Dead Reckoning (35 page)

There was a relative silence lasting two or three minutes and then the
Minerva
had gained her position and, on Delancey's
orders, backed her topsails and fired her broadside. There was no further aiming at the French ship's rigging. The round shot swept along her decks from bow to stem and with terrible effect. For the second broadside all the guns were loaded with grapeshot. This was the more to be dreaded in that the French were desperately trying to bring their ship round, for which purpose her sail-trimmers were on deck. For the third broadside the guns were loaded again with round shot and the havoc wrought was beyond description. The
Fidèle
was a wreck but her colours were still flying and her efforts to come round were beginning to succeed. Very slowly and under a devastating fire, she was finally able to discharge her first broadside. It was a gallant effort, although the effect was ragged, and Delancey at once made sail again, quickly passing beyond her arc of fire. The rumble of artillery died away and the second phase of the battle was over.

Delancey now summoned his officers to the quarter-deck and asked for an approximate return of losses and damage. He had apparently lost thirty-seven men, killed and wounded, with five guns put out of action, and a wounded foremast which would hardly survive a stiff breeze. He could tell himself that his tactics had so far succeeded but the wind was dying away, giving little scope for further manoeuvre. After studying his opponents through the telescope, Delancey turned back to his officers.

“Well done, gentlemen. We have crippled both enemy frigates and neither can escape. We have now to finish them off. The smaller ship, the
Fidèle,
is pretty well shot to pieces. The
Clorinde,
however, is still formidable, and especially so at close quarters. With so little wind we have little freedom of movement. Our tactics won us the first and second phases of the action but we shall have to win the third and last round by fighting. We must be prepared, moreover, to fight both broadsides. I shall try to
sail between the enemy ships, breaking their line, but I shall probably end with one on either beam. Lack of wind may also allow the smoke to accumulate and leave us firing blind. We shall then adopt the practice we have rehearsed, firing on a bearing and at an elevation as directed from the maintop. One thing I want you to understand is this: it is my intention to bring both prizes into Portsmouth and nothing the French can do is going to stop me.”

There was a cheer from the men who had overheard this and the officers dispersed again to their quarters.

“Tack, Mr Cumner,” said Delancey, “and steer to engage the enemy from a cable's length to windward.” Delancey could see that the French ships were again in line ahead but now on the opposite tack with the
Clorinde
leading so as to protect the
Fidèle.
The antagonists' approach to each other was very slow and the course of the action was easy to foresee. As soon as the
Minerva
was fairly engaged with the
Clorinde,
the
Fidèle
would attempt to try to take up a raking position across the
Minerva
's bows. To counter that, Delancey would try to sail between them. Their reply would be to bear up and he would then have one of them on either beam. To fight them both at once was something which Delancey had so far been careful to avoid but it could not be avoided for ever. He considered fighting the
Fidèle
first but concluded that he had to fight it out with the
Clorinde
sooner or later and might just as well choose the present moment. Morale would suffer if his men suspected him of being “shy.” He would fight both batteries and still had the men to do it. He made a round of the gun-deck, however, and told his men what they might have to do.

“It is not enough to be good,” he reminded them, “your gunnery has to be SUPERB!” “Don't become excited and don't throw
your shot away!” “Let's show these frogs how a battle should be fought!” “Do your duty, men, and we'll have these damned Frenchmen for breakfast!” He felt that he was overacting the part of an operatic hero but the men seemed to respond, cheering him as he passed along the line of the guns. “We'll most likely have the frogs on either beam. It'll be hot work but the hotter the battle the sooner the finish. And then we are bound for home! For home, my lads, and to see all our girls again! For home in triumph, as a ship equal to any two ships on the other side! Make these Frenchmen wish they had stayed in port! See to it that they recognize our ensign when they see it again! Down with the Emperor and long live King George! Down with the tricolour and to hell with the French!”

Back near the wheel, Delancey explained to Cumner the opening move he had decided upon.

“We'll try to sail between them and rake them both. We may not succeed but that will at least prevent the
Fidèle
from raking us. The wind is dying away to nothing. Suppose there is a dead calm and we are fighting with both batteries, could we find men enough to man the launch and tow the ship?”

“I think maybe we could, sir, if we let the lobster-backs replace the seamen on three of the guns. But then we should have no reply to the enemy's musketry. Nor don't I know whether the launch is undamaged—maybe it's holed.”

“Mr Lewis,” said Delancey, “be so good as to ask the carpenter to report to me on the state of the ship's boats.”

Very slowly the opponents were coming together again, all probably realizing that it must now be a fight to the finish. There were puffs of wind and minutes between during which the sails flapped idly. It seemed to be a case of drifting into battle. Delancey paced the deck with mounting impatience and Northmore,
deserting his post for a few minutes, came to join him.

“Shall we use the bow-chasers, sir?”

“No, I think a silent approach has a more menacing effect. Some would say, moreover, that it might slow us down. Or is that an old wives' tale?”

“I should have thought, sir, that the slowing down would be immaterial.”

“Heaven knows. The men seem in good heart, don't they?”

“Your exhortations helped a lot, sir.”

“The worst is still to come. It is bad luck the French having troops on board. They must be double our number even now., But they won't beat us, I think, in gunnery.”

“We were lucky there, sir—in having the powder to spare for practice.”

“Lucky? Ah, yes—most fortunate. We used about a year's allowance in ten days. Which reminds me—we may end this fight at close range. See that the forecastle guns have grapeshot handy—I'll give the same orders to the quarter-deck carronades.”

Lewis ran up to the captain, panting.

“The carpenter reports, sir, that the launch is almost undamaged. There is one hole and his mate is now patching it with sheet lead.”

“Thank you, Mr Lewis. What about the other boats?”

“The cutter's smashed, sir, beyond repair. The others are all right.”

“Good. If we have a dead calm, Mr Northmore, as seems likely, we may need the boats to tow us out.”

Seeing that the enemy was almost within range, Northmore went back to his post forward and Delancey trained his telescope on the
Clorinde.
Traces of visible damage were slight and the frigate was being handled confidently. He could see little of the
Fidèle
but judged that she was further astern than was probably intended. He pointed this out to Cumner.

“I intend to engage the leading enemy ship from to windward but without shortening sail. I then mean to head for the gap between the two enemy frigates and will try to rake them both. They will bear up and we shall end with one on either beam, but not, I hope, within musket shot.”

At long last the opponents closed, the two bowsprits level with each other, a cable's distance apart, and Delancey gave the order to open fire. The
Minerva
and
Clorinde
passed so slowly that the British seamen had fired three broadsides before they were ordered to cease fire. Then the helmsmen were given an order, the sail-trimmers sent to the ropes, and the
Minerva
altered course sharply to starboard, firing a broadside into the
Clorinde
's stern. It should have been possible, in theory, to fire simultaneously into the
Fidèle
's bows but the captain of that ship bore up too promptly, confronting the
Minerva
with his broadside. All hell broke loose again and now Delancey's men had the enemy on either side of them. Gunfire had become continuous, with mounting damage and loss on either side. There was a complex drill for fighting with both batteries, one which compelled men to dash backwards and forwards between the guns on either side. It was perfectly feasible until men were killed or wounded, but this created difficulties which could only be resolved, in the end, by deserting some guns and redistributing their crews. The noise was, of course, shattering and men would be exhausted the sooner.

There was now a dead calm (caused by the firing, as old seamen maintained) and smoke was accumulating between the opposing ships. Watching the smoke clouds which were tending to blind his gunners, Delancey heard an almighty crash
behind him and saw that the
Minerva
's wheel had been shot away, both quartermasters killed and Cumner wounded, probably dying. There was a procedure for steering the ship after the wheel had gone but it was needless for the moment, in a dead calm. Two of the quarter-deck carronades went soon afterwards but there was no further damage and Delancey realized that the enemy gunners could no longer see their target. He promptly sent young Lewis to find the first lieutenant. “My compliments to Mr Northmore and ask him, from me, to take over gunnery control from the maintop. Inform Mr Topley and Mr Ledingham. Off with you—like lightning!”

When Northmore reached the maintop, with two attendant boys, he was almost above the smoke and could clearly make out the enemy topmasts. On either side of the platform there had been rigged up a sort of table on which had been painted a half-circle with its flat side outboard and marked out in degrees up to 180°. A peg was fixed at the half-circle's centre and to this was attached a moving arm, like the hand of a clock, with a peg attached to the free end. When the two pegs were lined up on a target, the bearing could be read off and passed down to the battery on that side. When first tried the device was made with the flat side inboard, which had seemed more logical, but time was then lost in working out the reciprocal and so it had been changed about. In half a minute Northmore read off a bearing for the
Clorinde
's main topmast, guessed a range of one cable, and sent a boy down to Topley with a written message. In another half-minute he took a bearing on the
Fidèle
's main topmast, guessed a range of a cable and a half, and sent the other boy down with a message for Mr Ledingham. Delancey heard all firing cease while the gun-crews trained their cannon on the given bearing and at the estimated range. Then came Topley's shout of
“Starboard battery—fire!” followed by Stock's shout from the larboard battery.

Delancey noted with grim satisfaction that the enemy's shots were passing overhead or wide, their actual target clearly lost. Going down to the gun-deck, he decided to concentrate the fire a little. “Have your first three guns trained a little aft of the bearing you are given, your three after guns a little forward,” he said to Topley and again to Ledingham. Then he went back to the quarter-deck, noting that the smoke cloud was as thick as ever. Some fifteen minutes later a boy came with a message from Northmore: “
Clorinde
's main topmast no longer visible, probably fallen I am taking bearings on foretopmast.” Five minutes later followed another message “
Fidèle
target lost,” and after that, “
Clorinde
target lost.”

“Continue to fire on previous bearing” was Delancey's reply but he decided at the same time to shift his position. He was never one to waste powder and shot.

“Lower and man the launch!” was his next order, given to Forbes, another boatswain's mate, and the boat was soon in the water. “Take command, Mr Lewis,” said Delancey, “and tow the frigate the way she is heading. When she has moved far enough we'll cast off the hawser at this end.” The launch disappeared in the smoke, the hawser came taut, and Delancey was left to guess whether the ship was moving and to what distance. In the meanwhile, he gave orders to cease fire and was gratified to note that the enemy continued. After ten minutes he had the hawser cast off and saw the launch return and be hoisted inboard. Reporting back to his captain, young Lewis grinned delightedly:

“It would seem, sir, that the French frigates are firing at each other!”

“That is my hope, Mr Lewis, and I could only wish that their
fire were more accurate. I suspect, however, that they are mostly firing into the ocean.”

It was soon evident that one frigate, almost certainly the
Clorinde,
had ceased fire and that all the noise was being made by the other. At the same time a light wind sprang up and the smoke began to disperse. It gradually thinned and then, suddenly, it was gone. As when a theatre curtain was raised, the battlefield was suddenly visible.

On the
Minerva
's starboard quarter, under sail was the
Clorinde.
On the larboard quarter but half a mile distant was the
Fidèle,
with all her topmasts gone, a floating wreck with smoke still billowing from her last futile broadside. Blaming himself for his delay over this, Delancey bellowed the orders which would re-establish his control over the
Minerva
's helm. It would be hauled either way by men using tackles in the steerage and receiving their orders through a chain of intermediaries. The system was set up in about three minutes, beating the time of all previous rehearsals, but it involved a sad waste of manpower.

Meanwhile the
Clorinde
was moving into the attack. It seemed at first to Delancey that her captain was merely trying to close the range, but he presently realized that he was steering too close for that. The French plan was evidently to board, relying on their infantry to tip the scale in a hand-to-hand conflict. But if the
Clorinde
was under way, so was the
Minerva,
the distance between them altering little if at all. Delancey's first instinct was to meet the challenge by backing his topsails. If they cared to board they would soon wish they hadn't! But wiser thoughts prevailed. The longer the chase continued, the more distant the
Fidèle
would be when the fight took place. He decided, therefore, to hold his course and hoist topgallants as if in flight. The
Clorinde
made
more sail in response and Delancey went round the gun-deck to explain what was happening.