The Sloop and the Seventy-Four
Chapter One
Waiting, twitching, belly acid, tapping the hilt of his sword, checking his pistols in their holsters for the tenth time, the darkness pressing down on the silent longboat.
They must not move any further inshore until the moon rose, a September harvest moon, full and gold, sufficient to light up the whole of the bay clearly enough for their purposes but hopefully inadequate for a shore battery to take a clean aim.
Not, of course, that there were any guns emplaced, they were very nearly certain of that, though the visibility had been poor when they had opened the mouth of the bay.
They would be singing in the church back home, Harvest Festival for the womenfolk and those of the men who could be bothered with church, who weren’t working or at war or down the beerhouse.
‘Bringing in the Sheaves’, that was always sung at this time of year, the choir at its best for some reason – no time for that now, this was no time to let his thoughts drift, there was business and they were a couple of hundred miles away from home.
Eight men rested on the muffled oars, a grapnel down as anchor in the two-fathom water of the tiny cove where they lay hidden.
Four more squatted uncomfortably on the bottom boards, muskets upright; a fifth squeezed in below the tiller where Frederick Harris, master’s mate, sat next to Megson, the captain’s coxswain, sent for his experience gained in the American War.
Frederick peered anxiously at the long arm sticking up almost under his nose – the muzzle-flash of a careless shot would blind him even if the ball missed.
It was uncocked, the hammer flat on the frizzen, the seaman’s hand holding the pan closed, the priming safe.
They had had to load on board by lantern light – foremast hands did not have the soldier’s training in small arms, could not be relied upon to load by feel and instinct in the dark.
The five musketeers would fire a single volley, if necessary, then go in with the boarding axes at their belts.
The short, back-spiked blades, sometimes called tomahawks, could be used equally to slash boarding netting or to rip up an enemy and required little more than enthusiasm in their use; they were good weapons for untrained men, even if a soldier might sneer at them.
There was a skip containing a dozen Sea Service pistols at Frederick’s feet, these with flasks of fine powder and bags of twelve gauge ball for reloads; they would be used later to hold any prisoners docile, but they would not be risked in the dark confusion of a night boarding.
They were inaccurate over any range, best used at one or two paces, and their flintlocks were clumsy, the sears weak, so that they might fire at any knock.
The soft lead ball would batter any man down, wherever it hit, not even a Malay amok would keep coming with one of those in him, but they were weapons for daylight and careful handling.
The oarsmen would use their cutlasses in the coming fight, heavy, curved, slashing blades, clumsy and unbalanced, churned out of the new manufactories in their thousands – cheap, sharp, brittle and immediately replaceable.
Valueless to the swordsman, the cutlass was ideally suited to strong-armed labourers who had cut brush and chopped firewood since boyhood, was a crude, utilitarian tool of battle, lacking elegance and romance but simply efficient.
Frederick approved of the cutlass as a symbol of the new age.
A second boat was waiting behind the opposite headland, smaller, only six oars, a dozen men and a midshipman squeezed into her, ready to follow Frederick down the half mile inlet to the single stone quay next to the shingle where the fishermen drew up.
A small river came down to the sea here, the road on its bank connecting central Brittany to the Channel, a half-dozen small warehouses making a tiny port.
They had spotted a brig tied up, deep-laden, ready to sail and carry more than a convoy of a hundred oxcarts could drag and at least five times quicker.
It was worth the effort of taking this small vessel for the disproportionate disruption it would cause the wartime economy – not to speak of the prize money.
The prize money was not yet vital to Frederick Harris as he came from a family with sufficient capital to give its second son a small income for life, enough that a lieutenant’s half-pay would not be a disaster, though not in itself permitting him to maintain a wife and children in his own order of society.
But he was not a lieutenant yet. Eventually he would need money, a very small fortune, just a couple of thousand to buy a house of seven or eight bedrooms and fifty or sixty acres of farmland, but as yet promotion and glory were more important to an ambitious youth; the cash would naturally follow success, he expected.
The new war against France was to be his chance, the making of a name, rank, title, fame, eventually perhaps a dynasty, but he had to find a start, possibly tonight.
He had eight years of actual sea-going experience, having first gone to sea as a ten year old – ten years on his papers due to book time when he had been falsely mustered on a distant relative’s ship – and he had passed for lieutenant a year previously, during the peace.
He had not been made yet, possibly because of shrewd guesses as to his real age, more likely because of peacetime sloth and lack of opportunity.
He had passed his board as a matter of course – the captains accepting his journals and evidence of at least six years as a midshipman and noting that he seemed to be of eighteen years and was old enough to shave, and unofficially taking cognisance of the fact that he was a gentleman’s son of appropriate dress, deportment and accent.
There had been an oral examination of his seamanship, but it had been cursory, the questions predictable and mugged up in advance – had there been a whiff of the wrong social order the test would have been far more searching – passage through the hawsehole, while still not uncommon, was reserved for grown men of thoroughly proven merit, and they often then found difficulty securing employment, particularly in peacetime wardrooms where skills other than nautical were prized.
For Frederick, though passing his board had been easy, this war had to be his opportunity to actually obtain a commission.
Chances were rare when the family’s purely naval influence was not great, and his consisted solely of a cousin of his mother’s who was a post captain of average virtue, middle-aged on the list and unlikely to hoist his flag at sea, a yellow admiral at best. Frederick’s first promotion, like that of all unfavoured warrant officers, must depend on displayed ability – valour thrust, as it were, under an admiral’s nose – and Pallas, the sloop on which he served, was not ideal for this purpose.
Pallas mounted twelve six-pound long guns and a pair of twelve-pound carronades, ample for the business of commerce raiding and dealing with the average private ship of war, but she was very fast, perfect for dispatches and therefore normally forbidden to hazard herself or delay for any reason – any French she saw she must report and avoid.
Now, detached to the newly refurbished Channel Fleet and on passage from Gibraltar to Portsmouth, carrying nothing and therefore free of restriction, she was taking a minor detour along the French coast, stretching her orders just a fraction, translating ‘watching’ into something a little more like actively searching.
Frederick cracked the dark lantern by the compass, peered at his watch, careful not to rattle the steel chain anchoring it to his sword belt.
The hunter had been sent out to him only the previous year, bought by the uncle he was named for, and marked him out as one of those rich enough to need to know what time of day it was.
“Ten minutes till moonrise,” he whispered. “Empty your bladders now, if needs be.”
There was a stir in the boat, cautious movement and surprisingly loud splashing.
Frederick nodded contentedly – he had been told years before by an early mentor that he must always remember the men’s physical comfort, that otherwise they would move more slowly and carefully, more concerned not to wet themselves than to stretch out.
Nearly half of Pallas’ crew had been detached to the two boats – the best part: none of the boys, few of the old men, only the agile, strong and biddable.
The captain and lieutenant had selected carefully to avoid fools and malcontents, those who could not and those who would not obey.
On a job like this there was no room for error, no need to allow random mischance the opportunity to become disaster.
Frederick briefly repeated his orders, as much to calm his own nerves as to aid the men.
“Akers and Dale to the foremast, set the topsail and then a jib, not to get involved in any fight, unless needs must. Big Smith and Joby Barney to slip or cut the moorings. Mr Megson will take the wheel and bring her out. The rest of us will silence the crew and everybody aboard – no argument, and no time to make their minds up – put up or shut up!”
Nods and mutters of assent and understanding; they knew what to do.
“Boatkeepers, hold the boats till I whistle, only then tie on to her stern. If so be there is a company of soldiers waiting for us, then you are our only way out.”
There was no reason to suppose there was so much as a platoon in the whole port – it had only been a thin mist and they had seen no signs of battery, fort or barracks – but Frederick thought it as well for the people not to be overconfident, a little apprehension was said to sharpen their wits.
He gave a strangled whisper as the edge of the moon touched the hills and the darkness eased a fraction, trying to shout an order silently. “Up anchor.”