by David Weber
He paused in his pacing and beckoned Gaither to his side.
"Yes, sir?"
"Lieutenant Jansen needs more men. General Cornwallis has supplied ample labor and a battalion to picket each battery, but Jansen needs more gunners. Instruct the Gunner to select a half-dozen gun captains—men with experience using heated shot."
"Yes, sir. I'll see to it at once."
"Thank you." Paul nodded brusquely and resumed his pacing as Gaither summoned a midshipman. He heard the lieutenant giving the lad quiet instructions, but his mind was back on the scene he'd just left ashore.
It was August 25, 1781. His squadron had taken the better part of nine days to reach Chesapeake Bay, but he'd picked up two more of the line along the way, having met the old sixty-gun Panther in the Caicos Passage, and the seventy-four Russel, bound for New York after repairing damages at Antigua, off the Georgia coast. Jasper Somers, Russel's captain, was barely two months junior to Paul, and he had been less than pleased by the latter's peremptory order to join Torbay. Paul hadn't blamed Somers, though that hadn't prevented him from commandeering Russel with profound relief. But welcome as her guns were, the ship accompanying her to New York had been even more welcome. HMS Serapis had brought him luck once before; perhaps she would do so again.
Something had better do so. He had five of the line, counting Panther (which was considerably older than he was), plus Serapis, the forty-four Charon (which he'd found anchored off Yorktown with the small frigates Guadalupe and Fowey and the tiny sloop Bonetta), and Westman's Lark. That was all, whereas de Grasse must have at least twenty sail of the line. That force could smash Paul's cobbled up command in an hour, and he knew it.
But he also knew General Rochambeau and the rebel Washington were headed south with far more men and artillery than Cornwallis could muster. If de Grasse could command the bay long enough for the Franco-American army to crush Yorktown, the consequences would be catastrophic. Efforts against the rebellion had been botched again and again, and support back home had weakened with each failure. Personally, Paul suspected the colonies were lost whatever happened, and the sooner the Crown admitted it, the better. America wasn't Ireland. There was an entire ocean between Britain and her rebellious colonists, and they couldn't be disarmed with the wilderness pressing so close upon them. Besides, England couldn't possibly field a large enough army to hold them down by force forever.
But personal doubt didn't change the duty of a King's officer. And even if it could have, the war was no longer solely about America. It might have started there, but England now faced the French, the Dutch, the Spanish. . . . The entire world had taken up arms against Paul's country. One more major defeat might seal not only the fate of North America but of England herself, and Washington, at least, grasped that point thoroughly. He'd wanted the French fleet to support an attack on the main British base at New York, but de Grasse's letters made it clear he could come no further north than the Chesapeake. Apparently Louis XVI's willingness to aid his American "allies" did not extend to uncovering his own Caribbean possessions or convoys.
None of which would make a successful combination against Cornwallis any less of a calamity, and Paul's jaw clenched. He respected Rodney deeply, but the last year had not been Sir George's finest. True, his health was atrocious, but his absorption in the capture of St. Eustatius from the Dutch and his inexplicable refusal to force an engagement in June, following de Grasse's capture of Tobago, had set the stage for the present danger.
Without control of American waters, we can't possibly wear the rebels down, Paul thought grimly, and if the Frogs can win sea control here, they may take control of the Channel, as well. Holding it would be another matter, but they only require control long enough to land an army. And the only way to ensure that they can't is to smash their fleet—which means fighting them at every possible opportunity, even at unfavorable odds. Those who will not risk, cannot win. Hawke understood that, and so should Rodney!
He shook himself. Rodney did understand, but he was a sick man who had been given reason to believe de Grasse was bound back to Europe, escorting a major French convoy. That was why he'd elected to return to England himself and sent Sir Samuel Hood to assume command at New York after Admiral Graves' unexpected death, with only fourteen of the line as reinforcements. But Rodney's intelligence sources had been wrong . . . and Sir John Paul was the senior officer who knew it.
That made it his responsibility to act. He could have taken his captured letters to New York, but Hood had strongly endorsed Rodney's estimate of de Grasse's intentions, and he was renowned for his stubbornness. Changing his mind could require days England might no longer have, and so Paul had taken matters into his own hands. He would compel Hood to sail for the Chesapeake by taking his own small force there and sending dispatches to announce what he'd done.
Samuel Hood was arrogant, stiff-necked, and contentious, but he was also a fighter who would have no choice but to sail south once he learned Paul had committed a mere five of the line to a fight to the death against an entire fleet. If Paul's estimate of de Grasse's intentions proved wrong, he could always be punished later. If it proved correct, Hood's failure to relieve him would be an ineradicable blot on not only his personal honor but that of the navy itself.
Paul drew a deep breath and walked to the side, looking out at his command. To a landsman, his ships must look small and fragile, isolated from one another as each lay to a pair of anchors, but he saw with a seaman's eye. The mouth of the Chesapeake was ten miles wide, and no squadron this small could cover it all. Yet for all its size, the shallow bay was a dangerous place for deep-draft ships-of-the-line. Paul didn't have to block its entire entrance: only the parts of it de Grasse's heavy ships could use.
That was why Russel and Charon were anchored between the shoals known as the Middle Ground and the Inner Middle Ground, blocking the channel there, while Triumph, Panther, Serapis, Prince William, and Torbay blocked the wider channel between the Inner Middle Ground and the shoal called the Tail of the Horseshoe. And because they had anchored on springs—heavy hawsers led from each ship's capstan out an after gunport and thence to her anchor cable, so that tightening or loosening them pivoted her in place—they could turn to fire full broadsides at any Frenchmen attempting to force the channels.
Unfortunately, there were two other ways into the bay. One, the North Channel, between the Middle Ground and Fisherman's Island at the north side of the entrance, was no great threat. Landing parties and detachments from Cornwallis' army had emplaced twelve of Prince William's twenty-four-pounders—and furnaces to heat shot for them—on the island, and the channel was narrow enough for them to command easily.
The southern side of the Bay's entrance was more dangerous. Lynnhaven Roads, inside Cape Henry, was shallow, but it would suffice. Indeed, it was in most ways an ideal anchorage: sheltered by the cape, yet close enough to open water for a fleet to sortie quickly if an enemy approached. But Paul's ships were stretched as thinly as he dared blocking the channels; he couldn't possibly bar Lynnhaven Roads as well.
What he could do was place a second battery on the western side of Cape Henry, although Lieutenant Jansen was finding it difficult to mount his guns. Simply ferrying them ashore was hard enough, for the battery consisted of thirty-two-pounders from the seventy-fours. Each gun weighed over two and a half tons, but only their three-thousand-yard range could hope to cover the water between the cape and Torbay, and at least Jansen had finally found a place to site them.
I've done all I can, Paul told himself, gazing out at the boats pulling back and forth across the water. Something must be left to chance in a fight . . . and simply finding us waiting for him should at least make de Grasse cautious. I hope.
He shook himself as the ship's bell chimed eight times to announce the turn of the forenoon watch. His stomach growled as the bell reminded it he'd missed breakfast yet again, and he grinned wryly and took himself below in search of a meal.
"It would appear you w
ere correct, Sir John," Captain Somers said quietly, five days later.
He and Paul stood gazing at a chart of the Chesapeake while Torbay creaked softly around them, and Commander Westman stood to one side. Fitting that Westman should be the one to sight de Grasse's approach, a corner of Paul's brain mused, but it was a distant thought beside the strength estimate Lark had brought him.
Twenty-eight of the line. Six times his strength, and no sign of Hood. It was one thing to know his duty, he found; it was quite another to know a desperately unequal battle which had been only a probability that morning had become a certainty by evening.
"What d'you expect them to do?" Somers asked, and Paul rubbed his chin, eyes fixed on the chart in the candlelight.
"They'll scout first," he said. "For all de Grasse knows, we're the entire New York squadron. But he won't need long to determine our actual strength, and I expect he'll try a quick attack then. He'll have the flood only until the end of the morning watch; after that, the ebb will make the channels even shallower."
"Um." It was Somers' turn to rub his chin, then nod. "I think you're right," he said, and grinned suddenly. "I was none too pleased when you pressed my ship, Sir John. Now—"
He shrugged, grinning more broadly, and held out his hand.
The morning was cool but carried promise of yet another scorching afternoon as Paul came on deck. Although the ship had cleared for action before dawn, he'd taken time for a leisurely breakfast. It hadn't been easy to sit and eat with obvious calm, but this would be a long day, and he would need all his energy. Even more importantly, Torbay's crew must know he was so confident he'd seen no reason to skip a meal.
If only they knew the truth, he mused, and glanced at the masthead commission pendant to check the wind. Still from the west-southwest. Good. That would make it more difficult for any Frenchman to creep around Cape Henry into Lynnhaven Roads.
He lowered his eyes to the guard boats pulling for their mother ships. The French were scarcely noted for initiative in such matters, but in de Grasse's shoes Paul would certainly have attempted a boat attack, for the French squadron had more than enough men and small craft to swamp his vessels. However unlikely Frenchmen were to make such an attempt, he'd had no option but to guard against the possibility, and he hoped de Grasse would delay long enough for those boat crews to get some rest.
He looked up once more to where Lieutenant Gaither perched in the mizzen crosstrees. Paul would have preferred to be up there himself, but that would have revealed too much anxiety, and so he had to wait while Gaither peered through his telescope. It seemed to take forever, though it could actually have been no more than ten minutes before Gaither started down. He reached the deck quickly, and Paul raised an eyebrow in silent question.
"More than half of them are still hull down to the east-sou'east, sir," Gaither replied, "but a dozen of the line—all two-deckers, I believe—and two frigates are four or five miles east of Cape Henry. As nearly as I can estimate, their course is west-nor'west and they're making good perhaps four knots."
"I see." Paul rubbed his chin. De Grasse's maneuvers showed more caution than he'd dared hope for. He himself would have closed with all the force he had, yet he had to admit that, properly handled, a dozen of the line would more than suffice to destroy his squadron.
Assuming, of course, that the French knew what to do with them.
He squinted up at the cloudless sky. The flood would continue to make for another three hours, during which the rising tide would be available to refloat a ship which touched bottom coming in. In his enemy's place, Paul would have begun the attack the moment the tide began making, but it seemed the French had no desire to attack. Their course was for the North Channel, apparently in order to exploit the "unguarded" chink in Paul's defenses rather than risk engaging his outnumbered, anchored ships. Yet it would take them at least three hours just to reach the channel, and when they got there . . .
"Thank you, Mr. Gaither," he said after a moment, and his cold, thin smile made the quarterdeck gunners nudge one another with confident grins. He could be a right bastard, the Captain. He had a tongue that could flay a man like the cat itself, and he used it with a will. But that very sharpness lent his praise even more weight, when he gave it, and the storm or fight that could best him had never been made.
Lieutenant Wallace Hastings of HMS Russel and his work parties had labored frantically for six days to build the battery. In fact, he'd never thought they could finish it in time, but people had a way of not disappointing Sir John. Or, at least, of not disappointing him more than once. And so now Hastings and his gun crews—each with a core of naval gunners eked out by artillerists from Lord Cornwallis' army—waited as another slow, thunderous broadside rippled down Russel's side.
Water seethed as the roundshot slashed into the sea like an avalanche. They landed far short of the thirty-six-gun frigate gliding up the North Channel under topsails and jib, but the Frenchman altered course still further towards the east to give the seventy-four a wider berth. Which just happened to bring him less than six hundred yards from Hastings' gun muzzles.
It had been Sir John's idea to disguise the battery's raw earth with cut greenery. Personally, Hastings had never expected it to work, but it seemed he'd been wrong. More probably, Russel's ostentatious efforts had riveted the French ship's attention, distracting her lookouts from the silent shore under her lee. Whatever the explanation, she was a perfect target for Hastings' gunners. Accustomed to the unsteadiness of a warship's pitching deck, they'd find hitting a ship moving at barely two knots from a rock-steady battery child's play. But Sir John's orders had been specific, and Hastings let the frigate slide past unchallenged, then spoke to the man beside him.
"We'll load in ten minutes, Mr. Gray," he told Russel's gunner, never taking his eyes from the first French seventy-four following in the frigate's wake.
It was impossible for Paul to see what was happening from his position at the extreme southern end of his anchored formation, but the rumble of Russel's broadsides said his plan seemed to be working. Now if only—
His steady pacing stopped as fresh thunder grumbled from the north.
The twenty-four-pounder lurched back, spewing flame and a stinking fogbank of smoke. Russel's gunner had spent five minutes laying that gun with finicky precision, and Hastings' eyes glittered as the totally unexpected shot struck below the seventy-four's forechains and sudden consternation raged across the Frenchman's deck. The fools hadn't even cleared their starboard guns for action!
Smoke wisped up as the red-hot shot blasted deep into bone-dry timbers, and panic joined consternation as the French crew realized they were under attack with heated shot. And that the British gunners had estimated their range perfectly.
"Load!" Hastings snapped, and sweating men maneuvered shot cradles carefully, tipping fat, incandescent iron spheres down the guns' bores. Steam hissed as they hit the water-soaked wads protecting the powder charges, and the gun crews moved with purposeful speed, making final adjustments before that sizzling iron could touch their pieces off prematurely. Hand after hand rose along the battery, announcing each gun's readiness, and Hastings inhaled deeply.
"Fire!" he barked, and twelve guns bellowed as one.
The French seventy-four Achille quivered as more iron crashed into her, and rattling drums sent gun crews dashing from larboard to starboard. They cast off breech ropes, fighting to get their guns into action, but the hidden battery had taken Achille utterly by surprise, and men shouted in panic as flames began to lick from the red-hot metal buried in her timbers. Bucket parties tried desperately to douse the fires, but the surprise was too great, time was too short . . . and the British aim was too good. Not one shot had missed, and panic became terror as woodsmoke billowed. The flames that followed were pale in the bright sunlight, but they roared up the ship's tarred rigging like demons, and the horrible shrieks of men on fire, falling from her tops, finished off any discipline she might have clung to.
Officers shouted and beat at men with the flats of their swords, battling to restore order, but it was useless. In less than six minutes, Achille went from a taut, efficient warship to a doomed wreck whose terror-crazed crewmen flung themselves desperately into the water even though most had never learned to swim.
Achille's next astern, the sixty-eight Justice, managed to clear away her starboard guns, but the battery's earthen rampart easily absorbed her hasty broadside, and then the British guns thundered back. Every naval officer knew no ship could fight a well-sited shore battery, and Hastings smiled savagely as he and his men set out to demonstrate why.
"Captain Somers' compliments, sir, and the enemy have been beaten off!"
The fourteen-year-old midshipman was breathless from his rapid climb up Torbay's side, and the seamen in his boat slumped over their oars, gasping after their long, hard pull, but every one of them wore a huge grin, like an echo of the cheers which had gone up from each ship as the boat swept by her.