The Sea and the Sand

by Christopher Nicole

  On Champlain itself, all remained quiet until the new year, when, with the snow still thick on the ground and the ice equally thick on the water by the shore, a patrol seeking meat returned from the northern end of the lake to say they had been fired upon by a party of British and Indians, and that there was a great deal of activity around Rouses Point.

  ‘Activity?’ McDonough enquired.

  ‘They are cutting down trees, Mr McDonough,’ Macomb told him. ‘It would appear that they mean to build ships to oppose yours.’

  *

  Tom McDonough stood on the edge of the lake and stared across the ice to the north. ‘What do you reckon?’ he asked.

  ‘We have to be three months ahead of them, Toby said. ‘We’ll be ready for launching as soon as there is a thaw. I don’t reckon we should wait a moment beyond that.’

  ‘You mean sail over there and burn everything they have,’ McDonough mused.

  ‘Better than sitting here and waiting for them to come to us.’

  ‘I’ll have a word with the general,’ McDonough decided.

  But Macomb would not hear of it. ‘My orders are to sit on the defensive and bar the British passage,’ he declared. ‘Not to undertake any offensive action. I will tell you when you may attack the enemy, Mr McDonough.’

  There was nothing for it but to obey; Congress had not even promoted McDonough to captain’s rank to give him more authority. Nor could they undertake the simplest answer, and keep ahead of the British by building more ships — they would have neither the guns nor the men to put in them. So they completed building their squadron, and as soon as the ice began to melt launched them.

  McDonough, revealing a fine sense of history, elected to name his flagship USS Saratoga. ‘That should cast their minds back a bit,’ he grinned. For it had been at the nearby village of Saratoga that John Burgoyne had been forced to surrender his army in 1777.

  The squadron was anchored in the bay formed by Cumberland Head, and settled down to wait … and listen with increasing disquietude to the news brought back by the army scouts. For it seemed that the British commander, now identified as Captain George Downie, was also in possession of facts concerning them, and had determined to ape their dispositions: he also was building four ships and twelve galleys. But as he had the advantage of hindsight — and they had thrown away their advantage of being first in the water — he was constructing a true frigate, which was apparently to be named the Confiance, and which would mount no less than thirty-seven guns, and be by some distance the most powerful vessel on the lake.

  ‘Truly,’ McDonough grumbled to Toby, as they shivered in their greatcoats and listened to the tremendous cracks of the ice breaking up out on the main body of water, and watched Macomb riding his horse up and down his fortifications, ‘our Congress seems able only to give commands to men who do not understand how to wage war.’

  Things went from bad to worse as the campaigning weather returned. At the end of April news was received that Napoleon Bonaparte had been forced to abdicate, and that the long European war was finally over. There could now be no doubt that the British would turn all of their attention to the upstart republic which had dared to challenge the lion’s right to rule the seas to his own advantage. And so it proved. Everywhere the American forces soon found themselves opposed by veteran regulars who had beaten even the famous French moustachios.

  On the Niagara front, the long stalemate erupted during the early summer of 1814, in a series of sanguinary encounters, in which the Americans actually held their own, but could make no further headway into Canada. Further south, the British carried out a devastating raid into Chesapeake Bay itself, ascending that great waterway, shattering an American force — in which only a hastily recruited band of sailors, commanded by Commodore Joshua Barney, proved themselves worthy of the uniforms they wore — and then occupying and burning Washington itself. Barney was another of those brilliant officers who had quarrelled with the Navy Board, and like James Barron, had taken himself off to serve with the French. He had fortunately returned, unlike Barron, in time to fight for his country.

  Finally, rumours came that a huge British expeditionary force was fitting out in Jamaica to invade the very south, capture New Orleans — where the creole population were not yet assimilated Americans, and being of a royalist inclination might well help the British — and ultimately wrest from the infant republic the whole of the Louisiana Purchase made from Bonaparte ten years before.

  Most ominous of all was the news from Montreal, brought by American spies, that fourteen thousand British veterans of the Peninsular Campaign in Spain and Portugal were being disembarked there, under the command of General Sir John Prevost, to take the route of the Hudson into New York itself. This then, was what they had all known must one day happen — save that as Congress had feared, this army was twice the size of that commanded by Burgoyne thirty-seven years before, and more than twice as experienced and well armed.

  ‘Yet they cannot reach the Hudson save by way of the lake, General,’ McDonough told the thoroughly alarmed Macomb. ‘Not without abandoning their guns and supply trains.’

  ‘Then do you put out and destroy that British squadron, Mr McDonough,’ the General said. ‘It was what you have always wanted to do. Now I am giving you permission.’

  ‘With respect, sir,’ McDonough replied, ‘I must decline. Our chances of doing that with success no longer exist. Four months ago that would have been our best course. Now I think your original orders to stand on the defensive represent our only course.’

  ‘You refuse to lead your ships into battle? By God, sir, I should have you arrested as a coward and a disgrace to the uniform you wear.’

  ‘I refuse to lead my ships to certain destruction, General Macomb,’ McDonough replied evenly. ‘We will carry out our instructions, and bar the passage across the lake to the British. By standing on the defensive.’

  ‘Standing on the defensive?’ Macomb cried, and flung out his arm to point at his cantonments. ‘I have but four thousand half-trained men there, sir …’

  McDonough sighed. It seemed that Macomb’s men were doomed to remain half-trained forever.

  ‘ … and Prevost has fourteen thousand regulars. Fourteen thousand, by God! And you say I must hold Plattsburg?’

  ‘Sir John Prevost will know, sir, that even if he defeats you, he cannot proceed down the lake and across the wilderness without water transport. That transport must use the lake. As long as my squadron is intact, it cannot do so. Therefore Downie must seek to destroy my squadron first. He must come to us, in this instance, and that is the only way we can defeat him, as he possesses the larger ships. I do most earnestly beg you to consider these points, sir.’

  Macomb frowned at him. ‘And when he comes, you think you will defeat him?’

  McDonough looked him in the eye. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘Or I will die trying. And so will my people.’

  *

  ‘Words,’ he commented to Toby, as they surveyed their tiny fleet, anchored within the protecting arm of Cumberland Head.

  ‘But strategically sound words,’ Toby reminded him. He was feeling personally elated. He had written to Felicity the previous autumn, sending the letter with the last despatches able to go south before winter set in, and had received no reply. He had not expected one before the spring, but there had been none then either, and he had written again the moment the river was usable. But still there had been no reply, and as the summer had worn on he had become somewhat alarmed. If the British had been so bold as to penetrate into Chesapeake Bay, landing a marauding force on Long Island would mean nothing to them.

  But yesterday a letter and a package had at last arrived. It had been sent before the destruction of Washington, but up to then at any rate all was peaceful around New York, save for the blockade, just as all was well with the farm and the family — and in addition, as he had told her he was now once again a lieutenant, albeit an acting one, she had got out and pressed that uniform which
had hung in his closet for nine years, and sent it to him. He was wearing it now, delighted to find that it still very nearly fitted him. Certainly he felt totally confident.

  ‘Now, Tom,’ he said, ‘all we have to do is make sure we can beat Downie when he comes.’

  ‘As if any man could ever foretell the course of a naval battle,’ McDonough sighed.

  ‘Well … one or two have tried, with some success. Nelson, for instance. He tried to envisage how each battle might go and worked out his tactics in advance, so he hardly had to give an order during the actual action.’

  McDonough nodded. ‘Sure. And he had the whole wide occean on which to manoeuvre, all the wind he could use, and a fleet of the very finest seamen in the world. What have we got, Toby? A stretch of water so narrow that if you forget where you are for an instant you’re aground; hardly any wind with which to manoeuvre our ships; and crews consisting of river pirates, for the most part.

  ‘Our only advantage, if it can be called an advantage, lies in those culverins, we’ll be able to hit Downie before he can hit us. But you know as well as I that culverins at extreme range aren’t going to stop a well-found ship. And when he gets close and can use his car-ronades … It’s going to be an old-fashioned killing match at point blank range, in which he will have both the heavier metal and the more experienced crews.’

  ‘I reckon we have sufficient advantages to outweigh all of that,’ Toby argued. ‘You say Nelson always had the wind and the sea at his disposal. But that surely made the battle, where it would be fought and in what conditions, the more unpredictable. We at least know exactly where our battle is going to be fought; right here in this bay — simply because Downie dare not sail past us and give us the opportunity to rush out at his transports. Then, we also know the battle will be fought in very light airs; Downie isn’t going to chance his arm in these shoal waters if there is the slightest prospect of a thunderstorm or a squall. That means everything is going to happen in slow motion, as regards working the ships.’

  ‘Which merely gives the British more time to smash us with their heavy guns,’ McDonough pointed out. But he was looking distinctly happier. ‘Our best chance is to put out as soon as we know he is coming, and take our chances.’

  ‘No,’ Toby said vehemently. ‘That would be suicidal. Make him come to us on our terms, Tom.’

  ‘And when he gets close?’

  ‘Well … what about begging some shore-based cannon off Macomb?’

  ‘I could try it. But don’t you suppose Prevost is smart enough to attack both on land and sea at the same time? We must assume that he is, anyway. Macomb will need those guns to hold Plattsburg. No, Toby, however you look at it, we are going to be shot to pieces once Downie gets in this bay. If only we had even two more ships … our culverins may be lighter metal, but if we had enough of them …’

  Toby snapped his fingers. ‘You shall have four more ships, Tom.’

  McDonough stared at him.

  ‘At least, you will have the fire-power of four more ships,’ Toby said, grinning. ‘Aren’t we going to fight this battle at anchor, in almost windless conditions? That means, after each broadside, the English have to either reload, or wear ship. Each of those is going to take several minutes. While we …’

  McDonough’s face slowly broke into a smile in return. ‘Kedges, by God,’ he shouted.

  ‘And springs,’ Toby reminded him. ‘There’ll be a set.’ Because even on the lake, when the winds had been blowing in one direction for several days, as they invariably did, a current was set up along the wind direction. ‘Properly cabled, I reckon we can wear ship twice before any vessel under sail can even begin to come about.’

  ‘By God!’ McDonough said again. He got up, walked to and fro, snapping his fingers. ‘We’ll have the use of four extra broadsides in seconds. Properly timed …’

  ‘Oh, aye, timing is the secret,’ Toby agreed. ‘And then, concentration of overwhelming firepower. That is the whole secret of warfare, Tom. Maybe we’ve a thing or two to teach the Limeys yet.’

  *

  August dwindled into September, and the Americans waited. But now they did not waste their time, as McDonough had them at gunnery practice six hours a day. He could not let them actually shoot — he lacked the powder and he did not wish to alert the British — but he trained them at loading and reloading their guns until Toby doubted there could be any more efficient crews in the world. But in addition they also practised the kedging manoeuvre, until every man knew just what he had to do, and each ship could turn itself completely about in thirty seconds. Here Barclay was at his best, and he personally selected the foredeck squad for each vessel, in charge of the vital business of cutting the main cables at precisely the right moment.

  The men’s morale was tremendous, as they realised not only that there was going to be a fight, but their officers had determined upon how to win it. This confidence was not shared by the army. No one on the shore had the slightest doubt, either, that the British intended to attack them, and soon. Their scouts reported an immense camp being set up close to Rouses Point, and that the British ships were daily out exercising. Rumour as to the strength of the opposing army was rife, and the militia were quite obviously terrified. Macomb daily became more agitated, and it was all McDonough could do to prevent him abandoning the fieldworks at Plattsburg and retreating to the Hudson.

  ‘By God, sir, Mr McDonough,’ he growled. ‘If you are wrong, and cannot defeat the British squadron, the defeat of the entire United States will rest squarely upon your shoulders.’

  ‘To retreat without fighting, General, would be the same as a defeat,’ McDonough insisted. ‘And if we check them here, why … will not the honour of saving the United States rest squarely on …’ he decided to be diplomatic, ‘our shoulders?’

  On the 7 September, an Indian appeared in the American encampment, bearing a message for ‘Commodore McDonough and his officers, especially Lieutenant McGann.’

  ‘From Downie,’ McDonough commented, slitting the envelope. ‘He is too kind to give me such an exalted rank. Ha! He sends his regards, and wishes to inform us that he will soon be paying us a visit. Well, well; quite the chivalrous foe. But what’s this? There is indeed a special reference to you, Toby, a challenge within a challenge, so to speak, from a certain Lieutenant Jonathan Crown.’ He frowned. ‘The name is familiar. Do we know such a fellow?’

  ‘You met him on board HMS Lancer, off Martinique, fourteen years ago,’ Toby told him. ‘He is now my brother-in-law.’

  ‘The devil,’ McDonough remarked.

  ‘Oh, indeed,’ Toby agreed. ‘He loathes me as much as I loathe him. But … after fourteen years, he is still only a lieutenant, and he has been serving continuously, and been at war, throughout that time? Well, that sums him up.’

  ‘He seems to wish your blood.’

  ‘If he comes too close, I shall have his,’ Toby vowed. ‘The man is an arrogant fool.’ But although he meant what he said, his heart had given a great lurch. This possibility, that he might one day find himself opposed to his own brother-in-law, had haunted him since he had first returned to the service. He had always supposed it would happen on the ocean, in a contest between two great ships. To have it happen here in the back of beyond, where no one even knew what they were about …

  McDonough grinned, and slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Well, at least we know we can prepare.’

  Which they did, with great care. As the wind was out of the north-east, and however light, had been so for several days, the ships were anchored with their bows in that direction. But from the bows, also, the kedge anchors were carried out, astern, to the extent of just sufficient cable to be certain the anchors held. The bower cables were secured on deck, and the kedge cables carried down to the capstans. But in addition, springer cables were attached to the bowers, so that the kedges also could be let go and the ships turned a second time, so that the squadron would indeed turn right round twice, in virtually the same positions, in a
matter of seconds.

  ‘But remember,’ McDonough told his men, ‘the enemy must not know, must not even suspect, our intention. He must be brought close by acceptance of his fire and our apparent adherence to ordinary tactics. If he smells a rat and puts about, we are done; he will not fall for such a ruse again.’

  Three days later their scouts brought news that the British were definitely preparing to move. Macomb sounded the alarm, and his unhappy men filed out to take their places behind their earthworks, amidst a great deal of noise, as if they were whistling in the dark. Toby and McDonough went ashore to inspect the situation, and were not encouraged; the militiamen were in a state of high, almost hysterical, excitement, and Toby suspected there was a deal too much liquor circulating through the ranks — no frame of mind in which to oppose regulars.

  The seamen, despite their hints that what was good enough for the army was equally necessary for them, were as usual refused all alcohol. But Toby had no doubt they would fight, and fight well, partly from a desire to fight, after all the weary months of waiting, and partly because they felt sure of victory. They slept by their guns, and next morning, just after dawn, they could hear, seeping across the stillness of the forest, the regular drum beat of the British infantry as it moved out.

  Now even McDonough became agitated. ‘Can Prevost mean to assault the fortress without sending in the ships?’ he demanded. Because, although he had not dared tell Macomb this, such a tactic, followed by a British victory on land, while it would still leave his squadron controlling the lake, would also leave it in an untenable position, without a shore base.

  ‘Not him,’ Toby said reassuringly. ‘Look over there.’ He pointed at Cumberland Head itself, where the lookout they had posted was signalling, ‘Enemy in sight.’

  ‘Thank God for that,’ McDonough said. ‘Gentlemen, to your posts.’

  The culverins were loaded and run out. The galleys took their places further down the bay, where they could engage British stragglers but also could run for cover should the battle go against the Americans. And now they could see the masts and sails of the Confiance and her three consorts, just carrying steerage way in the very light airs. Conditions were even better than Toby could have hoped; in this calm it would take half an hour to wear a ship under sail alone. But the wind was from the east, and however light, would still bring the enemy into the bay for that old-fashioned killing match at point blank range so dear to the hearts of the Royal Navy. Had not Nelson himself laid down the maxim, ‘No captain can go very wrong if he lays his ship alongside that of an enemy.’