The Leeward Islands Squadron, page 28
part #2 of Carlisle & Holbrooke Series
‘You have a double load of chain shot in the starboard battery, Mister Holbrooke?’
‘Yes, sir. Chain shot to starboard, round shot to larboard.’
***
The sun’s upper rim was just piercing the horizon. The volcano to starboard was caught in a noose of light, turning the ash-grey slopes to pinks and oranges, each lava gully showing up in stark relief against the long morning shadows. A shoal of flying fish broke the surface on the larboard quarter, the very best of omens for Carlisle. He watched as the last one lost height and, with its fins folded against its flanks, slipped back into its watery realm. Carlisle dearly loved to see flying fish.
‘Sail ho! Sail on the starboard bow, five miles or so sir. It looks like a frigate.’
Every man on deck stood stock-still, fearing that by moving they would miss the exchange between their captain and that most lucky of able seamen.
‘Is there any sign of the schooner, Whittle?’ replied Carlisle.
‘Nothing sir, no schooner.’
That was disappointing. The first hitch in the plan. If the schooner was not with the frigate, then where was she? But the frigate was true to her time. She would be taking the most direct route to Martinique, and that led five miles off Montserrat.
‘Deck ho! I see the schooner now sir. She is close under the lee of the frigate. You can just see her foremast over the frigate’s bowsprit. It looks like Scorpion.’
Carlisle breathed a sigh of relief. It was not essential to re-take Scorpion – sailing into English Harbour with a French frigate behind her would be quite enough glory for Medina and her captain. But the absence of the schooner meant that the Frenchman would have less constraint on his tactics in the coming fight. He would not have to worry about his defenceless charge and could concentrate wholly on fighting Medina.
‘Mister Hosking, two points to starboard if you please. Then a course to take me close under that frigate’s bow.’
‘Aye-aye sir.’ Hosking rubbed his hands in pleasure at the coming fight.
The Frenchman would undoubtedly see what Carlisle intended, but he had the disadvantage of being to leeward – Carlisle had the weather-gage, and at least in this opening phase, he could decide when and how the combat should be opened. The Frenchman had to react to Carlisle’s opening move, and it was Carlisle’s clear task to deceive him for as long as he could.
Medina was running free with the north-westerly trade wind right on her stern, the wind and waves making almost no sound on this point of sailing. She was stripped down to fighting rig; topsails and staysails, the lower yards chained and puddened and the splinter nets rigged. In the general silence, the sanded decks crunched under the feet of the officers while the men at the swivel guns nervously swung their weapons on their mounts. Hook’s marines provided bright patches of red where they were distributed in the tops and along the hammock nets.
‘She’s hauling her wind sir.’ said Hosking.
‘Very well. Let’s give her something to think about. Come half a point to starboard as though I am determined to pass her larboard to larboard.’
‘Mister Holbrooke, we have a chance to hit her hard with the starboard battery. She won’t want to come off the wind and let us get around her stern, so I believe she will try to force us further to the north. She has about two more points that she can turn to larboard.’
‘Mister Hosking, you see the situation? Let her believe she is forcing us to starboard.’
‘Aye-aye sir.’ He turned to the quartermaster, ‘give her half a point to starboard, Eli then hold her there.’
‘Half a point to starboard it is sir.’
The French frigate moved a little more to larboard of the bowsprit, and she could be seen turning closer to the wind.
‘Not wishing to tempt fate, Mister Holbrooke, Mister Hosking,’ said Carlisle privately crossing his fingers behind his back, ‘but if he continues to follow us around until he is hard on the wind, I will wait until our bowsprits are almost touching and turn to larboard. We must pass very close to take advantage of our double-shotted guns. But make no mistake gentlemen, she will be ready to fire also. I only hope that most of her gun crews are attending to the larboard battery.’
***
The two frigates, equal in size and armament, rushed together at a combined closing speed of fourteen knots. What had been a distant prospect from the deck of Medina rapidly became a solid reality, just twenty minutes from first sighting to the now-inevitable engagement. Holbrooke looked around the deck, nodded to the bosun and then made a closer study of the men at his guns. Everything was ready, and there was no need to disturb them with unnecessary orders. He was forcibly reminded of Henry IV’s speech before the walls of Harfleur; I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips. That phrase had real meaning today as he looked at the gun crews. They were eager for battle, just waiting for the word to unleash their fire and destruction on the enemy. ‘Now, if we can just preserve that spirit to the end of the business, even when guns are dismounted, half of the men are down, and the deck is slippery with blood. If they can still be so eager to fight then, nothing can stand against us,’ he thought. He remembered previous occasions when he had gone into battle with Captain Carlisle. The three times they had fought Vulcain, a much bigger ship than their old Fury. How his soul had been stirred as he saw Fury hurtling into that last engagement, how his heart had nearly stopped when the battle turned against Carlisle, and his snap decision to throw his pitifully small crew of the tender Chiara into the fray. Only he knew how close he had come to turning away and beating back to Gibraltar, although his crew may have guessed, and that was a guilty thought that he would take to his grave.
‘What did I learn that day?’ He had thought about it so often in the past year that the conclusions seemed to merge. Training, preparation, tactical thought, morale; all these were important, but the key point was burned into his consciousness. It was the key to winning a sea fight and the key to naval preferment if you were not fortunate enough to have strong patronage or interest. ‘Boldness, that is the key to winning,’ he remembered. ‘When you have prepared yourself, your men and your ship for combat, at the end you must be prepared to roll the dice. To charge when others urge caution, to turn at bay when all about you cry retreat, to throw in your own life as you would the last chip in a game of hazard.’ The very recollection of his new life’s principle stiffened him, and another look at the gun crews reassured him. They were ready.
Holbrooke looked up and saw that the frigate was a mere mile away now. Yes, it was the same ship that they crippled a week ago. She had a new bowsprit; the lighter colour of the wood flashed in the slanting dawn sunlight. But it was noticeably too short for the rest of the rig, and it would give their opponent a tendency to gripe, for the bows to continually seek the wind. Apart from the strain on the steersmen, it meant that she would be slow in stays and may prefer veering to tacking. What was the port admiral thinking when he sent this half-repaired ship out? Perhaps he believed this was a simple escort task, with little chance of meeting the enemy. Well, he was about to be proved wrong. Holbrooke turned to point this out to his captain but saw that he had already seen it and was discussing the implications with Hosking, pointing to starboard.
‘Mister Holbrooke,’ shouted Carlisle urgently. ‘Stand by the larboard battery, I’m going to force her to tack or to show us her stern. Either way, we have a chance to rake her. The chain shot will do at that range.’
The nearest gun crews had already heard the captain, but discipline held them in place until Holbrooke bellowed, ‘larboard battery, men. Out quoins, aim high but wait for the word.’
There was a rush of feet as the crews ran to the other side of the deck. This is where discipline and preparation told. Each pair of guns, larboard and starboard, had only a single crew, but each crew had two captains. It was the duty of the second captain to have the disengaged gun ready for immediate use so that when the gun crew stepped across the deck from the opposite side, everything was in order; the gun loaded, the sponges and rammers in their places, the linstock with its slow match waiting in its tub. The second captains didn’t disappoint him; they were knocking out the quoins, increasing the elevation of the guns, even as the crews slotted easily into their allotted places.
‘If he holds his course, the captain will cross his bow and force him to tack or veer,’ he called down to his men. ‘Either we will destroy the captain’s cabin, or we’ll make a mess of his new bowsprit.’
That raised a cheer. It was an interesting question; how much do you tell the men? It could have a harmful effect on morale if they knew the plan and it doesn’t work. ‘No plan survives contact with the enemy,’ was another important principle that Holbrooke held close. But in this case, it was hard to see what else the Frenchman could do. If he bore away now, at this pace, he was just asking for Medina to cross his stern. And in any case, he was probably not capable of bearing away quickly with that short bowsprit.
Closer now, and Holbrooke could see every detail of the Frenchman’s bows. The bowsprit was new, but the jib-boom was utterly absent. Holbrooke could imagine what had happened in the yard. The shipwrights had fitted the bowsprit and were waiting for the new cap and saddle iron to be forged before they replaced the jib-boom, but the frigate was sent to sea before those essential pieces of ironwork were ready. Holbrooke thought that he would have lashed the jib-boom in place if he had been sent to sea in that state. It was a tricky job and only a short-term fix, but it was well within the capabilities of a competent bosun.
Holbrooke felt rather than saw Medina turn to starboard. The Frenchman hesitated and then put down his helm to tack. That would have been a useful manoeuvre if they had the leverage of a jib to haul the bows right through the eye of the wind and onto the starboard tack. As it was, the French frigate flew into the wind very quickly but was reluctant to pay off on the new course. A party of a dozen fo’c’sle hands were hauling the clew of the fore topmast staysail out to starboard, but the ship responded very slowly. They weren’t exactly caught in irons, but they were helpless against the manoeuvrable, well-handled frigate that was Medina. Holbrooke looked back at the quarterdeck and could see Carlisle’s intention. He was going to cross the Frenchman’s bows at very short range, taking advantage of his inability to come off the wind to bring his battery to bear.
‘Fire as you bear,’ shouted Holbrooke as Medina rushed across her adversary’s bows.
Number two gun roared, followed by all the remainder of the battery in rapid succession as they saw their target. The range was less than half a cable, and they couldn’t miss, even with the target moving rapidly left. With the quoins removed and Medina heeling to larboard, the guns were pointing about ten degrees above the horizontal. The chain shot hurled itself against the beakhead and the spars, the rigging and the sails, tearing great rents wherever it passed. The new bowsprit miraculously survived, but the forestay and fore topmast stay parted, and the beakhead was shattered. Until they rigged new stays forward, the ship would be unmanageable. All they could do was strip the main and mizzen masts of their sails and run to leeward under the foresail and fore-topsail. Anything else would surely bring their fore topmast down. By sheer good fortune, Medina’s larboard battery had been loaded with chain shot. It had been intended to disable the schooner leaving Medina free to deal with the frigate, but the order had been reversed, and now it was the frigate that was disabled while the schooner awaited their attention.
A great cheer came from Medina. The Frenchman had not managed to fire a single shot in retaliation, and now her gun crews would be busy repairing the destruction to her bows. Medina ran on to the northwest; Carlisle was intent on preventing the schooner from escaping. The frigate could wait, in any case, she could hardly evade Medina on this crystal clear day with only the broad Caribbean under her lee and twelve hours to sunset.
***
31: Scorpion
Sunday, thirteenth of February 1757
Medina, at Sea, off Montserrat
Carlisle shouted across the quarterdeck. ‘Veer ship, Mister Hosking, lay me a cable to windward of Scorpion.’
‘Aye-aye sir,’ replied the sailing master.
Carlisle studied the schooner. He would dearly love to know how many mutineers had been left aboard and how many French sailors had been drafted in. The Frenchmen could fire a gun for the honour of their King before striking their colours, but the leaders of the mutineers would be fighting for their very lives. A court martial may find ways to pardon the majority, but any that were found to have instigated the mutiny, or taken an active leadership role, would inevitably swing from a yardarm in English Harbour.
Scorpion was a mile away and running fast to the southeast. She had come up a little, and it looked like she was heading for the nearest French territory, probably Guadeloupe. Montserrat was closer, but she would have to get past Medina to reach the dubious safety of that small island. If she could make it to Guadeloupe, she could take shelter under any of the French batteries that were scattered all along the western side, even if she couldn’t reach the protected road of Basse Terre at the southern end of the island. But it was forty miles to Guadeloupe; she would be lucky to make it by noon, and with the wind abaft the beam, Medina would overhaul her in an hour.
‘Mister Holbrooke, we must take Scorpion as rapidly as possible. Otherwise that gentleman astern will elude us.’ They both looked at the frigate. She was game enough and was running down to protect the schooner. But Carlisle and Holbrooke knew that it was a mere gesture, a point of honour with no tactical substance behind it. Now that the frigate was disabled, and even though her guns were unharmed, Medina was perfectly capable of dealing with both the French vessels, either individually or separately. In her present state, the frigate was, of the two, the least able to make her escape; Carlisle would deal with her once the schooner was re-taken.
‘Captain Carlisle sir.’ It was Godwin; he had found his way onto the quarterdeck. Well, it could do no harm now; the whole ship knew about the mutiny. ‘May I have a prize crew to re-take my ship?’
Now that was something that Carlisle hadn’t anticipated. Of course, Godwin was entirely correct. It was his ship, and until ordered otherwise by the commander-in-chief, he was still the captain. Carlisle knew that but had pushed it to the back of his mind. There was something wrong about it, allowing this man to sail his command back into English Harbour – this man who had so publicly failed in his first duty as a captain of one of His Majesty’s ships. Carlisle paused for a moment and looked at Godwin. Any hint of remorse or apology from Godwin would have won him over, but the wretched man just glowered back at Carlisle, belligerence in every muscle of his tense face. Bringing his ship back into English Harbour would make a difference to the court martial board and could lighten the punishment or even swing the verdict. He had it in his power to aid this man in the difficult days to follow. Any hint of an unbending, the slightest nod towards fellowship would have swayed Carlisle. All this passed through his mind as he stood there, all this and the remembrance of the weakness he had shown in not demanding a court martial for Godwin after the Grenada raid. His decision was made, and in this instance the good of the service and his own inclination perfectly aligned.
‘No sir, you will not return to Scorpion. Leave the deck immediately and return to my day cabin.’
Godwin winced. He opened his mouth to argue, but nothing came out. He stood rooted to the spot. His hesitation was his downfall and led to the final humiliation.
‘Mister Hook,’ he called to the marine lieutenant, without taking his eyes off Godwin’s face. ‘Be so good as to escort Lieutenant Godwin to my day cabin and set a sentry on the door. He is not to leave without my permission.’
He turned back to Godwin. ‘To avoid any further misunderstanding regarding your status, you may consider yourself under arrest.’
***
It was difficult for Carlisle to dismiss from his mind that distasteful encounter with Godwin but banish it he must. Although he had crippled the French frigate, he had not drawn her teeth, and she was still trying to impose herself between Medina and Scorpion. The battle required the captain’s full attention.
‘Mister Holbrooke, are your guns reloaded?’
‘Yes sir, all loaded with round shot.’
‘Then be so good as to join me on the quarterdeck.’
Holbrooke ran up the quarterdeck ladder and remove his hat as he met his captain.
‘You see the situation, Holbrooke. The frigate is still trying to get between Scorpion and us, but Scorpion appears to have no faith in the frigate’s power to protect them and is stretching away for Guadeloupe.’
Holbrooke nodded. The positions of the three ships were entirely clear in this crystal morning. It was quite a shock to see that the sun had not yet risen more than three or four times its diameter above the horizon. As if to confirm that so little time had passed, the ship’s bell tolled three double strokes. It was only seven o’clock, and already they had achieved so much.
‘What I don’t know is whether Scorpion is under the command of mutineers or the French navy. I must give my attention to the frigate, but please study Scorpion and let me know what you see.’
Holbrooke retrieved his telescope from the binnacle. Scorpion was dead ahead at a mile; there was no need to climb into the top, but it was difficult to observe the schooner from the quarterdeck, so he walked forward to the fo’c’sle. From this vantage point, he could see that she appeared to be under regular control. There was a uniformed officer on the quarterdeck and a man at the wheel. He was about to return and report to Carlisle when he saw four men run aft. It looked like an argument; there was a scuffle, he distinctly heard the pop, pop of pistols being fired, and the uniformed man was knocked down. The schooner immediately put down her helm and headed east, close hauled on the larboard tack, closer than Medina could hope to follow her.
