For the Honor of the Flag: A John Phillips Novel (War at Sea Book 2) (6 page)

Phillips interjected, “We’ll see what we can do for you gentlemen. Mister Rodney, what about you sir? What have you been up to since you were commissioned?”

The other new officer at the table admitted, “I was commissioned five years ago and served a year on a ’74 in home waters. One day, I was in the hold with the master checking the stowage, when the ship was hit by a big wave. A cask was not stowed right, and shifted. My leg was broken, so the captain put me ashore. I never got another ship.”

“Gentlemen, both of you have been unfortunate. If I had a vacancy aboard ship, I would take either of you. Unfortunately I do not. From past experience, I would guess your best chance will be if one of the ships in the fleet takes a good prize, one the captain will not wish to trust to a midshipman. In that case, one of you might well be given the prize to take home. This would take you off the half-pay book, for a while at least. In the meantime, while you are passengers, not required to work the ship, this may be a chance for you to get some fresh experience. Should you wish, I am sure the first officer could find something for you to do.”

Upon leaving port, HMS Courageous headed down the channel. His orders called for him to find Lord Howe. He decided to interpret that to mean he should look into Brest first. Howe had told him at their parting he was going to look there; and Phillips thought perhaps the fleet was still present. After reaching the mouth of the channel, the winds were blustery, nearly gale force winds, onshore, so he elected to remain well out to sea.  While riding out the storm, the lookout reported a sail in sight abaft their starboard quarter, coming up on them slowly. A midshipman sent aloft reported the sail to be towing a dismasted ship.

Fearing these might belong to Howe’s fleet, Phillips told the master to bring the ship to the wind, and work closer to the pair. By evening, the gale had intensified and Courageous was compelled to reduce sail. It was in the afternoon watch the next day before Phillips and the sailing master felt it proper to search for the now missing ships. With the sea empty to the horizon, the sailing master worked out where the ships might be expected to be, with the conditions of wind and current.

Nothing was found that day but early the in the next, the same pair was sighted, beating toward the nearby shore. The lead one was identified as a French built frigate, and the tow appeared to be a third rate. Mister Rodney had volunteered to serve as signal officer, so Phillips had him hoist the ensign, as well their number and the present recognition signal. The tow had nothing to hang a signal to, unless it was to an oar or pike staff. The frigate ignored the signals entirely. As they approached the ships, the liner appeared to have been savagely damaged. Shot holes through her sides, and her counter was beaten in.

The frigate seemed to be undamaged, except for some storm damage that had been mostly brought to right and was concentrating on her task of towing the 74 to a safe port. Phillips ordered the master to bring Courageous around to windward of the towing frigate, and had his ship cleared for action. At long shot range he looked the ship over. He was almost certain it was a Frenchman, but was puzzled at the lack of response of that ship. Finally, he ordered a shot fired to windward.

Strange signal flags soared upward from the frigate, presumably directed toward the tow. The tricolor was hoisted, and the tow cast off. She fired off an irregular broadside of eighteen guns at long range, without much result. Phillips noted that two of her guns in the broadside did not fire, and only one ball came aboard, cutting some shrouds above the starboard mizzen chains. He saw the bosun leading a team to repair the damage.

He calmly told his first officer, “Mister Mullins, I think we will try our luck with him now. Gunners will fire only when their guns bear. I would rather have all the shots hit, one at a time, than all guns go off at the same moment, and half of them miss. You may fire when ready.”

Messenger midshipmen ran to tell each section what was expected of them, and soon every gunner’s arm was raised, signifying readiness to fire. He nodded, and the guns began firing, with a deadly stutter. There were a few splashes about the target, but many more hits. The jib boom came away, and the fore topmast came tumbling down in a tangle of canvas and rigging. Although the enemy ship had fired first, Courageous’ guns were reloaded and fired again before the enemy. Fewer misses this time, and Phillips noticed an enemy gun had been struck on the muzzle and pounded back through the bulwarks before it could fire. A few French shot hit the ship this time.

A Marine standing in ranks on the quarterdeck suddenly sat down with a thud, his left foot missing. A few more men quilled with splinters when an eighteen pound shot came through the side. The ships began a slugging match, which Courageous seemed to be winning, as enemy gun crews seemed to be poorly trained in gun drill. Watching one enemy port, he saw it fired only one shot to two fired by a corresponding gun on Courageous deck.

Still, men were falling every minute, and he wanted to minimize that as much as possible. His ship had little damage done to the rigging yet, even though the enemy was firing high to attempt to cripple her. As he watched, the enemy’s main topmast came down. Since most of her sail was set on her top masts, this slowed her right down, and Phillips asked the master to try to pull ahead and turn to starboard.  As the guns kept crashing, a ball came through the side and smashed the carriage of an eighteen pounder. Most of the crew went down with splinter wounds.

Phillips saw Lieutenant Crawford get a line around the muzzle of the wayward gun and lash it down. This was getting to be hot work indeed. As the Courageous started angling toward the enemy, her fire seemed to speed up. Certainly it was becoming more deadly as the frigate closed in. Phillips knew the enemy captain wanted to turn his ship at the same time as the Courageous, so as to stay broadside to broadside, but he was handicapped. His ship had received so much damage to the rigging, she was barely under control.

Finally, the ships were close enough together that the carronades could be used. First the forward thirty-six fired, then the aft. The first ball smacked into the sea a few fathoms before the enemy’s hull. The after gun, perhaps fired a little higher on a wave, hit that hull at the water line. Thirty six pounds of iron traveling at a speed of hundreds of feet per second could do massive damage, and this one did. Another minute of firing, then the tricolor was hauled down. Officers and midshipmen went around the ship bellowing ‘Cease fire.”. It took a while for the men to get the blood lust out of their systems, but finally calm prevailed.

Phillips looked around, Crawford was close beside. “Mister Crawford, I’d be obliged if you would take some men over and take command of the prize. Better take as many Marines with you as you can. Watch out for any nonsense.” In the end Crawford took the launch and longboat, filled full of men, and boarded the frigate. When Crawford signaled all was well, Courageous bore away for the third rate, which was several miles away by now.

The big liner was dead in the water, broadside to the waves when they approached. They came up across her bow, with every gun on her port broadside bearing. These guns had not been fired in the previous engagement and all were functional. With no response from the liner, Phillips had one of his starboard guns fire. Someone on the enemy quarterdeck put a white shirt on the tip of a pike, and waved it.

Realizing his first officer had little experience with dealing with senior enemy officers, Phillips said to Mullins, “Lieutenant, I am going to go over to that ship myself and see what they intend. I’ll be on their quarterdeck. If they try any nonsense, lay off their bow, and pound the piss out of her.” His barge had been towing behind, and it was drawn up. He cautiously made his way dow

n the battens into the boat. No point in breaking bones at this stage.

The remainder of the Marines followed him, and the boat then filled with seamen. His cox’n gave the order, ‘Give Way’, and the boat made its way over to the line-of-battle ship.

It had obviously been in a savage battle, smashed gear and rigging hung over the side. When the bow man hooked on under the entry port, Phillips could see no easy point of entry. The man ropes had been removed, and the ship’s crew seemed to be ignoring them. The cox’n solved the problem. He detailed a few seamen to board the liner. One of them grabbed a line dangling down the side, he walked his way up the side of the ship, others following.

A few minutes later, they had man ropes rigged, and all ready for the captain to board. The Marines went first, their muskets slung over their backs, then Phillips followed. He missed the sound of bosun’s pipes, but the Marines put on their usual show.

He looked around for an officer to discuss the surrender with, but there seemed to be no such on the quarterdeck, alive that is. There was a multitude of bodies sprawled about, and more than a few terribly wounded people in agonizing pain. He watched as a French seaman held a piggin of what he assumed was brandy to a helpless man’s mouth, and saw that many of the men wandering aimlessly on deck were in the latter stages of intoxication. He turned to his messenger, a thirteen year old midshipman on his first cruise, clutching his dirk, as though ready to take on the whole French navy.

“Mister Henderson, I would like it if you returned to the ship and told Lieutenant Mullins what you have seen here. Tell him I need more people. When our doctor finishes treating our own people, I wish him to come over here. Go as fast as you like, sir.”

The Marine sergeant had his men herding the crew of the ship below, leaving the dead and wounded where they had fallen. Phillips went below, escorted by half a dozen Marines. Hundreds of French sailors were milling about below, most of them already drunk. One boy, dressed as an aspirant, the French version of a midshipman, came up to him and introduced himself in good English. He reported he was the only officer alive aboard, save for a few other aspirants younger than himself. The captain and all his lieutenants had perished in a big fleet battle earlier.

Are there no other officers at all aboard older than yourself?

“Le médecin, peut-être.” (The doctor, perhaps.)

“Very well, let us go see him.” Captain Phillips, and a squad of Marines were led by the boy to what amounted to the ship’s hospital. Horribly wounded men lay about, many of them dead. No assistance was being provided to anyone, and the only uninjured person was drunk. This man sat on a chest, his back against a bulkhead, his clothing clotted with old blood. The aspirant explained this unconscious man was the ship’s doctor, but that he had prescribed himself too much brandy and laudanum to function any longer.

Needing to discuss matters with some responsible member of the ship’s crew, Phillips approached the man and tapped his shoulder. The man groaned, but remained still. He pushed him a little harder, and the man started. Suddenly his head was up, and a large pistol was wavering in his hand. Phillips was unable to retreat because of the Marines behind him. They in turn, alerted by the weapon, found it hard to protect him since their captain was between them and the threat.

As everyone started to scramble to get clear of the pistol, the thing fired. The flash from the pan nearly blinded everyone in the dim light, and he felt something slam into his upper arm. It felt like a blacksmith had swung his hammer against him. As he fell to the floor, the corporal behind him shouted, “Bastard’s shot the Cap’n, nail him.”

T

here was a scramble in the close quarters as the Marines made room to level their muskets. Unabl

e, one of the Marines smashed the sitting drunk with a butt stroke of his musket. There was a stutter of musket shots as the others found room to fire and three of the massive three quarter inch diameter lead balls smashed into the French surgeon. There was clothing scattered about the place, and muskets were thrust through some jacket armholes to make a rude stretcher to strap him to with musket slings.

By now, the numbness of the original impact had subsided, and excruciating pain ensued. As he was hoisted up on deck, the ship’s doctor from Courageous appeared alongside. As it happened, there were really very few wounded aboard his own ship, and after initial treatment, he felt comfortable leaving his patients in the care of the sick berth attendants, one of whom had been a cow leach in civilian life. At Mullin’s request, he had grabbed a bag of instruments and was down the side of the ship like a monkey. One of the Marines aboard the French man of war called down that the captain had been shot, and was dying.”

The doctor was up the side of the third rate almost faster than he had descended the frigates. Phillips was in shock and unconscious, but the doctor thought there might be an excellent chance of saving the arm. A quick view of the carnage below took away any thoughts he may have had about treating the captain there. Since it was now a delightful, if breezy early June day, the doctor had men pull over the remains of a gun carriage that had been wrecked during the battle a day before, and lashed boards on top. This gave him a platform out in the sun.

The men laid their captain on the platform. Knowing what was required, a leather strap was plac

ed in his mouth, and his arms and legs firmly strapped down. The seamen produced a mug of navy rum, which the surgeon fortified with a little laudanum. The doctor decided not to utilize this right away though, since the patient was in shock and unconscious.

The surgeon cut away the clothing from his arm and wiped it down with neat rum. This was a superstition with the doctor, which other surgeons laughed at behind his back. Sometimes, he even wiped down his instruments with rum also, when nobody was looking. He felt he had better results this way. Examining the wound, he found the lead ball had touched the humerus as it went through the arm, cracking it, but not reducing it to splinters as one might expect.

The ball had passed right through the arm, without damaging anything else. The surgeon had to pick out threads of coat material from the wound. This was difficult, because blood was pouring out of the wound, making it difficult to see. When he felt he had removed all the foreign particles possible, he soaked swabs of cotton lint in rum, and bound them to the arm.

Giving the flask of rum and laudanum to a Marine guard, he instructed him to give that to the captain when he awakened. He was instructed that this drink was all he was to administer. He knew the propensity of the men to modify or amplify any suggested medical treatment. Then the surgeon went below to treat the wounded French matelots there.