The War of Wars (78 page)

The fly seemed merely to have closed with the spider and was easy prey. But Cochrane had made his preparations: like a boxer grappling with his larger opponent at close quarters, preventing him landing a
punch, he had ordered his cannon to be ‘treble-shotted’ and ‘elevated’ – aiming upwards as far as possible. With the swell tilting his ship sideways so that it aimed up into the
Gamo
, he was able to fire straight up into the other’s gun-deck looming overhead. He was lucky: the captain, de Torres, was killed in this first devastating broadside from below, which did remarkable damage for such small guns at point blank range. The little ship was still too close for the
Gamo
’s broadsides to harm it. As Cochrane put it later: ‘From the height of the frigate out of the water the whole of her shot must necessarily go over our heads, while our guns, being elevated, would blow up her main deck.’

The two ships now engaged in a bizarre pas de deux. Cochrane spotted Spanish marines assembling and preparing to board the little ship beneath her; he veered away just far enough to prevent this, but not so far as to bring the ship into a position where the Spanish could bring their guns to bear. Then he returned to inflict a further upwards broadside. This happened three times during the course of an hour. One slip would bring about a collision, or result in boarding, or would have permitted the Spaniards to fire a devastating volley.

Cochrane in the smaller ship had the advantage of much greater manoeuvrability. But he was locked in: if he bolted, he would be picked off easily. Once again, attack seemed the only option available to him, even against a ship with six times as many men. He told his crew that the Spaniards would give them no quarter if they won, and ordered several to blacken their faces in preparation for boarding. The
Speedy
moved forward to the
Gamo
’s bows and, cutlasses in mouth as though in some old pirate story, some 20 of its men, including the young Archibald Cochrane, climbed up onto the Spanish ship.

As his advance party scaled the bows, he and Parker led the rest of his men from the back of the
Speedy
onto the middle section of the
Gamo
. Only the ship’s doctor was left to steer the
Speedy
. By that time the Spaniards were confused and demoralized, and were uncertain of what to do about the vicious little ship attacking them in defiance of all naval convention and common sense. Cochrane wrote of the first sortie:

The greater portion of the Spaniard’s crew was prepared to repel boarders in that direction, but stood for a few moments as it were
transfixed to the deck by the apparition of so many diabolical-looking figures emerging from the white smoke of the bow guns; whilst our other men, who boarded by the waist, rushed on them from behind, before they could recover from their surprise at the unexpected phenomenon.

Minutes later, more were attacking them from behind. In the confusion they could not know how heavily they outnumbered the British attackers. Cochrane yelled at Dr Guthrie, who had been left in charge of the
Speedy
, to send in the next wave of attackers – although, of course, there was no one left on board. The startled Guthrie yelled back that he would. The Spanish officers heard and believed that another boarding party was on its way. They had been lured into a trap, believing the
Speedy
to be a small ship with a regular crew: instead it seemed crammed with attackers.

Cochrane yelled at one of his men to lower the Spanish colours, which, with remarkable coolness and skill, he did. The leaderless Spaniards, confused and demoralized, took this to be an order to surrender. The battle was over. Fifteen Spaniards, including the captain, had been killed and 41 wounded; just three British seamen had been killed and 18 wounded, one of them the valiant Parker, slashed in his leg and wounded by a musket shot. Cochrane could not yet pause. Before the Spaniards could realize that fewer than a sixth of their number had taken them prisoner, the fighting captain ordered them into the hold and had the two most powerful guns on the ship, the carronades, trained down upon them and manned by British sailors with burning fuses. Cochrane appointed Archibald to command the giant prize, which the little
Speedy
proudly led into Minorca.

The fight between the
Speedy
and the
Gamo
was the first of Cochrane’s great naval feats. There had been no luck involved, and no piracy in taking on a much larger and more heavily armed vessel. Cochrane had shown a dazzling array of talents as a commander: the first and most important was that his crew were now so accustomed to his natural leadership that they had no hesitation in obeying him when he ordered
apparently suicidal tactics. Their behaviour was of men acting perfectly in co-ordination as a team.

His choice of tactics bore out his judgment: it would have been more dangerous and suicidal to run away than to engage. He and his crew had displayed faultless skills that had saved them in an almost impossible situation – in particular those precise movements backwards and forwards from the larger ship to avoid being boarded without bringing them out from under the arc of the
Gamo
’s guns. Further, he had displayed his remarkable courage in boarding a vessel when his men were so overwhelmingly outnumbered. His coolness, clear-thinking, and superb tactics under nearly impossible conditions had been extraordinary. Finally he had shown the talent for mischievous deception that was to become his trademark. It was, as has been said, an engagement unique in naval history.

Cochrane’s astonishing feat did not capture the imagination of the old men in the Admiralty. The real start of the feud between the dashing young commander and his superiors can be dated from this moment. When he had been appointed to the command of the insignificant little
Speedy
, his superiors had never envisaged such a triumph as this. Their attempt to tame him or relegate him to obscurity, however, had backfired. He had performed as an individual commander operating on his own but that grated on men accustomed to co-ordinated team action. He had been continually contemptuous of such men as Lieutenant Beaver, his immediate superior; and he had too full an opinion of himself. The crusty Lord St Vincent, now elevated to First Sea Lord, was not impressed by Cochrane’s reputation for insubordination, and possibly even less so by the popular interest his spectacular action had aroused. The old man had almost certainly come to hear of Cochrane’s criticism for the escape of the French fleet in the Mediterranean in 1799.

The system of promotion from lieutenant to post-captain was through political favour, or through coming to the attention of the commander-in-chief, usually by serving aboard his flagship; or, more legitimately, through distinction in action. Cochrane qualified on at least two counts. He was clearly being victimised. Cochrane, although
formally a lieutenant, was effective commander of the
Speedy
, a position equivalent to major in the army. They took rank from the moment of their appointment, and would qualify to become admiral in this order, so it was of immense importance. After three years they became equivalent to an army colonel.

The young hero, who although critical of his superiors, bore no particular grudge against them and was in the full flush of success, suddenly found himself steamrollered by the naval establishment, as though, far from having achieved one of the most spectacular single-ship victories in British naval history, he had committed a major transgression. After a much lesser triumph, it was customary for an officer to be made post-captain (the modern equivalent of captain). Cochrane was denied this accolade for capturing a ship four times bigger than his own.

It was normal, too, for a warship of such enormity as the
Gamo
to be absorbed into the British navy, with a large part of the prize money being paid to those who had captured her. Instead it was announced by the Admiralty, without explanation, that the
Gamo
would be sold off as a merchantman to the ruler of Algiers, so that there would be virtually no prize money. Most offensively of all, the Admiralty resolutely blocked Cochrane’s attempts to secure promotion for his able and courageous second-in-command, Parker, badly wounded in the fighting. How is this to be explained? Presumably the old disciplinarian could not bear that so junior and independent an officer should achieve such popular fame so quickly. For all his incorruptibility, St Vincent was a deeply unattractive figure, and he was certainly the prime mover in the Admiralty’s unprovoked vendetta against the young lieutenant. But many of Cochrane’s own contemporaries disliked him because he did not play by the rules and had thus in a sense ‘betrayed his class’. On the other hand, Cochrane arguably had shown that he was not prepared to abide by the rules or take slights lying down, and a show of deference might have restored him to official favour. Treated badly by his superiors immediately after so extraordinary a victory, he showed exactly the same fearlessness towards them that he had in attacking the
Gamo
.

Meanwhile, he was ordered to go on a routine diplomatic mission to the ruler of Algiers who, ironically, had bought the
Gamo
. As he reported:

I was ushered through a series of galleries lined with men, each bearing on his shoulder a formidable-looking axe and eyeing me with an insolent scowl, evidently meant to convey the satisfaction with which they would apply its edge to my vertebrae, should the caprice of their chief so will . . . On reaching the presence of the Dey – a dignified-looking and gorgeously-attired person, seated cross-legged on an elevated couch in one corner of the gallery and surrounded by armed people of most unprepossessing appearance – I was marched up between two janizaries, and ordered to make three salaams to his highness.

This formality being complied with, he rudely demanded, through the medium of an interpreter, ‘What brought me there?’ The reply was that ‘I was the commander of an English vessel of war in the roads, and had been deputed, on behalf of my government, respectfully to remonstrate with his highness concerning a vessel which his cruisers had taken contrary to the laws of nations’. On this being interpreted, the precocious scowls of the bystanders were exchanged for expressions of injured innocence, but the Dey got in a great passion, and told the interpreter to inform me that ‘remonstrance came with an ill grace from us, the British vessels being the greatest pirates in the world, and mine one of the worst amongst them’, which complimentary statement was acknowledged by me with a formal bow.

‘If I did right’, continued the Dey, through his interpreter, – ‘I should put you and your crew in prison, till’ (naming a captured Algerine vessel) ‘she was restored; and but for my great respect for the English government, and my impression that her seizure was unauthorized, you should go there. However, you may go, with a demand from me that the vessel unjustly taken from us shall be immediately restored.’

Disappointed in promotion, he was allowed to resume his raiding career in the
Speedy
. He, soon capturing a six gun Spanish privateer which he put under the command of his brother Archibald and embarking on a raid in conjunction with a bigger ship, the
Kangaroo
, on the Spanish convoy at Oropesa. Cochrane was a strong advocate of
raiding along the Spanish coast, but he was one of its few practitioners. It was at this time, as he continued relentlessly capturing prizes, that he began to develop a paranoid hatred of the Admiralty’s system for awarding prize money.

Cochrane’s obsession with prize money, although driven by a strong mercenary trait in his character, was far from unjustified. The pay of able seamen at the time was a derisory 33/6 a month and for ordinary seamen 25/6, and this was usually awarded only when a ship had returned to port after what might be years of sailing on a long posting, and for a ship in port not until six months in arrears to discourage desertions. Sailors often quickly spent this in binges on shore. Prize money offered the temptation of huge potential rewards, however infrequently realized. One quarter of the prize was awarded to the lower ranks; two eighths went to the captain, and one eighth to the Admiral under whose command he sailed. An eighth was awarded to ‘captains of marines, land forces, sea lieutenants and masters’, to be divided equally among them. An eighth went to ‘lieutenants and quartermasters of marines, lieutenants, ensigns and quartermasters of land forces, boatswain, gunner, purser, carpenter, masters’ mates, surgeons and chaplains’. Yet another eighth went to the midshipmen, surgeons’ mates, sergeants of marine and various petty officers, while the remaining quarter went to the crew and marines.

Cochrane’s success was startling: by July 1801, after just a year in command of the
Speedy
, he had captured more than 50 prizes equipped with 122 guns and taken 534 prisoners. This meant that his own ordinary seamen were better rewarded than the officers in some other ships. But in a great many cases the prize money obtained was derisory, and Cochrane felt he had been cheated. His view was that other British commanders did not bother taking prizes simply because there was no money in doing so.

His evident concern for his men was a particularly attractive feature of life under his command on the
Speedy
. It was observed from the first how extraordinarily easy it seemed to be for the young lieutenant to get the best out of his men. This was no easy task in some ships, where
sullen and resentful men would barely do the bidding of their commanders.

Cochrane secured this respect in part because he was as good a seaman as any on board, in part because of his approachability and unfailing courtesy and above all because of his dazzling success. It was exciting to serve under such a commander, and the men would follow him willingly into danger. He lost remarkably few because he calculated the odds so carefully in undertaking such apparently suicidal actions as the attack on the
Gamo
. In addition, although Cochrane ran his ship efficiently, discipline was not excessive and he never had a man flogged – although he did not express opposition to flogging in principle. It was just that he had no need to resort to this deterrent. He was a natural-born captain.