The Battle of All the Ages (5 page)

‘But the Duke will not thank us for denying him a duel with the
Eendracht
,’ said Kit. ‘And the
Royal Charles
has a much heavier
broadside
than ours – we should not disable it by interposing ourselves between the flagship and the Dutchman.’

‘Then what would you advise, Mister Farrell?’

‘Take her to windward of the Dutchman, Sir Matthew. To the north-west. Then van Nes will lie between the
Royal Charles
and
ourselves
. We will have him between us, as a nut in a nutcracker.’

‘Madness, Sir Matthew!’ cried Hardy. ‘We would have most of the Dutch fleet to windward of us, bearing down – and the ships in their van would prevent us getting back to our own line –’

‘Wait,’ I said. My eyes were trained on the
Eendracht
. ‘Her course has changed slightly. The angle has sharpened.’

‘No,’ said Kit, ‘he can’t be thinking – it’s never been done –’

‘Which gives it an element of surprise,’ I said. ‘Look, the
Dutchmen
are starting to mass in the forecastle. There’s no doubt about it. He’s going to attempt to secure to the starboard quarter, right at the stern, and board there.’

The
Eendracht
was an astonishing sight as she edged closer and closer to the elaborately gilded stern of the
Royal Charles
. The Dutch had always favoured boarding as a tactic, but the conventional wisdom was to attempt to board
forward
, grappling onto the multitude of cables and ropes in the bows. To attempt to board at the stern, in the highest part of the ship and with precious little to secure to, was unheard of – but if it came off, the enemy could strike directly at the head and heart of the British fleet. At the Duke of Albemarle himself.

‘He has made our decision for us,’ I said. ‘We must divert him from attacking the flagship – and we can now only do that by forcing him to fight both sides of his ship at once. Mister Hardy, if you please, a course to bring us onto the larboard quarter of the
Eendracht
.’

We were very close to the wind, the edges of our sails flapping ominously. But slowly and surely, the
Royal Sceptre
began to make her way north-by-west, heading for the windward quarter of the huge Dutch ship. But one thing puzzled all of us on the quarterdeck.

‘The
Royal Charles
has stopped firing,’ said Kit.

The difference between the two great antagonists was marked. The
Eendracht
, edging ever nearer to her target, was firing at will, pouring shot upon shot into the vast wooden sides of our flagship. But the
Royal Charles
was silent. It was as though she was waiting – but for what? Albemarle had been a soldier long before he was an admiral: did he actually relish the prospect of hand to hand combat? If so, was he going to allow the Dutch to board?

Too late, I realised the answer. Too late, because our course and speed meant that we were bound to be in the path of…

Over forty spouts of flame issued simultaneously from the
starboard
battery of the
Royal Charles
. The very sea itself seemed to shake. The flagship appeared to move sidewise, driven by the recoils of her massive cannon-of-seven firing forty-two pound balls. A monstrous cloud of gunsmoke belched from her ports and rolled back over the hull, momentarily hiding the great ship from view. I caught a glimpse of the
Eendracht
, her planking and rigging torn asunder by the titanic broadside, falling away astern of the flagship, all thought of boarding gone. But I had no time to consider the fate of the Dutch. I felt the impact of large cannon-shot well forward, and heard screams from the forecastle. Smoke obscured my view, but I knew we had been hit.

I ran forward with Kit, leaving Hardy to con the ship. We reached the foot of the forecastle, by the ship’s bell, and looked upon carnage. A man’s severed arm skated past my feet on a stream of blood. I looked up – foresail shredded, foreyard hanging at a wild angle, foretopmast felled, standing rigging largely gone. Kit had run up onto the
forecastle
itself, and now shouted a report back to me.

‘Bowsprit’s splintered, Sir Matthew, and the beakhead’s a wreck! Two men dead, another four injured!’

Men were already rushing forward to do what they could. One of them was Carvell, who nodded a grim salute. ‘Thought the flagship was meant to be on our side, sir,’ he said, before going to try and secure a severed shroud.

I became aware of Phineas Musk by my side. ‘So has General Monck repented of his decision to restore the king, then? Has he rejoined his old colours and restarted the civil war?’

‘Their aim would have been obscured,’ I said, albeit without much conviction, ‘the gun crews on the
Royal Charles
. There’d have been smoke from the
Eendracht
’s firing, and from our own, firing at the Dutch. Friend firing upon friend is always a risk in a sea battle, Musk.’

‘That’s the thing since the king came back, though,’ said Musk. ‘So many of the people we now call our friends look damnably like the ones we used to call our enemies.’

Richardson, the carpenter, and Urquhart, the boatswain, stepped before me, saluted, and delivered their reports. But I did not need to hear them: it was already obvious that we could not continue to fight. We would have to fall away from the warring fleets, make good our damage, and then see if we could make our way back, all the while hoping that the Dutch did not change course and swallow us up. Or, worse, that De Ruyter did not spot our vulnerability and send in
fireships
to finish us off. But there was no choice. The shattered
Royal Sceptre
withdrew from the battle.

We laid up to the south-east of the warring fleets. As the evening
shadows
lengthened, we could still plainly see and hear the continuation of the battle, away to the north-west of us: the blazing and roaring of the great guns, the vast clouds of smoke obscuring the setting sun as the two great navies passed each other again and again. But aboard the
Royal Sceptre
, that mattered very little. We were focused solely on repairing the ship; on getting her into a fit state to rejoin the battle. Richardson’s crew sawed and hammered like men possessed. Down in the waist, timbers were hastily fastened into makeshift splints for the fore-yard, then hoisted into position, with John Treninnick
leaping
about the yard to secure it as if the thought of falling had never entered his head. He had an assistant, too, of a sort: Lord Rochester’s
monkey evidently looked upon Treninnick as a kindred spirit, if not actually a member of the same species, and went wherever he went. Other men were at work on the beakhead and bowsprit, cutting away the damaged wood and rigging, replacing it with new. I had seen crews effect battle repairs before, but the sheer speed with which it could be done never ceased to amaze me. The English seaman can be a surly and idle brute, but when his survival or his pay depends upon it, no man on Earth can work so hard or so long. Thus, as the very last embers of the sun faded in the west, over behind the invisible shore of England, my officers came to me and assured me that the King’s Prick was ready to sail once again.

‘Very well, gentlemen,’ I said. ‘Mister Hardy, we will set a course to rejoin the fleet.’

I looked toward the north-west. It was now too dark to make out the fleets, which could only be in that quarter. Moreover, the sounds of battle had died away with the setting of the sun. Almost certainly, the fleets would have hoved to for the night; there was no prospect of the action resuming before the morning. That being so, I ordered a brief period of rest for the men – a chance for Prentice, our one-legged cook, and his mates, to serve up some bread and cold stew, and for each man to dip his tankard into a barrel of good English beer.

During the respite, Francis Gale came to see me on the
quarterdeck
.

‘It is Captain Parks, Sir Matthew,’ he said. ‘He worries me. You had better come and see.’

We went down, onto the main gun deck. Men were sitting in their messes, between the cannon, eating their stew and drinking their beer. Some of my old Cornish following, like George Polzeath, stood or saluted as I passed; a few called out greetings. But many were too exhausted to give me any sort of an acknowledgement.

Francis led me down another deck, then down to the surgeon’s
cockpit
on the orlop. It was a dark, stinking space, lit only by a couple of
lanterns slung from the beams. Rowan, our venerable surgeon, grunted what might have been a greeting, then returned to sewing up a gaping wound in the right thigh of Draycott, a burly boatswain’s mate. As my eyes grew more accustomed to the darkness, I became aware of a figure sitting on the deck in the corner, slumped against a futtock. It was Lancelot Parks. His eyes were fixed on Draycott’s bloody leg. He was mumbling to himself: psalms, prayers, and one name, repeated over and over. Venetia.

‘A bad case,’ Francis whispered.

‘We’ve both seen it before, Francis. Battle can do this to men.’ My friend knew that better than most: the horrors of the siege of Drogheda had driven him to seek solace in a bottle for a decade or more. ‘But that does not make it any easier.’

‘He refuses to leave the cockpit,’ growled Rowan. ‘Says he wants to stay in the presence of blood and human corruption. Fucking
madman
– begging pardon, Sir Matthew.’

Parks seemed not to have heard the surgeon’s bitter words. His eyes were closed, and he nodded his head in rhythm with the words he was reciting.

‘The Duke will be sending a despatch boat into the Thames in the morning,’ I said. ‘If we get back to the fleet tonight, we can put him aboard it.’

I went over to the Marine captain, knelt down by his side, and attempted to comfort him. But his eyes did not register me at all. With a heavy heart, I returned to the quarterdeck and summoned Ensign Lovell to inform him of what had happened.

‘You are now in acting command of the Marines on this ship,
Mister
Lovell.’

The boy’s face was frozen in shock. ‘Y – yes, Sir Matthew –’

‘I was an Ensign, and younger than you, when I fought my first battle, Mister Lovell – the first time that I commanded men. You will do well enough, I think.’

‘Yes, Sir Matthew.’ The boy pulled himself to his full height and stood to attention. ‘It will be an honour to command the men, and an honour to serve alongside you.’

I realised that I had misjudged young Lovell. I had taken his
hesitancy
as proof of trepidation, perhaps even fear, but it was not that at all. The lad was proud, and excited. He would certainly do well enough, and if he lived, he would be a far better officer than Parks had ever been.

Then I gave the order for the ship to get under way.

‘Sail ho! No – sails ho –
many
sails ho – dead ahead!’

I had been dozing, lulled by the lapping of the black waters below and the gentle billowing of the sails above my head. But I was fully awake in an instant, and also fully aware of what the oncoming sails meant. It was the Dutch. On that tack, sailing on that course, it could only be them. We were about to sail right into the heart of the Dutch fleet.

I turned to my officers. I have never seen such a collection of grim faces: but whereas the expressions of the veteran warriors Kit Farrell, Burdett and Francis Gale were determined, those of the youthful Lord Rochester and Ensign Lovell betrayed ill-concealed excitement,
Phineas
Musk’s was as unreadable as ever, and that of Philemon Hardy was anxious beyond measure.

‘We cannot outrun them,’ said Kit, simply.

‘They will surround us in minutes!’ cried Hardy. ‘The entire Dutch fleet!’

‘Then what would you have me do, Mister Hardy?’

‘Surrender, Sir Matthew! Surrender now, before we are blown to pieces! We have fought well today – there would be no dishonour in it –’

Hardy was no coward: his advice was no more than common sense. And it was tempting. For the officers, surrender would be comfortable
– at worst roomy quarters in a Dutch castle, at best living on parole in Amsterdam or another city with a full measure of earthly delights. But I thought of my men, and the tales of the hell-hole prisons where ordinary sailors were confined. Prisons full of plague and disease, where the solitary privy was a single hole in the floor to serve two-hundred men or more.

I remembered Will Berkeley’s words:
Berkeleys do not surrender
. Nor do Quintons, by Heaven.

‘No,’ I said. ‘God willing, the Dutch will be as surprised to see us as we are to see them. We will attempt to sail straight through their fleet, gentlemen, and fight our way out to the other side. If we die in the attempt, or are forced to surrender after all, then at least we will have attempted it. Mister Farrell! Give orders to summon all hands to their stations! Mister Burdett, prepare to fight both sides of the ship at once! Ensign Lovell, your men to their quarters, if you please! Mister Gale, the prayer before battle!’

‘Sailing straight through the Dutch fleet,’ said Musk. ‘That is what you said, Sir Matthew? I didn’t mishear, perchance? The entire fucking Dutch navy, and you propose just to sail straight through it, at night, as easily as if you were punting on the Ouse?’

I glared at him. ‘That is exactly what I said, Musk. That is my order. You see fit to take issue with it?’

For once, the old rogue seemed discomfited by the ferocity of my response. ‘No, Sir Matthew. Not at all, Sir Matthew. It strikes me that in similar circumstances, your grandfather and father would have given exactly the same order.’

And they were fucking madmen, too
. Musk did not have to say the words, but I knew full well that they would be the ones in his mind.

Trumpets were already sounding and drums beating on the Dutch ships approaching us, and as Francis Gale prayed for victory, our own sounded our reply. The off-duty watch emerged from below and joined their brethren at the upper deck guns. Above my head, our ship’s vast
white ensign flapped eerily in the light of the
Sceptre
’s stern lanterns. And up ahead, I saw more and more huge black shapes looming out of the darkness. One, above all, appeared to be heading directly for us. I could just make out the tricolour command flag flying proudly from the maintop. The ship had to be the
Seven Provinces
, the Dutch flagship. It was De Ruyter himself.

Our starboard battery opened fire, bow to stern, and the
Seven Provinces
replied in kind as she came up alongside us. A sea battle by day is terrible enough, but a sea battle by night is one of the most dreadful spectacles any man can witness. The flames from the cannons’ muzzles are more brilliant than in daytime, momentarily lighting the entire scene and forming a vision of hell as fire spouts across the sea. The smoke, merely a grey and foul-smelling
inconvenience
by day, takes on a new life of its own, swirling into strange and ghostly shapes, as though the wraiths of long-dead sailors are trapped within it. But for a ship’s officers, a night action is blindness, pure and simple. Gunners cannot aim, for they cannot judge the roll of the enemy ship. The Marines and seamen with muskets cannot make out their targets. I feel shot strike our hull and masts and tear through our sails and rigging, but how bad is the damage? I cannot tell. A captain can only trust in God and the initiative of his petty officers. So it was that night aboard the
Royal Sceptre
as we battled the great De Ruyter himself.

Unable to see from the quarterdeck, I strode up and down the waist and forecastle, waving my sword toward the enemy and
shouting
encouragement.

‘God be with you, boys! Don’t let our fire slacken! Coleby, there – get down to the magazine, see why they’re so slow at sending up fresh cartridges! A farm on Ravensden land to the man who kills De Ruyter!’

In the darkness, and with faces blackened with powder and sweat, it was nearly impossible to make out individuals. I must have passed
countless men whom I knew well, but failed to recognise or
acknowledge
them. Even by night, though, the red hair of Macferran, part of the gun crew of one of the starboard culverins, was unmistakeable.

‘Hot work, Macferran!’

‘Not too hot for a Scotsman, Sir Matthew! This one’s for Saint Andrew and the royal House of Stuart!’

The culverin fired and recoiled, Macferran leaping forward to swab the barrel. All around me, men were exhausted. But somehow they fought on, reloading, firing, reloading, firing, each man like an automaton. Boys ran up from below with fresh cartridges and shot. But how much was left?

‘Kellett!’ My young servant was at my side, eager to be of
assistance
; and as on previous occasions, rather too evidently enjoying the sights, sounds and feelings of battle. ‘To Mister Burdett – my
compliments
, and I would have his report on the state of the shot, cartridge and powder remaining to us!’

Kellett saluted and ran down to the gunner, who was overseeing the firing of the mighty demi-cannon on the deck below.
The Seven
Provinces
’ broadside fired again, and the unmistakeable whistle of bar-shot passed not far above my head. The Dutch were firing to disable our masts and rigging, their customary tactic. I looked up, and could just make out huge tears in the mainsail. But it still seemed to be filling, and we were maintaining our course and speed.

‘Mister Burdett’s compliments, Sir Matthew,’ said the breathless Kellett, ‘and we have fewer than twenty balls per culverin, a few more for the demi-cannon. Plenty of bar, chain and grape, though. Powder, no more than eighty barrels.’

I returned to the quarterdeck and made some swift, rough
calculations
in my head. We had already fired five broadsides against the
Seven Provinces
. At this rate, we would run out of powder or shot long before we got past the last Dutch ships. If we ever got that far, of course.

At least our first opponent was very nearly past us. The
Seven
Provinces
’ starboard quarter came up level with ours, the two quarterdecks directly opposite each other for a brief moment. And then a curious thing happened. The light from our stern lanterns, combined with that from those on the Dutch ship, made it just bright enough to make out the men on the enemy quarterdeck. One of them was a strongly-built bull of a man with a huge black moustachio. He raised his hat, and I brought up my sword to return the gesture. It was my first sight of the living legend that was Michiel Adrianszoon De Ruyter, the
Netherlands
’ greatest admiral.

‘If you seek proof of miracles,’ said Francis Gale, ‘I think you have it.’

‘Miracle?’ said Musk. ‘With all respect, Reverend, I’ll call it a
miracle
when I’m back in my own bed, safe and unscathed.’

But ‘miracle’ was one of the few words that came close to describing our apparent good fortune. After our encounter with the
Seven Provinces
, we had sailed unscathed through what must have been most of the Dutch fleet. We saw black shapes away to starboard, and off to larboard, and ahead: but apart from a few desultory shots from long range, we had been barely troubled at all for a half-hour or more. It was as though there was a vast gap in the middle of the Dutch, and we were sailing straight through it.