Across to America: A Tim Phillips Novel (War at Sea Book 9) (2 page)

It was a pale and weakened man helped to the quarterdeck by his servant and Doctor Baynes. Phillips had vacated the deck chair and Lord Forsythe was helped into it. The servant spread a fur robe over the official and Forsythe pronounced himself superbly comfortable.

He began by apologizing profusely for his absence thus far because of his
mal de mer
and thanking his captain for the rescue of his wife and son from the clutches of the pirates.

“Captain Phillips, had it not been for your action, my family would have suffered a dreadful fate. I owe you much, sir!”

Phillips responded, assuring the envoy any naval officer would have done as much, probably a good bit faster.

Forsythe was not convinced for a moment. “Sir, it was you that saved the life of my son and wife, and no one can convince me differently. I tell you, I am not without influence at Court, and I made it known to the Crown that you should be given proper recognition. However, it seemed you were away on the other side of the world and could not be produced.”

Captain Phillips escaped with the declaration he must go forward at this time to inspect the foremast backstay. In the following days, it became necessary for the captain to spend much of the time whenever the envoy was on deck inspecting the various elements of the standing and running rigging. The deck officers were given orders to approach when conversation between captain and passenger became intense and request Phillip’s guidance upon some point.

Andromeda continued on course. The weather did improve to some extent in the coming days. Early in the afternoon watch one day, the sails of an approaching convoy were seen. Too far away for signals to be read, Phillips ordered the course altered a few points in order to make his manners with its escort.

Closing in, it became evident there was some disarray. As soon as signals from the leading escort frigate could be read, she was revealed her to be HMS Alceste, 38 guns, Captain Murray commanding. The signal, repeated from HMS Stately, further indicated the convoy was under attack by the enemy and assistance was required.

With the Marine drummer hammering away, Andromeda cleared for action. All partitions were knocked down, including the envoy’s quarters. Lord Forsythe appeared on the quarterdeck with a wicked looking epee in his hand, and his manservant clutching an ornate fowling piece. He approached Captain Phillips and informed him that he was at his service.

“My man informs me pirates are in the vicinity. Where would you like me posted, Captain?”

Captain Phillips had to gather his thoughts.“Milord, I suspect our enemy will more likely be French privateers out to try to make off with a ship from that convoy we are approaching. If you wish to look through my glass, you will see the flock scattering.”

The convoy was indeed breaking up. There now appeared to be three escorts for about a forty ship convoy. One was a stodgy old 64. Another was the Alceste and finally a non-rated brig. There appeared to be two predators after the convoy. One a sleek schooner, probably packed with men and a brig. Both were agile craft and dangerous indeed to any lightly armed merchantman they came up against.

The two larger escorts would have a difficult time dealing with the enemy privateers. Philips explained to Forsythe the problem. “Milord, a consortium of French businessmen will purchase a fast ship, pack it full of men and give it a few guns for armament and a letter of marque. These men will not be paid. They will be fighting for shares in the value of any prize they take, so there isn’t all that much expense involved.”

“I think we have two privateers to contend with today. Their plan doubtless is to frighten the individual ship masters of the convoy and scatter them. At that point, they will attempt to close a ship that has separated from the convoy, swarm her with masses of boarders and sail her off before the escorts can interfere. They will rightly assume the escorts will be too busy with getting the convoy back into order to pursue them.”

“But Captain Phillips, I understand there are three powerful King’s ships protecting the convoy. Surely they can handle a pair of poorly armed small craft?”

“Lord Forsythe, you would indeed think so. However, the difficulty arises in the escorts themselves. We have a powerful 64 gun ship-of-the line, capable of handling almost any French National ship now at sea. However, she is old and slow, unable to maneuver with the predators. Then there is the frigate which is also a most capable ship with her eighteen pounder long guns and thirty two pounder carronades. But, she also is not nearly as agile as the privateers, and a capable captain and crew on one of those could give the frigate a difficult time.”

“The escort brig should be a capable enough craft, but it will not like coming up against one of the privateers by itself. Each of them probably have many more men than the escort does, and if the brig cannot get in some severe blows before closing, there is the danger of the escort herself being taken. It would be well to remember, these escorts have, perhaps, forty merchantmen to protect. When they scatter, the escorts have the devil’s own time protecting them.”

“I intend to try to close one of these vessels. With our efforts, along with those of the escorts, I hope to repel the attack. Perhaps if we are fortunate, we may indeed be able to take one of them, or possibly cause some important damage. If we can at least disable one, the rest of us should be able to negate the other.”

“If you wish, Milord, you are welcome to go up on the mizzen top and engage any close targets with your fowling piece, should we close.”

Lord Forsythe glanced up at the little platform far above the deck and slowly shook his head. “I am afraid I have a poor head for heights, Captain. Perhaps I should remain here on deck.”

“You would indeed be welcome to remain here, Milord. However, for the record, let it be said I have asked you to go below for safety. There may be shot flying soon, and I would not want it said that I prevented you from going to a place of safety.”

Matters were more complex than the captain had related to Lord Forsythe. He had not had occasion to obtain his usual private stock of powder and shot for training his gun crews. Many of the ranking officials in the hierarchy of the Royal Navy believed it was not necessary to practice live fire. After all, all that needed done was to place your ship up against the enemy, fire a couple of broadsides into her at close pistol shot range and board her in the smoke.

With senior officials of the Admiralty regarding actual firing of the guns in practice to be almost pointless, there were strict limits to the use of the ammunition. Only a small fraction of the issue charges were allowed to be expended in the first six months of the voyage, unless fired into a legitimate military or naval target.

At any rate, most of the gunnery practice of the ship’s crew had been just the daily practice of running the guns up to the ports, simulating firing, then hauling them back to simulate loading. Phillips had ordered his officers to question members of the crew to find any long-service hands who may have had training from another captain in the past.

A dozen men turned up claiming to have served under men whom Phillips knew believed in proper training at firing guns accurately from a distance. These men were stationed at the two forward guns on the ship. Since there were insufficient gun crew to serve the guns of both sides at the same time, the crewmen of a particular gun would also serve the corresponding gun on the opposite side of the ship in case there was need.

While the ship approached the convoy, the gunner went around the ship with the captain, explaining to the gun crews, what was about to happen. The crew was not entirely ignorant of their expected duties. They had all spent at least an hour every day, sometimes much more, practicing simulated gun drill. But, Phillips knew, it would not be until the men heard the great guns crashing and men screaming from their horrible wounds that they could hope to understand what they would be facing

With all guns loaded and the tompions that prevented spray from entering the gun’s bores removed, the midshipmen went down the row of guns, inspecting the gun locks for sharp flints and dry priming powder.

Approaching the convoy, Phillips had time to examine the current situation. HMS Stately, a perfectly respectable line-of-battle ship, was up forward on the windward van. Many of the merchants had clustered around her. The frigate was also to windward, but farther back the convoy was steadily shredding, with individual masters going in their own way.

The escort brig, Ferret, was in the rear attempting to protect a pair of merchants that had run aboard each other in panic and were now trying to extricate themselves.

The privateer brig, about the same size as her opponent, was closing in on the escort, perhaps in bluff, possibly with the view of swarming her with boarders, while giving the schooner free access to others ahead who might not be reached in time by the other two escorts.

Leaving the escort brig to her own devices for now, Phillips bulled ahead through the flock of merchants to the area where the schooner seemed to be headed. Judging he had a few minutes before the engagement commenced, he went forward to the pair of forward starboard guns he had staffed with his best people. He informed the crews he would be engaging to starboard for now, but the men must be prepared to rush across the deck to the opposite guns in case of need. He asked if any had questions or concerns.

A grizzled man with a pigtail down his back shifted his quid and answered. “Sir, if you please, we know some of the other gun crews are lubbers, that couldn’t hit the Victory if she was lashed to our side, but we can do the job. Just tell us what you want from us.”

The man’s name came then to Phillips. The seaman had served with him on a previous voyage to the Baltic.

“Fletcher, I need to disable one or the other of those privateers, preferably both. I will tell you this now, the first crew to knock away an important spar will have a monumental drunk from me. The winner would take over my quarters and I will see you have all the grog you can handle.”

“In addition, we need another gunner’s mate. The captain of the gun that knocks away that spar will instantly be promoted to gunner’s mate. Now, if either of you gun captains see a clear shot that may result in a good hit, you have my permission to fire. Are we understood?”

There was a buzz among the men as he went back aft. The enemy schooner was closing on a pair of ship rigged traders. She was apparently trying to persuade them to scatter, but Phillips was thinking she might have left it too late. Realizing her danger from the British warship, the schooner fired her port broadside into one of the merchants, perhaps trying to cripple her. With only two guns on that side, the attempt failed and the schooner turned to flee.

Mister Harding, handling the ship while Phillips kept his eye on the situation, turned with her. As Andromeda wheeled around, for a moment her broadside was trained on the enemy. Phillips had raised his arm and was readying himself to drop it as a signal, when he saw Fletcher behind his gun, sighting down the barrel and urging men with crows to lever it around a bit more. Phillips dropped his arm, and all of the other guns fired, except for Fletcher’s. Phillips saw several balls smash into the lightly built hull of the enemy but nothing vital was carried away.

It was then Fletcher pulled the lanyard of his gun. A second after the gun recoiled savagely to the rear, Phillips saw the schooner’s foremast lean a bit. Through his glass, Phillips could see the splintered notch on the mast and a split beginning to travel up it. As the schooner continued its turn, the split travelled further up the mast then suddenly the whole foremast came crashing down in a tangled mess of sailcloth and rigging.

As Andromeda passed her, she fired the few guns that had been reloaded into the schooner without effect, then coming around to the assistance of the escort brig, which was locked in combat with the other privateer.

Closing, a mass of humanity was struggling aboard Ferret, with boarders from the enemy outnumbering Ferret’s crew.

Stately was bulling her way through the convoy with signal flags streaming, turning aside for no one, while HMS Alceste was acting as a sheep dog, attempting to get the flock back together again. As Andromeda closed on the combatants, the privateer’s boarders were seen deserting Ferret’s decks to scramble back aboard their own.

To no avail; Andromeda surged up to the small brig and fired her broadside into her from close pistol shot range. Most shots hit, but the privateer cut herself away from the trailing wreckage and tried sailing away. All guns were now ordered re-loaded with grape, and this load was fired into the enemy at long musket range.

Dozens of the swarming boarding crew were smashed to the deck, with gallons of blood spilling out of the scuppers, and then Stately was there. She proceeded to show the nippers how it was done. The privateer had managed to get away from Ferret, but Stately, with a good amount of way on her, came right up alongside and fired her full broadside into the little brig.

Afterward, everyone said that privateer captain was a fool for not hauling down his flag when he saw Stately approach. After Stately’s massive discharge at close range, closely following Andromeda’s broadside, the enemy ceased being an armed, sea-going vessel and instead was transformed into a mass of floating firewood.

Ship’s boats and surgeons were kept busy the rest of the day. The boats searching out the few survivors of the smashed brig and ferrying the injured to whatever ships in the convoy with surgeons aboard. Half of Ferret’s crew were dead or wounded, including her captain and the single first officer.