The Cursed Fortress

by Chris Durbin

  ‘Mister Angelini, take note of the position of that flag.’

  Medina had moved into the middle of the space between Cormorant Cove and Flat Point. It was a long range for six-pounders from either of the promontories, and it seemed likely that there would be a battery somewhere in the centre, between the two points.

  Carlisle again raised his telescope to study the slowly passing shoreline. There was another feeling of a passing shot, closely followed by a crash. A six-pounder ball had passed through the taffrail and struck a glancing blow on the planks of the quarterdeck, just a few feet to Carlisle’s left. A seaman beside one of the three-pounders looked in amazement at the blood seeping out of his shirt sleeve, the result of an oak splinter thrown up by the shot. The rammer he was holding fell from his hands, and his mouth opened and closed without any sound coming out.

  ‘Get him below to the surgeon, Mister Atwater, his mates on the starboard gun may take him.’

  ***

  Medina continued her run of soundings. If there was a battery between Cormorant Cove and Flat Point, it didn’t show itself and try as they may, no sign of it could be seen. Hosking edged the frigate a little further to seaward as they approached Flat Point, the centre of the area that they were to survey. The battery that had sunk the yawl was easy to see, it sat right atop the low ground of the point. The engineers that built it and the artillerymen that manned it must have realised the futility in camouflaging the gun emplacements, and the new-felled trees and turned earth stood out clearly against the winter-blackened scrub.

  Moxon had a personal score to settle with that battery, and he set about its demolition with a will. After two deliberate broadsides, he let the individual gun captains practice their pointing in their own time. Two shots were all the battery managed to fire before it was overwhelmed by the weight of Medina’s outraged fury. Long after the last artilleryman must have abandoned the post, the frigate’s guns kept firing, reducing the palisades to splinters and levelling the earthworks. It must have been a lucky shot, but suddenly there was a loud explosion and a plume of black smoke issued from a point a hundred yards inland from the battery. They’d found the magazine; Gilbert and his five fellows were avenged.

  ***

  15: The Chase

  Tuesday, Twenty-Eighth of March 1758.

  Medina, at Sea. Off Cormorant Cove, Île Royale.

  Carlisle watched the smoke over Flat Point being dispersed by the keen wind.

  ‘You may follow the ten-fathom line, Mister Hosking.’

  Medina had passed the group of rocks that lay offshore; the next real obstacle was White Point with its much more substantial obstacles lying to the south. In fact, so close were the rocks to the point that they formed part of the same structure, though they were lower, their tops barely washed by the waves.

  The wind was still a whisker west of north and the visibility was good. Medina was on a beam reach with the whole of the North Atlantic under her lee. Carlisle left the navigation to the master and turned his attention to annoying the enemy.

  ‘Lookout!’ he shouted with his head tilted up to the main masthead.

  ‘Quarterdeck!’ replied Whittle. On the face of it, the lookout’s response was unexceptional, but Carlisle knew very well that there was a humorous tone in this case. Aye-aye sir would have been a correct reply, but Whittle chose to bounce back Carlisle’s hail with a literal equivalent.

  Carlisle was aware of the licence that Whittle took, usually on occasions when Carlisle had higher matters to consider than the mild insubordination of an able seaman. He and Whittle had grown up on the same plantation in Virginia. They weren’t precisely childhood friends, there was too vast a social chasm between the son of a wealthy plantation owner and the son of one of the poor tenants that farmed scraps of land carved out from the estate. He was aware of the covert smiles of the steersmen and the wooden face of the quartermaster. Nobody else in the frigate had presumed to imitate Whittle’s familiarity – yet – but something must be done.

  ‘Souter,’ he called in a low tone to his coxswain, whose station was on the quarterdeck in action. ‘Run up to the main masthead and tell Whittle that he’s to direct his attention for’rard of the beam. I want to know immediately if he sees anything stirring in the harbour or any force leaving the fortress.’

  ‘Aye-aye sir,’ replied Souter, ‘and I’ll remind him of the correct reports for a lookout at the same time.’

  Carlisle looked sharply at his coxswain, but Souter’s face betrayed nothing.

  ‘And a half, ten,’ chanted the leadsman.

  ***

  The shore slipped slowly by; but there was nothing to be seen in the shallow indentation between Flat Point and White Point. Probably any French troops stationed there to prevent a landing had decided that this British frigate wasn’t to be trifled with. They’d all seen the fate of the battery on Flat Point.

  ‘If we see nothing better, may I try some random shots at anything that looks suspicious, sir?’ asked Moxon.

  ‘You may, Mister Moxon, it’ll be good practice for the gun crews. Concentrate on the land on the beam until we turn to seaward around White Point, then you can give the battery there a regular bombardment.’

  It was almost like a yachting trip now, if it hadn’t been for the cries of the leadsman and the intermittent fire from the larboard battery. Even the keen edge of the wind was blunted by the land close on the beam.

  This was the first really clear day since Medina had arrived off Louisbourg, and the fortress was clearly visible from the deck. That would allow Carlisle to fulfil another of the items in his orders, to report on the number of men-of-war and merchantmen in the harbour. There’d be plenty of time for that once they’d finished this line of soundings. He trained his telescope over the land where he could just see the highest spires of the buildings in the town. Whittle at the main topmast would be able to see the masts of any vessels in the harbour. He resisted the temptation to call up to him. Partly because he was trying to curb his tendency to repeat orders, and partly because he didn’t want to risk another run-in with the able seaman’s sharp wit. He’d given his order and must assume that it was being carried out.

  Moxon was clearly enjoying himself, pointing out targets to each gun captain and commenting on their accuracy. It was good for the crews to practice this individual shooting; too often it was assumed that naval gunnery consisted merely of loading and firing as fast as possible at another ship so close alongside that it would be impossible to miss. That may be very well for ships-of-the-line, although Carlisle didn’t really believe it. He’d seen a fleet action, at Minorca, where the lines were far apart, and greater accuracy might have produced a better result. For a frigate, it just wouldn’t do. He needed his guns to be able to hit moving targets at the limit of their range. The rate of fire was important, but less so in the sort of battle of fire and manoeuvre that he was used to.

  Carlisle watched as the larboard battery kicked up earth and vegetation on the low, rocky shore. It was mostly scrub with here and there a stunted tree, not good terrain to dig defensive works, and not suitable ground, either, for siege works. The soldiers would have a hard time of it digging their saps in that unforgiving terrain.

  ‘Sail ho! Sail five points on the starboard bow.’ That was Whittle, no hint of foolery now.

  Carlisle trained his telescope to starboard. At first, he could see nothing. There was a haze over the sea as though the fog was trying to re-assert itself, and now he thought about it, the wind appeared to be wavering a little as though it would soon veer eastwards and bring the mist rolling in. What bizarre weather! A strong northerly breeze with incipient fog! It was unheard of in any civilised part of the world. Then he saw just the hint of a patch of white showing over the haze. It was there and gone.

  ‘Mister Wishart,’ he said without lowering the telescope, ‘up to the main topmast head and let me know what you make of it.’

  It would be a tight squeeze on the crosstree at the top
of the main topmast, but it was important that someone other than an able seaman should give an opinion on the newcomer.

  ‘Deck there!’ shouted Whittle. ‘It’s a ship, close hauled on the starboard tack under reefed tops’ls, could be a man-of-war.’

  Very likely a man-of-war, thought Carlisle as he tried to get a steady view of the sail that was now showing clearly above the haze. Whatever it was, it was trying to make Louisbourg harbour without putting in another tack. It would be a close-run thing.

  ‘Mister Moxon, cease firing. Sponge the guns, reload with ball and run them out again. Report when you’re ready.’

  The gun crews had been so engrossed in the pleasant business of bombarding an unresisting shore that they hadn’t heard the hail from Whittle. Now they were feverishly preparing for this new encounter.

  ‘Mister Hosking, we’ll cut that sail off from Louisbourg. Secure the leadsman if you please. Set the courses, the fore tops’l and the fore stays’l.’

  That last order caused a flurry of activity as the men whose stations were aloft for sail handling handed over their rammers, sponges and handspikes to their mates and raced for the ratlines.

  Medina came rapidly off the wind as the steersmen heaved the wheel to starboard. The sense of a pleasant yachting trip was gone in a flash. There was a chance that this ship was British, another frigate sent to join Medina in watching Louisbourg before Admiral Hardy’s squadron should arrive, but it was unlikely. The sail – the chase as Carlisle now thought it – was approaching from seaward. It hadn’t coasted up from Halifax, or even from Boston. Possibly her captain had directed his course around Sable Island to approach his destination with the least possibility of meeting a British man-of-war. He’d be disappointed.

  The waisters strained on the tops’l halyards, the stays’l was run out and the coarses set. In a mere few minutes, Medina was transformed from a slow lumbering platform for surveying and gunnery into a sleek, speedy ocean predator.

  ‘Both batteries ready,’ reported Moxon.

  That was good work with half the crews sent away to their sail handling stations.

  ‘Captain, sir!’

  That was Wishart at the main topmast head. He must have had an awkward time of it with the halyards running through their blocks right on his shoulder. Carlisle had a moment to be pleased that it was Wishart who was reporting rather than Whittle.

  ‘It’s a man-of-war, for certain. A frigate probably.’

  Carlisle stared hard through his telescope. Yes, Wishart was probably right, and he had Whittle there to help.

  ‘Could she be the frigate we met off the Capes?’ replied Carlisle, using the copper speaking trumpet now that the sounds of the frigate’s way through the water had increased so much.

  ‘She could be, sir,’ replied Wishart, not wanting to commit himself on the identity of a ship that was still two or three leagues away and seen through a veil of haze.

  Could be. That meant that Wishart and Whittle had seen nothing that ruled out the identification. Carlisle hummed a few bars of a tune. He was sure, even if his lookouts weren’t. He knew that he had unfinished business with that frigate when she ran away from him off Cape Henry.

  The bosun was in the maintop, checking the chains that secured the yard in case the slings were shot away; two of his mates were rigging the boarding nets that had not been needed for their earlier cruise along the coast.

  ‘She’s tacked, sir,’ said Hosking, a second or two ahead of the next call from Wishart.

  Now, what was she up to? There was no doubt of her course and little question of her destination, thought Carlisle. She must be heading for Louisbourg. Her captain hadn’t shown himself to be shy before, but now he was positively declining to fight his way through. On his new course, he’d be heading for the Gulf and then up the St. Lawrence. Had he mistaken his navigation? It was possible. He must have caught his first sight of land by now, and if his reckoning were in error, he’d be tacking to correct it. Perhaps Quebec was his destination after all. If he believed that he could get past without a fight, he’d be disappointed.

  ‘Captain sir!’ There was a note of urgency in Wishart’s voice as it cracked with the strain of shouting over the wind. ‘There’s another sail beyond the frigate, just to the right. I can’t make it out yet,’ Wishart paused, ‘and another, two more sail to the right of the frigate.’

  ‘Mister Hosking, bring us onto the wind and set a course to round Cape Breton if we can make it on this tack.’

  ‘Aye-aye sir. The wind’s veering towards the east and dropping,’ he said, wetting his index finger and holding it up to the breeze.

  The quartermaster nodded in agreement.

  Now that his attention was drawn to it, Carlisle could feel the wind faltering, and the horizon to the east was becoming less distinct. He could still see the frigate, but its outline was starting to become blurred. Of the sails beyond and to right, he could see nothing.

  ‘Damn it all!’ he muttered and stamped his foot on the deck before he checked himself. A display of petulance would do no good with half of the ship’s company watching him.

  ‘Keep her full and by, Mister Hosking. Our friend out there will be struggling to avoid being set off to Newfoundland, with the east wind and Medina dictating his course!’

  That was better, show the people that he could laugh in the face of adversity. But it was difficult. He had a moral certainty that this frigate was his old friend. Given that, it was odds-on that the two sails were supply ships for Louisbourg and that they’d had a pre-arranged meeting. Perhaps their rendezvous had been at Sable Island, that remote, uninhabited crescent off land eighty miles off the Nova Scotia coast.

  If all that was true – and he had to admit to himself that it was only one of several possible explanations – then he was doing his duty merely by preventing them from getting into Louisbourg. But the weather may yet be on the side of the French frigate. If the fog came in – and that appeared very likely – then they may be able to feel their way into the harbour without Medina ever catching sight of them. The ability of the Frenchmen who had grown up on this coast to find their way through thick weather was legendary.

  ‘Captain. Sir, I’ve lost sight of the other two sails now. I can still see the frigate, she’s close hauled on the larboard tack.’

  Carlisle looked up at Medina’s sails. Hosking caught his movement and looked up also. The two men’s minds were precisely in parallel.

  ‘What do you think, master?’

  ‘T’gallants? I don’t know, sir. There’s a risk that they’ll carry away, and I’m not sure what we’ll achieve by beating the chase to the Cape. The fog will be there before us.’

  ‘You’re right,’ replied Carlisle. There was no point in charging to the north when in all probability the chase would turn to the southwest before she reached the Cape. After all, Louisbourg was a more likely destination than the St. Lawrence. Or was it?

  ***

  Medina ploughed on into the gathering gloom. It was midday, but the sun was looking decidedly hazy as the wind veered further into the east and lost its strength. The banks of fog could be seen rolling in on the wind. The French frigate persisted as a vague ghostly shape, just five miles to the east, then suddenly it was gone, swallowed up in the grey blanket of fog.

  Carlisle paced the weather side of the quarterdeck, trying not to let his nervousness show. It was ten-to-one that the Frenchman would escape, taking his convoy with him. He could already have tacked and may be heading directly towards Louisbourg, the wind was now fair for him. But was that his destination? Carlisle was sure that it had been until he saw that his way was barred by a ship of force. The French captain had every right to believe that there would be no British blockade of the port, not yet, not so early in the season, when the ice floes hadn’t even stopped coming down the St. Lawrence. There was a slight grinding noise now, as a moderate-sized growler scraped along the frigate’s side. It was growing colder again.

  ‘Mis
ter Moxon, see to it that the men go below to get more clothes on, it’ll be freezing before too long,’ he said, motioning to the advancing bank of fog.

  And yet…and yet, that had looked like a very deliberate move when the frigate tacked and headed off to Cape Breton. It all depended on the ships that she was escorting, what was their cargo? After a hard winter, and in confident anticipation of a siege, Louisbourg must be in urgent want of food – flour and rice, beef and pork – to sustain the garrison and population when they must retreat behind the walls. Food, without a doubt, but if they were serious about holding the fortress – and with it the French dreams of empire in North America – they would also need men. Infantry to hold the walls, artillerymen to bombard the siege lines, engineers to improve the defences. If those ships carried food, then it must be offloaded at Louisbourg, nowhere else would do; the terrain of Île Royale was not conducive to overland transport of supplies. However, if those were soldiers, though it may be inconvenient in this harsh climate, they could march across the country to reach Louisbourg.

  Of course, he could be wrong about the destination. Quebec needed supplies too, and the French must have few illusions about the British objective after Louisbourg had fallen. Nevertheless, that tack to the north looked too much like a response to seeing Medina, and not like a navigational correction. If they had met off Sable Island, then to miss the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence would be a gross error in navigation that even the French navy would blush at.

  When he’d weighed up the alternatives, Carlisle was almost certain that those other two ships carried soldiers. Two big transports could bring most of a battalion between them, and if they’d made a fast passage and met their escort for the final leg off Sable Island, then those would be fresh troops, ready for a hard march if that’s what it took to reach the fortress. He could set a course to intercept them, and that was his first instinct. However, he’d learned to treat his first instincts with caution. His orders were quite clear. He was to watch Louisbourg and survey Gabarus Bay. If he chased these Frenchmen around Cape Breton and off to the northwest, he’d be leaving the approaches to the fortress town unguarded. If it turned out that they were on passage for the St. Lawrence, he’d look foolish at best, insubordinate at worst, if Hardy chose to interpret his actions as prize-hunting at the expense of his principal task.