A Sea of Troubles

Sleeping on the deck between a pair of cannon had drawbacks; the planking was hard and the ship rolled enough on the swell to require John Pearce to jam himself against the bulwarks. For all the discomfort it had two distinct advantages: the tiny cabin of HMS
Larcher
was not comfortable for two people seeking to avoid any kind of tactile contact, which he must do with Amélie Labordière, his passenger and one-time mistress. In addition, even if he was the captain, he was, on such a small vessel as an armed cutter, required to share the watch, which meant no more than four hours sleep and often not that if anything untoward happened.

The only other option, and one to which he had condemned
le Comte de Puisaye
, his other passenger, was to sling a hammock ’tween decks, which, in terms of space on such a cramped vessel made the cabin seem palatial, and that said nothing about an atmosphere replete with snoring and the all-pervading odour of endemic and
malodorous flatulence – all the French aristocrat had to protect himself from that was a canvas screen, and John Pearce, needing to be quick on deck in an emergency, would not have been granted even that; besides, fresh air was so much more to his liking.

The night being cloudy, the heat of the day had been trapped and, unusually in the northern quadrant of the Bay of Biscay, if there was a decent swell coming in from the Atlantic the wind was no more than a zephyr. That meant, with a slight breeze on her quarter and few sails aloft, the ship was making little headway in what was a Stygian darkness. Pearce had added to the lack of light by shading the lantern that illuminated the binnacle. A candle could be seen at sea for miles in clear weather and they were in hostile waters, close in an arc of shoreline in possession of the enemy, and obliged to cross, on the way back to England, several well-worn routes to the major French ports, both commercial and naval, and that took no account of French cruising warships or privateers in search of prizes.

‘Wake up, Captain.’ The voice was soft yet insistent enough to penetrate a rather lubricious dream full of scantily dressed women and bring him to full wakefulness. ‘There’s something odd.’

Disturbed slumbers at sea went with the position of commander; while men could be left to con a ship set on an unchanging course, if anything untoward occurred, and very much so if danger threatened, only he could make the necessary decisions. The sleeper rolled up the cant of the deck and out of his boat cloak to look up into the ghostly face now inches from his nose, hoping
that whatever was odd did not include the danger of a lee shore. As a man who knew his navigational limitations, Lieutenant John Pearce lived in dread of an error that would see his ship wrecked. Then he remembered that he had discussed the course they were sailing with his master, Matthew Dorling, who might be young but knew his stuff.

‘What is odd?’

‘Listen.’

All Pearce could hear was the groaning of the ship’s timbers and it took a firm hand to get him upright so that he could allow such aural examination to extend further. The first slapping sound was unmistakable – the well-known thud of an object hitting a heavy body of water, and wherever it was coming from it was not the bows of the armed cutter. This reprised the fear of going aground, the second rhythmic slap doing nothing to bring about reassurance. Yet as it continued it carried with it none of the other sounds associated with waves cascading on a shore, no hissing of trapped water escaping over rocks. Then some timbers moved so seriously as to send a crack of strained wood out into the night and it was not off his own vessel.

‘A ship?’ Pearce hissed.

‘Reckon,’ came the soft reply.

Peering outwards Pearce looked for any glint of light, only to conclude there was none.

‘Holy Christ, it could be a ghost ship.’

That whisper had an air of panic about it, reminding Pearce of just how superstitious was the average Jack tar, even if in this case it was no tyro but a leading hand.
The temptation to scoff was high – the man in command of HMS
Larcher
did not believe in spectral spirits – yet it seemed inappropriate in the circumstances so instead a firm hand was applied to a barely visible shoulder to induce calm.

‘Steady now, man. I will take the wheel. Go below and rouse out the crew, but quietly. No bells, no drums and make sure they are silent as they ascend to the deck.’

‘Aye, aye, sir.’

No sooner had Pearce got his hand on the spokes, having released the leather strap by which it had been secured, than the rocket went up, seeming to rise from nowhere, a red streak of flame shooting skywards to form a starburst as it exploded, that accompanied by the flash of a signal gun, he thought somewhere to windward. What followed was both astounding and alarming as all around the armed cutter great stern lanterns began to be lit over a vast expanse of sea, not in single figures, not even by the dozen, but to Pearce’s vivid imagination by the hundreds, each one illuminating a small patch of deck on those he was close to, showing a sliver of white and phosphorescent wake, as well as the lower sails of what constituted an armada.

‘Mother of Christ, if we’re not in the middle of a fleet.’

Given the darkness of a moonless and starless night, it was like being placed in a candlelit galaxy, and if they were moving at a snail’s pace, Pearce quickly realised the ships all around them were very obviously on an opposite course to his own. Even in the dark he knew the voice of the man who had uttered that curse to be his friend Michael O’Hagan; there was no mistaking that deep Irish
brogue and the religious nature of his blasphemy. He also sensed that the required warrants had taken up their places beside him, which proved to be so when each one named their task so he would know they were present.

That was followed by silence as Pearce contemplated the dilemma in which they were trapped; given their location there was no way this fleet of vessels was friendly, but against that, from what he could see – and granted that was limited – they were not warships. They looked to be, certainly by the shape of their transoms and bluff bows, too squat for fighting, more in the line of merchant vessels, which in turn led to the deduction that this was a French commercial convoy, with the qualification that one of such dimensions must have an armed escort and very likely a potent one.

‘Mr Dorling, we need find a reasonable patch of sea in which to come about, but very quietly. Can the hands do what is necessary without any calling out or shouted orders?’

‘I would say yes to that, sir.’

The tone of voice in that reply was worthy of examination; much as he had come to like the crew of HMS
Larcher
and as much as he had seen their competence when sent about any particular duty, he still had areas of ignorance. It was as well to take into consideration that he was not their titular captain, but merely in temporary command from the mission upon which they had been so recently engaged. Dorling had sounded very assured and really there was no choice but to go with his judgement.

‘Please relay the necessary orders, then come back to
inform me when all is in place. Also tell our passenger below on no account is he to come on deck. Gunner?’

‘Capt’n.’

‘Mr Kempshall, as soon as we are come about and have settled on a new course I want the flintlocks in place, the guns run out and loaded on both sides, bow chasers too, then hauled back in and left behind closed gun ports, but slowly and with minimal noise.’

There was a silence then, as the gunner contemplated the ramifications of that, for a trundling gun could be noisy and then there was the damage they could do. Fired at closed ports, which they could be in a panic, would cause serious damage to the woodwork and, in the dark, who knew where the splinters from such an act would go; they could easy kill or maim the crew and anyone else. Pearce misunderstood that long pause and remarked on what he thought was troubling the man.

‘Difficult as it is, Mr Kempshall, I would rather have to worm them later than seek to load in an emergency.’

‘Weren’t that, your honour; I was thinkin’ of the work I’d give my carpenter brother. I’ll set my mates and the gun captains to work and get below and start preparing charges, sir.’

‘Make it so. Michael, get the muskets out and loaded and every weapon we have available by the guns.’

‘Jesus, we can’t fight this lot.’

‘They are merchantmen, Michael, and they will not fight, but if any of their escorts come snooping, then I must seek to use what little gunnery we have to get away. The best way to achieve that is to give them something else to think about, so when you have seen to the swords
and tomahawks I want you working on some strong combustibles that we can sling at another ship.’

‘A vessel ablaze will keep them busy, happen?’

That made Pearce smile in the dark; he had not been sure Michael would smoke his aim. He was about to say so when he realised the Irishman was gone. All around him men were doing likewise, going about their duties, and it was a testament to the efficiency of the Royal Navy and the massive amount of sea time the fleet enjoyed that they could do so without being able to see anything, albeit such actions were usually carried out with a great deal of noise. Not now; they were appreciative of the danger they were in, could see just as he could the myriad number of lights all around the ship, so the shrouds were climbed by touch; likewise, the way the men eased their bare feet into the foot-ropes and made their way along the yards was done in silence, and if they did call to each other it was in voices so low as to not even carry to the deck.

Somewhere forward and amidships Dorling was peering skywards, trying to see by the odd white flash of a bare foot that the hands were in the required places, sure that, on deck, those allotted to pull on the falls were standing by to release them from their cleats, prepared to haul hard and swing round the yards before sheeting them home once the cutter, aided by the hard-over rudder, was on a reverse course. On the wheel, Pearce would also take his cue from the master, a man so much more competent in the art of sailing than he.

The actual turn was far from noiseless, for with so many men employed in physical tasks such a thing was impossible. All Pearce could hope for was that the odd call
or curse, the sound of ropes whirring through blocks or the creak of a swinging yard would not carry to the other vessels around them, and if it did, they would have few men alert at this time of night aboard a merchant vessel to hear them. Even if they were attuned to the danger of an enemy, they must surely feel safe in the cocoon of their armada. Added to that was the constant sound of their own timbers, which would be creaking and groaning as all wooden and rope-rigged vessels do.

Pearce sensed a presence. ‘You with me, Michael?’

‘I am.’

‘Sneak into the cabin and find the flag locker – there’s a tricolour in there. Don’t unshade the lantern until the door is shut.’

‘And if I wake the lady, who might need some comfort?’

‘Tell her to stay off the deck,’ Pearce snapped, for he could discern the trace of humour in his friend’s tone.

There was no setting of a course; Pearce steered to keep an equal distance between two of the nearest vessels, only troubled by a series of flaring rockets and booming signal guns that were clearly imparting some message of which he had no knowledge, these briefly and partially illuminating the seascape, luckily not close by. That did tell him the escorts, who would seek to control the convoy movements, were way off to windward, a position from which they could protect their charges from interdiction, the added advantage being that should a threat emerge from another quarter, they had the wind with which to deal with it.

Time lost all meaning, which gave him a period to think, and once he recalled his previous course and where
he had set out from the day before it seemed to suggest this fleet was heading for the mouth of the Loire, which would take them up to the main French commercial port of Nantes. The other thought which occurred was that such an event was of some importance. Given the overwhelming superiority in numbers that the Royal Navy could deploy across the oceans, this sort of convoy should, in theory, be impossible to assemble and even harder to escort to home soil. Given the size, it must have some bearing on the ability of Revolutionary France to continue the war, especially since he had been informed by one of the male passengers that the nation was in the grip of famine, not that he had entirely believed a man with an agenda of his own to pursue.

‘The escorts will form an outer screen,’ Pearce said, really thinking aloud as he included Michael O’Hagan in his ruminations. ‘Something this size, I should think they are numerous, mostly with the weather gage to give them control, but I should not be surprised if there are warships bringing up the rear to scare off our cruisers.’

‘Seems to me they might be the ones to give us worry, right enough.’

Pearce nodded, unsure if it could be observed. He asked Michael to fetch Dorling and, after a talk about their previous course and their likely location now, was obliged to conclude that the merchant convoy expected to make landfall early in the morning, possibly at first light. If their navigation was good then it would be the Loire estuary, but even slightly off it would be simple to correct and begin the next stage of the operation, which
was to send the ships, one by one, upriver to the port of Nantes as and when the tide permitted.

‘Which means we must not be in the same position then as we relatively are now.’

‘Soon as it’s light, sir, we will be spotted, and for my money that – a strange ship right in the middle of this lot – would bring someone to have a look-see.’

‘Can’t fault that.’

Looking out into the darkness as he contemplated Dorling’s opinion, Pearce was suddenly aware that even in the pitch dark one of the nearby merchantmen had fallen off its course and was being brought closer to them by the leeway forced upon it by the current. Those lower sails, which had been ghostly, now had a more defined shape, there was no sign of a wake, while the stern lantern was no more than a glow hidden by the bulk of the vessel. Unsure if it was imagination or vision, he thought there was a bowsprit too close for comfort and possibly heading for his shrouds. Spinning the wheel he let the head of HMS
Larcher
fall away and spoke as soon as that had an effect.