A Flag of Truce (24 page)

‘Lads,’ he shouted, ‘he can hit us and all we can reply with are our bow chasers. So when I shout to get down I do not want you looking to see if I am serious. Get flat on the deck immediately. If you do not know what Mr Pearce is about, we are trying to fool the enemy, and I have to tell you, given that he has seen action and survived, we must assume that what he lacks in experience he makes up for in luck. So do as he orders, and we will win the day.’

They cheered, but Digby was left to wonder if it was brought about by enthusiasm or rum, though when he gave the orders that took them down to topsails, it was done with a normal level of efficiency. As an act, it was like a signal of intent to their opponent. The first ball from the bow chasers of
Pandarus
sent out a thick cloud of black smoke, which, billowing forward with the onshore breeze, had Pearce asking for any rubbish powder or bottom of the barrel grains the gunner might have to be brought up. It also reassured him; when the corvette fired a broadside, the smoke from their own cannon would obscure what was happening on his deck. The balls only fell short by half a cable, and the way the range was closing it could only be
minutes until the expected salvo came from his main battery.

‘An eye on his deck,’ Digby called to the men in the mainmast cap with muskets. ‘Let me know as soon as they move to let fly the sheets.’

Silence fell, with only the slight whistle of the wind in the rigging still audible, and even on open water, everything came down to the closing gap between the two warships. When a voice from the masthead gave the alert, Digby shouted, and every man not an officer or midshipman dropped to their knees on the deck, Neame and the quartermaster on the wheel being the exception. The mighty crash of the guns was carried on the wind and it had passed them by when the balls struck, high in the rigging, parting ropes and dislodging blocks which were caught in the rigged overhead nets. Sykes and his men were quickly into action, to splice a break or run a replacement line and were still at that task when the second salvo came. A ball took one of Sykes’s mates and plucked him off the rigging like a shot bird, carrying him screaming into the water, where he was certain to die.

‘Belay that, Mr Sykes,’ Digby called. ‘Get your men to a place of safety until something vital is wounded.’

Smoke reached HMS
Faron
in a dispersing cloud, to mix with thicker stuff from the back blast of her own bow chasers. Pearce put the slowmatch to the
incendiaries, and as they flared up he ladled slush onto the flames, which produced a cloud of pungent smoke that had him spinning away to get his breath.

‘Water that deck,’ he croaked, as he nearly retched over the side. He made his way to the bowsprit side of his brew and added more slush till the whole deck seemed to be in the grip of the smoke it created. Mentally he was counting; how long to discharge a gun and send a ball uselessly into the sea off the ship’s side, that followed by a couple more? Would the captain of
Pandarus
be fooled? Would he close to try to take possession of the ship?

Digby, before the smoke obscured his enemy, had seen the corvette come about and head away, slow enough to tease him to try and close, though it was obvious he could tighten his falls and increase his speed at will. Yet he also saw him check as the smoke rose from the bows, and if he could see the rising and flickering flames then he had to assume his opposite number would too. Digby jerked involuntarily as first one, then a second cannon went off, arcing a pair of nine-pounder balls into the sea off the larboard beam, sending up telling water spouts, this accompanied by frenzied shouting and a scene of apparent panic as men rushed around the deck.

That must have decided him; the captain of the
Pandarus
let fly his sheets, hauled hard on his rudder and started to come round on the wind in short order.

‘Mr Harbin,’ Digby said, in a calm voice, ‘please be so good as to inform Mr Pearce that his ruse has worked. Get those guns run in and reloaded.’

‘Topsails astern, sir,’ shouted Martin Dent, ‘something’s coming out of the port and I reckon it’s one o’ them privateers.’

‘If there is one, boy,’ Digby said to himself, ‘there will be two.’

In terms of his present situation it made no odds; he still had to engage the closest enemy vessel, but it did have an effect on the whole; he could not linger for fear of what was coming and he dare not risk a gunnery duel in which he might have his ability to sail impeded by the loss of a mast.

‘Mr Harbin, ask Mr Pearce to join me.’

That took less than a minute, with Michael O’Hagan now fanning away at the flames and Rufus and Charlie ladling the slush, this while the rest of the crew kept rushing about.

‘Sir?’

‘Mr Pearce,’ Digby said, then stopped to cough as a cloud of smoke enveloped him. ‘Earlier this day you alluded to my willingness to sacrifice the crew for my own advancement.’

Pearce had to take his wetted handkerchief from his mouth to reply. ‘A remark I withdrew, sir.’

‘Indeed you did, yet the stigma mentioned prays upon me. Our masthead, as I am sure you have heard, tells me that more vessels are coming out from La Rochelle, so if I stay and fight
Pandarus
, I suspect I am taking an unwarranted risk. Do you agree?’

‘
Pandarus
round and closing, sir,’ called Neame, seemingly unaffected by the smoke.

‘I am happy to abide with whatever decision you make, Captain.’

‘That will not do, Mr Pearce,’ Digby barked. ‘I want your opinion.’

Pearce’s blood was up; his ruse had produced the desired result and he felt in his bones they could take the slightly better-armed vessel. Yet he was aware of his excitement, aware he was thinking along the same lines which he had accused Digby of earlier, thinking of himself and not the needs of the ship and the men she carried.

‘We cannot face three opponents.’

‘Obviously, Mr Pearce, only I doubt they can close with us in anything less than a hour.’

‘Yet can we face two if we sustain damage?’ Digby shook his head, and it was with some effort that he responded. ‘Then I think, sir, that discretion is the better part of valour.’

A fit of coughing meant he had to wait for Digby’s conclusion. ‘Thank you, Mr Pearce. Now go back to your station on the larboard battery, and
stand by to give our friend yonder a surprise.’

There was a wait, to get to the point where the Frenchman was committed, the point where he could not change his mind. As soon as Digby reckoned that to be the case he yelled out for everyone to get back to their stations.

‘Forward there, get those coppers emptied over the side.’

Hands wrapped in thick canvas, the Pelicans obliged, though Charlie, ever fly, was wise enough to hide the remaining slush, which would come in handy to ease down his throat the hard ship’s biscuit. As the flaming sacks hit the water they fizzled and died, and they took with them most of the smoke. Digby could see his opposite number gesturing and pointing, he was so close, and the agitated way he was acting was evidence he had been severely discomfited by the sight before him; a disciplined deck with manned guns waiting to rake him. He screamed an order that, though it could not be heard, had his crew, lined up with pikes, axes and swords to board, running for their cannon.

Had he held his course, he would have endured only an exchange of broadsides; that he put up his helm and tried to turn into the wind was not only stupid, it was dangerous, because he diminished the arc of fire available to his own guns and created a corresponding increase in the target left to the cannon of HMS
Faron
. Added to that, he had
brought himself into range of one of Pearce’s carronades, and though the nine-pounders did damage, sending great chunks of wood and splinters flying, it was that stubby weapon that did the real injury. Pearce waited until the stern of
Pandarus
came abreast and then sent the huge ball through the deadlights. Those were smashed to pulp, as were the casements they protected, and the ball carried on along the maindeck, the screams that came across the water evidence of the death and destruction being inflicted.

‘Mr Neame, take me alongside the enemy if you please. Mr Pearce, when you are reloaded I want elevation on your cannon. Let us see if we can ensure we stop any chance of a pursuit.’

Pandarus
was wounded, but she was not out of commission, and Digby was being obliged to sail past her undamaged side to get clear, and that had loaded and unfired cannon. His opponent had the same notion as he; Digby wanted a mast brought down to cripple the corvette, the Frenchman wanted the same for HMS
Faron
. The only difference was in the discipline of the firing;
Faron
’s crew were steady on a ship that had suffered little damage, the French on a deck that had taken casualties. Added to that, Digby had his first broadside fired early, which further disrupted the enemy gunners as they were assailed by falling ropes and tackle, but most telling was the speed
with which
Faron
’s gunner reloaded, the same advantage Britannia usually enjoyed against Gaul: the number of broadsides they could get off in a short time.

Pandarus
’s fire was slow and well aimed, though not well enough to wound a mast, albeit the amount of debris that came through the nets had Neame and Digby looking aloft with alarm. Yet as the French were reloading they took another broadside, and this time, without instruction, Pearce had ordered the wedges driven out to lower the aim. Half of the Frenchman’s bulwark disappeared, while the clanging sounds of struck guns was clearly audible, and such was the effect on those conning the ship that the corvette fell away as the rudder was put down, either deliberately or in panic, it made no odds.

HMS
Faron
was clear and even before Henry Digby called for a report on damage and casualties, he gave loud orders to set all possible sail and set a course to clear the tip of the Ile d’Oléron.

The screaming south-westerly came upon them later than Neame had anticipated, a full eighteen hours from the point at which he had raised the matter of those lenticular clouds with his captain, and it came with a force that precluded any form of advance. Huge waves, with crests hundreds of yards apart, rolled in from the deep waters of the Atlantic, as high as the caps on the masts, forced forward by a wind that had only one virtue; it was steady, while above their heads dark grey clouds scudded along, blocking out the sun and creating a false twilight in the early morning sky. Having cleared the Ile d’Oléron before the tempest struck they had made good progress and they were now, Neame informed Digby, abreast of the Gironde Estuary, though well out to sea, with only a scrap of canvas aloft to try and maintain steerage way.

‘I suggest, sir,’ he yelled, ‘that we up our helm
and make for shelter. This will get worse before it gets better and we are already close to being driven north and west. If it continues for any length of time all our efforts to clear the lee shore will be wasted.’

‘Do we not risk the same on the northern shore at Royan?’

‘The Gironde is thirteen miles wide at the estuary, and wider yet past the Pointe de la Chambrette, and this wind will carry us in at speed if we run before it. I am sure we can weather the Pointe de Grave and drop anchor in the Verdon Bay, which is sheltered from the south-west.’

In Digby’s cabin it was less noisy, but the bucking motion of the ship as it rode those great rollers, and the water running off their oilskins, made examining a chart difficult. To leave the deck at such a juncture made little difference; the four men on the wheel, who included for his muscle, Michael O’Hagan, had no other task than to keep HMS
Faron
’s head into the wind, with young Harbin in command. As for the rest, double stays had been rigged on the masts before the storm developed, the hatches, bar one, were battened down, there were relays of men manning the pumps and bosun Robert Sykes had everything in hand to repair any unforeseen damage. The crew snatched what sleep they could and right now, having been on deck and working for twelve hours as they prepared the ship
for the coming storm, John Pearce and Farmiloe were having four hours’ well-earned rest.

The spread chart showed the north-west-facing estuary, with the great hook of the Pointe de Grave poking up like a claw that protected the river behind it from the blow they were facing, but Digby was quick to point out the one obvious flaw in Neame’s suggestion, when he placed a finger on the chart that showed a French fort commanding the very bay Neame was suggesting as an anchorage.

‘Quite apart from that, Mr Neame, we will be in enemy waters, and while I accept that Bordeaux is not a naval station, it is a commercial port and must of necessity have warships to guard it and some kind of military garrison.’

‘I would suggest, sir, that they cannot be out to sea for the same reason as us, it being too dangerous, and if I had the choice in such weather I would retire well upriver, in fact all the way to the Bordeaux docks, rather than stay in deeper water when no enemy could possibly approach in strength.’

‘The fortress?’

‘We still have a tricolour, do we not, and we are in a captured French vessel.’

Digby smiled. ‘I see Mr Pearce and his methods have affected you, Mr Neame.’

The older man responded with some pride. ‘I take that as a compliment, sir.’

‘It was meant as one, Mr Neame, rest assured, but I am not sure that even that will serve. We cannot anchor for an indeterminate time without paying compliments to the fort and whoever commands it. Failure to do that will make them curious and I cannot see how, if they come out to investigate, we can keep them convinced we are French. We can get out of range of their cannon, but we could not stop them sending word upriver.’

‘You said, sir, kindly, that I was thinking like Mr Pearce.’

‘I did.’

‘Then I would like to rouse him out and put to both him and you this proposition. That we ask Captain Moreau and his party to cooperate. If they cannot convince a party of Frogs that they are of the same nation who can?’

‘Why would they do that?’

‘For the offer to put them ashore, sir, at a point of their own choosing, and one in which they will be in no danger of retribution.’

‘In which case we need Mr Pearce to make the suggestion.’

It was a groggy John Pearce who entered the cabin, clutching the bulkheads to keep himself on his feet until he made a chair that had been secured to the deck. He listened as Neame outlined his proposal, nodding slowly, his eyes red-rimmed with tiredness.

‘I cannot see how a decision can be made without first consulting Moreau.’

‘Very true,’ Digby replied.

‘Then someone must go and fetch him.’

One of the things Pearce had noticed about Gerard Moreau was his swift intelligence; he could grasp a problem quickly and act upon it, which no doubt made him a good ship’s officer. Another was his honesty, and while he accepted that the proposed ruse was tempting, he did point out that once committed, there would be no guarantee that one of his comrades, Jacquelin for example, might not renege.

‘I think I have a solution to that, Captain Moreau. Tell him that all the time he converses with his fellow countrymen, there will be a musket a few feet from his back.’

‘A dozen men?’

‘We have a dozen muskets, and I will be on deck and understanding every word, as well as examining every gesture. In return we will put you ashore anywhere you like between here and the Spanish border, which will allow you to go where you please, as long as you evade people like Rafin.’

‘I agree to put it to my officers,’ Moreau replied. ‘After all, anything must be better than a return to Toulon.’

Coming about on such a wind was a risky manoeuvre. It had to be timed perfectly and the sails needed to get steerage way with a gale on their quarter had to be sheeted home and drawing before a wave threatened to broach them to. It was so dangerous that having been informed of the intention, all the French officers were on deck, a willing addition to the crew, prepared to render any assistance required, which had more to do with
self-preservation
than the prospect of the pretence that would follow if they made the Gironde.

They had accepted the proposal to a man, and when questioned Moreau had told Pearce why. Bordeaux might be a worse place to land than La Rochelle; they had no idea who controlled the town, but as one of the country’s major commercial ports the odds were on men having been sent from Paris. Having had one brush with such a creature there was no appetite to face another, and if they were landed in some spot away from any towns, they would have a chance to make their way, individually or collectively, to a place where the danger of decapitation would be nil.

Digby was on one side of the quarterdeck, Pearce on the other, both with arms hooked through the rigging to stay upright. The topmen were ranged along the upper yards, soaked to the skin, their bare feet on the slippery foot ropes, bent over the timber, ready to release the ties on the mainsail, which
would need to be quickly reefed if it was not to blow out of its bolt holes. Others were forward on the falls that controlled the jib, which would have to be got up fast to force round the ship’s head.

Neame was on the wheel with three others, peering forward into the gloomy, spume-filled daylight, watching the waves as they rolled towards the ship, trying to time his turn away from the biggest, that measured by the lift of the bows to a point where he could not see anything but scud soaked planking. There was no guarantee that a big wave would not be followed by another, just the odds that the next roller would be diminished in size by its predecessor.

He stepped back from the wheel, to be replaced by Michael O’Hagan, and taking hold of a man rope with one hand, he raised his speaking trumpet to his mouth. The bows reared up until he was pressed back hard into the bulkhead and he waited till the ship hit the crest before shouting. The task of getting round had to be completed in the following trough, for if a big wave hit them beam on with no sail set they would roll sideways and over, with buoyancy the only hope of survival. His orders were yelled out as the wave came amidships, so that HMS
Faron
was perched atop the crest, like a toy on a fire mantle.

The wheel swung and a rudder that was practically clear of water moved easily, then bit
hard as the ship began to drop into the trough, beginning to turn the bowsprit. Neame yelled again as they drove down towards the base, and up went the jib, what wind hit that in the vale of water acting on it to turn the sloop’s bows. They were three quarters round and lifting on the next wave when Neame ordered the mainsail dropped, and as they rose to the next crest it was sheeted home, the ship driven by the strength of the gale that hit them to stay on that crest for what seemed an age as HMS
Faron
took off like a greyhound. There was joy on the deck, but in the minds of those who knew, it was tempered by the thought that what happened next depended on Neame’s navigational skills. If they were out of the position he supposed, and set a course based on wrong assumptions, they would be driven ashore by this very sea and probably drown.

‘Thank God for the lighthouse,’ said Digby, as the glim from the burning wood showed once more on the spinning bowl. ‘Mind, we will have to shave the point damn close to have any chance of coming round into shelter. Time to rouse out Mr Neame.’

Pearce went to get the exhausted master, and it took a lot of shaking to wake him from a deep slumber, but he was on deck before he was truly needed, taking the con and steering the ship to shave the point, which had deep water to within a
quarter mile of the shore. The tricolour was already aloft, so that those on watch in the estuary would see a French vessel making for a home port, and it was no more than two hours before Neame could put up his helm and adjust his sail plan to take them into the shelter of the landmass, the lighthouse now well astern.

The wind was still strong; apart from the point itself, the land was too low-lying to impede it much, but without that running sea they could manoeuvre easily and within another hour, as darkness fell, they had dropped anchor out in the Baie de Verdon, choosing to do so well away from the fort at the western end. Digby set an anchor watch, with Farmiloe in command, who had strict orders to keep a sharp eye out for anyone coming out from the shore, and sent everyone else to get some
well-earned
rest. It was Pearce who made sure his Pelicans were armed with pistols and in a position to keep an eye on the French officers.

A boat came out from the shore at dawn, to be greeted by Moreau acting as captain, Jacquelin as his mate to assuage his pride, and the rest, Garnier and Forcet included, in the guise of ordinary seamen. Everyone else, apart from those set to kill anyone who betrayed them, stayed on the opposite side of the deck, ostensibly carrying out repairs. The officer from the fort seemed ready to accept the explanation offered; that the ship was carrying
despatches for Brest, and would get back to sea as soon as the weather moderated, adding, in a nice touch, that there were certain deficiencies in stores which needed to be made up, if the fort and the traders, most especially the local wine growers, would not mind accepting the English gold they had captured from a merchant vessel in the Mediterranean.

Thus, in a cabin so crowded that backs were pressed to the bulkheads, French and British officers, midshipmen and the master, had an excellent dinner, with fresh fish, newly plucked chickens, what an Englishman would have called a baron of beef, all washed down with outstanding Medoc clarets from further down the coast, of the kind and quality that, in normal times, only the rich could afford. That they got them for so little was evidence of the lack of rich men left in France, plus the fact that the better claret market, Britain and Ireland, was now, without smuggling, barred to the growers.

‘It falls to me,’ said Gerard Moreau, in his toast, which Pearce translated, ‘to thank you for saving our lives. It also falls to me to tell you that we are true Frenchman and sailors and warriors, and though it would give us no joy, should we meet in future, we will do our very best to take whichever vessel you are on, and should it be unfortunately necessary, to kill you in the process.’

Pearce tempered it slightly, because he knew that, for the likes of Moreau, pride had been wounded. Digby then toasted the sea and all who sailed on her, which was a sentiment with which they could all agree.

It took six days for the wind to abate sufficiently to make sail, and that could not be achieved until they had taken the French officers to a point between the fishing villages of Talmont and Mortagne of the northern Gironde shore, and said farewell.

‘Who knows what will become of us, monsieur,’ said Moreau. ‘We will perhaps pretend to be ordinary sailors, we will certainly stay out of any town that seems to be in the hands of a Rafin, and we will make our way back to our homes and wait to see what transpires.’

‘Just keep your head, my friend,’ said Pearce.

Moreau nodded and grinned, as Pearce had the cutter pushed off the beach and out into deep water. He did not look back as they rowed back to HMS
Faron
; it was those rowing who saw that the Frenchmen lined the beach and stayed there, ever smaller figures, until the cutter was out of sight.

It took a week to beat all the way to the Straits and with the favourable in-going current there was no need to stop at the Rock. Once through, that same wind, which had made hard their passage south,
sped them towards Toulon, and it was with mixed feeling that Pearce, standing in the bows, saw once more the tip of Mont Faron emerge from the clouds which covered its summit. As soon as they came into view, HMS
Victory
made their number and signalled for the captain to come aboard. Pearce had permission to also take a boat, and after dropping off Lutyens at the hospital, he went aboard HMS
Britannia
, to seek the date for the day he would see Ralph Barclay at his court martial.