh and various comments about what might be tucked up the Don’s jumpers.

  “What I says, Captain, be we makes our way into the inlet and turns our head round, ready to sail out again, in case we needs to run in a hurry. Swing ‘er round on a single anchor, if needs be. Bring ‘er larboard side to the shore. Four guns loaded and ready to be run out and fired. Starboard side be disengaged, so we puts the two aftmost six pounders to they old stern ports of ours, just ready for a sloop or a pair of fishing boats or whatever to lay across the stern. Double-shot they, careful like, langrage over grape. Same for the nine in the bows, sir.”

  That sounded sensible, all agreed.

  “Boarders be all ready to go, like, sir. I don’t reckon on a full battalion being laid up and waiting. They’d have to march out from Montevideo or take ship down from Buenos Aires, like. Spanish ain’t in the way of organising that in two days, sir. More like whatever soldiers is in the local garrison, sir, and any sailors what’s about wi’ cutlasses and such.”

  Captain Marker agreed that to be not unlikely.

  “So, you suggest that we can engage any small ship with say half of the boarders and destroy the land forces as well, boatswain?”

  “Worth a try ain’t it, sir? They’m only Spaniards, when all’s said and done.”

  That was the clinching argument. The men truly believed that one Englishman was worth two French and a dozen of Spanish and other assorted dagoes. I heard it a hundred times, I suppose, over the years, and saw men face crazy odds because they believed it. Funny thing was, they won far more often than not.

  Don’t understand it meself.

  At that time I fully believed them – I was no more than a boy and possibly wilder than many. No matter, I am here now, which is more than can be said for a lot of sensible folk I’ve come across in my time.

  “Jerry, you to take the boarders on the ship. Giles, on shore. You can show us what you’re made of – and that don’t mean drop your breeches, lad!”

  There was a roar of laughter, the men always willing to mock a young officer, but the comments that came back to me were friendly enough.

  “Show they Dons a deadly weapon and frighten ‘em into surrender, young ‘un!”

  “You picked the wrong man for that, Simon,” I called back, which brought another set of chuckles, the men always preferring a self-deprecating reply, as long as it came from an officer standing to their front.

  I turned to Captain Marker.

  “My half of the boarders to go ashore, sir?”

  “If we see soldiers, you to deal with them, Giles.”

  “Best get the grindstone up, sir. Put a sharp on the old cutlass. I don’t know meself, for never having tried it, but they say those old Dons got thick skins and you need a sharp point to deal with them.”

  My half-score of boarders swaggered a little and came to stand at my side – if I was to lead, then they would be to follow, so they implied.

  Pointless stuff, you might say, men shouting their mouths off, talking a good fight when all that counts is the doing of it later. But it’s useful, I’ve found. It always does good to set the mood. Seduce a young woman and you want wine and soft music; fight against odds and you need confident men laughing together. It’s always worked for me – the fighting bit, that is. Never had a lot of luck on the seduction side. Never tried very often, thinking on it. Risky business, chasing after young ladies; even dodgier if you happen to catch one. Told young Fred that when he grew up; don’t know if he listened to me – I hope not. Got to tell your son to behave himself, but that don’t mean you hope he will. Got enough money to pay off a bastard or two in any case.

  Where was I?

  On deck, the grindstone screeching and watching my boarders with great round eyes. Never imagined the like of it. They clustered round the stone, taking turns on the pedals and helping each other with their blades. Some of them had the knack of putting a razor edge on a blade and they gave a hand to their less gifted mates. Not just their issue cutlasses or their own swords, if they had them. Three of them had hand axes, little hatchets perhaps a foot in the handle and with a blade the size of the palm of your hand and weighing a pound or so, convenient for a back swipe. All of them had at least two knives, large and small, a butcher’s cleaver of a blade and a thin stiletto most favoured.

  “Slice up bacon and a man just about equal, Giles.”

  Jerry had taken his turn, had put no fewer than five small, balanced knives to the stone.

  “Throwing knives, Giles. Useful over ten feet. I’ll show you them later in the week, when we have time.”

  Jerry was one of those who carried a sword. I presumed he had taken it in a previous fight. I was envious, though I did not say so. It was a long, straight blade, more than thirty inches and heavy, sharpened on both sides and coming to a spear point, good for thrust or slash, at a glance.

  Jenny Dawes followed the fishing boat, keeping perhaps a cable distant, not so far as to lag behind but sufficient that they could not pick up the detail of our activity on deck. The pair of starboard guns were shifted to the sternchase ports and their tackle was rove anew. Master Gunner brought cartridge up in leather buckets with a piece of canvas to ward off the spray and set them close to hand, in case a reload should be possible. He personally loaded the guns, for double-shotting was a risky old business; a mistake and a gun could blow, particularly when the loads were grape and langrage, both loose in canvas wrapping and needing to be rammed full home on top of each other.

  I spent my time loading the six spare muskets we had in the gunner’s room and ranging them round the foremast and then issuing cartridge and ball for the pistols and loading the pair I had taken for myself. Then I stood next to Jerry, leaning on the rail and chatting quietly, showing calm and collected, which he said was necessary in an officer.

  “It’s not that we have to play at being Guardsmen, you know, Giles, but the lads expect us make a show of being brave – which means standing here and talking, not looking worried, because we know that we can handle anything that comes our way.”

  I knew nothing of Guardsmen, except that they were a byword for buggery – everyone knew that.

  “Their officers always show casual, Giles. They never duck or take cover or pay attention to ill-mannered objects sniping at them. They just sneer at the Frogs or Dons until the time comes to do something about them and then they stand at the front and wave their men to follow them. They take more casualties among their officers that way, but their men fight like hell for them. I don’t recommend the habit to you.”

  I saw a Guards battalion in action only the once. I happened to be in the field at Waterloo, many years later - by mistake I would add - and watched them at their business. They were not unimpressive. I said so to the Duke. He was still fuming about the cavalry and had a little to say on the topic of aristocratic officers; he wanted gentlemen, I recall, but he had no damned use for petty lordlings. Able man, Wellington. Lucky to have him in command – in most cases to show an intellect was seen as grounds for disqualification of an officer from any important post. British politicians much prefer stupid generals – they don’t want an English Napoleon. They may well be right.

  The sun set as we headed deeper into the estuary and then into the inlet on the north shore. There were lights and Captain Marker watched as the fishing boat headed into a quay and then sailed us a cable or so past and dropped a single anchor and used the current of the little river to bring Jenny Dawes about. ‘Club-hauling’, so he said. A difficult trick at sea but simple in a river, so he bragged. I took his word for it.

  There was a little of wind and he brought the brig into the quayside and made a show of tying up, quietly speaking to Master Gunner who was on one knee behind him, a length of slow match glowing under his coat, invisible in the light of the little lantern in the binnacle that allowed the steersman to see the compass.

  “A single sail up river of us, Master Gunner, coming along good and
slow. Your boarders ready, Jerry. What can you see ashore, Giles?”

  I was stood beside my ten with their muskets, all huddled under the shelter of the larboard bulwark.

  “Two warehouses, sir. Movement outside the one to our right hand, sir. Don’t look like the longshoremen did, sir. They’re making up into ranks, sir. Can’t get a count on them. Two lines of them, maybe forty or so on the front.”

  Captain Marker seemed quite pleased that he was mistaken in his candour, that the Dons were playing us false. I suspect he did not enjoy the life of a trader, preferred to make his profits in a more hazardous fashion. I’ve tried both, don’t really give a damn which way I make money, but I do prefer not to get me throat cut.

  I stared and peered and nudged Fred, stood at my shoulder for the first of many times.

  “Do you see that?”

  “Some of they got bloody spears, Master Giles.”

  “Captain, sir. Half those buggers are pikemen!”

  “Old-fashioned of them, Giles! Local militia, not regular soldiers. Gunners, ready!”

  The small sloop coming in astern of us had dropped its sail and was just a few yards distant. There was a trumpet call from the warehouse and the two lines started to march towards us. No attempt to call us to surrender or announce their intention. Just an attack out of the blue. Had we been unready, it must have succeeded.

  Captain Marker stood tall and bellowed.

  “Shoot!”

  Six pounders are not very big guns, but six of them firing at once makes a respectable noise, especially when immediately followed by screams and howling. They use grapeshot at twelve to the pound weight. That put nearly three hundred balls across the quay at about three feet above ground level, Jenny Dawes being a small ship and the tide making soon after its ebb. Another twenty-four pounds of grape and scrap-iron thumped high into the little sloop from the double-shotted cannon in the stern. Good thing it was dark – been a messy sight otherwise.

  I did my part of the job.

  “Point your muskets! Shoot!”

  I had been warned not to use the word ‘fire’ – that had only one meaning on a wooden ship.

  Ten satisfactory bangs – no misfires, which is always a risk with a flintlock at sea. I hopped onto the bulwark and yelled and waved my cutlass in a vaguely onshore direction and jumped down and ran towards the warehouse still bellowing, occasionally falsetto for my voice not being totally settled yet.

  A few of the pikemen were wandering half-dazed but still carrying their weapons, which made them legitimate targets. I ducked under one wavering shaft and ran the poor fellow through the belly – my first kill and hardest of all to forget. He squealed and fountained blood and guts. Nasty.

  I ran on looking for my next in the flickering light of a few lanterns by the big sheds. I spotted a man with a sword and wearing a light-coloured coat. A Spanish soldier and an officer, not one of the poor sods of militiamen. I pulled out a pistol, on the grounds that he might know how to use a sword, which I definitely did not. I pulled the pistol up to the vertical and chopped down as I extended my arm, having found that to be an easy way to bring the barrel on target and no more than a second slower, and flicked back the hammer with thumb and squeezed the trigger. The pistol was heavy, musket gauge of about three-quarters of an inch, and the soft lead ball hit square in the middle of his chest, knocking him off his feet.

  Much to be said for a heavy ball. Not quite so accurate as your little duelling pistol but tending to be very final in its effects. I bent over to grab the man’s sword, saw it was on a belt and quickly unbuckled that as well and tucked it round my waist – twice round, me being still a stripling and him a fat bugger.

  There was a closed warehouse door in front of me. I took a heave at it and it eased open a crack. Fred grabbed hold as well and we pulled a couple of yards open before it jammed, stuck on its runners where grapeshot had broken up its wooden track. The building showed empty of people but with a collection of bales and chests on racks inside.

  “Payday, Fred!”

  He laughed and joined me in trotting up to the next building where was a mob of men back-to-back, all huddling together, a score at least, maybe more, and just the pair of us.

  “Surrender! Drop your guns!”

  They did.

  To my amaze, they were so shaken up, frightened and without orders, they simply gave up.

  Jerry suggested afterwards that they had not been expecting a fight, had been told that they were simply to take over a smuggler who would offer no resistance. It made sense. They knew they had the numbers on us and could not have expected a battle.

  Pikes clattered on the ground together with a few of muskets and pistols. I ordered the men away, to stand under a lantern where they could be seen.

  Others ran and stumbled across to join them, giving up without being asked. My boarders came over to me, forming a rank at my shoulder. I tried to look about me, to see what was happening in the murk and gloom.

  “What’s going on at the sloop?”

  “Mr Marker got ‘er, sir. All tidy like, sir.”

  It was the first time I had been addressed as ‘sir’. I could not but be pleased – but I was still very young.

  “Have we lost anybody?”

  “No dead, sir, but Maneater took a sword cut across the chest. Down along his ribs, sir, a gash but no more. Feller swung at ‘er instead of thrusting, sir. Old Maneater stuck ‘er knife in ‘er belly and ripped upwards like. Stopped ‘er farting in chapel, that’s for sure!”

  “Only one man hurt? That’s good.”

  “They old Dons didn’t like the grape, sir. Shook they old buggers up, so it did. Then you charging ‘em like a mad bugger didn’t no harm either, a-shrieking and yelling like you was.”

  There was a general laugh behind me and mutters of ‘mad young bugger’ – but sounding proud as well. The ‘sir’ said I was their officer now, earned by my own endeavours.

  Captain Marker appeared out of the darkness, giving orders for more lanterns to be discovered and lit before our prisoners sneaked away into the night.

  “Highly successful, young Giles!”

  “All according to plan, sir.”

  “Bloody lucky as well, young man! Add to that, some damned fine English fighting men. Nothing like Poole men if you want to go into a fight, so say I!”

  It was somewhat contrived, but the men liked the compliment, even the Welsh and Irish among them accepting adoption into Dorset.

  Jerry walked across, well blood-spattered.

  “Lost one, Captain. Bloody cabin boy, of all things, knifed him when he went below. Mickey Swann, the gun-captain – opened his throat, so he did.”

  Swann had been a popular man among the crew. There was a growl of anger among the listening men.

  “Did you get the cabin boy, brother?”

  “He’s a-dangling from the sloop’s main boom. Her captain had called his surrender.”

  Much indignation ensued – killing after the surrender was murder. The boy was lucky simply to have been hanged.

  Probably the boy had panicked, I thought afterwards, but there was no mercy in me either. Some crimes cannot be forgiven, or so I believe. False surrender is one of them.

  There was a small village behind the wharf and warehouses. It was empty of people by the time the men got into it, the families a distance down the track and, very wisely, legging it hard. The boarders were disappointed, deprived of what they regarded as legitimate prize and spoils of war. There was a tavern, however, as we had been told, and its bottles and barrels were rapidly transferred to Jenny Dawes, such as did not go straight down the men’s throats. The contents of the warehouses were something of a let-down, however.

  “Not bloody surprising, when you consider the matter, Giles.”

  Captain Marker was inclined to be philosophical, surprisingly so, I thought.

  “It is an agricultural area, Giles, so it will be selling its crops, which are of small use to us.”


  We took a couple of bales of good hides, there often being a call for leather aboard ship. Fells of wool were of no use to us. Sacks of grain were of slight value, being un-milled. There was a few tons of wheat flour which we loaded aboard. More than that, we did not want.

  “Do we burn the place, Captain?”

  Jerry sounded dubious about that course.

  “No. No gain to us. Why should we? Anything in the offices or barracks?”

  A small amount of powder, which was always handy. Silver coin in the paymaster’s office, but not a lot. The same for the two merchants’ places – the harvest had not been sold yet, so they were low on cash. The sole windfall came from the little officers mess where there was some silver plate.

  We collected up the discarded weaponry in the light of dawn and dumped the pistols and muskets in the gunner’s room and kicked the pikes into the water as being useless to us. There was a heap of blades to be picked over as well.

  “You have a sword of your own now, Giles. Where from?”

  “The stiff in the white coat, Captain. Over there. I shot him, so I reckoned his sword was mine.”

  “Quite right, too! Any good?”

  “Haven’t looked at it, sir.”

  We inspected the blade and decided it was genuine Toledo, quality steel. Captain Marker pointed out the patterns in the steel where it had been repeatedly folded and beaten out. It meant little to me. I still have that blade, somewhere. Haven’t had occasion to draw it in years. Fred looked after it for me. It won’t have got rusty.

  “Did you check him over, Giles?”

  I looked blank.

  “He was your kill, man! Anything in his pockets is yours by right.”

  The boarders shook their heads sadly – I really must learn the facts of life, they implied.

  The dead man had a purse and a pair of pocket pistols in his coat and no fewer than three rings on his fingers and a gold pin in his tie-cravat.